This year marks the centenary of the 1918 flu pandemic, which infected 500 million people worldwide and resulted in the deaths of 50 to 100 million men, women and children. This massive loss of precious human life gives the lie to the notion of a “personal”, loving and merciful God.

In The Lessons of History, Will and Ariel Durant ask: “Does history support a belief in God? If by God we mean not the creative vitality of nature but a supreme being intelligent and benevolent, the answer must be a reluctant negative. Add to the crimes, wars and cruelties of man, the earthquakes, storms, tornadoes, pestilences, tidal waves and other ‘acts of God’ that periodically desolate human and animals life and the total evidence suggests either a blind or an impartial fatality.”