This little piggy went to market, this little piggy reminds us of our ape ancestry

Ask someone what is their favourite part of the body and you will get a number of responses consisting of the usual suspects. Very few, I imagine, will cite their feet and their 'best bit'. And with little surprise. Feet are not the most attractive part of a human being's body. Mine are particularly repulsive.

Though what interests me concerning feet are the toenails. Just what are they for?! They seem to provide no apparent purpose other than to get long and tear holes in the end of the socks. 

What they seem to be is a glimpse into the past - a snapshot of who we were some millions of years ago. Our feet possess five digits each, much like our hands. Our feet possess nails at the tips, much like our hands. When our nails (toe and finger) become long they remind us of claws similar to the claws on other mammals.

Are our toenails simply a redundant remnant from a time when we walked on four limbs? When we became bipedal the need for rear claws disappeared but the nails remained. Is that not the simplest explanation?! Does it not comply with the requirements of Ockham's razor (as opposed to Ken Ham's one)?!

I came to this conclusion not through reading scientific journals or attending conferences, but by simple observation and curiosity. Toenails seemed such strange and (no pun intended) pointless things. There must be an explanation. Saying they are 'designed' begs the question "are they actually a design fault". It makes more sense to trace them back to other animals. 

And while we're on it, why do I have to shave everyday? Or to put it another way, why do I have hair all over my body? As I am carried kicking and screaming into middle age I find more and  more hair appearing in all sorts of places. Not only is it on my arms, legs and chest (and the other place, and by that I'm not referring to the House of Lords) but in my ears and up my nose. Now, having recently been to the zoo I noticed that apes don't just have human-like faces, but are also covered with a lot of body hair.

Just as toenails and fingernails are a remnant of the past, so too the fine coating of hair we all have is again a throwback to our common ape ancestor. So on that note, once you've finished grooming me, pass that banana or I'll go ape!   

Do bacteria feel the need to drink Yakult?

As possibly stated before, I have no training in Science apart from a couple of obligatory years in school. Therefore, I am fully aware that any thoughts or opinions I may have about the subject could be well off the mark, and so I'm more than happy to be corrected if wrong.

We know there are such things as 'good bacteria' - the kind that aid digestion and generally keep the body in some sort of balance, as claimed by the various pro-biotic drinks that are available. We also know that the world belongs to bacteria, in that they are the most populous life form on this planet and they live everywhere, even in the most inhospitable places. 

So we know that there are good and bad bacteria, and we know that they are a life form. So according to the Creationists at some point during those first 6 days (it's not mentioned or even hinted at in the Genesis account) God must have created them: "and on the fifth day God said, 'Let there be bacteria', and God saw that they were good".

Then, again according to the Creationists interpretation of Genesis, the Fall happened (not the Band I hasten to add) and everything went sour. Evil and sickness polluted the world and death occurred etc, etc.

Now, if bacteria are life forms, and if God created every life form to be good and perfect, and if the consequences of the Fall led to sickness and death, then it should be possible to witness bacteria becoming ill. After all (or should that be 'after Fall') they are living things, and every living thing, according to Creationists, is subject to the consequences of Sin.

And not only that, just as people, other living things affected by the Fall, can become ill and then restored to health, shouldn't it be possible to cure bacteria and restore them to health? 

 

  

The Chances Of Any Mars Rover Working On Mars, Is A Million To One They Said...

And so YET ANOTHER Mars Rover has made it to the Red Planet. Hopefully this one will do its job, which I believe is to try and answer conclusively that question regarding whether there was ever life there.

People, both scientists and Believers (Christian, not X-Files) wait with baited breath to see what it will find. 

For the scientists, the discovery of life, no matter how simple, will open up the debate on whether we are truly alone in the Universe or not. Indeed, the finding of life on Mars will only add further weight to what was previously statistical flimsy. 

