Do Levi’s or Wrangler have the answer?

I came across a web site once called “Have Theology Will Argue”; a tongue in cheek response to a very common situation where people either avoid discussion on “religion” like the plague or love to open up debate. Topics with a distinctive religious focus seem to arouse two extremes of emotion, on the one hand intense fervour to prove or disprove and the other total disinterest or apathy.

In this context it was interesting to read recently that the scientists who worked back in the 1950s on the discovery of the gene, had an attributed purpose to prove once and for all that God did not exist. If they could unravel the essence of our make up from a scientific perspective, they propounded, then people would see the sham of religious belief for what it really was.

In the last year or so geneticists have opened up this thorny question again, but from a slightly different angle. In an article by Roger Highfield in the Daily Telegraph, it is reported that some geneticists have suggested it may be possible to identify a spiritual gene that some of us may or may not have.

So, in the same way that some may have blue or brown eyes because of the gene code for eye colour inherited from our parents, there could be a gene code, the scientists say, that may determine how likely we are to be a religious or spiritual person.

I do not know whether there is any scientific evidence to substantiate this position, but I wonder what other new discovery could be round the next corner, as it were. Will a kindness gene be the next attribute to be identified or a gene code for generosity, or even ones for the more unattractive sides of our personality?

If there is a kindness gene, would that mean that I am excused from being kind if the appropriate code was found to be missing from my particular genetic makeup.

Forgive the whimsical meandering, but there is a serious point to be made here for even if the geneticists are right, who can say for sure that this religious gene is present or absent from their DNA and what about personal responsibility? There have been many well known people who have become Christians in their senior years, C S Lewis for one, so, did he have a latent gene waiting for the right opportunity for a life experience to release its full potential? Who can say they have no need of religion or christianity, for perhaps when they least expect it, like Lewis, they might be surprised by joy and find love and acceptance in Jesus Christ.