The Alpha Course - Session 3: How Can We Have Faith?

I'm not going to lie: I'm finding these sessions excruciatingly uncomfortable. Not because the people there are unpleasant; quite the opposite. In fact, they're all really nice.

There is a clear and distinct difference between skepticism and cynicism that people sometimes muddle, and it's a fine line that we often tread. I take great pride in my skeptical approach, taking care not to fall into the trap of cynicism, but I'm not too proud to admit that I sometimes falter. With regards to the truth value of the claims of Christianity, I think I've already given it enough thought and careful consideration to be able to rationally, confidently and justifiably dismiss them as false, or - at the very least - not worthy of belief. My beliefs about the church itself, however, may be a little trickier to justify. So I'm taking a slight step back tonight. The moment I become a cynic is the moment that all my integrity falls away.

At the beginning of this week's session, we walked into the dining area where dinner was served, as is the case every week. For the first time, I hadn't come alone. My friend Martin decided - having read my previous posts - that he was intrigued and wanted to also come along to see what it was all about. Martin, like me, is a hard line skeptic/atheist, and this just made me feel even more conspicuous among the group of people "searching for something in their lives".

Why the sudden concern about my attitude? Alongside the group of Alpha attendees were a small number of homeless people who the course leaders had also invited in to eat with us. Having made food for everybody, they obviously decided it would be nice to do something good for the less fortunate.
These are clearly good, charitable people. They obviously have good intentions and are kind and caring. To be honest, I expected nothing less.

But when the dinner is over and the talk begins I just feel sad. I don't feel annoyed or angry, just sad and a little frustrated. The speaker tonight is a woman who had actually been sitting and chatting with us over dinner just a few minutes before. She told us all about herself, how she'd become a Christian in 1996 and when she'd taken the step of faith. She made reference to verses from the Bible (verses that, at present, I'm unable to reference as I've misplaced my course guide, but I'll add them in a future edit) about how Jesus only comes into your life if you invite him in. She told another series of stories that didn't really seem to go anywhere. And at the end of it all, her conclusion was: you just need to have faith.
Her talk culminates with a prayer, which she asks us all to take part in, bowing our heads and closing our eyes. To be honest, I was feeling tired anyway, so the opportunity to shut my eyes for a moment without seeming rude was quite welcome, but when it's over and we have a few minutes break for coffee, I feel like this has all been a total washout. It becomes clear that they're not even trying to convince people, they're instead working with people who are eager to be convinced and ready to try anything. These people on the course aren't being misled against their will, they're here because they're not seeking truth, they're seeking fantasy and comfort.

I may be wrong! Perhaps some people here do care as passionately about the truth as I do, but are less critically minded and unable to discern good evidence from bad. Either way, I'm very much out of place.

I go into the discussion group with a sense of dread. At the end of the talk, I want to go home, but Martin says he wants to stay and see more, so I reluctantly stick around.
I'm actually glad I stayed, because I was able to say a few words in the discussion group that made me feel better.
This being the third week in, I was much more comfortable with laying all my cards out on the table and being completely frank and honest about my position and my beliefs. The question was thrown out towards the group: what kind of changes have you seen in yourself or in others when they have come into faith? A couple of people answered that they'd seen changes in their family members who had moved toward faith, describing the positive effect it'd had, and it was here where I felt myself becoming more and more eager to speak. It was difficult to find the courage at first but eventually, just as I could sense that the topic was about to change, I couldn't hold it in anymore.
"Umm... I'm going to have to buck the trend slightly and tell a bit of a different story. I've never considered myself to be a believer in any religion, or in having any kind of supernatural beliefs in general, but I think it would be fair to say that my investigations and musings on religious beliefs in recent years has had quite a profound effect on me. The deeper I delve, the more I study, the more confident I become in my position that... I believe there is no God. I have no emotional attachment to, or investment in, that belief, and if it turns out that I'm wrong then so be it, but what I have become passionate about is a method of thinking and a way of coming to my beliefs. Since I've done that, I've been able to feel comfortable in a certain identity I have of myself that has given me a feeling of self-respect that I would say had been lacking in the years before that kind of... turning point."
The group leader quite graciously listens and acknowledges what I say. She's obviously heard this before and can clearly see that I'm not trying to be rude or disrespectful to anybody else's beliefs. Everybody knows exactly where I stand now and I feel far more at ease.

