The politician on the television was very irritating, not so much in what he said but in the gulf between the rhetoric and the action. Looking over the waves breaking against the green banked cliffs of Petrie Point was an antidote. Thinking of this later I thought that religion and its effects has three of the four halves. Let me explain.

No doubter, no atheist could doubt that this Petrie Point and the sea at its feet exist. Nor could they doubt the calming pleasant mental effect they evoke. Equally no atheist could doubt that religion can cause similar feelings. They just doubt whether their cause actually exists. Therefore we have four parts and only one of the four is in doubt.

1) Petrie Point and the sea;
2) Contemplation produced of the same is pleasant;
3) Religion/God;
4) Contemplation of the same is pleasant.

Why do we agonise so much about whether God exists? Religion exists. Can we not assume on our contemplation that religion exists and enjoy the feelings it engenders?

Evangelicals

I was flipping through channels on the television and came across an American evangelical channel. Of course it was delightfully over the top. Jesus lives and all that. All this is fine for people with belief and certainty but what of the others, like myself? I think we have to concentrate not on religion as a fact but as a means. Not as a finished product but as a journey.

St Agnes, Cornwall

Set at a stunning location, a creek running down to the sea. Old photographs show it as an intensely industrial landscape of miners and shipbuilding. What is the true reality? Industrial past or present quaint beauty?

Polzeath

The talk at the “tube station” church was on the theme of faith. I have always before seen faith as an insurmountable problem. Faith in God, a certainty I lack, but faith as the story from Luke of the foaming of the waters of Galilee as also about having faith that things will be alright and having faith that one can make a difference. That’s about faith in one’s mind, less of a mountain to climb, more knowable. Do not worry about faith in the existence of God, concentrate on faith in your existence.