THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

2A

Why bother thinking about religion?

My full name is Fr Stephen Wei-Jon Wang. You can probably guess from the name that I come from a mixed race family, and that my parents and grandparents had very different cultural and religious roots. My Scottish grandmother was Anglican, then Catholic; my English grandfather was Methodist, then Quaker, then Anglican; my Chinese grandfather was brought up in a Protestant church and then settled in an Anglican parish when he emigrated to England; and my Chinese grandmother remained Buddhist all her life. Most families have some kind of religion somewhere in the background. But things have changed, at least in the West, over the last few decades. A recent survey showed that for the first time since records began, over half the people of the UK say they have no religious affiliation at all. Some of these might say they are “spiritual but not religious.” This is part of a bigger story that has been called “the Death of God”. People have been predicting for over two hundred years that with modern science, better healthcare, public education and greater affluence, there would be no more need for religion. Why bother praying when you have Amazon Alexa to