:00:43. > :00:45.Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to The Big
:00:45. > :00:49.Questions from the Pyramid in Warrington. I'm Nicky Campbell. Now,
:00:49. > :00:52.this is the Christian season of Epiphany, which is all about God
:00:52. > :00:56.revealing himself to us, just as the Christ child was revealed to
:00:56. > :01:00.the Three Wise Men. But, as the frontiers of science advance faster
:01:00. > :01:03.and faster, less and less is regarded as the work of God. So,
:01:03. > :01:08.this morning, we're asking just one very big question.
:01:08. > :01:11.Is there any evidence for God? On our front rows, we have some
:01:11. > :01:19.extremely distinguished scientists, Bible scholars, writers, men of the
:01:19. > :01:22.cloth. People whose experiences have changed their own minds about
:01:22. > :01:32.God. And they'll be cheered on and challenged by our very lively
:01:32. > :01:35.Warrington audience. At CERN, they're closer to
:01:35. > :01:39.confirming the existence of the Higgs Boson, the missing particle
:01:39. > :01:42.that would confirm the Big Bang Theory of how the universe came
:01:42. > :01:46.into being. Last month, the Kepler Space Mission discovered a planet
:01:46. > :01:49.in another galaxy, far away, where life, but not as we know it, could
:01:49. > :01:53.conceivably exist. It's a rather different story to the one in
:01:53. > :02:01.Genesis. Is there any evidence for God?
:02:01. > :02:06.Dr Andrew Pinsent, eminent physicist. A man of the cloth, as
:02:06. > :02:10.well. Now, you accept the cosmology, you see the beauty in the cosmology.
:02:10. > :02:14.You accept it, evolution, how we came to be. And you believe in God.
:02:14. > :02:17.Yes, indeed. And, in fact, it's interesting you mention the Big
:02:17. > :02:21.Bang Theory. Two of the most important theories of modern
:02:21. > :02:24.science. One is the Big Bang, and the other is genetics. It's so
:02:24. > :02:28.often a surprise to many people, they were both invented by men of
:02:28. > :02:31.the cloth. George le Maitre, the inventor of the Big Bang Theory,
:02:31. > :02:34.was a Catholic priest from Belgium. Gregor Mendel, the founder of
:02:34. > :02:37.genetics, was a monk. So clearly, they didn't see any intrinsic
:02:38. > :02:41.problem or a conflict between science and religion. There's one
:02:41. > :02:44.other thing about this story most people don't know. Both theories
:02:44. > :02:47.were rejected in the Soviet Union, the world's first atheist state.
:02:47. > :02:50.They were banned for a number of decades. So, it's interesting
:02:50. > :02:54.people think there's an intrinsic conflict. But the lesson of history
:02:54. > :02:58.is often rather different. There is this God of the Gaps idea,
:02:58. > :03:01.though, isn't there? We used to think lightning was caused by God,
:03:01. > :03:04.and thunder and earthquakes. Now we know it's tectonic plates.
:03:04. > :03:08.Evolution is a good example. We know about speciation, and all the
:03:08. > :03:13.many species that we have. And also the plane of the spheres. Newton
:03:13. > :03:17.put that down to God. We now know it was to do with gravity. And yet,
:03:17. > :03:19.the problem is, if you ascribe anything to God, once science finds
:03:19. > :03:23.out how, what did cause it, God is gone.
:03:23. > :03:27.No, it depends how you think God interacts with the world, and your
:03:27. > :03:31.image of God. So I think some people used to think God was like a
:03:31. > :03:34.watchmaker and doing every fine detail. But the image in a lot of
:03:34. > :03:37.mainstream Christianity is much more that God is like a gardener,
:03:37. > :03:40.cultivating the world. And allowing the world to develop through its
:03:40. > :03:44.own causation and changes. And that idea about how God interacts with
:03:44. > :03:45.the world was a very important fact for the origins of modern science.
:03:45. > :03:49.APPLAUSE. The eminent scientist, intelligent
:03:49. > :03:54.people who believe in God. Peter Atkins. What are you missing? What
:03:54. > :03:57.are you not getting, here? I think there's a huge amount of
:03:57. > :04:06.evidence for God in the natural world.
:04:06. > :04:10.APPLAUSE. The other, the second part of that
:04:10. > :04:15.remark is that it's evidence for lazy minds. What we have to look at
:04:15. > :04:19.is the surge that science has made in our understanding of the world.
:04:19. > :04:24.For thousands of years, people lay back and said: "Oh, God must have
:04:24. > :04:28.done it." in a sense, that was good, because they were questioning and
:04:28. > :04:32.looking for answers. But they were going down the wrong path. 300
:04:32. > :04:35.years ago, and it really is only 300 years. And think of the
:04:35. > :04:44.progress we've made in that time. Mankind, to its great credit,
:04:44. > :04:46.stumbled on the scientific method. And all the great questions of
:04:46. > :04:51.existence, which were being answered or being probed by
:04:51. > :04:56.religion, suddenly became open to the scientific method. It's quite
:04:56. > :05:03.extraordinary what progress we're making. Not one iota of that
:05:03. > :05:07.progress needs to call upon the concept of God. So God is driven
:05:08. > :05:13.right back into virtually a point we don't need him anymore.
:05:13. > :05:21.APPLAUSE. What, then, Dr Andrew Pinsent, can
:05:21. > :05:26.only be explained by God? Well, certainly, I reject a God of
:05:26. > :05:29.the Gaps. In that case, like Peter Atkins. But I think, nevertheless,
:05:29. > :05:33.civilisations that have believed in God have often been very interested
:05:33. > :05:38.in the big questions, and the search for ultimate causes. And
:05:38. > :05:40.science owes them a debt. Yes. Can I just finish? But of
:05:40. > :05:44.course, in civilisations which return to materialism, which have
:05:44. > :05:47.turned to saying there is no God and there's nothing other than the
:05:47. > :05:50.material world. They only measure goods by material things. So a lot
:05:50. > :05:54.of universities now are under attack because they're regarded as
:05:54. > :05:57.doing a lot of useless things. Why aren't they generating stuff for
:05:57. > :06:00.industry, for business and so on? And, unless we keep alive an idea
:06:00. > :06:03.that we're searching for things which are immaterial for the big
:06:04. > :06:07.questions, then we won't actually also make progress in science, as
:06:07. > :06:13.well. But, you mentioned The Big Bang?
:06:13. > :06:16.And that's a very, that's a material happening.
:06:16. > :06:19.You prefer a society in which people believe in God. You're not
:06:19. > :06:23.actually suggesting there is any evidence for God. If you look at
:06:23. > :06:26.the question in an anthropological way. In other words, you look at
:06:26. > :06:29.the way in which human beings organise themselves. There is a
:06:29. > :06:32.practically universal demand for a causal story, a foundation myth
:06:32. > :06:35.which differs from place to place. And which are usually, actually,
:06:35. > :06:37.mutually exclusive. They can't all be true, because they depend on
:06:37. > :06:40.their components, which are exclusive to themselves. And then,
:06:40. > :06:46.also, a religious dimension in order to create some form of
:06:46. > :06:49.cultural practices which regulate society. Morality. Which is
:06:49. > :06:54.morality, ethics and so on. A lot of which predates the organisations
:06:54. > :06:57.of modern states to do that kind of thing for you. In other words, the
:06:57. > :06:59.evidence is that man creates God, and continues to create God.
:06:59. > :07:02.Charles Foster. APPLAUSE.
:07:02. > :07:07.Morality comes from the fact, according to David and many people,
:07:08. > :07:14.that it was advantageous to us, as a tribe. And so we formed rules
:07:14. > :07:19.which stopped us killing each other. And then we survived and we bred.
