Transcript

Winifred Robinson

Hello. I’m Winifred Robinson. Welcome to the audio recordings for Book 2. First, here’s Timothy Chappell, the author of Book 2.

Timothy Chappell

From the beginning of history, one way human beings have tried to make sense of the world around them and their own lives, is through religion. And religion is just as pervasive a force in the world today as at any other time in history.

Music

Timothy Chappell

There are lots of burning questions about religion and about God of course. Perhaps you have some of your own. ‘Does God exist?’ is the most basic one. Could there be any evidence showing that God exists? Why is there evil in the world? Here are some of these questions.

‘Yeah, I mean I suppose I do think about it. I mean is there any sort of evidence that God even exists? Shouldn’t we just have faith to believe in religion or do we need some kind of evidence I suppose?’

‘Yeah, probably. I mean if you’re not religious does that make you a bad person? Can you be a good person without being religious?’

‘What I can’t understand is why so many people around the world still believe in God when there is no evidence that he exists. And we are not just talking about ill-educated people believing. I mean look at America.’

‘Well, they all say that he’s – he will help the poor and that but, yeah, all this stuff that’s happening like there’s poverty, and all these wars going on, and there’s like tsunamis and that. And it doesn’t look like he’s helping. Actually you kind of want to think like is he really out there to help us?’

‘I guess one thing I’d question is the relationship between governments and societies like and should a particular government base their policies on a particular religion?’

‘Every day I read a newspaper. Every day is one of murder – teen-age murder – why? That’s my question. Why does God … against violent?’

‘Jews or Muslims basically they believe in one God but they still argue. They are still saying how their religion is even better even though they still believe in exactly the same thing, which is God basically.’

‘I’m a Hindu and I pray daily and I was just wondering if God is actually listening to what I’m asking or just thinking about it.’

Timothy Chappell

Some of the questions you’ve just heard are philosophical questions. Others are not philosophical in quite the same way. But many of these are questions that the greatest philosophers who ever lived devoted their attention to.