BELIEF AND THE WHIMS OF EXISTENCE

THE DEBATE THAT RAGES BETWEEN THE SKEPTICAL AND THE DEVOUT HAS SEEPED INTO THE ARTWOLD

 I am comforted that my rhetorically gifted compatriot David Schoffman was invited as well to participate in this unusual forum. This coming March, at East London's Church of Saint Timinus the Deliverer between Bethnal Green and Shoreditch a symposium will be held to settle once and for all whether God exists.

The decision to feature three artists rather than the typical cast of theologians, philosophers, scientists and academics is an interesting one whose genesis lies in a casual remark tossed off at an informal reception at the Canadian embassy in Berne. Christian Harpaz, chargé d'affaires of the Swiss department of counter-terrorism, provoked by an off-color joke about an imam, a silent monk and a transvestite, lamented the poverty of imagination and lack of humor among atheists and agnostics.

"Things are more lively when artists altercate," offered the renown Catholic mime, Blathe Arket, "get a bunch of creative types in a lecture hall and then see what happens."

See what happens indeed!