Introduction

I'm a software engineer, and when I was working for a Formula 1 racing team, my colleague - let's call him Phil, because that's his name - was telling a group of us about, and laughing at, a Tim Minchin video that mocked the Pope.

Another colleague of mine, Alexandros, protested: I don't know why people take the p… out of the Pope, he seems like a good guy.

A couple of minutes later, after a few awkward attempts at different conversations, Alex walked away.

Phil joked to me, well, someone's clearly a Catholic! It was at that fork in the road, with only a second or two to think to choose which path to take, that I decided to “come out” as a Catholic to my work mates.

When I did, Phil looked a little like this:

Then he followed up with: but you're normal!. When I asked Phil why he was so surprised that I was religious, he told me because you're clever.

It's always nice to have someone tell you you're clever; and I hope I'm not being too immodest when I say that I think I am fairly smart: I have a first-class engineering degree and in the past I've been told that I'm clever by colleagues and friends - and even, on occasion, by my wife.

To my surprise, over the next few days Phil started asking me questions such as, do you believe in evolution? and what about the big bang theory; do you really think the Earth is only 6000 years old?

I couldn't believe what Phil thought religious people believed. Although, on reflection, I can't blame him: he didn't have a religious upbringing, nor does he have any religious friends (that he knows of - maybe there's some more in the closet). All he had to base his opinions of religious people on is what he sees in the mainstream media: often not a kind, or even balanced, representer of any group.

Phil is not the only person I've met who was astounded that I could be both religious and clever - or at least, religious and not utterly stupid. Growing up, I have been fortunate to have a number of close friends who don't believe in God.

Nights in the pub with friends often led to questions about me being a Catholic. In the early years, they tended to be blunt and incredulous questions like, how can anyone be intelligent and still believe in God?, but throughout the years their questions improved from generalised incredulity to more thoughtful and focussed questions about specific biblical events. I say I'm lucky to have grown up with these doubting friends, because their questioning has led me to research, and subsequently strengthen, my understanding of Christianity.

It's precisely because of worrying about the kind of reaction that Phil had, that I was careful not to let slip that I was religious, until I'd been at the company long enough for my colleagues to see that I am clever, reasonable, and, indeed, normal.

So, that's why I decided to write all this down. It's not an evangelisation piece (although I do content that when looking at the facts objectively, there's no choice but to believe in God - are you up for the challenge?), but I hope to show those who aren't Christian, or to whom any religion is an alien concept, that the reality of God can be plausible to sensible, reasonable and scientifically-minded people.

But, mostly, that religious people aren't weird.