But a person should be careful when surfing information on religion. Be selective and wary. It would be too easy to get caught up in discussions that are more agnostic or atheistic than theological. Plus, some of the podcasts are more likely to confuse than enlighten when it comes to matters of faith, spirituality, religion, creation, God and … the occult.

One day, on FB, I found a post that was a well written article about faith and God. But I can’t remember who wrote it or who was sharing, because what struck me hard, were the comments that had been posted underneath the commentary. They were agnostic, atheistic, rude, blasphemous and angry.

Back in 1989, I came across a phrase that made an impression on me. It was line in a play I was involved in. During the story there was an American responding to a Scot who had been very rude and abusive, spouting racial prejudices at everyone in the room. The American said: “You know my friend, you speak from a warehouse of ignorance”.

I enjoyed that phrase so much.    “A warehouse of IGNORANCE”! 

It’s big and its deep. In my imagination, this warehouse is like a large building with many rooms containing many shelves — most reaching to the ceiling — and all holding many, many boxes of ignorance. Each room holds one element of ignorance: one for racial prejudice, one for gender, one for sexual deviance, and many — well you get the picture; and of course, one for religious prejudice. Now that one has many sub rooms as there are as many prejudices against faith, religion, beliefs, spirituality, to name a few, as there are stars in the sky.

The comments I mentioned above, were written “from a warehouse of ignorance”. So much so I wanted to shout at the writers: “Read the Bible, read books written by intelligent people who have read the Bible and studied theology. Read everything you can lay your hands on before you give an opinion — attend workshops on faith, attend a church service or two or three or four! All different denominations. Get a sense of what it is that has captured the heart and minds of the people of faith, Christianity, about two billion of them. Find out the truth.

One person wrote: “How can I believe in a supposedly loving God that allows his own son to be murdered!”. How indeed!  Another said: “I can’t believe that people still believe in all that fairy tale stuff of a virgin birth, resurrection from death and the saintly Jesus Christ. He was just a moron, a loonie, a tramp full of his own importance”!! And so on. Some much worse and with graphic language to boot. One person wrote: “there can’t possibly be a God, if there was and he’s as all-powerful as he is said to be, why doesn’t he put an end to war! Why does he continue to allow little children to be slaughtered and killed in these conflicts?”  It's a good question! Why doesn't he do that?  You have to read the Bible to find the truth, or interpretations by theologians and other well-read persons, who have spent a lifetime researching questions such as these. 

However, it is worth remembering that most of these atrocities are perpetrated by humans and inflicted on other humans, not by God.  Even the horrific fires, floods, hurricanes, drought and other tragedies that are  occurring every year, around the globe, are not wrought by God. At least... but hey! we live on a planet that was built in the name of perfection; everything in balance, everything taken into consideration. Unfortunately, billions of years of man using all its bountiful gifts for his pleasure and convenience, and the furtherance of technology and science, have not done that perfection any favours.  

But you know, after I had given it much thought, I felt sorry for those people. I wanted to reach out to them; to tell them that, at least, a life walked with God offers hope! That it sends the message of love. God is love, He has love for all, no matter what! That is the important part. Love, salvation, forgiveness and Grace. “The love of God which passes all understanding.” It’s beyond our comprehension.

It’s not easy to have faith; “faith in what I cannot see” so a line in a song goes. But to have hope means that when hard times come and must be endured, you can face them with the knowledge that there is more to life than this. At the end of life there is life: salvation through grace means that God’s gift of salvation is not earned by good works but received through faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life”.

What a gift to an unbeliever. I once allowed myself to become an unbeliever, I strayed away from God and the path. I even denied God, in church, when I was attending a wedding. But I was not happy, and I was not always a nice person. Luckily for me I made my way back to faith and life for me changed. I wish I could provide that gift for those unbelievers. I know I could, but would I dare?