During the horrific devastation of ‘Superstorm Sandy’, there was no evidence of “the infinite love and mercy of God” that priests are always preaching about. As the storm wreaked havoc, death and destruction across New York and New Jersey, God’s “guardian angels” were not very much in evidence either. God is only good for sunny days and for Sunday morning!

When disaster strikes, humans rush to help each other; there is no rush from God and his guardian angels to help humans and to prevent mass destruction and desolation. The day after a catastrophic storm or after an earthquake or a tsunami or some other “act of God”, the sun shines as if nothing had happened!

The time has come to discard archaic myths about God and his “guardian angels”. It’s time to acknowledge the fact that we live in an impersonal universe and that nature is all that there is. Even the intensely religious Blaise Pascal sensed the impersonal nature of the universe when he said to himself: “I am terrified by the eternal silence of these infinite spaces.”

In one of his poems, T.S. Eliot wrote “Humankind cannot bear very much reality.” I don’t think that religious believers will ever face facts and reality because, from the very beginning of their upbringing, they are indoctrinated to subdue their reason and to deny the evidence of their senses.

John Guillaumier

ST JULIAN’S