Could anything be more pathetic than having to paint such a message on the side of busses? Not only is it so clearly the statement of a simpleton, it is a supreme example of how to shoot yourself in the foot – even of complete self double amputation.

Where do you start? There is a God – in fact there are many. Man has made a god of wealth, consumption, excess, and of unbridled pleasure just for starters. Many have elevated Self Interest to the position of supreme deity. The bus banner underlines this with “Go and enjoy yourself.”

We have raised to the status of God certain philosophies such as Free Market and Market Forces, even Climate Change. In doing this we have enrobed them with permanence, inevitability, immutability, and irreversibility – the fundamental characteristics of any deity.

We all have a God or gods. The majority of people in the world identify and even pay allegiance to a supreme deity - a being who created the world and us humans. We call him variously The Creator, Allah, God, Yahweh, Siva and other names.

There is considerable evidence that a “God Need” is built in to all of us; there is today even the idea that the need is built into our DNA.

There is also huge evidence that the organised religions do not meet the needs of many individuals so they make up a vast body of “searchers”. Within this body there is a continuum from “I was thinking of becoming ….” through movements such as Flower Power; right to “There is no God (I think!)” The huge sales of books like Dawkin’s The God Delusion is just another part of that searching – that readers then come away still searching underlines the need. (And the inadequacy of the athiest argument)

Sometimes you suspect that statements like those painted on the buses are incomplete. What the author did not have the room for was “….Please show me otherwise.”

That there is such a large band of searchers is] a clear indication of two things. First of. the paucity of the atheist philosophy, but also that the church is failing in its mission - but then that is a very different issue – or is it?