Hard to Believe: A Beginner's Guide to Heresy

Hard to Believe: A Beginner's Guide to Heresy is, for the emerging skeptic, like a cup of coffee on a cold winter morning. It can make your day.

Paul Roddick grew up and went to school in a rural community in Alberta, north of Edmonton. He joined the army, as a signalman, in 1942 and crossed the Atlantic to England in August of that year - arriving at the mouth of the Clyde on the morning of the disastrous Canadian raid on Dieppe.

In 1946 he enrolled at Queen's University in Kingston - graduating in 1950 with an honours degree in English and History. During his student days he wrote the libretto for (and produced) an opera, "Evangeline.".. He also edited and produced "Tricolor '50," the yearbook for his graduating year.

Following graduation he returned to the U.K. where he was employed for two years with the Colonization & Immigration Department of Canadian National Railways. When he returned to Canada in 1953, he joined the Federal Public Service, and for the next 29 years was involved in a variety of activities, including a major role in the development and implementation of a system of collective bargaining for the Public Service of Canada. His last assignment before his retirement was "Public Service Commissioner" for the Yukon Territorial Government.

Hard to Believe: A Beginner's Guide to Heresy, was begun in 2001, soon after the 9-11 attack in New York, and published in June 2006. The attack on the Trade Towers, and its aftermath, has dominated the news throughout these years, and continues to do so. The author's preoccupation with the significance of this event - in religion and in world politics - is reflected in his Preface, where he writes of "reaching out to a variety of writers for inspiration and understanding, some born long before me, some of my own generation, but most belong to younger generations. What I began as a monologue in 2001, has become in 2005, a forum."

Since his retirement Paul Roddick has lived in Edmonton, Brockville, and for the past ten years in Kingston. While in Brockville he wrote a weekly column for the Brockville's "Recorder and Times." He celebrated his 84th birthday on August 1st, 2006.