The End Is Nigh

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The End is Nigh. Yes, really. Climate change activists waste energy on a daily basis letting us know. Unless we listen to them, our self-appointed Saviours, and immediately give up fossil fuels, the world is headed for calamity and will end soon. Never mind the pollution caused by Russia’s war-mongering and that of the 21 wars and 108 other armed conflicts (what’s the difference?) in the world today. It’s the way you heat your home that is going to bring about the end.

Not with the same focus as today’s climate fanatics but with the same religious fervour, the Jews of two and a half millennia ago waited expectantly for their very human Mashiach (anointed one) to appear. He was to deliver them from their oppressors and make them oppressors instead. He failed to arrive.

Years later, in the first century CE, a small enclave of Jews became convinced their Messiah was on his way. He had by this time transmogrified into a heavenly being but would soon be arriving to set the world aright and deliver his little band of followers from evil and, they decided, from death too. He didn’t make it, but such irrational wishful thinking is how all religions get going and Christianity was no exception.

Muslims, meanwhile, believe that the Day of Judgement is not far off. Everyone will then be judged according to their service to Allah, the faithful rewarded with eternal life, the rest sent to Jahannam (hell).

So here’s a question for you: what do these years have in common? 66-70CE, 365, 370-400, 500, 793, 800, 847, 1000, 1033, 1200, 1284, 1504, 1585, 1600, 1705, 1792, 1833, 1836, 1874, 1901, 1918, 1936, 1967, 1977, 1982, 1994, 1997, 2000, 2007, 2011 and 2021.

They are, of course, a few of the innumerable predictions that the end isn’t far off, after which there will be a great reset. As I suspect you already know, none of these predictions came to pass.

Neither will any of the numerous predictions of future apocalypses– lots of them here – either. It’s not that we’re incapable of wiping ourselves out; it’s possible we will one day, but there won’t be a Mashiach, Christ or God who will step in at the last minute to rescue a favoured few so that everything can start again. There’s no simplistic fix of the sort climate zealots, Islamist terrorists and bumptious politicians insist. Like their apocalyptic predecessors they’re only deluding themselves and lying to the rest of us.

We are, it seems, obsessed with End Times scenarios, and always have been. Our only saviours, however, will be ourselves, if we’ve the will to be. I’m not sure we have, but a first step might be recognising that there’s no Starman (Starmer?) waiting in the sky, or anywhere else, eager to save us. There’s no magic panacea that will rescue us and reset the world.

Hysteria/Mission Creep/Overreach

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When I was head (principal) of a primary (elementary) school in the 1990s, I had a staff member who regarded every small problem as ‘a Major Disaster’ (her words). Everything from a mislaid document to wet weather on sports day was an earth-shattering calamity. She was not the only one to overstate manageable events. Those who wield authority over us, their media lackeys and those with a cause of their own to promote are expert in whipping the populace up into a frenzy disproportionate to the given situation. After a short period in the spotlight, the hysteria and the movements that cause it usually fade, as the media finds something newer and shinier about which to induce panic. Occasionally, the newly out-of-favour movements fight back with renewed vigour, a mission creep extending their influence into new areas.

Looking back over the last 25 years, I and my fellow citizens here in the UK have been expected to be alarmed to an alarming degree about:

The Millennium Bug, when every computer in the world, so the experts said, would crash the instant the year 2000 started. This would, in turn, crash every automated system everywhere, causing chaos and mass fatalities. You all know what actually happened.

Foot & Mouth Disease, when millions of cattle and sheep were slaughtered and burnt. Millions of healthy animals were destroyed in case they contracted the disease.

Weapons of Mass Destruction supposedly amassed by Iraq who, we were told, could unleash them on the West within 45 minutes. That there was no evidence of any WMDs and the fact Iraq did not deploy them (because you can’t deploy something that doesn’t exist) did not deter George W. Bush and Tony Blair from launching their oxymoronic (with the emphasis on the moronic) ‘war on terror’. In so doing, they destabilised the world, creating many of the problems we face today.

Child Abuse Scandals: After either missing or covering up the serial abuse of children and vulnerable people by a BBC celebrity, British authorities went to town on ‘suspected paedophiles’, many of whom were nothing of the sort. (A friend of mine was caught up in this hysteria and spent time in prison for a youthful indiscretion many years earlier.) Unfortunately, this national crisis and the perceived need not to offend Muslims came into conflict when, over 20 years, rape gangs comprised mainly of Pakistani men were able operate in up to 50 UK cities with impunity. Hundreds of thousands of vulnerable, white working-class girls were systematically groomed and raped while the police and authorities turned a blind eye, the consequence of a woke priority taking precedence over the rights and safety of others.     