:07:19. > :07:22.David's absolutely right. We all need a creation myth. The fact that
:07:22. > :07:25.we want that, the fact that we need it is, itself, a tremendously
:07:26. > :07:29.suggestive thing. You might want to ask yourself, more cogently than
:07:29. > :07:32.you have, why that should be the case? The search for origins
:07:32. > :07:35.suggests that there might be an origin beyond ourselves. In
:07:35. > :07:38.relation to the quest for morality. The strangest and, for biologists,
:07:38. > :07:44.most puzzling of all things about the natural world is the kindness
:07:45. > :07:50.of strangers. The fact of altruism, which is everywhere in the world.
:07:50. > :07:53.Now, there are lots... APPLAUSE.
:07:53. > :07:56.There are lots of attempts by biologists to explain this curious
:07:57. > :08:00.fact away. So, kin selection, for example. The notion that, if I'm
:08:00. > :08:10.sufficiently closely related to you, I will die in order to save you, in
:08:10. > :08:13.
:08:13. > :08:16.order to carry on in the gene pool. It might be in our interests.
:08:16. > :08:19.Now, of course it's perfectly true ,that once you've got altruism and
:08:19. > :08:23.cooperation seeded into a community, it confers a massive selective
:08:23. > :08:26.advantage. The question which you need to address yourself to is, how
:08:26. > :08:29.did natural selection allow that seed to be planted in the first
:08:29. > :08:32.place? Natural selection is very effective in going around, stamping
:08:32. > :08:36.on the seeds of altruism. Before they jump up.
:08:36. > :08:39.No, it's not a seed. In the first place, it's a gradual growth of
:08:39. > :08:43.usefulness. So there's no seed planted. But you suddenly discover,
:08:43. > :08:46.you make a mistake. What you think is, perhaps, a mistake, and it
:08:46. > :08:54.turns out to enhance your survival. And that gets welded into, into the
:08:54. > :08:56.ethological system. Peter, I'm sure, I'm sure that you
:08:56. > :08:58.know how dismal the existing biological explanations for
:08:58. > :09:01.altruism are. Doesn't mean to say that they're
:09:01. > :09:04.wrong. It implies, in the case of
:09:04. > :09:06.reciprocal altruism, for example, the notion that I scratch my back
:09:06. > :09:09.because you're scratching your back. A tremendously sophisticated
:09:09. > :09:13.calculation of benefit and detriment.
:09:13. > :09:18.Let me bring Diana in, here. You're an evolutionary biologist. And this
:09:18. > :09:20.is just your area. This is my area. So there is a
:09:21. > :09:24.great deal of evidence about kin selection, about reciprocal
:09:24. > :09:26.altruism. But we're involved in very small scale societies in which
:09:26. > :09:29.every interaction was face-to-face. And certainly, if you look at
:09:29. > :09:33.biblical texts, if you look at other religions, it's perfectly
:09:33. > :09:37.fine to kill out group members. But it's not OK to kill in group
:09:37. > :09:40.members. And if you look at how people act towards one another, in
:09:40. > :09:42.one-off interactions, people aren't very nice. There's a lot of
:09:42. > :09:45.reinforcement in society. And punishment for people who aren't
:09:46. > :09:48.nice to each other. Society, and the rules of society, have been
:09:48. > :09:51.built around our evolved psychology which enables altruism to be
:09:51. > :09:55.possible. For instance, in the military, brothers in arms. That is
:09:55. > :09:58.a way of leveraging kin selection to make people altruistic. And the
:09:58. > :10:02.whole idea that you were saying before, that biology, the fact that
:10:02. > :10:04.we all have an origin story means that there must be something true
:10:04. > :10:07.about it. Well, I think this chair is solid.
:10:07. > :10:11.But now physics has shown that there's a tremendous amount of
:10:11. > :10:14.space between, between atoms. The smartest species on this planet are
:10:14. > :10:18.all social group species. And what happens is, you have to get smart
:10:18. > :10:22.in order to be able to infer the mental states of other animals. Now,
:10:22. > :10:25.if you take that and try to explain the world that way, you will think
:10:25. > :10:29.that there's a universal consciousness that governs the
:10:29. > :10:32.world. So what we're doing is we're using our mind, which is like a
:10:33. > :10:34.hammer, to see the world like a nail. Our mind is good at inferring
:10:34. > :10:36.consciousness. Therefore we're inferring consciousness in the
:10:36. > :10:39.world. APPLAUSE.
:10:40. > :10:43.Charles. You've given a very compelling account of how, once the
:10:43. > :10:46.notion of altruism exists in a society or a community of any sort,
:10:47. > :10:51.it can generate and proliferate. What you've failed to give is an
:10:51. > :10:54.account of how it was seeded in the first place. And that's what I'm on
:10:54. > :10:57.about. Everything was by mistake. Everyone
:10:57. > :11:03.drifts into doing something. And sometimes that something turns out
:11:03. > :11:08.to enhance survival. Everything in biology is a mistake.
:11:08. > :11:12.How did we discover a cup of tea? How do you, how do we imagine that
:11:12. > :11:15.the first cup of tea, as we now know it, came to exist? It came to
:11:15. > :11:19.exist by a whole series of really absurd accidents. There's nothing
:11:19. > :11:23.obvious about the tea plant that says: "take this, infuse it with
:11:23. > :11:26.water, add some milk to it and, if you like, a little bit of sugar
:11:26. > :11:28.from a completely different plant." let's just concentrate on this idea.
:11:29. > :11:32.Consciousness, for example. The late, great Christopher Hitchens, a
:11:32. > :11:35.great atheist thinker. He said, I remember it, I saw him in YouTube
:11:35. > :11:38.saying that there's only something like half a chromosome difference
:11:38. > :11:40.between us and the chimps. But that half chromosome is just a
:11:40. > :11:44.fantastically significant, amazing difference.
:11:44. > :11:48.It means chimps can go to war with one another. But within their own
:11:48. > :11:50.in group, it's very rare that they kill each other. They kill monkeys
:11:50. > :11:53.to eat. But they don't have our levels of
:11:53. > :11:56.consciousness and art and morality. They don't have our level of
:11:56. > :11:59.consciousness, but you could say: "why don't they all kill each
:12:00. > :12:02.other?" They must have been endowed with God with an altruistic
:12:02. > :12:06.motivation. Ants will sacrifice themselves for the greater good of
:12:06. > :12:08.the colony. They must have been endowed by God with an altruistic
:12:08. > :12:11.motivation. People didn't understand how you social insects
:12:11. > :12:14.worked until very recently. Just because we don't understand how
:12:14. > :12:19.altruism might have been seeded in our human species doesn't mean that
:12:19. > :12:20.it has been endowed by anyone else. That is a great example of a God of
:12:20. > :12:23.the Gaps argument, the altruism argument.
:12:23. > :12:33.They don't talk about things that they can't see. Our consciousness
:12:33. > :12:37.
:12:37. > :12:41.is extraordinary, isn't it? Yeah, but that's because it's grown
:12:41. > :12:44.with time. And I think what you have to do is to look, also, at the,
:12:44. > :12:48.the same question comes into the question of the origins of morals,
:12:48. > :12:51.and I think, to understand the ethical system, you can either say
:12:51. > :12:54.God set an example, or you can say, look back over our evolutionary
:12:55. > :12:58.history to see what infrastructure has emerged, but then couple that
:12:58. > :13:00.with our big brains and our ability to reflect, under certain
:13:00. > :13:03.circumstances, on the consequences of our actions. So the, there's
:13:03. > :13:06.nothing mysterious about it. It, it's really the emergence of
:13:06. > :13:16.understanding that we're talking about.
:13:16. > :13:19.Adam Deen, Muslim philosopher. think appealing to evolution to
:13:19. > :13:22.answer this question, if God exists, is a red herring, because it
:13:22. > :13:25.commits the genetic fallacy, which is to invalidate a view looking at,
:13:25. > :13:30.analysing how it originates. It will not enlighten us on whether
:13:30. > :13:34.God exists or not. And one could even argue that atheism can be
:13:34. > :13:38.explained for psychological reasons. We can say that they have father
:13:38. > :13:46.issues and they see God as the father figure and they want to deny
:13:46. > :13:56.God's existence. Would be true some atheists. It wouldn't enlighten us
:13:56. > :13:59.if God exists or not. What's what's the big, the greatest piece of
:13:59. > :14:03.evidence that you can bring to the table, today? Well, for, for me,
:14:03. > :14:05.personally, I, I think the origin of the universe. I think if we
:14:06. > :14:09.probe the observable universe, we will find transcendent signposts.
