Author with Limerick connections releases new book reflecting on God's existence

A NEW BOOK written by an Irish man previously based in Limerick looks at the big question: is God real or man made?

Joseph ‘Tony’ Cronin who spent time growing up in Caherconlish but now living in New South Wales, Australia decided to write the book to try and make more sense of the Catholic religion he was exposed to all his life.

“It started off as an autobiography and then I changed away from that and got to looking at the Bible in extreme detail,” Mr Cronin said.

The book titled Reflections of a Catholic Altar Boy was released on September 30.

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“I went looking for answers in the Bible to try and convince myself, one way or another, if a god existed,” Mr Cronin added.

“I tried to make the book light hearted and humorous to keep it readable and I was blown away by the things I found that our Catholic teachers growing up never told us about,” he said.

Each chapter of Mr Cronin’s book summarises the 66 texts from the King James version of the Bible and at the end reflects upon the teachings.

“You don’t have to read the book chronologically, you can open the book at any chapter and begin reading,” Mr Cronin said.

Mr Cronin believes that his big finding from the Old Testament is that heaven and hell and a life after death does not exist.

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“That was one of the big shocks I found, they only appear in the New Testament,” Mr Cronin said.

“I went over each Bible text carefully like a juror would in court,” Mr Cronin continued.

“My finding after studying each of the texts in the end is that the god that exists in the Bible is man made. It is a creation of the writers and it becomes so obvious as you read through it that they’re making this up,” Mr Cronin deliberated.