The Covid Pandemic and Lockdown, when governments the world over (apart from Sweden) panicked about a flu-like virus, closed down entire countries, failed to protect the vulnerable and crashed the very economies needed to fund healthcare and treatment for the infected. Britain was closed down for almost 2 years and still hasn’t recovered from the consequences. Citizens are now paying heavily for actions taken by a government that extended its powers to achieve very little.

        Cartoon by Mark Woods, Spectator magazine, 7th June '25

Mental Health issues and the medicalised labelling of ordinary human behaviours. We all have mental health issues; this is what it is to be human. Some, it is true, have more than others. Determining an individual has ‘mental health issues’ forces him or her to become his or her issues. Instead of being prone to depression (as I was) or anxiety, the individual who experiences these is now ‘neuro-diverse’. Instead of suffering from a condition the individual could do something about they become that condition. Some people, usually males, used to be diagnosed as autistic. Now that autism is seen as a spectrum, everyone is deemed to be on it somewhere; everyone as a result is autistic. People become trapped in their condition with no way out, lifelong treatment the only recourse.

Black Lives Matter. As Lionel Shriver asks here, do black lives matter any more now than they did before all that righteous indignation and virtual signalling from white people?

Identity Politics in which individuals were told as a matter of urgency to self-identify solely on the basis of their ethnicity, religion, gender or sexuality. Gender dysphoria became a thing from which the trans-movement emerged. While I’ve every sympathy for those who feel they were born in the wrong body, society was unprepared for and incapable of dealing with the consequences. Women became ‘cis-women’, sex became ‘gender’ (a grammatical term), ‘non-binary’ became an option and the abuse of pronouns was politicised. An individual could identify as a plural ‘they’, while others lost their jobs if they declined to play along. Worst of all, children, who were too young to be allowed a tattoo, were given puberty blocking drugs, and in some cases surgery, because they felt they were the wrong sex. Children.

The High Court in the UK recently ruled that a man cannot become a woman, entrenching the views of campaigners and prompting other supporters to claim they knew this all along.

Wokeism; while it’s right and proper to treat each other with kindness, courtesy and consideration, politicising something we were, by and large, already doing was not. Wokeism pushed the boundaries over what could be done or said, or rather could not. Anything that might cause someone else offence was forbidden; commenting or criticising others’ religious beliefs or defending women’s rights became ‘hateful’; having a view on unsustainable immigration numbers made you a fascist. This was the era of cancelling those who did not conform to woke ideals. Toppling statues was popular too on the basis that a long-forgotten figure from 250 years ago may have had a slight connection with the slave trade. Western guilt for actions over which people living today had no part in and demands for reparations to those equally uninvolved ensued.

The ‘necessary’ control of free speech, a panic we’re still mired in. Stupid and inflammatory comments on social media can now earn you a prison sentence longer than that of a paedophile offender, often preceded by a visit from half a dozen policemen who will root through your house looking for evidence that you might have once had a ‘Brexity’ thought. Subjects off limits are; arguing that Covid19 began in a Wuhan laboratory (it might upset the Chinese); Islam, Islamic extremism and the Pro-Palestinian movement (however it’s still okay to criticise and condemn Jewish people for the actions of their government); expressing views different from the UK government’s and whatever the prevailing narrative happens to be. A government agency, ‘Prevent‘, last year redefined terrorism (see below) as ‘vocal support of ideologies that advocate discrimination’ and any expression of what it calls ‘cultural nationalism’. What this means is that those who call out religiously-motivated discrimination, lawlessness and terrorism are to be considered terrorists themselves. Actual terrorism and violence is therefore protected against those who would speak out about it, those who do so being the real terrorists. To put it another way, which I read recently (though can’t remember where): those who say hurty things are far more culpable than those who commit actual hurty things. This Orwellian doublespeak must now be taught in universities and other higher education institutions.  

The Climate Crisis and Net-Zero. You must be alarmed by the climate crisis (see here for how much of it Al Gore got wrong). You must too pay heavily for net-zero, thanks to additional taxes; energy prices in the UK are the highest in the world. You must buy into the government’s attempts to enforce a net-zero energy policy by 2050, despite net-zero being unachievable.