:14:09. > :14:13.Science will never be able to explain We have probed the universe
:14:13. > :14:16.Science will never be able to, uh, explain how something can come from
:14:16. > :14:19.nothing. Why, why not? Because science only works in a physical
:14:19. > :14:23.realm. It can only explain to you how one physical process can happen
:14:23. > :14:27.with, to, to another physical process, governed by natural law.
:14:27. > :14:31.The Big Bang, if I may finish, is the literal origin of all space and
:14:31. > :14:37.time. Now, suppose, whilst we are speaking, now, you hear a, a loud
:14:37. > :14:40.bang. You're wrong. You hear a loud bang, and then we ask the question,
:14:40. > :14:45."what caused that bang?" and Peter says, "it happened by itself." No-
:14:45. > :14:55.one is going to accept that. That would be an unintelligible response.
:14:55. > :15:01.
:15:01. > :15:08.But the same reason applies to The You see, this is a typical
:15:08. > :15:12.anthropomorphic argument. What you're doing is you're saying, we
:15:12. > :15:16.understand, in this universe, that A causes B, B causes C, and so you,
:15:16. > :15:19.you trace it back and you trace it back to a time, if you can use that
:15:19. > :15:21.expression, before the laws of science actually existed. It is
:15:21. > :15:24.improper to extrapolate your experience of causality in this
:15:24. > :15:34.universe to before when the universe existed. It's so naive.
:15:34. > :15:38.
:15:38. > :15:41.then, how can you then argue... Adam come back. So then, how can
:15:41. > :15:44.you argue that science will come with, with an explanation of how
:15:44. > :15:47.the universe comes into existence? If there are no laws, there's no
:15:47. > :15:50.physical reality. Look how far science has come with understanding
:15:50. > :15:53.the nature of the universe. Back to a trillionth of a second after the
:15:53. > :15:56.Big Bang, in the past hundred years, compared with the progress that the
:15:56. > :16:00.likes of you... Made, I speak kindly, over the past three
:16:00. > :16:03.thousand years. But to suggest that, that science will explain something
:16:03. > :16:13.from coming from nothing. That's worse than magic, Peter. You're
:16:13. > :16:19.
:16:19. > :16:22.advocating magic. So this is the We, as rational beings, we know
:16:22. > :16:32.that whatever begins to exist needs a cause, and the universe began to
:16:32. > :16:32.
:16:32. > :16:35.David Aaronovitch. Well, I mean, it just, as straightforward, and on a
:16:35. > :16:38.logical basis, if some, everything has to have a cause, then something
:16:38. > :16:41.will have had to have created the thing that caused the cause. That's
:16:41. > :16:44.the character understanding of the argument, actually. So actually, so
:16:44. > :16:47.actually, you end up, you end up in exactly the same position as
:16:47. > :16:50.anybody else does, with the fact that you don't actually know. The
:16:50. > :16:53.difference between us is that you have a great kind of collection of
:16:53. > :16:56.intuitions which people have come and caused arguments, a little bit
:16:56. > :16:59.like my belief that if I listen to Tottenham Hotspur on the radio,
:16:59. > :17:01.they will lose. This is my superstition, or my daughter's
:17:02. > :17:05.belief that those, that those strange things on the pavement, if
:17:05. > :17:08.you walk on them, it will cause you bad luck or any other kind of
:17:08. > :17:10.superstitions. You require a causal link and you have attached to that
:17:10. > :17:14.an incredible superstructure of religious and cultural thought
:17:14. > :17:17.which you adduce to be true. Now, by and large, that is no great
:17:18. > :17:21.problem to me, and so on, but it is a great problem to you. Francesca,
:17:21. > :17:23.biblical scholar. Thank you. It illustrates, I think, this major
:17:23. > :17:26.misunderstanding about what, the main western monotheistic faiths
:17:26. > :17:29.and their creation stories are all about. What we're dealing with, it
:17:29. > :17:30.seems to me, are Muslims, Jews and Christians in a modern,
:17:30. > :17:33.contemporary, western, intellectualised mindset who want
:17:33. > :17:36.to engage with science and want to engage with telescopes that look
:17:36. > :17:39.deep, deep, deep into the universe past, but the fact is that their
:17:39. > :17:46.religion and their, their faith commitments are based on ancient
:17:47. > :17:56.texts from ancient societies... Which is supported by modern
:17:57. > :18:04.
:18:04. > :18:07.Can I finish? Can I finish? You may. Thanks. These texts weren't
:18:07. > :18:10.produced by societies that were ever interested in an original
:18:10. > :18:14.question, where are we all from. Some of them. Not, no, not even in
:18:14. > :18:16.the Koran. I mean, to be honest, a lot of these traditions that are
:18:16. > :18:19.about creation... Sorry, what's in the Koran? A lot of these
:18:19. > :18:22.traditions about creation don't image creation as a one off event
:18:22. > :18:25.at the beginning of time. No, it does, actually. God speaks about...
:18:25. > :18:28.It shows creation as happening over and over and over and over again.
:18:28. > :18:32.Mohammed, what is your, the greatest, Mohammed Hatatit, what is
:18:32. > :18:38.your greatest piece of evidence that, that you can adduce for God?
:18:38. > :18:45.Yeah, before that, let's talk about the big... No, the Big Bang, can I
:18:45. > :18:48.please, yes? The Big Bang, because to say that there, theories like
:18:48. > :18:51.the Big Bang is in the Asian books, that's not true. The Big Bang is
:18:51. > :18:54.not mentioned in either the Old or the New Testament it's only
:18:54. > :18:57.mentioned in the Koran. The difference in the Koranic Big Bang
:18:57. > :19:01.and the scientific Big Bang is as follows. The Big Bang, in science,
:19:01. > :19:04.in modern day science, is a bang that happened to, when the whole
:19:04. > :19:07.universe was a single entity that exploded. The Koran tell us that
:19:07. > :19:14.the whole universe was a single entity and then God caused it to be,
:19:14. > :19:17.it to explode but with controlled. It was controlled explosion. So
:19:17. > :19:20.this controlled explosion leads to known results. What every other
:19:20. > :19:26.explosion we know, every bang we know leads to destruction and no
:19:26. > :19:35.known results. So when we bang the Hiroshima, no new... Dr Andrew
:19:35. > :19:38.Pinsent, you're a physicist. Is he right? I can't comment, I'm, I'm
:19:38. > :19:44.not a Koranic expert, so I can't comment on whether the big bang...
:19:44. > :19:47.On the physics, though. I think, the key point, the, the key
:19:47. > :19:50.battleground about evidence for God using reason is, is really nearer
:19:50. > :19:53.philosophy more than science. Now, science shades off into philosophy
:19:53. > :19:56.at some point, but that's where the real battleground is. So it's
:19:56. > :19:59.slightly, people tend to argue past one another a little bit when it
:19:59. > :20:02.comes to just science alone. isn't that idea of the cosmological
:20:02. > :20:05.constant. This number, this tuning that has to be right within
:20:05. > :20:11.something like a hundred and twenty decimal places. Is that not a real
:20:11. > :20:14.problem for you, Peter? Oh yeah, absolutely. It's a real problem and
:20:14. > :20:16.we think we understand the nature of it, as well. The point about
:20:16. > :20:20.scientific approach to understanding the origin of the
:20:20. > :20:22.universe is that it... The fine tuning of the universe. It
:20:23. > :20:25.simplifies the kind of questions that one should ask in the
:20:26. > :20:29.expectation of getting answers, and one of them is the fine tuning.
