2023/02/28

The Case Against God by Gerald Priestland | Goodreads

The Case Against God by Gerald Priestland | Goodreads

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The Case Against God


Gerald Priestland

3.60
5 ratings2 reviews

192 pages, Paperback
Published November 14, 1985
192 pages, Paperback
November 14, 1985 by Fount

12 people want to read


About the author


Gerald Priestland21 books2 followers



Educated at Charterhouse and New College, Oxford, Gerald Priestland began his career at the BBC writing obituaries. He eventually became a foreign correspondent for the BBC, covering politics in America. After suffering a nervous breakdown, Priestland converted to Christianity and became a Quaker. Upon recovering from his breakdown, he became involved in religious affairs, culminating in taking a role as the BBC's religious affairs correspondent. He published several books, including an autobiography, and delivered various lectures, before his death in 1991.
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Marija Carter
18 reviews
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January 25, 2022
The book was written by a well-read man skilfully using his language to describe what is by definition often incredibly hard to put into words. While reading this book as an agnostic was an interesting thought experiment and I do not regret one bit opening my mind to the author’s view of the world, the full nature of which, after all, can neither of us be certain, his case was clearly tilted in favour of religion. Priestland does not conceal this fact, for better and worse. 

Personally, I had also been rather annoyed by the insistence that whatever divine there is or isn’t, is surely is “a He.” 
It seems rather absurd to insist than, despite every single observation one can readily make in nature, the creative force would be a man. The implicit insistence on this element is rather frustrating throughout this book.

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Bob Breckwoldt
78 reviews
3 followers

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April 12, 2014
Nowhere near as succesful as his other books but a great set of interviews of believers and non believers and the uncertain. All attempt, in as simple and direct way as possible, to articulate the reasons for their beliefs. Includes amongst others, Freddie Ayer, Iris Murdoch, Jonathan Miller, Michael Dummett and Shirley Williams. My favourites are John Mortimer and Michael Goulder.

Forcing each to be as simple as possible make it a much better contribution to the Philosophy of Religion than other academic but tedious works.

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Lay Reader's Book Reviews

The Case Against God — G. Priestland.
April 4, 2015


Excellent, like all his books, allowing people to speak for themselves, and put­ting ideas forward thoughtfully and ensuring that all the issues are stated.

I like the idea that 90% of suffering is man-made and that the rest is an incentive to scientific research because evolution isn’t complete and we’re partners in it and that religions should not seek a false syncretism but seek God in the depths. Also that doctrines are a means to an end – taken literally they are like when a man points to the moon but the observer looks at the finger. 

The book turns out to be a good theodicy and even the institutional church is ‘justified’ as being the transmitter of ‘story’ which the secular world learns from and put into practice in many ways.






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Gerald Priestland

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gerald Priestland

Gerald Francis Priestland (26 February 1927 – 20 June 1991) was a foreign correspondent, presenter and, later, a religious commentator for the BBC.

Early life and work[edit]

Gerald Priestland was the son of (Joseph) Francis ('Frank') Edwin Priestland, Cambridge-educated publicity manager at Berkhamsted agricultural chemical business Cooper's (later Cooper, McDougall and Robertson- now part of GlaxoSmithkline), and a lieutenant in the Machine Gun Corps during the First World War, and Ellen Juliana, daughter of Colonel Alexander McWhirter Renny, of the 7th Bengal Lancers.[1] The owner of Cooper's was Frank Priestland's brother-in-law Sir Richard Ashmole Cooper, 2nd Baronet (married to his sister Alice).[2] Frank Priestland's father, Rev. Edward Priestland, was headmaster of Spondon House School in Derbyshire, having taken over from his father-in-law, Rev. Thomas Gascoigne.[3]

Gerald Priestland was educated at Charterhouse and New College, Oxford. He began his work at the BBC with a six-month spell writing obituary pieces for broadcast news. Indeed, he even jokingly wrote his own obituary shortly before leaving the job for a post as a sub-editor in the news gathering operation. In 1954, he became the youngest person (at 26 years) to work as a BBC foreign correspondent, having been sent by the controversial Editor of News, Tahu Hole, to the BBC's office in New Delhi. Between 1958 and 1961, Priestland was relocated to Washington, D.C. where he covered, among other things, the successful election of John F. Kennedy and the first US human spaceflight of Project Mercury.[4] Following this, he spent most of the next four years as the BBC's Middle East correspondent, including covering the funeral of Jawaharlal Nehru,[5] before requesting a transfer back to London as a television newsreader.

BBC2 opening night[edit]

Possibly Priestland's best known news broadcast occurred on the opening night of the BBC2 channel (Monday 20 April 1964). He had the onerous and unexpected task of anchoring the evening's transmission from the newsroom at Alexandra Palace as a consequence of an extensive power failure across London.[6] The channel's output that evening was restricted to repeated readings of the news and apologies for the loss of normal service and only lasted for about three hours.

Later life and work[edit]

During the late 1960s, Priestland was back in the USA as chief American correspondent where he covered such events as the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., the moon landing of the Apollo program and the outraged response of students to the Vietnam War. He returned to Britain at the end of the decade but his broadcasting duties were interrupted when he suffered a nervous breakdown. In the course of his recovery, Priestland became a devoted Quaker, despite having been a confirmed atheist in his youth.