As the discussion goes on, people continue to share the personal experiences that had led them towards their beliefs, and I sit and listen. We here people tell of times they'd heard stories of people seeing ghosts; a feeling of being surrounded by angels; prayers being answered etc. One of the Alpha attendees, who had earlier identified himself as Anglican, seemed to be giving me evil stares since my declaration of the joy that a complete rejection of God had given me, and smug looks when people described seemingly unexplainable phenomena... though it's quite possible that I'm just being paranoid and he was doing nothing of the sort.

At the end of the discussion, the course leader invited me to comment on anything I'd heard brought up. I don't think it was a direct challenge along the lines of "Explain that then, Mr Smartypants skeptic!" but I declined to comment, smiled and said, no, I have nothing to say about that.

The truth is, I did have something to say about all that, I just couldn't see the point in bringing it up. The truth is that the psychology of belief is something that has fascinated me immensely for a long time, and I've looked into it... there was nothing described in the discussion group that couldn't be explained by well understood psychological phenomena such as hypnagogia, or sleep paralysis, or logical fallacies such as the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, confirmation bias and cherry-picking.

Leaving the course that night left me feeling sad on two levels: for myself and for the people who are "searching".

I'll finish off this post by seemingly going off topic and talking about the X Factor (bear with me, it's relevant).
How often do you see somebody attend the auditions on X Factor, telling the judges that they're there because they've always dreamed of being a singer and that "all their friends" tell them that they have a "really good voice"... only to open their mouth and reveal themselves to be completely tone deaf? Happens pretty often, right?
To me, the Alpha Course attendees are like those people attending the audition, and the course leaders are like the friends behind the scenes. They tell people - with the best intentions - that they have a good voice, because they think that that's what they want to hear, that it'll make them happy, and that it'll give them a reason to feel good about themselves.
The problem is, what they're being told isn't true, and that's a problem because if you believe something that isn't true it informs your decisions and your actions, and leads you to be humiliated on national TV. Then along comes Simon Cowell who pays you the ultimate respect by telling you the truth. No, you can't sing.
Of course, we all see Simon Cowell, or the skeptic, as the bad guy, the meanie who doesn't care about how you feel. But if people had been honest with you in the first place, would you have given up your job and driven yourself into debt chasing an impossible dream, or found yourself in The Sun under mocking headlines?

I'll leave you with that thought.

The Alpha Course - Session 2: Why Did Jesus Die?

The song "Creep" by Radiohead contains the line "What the hell am I doing here? I don't belong here." I have to admit, that song was going round and round my head through this session. What am I doing here?

I thought I knew what I was doing here, or at least I thought I knew what the Alpha Course was all about, but now I'm not so sure. You've all seen the posters, they're everywhere. For those of you who haven't, the posters read "Does God exist?" followed by three tick-boxes labelled "Yes", "No" and "Probably". This implies - to me, at least - that they're appealing to agnostics. The advertising is based around uncertainty, so I would expect the course to be somewhat structured around an attempt to show that the stories in the Bible are true, that God does exist, and that Jesus Christ is "the way, the truth and the light." But it doesn't do this. It begins with the assumption that it is true, and then goes from there, teaching you about Jesus and how you should live your life. At no point do they even attempt to convince you that it's true, they just take it as given.

OK wait, wait, I'm being unfair, they do make some effort to show that it's true. In the Bible, Jesus says - explicitly - that he's the son of God. What more proof do you need?

This should be ringing alarm bells with everybody, setting off everybody's inbuilt bullshit-detectors that God (or Nature, you decide) instilled in all of us. It's the same device that makes you say "yeah right!" when somebody tells you they've got a 12-inch... umm... something.... err... big toe (phew, just managed to save this from going into the gutter), but won't take their shoe off to show you.
Ring-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling... that's my bullshit-detector going off!

Surely, if this room is filled with agnostics, atheists and/or skeptics then their bullshit-detectors must be going off too, right? These course leaders must really be ready to deal with any question we could throw at them, right?

At the end of the main course-leader's talk about why Jesus died, everybody applauds, but I'm left completely bemused! That was not an impressive speech, it was a series of stories, allegories and anecdotes, some of which may have had some interesting meanings or messages behind them, but others simply told us that we're all unclean, immoral people who need to ask for forgiveness. Not forgiveness from the people we may have wronged, which would be understandable, but from God, who he has still not even given us any reason to believe even exists yet!

So why is everybody clapping???