:20:29. > :20:34.Another is to say, well, a lot of energy had to be made at the
:20:35. > :20:38.inception of the universe how much energy was made? And science, what
:20:38. > :20:45.science does and what religion does not, is to provide an answer to
:20:45. > :20:49.that second question, and it says the amount of... No, no, wait, wait,
:20:49. > :20:54.let Peter finish. The amount of energy that had to be created at
:20:54. > :20:58.the beginning was absolutely zero. So if you extrapolate that to the
:20:58. > :21:01.amount of work that God had to do at the time, you can see that he
:21:01. > :21:06.didn't have to do anything at all. What science is doing is really
:21:06. > :21:10.just getting to the core of what actually happened on day dot.
:21:10. > :21:13.this is kind of a false dichotomy, here. If you're an atheist, you're,
:21:13. > :21:20.you, you somehow support the progress of support. If you're a
:21:20. > :21:26.theist, then you want to quash it. Nno, that's not the case. He's a
:21:26. > :21:29.scientist. He understands science. They accept evolution. Absolutely.
:21:30. > :21:33.So what we're saying here, as a theist, what we're saying is that,
:21:33. > :21:35.as a theist, we hold that the universe has an origin and the
:21:36. > :21:38.universe was, fine- tuned for the existence of intelligent life. And
:21:38. > :21:41.anyone who holds that falls within mainstream science. Of course these,
:21:41. > :21:44.achievements are tentative, and they're open to change, but at the
:21:44. > :21:47.current moment, everything points to God. No, it doesn't, because
:21:47. > :21:51.there are thousand, there are many explanations of why, life, it, I,
:21:51. > :21:53.why the universe is fine tune for, for, for life. One point is that a
:21:53. > :22:03.universe couldn't come into existence except with the
:22:03. > :22:06.fundamental constants that we've now got and... Why were they fine-
:22:06. > :22:16.tuned? And it has, it is just a happy accident. Did we just get
:22:16. > :22:20.lucky, then? Another one, which is actually gaining ground, is the...
:22:20. > :22:27.So we have chance of the gaps, rather than God of the Gaps. Please
:22:27. > :22:30.be quiet while I'm answer, trying to, to put you right. But there are
:22:30. > :22:32.trillions and trillions and trillions of universes, each with,
:22:32. > :22:35.maybe, a different mix of fundamental constants... That's
:22:35. > :22:41.just... And it is not in the least surprising that one of these turns
:22:41. > :22:46.out to be appropriate for life. know, Diana, you're desperate to
:22:46. > :22:50.get in, but, and you can, you can address this questions as well.
:22:50. > :22:55.Let's move on to God in our everyday lives. I mean, that was
:22:55. > :23:00.fascinating, but God in our... David, I'll get you to answer this
:23:00. > :23:05.question. There are moments, and we all have them, when we look at
:23:05. > :23:15.someone we love and we just feel elevated. We feel a sublime
:23:15. > :23:15.
:23:15. > :23:18.transcendence. I saw it when Peter was looking across at Adam, there.
:23:18. > :23:24.A sublime transcendent moment and, or we see something utterly
:23:24. > :23:31.beautiful and we feel something incredible. Some people think that
:23:31. > :23:34.is when we're close to God. Yeah, I don't, I've heard this a lot. I
:23:34. > :23:37.mean, I was recently in hospital and I went bonkers for four days. I
:23:37. > :23:40.had four days of delusions. Those delusions, to me, were utterly and
:23:40. > :23:42.completely real. The mind is an absolutely extraordinary thing, and
:23:42. > :23:45.it's hugely, varied. It's incredibly evolved, and it is far
:23:45. > :23:50.more flexible than people believe. It is incredibly sociable. But that
:23:50. > :23:54.feeling of sheer love and transcendent beauty, that's...
:23:54. > :23:57.Sometimes, you know, you, sometimes you feel that. Sometimes you feel,
:23:57. > :24:01."My God, it's a horrible, bloody rainy day and I wish I wasn't going
:24:01. > :24:05.out in it and that person is really getting on my nerves," and so on.
:24:05. > :24:08.But the moments we don't talk about and so why should we ascribe God to
:24:08. > :24:12.the moment when we feel that kind of moment of love and not God, also,
:24:12. > :24:16.to that moment where we feel pretty crappy, for instance, which is also
:24:16. > :24:19.quite a lot of the things that we feel. I don't feel the need, in a
:24:19. > :24:22.sense, in other words, when I feel good, to think, "I feel really good,
:24:22. > :24:25.somebody must have given that to me." "Oh, I feel really bad,
:24:25. > :24:29.somebody must have given that to me." I'm not just talking about,
:24:29. > :24:32.it's not just feeling good, is it? I think, in practise, for many of
:24:32. > :24:35.us certainly for myself a sense of awe in studying the cosmos is often
:24:35. > :24:37.the beginning of, uh, a movement towards, towards, a faith. And
:24:37. > :24:39.certainly for myself, studying certain objects in mathematics and
:24:39. > :24:42.science particularly particle physics um, gave me an
:24:42. > :24:46.extraordinary sense of order. What's interesting to me is why you
:24:46. > :24:52.need that. Now that's not enough to convert someone, but often it's
:24:52. > :24:56.enough to start moving someone. For me, personally, it's not just the
:24:56. > :24:59.sense of awe, but also the sense of the fruitfulness in the world and...
:24:59. > :25:06.But what about death and the famine and the disease and, and the murder
:25:06. > :25:09.and all those things? Well, I'm talking about the, the fruitfulness,
:25:09. > :25:13.the fruitfulness of faith in so many areas in art, and in music,
:25:13. > :25:15.and in particular, the lives of the saints coz every now and again, we
:25:15. > :25:18.produce extraordinary individuals, who, I suppose, and then I'm
:25:18. > :25:21.putting on my theologians hat, who sort of show, show the face of God
:25:21. > :25:24.in some way or other. And that's amazing. But we produce
:25:24. > :25:27.extraordinary individuals in a lot of places, don't we? We produce
:25:27. > :25:30.lots and lots of, in fact, many, many more extraordinary individuals
:25:30. > :25:33.who are not saints, don't we? Martin Luther King was no saint but
:25:33. > :25:36.he was an extraordinary individual. He was certainly no saint. Well,
:25:36. > :25:39.lots of people across the room have been talking about the idea that
:25:39. > :25:42.The Big Bang and so, some of science, that God might be guiding
:25:42. > :25:45.this and I just think, if God is somehow guiding evolution and the
:25:45. > :25:49.development of the earth and all the planets, could he not have
:25:49. > :25:51.guided it in a way that had a little bit less and that didn't
:25:51. > :25:58.have motor-neurone disease and cancer and all these other things?
:25:58. > :26:01.Why is that, pastor? You address this issue, don't you, don't you?
:26:01. > :26:04.Why did God, God create, you know, E-coli and horrible diseases, the
:26:04. > :26:13.parasites that burrow into the eyes of children in Sub-Saharan Africa?
:26:13. > :26:16.Why did God create those things? Well, I believe that God exists,
:26:16. > :26:19.but there's also, we need to look at, the argument from the idea of
:26:19. > :26:22.the spiritual side. You don't just look at the physical side. If we
:26:22. > :26:25.argue from just the physical side, we have a truncated, view of
:26:25. > :26:29.reality and of the world, because there is a spiritual reality.
:26:29. > :26:32.There's also a physical reality, OK? And so the evil that we see in
:26:32. > :26:35.the world, according to what I, what I know from the biblical
:26:35. > :26:38.record is that there is an evil. Evil is real. There is Satan, there
:26:38. > :26:41.is a devil. Why do children get leukaemia, why do... Illness and
:26:41. > :26:49.sicknesses and evil are coming to the world because of sin. Because
:26:49. > :26:55.of sin? Because of sin. There is no sin is God. God is pure. So is God
:26:55. > :26:58.punishing us for, for... You don't like this, Stephen, do you? No, I
:26:58. > :27:01.don't, and, I'm, and I'm unhappy on two fronts. First of all, that,
:27:01. > :27:04.those, if you like, who are opposed to God are trying to put my
:27:04. > :27:06.understanding of God into a particular box where he's got
:27:06. > :27:13.anthropomorphic caricature, character, where he's a, a guy in
:27:13. > :27:16.the sky, almost. And I'm not interested in that, at all.
