[from http://www.bbc.co.uk/]
The Archbishop of Westminster has urged Christians to treat atheists and agnostics with "deep esteem". Believers may be partly responsible for the decline in faith by losing sense of the mystery and treating God as a "fact in the world", he said in a lecture.
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor called for more understanding and appreciation between believers and non-believers.
The leader of Roman Catholics in England and Wales said that a "hidden God" was active in everyone's life. The Cardinal's lecture at Westminster Cathedral comes after a spate of public clashes over issues such as stem-cell research, gay adoption and faith schools. He expressed concern about the increasing unpopularity of the Christian voice in public life, saying: "Our life together in Britain cannot be a God-free zone and we must not allow Britain to become a world devoid of religious faith and its powerful contribution to the common good."
Proper talk about God is always difficult, always tentative. Last year, he complained of a "new secularist intolerance of religion" and the state's "increasing acceptance" of anti-religious views.
To stem this tide, he said Christians must understand they have something in common with those who do not believe.
God is not a "fact in the world" as though God could be treated as "one thing among other things to be empirically investigated" and affirmed or denied on the "basis of observation", said Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor. "If Christians really believed in the mystery of God, we would realise that proper talk about God is always difficult, always tentative. "I want to encourage people of faith to regard those without faith with deep esteem because the hidden God is active in their lives as well as in the lives of those who believe.
Of course Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor encouraging Christians to respect those who don't share their beliefs is admirable and he makes a very good point that Christians tend to talk about God as if his existence is an indisputable fact as opposed to a belief. In fact one can say that God clearly does exist in some form even if only as a manifestation of the Human psyche but the problem with Christians is that they claim to know God and God's nature. As we all know they go further to claim that a man was the literal son of God who was resurrected from death. These beliefs when considered rationally seem to say the least extremely improbable.Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor called for more understanding and appreciation between believers and non-believers.
The leader of Roman Catholics in England and Wales said that a "hidden God" was active in everyone's life. The Cardinal's lecture at Westminster Cathedral comes after a spate of public clashes over issues such as stem-cell research, gay adoption and faith schools. He expressed concern about the increasing unpopularity of the Christian voice in public life, saying: "Our life together in Britain cannot be a God-free zone and we must not allow Britain to become a world devoid of religious faith and its powerful contribution to the common good."
Proper talk about God is always difficult, always tentative. Last year, he complained of a "new secularist intolerance of religion" and the state's "increasing acceptance" of anti-religious views.
To stem this tide, he said Christians must understand they have something in common with those who do not believe.
God is not a "fact in the world" as though God could be treated as "one thing among other things to be empirically investigated" and affirmed or denied on the "basis of observation", said Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor. "If Christians really believed in the mystery of God, we would realise that proper talk about God is always difficult, always tentative. "I want to encourage people of faith to regard those without faith with deep esteem because the hidden God is active in their lives as well as in the lives of those who believe.
The implausibility of the Christian belief system is the most likely reason for the "decline in faith " that the Cardinal refers to. As science and technology become ever more advanced and the general population gain greater knowledge of the universe and our place in it, less and less of them continue to be convinced by religious teaching. It becomes more and more apparent that Christianity and other religions are man made for the purpose of manipulation and control.
It seems ridiculous that the Cardinal should complain about secularist intolerance of religion and the increasing unpopularity of the Christian voice in public life. Christianity lacks serious credibility and should certainly not be tolerated as a source of authority in matters of government and law. It is a personal belief that individuals may choose to follow as a means of enabling their spiritual development and no more than that. In my view the spiritual journey can be better advanced through secularist means and through Buddhism than by theism.
Hopefully the days of Church influencing State are coming to an end.
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