Christianity and Common Sense

By Robert Picken

The book is largely concerned with Jesus’ contemptuous dismissal of ‘the rules of men’ in religion.It’s simply pitiful that such rules now abound in Christian religions.
I’m not religious but as an accomplished mathematician I’ve realized that the story of creation is the only logically sound and complete explanation of the planet Earth and all life on it. Attempts to dispute this fact have been called theories.Any half baked notion could be called a theory.
There is evolution(once upon a time monkeys turned into people).This nonsense not only suffers from a missing link from monkey to person it also offers only a deafening silence on how any life ever began on Earth.
Then there’s the baby talk big bang baloney(There was this great big explosion and hey presto! There was the universe).This drivel says nothing about any life at all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9781796099348

Robert Picken

Robert is from Belfast, Northrern Ireland My early school years in Belfast were promising.The primary school I attended was on the street where my family lived and was very close by. When I was 8 years of age we moved to a working class housing estate about 5 miles north near a village called Whitehouse.I then attended Whitehouse primary school where I once got an unforgettable report card which had to be signed by my father.There were 13 categories and the card had 11 excellents and 2 very goods.My father was obviously delighted but said with a straight face What happened with the ones you only got very good on?

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Copyright © 2020 by Robert Picken.

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Rev. date: 04/24/2020

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FOREWORD

BY ROBERT PICKEN

My hometown is Belfast, Northern Ireland. Although never religious I attended Sunday school in my childhood and even then found the stories about Jesus to be fascinating.

Later in high school I showed a strong aptitude for mathematics. During this time, I attended a Methodist youth club.

My first experience of integrated education was at university where my closest friends happened to be Catholics, a mathematician and a chess player, both very talented. We enjoyed joking about our religious differences. Some amusing name calling often took place!

Many people have suggested integrated school education as a solution to the situation in Northern Ireland but this has been repeatedly rejected by the Catholic Church. Maybe that would interfere with its brainwashing of children.

A pricelessly funny thing happened one evening when the fellow mathematician and I were coming down from the university. The minister from my youth club’s church was coming up to a conference and said ‘hello Bobby’.

My catholic friend was astounded. He knew me as a drunk who was always telling smutty jokes and the fact that I was on speaking terms with a minister just blew his mind!

The main thing is that from that time I have been quite sure that a person’s religion is not what matters. It’s their nature that counts.

I can’t even see why belief in God should be necessary. The word has come down after at least one translation and belief in God could just mean confidence in eventual justice. Many good people are agnostics.

An honest mistake does not deserve punishment. Maybe good people who believed wrongly will just be laughed at in heaven forever. That’s quite enough!

I originally joined the youth club to get some games of football. I was only an average player but I loved the game and enjoyed playing.

The club leader was a very fine gentleman who did it voluntarily in his spare time. His influence attracted many good people who all thought highly of him.

During an early football game somebody on my team missed an easy chance and I couldn’t help yelling ‘Aw jaisis!’This shocked a lot of people including our leader but even then I couldn’t see why. My later seeing Jesus’ contempt for ‘the rules of men’ showed me that even good Christians have fallen into the trap of paying too much attention to such rules, mainly about strong language, jokes and drinking.

The influence of hypocrites has had an extremely negative effect on Christian religions. The trouble is that hypocrites can be extremely difficult to detect. They put up a false front to hide their true nature. They are the worst offenders in making a big deal of ‘the rules of men’.

For a long time, I thought that all my school friends were okay but recently thinking about a few little things has given me cause for doubt. Fortunately, it’s not my concern. People will end up among their