'I have never been happier' says the man who won gold but lost God by Matthew Syed, Jonathan Edwards, Times Online *Olympic gold medalist Jonathan Edwards was mentioned in Richard Dawkins' radio interview yesterday. Here is an article from 2007 about his discarding of religion.*
Reposted from: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/more_sport/athletics/article1991114.ece *A giant leap of faith took Jonathan Edwards to Olympic glory in Sydney. Then he found the foundations of his life were crumbling* It is the afternoon of September 25, 2000, and Jonathan Edwards is making his way to the triple jump final at the Olympic Stadium in Sydney. In his kitbag are some shirts, spikes, towels – and a tin of sardines. Why the sardines? They have been chosen by Edwards to symbolise the fish that Jesus used in the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000. They are, if you like, the physical manifestation of his faith in God. As he enters the stadium, he offers a silent prayer: "I place my destiny in Your hands. Do with me as You will." A few hours later he has captured the gold medal, securing his status as one of Britain's greatest athletes. *"I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." — Matthew xvii, 20* Edwards's faith was never an optional add-on. It has been fundamental to his identity – something that has permeated every fibre of his being – since his trips to Sunday school in the company of his devout parents; since he went to a Christian youth camp in North Devon and devoted his life to Jesus, tears streaming down his cheeks and his face glowing with divine revelation. Since he decided to risk everything to follow God's revealed path, moving to Newcastle in 1987 to become a full-time athlete in the belief that his preordained success would enable him to evangelise to an unbelieving world; since he withdrew from the World Championships in Tokyo in 1991 because his event was scheduled for the Sabbath. By the time Edwards retired from athletics in 2003, he had established himself as one of Britain's most prominent born-again Christians. He soon landed the job of fronting a landmark documentary on the life of St Paul and also secured the presenting role on the BBC's flagship religious programme, Songs of Praise. He looked to have made the transition to life after sport with a sureness of touch that eludes so many professional athletes. Perhaps this was another advantage of his bedrock faith in God. But even as he toured the nation's churches with his BBC crew, Edwards was confronting an apocalyptic realisation: that it was all a grand mistake; that his epiphany was nothing more than self-delusion; that his inner sense of God's presence was fictitious; that the decisions he had taken in life were based on a false premise; that the Bible is not literal truth but literal falsehood; that life is not something imbued with meaning from on high but, possibly, a purposeless accident in an unfeeling universe. Having left his sport as a dyed-in-the-wool evangelical, Edwards is now, to all intents and purposes, an atheist. But why? It is a question that has reverberated around the Christian community since the rumours began to circulate when Edwards resigned from Songs of Praise in February. Edwards a backslider? Impossible. I am sitting opposite Edwards, 41, in the garden of his large home in Gosforth on the outskirts of Newcastle, but he does not resemble a man whose world has been turned upside down. His boyish face, cropped with sparkling, silver-grey strands, is alert and alive. One gets the impression that he is looking forward to the ordeal of a lengthy interview. Perhaps he regards it as a kind of confessional, an opportunity to bare all and be done. "I never doubted my belief in God for a single moment until I retired from sport," he says. "Faith was the reason that I decided to become a professional athlete, in the same way that it was fundamental to every decision I made. It was the foundation of my existence, the thing that made everything else make sense. It was not a sacrifice to refuse to compete on Sundays during my early career because that would imply that athletics was important in and of itself. It was not. It was always a means to an end: glorifying God. "But when I retired, something happened that took me by complete surprise. I quickly realised that athletics was more important to my identity than I believed possible. I was the best in the world at what I did and suddenly that was not true any more. With one facet of my identity stripped away, I began to question the others and, from there, there was no stopping. The foundations of my world were slowly crumbling." Edwards retains the earnest intensity that was his hallmark when he gave talks and sermons at churches up and down the country. He is a serious person who regards life as a serious business, even if he is now unsure of its deeper meaning. But why did someone with such a penetrating intellect leave it so long to question the beliefs upon which he had constructed his life? "It was as if during my 20-plus-year career in athletics, I had been suspended in time," he says. "I was so preoccupied with training and competing that I did not have the time or emotional inclination to question my beliefs. Sport is simple, with simple goals and a simple lifestyle. I was quite happy in a world