I was brought up as a Roman Catholic but I have long since become one of those fudgy inbetweeners who strongly believes in evolution… yet still has a place for God to fit in.

I do NOT believe God is an OLD MAN WITH A LONG WHITE BEARD. This obviously false image of God is probably the most misleading concept in history. Why should God look so OLD? Unless he was once a BABY and has been ageing (like we do) over time (even if it must have been at a much slower rate) then perhaps one day “he” might grow too old and DIE! (Heaven forbid!!!) If God is eternal, then why should he not still have the face and body of a young man? The Bible says God created Adam “in his own image” yet this first man is depicted as young and in his prime… nothing like that image of the creator himself.

I’m guess I’m going to have trouble putting my point across here, but I believe that God exists only within, (or as an expression of…) our collective consciousness. That is; the consciousness (or rather the subconsciousness) of all living things.

Things such as NUMBERS and MATHEMATICS don’t actually “exist” in the real world, they are just concepts which we (especially scientists) use as tools to make sense of the universe.

I don’t suppose Mr Dawkins has any problem with these “non-existent” CONCEPTS being taught in schools. They are only created in our minds, yet are so integral and fundamental to science, because proving scientific theories necessarily involves so much experimentation and calculation.

Mr Dawkins specifically made the point how he was descended from a successful line of ancestors (which I agree, he must have) but if you follow that line back to it’s ultimate conclusion you must see that at some point in history his ancestors were not living creatures at all. At some point in the history of the earth there was NO LIFE… so where did it spring from? If you suggest that life on earth must have been spawned on another planet somewhere else in the universe and been transported here on a comet (or something like that) then you just end up with the same question to be answered (how did life begin?) but on another planet instead of earth.

I’m not saying of course, that some kind of God must have started it all off… because that just leads to questions about the origin of God. I truly believe that we cannot possibly ever answer these questions.

btw, someone once said:
“The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence!”

I hold a reasonable amount of faith in that assertion.

I believe God does exist because life exists, and “he” cannot exist without it. As a widely held concept (though some may deny their underlying beliefs) perhaps WE cannot exist without GOD! It’s in our nature.

NATURE doesn’t need to explain itself, yet we feel the need to explain it instead of just living it.

Dinosaurs NEVER EXISTED until we dug up their fossilised remains. What I mean is: They just ate each other, or ran from each other, or hid from each other… but had no concept of “Tyrannosaurus Rex” or “Brachiosaur” for example… they just didn’t need those kind of details to get by. As the vast majority of creatures living today (those other than humans) they just lived their lives and have no need for nomenclature as we do in our lives.
Why do we feel the need to explain these things?
What is the point of knowing where we come from anyway?
Knowing where we are going would be rather more helpful I suspect, yet we cannot see into the future!

Richard Dawkins’ friend said (I can’t recall his name) something along the lines of… Yes, we have a soul, but it’s made from billions of neurons. Well what happens when these neurons die? If they are just tiny little “robots” each doing their jobs and collectively becoming a soul (or a consciousness) then why can’t they be revived and essentially brought back to life after we die?
What are the differences between dead neurons and living neurons? Couldn’t those changes be reversed?
Could our MINDs be transplanted into new bodies to save all those years of educating NEW ones in successive generations!? Wouldn’t we be “playing GOD” if we could do that? …or would we just be scientists?

By the way ‘everybody is some bodies lunch on this planet’.