For religious believers, the discovery of life will only add to their headache - you know, the one that started when Darwin first got published. If there was life on Mars then the chances are vastly increased that there might be life, life very much like our own, somewhere in the vastness of space. If there are creatures similar to us out there does that mean that there is more than one Jesus, or did Jesus' work here on Earth cover all other potentialities? Any positive discovery will force many religious people to rethink issues of faith, especially with regards to soteriology. 

War, huh, good God, what it is good for.... $1,000 billion annually apparently

"More than 100 nations have reached an agreement on a treaty which would ban current designs of cluster bombs.

Diplomats meeting in Dublin agreed to back an international ban on the use of the controversial weapons following 10 days of talks.

But some of the world's main producers and stockpilers - including the US, Russia and China - oppose the move"

So reported the BBC

When I was a kid, during the Cold War, there was always talk about a new type of bomb that was designed in such a way to kill humans but leave buildings intact. It was the epitome of efficiency. Why develop a bomb that will blow everything around it to smithereens, because when you've won the war you'll only need to spend your hard earned cash rebuilding the place you tried, and succeeded, to blow to bits. In a strange way there was a sort of logic to it. It made a certain amount of sense.

In the oddest of reversals this desire for efficiency was born in an era of wasteful consumerism. These days, when all of us are conscious of our carbon footprints and consequently are wiping for a solid minute or more on the ecological door mat before we come in, the 21st century warmongers have a casual attitude to their military ordinance. 

The first Gulf War in 1991 hailed the pinpoint accurate laser guided bomb as the future of warfare. Cluster bombs, on the other hand, are designed to be wasteful. They spread their deadly cargo over a wide area, hoping to hit a number of targets, but not that bothered if they don't. And then they just lie there. A gleaming, shiny little time bomb, waiting until someone innocently stumbles across it, or some toddler picks it up. Once they do, the cluster bomblet ceases to be wasteful.

There are currently estimated to be some 3 billion cluster munitions held in stockpiles throughout the world (these cluster bombs come in 210 different varieties). The US, Russia, and China are the three countries that are most resistant to ending the production of these weapons. I wonder why?!? There's nothing that eases the sting from a credit crunch more effectively than a few more millions made from the sale of cluster ordinance. With the credit crunch you may lose your home. With cluster bombs you may lose your home and your life.

It seems strange that America, which houses the highest concentration of Christians (in all the various hues and shades) is also the keenest to continue the manufacture and sale of these truly dreadful weapons. Whatever happened to "love your enemies"?! They certainly love them - love them to pieces! 

Part of being a Christian, in my humble opinion, is trying to harmonise all the different aspects of your life, rather than compartmentalising the spiritual/religious into one box, and having work, family, social, etc in other boxes. Christianity should not simply be concerned with what I believe on a Sunday - beliefs are a cheap form of currency and prone to drastic inflation. Rather, Christianity should seep through every aspect of my life, including things like how I spend my money.

With George Dubbya Bush not afraid to vocalise his religious convictions, it would be nice to see those convictions influencing the arms trade and American foreign policy.  

It's Really A Matter Of Degrees

On the news today I noticed that a hero of mine, Sir Paul McCartney, was awarded an honorary degree from Yale University in the U.S. Nothing desperately unusual about that, after all he's been a massive influence in the world of music for some 46 years now. He can now refer to himself as "Dr" Paul McCartney as Yale found fit to award him an honorary Doctorate in Music, but may well avoid using the title as he didn't do the work required to earn the degree.

My own denomination, the Presbyterian Church, has a proud tradition of having a well educated clergy. Apart from the obligatory 3 year Theology degree that each one has to undertake, a reasonable number go on to do further study, usually in the form of a Masters or a Doctorate. This is a big commitment for those who do as each degree is normally pursued in a part-time capacity. This doubles the time taken to achieve it and is a drain on an individuals time and financial resources, but is no doubt a source of achievement and pride when attained.

