A few weeks ago, I stood outside the building where I work. I watched as the leaves that had fallen from the trees were tossed around, whipped up in a frenzied dance, thrown back to the floor only to be picked up again in twisted musty whirlpools.  Other leaves clung to branches, offering the last vestiges of resistance against the forces ripping at their stems; the unseen puppeteer that choreographed the dance of their brethren.

It was just the wind of course.  The narrowed currents of air that had travelled from the east, bringing the chill and the dance of the leaves.

Days later, the ground staff were out there with leaf blowers.  They were the puppeteers this time. It was they who used mechanical devices to imitate the unseen hands and strings and chase the fallen leaves into piles against their will.

Many things we encounter, with the exception of women, can be explained through what we have learned through science and reason.  Before humans developed such knowledge, they were left in wonder of phenomena, without the skills to interrogate the world around them.

And so, man created god – a construct borne out of ignorance, kept alive by ignorance and the need for men to control each other.

The fact that religions with adherents in their billions persist to this day makes me despair.  Fairytales are fine for children, but I don’t understand how adults believe they, their world and the universe is controlled by an unseen puppeteer. And for them to pass on their beliefs to susceptible children is tantamount to child abuse.  It negates their responsibility to nurture inquisitive minds and instead of tackling difficult moral dilemmas with intelligence, the answer is “because God said so”.  Rather than dealing with situations like death sensitively and sensibly, those followers of religions make up the promise of an afterlife… but so long as you’re good, or you’ll burn in hell for all eternity. Even if they’re not good, they won’t burn in hell so long as they accept a saviour and seek forgiveness.

The thing that I would ask people of faith is this: if a person hadn’t told you about God, would you have thought up the idea for yourself?  In the same way as nobody would make up the tooth fairy or Father Christmas, the notion of a god wouldn’t just pop into somebody’s head unless they were suffering from some sort of psychosis.  For those who are overcome with the light of Jesus when revved up by a pastor, does the same ever happen while they’re doing their shopping at Asda?

Maybe I’m wrong.  Perhaps my thoughts against an omnipotent being are ill-judged.  I’ve come over ever so warm since starting this post.  Oh, I forgot, my dad was here earlier and the heating is still cranked up to 23C.