Novelist Christopher Brookmeyer has become the latest to leap onto the anti – God bandwagon, blaming not religion but faith for terrorism, suicide bombings and a host of other troubles from stinking drains to the impossibility of getting a decent pizza in Britain (cue lots of comments telling me where to get good pizzas, (Machiavelli is nothing if not cunning!)
Naturaly Brookmeyer has a new novel tp plug.

But he is way off target and his equating faith with belief in the irrational and ridiculous is not a supportable argument. So being the most irreligious person at blog.co.uk (probably) I am the ideal defender of Faith.

In the next few weeks millions of people will, in an enormoust act of faith, set off on a pilgrimage that will cost them a fortune in money, consume huge amounts of time, involve long periods of sustained physical discomfort and require them to endure personal abuse. Only their faith will sustain the certainty that this year their favoured team will sweep all before it to claim every available trophy / at least make a sustained challenge for one trophy / turn things round and spare loyal supporters the agony of another struggle against relegation. Such devotion requires a lot of faith.

Patients, religious or not, about to be wheeled into the operating theatre for major surgery must have faith in the skill of the surgeon and his support team. In fact this type of faith calls into doubt the whole premise of religion. If believers TRULY believed would they not be happy to leave things in God’s hands? Let’s see if we get any interesting answers on that point.

Every time most people get into a ‘plane to fly off to the sun it requires an enormous amount of faith in the aircraft designers and engineers. How many people truly understand the aircraft stays aloft because of the vacuum above the wings rather than the wind beneath them (cue music.) If passengers were told before the flight the only thing keeping tons of metal, plastic, flesh, blood, bone MP3 players and baggage from falling out of the sky was a hole in the rather thin (at 25000 feet) atmosphere, to how many would Bournemouth suddenly seem a really good option.

So Brookmeyer was wrong. Faith is not an indefensible belief in magic or primitive superstitions, everyday life is a series of acts of faith.