I like Richard Dawkins.
Qualifier. I like some things about Richard Dawkins.

He’s a well-known atheist and author of many best sellers, probably the most touted being The God Delusion. He’s also one of those behind the British Atheist Bus Campaign, aimed to convey “peaceful and upbeat” messages about atheism.

I like the way he won’t abide, what he calls, sloppy thinking – letting wishful thinking change our beliefs. To show what I mean, here’s a paraphrased interview he gave:

GUY ASKING QUESTIONS: “Richard Dawkins, many people believe that no after-life makes this life seem bleak and meaningless. “
DORKFACE: (I don’t think Richard Dawkins is a dork, but Dorkface is more fun to write)“Is that a question?” Jokes he didn’t say that. “First of all, I don’t believe no after-life makes this life bleak. Not at all. This life can still be meaningful on its own terms. And secondly, even if it did, so what? It is what it is. Deal with it. That doesn’t give us license to make up stuff, so we feel better.”
Bottom line – the reason we believe in an afterlife must be because it’s true, not because we need it to be. And because of this way of thinking, although we end up at different points, the way he argues challenges me.

I love listening to clever people argue. It’s one of my favourite things to do. I would choose it over a lot of other things like, uhm, listening to stupid people argue.
“That’s not true.”
“Tis!”
“’Tisn’t.”
“’Tis x infinity!”
“’Tisn’t x infinity plus 1”

We lived in London for 14 years, and alot of my dinner times were spent listening to my quick-witted friends debate stuff. My li’l- Fi -brain -from- Fish- Hoek was on constant standby for lift off. I loved it. Why? Because intelligent people talk about fascinating subjects. (Actually, even average stuff sounds, as Joey from Friends would say, wisdomous, when it comes booted with the Blighty twang.) Usually, with candles spluttering and last fruit bomb quaffed, genteel correctness would take its leave. Ever seen a toff give it welly? He uses words. (I say “he” because the women remained, uhm, nice). Posh blokes? Masters of the derisory.
“That’s utterly gormless. How in this world can you believe that?” “It’s bordering on idiocy -sixes and sevens logic not dissimilar to that buffoon, Blair’s”
“Stone the crows. I do believe James has snookered himself!”
It’s heady stuff. Don’t be deceived by the Ralphy and the Brogues. They’re a brutal breed. Robust too.Being well thought through makes them so.

You know what else I like about my clever friends in London? They don’t avoid those who think differently to them. Their way of thinking is similar to scientists, who use a method called falsifiability, to explore all possible alternative explanations for the evidence. Straight after you’ve proved something, you try think up ways to disprove it. It’s the definition of open minded.
In the same way, my London chums lack of fear about being wrong, is exactly what makes them such robust thinkers. And merciless probers of others’ ideas.
The opposite happens when we’re not sure. We stick to our own kind. Again, science has a name for it – resonance. You match my thinking, and reinforce it. We start off with the same ideas and egg each other on.
That’s no way to learn. And my gosh, there’s a lot to learn.

I wanna be like that. Thought through. Fearless.
Sometimes I feel like I’ve gotten there.
Here’s me, in the CERTAIN corner. Being certain. Saunter. Wise nod. Then life happens. Something shifts. Just for a moment I’m off balance. Marginally, but there’s a missed beat. Life goes well again, I’m back to CERTAIN. Then it happens again, and I find myself in the “SO -SO, SORT OF” corner.A few knocks later I’m in the “HANGING BY A THREAD” corner. One final shove and I’m the cynical stand-in for the “WHAT ARE YOU ON?” huddle.
What happened?
Experience falsified my belief. Proved me -it- wrong. Or, at least, that’s how I interpreted it.

Some of us do make it back to the “SO-SO,SORT-OF” corner. Belief survives. But beauty doesn’t just survive. It shines.

Which got me thinking of the one really, really -difficult- to -believe- thing, that, a lot of cleverest -of -clever people believe. (Myself included. The believe part, not the clever part. lol). And even when people go through the worst stuff imaginable, a lot of them still hold onto this really-difficult -to -believe – thing.

And when I say clever, I mean the glitterati of clever. Because it’s helpful to know not only dumbos believe this stuff. Geniuses do too.
John Polkinghorne is one. A genius, not a dumbo. Who believes the difficult- to- believe- thing. Check him out. Previously a Professor of Physics at Cambridge, he’s been knighted and is the author of a ton of books (okay, half a ton). If you’re the kind who likes understanding cool things like how physics explains how prayer works, John’s your man. OK, so if you read that really fast, here it is again. The way the world works- physics – makes allowance for prayer. That’s surreal. Loads of atheists say they can’t accept the supernatural intervening in our world because the physical laws of the universe don’t allow for it. But, John says, they do. I know. I KNOW!! I get so excited in my little library reading this stuff, my husband has to bring me a Valium. Jokes. But I do use all my coloured highlighters and coloured paper clips and my hand gets kind of blurry with all the fast and furious underlining. There’s a lot of excited “YESES” (how do you spell that?), urgent scribbling and page- back-and -frothing. Sorry, forthing. Hubby says I should rather just highlight and paperclip the unimportant parts and pages, cos that’d be quicker. No words. Anyway, we don’t let cynical BAD HUNS get to us, I mean those NUBS HAD better zip it…. SPELLCHECK! BEHAVE! I mean husbands…sigh, whatever.
Like I tell my kids – adventures of the mind: EPICNESS. (Thanks Jen 😊)

One more clever dude who believes? Quickly?
DERRIERE! THESE ARE BIG NAMES- LOOK LIVELY!
Sir Francis Collins. He’s top of the pops clever and the director of the Human Genome Project to boot. Yes, genome. As in DNA. As in the most byzantine type of thinking out there (I’m using big words in case Sir Collins google searcheshis name and my blog pops up 🙂 ) It means complicated.

