Miracle of consciousness (From Oxford Mail)

Miracle of consciousness

10:00am Friday 30th March 2012 in Letters

IN response to my contention that atheism is obsolete, Dane Clouston (ViewPoints, March 20) asserts that “specious and spurious arguments are used”.

This is untrue and reflects the atheistical, shallow thinking so prevalent today.

Consciousness is the great miracle which no one can explain. Darwinism alone is much too simplistic. Evolution has been conceived as a purely mechanical process wholly based on natural selection and the survival of the fittest.

If this is so, why did it not cease long ago? For there are many primitive organisms perfectly adapted to the environment. Why, then, did life continue to ascend?

It is surely absurd to argue that, for instance, Christ, Muhammed, Buddha or Beethoven were the products of a blind, evolutionary force without meaning.

On the contrary, there is evidence everywhere of a wonderful creative will within ourselves and Nature.

What nonsense it is to hold that chaotic matter and force could ever produce consciousness on their own. Mind is the ultimate reality without which nothing could exist.

The world’s great religions, truly understood, are not divisive, but together affirm the brotherhood of mankind and the unity of all living things.

GRAHAM BUTLER, Banbury Road, Bicester