I have more faith in George Hook than in Stephen Fry
Less-publicised was broadcaster George Hook’s reassessment of his non-belief and cynicism about life having meaning.
George mightn’t be as ‘cool’ as Stephen, but he’s convincing and eloquent. On the Brendan O’Connor show, he expressed remorse for past behaviour. He appealed to common decency and passionately advocated a return to the principles of his childhood faith, which, despite the failings of religious institutions, restores hope for him.
He rejected the notion that the universe came about by accident. It makes sense. The atheist/materialist view of existence implies that everything came of out nothing, reasoning that ignores the impeccable order in a universe that at times may appear chaotic and arbitrary.
There is order in the planets’ orbiting of the sun, in the coming-and-going of the seasons, in the composition of the atom and the complex life cycles of every creature, and there is a splendour that defies description or detached analysis, despite the horrors to which Stephen Fry alluded in his harangue.
The atheists are entitled to their non-belief, but they cannot state with certainty that there was no creator. Nor can they tell us what awaits us after the death of the mortal body. When our bodies die, we’ll discover if everything truly came from nothing; and if the most heinous criminals get the same deal as the kindest.
One can claim, or imply, that the simple beauty of a rose or a daffodil or a sunset or a wedding or a birthday celebration is an illusion and a meaningless trick of the brain, that the mind is just a collection of chemicals and molecules without meaning, a sort of human computer that came to be by accident, over eons of time, and therefore without any need for a creator.
It’s an opinion to which one is entitled, but it sounds pretty far-fetched to me, primarily because it envisages the ultimate absurdity: an incredibly drawn-out effect without a cause. Saying the Big Bang was the original cause of everything doesn’t make sense, because something else must have caused the Big Bang. That’s an obvious piece of logic the atheists and materialists tend to gloss over.
I respect their right to argue that life is a meaningless rigmarole and that the death of the mortal body means the end for all of us...but let’s wait and see.
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