To: letters@guardian.co.uk
Re: Belief in God and Father Christmas

Date: Thursday 31 March 05

Dear Sir/Madam,

I thought the comparison made by the Rev Colin Morris in today's Guardian ("Jerry's last judgment") between the belief in God and Father Christmas an interesting and illuminating one: "If you think God doesn't exist, then it is no more blasphemous to insult him than to mock Father Christmas. You may cause offence, but that isn't blasphemy".

The only people who actually believe in Father Christmas are young children. It is a harmless enough belief, and as an adult I would try to avoid upsetting or offending any young "believers".

However, there comes a time, when a child needs to learn and accept that Father Christmas is not a real person, but a fantasy. If a 20-year-old still believes in him and takes offence at anyone mocking his belief we would not take them very seriously - unless they threatened violence, in which case they would be put into therapy or locked up.

Religious fundamentalists who believe in a personified God and the literal and absolute truth of their holy scripture, I suggest, are spiritually immature people, like over-aged children who still insist on believing in Father Christmas.

They cling desperately to their beliefs and holy scripture, because they lack the strength and faith which allows a more mature person to doubt, question, and even make fun of their (concept of) God. Surely we should try not to offend such people unnecessarily, but we should be very wary of allowing them to exert any significant influence on our society - otherwise we will be heading back towards the Middle Ages.

I also liked the comparison Colin Morris made between God and Mt Everest. You can deny or insist on their existence all you want - but that doesn't change reality, which is simply what it is.

There are two fundamental errors in the Book of Genesis which have had - and continue to have - a profoundly negative influence on Western society:

1) God did not create man in his own image, but the other way around; it is men who created (concepts of) God (or the gods) in their image (as pointed out by the Greek philosopher, Xenophanes, 400 years before the birth of Jesus). If our forebears had understood that they might not have been so eager to self-righteously impose - often with the sword - their (concept of) God on others.

2) The story of Adam and Eve does not describe the "Fall of man", but his emergence from the animal kingdom (". . . the eyes of both of them were opened and they discovered that they were naked"). How different our history might have been if the Hebrew (concept of) God had not cursed us for our first steps towards becoming truly human, but praised, encouraged and advised us (on taking responsibility for our behaviour), instead of treating us like animals, His pets, with promises of rewards (in a supposed afterlife) and threats of punishment (eternal damnation) to train us into behaving as He wanted (in reality, of course, it was men wanting other men to behave as they wanted).

Roger Hicks
www.spaceship-earth.org