Quotes by Andrew Rilstone

Books—all books—are complicated things, muttering at us in different contradictory voices, refusing to stay the same when we go back to them. Tying them down too much robs of them of the magic.

But it was never actually that big a deal. Jenkins didnt really disbelieve in the Resurrection: he merely questioned the historical veracity of the New Testament narratives. It was mildly interesting: one side saying I really believe that Jesus was the Son of God, and that the Bible gives a journalistically accurate account of the circumstances surrounding his birth, and the other saying I also really believe that Jesus was the Son of God, but I think that the story of Mary and Gabriel may be a legend. A real disagreement, an important one, but not a fundamental fault line along which a church can split. The people who think that the stone really was rolled away, and the people who think that it was rolled away in a very real sense are clearly part of the same religion. But it is hard to see how people who think that it doesnt particularly matter whether or not the stone was rolled away, provided we live in the way that Jesus would have wanted us to, are part of the same religion; or, indeed, of any religion at all. I think that this is what some evangelicals think some liberals think. I think they may be right.

Slow down. The Taliban were religious, in the sense that in their opinion a being called Allah really designed and created the world and everything in it, including them. They were also a cultus in that they believed that you should pray five times a day, study the Koran, fast during Ramadan, give a tenth of your income to the poor and visit Mecca at least once in your lifetime. It is a matter of record that they had the ancient statues at Bamyan destroyed. But Professor, who put up the statues? Buddhist monks, thats who. Possibly the monks were not religious, in the sense that they didnt believe in a designer-God but they were certainly part of a cultus and they had lots and lots of supernatural beliefs which you would think were Bad Things. So what you should have said is Imagine no Taliban to blow up ancient statues. Imagine no ancient statues for the Taliban to blow up. This is absolutely emblematic of your confused attitude. When a religious organisation does something which annoys you, you take it for granted that it was Caused By Religion. But when a religious organisation does something which you quite like you dont think that religion had anything to do with it. You hardly spot that there was any religion involved at all.

I suggested in my last sermon that if Oolon Colluphid had tracked down the God who had left a message in five mile high letters of fire on the Quentulus Quazgar Mountains, he still wouldnt have found the person who actually created the The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy – namely, Douglas Adams. Dorothy L. Sayers pressed the idea that God is like an author quite hard, and C.S. Lewis practically broke it. Its also been used by Mr Grant Morrison and Mr David Sim. But seriously. You brights will understand us Christians much better once youve grasped that when we talk about God, we are thinking of something much less like a fairy and much more like a Douglas.

Christians dont think that Dawkins thinks that they think that God really has a beard. Old man in the sky with a white beard is a figure of speech – shorthand – which neatly encapsulates various errors which lazy atheists and naive theists sometimes make, for example: 1: They imagine that Christians think that God is a human being of some kind and therefore ask questions like: What does he eat?; If he made the world, what did he stand on?; If he doesnt have a beard, how does he shave? and How did he evolve? (Three guesses which of those questions troubles Professor Dawkins.) Christians dont think that God is an old man. They dont even think he is a man. They probably dont even think hes made of atoms. 2: They confuse symbols with representations: they think that when Michelangelo painted God on the Popes ceiling, he was making an informed guess about what someone would have seen with their eyes if they bumped into God on the Roman metro – as opposed to using pictures to put across theological ideas. 3: They imagine that Christians think that God lives in some particular place in space and time. They may not think that we think that he lives in the sky, but I think that they think that we think that if you had a fast enough spaceship you could eventually track him down. Dawkins doesnt commit himself on the question of Gods facial hair; but it is pretty clear that he thinks that God lives in the sky – or at any rate, in some place in the empirical universe.

I was sent a copy of Richard Dawkins amusing book, The God Delusion, by an anonymous donor, so I feel I should at least try to review it. This isnt easy. I got as far as page 36 before chucking it across the room in disgust. I was in the Boston Tea Party on Park Street in Bristol. I warned the other customers to get out of my line of fire first.

Where did that remark come from? Mormonism, as anyone can easily find out, is one of a number of Christian sects which came into being in the USA in the nineteenth century. It differs from mainstream Christianity on certain technical points which Dawkins would at least pretend not to understand. So why write four if you count Mormonism? Why not five if you count Mormonism and Christian Science? Or ten if you include Mormonism, Christian Science, Christedelphians, Jehovahs Witnesses, Reformed Judaism, Shiite Islam, Strict Baptists, Celtic Orthodox, Unitarians and Quakers? Does Dawkins think that the Mormons adoptionist Christology is so far removed from the mainstream as to constitute a separate faith (while the Jehovahs Witnesses arianism is not?) Or is he playing a numbers game, saying that the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-day Saints is so numerous as to count as a religion in its own right, distinct from Christianity. (But then, why not Four if you include Catholicism?) We never find out. Like Melchizidec, it comes from nowhere and it goes nowhere. It popped into Dawkins head and he wrote it down. It makes me doubt whether our author is fully in command of his brief.Four if you include Mormons. Honestly, you might just as well say Britain consists of three countries: England, Scotland and Wales – or four if you include Tooting Bec.

So, Andrew, what you are basically saying is that the theological issue regarding homosexuality boils down to a disagreement between those who think that the sodomy laws are part of Levitical code about cleanliness, holiness and ritual purity, which are not binding on Christians, and those who think that they are part of a more general moral law, which is. I guess I am. Gee. Its so simple when you put it like that. Why didnt the Archbishop of Canterbury explain it at the beginning and save us all a lot of trouble? I dont know. But if it turned out that he didnt think that understanding the relationship of the Old Testament to the New Testament was very important; or that he didnt think that the people in the pew really cared very much about the difference between Law and Grace, or if – if – he himself doesnt believe in it – then I would be very worried indeed.

Actually, it meant a great deal: a very great deal. You dont have to believe that God exists to see that a story in which God takes on human form is a very different story from one in which God creates a messenger and tells that messenger to take on human form. The Passion of the Christ is a different movie depending on whether you think the person being eviscerated is God or just some guy. Athanasius thought that it was God who hung on a cross for the world; Arius thought that it was a created being who was not God. This is not very little; this is very big. Granted, the Creeds put it in terms of Aristotelian theories about substance and essence: but there isnt much sense in complaining that technical documents are written in technical language if you are not prepared to pick up a standard work and look up what the words mean.

(Everyone, I guess, sees their position as the neutral one and everyone elses position as biassed. I wonder why 177 minutes of the Today programme is completely secular; you feel horribly excluded by 3 minutes of Thought for Today. I see a sinister anti-religious bias when David Attenborough goes through a whole series without ever once aying On the other hand maybe God made it all; you feel that 30 minutes of hymn singing on Sunday evening amounts to theocratic oppression.)