The answer, when it comes, is so obvious I'm surprised I didn't think of it before. After his speech, I turn to the guy sitting next to me and we strike up a conversation. He seems like a nice, friendly guy and for the purpose of this blog we'll simply call him "Joe" because... well... that was his name. Joe asks what I do for a living (firstly asking if I'm a student - apparently I still look young enough), where I'm from, you know the kind of thing. I can't recall what he said he does, but he also tells me that he helps out a lot at the cathedral. Ahhh, now things are making sense. I ask if he's involved in running the course. Nope, he's just another attendee, like me. He just also happens to help out a lot at the cathedral and be a regular churchgoer. Interesting.

The next person I speak to introduces himself to me, another friendly guy who asks the usual questions. I ask him what brought him to the Alpha Course and he explains that he is a Christian who wants to come and learn a bit more about the faith. He introduces me to his friend, another Alpha attendee, who is also a Christian. He asks if I am a Christian and I say no, I don't identify myself as such, I'm just here to see what the course is about. I am keeping a very open mind, if they're able to give me any reason to believe it, but until then I stick to the null hypothesis.

This was when I started getting "Creep" stuck in my head. What the hell am I doing here?

When we separate into our groups, I find that some members of last week's group aren't present this week and some new members have joined the ranks. As a second ice-breaker, to expand on last week and to include the newer members, we are asked to each introduce ourselves and, this time, say why we're here for the course. It turns out that three of the attendees are actively involved in the church, two are on the Alpha course for the second time (a married couple, who took the Alpha Course a few years ago in order to be allowed to marry in church and decided to come back. They both wear cross pendants), one guy who is not actively involved but who considers himself a Christian already and wants to find out more. And then there's me.

Well, that explains the clapping.

It's during this set of introductions that I honestly and frankly state that I don't consider myself to be a believer but that religion has long fascinated me. I've never been able to understand why people believe something that I don't seem to be able to. Having seen the advertisements, I was curious to see what it was all about.

I've actually left one person out, but I've done that deliberately because she, to me, was the most interesting one. The last member of the group was a lady who said she was "giving religion a try". I won't hazard a guess at her age, but she's what I would call a more mature woman. Over 21. Her husband died recently and he was always very involved with the church, but despite that, she'd never really been a believer herself. Maybe it was the loss of her husband, maybe it's something else, but she seemed as though she had tried and tried for much of her life to believe but just couldn't make herself. The lack of anything empirical or logical left her wishing that she could find something to believe in, but based on what's available, it's just impossible for her. I think we may become friends as the course goes on.

The group discussion, led by the group leader, is staggering in it's weakness of argument. Before coming on the Alpha Course I was slightly worried that I may end up brainwashed into believing. Maybe somebody might say something that really set a thought off in my head leading to a leap of faith. These people are lifetime devotees to Christianity after all, I would expect them to have some sort of semi-believable argument or philosophy, but the vacuousness of their arguments is mind-boggling!
One woman in the group asks the question that if Jesus died for our sins - and we've all sinned - then does that mean that we are saved? What about people who have committed really bad sins, like robbers and murderers?
The group leader refers to Jesus' conversation with one of the two robbers who was crucified next to him.

And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, "If thou be Christ, save thyself and us." But the other answering rebuked him, saying, "Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss." And he said unto Jesus, "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom." And Jesus said unto him, "Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise."

- Luke 23:39-43

What does this mean? Well apparently, according to the Alpha Course, it means that if you steal, ie. break the 8th commandment, you can still get to heaven if you recognise Jesus for who he is and ask his forgiveness. Well what about the 6th commandment, "Thou shalt not kill." Are we let off this one if we recognise Jesus as the son of God and ask his forgiveness?

It brings up obvious questions that I just have to ask: "Is there such a thing as being 'beyond salvation', where you commit crimes so bad that no amount of repenting of sin can be forgiven? What about acts of genocide? Could Hitler go to heaven if he repented at the last minute, like the thief on the cross?"

I know what you're thinking: why am I bothering with all this? Where does it get me? Nowhere! You can't expect a reasonable, logical explanation from religion, that's not what it's about. I'm banging my head against a granite wall and it's totally, totally pointless.

As I leave, that song goes through my head again. WHY am I coming to this course?

I'm just so damn curious!

Next week: How Can We Have Faith?

The Alpha Course - Session 1: Who is Jesus?

Well imagine my dismay at learning, on my arrival, that there was an "Introductory Session" last week entitled "Is There More To Life Than This?" It turns out, I'm a week late.

Ah fuck it, I'm here for the meat of it, so let's see what it has to offer.

