Little A picked the biggest green tomatoe he could find off the Vicars tomatoe plants.
The Vicar and family baked for us all, how delicious! I had to work really hard to not stuff myself on orange and chocolate muffins lol.
As usual we stayed way past our welcome.
Mummy grassed me up about the reading I had been doing.
So put on the spot I confronted for the first time the feelings I'd been having for the last week since finishing Lee Strobel's "The Case for Christ." As an ex detective this book spoke to me in familiar language. The author asked all the questions I was asking growing up and obtained detailed answers from world renowned experts in various fields.
One chapter dealt with the Crucifixion and Strobel discussed this with a forensic pathologist. The description of the Passion was given in detailed terminology I was only too familiar with and when I finished that section of the chapter I was weeping.
The rest of the book was much the same and when I'd finished I was filled with a deep disappointment and sense of being let down by the people: my parents; my four god parents; my grandparents and my school teachers. All of whom should have made sure, indeed had a deep moral obligation to ensure, I was given a rounded view of the arguments between science and religion.
Instead at my most formative time of being a teenager I was subjected to the barrage of science based theories with never a thought by any of the people around me to point out the limits of those theories. For example the "Big Bang Theory" is spouted as fact by multitudes of TV programs, one of which was on the TV last night, and most school teachers. Let's be clear it is still only a theory and never have I ever heard anything that accompanies this ritualistic spouting of the birth of the universe which alludes to the fact the "Big Bang" must have had a cause of which we have no reliable scientific theories whatsoever.
Lets take the "Beginning of Life" science says we all originated in a "primordial soup" with an atmosphere of reactive gases such as ammonia and methane. Rubbish, the experiment that supposedly proved this was a fix!They had no evidence at the time as to what the atmosphere contained and made a guess, which stacked the result in the scientists favour. We now know the Earth's atmosphere at the time life originated was much as it is today inert and unable to support the reactions to create the building blocks of life. The list of scientific fallacies pedalled as fact when I was a teenager goes on.
Yes in education where exams have to be sat and knowledge demonstrated the student must learn the theories but there is massive injustice where we fool our children in to thinking we have knowledge when we we only have theory particularly where this is presented at the time of life where one is questioning everything. The best that can be said is that we can explain the workings of the universe and the workings of life and how it developed over the centuries, but we cannot and probably never will be able to explain with scientific certainty the birth of the universe and the beginning of life on Earth.
It is fair to say Strobel's book had a profound effect on me, not least because he had direct access to world renowned experts I would never have the chance to interview for myself.
The weight of evidence presented gave me the will to look again at Christ after 30 years of denying him, but I was determined this time I would not have blind faith. In the Church's own words I wanted an informed faith. One that would stand up to scrutiny by me and others, one I could explain rationally and with full reference to the scientific principles I felt so sure of when I was growing up.
But this was not all, you see something is nagging at me. After reading the Passion chapter I felt full like a solid mass was in the space under my heart, a mass that was bursting to get out putting uncomfortable pressure on my ribs and diaphragm. This sensation stayed with me, driving me on to finish the book and again through the second of Strobel's books "The Case for Faith" and through a third book "The Missing Years of Jesus" by Dennis Price.
Occasionally the sensation returns as a reminder to do....... something.
So put on the spot I confronted for the first time the feelings I'd been having for the last week since finishing Lee Strobel's "The Case for Christ." As an ex detective this book spoke to me in familiar language. The author asked all the questions I was asking growing up and obtained detailed answers from world renowned experts in various fields.
One chapter dealt with the Crucifixion and Strobel discussed this with a forensic pathologist. The description of the Passion was given in detailed terminology I was only too familiar with and when I finished that section of the chapter I was weeping.
The rest of the book was much the same and when I'd finished I was filled with a deep disappointment and sense of being let down by the people: my parents; my four god parents; my grandparents and my school teachers. All of whom should have made sure, indeed had a deep moral obligation to ensure, I was given a rounded view of the arguments between science and religion.
Instead at my most formative time of being a teenager I was subjected to the barrage of science based theories with never a thought by any of the people around me to point out the limits of those theories. For example the "Big Bang Theory" is spouted as fact by multitudes of TV programs, one of which was on the TV last night, and most school teachers. Let's be clear it is still only a theory and never have I ever heard anything that accompanies this ritualistic spouting of the birth of the universe which alludes to the fact the "Big Bang" must have had a cause of which we have no reliable scientific theories whatsoever.
Lets take the "Beginning of Life" science says we all originated in a "primordial soup" with an atmosphere of reactive gases such as ammonia and methane. Rubbish, the experiment that supposedly proved this was a fix!They had no evidence at the time as to what the atmosphere contained and made a guess, which stacked the result in the scientists favour. We now know the Earth's atmosphere at the time life originated was much as it is today inert and unable to support the reactions to create the building blocks of life. The list of scientific fallacies pedalled as fact when I was a teenager goes on.
Yes in education where exams have to be sat and knowledge demonstrated the student must learn the theories but there is massive injustice where we fool our children in to thinking we have knowledge when we we only have theory particularly where this is presented at the time of life where one is questioning everything. The best that can be said is that we can explain the workings of the universe and the workings of life and how it developed over the centuries, but we cannot and probably never will be able to explain with scientific certainty the birth of the universe and the beginning of life on Earth.
It is fair to say Strobel's book had a profound effect on me, not least because he had direct access to world renowned experts I would never have the chance to interview for myself.
The weight of evidence presented gave me the will to look again at Christ after 30 years of denying him, but I was determined this time I would not have blind faith. In the Church's own words I wanted an informed faith. One that would stand up to scrutiny by me and others, one I could explain rationally and with full reference to the scientific principles I felt so sure of when I was growing up.
But this was not all, you see something is nagging at me. After reading the Passion chapter I felt full like a solid mass was in the space under my heart, a mass that was bursting to get out putting uncomfortable pressure on my ribs and diaphragm. This sensation stayed with me, driving me on to finish the book and again through the second of Strobel's books "The Case for Faith" and through a third book "The Missing Years of Jesus" by Dennis Price.
Occasionally the sensation returns as a reminder to do....... something.
