God or Delusion?
This lecture addresses some of the most basic questions that people are asking today. Is there really a God? Or is God just a figment of our collective imagination (as some claim)? Is God real or delusion? Fact or fiction?
The lecture provides solid and scientific grounds for faith
In an increasingly secular society, it has become fashionable in certain quarters to dismiss belief in God as mere superstition based on primitive myths. The lecture provides solid and scientific grounds for faith by uprooting misconceptions about God and revealing a more believable, reliable and dependable God, and the practical healing power available to us all. The listener is introduced to some radical new concepts that enable him to:
- Learn ways to test our beliefs about God and to turn blind belief into spiritual understanding.
- Explore a more inclusive and universal concept of God, that is credible in a scientific age.
- Discover the power of healing prayer to prove for oneself that God does indeed exist
Recent authors such as Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion) and Sam Harris (The End of Faith) have argued that religious belief is misguided even dangerous. Extremism certainly can be dangerous, but does religion really need to be jettisoned as these authors suggest? This lecture shows that the real problem is not religion or God per se, but the misuse and abuse of religion arising from misconceptions about God.
This lecture shows that the real problem is not religion or God per se, but the misuse and abuse of religion arising from misconceptions about God.
Having established that a more correct concept of God is of crucial importance to global stability and peace, the lecture goes on to explore the actual nature of God. Among other things, the lecture shows the fallacy of tribal and anthropomorphic concepts of god in which one nation or group of people is favoured at the expense of another. And instead reveals God as universal Love.
The lecture is very much about getting to know God better, and looks to two spiritual teachers (whose remarkable careers proved they knew God really well) as guides. From Christ Jesus we learn (for example) that understanding God and our tender relationship to this divine Parent has practical healing results. We see how Mary Baker Eddy underpinned the concept of God as Love, with the scientific concept of God as divine Principle.
The lecture tackles the problem of evil head on: if God is good and all-powerful, how can evil exist? Explains the radical solution presented by Christian Science: that ultimately sin, sickness and death are illusions or delusions; showing the Biblical basis in Christ Jesus’ teaching that the devil is a liar and father of lies, and Paul’s advice about “casting down imaginations”. Examples from the Lecturer’s own experience and healing practice show the practical application of this to everyday challenges.
The lecture ends as it began, asking “God or delusion?”. But now instead of being merely an intellectual enquiry “is God real or a delusion”, it becomes a question of “Choose Ye”. What are we accepting as real? God’s view or a deluded material sense based view? The practical healing power of making the right choice is brought out. Thus the audience can leave with practical spiritual tools to prove for themselves, through healing, that God is indeed alive and well!