Sitting in my parked car outside the church, I felt very nervous. If I was going to be intellectually honest here, I would be sure to rock the boat and, while it's no secret that I have a... hmm... I don't think 'contempt' would be too strong a word... for religion, I do have a very strong sense of love for people. I empathise very easily and I know that when my turn comes to ask questions, I may offend people or not be true to myself. The latter of those two choices was, to be honest, simply not an option. So in we go.

It almost makes matters worse when you step through the door and are instantly greeted by overwhelming friendliness from the course coordinaters A very enthusiastic man writes "Blake" on a sticky label for me to attach to the front of my shirt, and the next person I meet instantly refers to me by name as though we've been old friends for years. We've never spoken before.

It's kinda nice, but I feel undeniably awkward. I'm then shown into the "dining area" where food will be served shortly, and we're sat at tables amongst a group of people we've never met, though we all have name badges. Conversation flows relatively easily and the food is delicious.
My personal sense of uneasiness comes from my unwillingness to ask the question of others around me "So why are you here for the Alpha Course?" I don't want to find out just yet who is a skeptic like me, and who leans more towards belief. I'm also somewhat unwilling to reveal my own personal motive for taking part. We'll let that reveal itself as the course progresses.

After dinner we move to a room where all the seats are in rows, very much like a church set-up. The first speaker begins with his talk entitled "Who Is Jesus?"
I'm instantly struck by the framing of the question: present tense. Who is Jesus? Is? Don't you mean was?
I have no problem accepting the possibility that Jesus really lived about 2,000 years ago. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. But by placing the word "is" in the sentence implies an unquestioned underlying assumption that has yet to be proved: Jesus is still alive.
This course, as far as I understand it, is designed to bring agnostics to faith. You can't, therefore expect the people you are preaching to to begin with the assumption that what you're trying to demonstrate is true.
I let that slide, because the first word that the speaker says that catches my ear is "evidence". OK, now we're getting somewhere... what is this evidence? He reads a quote from Josephus, a Jewish historian from the time, who spoke of Jesus living and being "The Christ".
OK, that's fine. I'm not quite sure what that means, but OK. This doesn't cement it for me, there are too many questions about the reliability of the writings that go unanswered for a start, but even if we accept that Jesus did exist, it goes no way towards evidence for his divinity.

Am I getting tedious?

I certainly wasn't being tedious at the time. As he spoke, I sat and listened with the rest of the people gathered. Occasionally, I was a little bugged by the inanity of the statements he made, drifting off every now and then, but I went along with it. Give the man a chance to speak.

Now, he asks... how reliable are the written accounts of what happened at the time?
One inappropriate method of demonstrating the readiness of historians to believe the accounts of some historical documents and not others was by comparing the written accounts of the life of Jesus with written accounts of other historical events, such as Caesar's Gallic War from around 60-50BCE. The earliest known copy we have of original documents dates to around 900CE - a time lapse of nearly 1,000 years! Yet the earliest copies we have of the New Testament date from around 130CE, less than 100 years after they were originally written. This, he suggests, implies that these accounts are probably more accurate since there has been less time for them to be distorted.

If we ignore the fact that, in the modern world, we see every single day examples of the details of events being drastically distorted by the media within minutes of the events actually happening, there is a more important distinction between the subject matter of the reported events. Wars, as we know, happen. There is a great deal of corroborating physical evidence supporting the theory that Caesar's Gallic War took place. We don't claim to know much detail about it, but it's certainly feasible. What we don't see on a daily basis, around the world, is virgins giving birth, people turning water into wine, people coming back from the dead etc. Are we supposed to just accept it because a book says so? Josephus, as it happens, doesn't speak of Jesus the son of a virgin, or Jesus the miracle healer of the sick, but of Jesus the person. Probably just a person who lived and died like the rest of us.

I'm ranting now. Moving on.

Then came our first "group session". We separated into small groups containing about eight Alpha Course attendees and one coordinater and helper to further discuss the question "Who is Jesus?" (Oh boy!)

Introductions are made and we go through a short ice-breaker (What would you save from your house if it was on fire?) question session. Next, we're asked about any experiences we may have had that might have led us to look into joining the Alpha Course. One woman describes an experience where a friend of hers described seeing the ghost of her grandfather on the night that her grandmother was dying. Another guy describes an out of body experience he had when he was younger. I can understand why these people are moved by these experiences, but these are all subjects that I've encountered from my layman's study of psychology. I'm unmoved.
Next we hear from a girl who describes a truly horrific childhood, which is upsetting to listen to. She's a very passionate Christian already (so I'm not sure why she's here, but I guess we all have our own reasons and maybe we'll find out as the sessions go on) and says that she feels her faith has helped her move through all that. It's a truly sad moment that makes me consider my own position: I've had a pretty comfortable upbringing, a loving family, good friends and no fear of abuse or living in desolation. How can I identify with somebody who's gone through this. Surely that's gotta affect your perception of things, but who's to say whether it has a distorting effect, or that it forces you to find clarity?

