Dear Editor,

Grateful for your tolerance and obligation to freedom of expression in accepting a modest request to publish few comments to accompany Fr Freda P. Seda's article entitled, ‘Ash Wednesday – The Beginning of Lent’, as sighted in the Solomon Star News Paper.

The interesting article by Fr Freda P. Seda regarding Lent seemed perfectly innocuous and desirable for the believer, but to some of us in the camp of non believers, such presentation adequately equates to proselytising. So below are few facts for the non believer to re-own over the so called Lent period;

- There has and is no evidence to proof the existence of a supernatural deity or god. Uncertainty is the only certainty. Consequently anyone with claims to personal knowledge of a god beyond the cloud canopy is in very serious self denial.

- Physical laws of nature cannot be suspended – meaning of course that miracles such as talking snakes, romantic walks on the sea or water, virgin births (parthenogenesis is possible in some plants and insects though), resurrection, floating up into the heavens, sun standing still, etc, etc, etc, etc can be easily identified as delusional. For example, if you meet someone this morning you witnessed murdered yesterday, it is more appropriate and advisable to accelerate immediately to the loving comforts of a psychiatric doctor than to postulate your witnessed murdered victim had been resurrected.

Similarly, if the sun comes up and decides to stop moving for hours or days, all inhabitants on the face of the planet would fall over each other, probably die and scatter everywhere! Reason is, a ‘stand still sun’ simply means the earth stopped spinning on its axis! Hem olsem tarake full speed come den applym go full bereke, everyone steady inside or behind by banga and fly olobaot.

- Garden of eden has never been and will never be found because it does not exist. As such christians now concede it is not a physical location – hem custom story nomoa. The fact is we are all primates that evolved out of Africa.

- It makes very little sense to be born into or rather cursed with sin because someone else ate apples from gods apple plantation. Why this loving god could not just forgive these plantation workers there and then iumi no save.

- Yes we are all made of star dust, stars that had imploded/exploded and contents scattered out into the universe.

- Last and by no means the least, we do not need to repent, pray, fast, read and meditate on some words in a book before we are capable of thinking, giving or helping our fellow brothers and sisters in need. We do so through innate human solidarity. For example, as non believers we also remember with love and compassion the many families in Temotu province who had incurred a literal ‘Ash Wednesday’ by means of a huge earthquake and frightening tsunami on Wednesday, 6th of February 2013.


Peter Bataitolo