However, there are a few among our ranks who choose to try and short circuit the process by getting their post-graduate degrees from so-called "diploma mills" - unaccredited and unrecognised organisations which churn out 'qualifications' for a fraction of the price in a fraction of the time normally taken. I know of one man who lists his qualification as including 3 Doctorates (a PhD, ThD, and D.Litt). However the 'Seminary' cited has been revealed to be an unaccredited organisation that was run from a certain gentleman's front living room. No faculty, no teaching, no supervision, and a 20 minute viva that ends the question "Do you believe what you've written brother?"

Now, why do I highlight such a thing? If Paul McCartney, and others who have received honorary degrees, don't go around pretending they've earned them why do certain members of the church parade degrees obtained from diploma mills as if they were legitimate?

To proclaim you have qualifications that in reality a normal University would laugh out of the building does two things:

1. it demeans the degrees that genuine people have worked hard to earn
2. it brings the Church into disrepute

The Church has a big enough credibility gap without its own members parading round like peacocks (without the 'pea') with degrees issued by Disneyland! 

   

Too much Scotch for the Scots?!?

Today was the return of the BBC's Springwatch programme, and much like the return of TB there was a bit of Press interest.

Settling down to see the final half hour of it reminded me of why Autumnwatch is still a slightly repressed memory in the back of my head. Now don't get me wrong! I DO like it. The footage of the birds and animals is both charming and fascinating, without a doubt. What gets me is when there's nothing to show. It's like watching one of those 24hr news channels desperately trying to justify a 'live at the scene' broadcast when there's nothing to show and no-one to speak to. 

Animals are great. They just do what they do, when they want to do it. They're not interested in live feeds (of the TV kind anyway) or tightly organised schedules. They're just not prepared to play to the camera. What makes it interesting is watching the other animals, the presenters, trying to make a big screen of nothing look and sound like unmissable telly. 

Tonight, Simon King tried to whip the home viewing audience into a frenzy of fauna excitement by recounting the time earlier on when he didn't film a Scottish Wildcat. You heard me right! He talked us through how they didn't see a Scottish Wildcat, but we did get to see the rather rare glimpse of a branch wobbling. Riveting. 

For those of you who can't be arsed tuning in to see if the branch moves again, I quickly Googled an image of a Scottish Wildcat, and just to make it interesting I've also included a tabby cat. Can you tell the difference?

Answers on an e-card. 

Beauty is in the eye of the My Pictures folder

Forget famine. Forget wars and cruelty. Forget AIDS and cancer. Forget poverty and deprivation. Forget all these things. Don't we live on a wonderful looking planet!

All the bad things aside, we are surrounded by the greatest beauty and majesty in the form of nature. And whether you're into the mountains or the shore, the forests or the plains, narrow country lanes or huge expanses of greenery, our little world can bring you all the nature you want, and then some.

Recently I was in Delamont Country Park, close to Downpatrick. It was a beautiful day and the company was good. It's hard not to enjoy such a setting and as I was walking along one of the prescribed routes (the Garden walk if you're interested) it suddenly hit me that I was not the only living thing there. Sounds daft, but we can all be egocentric now and again. Around me, and mostly unseen, were a dearth of animals and insects - some cute and cuddly, others not so much. And even without the 4+ legged critters I was enveloped by trees on both sides of me. Don't ask me what kind of trees they were. The green kind, I think. These massive edifices of bark and leaf were literally breathing the breath I needed - creating the oxygen that was giving life to all around them. 

No longer was I The Only Living Boy In Delamont (my apologies to Paul Simon). I was but one of many, many living things in that park. And all of us 2, 4, 6 and 8 footed beings were deeply indebted to the trees around us. We relied on them for life.

Process Thought gives much weight to the relatedness of all things. Often, in the past, I have been guilty of believing that the world and everything in it was the property of human beings. It was a belief that came from my evangelical past, and especially of my reading of the Bible. Back then, I considered Man and Woman as the pinnacle of creation. The world was created for us, to be used by us in whatever way we thought fit. Everything in it was therefore to be considered suitable for human 'consumption'. Sadly, it is this type of thinking that has got us to where we are today - on the point of destruction. If only it were self destruction for us humans, but tragically we plan to take around 60% of all species with us.