What if, might, could, maybe: the media’s favourite phrases to ramp up hysteria. ‘There might be terrible consequences’; ‘we could be headed for another Major Disaster’; ‘if X happens (though it hasn’t) then Y could possibly follow.’ When did the media stop reporting what has actually happened and take up fortune telling instead?  

* * * * * *

There is some comfort in the fact that the so-called crises and hysteria of the past eventually receded and faded away. So too will many of these current causes. All things, as George Harrison once wisely reminded us, must pass. They will, however, be replaced by others equally irrational and preposterous. Those who create them, be they governments, special interest groups or overwrought Swedish teenagers will expect us to conform to their Chicken-Little levels of hysteria. When they do, don’t be alarmed and be sure to seek out the evidence for yourself.

The More Things Change

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What a year it was! The weather went mad! It can only have been climate change. There was heavy snow and hail all over the UK in the first week of January. Shoppers in London collapsed from the cold while a blizzard blanketed the north of England with several inches of snow. Five foot drifts marooned a train in Scotland while in Australia bush fires raged. By the middle of the month ‘killer smog’ had enveloped London and whole communities in Scotland were buried by more blizzards.

Early in February the Hudson River froze from shore to shore for the first time in 37 years. Fresh snow covered Britain again on 20th .

Floods killed 200 people in Australia on March 3rd. A further 44,000 were left homeless and 300,000 animals also drowned.

April saw more unseasonal weather, yet by July temperatures in Scotland reached 80°F (27°C) while Buenos Aires saw its first snow for decades. On July 14th lightning killed a woman and injured 46 racegoers at Royal Ascot. July was the hottest and driest for 86 years in the UK. An earthquake in Turkey killed 4 and left 25 injured. 600 houses were destroyed and 1,000 damaged.

Large parts of the US suffered the worst drought for 46 years and there were water shortages in Britain during August. Towards the end of the month, torrential rain caused serious problems in the south of the country.

By October, 71mph winds caused problems in the north, closing Liverpool’s Speke airport. India’s Punjab meanwhile suffered 12,000 square miles of flooding. 7,000 villages were inundated. Torrential rain and gales hit the south and east coasts of England later in the month. In November the south and west were blanketed in fog and as a result central London was dark by mid-afternoon.

By mid-December dense fog, gales, floods and snow affected all of Britain. In County Durham visibility was reduced to nil while the Orkneys experienced 94mph winds. The area was still suffering from the drought that first affected it in July. Churches took it upon themselves to pray for rain throughout December. Prayers that went unanswered.

The weather was certainly messed up in 1955!

* * * * * *

The weather conditions described are taken from the book, The Year I Was Born: 1955 (I was!) containing newspaper reports from that year. I haven’t included all the variations the book refers to. The world population in 1955 was 2.5 billion (8 billion today), the UK population was 49.5 million (68.4 today) and the USA 166 million (340 today).

Were the extremes of weather in 1955 the result of global warming? No-one has ever said so, not even Greta Thunberg. In fact, no-one mentions how volatile the weather was in the recent past when they’re busy telling us how much more calamitous it is today.

Is it though, really?

On Climate Change

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The climate is not having a crisis. I’ve consulted it and it assures me it feels perfectly fine about everything. It explained that every now and then it goes through a few fluctuations, much as we all do in life, and that this isn’t anything new.

I ask the climate whether it is concerned that the changing weather conditions it is imposing on us now are something it has any concern about. It laughs icily and says it couldn’t care less what anyone thinks about what the weather is doing.

It is, it reminds me, only we who are anxious about its recent activities. Frankly, it intones brightly, it doesn’t give a damn. When I put to it that we humans may have contributed to its recent, erratic behaviour it guffaws intemperately and says we’ve merely contributed to the inevitable. It scoffs at our hubris in thinking we can somehow change or even ‘reverse’ the course it has set for itself. It points out that even if the entire world were to stop using oil and fossil fuels right now – which China, Russia, India and the USA aren’t ever going to do – it would make no difference. The weather would continue to do just what it wanted to do.