:27:16. > :27:19.Secondly, there is a desire, somehow or other, to make God into
:27:19. > :27:23.somebody who directly intervenes in the world day by day and does
:27:23. > :27:27.things to people. No, he doesn't. That's not the way in which my
:27:27. > :27:30.understanding of ultimate reality... How on earth did atheists get the
:27:30. > :27:32.impression that religious people believe that? Because some
:27:32. > :27:39.religious people do believe that, and some other religious people
:27:39. > :27:48.don't believe that. Does he answer prayers? He does. Does he answer
:27:48. > :27:51.prayers? In the way I which I understand God acting, yes he does,
:27:51. > :27:54.because he works within me to en, enable me to be, perhaps be a
:27:54. > :27:57.better person than, actually, I am. He does answer prayers. He works
:27:57. > :28:00.through the arrows, in a sense, of goodness, truth, beauty, love,
:28:00. > :28:03.which are the way in which make up that ultimate reality which I
:28:03. > :28:07.understand to be God. Lady, ladies and gentlemen, meet the Reverend
:28:07. > :28:10.Kim Goh who was put in, he was in, a former triad gangster. He's now a
:28:11. > :28:15.Methodist minister. He went to prison, 357 counts. Put your hands
:28:15. > :28:19.together for him. He found Jesus. And Jesus changed your life. The
:28:19. > :28:23.first time you were in prison... Amen to that. God, God spoke to you,
:28:23. > :28:28.didn't he? Yes, he sure did. Literally? And I wasn't looking for
:28:28. > :28:35.religion. The last thing I want to know is Christianity, God. Look
:28:35. > :28:39.after number one. But guess what, I saw him and he spoke to me. It's
:28:39. > :28:47.just like an atheist. What you believe in? Can I pose that
:28:47. > :28:57.question to you, David? What does atheist believe in? Well, no, I
:28:57. > :28:58.
:28:58. > :29:02.don't believe there's a God. It's an absence of a belief. Atheists
:29:02. > :29:07.don't believe in anything, right? I didn't interrupt you when you speak,
:29:07. > :29:10.please. You wanted to. Atheists believe in nothing. Is it still
:29:10. > :29:14.something they believe in? Nothing. When you say God spoke to you, what
:29:14. > :29:17.do you mean? Did he literally, did you hear his voice? Yes, just like
:29:17. > :29:27.you and me talking, and I thought I was hallucinating. What does he
:29:27. > :29:33.sound like? Like we're having a conversation. What language was he
:29:33. > :29:35.speaking? English. He was speaking to me in English. No, it wasn't
:29:36. > :29:45.loud. It's not thunder and lightning. It's like a normal
:29:46. > :29:48.
:29:48. > :29:51.conversation. What, what did he say? Well, because I wa seff'ing at
:29:51. > :29:55.him because of the vicar, or the chaplain and, then he said, "why
:29:55. > :29:58.are you swearing at me?" And I thought for a moment, one of the
:29:58. > :30:07.other convicts in the, over there was a ventriloquist. Which he might
:30:07. > :30:10.have been. So I was about to arrange their face. And I looked
:30:10. > :30:14.around and they were doing their own thing, smoking or, you know,
:30:14. > :30:18.talking, so I had another go at him and, I believe he got up from the
:30:18. > :30:28.wrong side of the bed that morning. He took offence to me swearing. Of
:30:28. > :30:30.
:30:30. > :30:34.Let me explain the feeling. When I swear a second time, he say: "Look,
:30:34. > :30:41.why are you swearing at me? Is it me or the chaplain who was
:30:41. > :30:48.impatient with you?" Next thing I know, I was on my knees. I didn't
:30:48. > :30:51.want to cry. Tears were running down, but I was feeling this
:30:51. > :30:57.simultaneous emotion at the same time. A feeling of, you know,
:30:57. > :31:02.sadness, and a feeling of joy. And this has revolutionised your
:31:02. > :31:05.life. You're a different person? It has. And I could not explain,
:31:05. > :31:13.until today, why I'm able to have a simultaneous emotional of feeling
:31:13. > :31:16.of joy and sadness at the same time. You try it yourself. Any of you can
:31:16. > :31:20.do that and prove it to me, that's fine.
:31:20. > :31:24.Sorry, what a shame that God didn't show up before you committed all
:31:24. > :31:28.those crimes. Wouldn't that have been a better time to have a word?
:31:29. > :31:32.Well, listen. You've got them all going. Look at this. Peter Atkins.
:31:32. > :31:38.How would you tell the difference between...
:31:38. > :31:41.Oh, you try and smoke wacky in the prison. See if you can get it.
:31:41. > :31:43.How would you tell the difference between your experience and a
:31:43. > :31:47.hallucination? How am I going to hallucinate? Can
:31:47. > :31:55.you hallucinate now, for me? I don't take no drugs then. In the
:31:55. > :31:58.prison, I got no drinks, alcohol, nothing. And I was in a mood of
:31:58. > :32:02.anger at the vicar. Yeah, it's called hallucinating in
:32:02. > :32:04.the brain? But, as a result of it, though,
:32:05. > :32:14.your life has been utterly transformed.
:32:15. > :32:18.
:32:18. > :32:21.Amen to that. One thing I'd like to know is why are you so reluctant to
:32:21. > :32:24.acknowledge the possibility of a hallucination? As I said, I had
:32:24. > :32:31.four days of hallucination. Oh, I hallucinate before. Hell, I've take
:32:31. > :32:35.LSD before. Because, I'll tell you this. I spent four days
:32:35. > :32:39.hallucinating. I thought the nurses in the hospital were going to kill
:32:39. > :32:43.me. Then I thought they were going to eat me. And I thought the people
:32:43. > :32:46.who didn't exist in the next bed were plotting to have me taken away
:32:46. > :32:49.and murdered, and so on. I absolutely believed this. It wasn't
:32:49. > :32:52.until afterwards that I could understand that these were actually
:32:52. > :32:55.hallucinations. In other words, all I'm saying is that the mind is an
:32:55. > :32:58.extraordinary thing. That was post- operative psychosis that you had,
:32:58. > :33:01.wasn't it? But Francesca, in the Bible, if we
:33:01. > :33:05.read, you know. If any Christian, any believer read an account such
:33:05. > :33:09.as Kim's in the Bible, they would say: "Oh yeah, fair go, God spoke
:33:09. > :33:11.to him, yeah." But now, there's a sort of, a level of scepticism
:33:11. > :33:18.about it. Because my story is mine. Who are
:33:18. > :33:22.you to tell me my story's not true? None of you could do that.
:33:22. > :33:24.Myriad examples in the Bible of God speaking directly to people as Kim
:33:24. > :33:27.claims God spoke directly to him, aren't there?
:33:27. > :33:30.And, given that they're in the Bible, these people and their
:33:30. > :33:33.experiences. Which I'd think broadly are primarily fictitious.
:33:33. > :33:36.But these people and their experiences are therefore special.
:33:36. > :33:39.And they become special in tradition. And they become special
:33:39. > :33:43.in the community, and I think, to a certain degree, modern day people's
:33:43. > :33:48.experience of God speaking to them makes them feel special as well.
:33:48. > :33:55.And that's not to judge it. It's simply to say that it sets you out.
:33:55. > :33:58.It sets you apart from the rest. The way I arrived in atheism was I
:33:58. > :34:02.took a course. It's called the psychoanalytic study of society.
:34:02. > :34:06.And they told us the delusions of a man named Schreber, who is a German
:34:06. > :34:09.judge. And he thought that God was going to make him a woman and
:34:09. > :34:13.inseminate him. And he showed me the allegories between the
:34:13. > :34:17.annunciation of the Virgin Mary and this man's account of how God was
:34:17. > :34:19.going to inseminate him so he could bring forth a new race of human
:34:19. > :34:22.beings. And the delusion, the schizophrenic delusion, and the
:34:22. > :34:26.story of the annunciation were so similar, that I realised that the
:34:26. > :34:31.human mind can fabricate. And I'm really glad it had such a wonderful
:34:31. > :34:35.effect on your life. And I'm no David Koresh.