There’s also a lot of really clever people who find it really difficult to believe that a lot of the cleverest-of -clever people believe this really -difficult-to- believe-thing.
So, it gets fought over. A lot. Center stage, top debaters of the world kind of wrangling.

Any guesses?
God is good and powerful, but still allows suffering in the world.
In the words of DIY Suzelle, “There’s it”

In the main, let’s agree: suffering sucks.
Duh. You can see I ‘ve been hanging around my clever friends, right? (And in the main, those who don’t agree, are masochists).
And good and powerful is not meant to suck. It’s meant to be good, and do powerful things. Like stopping things that suck from sucking.
That’s what those who don’t believe in a good and powerful God say. He should do. If He existed. Which He doesn’t. That’s what they say.
They try to sound fancy with fancy logic, which goes like this:

An all good and all-powerful God would put an end to suffering in the world.
He doesn’t (end suffering) therefore He isn’t (good, powerful or both)
Follow their fancy logic:

A good powerful god would not want “not good” things happening.
So, he would stop “not good” things happening.
Makes sense.
If it was a math equation it would look like this.
Good + Powerful = No suffering.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, Dear Reader, Derriere, is exactly the problem.
It’s not a maths equation. It’s God.
The logic holds but it’s not that simple.

Let’s call the guy “who -doesn’t- believe- in -a -good- powerful- god but -says- how -the -good-powerful – god- he -doesn’t -believe -in-should -act” Buttface. It’s shorter than writing “the -guy- who -doesn’t- believe- in -a -good- powerful- god- but -says- how -the -good-powerful – god- he -doesn’t -believe -in-should -act”.
Actually, that’s abit offensive. Sorry Buttface. Still, gonna stick with it. It’s meant affectionately.
And, to be fair to Buttface, he’s doing the best he can. Good logic Buttface. Back you.
And to be even more fair (fairer?) to Buttface, he probably embarked on this journey because he did really want to try understanding this very- difficult- to- believe- thing.
So, he’s used what he has, to think this very- difficult- to -believe- thing through.

What does Buttface have? Besides a face that looks like a butt?
Well, what we all have. An aversion to suffering, and limited understanding. (Sorry Buttface, it’s not personal)
Aversion to suffering, means Buttface, like all of us (masochists excluded), doesn’t wanna suffer. Let’s call it the best thing that could happen to Buttface, or ‘Buttface’s best thing” . No suffering. And because he thinks so, he thinks God should think so too. And not only think so, do so.
If you want to flip if you could say the worst thing that could happen to Buttface is, getting a mirror. Jokes. The worse thing that could happen to Buttface is to suffer. Like I said, get a mirror. ROFLACGU.

To Buttface, “good” means “no suffering”.
That’s not what “good” means to God.

With me? Hang in there Derriere. Back you. Home strait now.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying a good powerful God doesn’t care about suffering. He does. Massively. Most of it ,when it’s senseless and evil, He hates. Hates. HATES.
What I am saying is that God’s best thing is not the same as Buttface’s. Did I actually just write that sentence? But you get it right? God’s got a different best thing for us, that He IS using His goodness and power for.

So, what’s God’s “best thing” for us?
Well, that brings us to the 2nd thing that Buttface has. Limited Understanding. Very. Limited.
I mean for starters this guy doesn’t even know he’s upside down.
OK, so Limited Understanding means Buttface leaves stuff out (gaps in his thinking). And he gets stuff wrong (garbage in his thinking). Or, cracks and crap in his thinking. Oh, you walked right into that one. I mean what’s a girl to do – just sit there and think it?

A good, top of his game, Olympian swimming coach, would stop his swimmers suffering in training.
He doesn’t stop their suffering, so he isn’t good, or top of his game

A good, rich mother would bail her miscreant son out of jail when he did something wrong.
She doesn’t bail him out of jail, so she isn’t good, or rich.

The logic holds,but …..
Is the swimmer’s tough training programme necessary for him to become a champion? Absolutely. Without it, he won’t – can’t – BECOME great.
His trainer knows this.

Is the boy’s jail time a natural consequence of his wrong choices? Absolutely.
Without learning that his actions have consequences, he’ll never BECOME a man.
His mother knows this.

Buttface says:
If God is good, HE WANTS TO STOP anything not good.
If God is powerful, HE WILL STOP anything not good.

What if, instead, it read like this?
Because God is good, HE WANTS US TO BE BECOME good.
Because God is powerful, HE WANTS US TO BE BECOME powerful.
….and there’s no shortcut to that……

Could the secret to God’s “best thing” for us, be hidden in all the best things in God?
There’s it.