Maybe I shouldn’t have confused climate and weather as essentially the same thing. After all, scientists tell us they’re not, even as they show us ‘freak’ weather conditions to prove that the climate is indeed having a crisis. Oddly, they don’t seem to accept as evidence environments where the weather is much the same as its always been, only where it’s grown ‘worse’ by human reckoning. They blame events like flash floods and forest fires on climate change when a little research suggests that while these are the consequence of human activity – building on flood planes,  straightening rivers while neglecting to dredge them, failing to clear brush from forest floors to create fire breaks (not to mention the idiots who start fires either deliberately or carelessly) – they are the result of more general stupidity. 

The weather/climate merely chuckles warmly at such folly. It reminds me, it says briskly, of the three hundred years in the Middle Ages when the climate was the same as or even warmer than today’s, and the time in the 14th century when severe storms destroyed large swathes of East Anglia, England. And, it asks coldly, what about the Little Ice Age that affected Europe for 600 years between the 13th and 19th centuries? Remember, it says, when the River Thames froze over on a regular basis so that Frost Fairs could be held on it? All conveniently forgotten now because they occurred before ‘reliable’ records began. The weather reminds me that, despite this, it now kills 95% fewer people with its extremes than it did 100 years ago. And what thanks do I get for it? it demands airily.

The weather storms off, leaving an assortment of climates in its wake. I get the impression it will continue on its own sweet way regardless of anything we can do. It will fluctuate, as it put it, delivering ‘extremes’ of heat and cold, storms, clement and inclement weather (as we might see it) because that is what it has always done, indifferent to those living under its tyranny.

We Need To Talk About Pride

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I recently had a letter published in The Spectator, one of the world’s oldest news and politics magazine, first published in 1828. I was responding to an article by Lionel Shriver, an author I like, famous for We Need To Talk About Kevin, and Mania, who was writing about how Pride is now redundant. This may be so, but her argument consisted of a number of fallacies that I felt compelled to address (her original article is behind a firewall, unfortunately.) I thought you might like to read my reply:

Sir: In ‘The War on Normality’, Lionel Shriver does precisely what she accuses gay people of doing. She reduces relationships to mere sex and then equates sex with only reproduction (or lack of it.)

Does she not know that both ‘heteronormative’ and homosexual people have sex for pleasure; most sexual activity in the world is for this hedonistic purpose, not reproduction. She next repeats the fallacy that homosexuals couples cannot reproduce. I can assure her they can, if not with each other, and play their part in advancing human evolution.

More than this, homosexual people value relationships, from which they derive companionship, affection, fulfilment and yes, intimacy, just as much as their heteronormative counterparts. Why Ms Shriver thinks gay people are any different in this respect is a mystery. Perhaps she realised she couldn’t write quite such a condemnatory column unless she did so.

Yours, happily (and proudly) in a same-sex relationship,

Neil Robinson

The intelligentsia’s misrepresentation of gay people makes it easy for more extreme bigots to advocate for their suicide and execution. It’s a small step then for some to take matters into their own hands. Looks like we do still need Gay Pride, after all.

In which Howard visits Heaven and talks to Jesus

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I recently finished reading My Descent Into Death and the Message of Love Which brought Me Back by Howard Storm, in which he recounts events surrounding his serious illness in the 1980s. This, he is convinced, caused his death after which some very dark beings, who at first he mistook for deranged medical staff, attempted to drag him off to a very sinister place. Fortuitously, Jesus and his angels were on hand to intervene and rescued hell-bound Howard.

Perhaps in my Evangelical days I would’ve lapped up stuff like this, but not now. A Christian friend – the same one who lent me the book I wrote about here – bought me. I promised I’d read it but what a struggle it was.

Once rescued by Jesus, Howard felt divested of his ego and overcome by love. He underwent a life review and was ever so gently ticked off for all the times he was less than kind. Instead of enjoying this state of bliss, however, Howard took the opportunity to bombard Jesus and the angels with banal questions, which given Howard’s comatose state they had time to answer at great length over many hours (which is how long it takes to read about them.)

When he came round and discovered he wasn’t actually as dead as he thought he was, Howard was a changed man. Once back on his feet, he joined a succession of churches so he could share his experience. When they didn’t fully appreciate how he’d really spent time with actual Jesus, he trained for the ministry himself. He has been a pastor now for several decades, regaling people with the tale of his encounter with fantasy heavenly beings.

Undoubtedly, Storm’s experience was powerfully real to him, so much so it changed his life on his return to reality. As I read My Descent Into Death, however, I couldn’t help but feel I’d heard it all before: in Paul’s account of his imaginary visits to heaven and his encounters with a resurrected Jesus. These were probably not Near Death Experiences (NDEs) – though who’s to say – but, like Storm’s, brain-induced hallucinations.