Now, with Process in mind, I can see that we're all related: all dependent on each other. If God is in all things, as pantheism suggests, then to treat nature with disdain is to treat God with disdain. All very sandal wearing and tree hugging I know, but thought provoking, for me, nonetheless.

Hardly the Consummate Professionals

Memory is a strange thing. When I was younger I used to live for The Professionals. Messers Bodie and Doyle were, for me, the epitome of cool. I suppose I'd have been around 10 years old. The car chases, the gun fights, the high drama, the babes (whatever they were - at age 10 women just spoil a good story) were the highlight of an evenings viewing. Starsky and Hutch were great too, but they were Yanks. The Professionals were home grown. It proved that leather jackets could cross the Atlantic with ease.

As a kid I never missed it - well, you couldn't! VCRs were a thing of the future. Sitting here now, in 2008, watching re-runs of it on ITV4, I wonder what it was that attracted me in the first place. I put it down to the naivety of youth. The stories are laughable. The acting 2D. The attitudes distinctly non-PC (and non-Mac for that matter). Stereotypes abound, both racial and gender, and 'being a man' is defined in the throwing of a punch or the pulling of a trigger. 

Before settling down to watch I was excited. That was soon replaced by horror. It was awful. No, more than that. It was utter shite! I recall exactly the same feeling upon catching sight of old re-runs of Carla Lane's "Butterflies". 

People who say "things were much better in the old days!" are really saying to you that their memory is completely shot, please help them. I can't remember who said, "Nostalgia.........it's not what it used to be" but they hit the nail on the head. Our memories of the past are not simply rose tinted, they stink of lavender too. 

When it comes to Church and general morality we all suffer from defective memory. People were nicer back then. Faith was stronger. Doctrines were purer. Everyone knew their place, and you could leave all your doors, windows and drawers wide open without fear of dodgy doings occurring.

The trick ,I suppose, is not to hold onto the past, even if our memories resemble some sort of reality. The trick might be to plough forward into the future, whatever it may bring. To take the plunge, to walk in faith, into situations and experiences that will be nothing like our recollections of the past, but will have their value in that very fact. Maybe the cry will no longer be "do you remember how good it was in the past" but, "how good is it now?!" Until it does, I will continue to watch Bodie and Doyle with my jaw on the floor. 

Fangs for that piece of information

It's amazing where knowledge comes from! Last week, while watching Channel 5, I came across a programme from Dorset's 'Monkey World' - an organisation that helps apes and monkeys from around the world.

I learnt one thing and I had another thing confirmed.

What was confirmed was just how 'human' monkeys and apes are. Seeing them interact socially and viewing their different personalities told me that in real terms we humans are not THAT different. They, the monkeys, seem to have the same difficulties as we do 'getting on' with others and monkey society falls prey to the same petty jealousies and conflicts that "sophisticated" human cultures and societies do. It's amazing to observe.

But the thing I really learnt revolved around a woman who was looking after a baby monkey (can't remember exactly what type). She was fretting because the little bleeder wasn't taking on liquids, or something like that. Then she commented that the wee thing was teething and probably didn't feel much like eating because he was uncomfortable in the gob region.

Having a little 17 month old 'monkey' myself, and seeing the effects of teething I was shocked. This is, of course, me being completely naive, and I suppose arrogant. I had presumed that all other animals were born with a complete set of gnashers and that it was only humans who had to grow their own. 

Again, it got me to thinking just how close we really are to our primate cousins, and to appreciate all that separates us from them.    

Planning to be unsure

Recently I was reading another blog (yes brave reader, I need to tell you that there are other blogs apart from this oasis of profundity) which was talking about the Reformation. As you might expect it was drenched in cliche and tedium. One person made a comment saying, "God had planned the Reformation for 1,500 years" or something akin to it.

It raised the question of life being planned out. When I was a bright eyed young Fundamentalist the passage from Jeremiah was oft quoted during difficult times: "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

This is supposed to give the hearer a feeling of security and comfort - life has been planned out for us. The good times are God's blessing, and the bad times are there for a reason.

