From Bridget Murphy.
HAVING read Ryan McMullen’s letter (JEP, 30 April) in response to my letter of 27 April, I feel compelled to reply to his criticisms, although I did not wish to continue the debate on atheism versus Christianity through your columns.

The Bible is an authoritative, historical account of people and events which addresses the spiritual dimensions of man and his universe. Mr McMullen refers to bias and interpretation.

This, to some extent, can and does happen, because it is done by human communication, by the spoken and written word. However, he states that the Apostles were mere souls giving information, but were not historians, as Dr Starkey is a historian, but, then all history is information passed on to succeeding generations, religious or otherwise.

I have great respect for Dr Starkey, but at least the Apostles knew Christ. Dr Starkey didn’t know Henry VIII, but that does not diminish the facts about the Tudor king.

Mr McMullen goes on to say that the Apostles did not represent the truth and only represent a biased period of history, because of their affiliation to Jesus. What incredible arrogance and nonsense, which highlights his own biases and very closed mind.

How on earth does he know the Apostles did not represent truth, just because he doesn’t believe it? I have worked close to a number of scientists, experts in their own fields of study, some Nobel Prize winners, and even they would not utter such statements, despite some not believing in God.

Mr McMullen tells us that the more grounded one is in revolutionary physics, and mathematics, it is ‘improbable’ that the universe is ‘totally’ governed by a higher power, and that mathematics and physics are too complex for people to understand, inferring that, if they did, that would prove God’s non-existence.

Mathematics and physics provide us with an understanding of the properties and processes of our material universe and is in no way contrary to belief in God, whereas Bible scripture provides us with eternal spiritual truths which are borne out in the life of humanity, when moral precepts are ignored.

This should answer Mr McMullen’s reference to the Crusades and Spanish Inquisition, but moral precepts are applicable to all mankind, and not just some of it and, I reiterate, no one is omnipotent, nor omniscient.

Finally, I believe that it is because I believe in God that I am rational.
La Corbière,
5 St Clement’s Road,
St Helier.