:34:35. > :34:38.I think it's quite important to avoid labels like schizophrenia.
:34:38. > :34:42.But Mohammed believed, clearly, when he went, if you believe that's
:34:42. > :34:51.the word of God, you believe it's the word of God. But if you don't,
:34:51. > :35:01.you've got to say that... Well, that's the key point.
:35:01. > :35:02.
:35:02. > :35:10.Exactly. But that's the key point. It's about interpretation. But you
:35:10. > :35:12.actually said it was fictitious. Are you actually saying that
:35:12. > :35:16.people's stories within the Bible are fictitious? I'm not saying
:35:16. > :35:19.they're eye witness accounts, no. think you've got to be very careful
:35:19. > :35:23.about using that sort of language. Because those stories are people's
:35:23. > :35:26.experience, for example, of Jesus and what he did, and the way he
:35:26. > :35:29.lived. People's experience of God within the latter part of the New
:35:29. > :35:32.Testament were real to them, and important to them, and you're
:35:32. > :35:39.saying they're fictitious, they're rubbish, they're lies.
:35:39. > :35:43.I said I think that they're fictitious, ie not factual.
:35:43. > :35:50.But you've got to be very careful, I think, as a biblical scholar, of
:35:50. > :35:56.saying that they are fictitious. But only a few minutes ago. Or we
:35:56. > :35:59.shouldn't anthropomorphise God. And now you're talking about stories in
:35:59. > :36:02.the Bible being literally true. Stories in the Bible about prophets,
:36:02. > :36:05.about people meeting God. I mean, either these things are literally
:36:05. > :36:09.true and we've got an interventionist God. Or we haven't.
:36:09. > :36:15.I don't actually believe we have got an interventionist God.
:36:15. > :36:18.So they are fictitious? I actually will allow people their
:36:19. > :36:22.own experience and the right to have their own experience, and that
:36:22. > :36:26.being true to them. And in my own life, there have been things that
:36:26. > :36:31.may have happened to me which I feel are important to me. That are
:36:31. > :36:34.pointed in a sense, I like to think of a whole load of arrows that have
:36:34. > :36:39.helped get me to a disclosure situation where, actually, I
:36:39. > :36:43.suddenly take the decision. I do believe in this God.
:36:43. > :36:46.Scientists will tell us that we are pattern seeking mammals. We look
:36:46. > :36:49.for reasons and we look for patterns. But it's interesting what
:36:49. > :36:53.you said. There was some days you believe less than others. What
:36:53. > :36:57.makes you not believe? I think, like any sort of person
:36:57. > :37:00.who is searching for faith, and I hope I'm still searching for faith,
:37:00. > :37:08.you constantly try to listen to those who disagree with you. You
:37:09. > :37:13.try and grow in your faith. You try and learn more about your faith,.
:37:13. > :37:17.Why do you search for it? Because I believe that I have a
:37:17. > :37:20.spiritual dimension within me which needs to be fed, and that's one of
:37:20. > :37:24.the important things. This is the thing. And lots of
:37:24. > :37:28.people feel like there's a gap in their lives. If there happens to be
:37:28. > :37:31.a gap that God happens to fit, well, that's evidence for God. But that's
:37:31. > :37:34.not true. The existence, let me finish. The existence of a gap
:37:34. > :37:38.doesn't mean that something exists to fill that gap. That's the
:37:38. > :37:41.argument that says every colander is a bowl. It's not. Some gaps are
:37:41. > :37:45.just gaps. And yes, we all feel emptiness sometimes. That doesn't
:37:45. > :37:48.mean there's a God up there. I find this takes it back to the
:37:48. > :37:51.human need for the thing, rather than the thing itself. You have
:37:51. > :37:55.decided to search for it. Hardly surprisingly, quite often, you find
:37:55. > :37:58.it because you are actively searching for it. And in a way,
:37:58. > :38:01.that's what the distinction, here, in this discussion is about. You,
:38:01. > :38:05.on this side, you're always searching for the thing. You lean
:38:05. > :38:08.towards it. You want it, you want it to be. You conjure it into
:38:08. > :38:12.existence. You will do everything that you can to do that. Quite
:38:12. > :38:16.often, you do no harm in doing that. Sometimes you do, often that you
:38:16. > :38:18.don't. Myself, I don't have that need, so I don't search for it.
:38:19. > :38:22.Neither do I feel the need to search against it.
:38:22. > :38:25.No, that's fine, David. That belongs to you. But I actually have
:38:25. > :38:30.experienced, in my life, sometimes, transcendence. Some sense of the
:38:30. > :38:35.other. Some sense of God. Something which is out beyond me. Something
:38:35. > :38:43.which you might describe as ultimate reality. What is that
:38:43. > :38:47.feeling? Sometimes, being taken out of
:38:47. > :38:50.myself by beautiful music which has taken me way beyond any understand,
:38:50. > :38:54.taken me to a different place. Elevated me in a way that's closer
:38:54. > :39:02.to God. Sometimes, when I'm sat in a beautiful place in the country
:39:02. > :39:06.and actually thought, "what is all this about?" Touched by God.
:39:06. > :39:16.Do you think that we atheists do not feel the same sense of grandeur,
:39:16. > :39:47.
:39:48. > :39:55.and wonder at the world? Of course we do. We're looking for truth.
:39:55. > :39:58.Patsy's son was shot, Dory. Was it Jesus who found her or God? Well,
:39:58. > :40:02.now we're into a theological issue. A theological issue between Islam
:40:02. > :40:04.and Christianity. About the Holy Trinity and the single God, which
:40:04. > :40:10.we're not actually debating this morning. But Mohammed, I appreciate
:40:10. > :40:13.your contribution. Patsy. So, Dory was shot. And it would shake the
:40:14. > :40:19.faith of many people. But your life was transformed. You believe it was
:40:19. > :40:22.for a reason. Yeah. I do believe that my life was
:40:22. > :40:25.transformed after the death of my son. But I believe I actually was
:40:25. > :40:29.getting there before that. I had different experiences in my life
:40:29. > :40:34.because I believe in God. I believe he exists, and I believe what the
:40:34. > :40:44.Bible tells me. What other people... That's their way of living, OK? And
:40:44. > :40:48.no-one can tell me what I believe isn't true. I'm not telling anyone
:40:48. > :40:52.else what they believe isn't true because I think God is a personal.
:40:52. > :40:55.It's a personal thing about God, for me. So when my son was shot and
:40:56. > :40:59.killed, I was asking the God that I believed in, well, you know,
:40:59. > :41:03.couldn't you save him? Couldn't you do something? Why is he dead? But
:41:03. > :41:07.because I have faith and, one of the verses in the Bible that
:41:07. > :41:10.actually got a hold of me, it said. I think it's in Romans. It said:
:41:10. > :41:15."All things are working together for the good of those who love
:41:15. > :41:19.God." And I know I was a person who loved him, even though some people
:41:19. > :41:26.don't think he exists, I know he exists because he speaks to me as
:41:26. > :41:31.well. We have conversations on a daily basis.
:41:31. > :41:35.What do you mean? Can I explore that a little bit with you? I talk
:41:35. > :41:39.to him about my own personal life. And he talks to me about things and
:41:39. > :41:43.he reveals things to me. Do you hear a voice, or is it something
:41:43. > :41:47.more subtle than that? I think the odd times, it's more from within.
:41:47. > :41:50.Not a feeling. It's a talk, it's like you're having a conversation
:41:50. > :41:54.with someone, and you're hearing their voice, do you get my saying?