Life experience teaches you many things. Sometimes we learn from experience, and sometimes we fail to learn the lessons we need to learn. Sometimes life is good and sometimes it's bad. A real no brainer I realise, but still needs to be said. 

To decide that life is all planned out for us may well be a comforting thought - it removes the unpleasantness from existential angst - but it creates its own set of difficulties. For a start, free will goes to the dogs. If my life is planned, then how can I be morally responsible for my actions?! Weren't they all planned?!

The evangelical response is usually that there is a plan for us but we are free to divert along the way. Things go pear shaped, it is argued, because we stray from the plan and formulate our own.

My problem with this is that it seems to deny the interventionist nature of an omnipotent, omniscience God that is so central to the evangelical understanding of the Divine. 

As I understand it, life is life. Things happen. Shit happens. Cyclones ravage countries. Earthquakes destroy cities. Children die of starvation in Birmingham in 21st century Britain. To claim they were all part of some divine plan is to depict God as some sort of cosmic bastard. Christian's explanations as to why these terrible things occur only seem to muddy the water, or make things worse: they're all designed to bring comfort, to bring a sense of security, to stop us from going insane trying to contemplate the sheer senselessness of it.

Life is not planned out. It just happens. End of. Process Theology gives me comfort, not because it tells me that God is "in control", but because it says that God suffers with us. And not only that, it tells me that God is calling us to better the world that we live in. The Reformation happened because events at the time helped it to come about. The kid in Birmingham died because her parents were criminally neglectful. The earthquake happened because of faults in the Earth's crust. Not some great plan mapping out what happens whether good or evil.

Up to his neck in the Brown stuff

What a week it's been! What a week to be anyone other than Gordon Brown. "10p tax band for your thoughts", many a backbencher has shouted to him.

What must poor old Gordon be thinking at this moment in his increasingly shaky looking career post Crewe by-election. And what a career it is. It is careering off the rails as each week passes by.

To be Gordon and not to be desperately bitter must be a tricky thing indeed. He waited ten long years to be PM, and when he finally stepped over the threshold of number 10 for the first few months he was not allowed to bend over to tie his shoelaces because his people feared the public might be blinded by all that direct and powerful sunlight.

But that was all too short-lived. Pretty soon the Special Relationship gave us the global credit crunch and then a home grown crisis was spawned via the removal of the 10p tax band which endeared Mr Brown to almost no-one on the Labour backbenches. 

All very political and all very boring. But is there a religious spin to all this?

The only spiritual/Christian slant I can see within all this is to do with how we handle disappointment in life. I'm not sure how I'd react if I were in Gordon Brown's shoes and to be truthful we don't really know his innermost thoughts on the matter - what lies behind the rather dour facade?

Bitterness and anger are common responses to the sense of unfairness or injustice that many of us experience in life. We can do 2 things with this bitterness.

1. we can repress it which takes us straight to the Shrink's couch or to the front of the queue in Coronary Care, or
2. we can channel it into positive action

Life is basically unfair. There I've said it! I hope you were sitting down when you read this. Not that good things and bad things don't happen to us all at different stages in our lives, because they do. What I mean is that in the bigger picture injustice makes a house call at everyone's home at some point. 

The question is, how do we handle it? Rage against God?! Rage against the world?! Rage against ourselves?! Unfocused rage, aimed at whoever, inevitably turns inward and becomes destructive. Rage that is converted into positive action can be a powerful force in the world.

The Bible says "in your anger do not sin". What I think this means is that directionless anger can often become sinful, i.e. self focused and egotistical. However, anger that strives to change and transform what is unfair and unjust leads us not into sin, but into the very heart of God.     

Earthquake shakes Faith

No-one could fail to have been moved by the horrific events in China recently. For many people the initial reaction to such an event is one of compassion. Once a few days have past and the shock subsides the next reaction is one of outrage - "if God exists then how could something like this be allowed to happen!?"