I don't volunteer to talk about why I'm taking part in the course.

The final section addresses a specific passage in the Bible.

Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty." - John 6:35

We're asked to discuss what we think Jesus meant when he said this. People offer all kinds of their own interpretations.
"Jesus meant that belief in him is like food for the soul."
"We need bread, or food, every day to survive. We can't just eat bread once, because after that we starve. Jesus is saying that to gain eternal life, we have to have a relationship with him every day."
"Just as bread can satisfy our hunger, Jesus can satisfy our hunger for love."

It's at this point that the course coordinater decides that I've been silent for too long, and directs the question squarely at me. Time for the discussion to take another twist.

"As far as I can see," I say, "it seems that as we sit here discussing what Jesus meant in these words, we can come up with countless 'theories' about what he's getting at. And for some reason, even when the meanings are contrary to each other, we nod in agreement to every statement. I could now say anything about what I think he meant by this. But this would tell you nothing about Jesus, it would only tell you something about me, about the way that I think. The statement is so metaphorical that it becomes meaningless."

"Then what would you say if a friend of yours," she asks me, "came to you one day and said 'I am the bread of life.'"

This seems utterly irrelevant. "Well, that would raise certain issues: firstly, it would plainly demonstrate that it doesn't take a divine being to be able to make statements like this. Secondly, if a friend said this to me, I would be in a position to ask directly 'What do you mean? Explain yourself.' I can't do this with Jesus. His words are so ambiguous that without any further explanation we can get nothing from them about his intended meaning. We can only get our own meaning from them. So why do we need Jesus?"

The coordinator then tries to draw an analogy by asking us all to look at a chair. We can all see it from slightly different angles, some of us see the left of it, some see the right, others see the front. "If we each describe what we can see of the chair, none of us are wrong, we just see things from a different point of view." Everybody nods in agreement.
I spot the logical fallacy instantly. "There's a big problem with that analogy. This chair is passive. It's just there, being a chair. It's not trying to communicate with us, it's not trying to express a point. My point of view of it is just as valid as anybody else's. The way I see it can't be 'wrong', as such. But if Jesus is trying to say something specific in his metaphor - and there's no way for us to discern whether his message was meant to be either specific or vague - then my understanding can very much be wrong. That's not a very useful analogy."

OK, let's step it up a gear...

"Not only that," I continue, "but what we're reading here is John's account of what Jesus said. Words written from John's memory, more than likely written long after Jesus' death. Is it not possible that he may have misremembered the exact words Jesus used? Maybe Jesus did say something about the bread of life, but the wording may be fudged slightly. If we're supposed to infer from this that Jesus was the son of God, then that's a staggering warping of logic."


Now to hit you with an extra little thing to think about... I'm writing about things that I said. But is this exactly, word for word, what I said when we were there? No, of course not. I'm remembering some things but not others. How often can you remember exactly what was said in conversations you've had?

Yet somehow, a written account from a third party is supposed to be undeniable evidence that Jesus did all his miracles and now we're all going to be looked after by God in the sky forever and ever, Amen?

Holy shit! You can take that literally.


Next week: Why Did Jesus Die?

TV Star Psychic Roadshow

I've just been friend requested on facebook by somebody called "TVstar Psychic-Roadshow"

Their profile states "In 2010 we are going to perform and read in over 100 towns and cities across Britain! We will be reading tarot, crystal ball, rune stones & showcasing stage mediumship! We are Psychics, Mediums,Past life experts, Reiki Masters, Master Psychics."

Oh dear... they don't know me very well, do they...

