GOD'S EXISTENCE NOT DISPROVED

This letter appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

God's existence not disproved

The letter from FO Hipwell ('Offensive, but I'd go further', Mailbox, July 3) makes the sweeping statement that science has disproved both the Bible and Christianity.

But my question to him would be: "How does science do this?"

I have just been reading a book by Dr Steve Taylor, a senior researcher and lecturer at Liverpool University, in which he says: "Science is limited in scope and usually asks the questions 'what? and how? But, not usually, 'why?'"

Science is also empirical – it is based upon observation and experiment and so does not usually consider things that are not open to testing.

Therefore, science does not disprove, indeed cannot disprove the existence of God, nor the events recorded in the Bible.

To establish the truth of those things, we must turn to other methods for proof, such as the witness of eyewitnesses and personal experience.

In the Bible, the four Gospels provide eyewitness accounts of the life, teachings, miracles, death and resurrection of the central figure of human history, Jesus Christ.

It is He who divides time into two (AD and BC) and it is He from whom today's date is taken.

There are more books about Him, more songs to Him, and more people who claim to follow Him today than any other person in history.

The Bible is now in 3,000 languages and it still the world's best-selling book.

All over the world, there are thousands of people, young and old and from very different cultures, who have discovered that being a Christian and believing the Bible is not being "gullible".

I became a Christian when I was 19 and doing my National Army service in Singapore. It was in a Chinese church one Easter Monday and a big part in how this happened was by reading the New Testament for myself.

Over many years, I have travelled to many parts of the world and produced 18 missionary documentary films on the impact of the Christian gospel from the Amazon Basin, Africa and even Papua New Guinea.

The Bible and Christianity are very much alive with the largest growth in mainland China, estimated to be in the region of 70 to 90 million, more than the total population of Great Britain!

No, I don't think that God believes in atheists, but He does love them.

Peter Anderson, Leicester