I can't explain

I know how Pete Townshend felt when he wrote that!

The kids are in bed, my daughter has a friend here for a sleepover (US translation of "slumber party"?) and they're eating popcorn and watching "Garfield" in bed. They are so excited to be together! Having children is a wonderful thing in life, you never really know how you're doing as a parent. Kids do implicitly trust you and it can be scary at times, "am I doing the right thing by them"? We're never warned of how the parental experience is really going to be. And no, she doesn't get everything she wants, just 99% of it :-)

The other thing that I've found, with your own child, is that they can improve you as a person, you see your own insecurities and fears in them and think, "they're unfounded, so why should I carry the burden of those insecurities and fears?". Parent heal thyself.

The other thing many of us do of course when we have kids is start along the journey of forgiving our own parents.

We've been swimming, and afterwards as I sat in the car park at McDonalds (coals of shame) with them I was thinking on your experience with your dog (Rusty? - a very moving tale by the way) and thought "maybe this is it!".

The dog didn't resist you saving him, he trusted you implicitly. Perhaps if he had struggled he would have made his situation worse for himself and have inadvertantly cast himself into the lake of fire? Maybe this is how it is with God? But then I thought, for that to be true, God would be bound not to save us from ourselves and God is bound by nothing. So strike that one.

In any case I would really like a dog one day when I have the time to look after one properly. There is some magical bond between people and dogs that doesn't seem to be there with other pets. Cats take all the love and get fat without giving much back on the whole. Perhaps I'm just a dog person?

I have no desire to disprove the Christian God. I would more that anything love to prove Him "Absolutely True" beyond a shadow of a doubt for all of mankind, but I don't think the story told by The Bible is beautiful enough in the light of the knowledge we have today to be "Absolutely True". I have to be honest don't I? The things that I cannot reconcile are:

The Earth is not at the physical centre of the Universe and everything does not go around it

Human beings have been around a long time, mitochondrial DNA has reliably and reproducibly shown us that the first human woman lived at least 250,000 years ago, in Africa

Why would the Son of the Creator appear so recently in historical time? (It is much more believable that he appeared halfway from now since time began, as given in the Creationist view)

The Speed Of Light is constant for all observers

NB: This property of light causes time to change for observers moving at different velocities. This means that physical objects can never travel faster than the speed of light. This constancy also means that the light from Jesus' birth (unless it went thru some kind of wormhole in space) is now surrounding the Earth as a sphere of some 2005 light years in radius. Anything that Jesus said and did cannot be outside of that sphere. Volumes go by the cube of the radius so the "Jesus effect" (in a Universe of 7 US billion light years in radius) represents 2.345 e-20 th of the volume of the Universe. This number is vanishingly small.

This whole idea about sin. Why bother creating a Universe that God knew would develop this thing "sin" that he found abhorrent? And why does he not perfect his Creation?

Free will vs. what God knows we're going to do anyway

Given the state of philosophy and science 2000 years ago The Bible becomes much more believable. Then the miracles really were miracles. Arthur C. Clarkes third law, as modified by deep.thought "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from miracles".

The Bible appears to me as Ptolemys Circles do to explain the motion of the planets.

I have studied The Bible a lot, I don't have your knowledge or your eidetic ability but I do see errors in there. I'm not looking for them but if they are there then the whole thing is a house of cards that falls apart (to me). Even Barnes says "ah, that was probably a mistranslation from the original Hebrew" at one point.

What I believe I know is that there is a powerful being that goes by the name of Jesus that is still around and can have an immense impact on our lives. I can't explain it but that much I believe. I talk to him, ask him to do stuff, and sometimes he talks back and it happens. I am sure that Jesus walked the Earth 2000 years ago and did amazing things, he is still around but I don't know the nature of Him. I believe that what was written about Him was a direct response to his "amazingness", but what was written was written by people in my agonized opinion.

It would be much easier to just believe. Jewish folk might call me goyim. The best chance I have of believing in The Bible is to suspend disbelief and reason, I can do this of course :-) I'm still asking what is really going on and as promised in Luke I will find out.

Now what else are you saying to me today ... ?

Hmm, we're enjoying our blessings of smartness :-) Hey, I never did anything, nothing of note published, no Nobel Prizes and I lose at chess. But thanks I appreciate the ego boost :-) We're smart but there are many smarter. Perhaps your colour-vision is unique though, and in a large company you have distinguished yourself with works of note, have you ever come across anyone else that does the colour-thing? PS. I think you are brilliant, and I mean that most sincerely.

Interesting point on your sales experience, but most salesmen I would go out of my way to avoid. Maybe that's it though, I think that the snappy comeback happens through fast connections being made in the unconscious brain, we're just wired differently.

There are times for downtown Seattle and times for XML. Everything in balance Bagwell. You're driven to meet your commitments which is not a bad thing. I'm sure that Timothy was told to look for such people somewhere.

If God is Abba then he is one who can bear to see his children cast into the lake of fire.