I just watched a fascinating documentary on C4 about the Alpha Course. For those of you who may not know the Alpha Course is a run by various churches with the aim of converting agnostics into believers.

My views on religeon are probably quite self-evident from my previous blog entries, but I have known a number of people who have done these courses and seemingly got something positive out of them so I watched the show with interest.

The part where the course fell down for me was when the leader started talking about he phenomena known as speaking in tongues. He explained it as being similar to when a child learns to speak they often speak nonsense before becoming coherent, so that when you speak to God a similar thing happens. What utter rubbish why as an adult would you speak gibberish when speaking to a higher being when you can already express yourself in a language which as an omniscient being the God would be able to understand.

I think this has just served to convince me that the Alpha Course is nothing more than an attempt to indoctrinate the gullible and lonely into something that seems to me as illogical as ghouls, fairies and the Loch Ness Monster.