I've had more than one conversation over the years with so-called "Christians" who tell me that "you have to have faith" when I ask them how they'd persuade an atheist to believe in their god. As far as I'm concerned, if you can't give logical reasons for what you believe, then you ought to ask whether your beliefs are simply your "security blanket."

If it's simply a matter of choosing the beliefs that suit you, then there is the underlying implication that there can't really be a God, a Creator, a First Cause, because all these different beliefs are frequently at odds with each other. For example, if one person says that his or her god has three heads (This "mysterious" trinity that pervades the majority of so-called "Christian" religions, even though the book they claim to believe in makes no mention of such a thing, in fact, quite the opposite) and his neigbour asserts that her god is simply one mind, then they can't both actually be right now can they? It would really be like a religious Wallmart. Drop in, browse the shelves, select the beliefs you find comfort from and adhere to those.

This may seem fine if it's just something to help you get to sleep at night. But if there actually is a creator out there then there must be a truth about that person. It's logical, Captain Kirk. So, to return to my opening comments above. Do these people realise what they're actually saying when the assert that if you don't have what they call "faith," you can't understand their system of belief? They'll assert that this "faith" is a gift from their god. So then, what kind of god is it that dishes out this "faith" to the select few whilst leaving the rest of us to await certain destruction (or eternal torment according to quite a few) because for reasons beyond our comprehension, our loving creator decided that he wasn't inclined to make this gift to us too? Tell you what, you wouldn't catch me wanting to worship that kind of god anyway, whatever the consequences.

No, for me there has to be evidence to persuade me to adopt something to believe in. I was raised an evolutionist by the heavily biased school system in the UK. I was almost a fully-fledged adult before I realised I'd been persuaded to think I was seeing the King's new suit of clothing, when in fact "King" Evolution is quite naked. I came to the logical, scientific conclusion that there is design in the cosmos after evaluating the evidence humbly for myself instead of taking the supermarket goods the evolutionary textbooks had been handing me for years during my schooling.

So then, onward and upward I suppose. I'm going to check out the world's best selling book. I'll post my comments on it in due course. Meanwhile, happy shopping and keep your blanket washed and aired - it's only hygiene and common sense.