As scientist Britt Hartley explains in the video sent by koseighty a while back, we now have a much greater understanding of NDEs; they are culturally determined hallucinations induced by the brain as it begins its shutdown. Hartley is clear that under stress the brain is more than capable of creating reassuring visions for itself.

But like Howard Storm’s, Paul’s ‘revelations’ are more than a mere sighting of Jesus. Paul too has a long discourse with the heavenly being conjured up by and in his own brain. He imagines Jesus explains to him how salvation works (in a mighty complicated way) in the same way Howard does. I’m sure this discourse, like Howard’s, did not take place during the visions but were worked out later, over time, as Paul, and Howard, interpreted what the inner-visions ‘must’ have meant.

Oddly though, given they both encountered the same character, it’s difficult to reconcile the messages each was given by him. Storm’s is of a mushy universal love, devoid of the demands and convoluted theology of Paul’s Jesus. Strange that the Jesus Christ who is, according to Hebrews 13:8, the same yesterday, today and forever, has modified and softened his message in the two thousand years between Paul’s and Howard’s revelations. It couldn’t be because Howard’s is the result of his conditioning by a modern American culture that sees Jesus as a shiny, white-robed figure surrounded by angels who dispenses nothing but all-embracing love and happy-clappiness, could it? It surely could.

 

Provoking the Lion: a Fable

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The others didn’t need much persuading when Sinwar told them they really had to do something about the lion. It was, he said, too near the camp and represented a threat. The gods demanded they gather their guns and other weapons to launch an attack not only on the alpha-male itself but the entire pride. That way, any future threats would also be eliminated. The problem of the lion and its proximity to the camp would be resolved once and for all.

They planned a dawn expedition when the lion and the pride could be caught unawares. As hunters they knew how to take their prey by surprise. They crept into the undergrowth and caught different members of the pride in their sights. Then, the onslaught began.

The cubs and unwary females were butchered first, with unrelenting savagery. Lionesses that sought to protect their offspring were mercilessly gunned down. Finally, the males appeared from the undergrowth and were met with a hail of bullets that tore into their powerful bodies, ripping them apart. They were no match for the hunters’ arsenal.

Caught unaware as it was, the pride stood no chance. The hunters looked on the carnage and knew it was good. They returned to camp, taking with them the only cubs to have survived the onslaught, mortally wounded and unable to resist. Once safely returned they praised the gods who had surely blessed their mission and ensured its success.

News of their heroic efforts soon spread until all around marvelled at their accomplishments. No-one gave much thought to the lions who had been slaughtered. It was taken as read that the pride had been in need of a merciless cull. Right had prevailed.

Unknown to Sinwar and the hunters, however, the alpha lion had survived. Hidden in the shadows, he licked his many wounds and knew instinctively he would exact revenge. He had been severely provoked and he vowed to himself that such provocation would not go unpunished. Others joined him; males who had recently left the pride to establish their own, heeded the deep instinct that they must band together to ensure their survival.

They attacked when their hunters were least expecting it and returned the savagery that had been meted out to them. The nearby townsfolk were shocked at the bloody retaliation; the hunters had been within their rights to attack the pride, after all. The lions had no right to exact a deadly revenge. Everyone in the region and even further afield seemed to think so. Nonetheless, a great deal more senseless death followed.

Having decimated the hunters and rescued some of the cubs, the lions took many townsfolk in their savage maws. They then moved on to new territories, sensing the allegiance of others to the hunters. They attacked those who had lent their support and had hunters of their own, losing some of their own number while destroying any who stood in their way. A rogue elephant from far away blundered into the fray, trampling many more while demanding the hunters and lions make up and be friends. (Meanwhile, a pygmy shrew from another land wondered if it too should join in but found itself incapable of deciding even whose side it should be on.)

Having stood its ground, the alpha lion returned to its den. He had taught the hunters and those who supported them that they provoked him at their peril. It would, he vowed, never happen again.

Seek and Ye Shall Find

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Thanks to all the Christians who responded to my questions last week. Here’s the answers (in red) they helped me reach.