:41:54. > :41:57.That's for me, anyway. So when I looked at what has happened after
:41:57. > :42:04.that, obviously I was in pain. I really believe everything Where was
:42:04. > :42:08.he when Dory was shot? Where was God? Where was he? I think I was
:42:08. > :42:12.asked that question once before by a television person. And I said,
:42:12. > :42:14."Right, where he was when his son was being crucified for the sins of
:42:14. > :42:18.the world?" APPLAUSE. Exactly the same place. What I'm
:42:18. > :42:23.saying is that that's where he is. I personally believe that the earth
:42:23. > :42:30.actually belongs to us, ok? And, we have dominion and authority. But
:42:30. > :42:35.not only that. We are like God. That's what I believe.
:42:35. > :42:38.Why do tsunamis happen? Well, I really believe, again, it
:42:38. > :42:42.has to do with us because, according to the word, and that's
:42:42. > :42:48.what I believe, we are in charge of down here. We have a choice, you
:42:48. > :42:51.know. Psalm 82 said: "Ye are Gods, but you will die like men." So it's
:42:51. > :42:54.really important, for me, that we recognise that everything we speak
:42:54. > :42:58.and everything we say, we are creating all the time. Some people
:42:58. > :43:01.don't believe that. But I believe we are creating. We create with our
:43:02. > :43:05.lips and with our words, just like the Genesis says. "And God spoke
:43:05. > :43:07.and it was so." Do you see what I mean?
:43:07. > :43:11.Did Dory have to die for this to happen?
:43:11. > :43:14.I don't say he had to die. Everyone's going to die anyway. And
:43:14. > :43:18.there's nobody here, when we came into the world, that said, "well,
:43:18. > :43:22.you've got two years to live," or four years to live. We don't know
:43:22. > :43:26.that. We know everyone's going to die. That's where we're going. And
:43:26. > :43:30.for the Christians, we say death is the best thing. So, what I mean,
:43:30. > :43:33.when we die, we are going back to where we came from. If that is so,
:43:33. > :43:37.and that's what I believe, then I really believe everything is
:43:37. > :43:40.working. It's working. There is a plan and a purpose in everything.
:43:40. > :43:42.And, of course, one day you believe that you'll be reunited with your
:43:42. > :43:46.son. Oh, I do believe that. Because,
:43:46. > :43:50.soon after he died, I remember I was in the back garden, doing
:43:50. > :43:54.something. All of a sudden, I heard his voice and he says: "Mummy, why
:43:54. > :43:58.are you so sad?" And I looked round, first of all. He's just, you know,
:43:58. > :44:02.died maybe a couple of weeks ago. Then I said, "Because I miss you."
:44:02. > :44:06.And he said, "I'm fine. I'm all right." that actually gave me
:44:06. > :44:10.another kind of a peace within me, to go forward. To do the things
:44:10. > :44:13.that I need to do. And I'm here, today, because my son died. I
:44:13. > :44:17.really wouldn't be here. I really wouldn't be doing the things that
:44:17. > :44:21.I'm doing, you know? I would be sat in church, doing what we normally
:44:21. > :44:25.do. Go to church, read the Bible, pray. And you're helping guys
:44:25. > :44:32.reform And now, yes. So, I really believe there is a God. There's no
:44:32. > :44:37.doubt about it. She has inferred that there is a
:44:37. > :44:42.reason. I think that is a beautiful story, and it has improved alive,
:44:42. > :44:46.it is fine. I do not have a problem with people being villages unless
:44:47. > :44:51.it gives them from understanding the world rationally. -- religious.
:44:51. > :44:55.Religion, in a certain way, really encourages a certain kind of good
:44:55. > :44:59.behaviour but not other kinds. Religious morality is very
:44:59. > :45:03.circumscribed. Religious people are often good to other villages people
:45:03. > :45:07.within their fate but not good to other people, not good do animals.
:45:07. > :45:13.These are the things that are important to me. I do not believe
:45:13. > :45:17.in religion, I believe in God. I do not believe in region. Religion has
:45:17. > :45:24.caused to many problems. I believe Jesus died for me, that is what I
:45:24. > :45:28.believe. We will find out sooner or later, when we die. I believe that.
:45:28. > :45:33.You can believe in something that is not true and it can be a source
:45:33. > :45:36.of great strength. This is not evidence of the existence of God.
:45:36. > :45:41.am not giving evidence, I am telling you my personal experience
:45:41. > :45:45.and what I believe. I am not here to prove anything. Everyone on the
:45:45. > :45:50.front bench there is believing in something that is not true and
:45:50. > :45:58.taking strength from it. Hands up, what would you like to say? Good
:45:58. > :46:03.morning. I was just going to say two points. About this evidence, if
:46:03. > :46:08.there is a God, iOS just going to ask, some things exist outside the
:46:08. > :46:14.realms of science and understanding, because we have not found out about
:46:14. > :46:20.it yet. You know, the planet that was recently found... A Kepler-22b.
:46:20. > :46:25.It did not suddenly magically appear, it has always existed, but
:46:25. > :46:31.it took a time for us to find it. I think God is the same thing. It
:46:32. > :46:41.does not need our belief. I think he is real, we just have to find
:46:41. > :46:48.him. Do you think God created...? The gentleman there has raised a
:46:48. > :46:54.fascinating point. If there were to be life elsewhere, Kepler-22b or
:46:54. > :47:01.wherever, did God create that life as well? Is he there God, too?
:47:01. > :47:04.Lewis wrote a very good essay about this. In terms of us, whether there
:47:04. > :47:08.is life at there that is intelligent and suffers from the
:47:08. > :47:13.original sin, then we have got problems our hands, if they are
:47:13. > :47:18.more technologically advanced than we are. They are coming to get as!
:47:18. > :47:22.People naively think if we make more technical progress, they
:47:22. > :47:27.automatically become better, and that is not necessarily the case.
:47:27. > :47:30.That is where moral issues come back in. I was just going to say,
:47:30. > :47:36.on the point of the Bible and whether it is fictitious or not,
:47:36. > :47:40.whether or not it is fictitious it is irrelevant, because it has been
:47:40. > :47:46.edited and translated. I know how important that is to the meaning of
:47:46. > :47:49.text. Meaning can be twisted and convoluted, it is a form of control,
:47:49. > :47:55.and that is what I believe organised religion is. It is not to
:47:55. > :47:58.say you cannot be spiritual, but you can be spiritual without God. I
:47:58. > :48:03.think the universe is an amazing place, but why do I need to believe
:48:03. > :48:08.it was created by something? I know your eyes are twinkling, you are
:48:08. > :48:14.going to say that the Bible is edited, but the Koran is unaltered.
:48:14. > :48:20.Absolutely right. The word of God was not the word of God, and it is
:48:20. > :48:25.there to prove it is not... It is easy to prove that the Bible is not
:48:25. > :48:32.the word of God. There are multiple Bibles that his beat each other.
:48:32. > :48:39.But the Koran, what it says many times, this is the word of God,
:48:39. > :48:43.proved it is not. It has no contradictions. Kate wants to
:48:43. > :48:50.undergo an the Koran, and I wish her good luck! Initial point was
:48:50. > :48:55.not the Koran is the only book in the world which says, this is the
:48:55. > :48:59.word of God. Had it not been from God, it would have at discrepancies
:48:59. > :49:04.and contradictions. That is what it says. It would have had
:49:04. > :49:09.discrepancies. And it does have loads of discrepancies. Only God
:49:09. > :49:16.can say this, no human can claim this. Once you find a mistake, then
:49:16. > :49:20.you have broken the link. We have the book of God, and he describes
:49:20. > :49:27.himself, it tells a lot of things, and so far we have found nothing
:49:27. > :49:32.wrong with this book. Sorry, let me... And two mistakes in the Koran.
:49:32. > :49:37.The Trinity does not include the Virgin Mary. No. Two, Mary the
:49:37. > :49:43.mother of Jesus is not the same person as Miriam the sister of
:49:43. > :49:46.error. That is just two mistakes, there are loads and loads. Let me
:49:46. > :49:50.jump in. You are saying if we cannot find a contradiction in the
:49:50. > :49:56.Koran, it is true. I cannot find any contradictions in Harry Potter
:49:56. > :50:00.or the Lord Of The Rings, but it does not mean they are not true.
