Why might a philosopher lose faith and why might a philosopher find it?

I'm John Nelson and today on Unbelievable I'm joined by two professional philosophers to talk about their journeys with faith.

Dr. Sean Stevenson is a lecturer in philosophy at Manchester Metropolitan University and an expert on the thought of Nietzsche, De Luz and Epicurean

ethics. And Dr. Joshua Situade is a specialist in the philosophy of religion, which he teaches

at the University of Birmingham. Sean Josh, I know you've been on Unblevable before, but welcome

back. It's great to have me on the show. Thank you. Thank you for having to be. I'd like to

talk about your journeys with faith, and maybe Sean, we can start with you.

Was faith a part of growing up, or was it something that you came to later?

Yeah, so I grew up in effectively an atheist household.

So religion was always something that was considered as unimportant. It was only really

for weak people, those who needed a, it was often described as a crutch to support people who

were emotionally, you know, just not there for themselves and needed something else. So that was the

story up until I came to about 13 and it was that point I

had a lot of questions that I felt just weren't being answered sufficiently enough.

Particularly one of the things I had, you know, a sense of need for justice and goodness and

to be there for others,

but nothing on which to orientate that. And so I decided to, I was christened because that was just

in vogue in the 90s and in the 80s. So I was christened and I thought, well, you know,

there is this book that's been around for a while. A lot of people seem to be moved by it. I'll go and check it out. And with my paper around money, I went and I bought myself a copy of the King James version of the Bible. I didn't have a church. My parents being a religious, I actually hid the Bible under my bed. I was scared that they would find it and I'd get in

trouble. So I would just take time away and maybe spend an hour or so reading scripture,

meditating on that word, often failing miserably to understand what on earth was said because

of all the, thou and die and everything else. But then trusting in God to reveal to me what the message would be through living out my life.

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