This is a perfectly reasonable question for the theist or agnostic to ask: the atheist might not raise it as a question they ask themselves but rather a question they ask of theists. In religious terms it is the perennial fly in the ointment that constantly threatens to derail the God train.

To be short and too the point this has been a question that has always caused my problems. The problem is with the materials the classical theist has to work with:

• God is love
• God is omniscient
• God is omnipotent

All of the above cannot seem to exits together at the same time. At least one part must give way in the light of evil. Consequently, 

1. God is not loving
2. God is unaware of certain things
3. God doesn't act either because he can't or won't

Certain corners of Christendom would bite the bullet and declare that God is Sovereign and therefore controls all events. This is a difficult one for many people, Christians included, to accept and it does paint God as being rather capricious and nasty in character. As I said, for some people this just something that has to be accepted because to reject it would cause the instability in Faith.

I can't buy into this and it has led to many awkward moments in my own faith life. There's no easy way round it, but there is a way round it!

But it is a journey that is both painful and costly and requires real faith. The 'answer' as far as I can see it, requires a shift in perspective. It's like a mountaineer who climbs the same peak time after time. At the top he looks down on his town - a town he thinks he knows very well. One day he decides to try a different mountain. The one he wants to ascend is higher than his usual one. There are steeper inclines and dangerous rocky outcrops that look too tricky to overcome. Nevertheless, he takes a deep breath and begins his climb. It is as difficult as he first thought, but once he finds his stride the climb becomes steadily easier and even enjoyable near the end. He reaches the peak and looks down. It's the same town, without a doubt, but he's seeing it in a completely new way. There are certain parts that he recognises from his past climbs, but there are also some new and exciting things he didn't realise were part of his town. He stands and stares, completely awestruck.

That new mountain top is Process Theology.

From what I'm learning about Process Theism, the classical view of God (as outlined in the above bullet points) is woefully inadequate for 21st Century life. Rather than being an external, supreme Being that exists apart from the natural world, Process Theism (or PT) sees God as being involved in each and every moment of life. Is is akin to Panentheism (God in all things) as opposed to Pantheism (God is all things), and sees God as essentially persuasive rather than coercive - God never forces us to do anything and instead calls us to the best possible outcome in any given situation. 

This is why it's a difficult climb to make at the start. Initially you have to ditch notions of omniscience and omnipotence and as they've been part and parcel of theistic thinking since the birth of religion this is a demanding thing to achieve. It's a bit like putting Granny into a Home - probably for the best but emotionally draining none the less.

With regards to the earthquake in China, PT contends that bad things, like earthquakes, just happen: it's part of life. God did not cause it, and neither did God fail to prevent it from happening, because God is persuasive rather than coercive. God works within every situation trying to get the best possible outcome (and the important word here is possible). There are no miracles in PT that fall into the 'normal' understanding of miracle - i.e. a divine intervention that alters natural laws. God is in every situation, no matter how bleak it is, and God suffers when we suffer.

It's an answer, but it's not an easy answer, because it removes from us the security of 'knowing' that "someone up there is looking out for us".

For more on Process and Faith or you can Wikipedia it

Are you making a monkey out of me?!

Is it just me, or is Ken Ham, arch enemy of Evolution, actually its greatest advocate (albeit unknowingly)?

Now you tells me there's nothing in it! Eh!!

First things first

Are we alone? Good.

Now that I've got you on my own I can reveal my deepest thoughts and feelings - especially about religion. 

My agenda is not to post an apologetic for a particular point of view, but rather to note my own reflections, in a free form sort of way (i.e. grammatically messy). They will be based partly on news events, partly on my own circumstances, and partly on random thoughts.

It'll happen when it happens as I'm fairly fickle around these types of things. But, hey, come back soon. You might like/hate what you read.

As a reward for reading thus far (God bless your lengthy attention span) I'm going to include a beautiful picture, not of myself of course, but of planet Earth, a little known rock I like to call home.