Posted on October 5, 2007 - by MG

The Brilliance of Professor Pete Simpson

When I’m privileged enough to hook up with my late Mummy’s old flame and good pal Pete Simpson, moral philosopher, Aristotelophile and Monty Python fan, I like to play Devil’s Advocate and ask him all those tricky questions that the brightest of my atheist friends ask me when we’re up late drinking and they start on at me about believing in God.

Here’s Peter’s answer to this old bugbear:

But how can any religion be true if each one says it’s the one true religion?

Well, that rather depends on whether truth is important in religion.

If you believe that religion is simply a cultural phenomenon, that we are chosen for any religion simply because of our circumstances and ethnic background, then whether any one is more true than another does not matter; religion, in this scenario, is merely a preference, like a cultural preference for vanilla ice cream. And so what does it matter? Why get involved, why comment, why bother, if the truth of any religion doesn’t actually matter?

But if you believe that truth IS important, well then you have a problem because you can’t simply dismiss any religion; before you dismiss it you have to work through the evidence, the historical and other claims made for each religion.

Contrary to popular belief, most believers don’t dismiss other religions. The truth has been revealed in many ways, to different people all over the world, has been understood in different ways but there is a huge area of commonality, the greatest one is probably this: we are answerable to something higher than ourselves for our conduct during our lives. Afterlife or no afterlife (and religions certainly don’t agree about the nature or existence of afterlife) – there will be reckoning.

I’m always amazed when atheists accuse the religious of using belief as a comfort. I’d take more comfort in knowing that I could misbehave ad infinitum with eternal impunity! And that’s another thing that amazes me about atheists. How come so many of them are so darn well-behaved, altruistic and generally lovely? (I wouldn’t be, I’m sure I’d be ever so wicked…)

As my Mexican grandfather, Agustin Reyes Ponce used to say, “Sea por Dios” (It’ll be God’s doing…)

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1. Professor Pete