TV Star Psychic Roadshow

The Lottery Fallacy

While American novelist Anne Parrish was browsing bookstores in Paris in the 1920s, she came upon a book that was one of her childhood favorites - Jack Frost and Other Stories. She picked up the old book and showed it to her husband, telling him of the book she fondly remembered as a child. Her husband took the book, opened it, and on the flyleaf found the inscription: "Anne Parrish, 209 N. Weber Street, Colorado Springs." It was Anne's very own book. (Source: While Rome Burns, Alexander Wollcott)

I love stories like this. Here's another one:

When Norman Mailer began his novel Barbary Shore, there was no plan to have a Russian spy as a character. As he worked on it, he introduced a Russian spy in the U.S. as a minor character. As the work progressed, the spy became the dominant character in the novel. After the novel was completed, the U.S. Immigration Service arrested a man who lived just one floor above Mailer in the same apartment building. He was Colonel Rudolf Abel, alleged to be the top Russian spy working in the U.S. at that time. (Source: Science Digest)

These are what the layperson would describe as coincidences. Extraordinary coincidences, for sure, but coincidences all the same. They make for fascinating and surprising stories, and they always make me laugh and smile. On a very basic human level, they appeal to us. There's a feel of the supernatural to them, a spooky eeriness that gives us the feeling that these things couldn't possibly have happened by chance. It's magic, and the appearance of magic is a wonderful and heartwarming thing.

You can choose to stop there. You can choose to believe that, in the first story, fate somehow guided Anne Parrish to that bookshop thousands of miles from home to find the long lost book, or that Norman Mailer developed a kind of psychic connection with Rudolf Abel. There's nothing wrong with believing that (so long as you don't violently assert that it's true, and that anybody who disagrees is straight-out wrong), but if you enjoy a bit of thinking, there's something more you can get out of it.

"It must be a psychic connection," says the True Believer, "it's just too unlikely for it to be anything else!"
Well, OK... but let's look at it another way.
The UK lottery system uses 49 numbered balls, six of which are drawn at random to give the jackpot. The number of possible combinations puts me, with my lottery ticket, in with approximately a one in fourteen million chance of winning. In other words: very unlikely. Everyone playing the lottery each week faces the same odds. Yet somehow - miraculously - somebody wins! Wow! That person who won had a staggeringly low (one in fourteen million) chance of winning. That is overwhelmingly unlikely. And yet... they won!

If I were to tell that story to a True Believer and ask "how do you explain that?" they would probably look at me puzzled and say "But there's nothing to explain. Somebody, somewhere had to win!"

And BINGO! They've unwittingly refuted their own statement.

The simple fact is that coming across that book in Paris was not impossible. Neither was the possibility that Norman Mailer would unknowingly have written a story so similar to what was happening in the same building he lived in. These were just very unlikely events.

Let me give you another example of a very unlikely event that is not impossible. I'm thinking about somebody right now. A friend of mine, who knows my address, and could, in theory, call at my house at any time. They've never paid me a surprise visit before, and it would be especially unlikely in the middle of the night, but they could ring my doorbell right now. If I just think, really hard!
I won't hold my breath waiting for this to happen, but if it did, it would be staggering! This is because I predicted it.

"That a particular specified event or coincidence will occur is very unlikely. That some astonishing unspecified events will occur is certain. That is why remarkable coincidences are noted in hindsight, not predicted with foresight."--David G. Myers

Think about all of the times that you might have been thinking about somebody and just then, you get a phone call from them, or a text message. It can feel like a psychic bond. But imagine this... if it's a person who you happen to think about a lot anyway, and also somebody who texts you frequently, how much MORE amazing would it be if you never heard from them while you were thinking about them? Then think to yourself, "would I also be amazed if anybody who I'd recently thought about happened to call soon after I'd been thinking about them? You probably would! And when you think about how many people there are in your phonebook, it's bound to happen one day!

When you're dealing with large numbers of people and the events that they encounter, amazing things happen. You can't predict which of those amazing things will happen, or when, but you can bet that something extraordinarily unlikely will happen to you at some point in your life.

Some amazing coincidences have happened to me. Just consider, even, your very existence:

"The number of people who could be here, in my place, outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. If you think about all the different ways in which our genes could be permuted, you and I are quite grotesquely lucky to be here! The number of events that had to happen in order for you to exist, in order for me to exist. We are privileged to be alive and we should make the most of our time on this world." - Richard Dawkins

But I still love these stories. Why? Because I'm human. I'm susceptible to that momentary belief and the rush of feelings it causes. But then there comes a shift, from feeling to thought. And it's doing this that leads the True Believer to accuse skeptics of being joyless and soulless. I disagree.

"There are True Believers who refuse to, or cannot, make that move to detached thinking and find such an approach necessarily joyless. They miss that we can all feel that initial joy at such anecdotes and events, but only some of us get to experience another level of joy which is warmed by it's closer proximity to the truth. We need to live by our hearts as well as our brains to engage most wonderfully with this world: sadly there is often a proud refusal among True Believers to engage with the latter." - Derren Brown