Love and Logic

C4 continued its awful documentary series on the history of Christianity, this week with Professor Colin Blakemore discussing the changing role of Science and Faith in Christianity through the centuries. Above is a statue of Galileo at the Vatican. It was humourous when Blakemore paid a visit to a 'Creation Museum' in Tennessee, where Bible Christians had built a bizarre scene of Adam and Eve walking around surrounded by gigantic friendly dinosaurs. However, his dismissal of Christianity on the basis of reason, empirical data and logic alone was crass and mind-numbingly dull. "Science," he maintained, "I expect one day will make Christianity redundant." Personally, I think that with any luck, the recession will mean financial cut backs for C4 and one day it will make the head of programming redundant.

He spoke with a religious Brother who works at the astronomy institute at the Vatican, who basically told him that the Genesis account of Creation was not meant to be taken literally but as a spiritual allegory, but that when it comes to the Virgin Birth, Life, Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Christ, "all bets are off."

The amount of time Blakemore dedicated to trashing the Church for its past errors in the scientific field, literal interpretations of creationism which ignore scientific progress and heresy trials of scientists who disagreed with the Church's stance on the Earth's place in the Universe, was breathtakingly disproportionate to the gentle Brother's assertion that God had, in the person of Christ, inserted Himself into His own creation a little over 2,000 years ago.

Blakemore's response was, "Well, prove it!" The Brother said, "I can't! It is an article of Faith! All we have to go on is the Faith of the Church and the testimony of people who knew Jesus Christ and were witnesses to the Resurrection!" Clearly challenged by considering the idea that God had been made manifest in the World as the Incarnate Word, Blakemore decided to instead go and talk with an Anglican priest who denied the Divinity of Christ, the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection and basically all major tenets of Christianity.

And yet, Blakemore ignored the most important aspect of the Christian faith. Christ! He ignored the entire New Testament accounts of Christ, His Apostles, His Death and His Resurrection. He ignored the fact that no bones of either Our Blessed Lord or His Blessed Mother were ever found, even though historical accounts of His Earthly Life are widely accepted and that according to the Gospel well over 300 people were witnesses to the Resurrection. Anyway, this is not my main point. I suppose my main point is that empirical evidence, scientific testing and cold human logic will never lead any soul to any belief in God. It is a matter of the heart, it is a matter of Grace and ultimately it is a matter of Love.

Take for instance, the Large Hadron Collider, the black hole machine which Blakemore toured after having chatted with his militant atheist friend and absurdly wealthy best-selling writer and expert on God, Richard Dawkins. It cost £8 billion to build and uses the electricity of a small country. Will it find 'the God particle'? Perhaps, but even if it is found, wouldn't it be cheaper and more effective just to pray? I always maintain that everyone finds God eventually, just some believe in Him when they are alive, others when they are dead and that when we stand before Him in the flesh at the Last Judgment, atheistic scientists will get all the empirical evidence they require. Also, if they just abandoned the project and gave up, there would be one less thing to worry about when they start colliding particles and set about heightening the risk of turning the Universe into a new flavour of jelly.

Cold reasoning, logic and emiricism, those great scientific values of the 'Enlightenment' really do rob us of the Divine and often rob us of our humanity. I mean, how do militant atheists and logical scientists deal with aspects of human love while dismissing aspects of the Love Divine as 'delusion'. I'm just imagining a romantic scene at a restaurant

Spouse: "Darling, I love you. Oh, you really are the most fascinating, most charming and splendid person in the World. I love everything about you, even in your faults. To me everything you do is wonderful. I love the way you hold your knife and fork even now, the way you eat and oh, everything about you. Oh my darling, I do just love you so much!"

Atheistic empirical evidence-based logical scientist: "Ah, yes, but do you love me? What is love? Does love really exist? Perhaps you have some kind of chemical imbalance in the brain. Show me the data! Then I will believe you love me, but until I see some empirical evidence in a research paper, I am afraid I cannot believe you. Feelings and emotions which we are experiencing, many of which, objectively speaking, could be desribed as love, could be down to several causal factors. These include transference, biological impulses for the furtherence of the species and..."

Spouse: I'm sorry darling, I just wanted to express my love for you. You make me so happy, sometimes I just thank God you were sent to me. What can I say? I guess we were meant to be!

Atheistic empirical evidence-based logical scientist: "Meant to be?! Meant to be?! Are you suggesting there is some kind of benign Deity up there lovingly upholding the Universe and that He guided we hitherto two lonely souls into each others arms to be married and live joyfully together for the rest of our days?! Is that what you are suggesting?!"

Spouse: "Darling, I was just..."

Atheistic empirical evidence-based logical scientist: "Waiter, get me the bill. I want a divorce."

I pray he burns his morning toast. Go on, Lord, give him a gentle smoting, a light chiding in Your love!

Next week, one Cherie Blair will be revealing the final installment of the series which is routinely laced with poisonous secular arse-nic. She will be covering the future of Chistianity. Cherie is another one of those 'ardent Catholics' who publicly deny Church teaching on birth control, abortion and the gender arrangements that constitute true marriage. We'll watch in bemusement as she tells us how Christianity is thriving in the US while, presumably, she'll be using the opportunity to dish out condoms to school children and cut the red tape at the unveiling of a new abortion clinic, before humbly assisting in making decorative preparations for the Catholic float for Gay Pride Day.