I asked –

1. What happens to you, as a Christian, when you die:

a) You go immediately to heaven (The Bible says this precisely nowhere)

b) You go into suspended animation until Christ’s coming and the final judgement (Paul implies this is the case in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. You have to ask yourself how he knew this)

c) You cease to exist (Yup, this is it. So, as Dolly says, better get to livin’)

2. According to the first three gospels, how long was Jesus in the grave?

a) About 36 hours (Friday tea-time till just before sunrise on Sunday. You do the Math)

b) 3 whole days (see above. Despite saying in Matthew 12:40 that this is how long he’d be dead, he fell way short. The fourth gospel, on the other hand, alters the timeline to make things fit)

c) He wasn’t: he went down to hell (according to 1 Peter 4:6 and the so-called Apostles’ Creed this is exactly what he did. Some people are daft enough to believe it)

3. Which of the following does Paul refer to in his letters?

a) Jesus’ miraculous birth (he mentions this zero times)

b) Jesus’ parables, teaching and miracles (likewise; not a single mention)

c) The Empty Tomb (nor this. Don’t you think that’s strange?)

4. How often did Paul refer to Jesus’ second coming?

a) In all of his letters (Nope)

b) 2 or 3 times (Nope)

c) Never (That’s it: not once. Paul looks forward to Jesus coming soon, as if it’ll be his first visit: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 again. Don’t you think that’s significant?)

5. How often did Jesus refer to his second coming?

a) Once or twice (No)

b) Frequently (Again, no)

c) Never (Yes, never. The fictional Jesus of the gospels says someone called ‘the Son of Man’ would be arriving real soon: Mark 14:62. Occasionally Jesus’ creators suggest he and the Son of Man are one and the same, which they are in that both are fictional)

6. When did Paul say the Messiah would be coming to the Earth?

a) Thousands of years in the future (To hear modern Christians talk you’d think this was it, but no: Paul never said this.)

b) While he himself was still alive (He says clearly that he expected he’d still be alive when Jesus came down from heaven: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. How many more times?)

c) He didn’t say (course he did: see above)

8. According to the gospels, when did Jesus say the Son of Man would be coming to the Earth?

a) He didn’t (he did)

b) Thousands of years in the future (Nope)

c) While those he was talking to were still alive (Yes: in Mark 9:1; 13:26 and 14:62)

8. What, according to the Bible, is the Word of God?

a) The Bible itself (‘Fraid not)

b) The Church (No)

c) Jesus (Yes, but not as often as you might think: only in John 1:1-3)

9. Which was written first?

a) Mark’s gospel (made up about 70CE)

b) Paul’s letters (the earliest, in the 50s)

c) Acts of Apostles (invented circa 80-90CE)

10. When the New Testament mentions ‘the Scriptures’, what is it referring to?

a) Ancient Jewish writings (exclusively so)

b) The whole of the Bible as we now know it (the Bible as such probably didn’t exist until the 4th century)

c) The New Testament (there was no New Testament when the writers who would later be included in it were writing. So, no)

11. How did the New Testament writers ‘prove’ Jesus was the Messiah?

a) By claiming the scriptures predicted he would be (Exclusively so)

b) By pointing to his miracles (Never)

c) By quoting things he said (Never)

Now isn’t that odd.

12. According to the Bible, how did Jesus want his followers to spend their time?

a) By witnessing to atheists on the internet (You think?)

b) By worshipping him (Never)

c) By feeding the hungry, healing the sick and helping the weak (This. See Matthew 25:31-46. So why you spending your days and nights harassing non-believers on the Net?)

Actually, no Christian helped out with this. The answers are those that scholars (and I, in my own humble little way) have arrived by actually reading the friggin’ Bible. 

Dear Christian…

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I’m seriously considering converting but need some help figuring what I should believe. Can any Christians out there help me out?

1. As a Christian, what will happen when I die? Will I –

a) Go immediately to heaven like my pastor says;

b) Go into suspended animation until Christ’s coming and the final judgement, as it says in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-16;

c) Just cease to exist like my atheist friends tell me?

2. Can you clear up for me how long was Jesus in the grave?

a) Was it about 36 hours (Friday evening till early Sunday morning);

b) Three whole days like he predicts in Matthew 12:40;

c) Was he not really in the grave but down in hell like it says in the Apostles’ Creed?

3. Where can I find information in Paul’s letters about

a) Jesus’ miraculous birth;

b) Jesus’ parables, teaching and miracles;

c) The Empty Tomb?