Religious affairs[edit]

From the 1970s onward, Priestland became increasingly involved in religious broadcasting and was the BBC's religious affairs correspondent from 1977 to 1982. His "Priestland's Postbag" was a controversial part of Terry Wogan's BBC breakfast programme, drawing both praise and criticism. During this period, he reported on both Papal Elections of 1978 and introduced a Saturday morning programme on BBC Radio 4 entitled Yours Faithfully. 


He gave the 1982 Swarthmore Lecture entitled, Reasonable Uncertainty: a Quaker approach to doctrine to the annual gathering of British Quakers. Priestland published his autobiography, Something Understood, in 1986, a work which he hastily altered before publication to express his true feelings about Tahu Hole, who had recently died: "He was a monster in every sense."

Priestland participated in a number of television and radio programmes for both the BBC and ITV until his death in 1991. After his death he received the rare honour (shared with John Reith, Huw Wheldon and Richard Dimbleby) of having a series of annually broadcast lectures named in his honour. He expressed his love of Cornwall in Postscript: with love to Penwith, published after his death.

Programmes[edit]

Priestland presented or featured on the following BBC programmes:

  • BBC2 news (television programme) as a newsreader
  • Sunday (radio programme) as a presenter
  • Analysis (radio programme) as a presenter - 1974 to 1975
  • Yours Faithfully (radio programme) as a presenter
  • Priestland's Progress (radio programme) as a presenter[7] - 1981
  • Desert Island Discs (radio programme) as a guest castaway[8] - 1984
  • Radio Lives (radio programme) as the biography subject - 1995

Personal life[edit]

On 14 May 1949, Priestland married (Helen) Sylvia Rhodes (17 May 1924 - 14 January 2004), daughter of (Edward) Hugh Rhodes, C.B.E.,[9] of Turner's Wood, Hampstead Garden Suburb, a senior civil servant.[10] Sylvia Priestland was an artist. They had two sons and two daughters.[11][12]

Sources[edit]

Printed material by Gerald Priestland[edit]

  • America, the Changing Nation (1968)
  • Frying Tonight: the saga of fish and chips (1972)
  • The Future of Violence (1974)
  • The Dilemmas of Journalism: speaking for myself (1979)
  • West of Hayle River: (with Sylvia Priestland) (1980), new edition 1992 as Priestlands' Cornwall
  • Priestland's Progress: One man's search for Christianity now (1981)
  • Coming Home: an introduction to the Quakers (1981)
  • Reasonable Uncertainty: a Quaker approach to doctrine (Swarthmore Lecture – 1982)
  • Priestland: Right and Wrong (1983)
  • Who Needs the Church?: the 1982 William Barclay Lectures (1983); Edinburgh, St Andrews Press ISBN 0715205536
  • The Case Against God (1984)
  • For All the Saints (1985) – the 1985 James Backhouse Lecture (pamphlet – 18 pages)
  • Something Understood: an autobiography (1986)[13]
  • The Unquiet Suitcase: Priestland at Sixty (1988) – Gerald Priestland's diary for 1 year, from February 1987
  • Postscript: With Love to Penwith: two essays in Cornish History; with a foreword by Sylvia Priestland (1992)
  • My Pilgrim Way: late writings; edited by Roger Toulmin (1993)
  • Three volumes of the Yours faithfully collected radio talks, the third volume having the title Gerald Priestland at Large.

References[edit]

  1. ^ Something Understood- An Autobiography, Gerald Priestland, Andre Deutsch Ltd, 1986, pp. 11-14
  2. ^ Something Understood- An Autobiography, Gerald Priestland, Andre Deutsch Ltd, 1986, pp. 11-12
  3. ^ Something Understood- An Autobiography, Gerald Priestland, Andre Deutsch Ltd, 1986, p. 10
  4. ^ Turnill, Reginald (2003). The Moonlandings: An Eyewitness Account. Cambridge University Press. p. 48. ISBN 9780521035354.
  5. ^ "Fond farewell to modern India's father". 13 September 2005. Retrieved 24 October 2018.
  6. ^ "BBC Two's 50th anniversary: Disastrous launch remembered". BBC News. 2014.
  7. ^ "Priestland's Progress - BBC Radio 4 FM - 30 September 1981 - BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 24 October 2018.
  8. ^ "BBC Radio 4 - Desert Island Discs, Gerald Priestland". BBC. Retrieved 24 October 2018.
  9. ^ Who was Who: A Companion to Who's Who, A. & C. Black, 1981, p. 636
  10. ^ Something understood (Pbk edition) pp.78, 91 "With my exam of my life behind me, the Navy dismissed, and a job in hand, Sylvia and I were able to fix the wedding for May 14th 1949, three days before Sylvia's birthday"
  11. ^ George Wedell: Priestland, Gerald Francis (1927–1991), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2011, accessed 24 May 2015
  12. ^ The last page of Something understood gives more family information.
  13. ^ The title, "Something understood", is the last two words of George Herbert's poem "Prayer", referred to on page 8 (pbk edition). Monochrome illustrations, Hardback, 1986 ISBN 0233975004, paperback edition, Arrow, 1988 ISBN 0099523809

External links[edit]

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