:50:00. > :50:05.Also, does it not say there should be no compulsion in religion, but
:50:05. > :50:10.later it says kill all people who are guilty of a apostasy. No. The
:50:10. > :50:19.Koran does not say that. It does not say people who are apostate.
:50:19. > :50:24.Yes, it does. No, that... Let's be civilised and the academic here. It
:50:24. > :50:29.does not say kill people who are apostate. The verses talking about
:50:29. > :50:33.fighting are to do with what we call a justified war theory. It is
:50:33. > :50:37.when you are under attack, you are allowed to defend yourself and
:50:37. > :50:41.invade countries where people are being depressed. Those
:50:41. > :50:46.contradictions that you mention, name me one spell of Islamic
:50:46. > :50:53.studies that says that is the case. I have not heard anyone. David
:50:53. > :51:00.Aaronovitch. Do you accept that if you had been born in Kerala, you
:51:00. > :51:03.would probably be in two? Yes. Exactly. So you could be having the
:51:03. > :51:07.same argument about the Hindu texts and so on. One of the big problem
:51:07. > :51:11.is that religions have is their mutual exclusivity, and we are seen
:51:11. > :51:16.some aspects of that. If your book is literally true, his book cannot
:51:16. > :51:23.be. His belief cannot be. The Hindu belief and the brothers are talking
:51:23. > :51:28.nonsense. That is a false argument. What it shows is how we create
:51:28. > :51:33.different religions that suit us at different times. What about the
:51:33. > :51:38.Book of Mormon? It has no internal contradictions. Joseph Smith at the
:51:38. > :51:41.same kind of visitation, except even more so. He could discern the
:51:41. > :51:45.golden writing of the golden plate wearing a special pair of
:51:45. > :51:49.spectacles which, from behind a screen, he would then dictate to
:51:49. > :51:54.somebody else. Mormonism is one of the fastest-growing religions in
:51:54. > :51:59.the world. So a diversity of views... Better written than the
:51:59. > :52:06.Koran? The Koran says it is a miraculous book. Harry Potter, you
:52:06. > :52:10.say! You will go viral with that. The gentleman at the back. Good
:52:10. > :52:14.morning. The majority of the debate has been based around the fact that
:52:14. > :52:20.the front row here is looking at arguments why, you know, God might
:52:20. > :52:24.not exist. What is your evidence? The way I see it, we assume that we
:52:24. > :52:31.need empirical evidence for God. The empirical evidence does not
:52:31. > :52:35.suggest that, you know, we can have God that empirical evidence. That
:52:35. > :52:45.would assume that, you know, you can definitely believe in God or
:52:45. > :52:47.
:52:47. > :52:51.you cannot. Peter says that is an and duration of intellect. It is a
:52:51. > :52:55.caricature of this old fashion sense that science is rational, and
:52:55. > :53:01.over here on the front row we have a group of irrational people.
:53:01. > :53:07.is a rational scientist who believes in God. He also nodded
:53:07. > :53:10.when I said that. There is an attempt, in a sense, too
:53:10. > :53:13.caricatured the belief as irrational. Now, there is a
:53:13. > :53:20.difference between saying that something is irrational and non-
:53:20. > :53:26.rational. You opened the show with a reference to the Higgs boson
:53:26. > :53:29.particle. There is no evidence for that. And yet there is a great deal
:53:29. > :53:33.of belief within the scientific community that it exists. And I am
:53:33. > :53:37.happy with that, science enriches my life, as does religion, and
:53:37. > :53:47.there is a sense of harmony in these things. Actually, it worries
:53:47. > :53:47.
:53:47. > :53:51.me greatly that the question, is there evidence that God exists, is
:53:51. > :53:56.using a piece of terminology, evidence, from the realm of science
:53:56. > :54:04.in a debate which also includes God. It is a bit like trying to ask a
:54:04. > :54:08.cricket umpire to apply the rules of cricket to a game of football.
:54:08. > :54:13.Why it is the alternative? The alternative is simply a discussion
:54:13. > :54:18.of assertion. You simply say, I believe it, my belief is equally
:54:18. > :54:23.valid to anybody else's, end of discussion, we all go home. Is that
:54:23. > :54:29.the way we will settle the big intellectual questions? But there
:54:29. > :54:33.is not a richness in actually sitting and shouting very loudly.
:54:33. > :54:41.We are not shouting, let's discuss. It is all very civilised, you
:54:41. > :54:45.should have seen last week show! This is very civilised. I think
:54:45. > :54:50.you're right there is a danger of just being subjective, I say, you
:54:50. > :54:53.say. There is the account are Peter Hitchens, the brother of
:54:53. > :54:59.Christopher Hitchens, describing his conversion back to Christianity.
:54:59. > :55:03.He went to the Soviet Union, and it was very interesting, he noticed a
:55:04. > :55:10.lack of empathy in everyday life. There was a lack of care, and he
:55:10. > :55:15.began to realise what a belief in God can do for a society of the
:55:15. > :55:20.centuries. Communism was a form of religion. I was brought up by Colin
:55:20. > :55:26.has pounds, and Marxism was equally structured as a system of beliefs.
:55:26. > :55:30.-- Communist parents. It claims to be scientific socialism, explaining
:55:30. > :55:36.the world. The Soviet Union had millions of people who, in a sense,
:55:36. > :55:40.were religious. You had polio when you were a boy, you lost your hand
:55:40. > :55:45.in a motorcycle accident, you tried to find God, you went to Lourdes,
:55:45. > :55:48.he was not there. I have seen no evidence in my life, no evidence
:55:48. > :55:58.today, but we have seen something of the Higgs boson last week, by
:55:58. > :56:03.the way. I could flip a coin... had a serious motorcycle accident
:56:03. > :56:06.in 1969, and previous to that I had polio. I have been to learn and I
:56:06. > :56:14.have seen all the creatures hanging up. I went with a trainload of
:56:14. > :56:19.disabled people. It did not do much for me, obviously. What astounded
:56:19. > :56:25.me was, nobody was cured, and nobody subsequently, since I have
:56:25. > :56:31.been there, has had a cure. I doubt anyone ever had a cure. It is just
:56:31. > :56:39.a sham, the whole idea of it, it is just about money. Religion is a lot
:56:39. > :56:42.about money. I have only once prayed for God. I had an accident
:56:42. > :56:49.at 9:10am on a Monday morning. The ambulance crews swore blind that I
:56:49. > :56:57.was dead. They took me to hospital. I was on the table for nine hours.
:56:57. > :57:04.On Wednesday, if you like, I rose again, on the third day. On
:57:04. > :57:09.Thursday, I was in severe agony. So much pain that I did once as for
:57:09. > :57:15.God, only once. Was he there? only ever asked for anything once
:57:15. > :57:21.in my lives, and he didn't do anything for me. This is the thing,
:57:22. > :57:26.what about those people who ask for God and he is not there? This is
:57:26. > :57:29.part of the problem. If there is an expectation that God is good is
:57:29. > :57:33.that somebody and say, you are going to have lots of pain, you are
:57:33. > :57:38.going to be healed, then we have got back to the notion of God as an
:57:38. > :57:42.old man in the sky with superpowers. What we have been talking about
:57:42. > :57:47.today, as far as I am concerned, is about a God who is more to do with
:57:47. > :57:51.the ultimate reality, the sense of transcendence, the sense of truth
:57:51. > :57:56.and beauty and goodness and love which is sometimes missing in
:57:56. > :58:02.people's lives. People on this side maybe have found that and what to
:58:02. > :58:07.identify as God. Do those people not recognise it? They choose to
:58:07. > :58:13.say, rubbish! But even they would acknowledge there is something
:58:13. > :58:18.about wonder in their lives, too, they do not identify it as God.
:58:18. > :58:28.afraid we are at the very end. Can you all applaud each other for a
:58:28. > :58:31.pretty civilised discussion? As ever, the debate will continue on