4. How often did Paul refer to Jesus’ second coming?

a) In all of his letters

b) 2 or 3 times

c) Never

5. Can you tell me how often Jesus referred to his second coming? Was it –

a) Once or twice;

b) Frequently;

c) Never because it was someone called the Son of Man who was going to come?

6. Can you clear up my confusion about when Paul says the Messiah will be coming to the Earth? Is it –

a) While Paul was still alive;

b) Thousands of years later;

c) Any day now?

7. When did Jesus say this Son of Man would be coming to the Earth?

a) He didn’t

b) Thousands of years in the future

c) While those he was talking to were still alive

8. What is the Word of God? I’ve heard the term used for –

a) The Bible

b) The Church

c) Jesus

9. Help me out: which was written first?

a) Mark’s gospel

b) Acts of the Apostles

c) Paul’s letters

10. Can you clarify what it’s referring to when the Bible talks about ‘the Scriptures’?

a) Ancient Jewish writings;

b) The whole of the Bible as we now know it;

c) The New Testament.

11. How does the New Testament writers prove Jesus was the Messiah?

a) By claiming the scriptures predicted he would be;

b) By pointing to his miracles;

c) By quoting things he said

12. How would Jesus want me to spend my time?

a) By witnessing to atheists on the internet;

b) By worshipping him;

c) By feeding the hungry, healing the sick and helping the weak

(I know which I’d prefer.)

Flourishing

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The solution to all our problems is to return to God.

How many times have we been told this recently? It seems here in the UK that hardly a week goes by without a new book, report or high-profile article appearing advocating a return to ‘Christian values’ or acknowledging Something Greater Than Ourselves (invariably the Christian God). This, it invariably assures us, is the only way to bring us back to our senses and solve all our problems. Even previously atheist/agnostic writers – Richard Dawkins, Douglas Murray, Tom Holland, Jordan Peterson, Aaran Hirsi Ali and Russell Brand (how’d he get in here?) – suggest that Christianity must be revived to prevent the vacuum created by its decline from being filled by the less humane Islam.

I’ve written about this fallacy before – here and here – so won’t go over the same ground again. Instead, I want to highlight a recent report, The Global Flourishing Study, carried out by Harvard University and funded primarily by the Templeton Foundation. Alarm bells! The Templeton Foundation is a religious organisation, so already the study’s conclusions are thrown into question. What were participants asked? What was their background? What bias did the questions convey?

Not surprisingly then, the study concluded that many people in the world are not flourishing and that those who are, are flourishing – surprise, surprise – largely as a result of religion:

Religious service attendance was one of the factors most consistently associated with present or subsequent wellbeing, across countries and across outcomes.

Religious groups have leapt on the conclusions as evidence that humans need God to live fulfilling lives. The key word here, however, is ‘attendance’. The study itself acknowledges that human community – being with other, like-minded people with a common interest or cause – is a significant aspect of the resulting flourishing. But we knew this already so maybe the $43.4 million spent on the study might have been better spent: feeding the hungry, perhaps? An earlier 2017 study also by Harvard was headlined:

Harvard study, almost 80 years old, has proved that embracing community helps us live longer, and be happier.

Numerous other recent studies have reached this same conclusion (see here, here, and here for more).

The god factor injected into Harvard’s more recent study to satisfy the Templeton Foundation and its affiliates is further complicated by the fact that there isn’t only one god involved in making us all feel jollier. There are currently thousands in use throughout the world (the internet is unable to provide an actual figure, however approximate). Thus, those who congregate in the mosque to praise Allah enjoy the same ‘flourishing’ as those who meet at the synagogue to worship Yahweh. Likewise, those who come together to worship Brahman experience the same benefits as those who gather to praise Jesus. Not because any one of the gods in question is the real one – they can’t all be – but because the participants are worshipping and serving together, collectively as a community. That is where the ‘blessing’ comes from. The innumerable gods involved are incidental. Indeed, each is dismissed, if not held in contempt, by the adherents of the others.

In the end then, what enables us to flourish and live longer healthier lives is company – human company. This doesn’t require a church, mosque, synagogue or temple. There are other, superstition-free ways: time spent with family; volunteering with others; joining a drama/bridge/walking/sports/writing/LGBT (worked for me) /whatever-you’re-interested-in group. The song from Funny Girl gets it right: ‘people who need people are the luckiest people in the world’. Of course other people can be frustrating (present company excepted) but unlike the gods they’re real and provide the companionship, fellowship and company we need to thrive. As ever, no God required.