populated by my family and close friends, people who shared my belief system. Leaving that world to get involved with television and other projects gave me the freedom to question everything." *"Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? — 1 Corinthians i, 20* "Once you start asking yourself questions like, 'How do I really know there is a God?' you are already on the path to unbelief," Edwards says. "During my documentary on St Paul, some experts raised the possibility that his spectacular conversion on the road to Damascus might have been caused by an epileptic fit. It made me realise that I had taken things for granted that were taught to me as a child without subjecting them to any kind of analysis. When you think about it rationally, it does seem incredibly improbable that there is a God." Would Edwards have been as successful a sportsman had he been assailed by such doubts? It is a question that the world record-holder confronts with bracing candour. "Looking back now, I can see that my faith was not only pivotal to my decision to take up sport but also my success," he says. "I was always dismissive of sports psychology when I was competing, but I now realise that my belief in God was sports psychology in all but name." Muhammad Ali once asked: "How can I lose when I have Allah on my side?" Edwards understands the potency of such beliefs, even as he questions their philosophical legitimacy. "Believing in something beyond the self can have a hugely beneficial psychological impact, even if the belief is fallacious," he says. "It provided a profound sense of reassurance for me because I took the view that the result was in God's hands. He would love me, win, lose or draw. The tin of sardines I took to the Olympic final in Sydney was a tangible reminder of that." The upheaval of recent months has not left Edwards emotionally scarred, at least not visibly. "I am not unhappy about the fact that there might not be a God," he says. "I don't feel that my life has a big, gaping hole in it. In some ways I feel more human than I ever have. There is more reality in my existence than when I was full-on as a believer. It is a completely different world to the one I inhabited for 37 years, so there are feelings of unfamiliarity. "There have also been issues to address in terms of my relationships with family and friends, many of whom are Christians. But I feel internally happier than at any time of my life, more content within my own skin. Maybe it is because I am not viewing the world through a specific set of spectacles." *"If I should cast off this tattered coat, And go free into the mighty sky; If I should find nothing there, But a vast blue, Echoless, ignorant – What then? — Stephen Crane, The Black Riders and Other Lines* "The only inner problem that I face now is a philosophical one," Edwards says. "If there is no God, does that mean that life has no purpose? Does it mean that personal existence ends at death? They are thoughts that do my head in. One thing that I can say, however, is that even if I am unable to discover some fundamental purpose to life, this will not give me a reason to return to Christianity. Just because something is unpalatable does not mean that it is not true." His crisis of faith offers a metaphysical dimension to the inner turmoil that afflicts so many sportsmen on their retirement. Some will say he has journeyed from light into darkness, others that he has journeyed from darkness into light – but none could doubt the honesty with which he has travelled. The Eric Liddell of his generation has sacrificed his religious beliefs on the altar of intellectual honesty, a martyr of a kind. *World of his own* — A committed Christian, Edwards refused to compete on a Sunday until 1993, most notably missing the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo. "It is an outward sign that God comes first in my life," he said at the time. — Contested the World Championships for the first time in 1993, the first of five successive appearances, winning a medal at each one, including gold in 1995 and 2001. — There was little hint of his 12 months to come in 1995 when, the previous year, he finished sixth at the European Championships, second at the Commonwealth Games and was ranked No 9 in the world. — Edwards's life changed in 1995, when he set three world and seven British records, achieving the unprecedented feat of two world records in his first two jumps of the final of the World Championships in Gothenburg. His 18.29 metres that day remains the world record. His wind-assisted 18.43, to win the European Cup in Lille, is the longest triple jump on record. — A run of 22 consecutive victories ended when he finished second to Kenny Harrison, of the United States, at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. Edwards had finished 23rd and 35th in his two previous Olympics and finished second and third at the World Championships between Atlanta and the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, where he took gold. *Words by David Powell* On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 11:22 PM, Helio Wakasugui <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > wrote: > The soul? It may all be in your mind by The Boston Globe Reposted from: > > http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/10/18/the_soul_it_may_all_be_in_your_mind/ > > Everything you think you know about the soul is wrong. > > So says Yale psychologist Paul Bloom, who researches why people are > religious. Bloom has written that humans are "natural dualists," seeing our > physical bodies as separate from our supposedly nonphysical minds and souls. > It's a legacy in part of the great French philosopher René Descartes, a > religious man who believed our thoughts survived the death of our brains, > says Bloom. > > The problem, Bloom believes, is that this dualism is inaccurate. Brain > science increasingly shows that "the qualities of mental life that we > associate with souls" - memory, self-control, decision-making - "are purely > corporeal; they emerge from biochemical processes in the brain," he wrote in > a 2004 piece for The New York Times. That holds for morality, too; work he > has done with Yale colleague Karen Winn shows that babies have some > understanding of right and wrong even before they learn to speak. Our > physical brain, in short, is our soul. > > Dualism doesn't explain everything about why religion arises, but it > explains a lot, and it need not discomfort religious believers, says Bloom, > who describes himself as culturally Jewish but religiously atheist. His > latest project: a book on pleasure. Excerpts from a recent interview follow. > > > *Q. What's the evidence that we're "natural dualists?"* > > These sorts of views are universal. In every society, the vast majority of > people believe in supernatural beings, spirits without bodies. And in every > society, the vast majority of people believe that they'll survive the death > of their body. There are a lot of studies on children's beliefs about life > after death and supernatural beings like God. What we have so far suggests > that these [beliefs] come in very early, as early as you can study them. > > *Q. What evidence proves dualism is wrong?* > > To study dualism need not presuppose that it's mistaken. Some people in the > cognitive science of religion are themselves people of faith. I don't > believe dualism is true, because there's a scientific consensus that > hard-core dualism, which says that people can think without using their > brain or that memories will survive the death of your body, is just flat > mistaken. Your mental life is a product of your brain. > > *Q. We know this from brain scans that look at parts of the brain lighting > up in response to different [stimuli] - you can watch people think about a > topic and watch parts of their brain light up?* > > That's the most modern demonstration. But the idea that thought is the > result of the physical brain comes from work that's hundreds of years old. > We've known that a blow to the head can affect your memory, your willpower, > your conscience, your sense of right and wrong. We know that Alzheimer's, > strokes, and diseases of the brain can profoundly affect your mental life. > It's a tenuous view to say that the part of me that chooses right from wrong > has no physical basis. If that were true, you wouldn't expect getting > smashed on the head, alcohol, or heroin to affect your will and your > knowledge of right and wrong. > > I think there is a right and wrong. I don't think you need to appeal to a > supernatural capacity to explain it. > > *Q. You view the possible existence of a soul [as], "I don't think it's > true, but I have to keep an open mind?"* > > Yes. It's like saying, cars don't run by gasoline; cars run by a hidden > power we don't know anything at all about. Well, it could be true, but it > sure seems like gasoline. Is it possible, in a scientific conference a > thousand years from now, we discover it's not the brain at all? Yeah, it is. > We could discover it's not gasoline at all, either. > > *Q. What are the implications of this dualism, and its limitations, for > religion? Obviously, you're not suggesting theologians hold a > going-out-of-business sale.* > > In fact, some theologians respond to this research with delight. According > to many theological views, we have an inborn appreciation of God and souls. > This is part of God's gift to us. There's nothing in my work that in any way > should trouble anybody who's theologically inclined. Though often, they say > a belief in a single God is natural, and that's probably wrong. Many more > cultures believe in multiple gods. > > *Q. How's your book on pleasure coming?* > > I hope to get it to my publisher in about six months. I have a lot to say > about the pleasures of religion. I talk of the social functions of religion, > the reassuring function of religion, the rituals of religion that give many > people great joy. And the experience of transcendence. Religions give you a > feeling of going beyond the material world. > > Comments, questions and story ideas may be sent to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > -- > > "Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges." > - Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome. > > -- "Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges." - Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome. --- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts --- multipart/alternative text/plain (text body -- kept) text/html --- _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. 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