Peter Wadhams is Professor of Ocean Physics, and Head of the Polar Marine Sciences Group in the Scott Polar Research Institute.

Dear Michael,

I hope you're right that good will come out of this evil. At present it looks as if evil has triumphed, and we really are beginning the Battle of Armageddon as predicted by the evangelical fundamentalists, but with the slight twist that their hero is actually the leader of the bad guys. The frightening thing now is that for the last four years it was possible to believe that Bush stole the 2000 election by fraud, that a majority of Americans didn't want him, so the evil deeds of his administration should not be blamed on the American people as a whole. But now he has won a convincing victory, so there will be no stopping him, and in every case the horrors that he will unleash on the planet are supported by the democratic will of the American people. And the ones who tipped the balance seem to be the born-again Christian fundamentalists, whose theology, if you can call it that, was refuted even by mainstream Christian denominations sometime round about the end of the Middle Ages.

It does mean at least that this theology will be put under close scrutiny, now that it is becoming the basis for the governance, or misgovernance, of the world. Such as their strange attitude towards killing people. Jesus is reported to have said that we must not kill and must love our enemies, and was pretty definite about that. Yet "Christian" (actually Old Testament) bornagains say that you must not kill under certain circumstances (e.g. abortion, stem cell research) but must do so enthusiastically in others (e.g. dropping cluster bombs on Iraqi children and sending 100,000 or so, but who's counting anyway, to heaven; executing murderers; keeping handguns and assault rifles at home; letting millions in Africa die of poverty and AIDS). And, of course, the theology of postmortem survival is pretty weird in the fundamentalist world (and, as you say, in normal Christian theology too). One of the reasons why communication with the dead is frowned upon is that by definition it can't be real - it must be fraudulent or the work of satanic forces - since the dead are unconscious and are all lying in their graves crumbling away physically while they await the Second Coming, when they will rise up physically in new bodies and queue up alongside living people to be judged. Therefore they cannot by definition be in communication with us, as there are no conscious dead people. Scientific research that shows otherwise is therefore vital (although the selfsame fundamentalists have disregarded all the scientific research which shows that Global Warming is happening, so maybe we shouldn't be too hopeful)

Best wishes

Peter Wadhams

Bush Primed by Evangelicals for Armageddon Scenario

"Do you think President Bush, a Christian man, believes or knows he's involved with prophetic events concerning the Middle East and the final battle between good and evil?"

Sir William Crookes - E-mail from Michael Roll to Peter Wadhams (August 4, 2002)

Scientific Proof - Letter to Peter Wadhams (May 24, 2002)