Five Ways tunnel blocked to buses - to the end of time!

 Good evening, John

I hope you are well and, in particular, keeping free of Covid

Trevor doesn't want to answer my question because he knows, you know, we all know that when you have two of the heftiest concrete crash barriers I have ever seen in the middle of a tunnel, it is completely out of the question for "bus on rails" trams and buses to even follow one after the other through it.  But they might try it!!

Trevor and the others, including the Green Party that has supported this throughout, are wanting between four and six trams every hour of every day running through the tunnel.  How on earth can buses go back?  It is huge fun telling them the bleeding obvious even though, they will go on with more of this madness - despite Covid, Climate and shortages of finite fossil fuels as we complacently, roll drunkenly on our addiction, through this century.

Every one of us should be livid at this further incompetence by fully trained professional officers and, the people like Trevor who are meant to check up on them.  And Trevor is a fully trained, professional accountant, too!  He, by his oversight, has cost us all £149 m of greenhouse gases, plus cost overruns for 2 Kms of a show-off, an over-indulgent, vanity project that puts people off from getting out of their cars and using public transport to get into the city centre.  What a joke!

They are performing the same fun and games on the ready-built, half-finished and, the UK's very last, mainline railway!

This is one reason why I don't believe in God, by the way.  Why would a good God, all-knowing, have created us humans when we will, almost certainly, be far more short-lived than that of the dinosaurs?!  But I can still use the best bits from the Bible and other sacred writings from the other faiths until I succumb.

Best wishes and keep well.  I do do much else, too, by the by!

To Michael Bourke, ret Bishop of Wolverhampton

 Thanks so much for sending me your helpful talk that I have now read and, re-read.  It reflects some of my own thoughts and has increased my understanding.  Thank you.

I particularly liked,

"the Presence of One whose world it is, who is here before us
and we are her guests. We know that nature can be cruel and
inhospitable, and yet, as today’s environmental movement
testifies – despite everything (the second part of my title!) –
the natural world is not just a blind mechanism or a material
resource for us to exploit. It mediates a presence and a
sense of wonder."

AND,

"We are not the lords of the universe.  Reverence, humility and trust are required of us in the macro-ecology of which we are part."

Yes, indeed.  We are part of nature and subject to the laws of nature.  But we think we are a cut above nature.  Such is our hubris and eventual undoing.

"The fool has said in his heart, there is no God."  Psalm 14 v 1

The problem I have is that even the wisest of the wise who are most devoted to the Lord God, are, like the rest of us, living infinitely on a finite planet and unnaturally on a natural planet.  That is extremely dangerous and foolish.  Unfortunately, we are now well and truly locked into this behaviour.  Utterly dependant on, addicted to, oil and gas that without them, means I think, we cannot even eat or drink!  We are well and truly trapped into using finite fossil fuels for virtually everything!  Yet, both must be in short supply before the end of the century.

In addition, as we merrily burn them up and live it up, we have been told for 150 years, that making carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels warms the planet.  Eunice Foote, in 1856, was the first and is the mother of climate science.  The IPCC has confirmed this in every report since 1988.  However, still no effective action to reverse the rot and we carry on regardless, with our fingers crossed behind our backs.

As a result, it looks likely that we humans will have a much shorter track record than the dinosaurs that God seems to have created the earth for and not for foolish humans.  I hope I'm wrong!

A poisoned chalice.  The gods have played a cruel trick on us.  A one-off geological inheritance that was never meant to be exploited with such gay abandon.  It was the apple on the tree that we were never meant to take, let alone partake of as we have done, for 300 years.  But we can hardly blame our ancestors, can we?  I expect, we would each have done exactly the same.  Perhaps, a serious flaw in our human nature! 

Very many thanks, again for such an erudite essay to promote thought!  I have put it in my 'Religious thoughts' folder to refer back.

Have a wonderful Christmas and new year.

Using God as a fire extinguisher

USING GOD AS A FIRE EXTINGUISHER - for emergency use only

Christianity is not an insurance policy against death and misfortune.  In fact, it’s the exact opposite, for the sun rises on the righteous and the unrighteous; the rain falls on the just and the unjust.  When Les, Christ-like, God fearing, what you see is what you get, the genuine article, Les Hardwick loses his beloved wife so prematurely, it does destroy my faith in a loving and just God.  It also shook his faith, from what he told me.  God cannot possibly be a God of love, justice and who is able to protect His own.  Les should have been the very last person whom the Lord should have allowed to lose his wife in 2000.

Therefore, as I see it, we have 
           the problem of Christians suffering.  Indicating a God who does not care, even about His own people.

           the problem of the Bible - favouritism for one tribe, only, for one set of peoples, only.  God promised that their ancestors would bless the rest of humanity but the Jews, the Christians and the Muslims, the children of Abraham, have most certainly not been a blessing to everyone else.  In fact, they have been at each others throats and the Christians have, for centuries, been somewhat domineering around the world - to put it mildly.  This, contrary to what their founder flatly rejected in one of the three temptations in the wilderness of Judea.
          the problem of human ecocide - very short-lived human species when compared with very long-lived dinosaurs.
          the problem of human intolerance of each other and their inability to live in peace one with the other.
the problem of the vast majority of the best Christians - the Bible believing, born again ones - being quite content with having employment in the arms industry, the armed forces and voting for the war parties. Coercion, force and aggression is acceptable for the most virtuous, sanctified and holy of people.
the problem of abortion and voluntary euthanasia being more evil than killing the born in time of war.
          the problem of human stupidity - especially over foreign, military, transport, economic and energy policy - not much left after than list. But, actually, we humans are homo sapiens - "wise man" - so we can't be that stupid!
          the problem of the infinite, immensities of space, of nothingness yet the existence of earth created by the human construct of ‘God’.
          the problem of how God came about, if He was not thought up by humans.

          the problem of religion being pre-scientific.  It was, quite naturally, an outcome of humans needing to keep in with Nature - the sun, wind and rain, for their very survival and comfort.  Not surprisingly, it developed and grew as humans grew in size and in dominance of all other livings things on earth.  Now, an over dominance that is likely to be our own undoing.

Why not believe in God?

• There is no evidence for 'God'. It has to be solely a question of faith.
• There was no creation moment for life on earth but, perhaps, there was for the universe almost 14 billion years ago, after the Big Bang gave birth to it.
• But, there is evidence that 'God' created the earth for dinosaurs - from their successful occupation of the planet for many tens of millions of years. Unlike humans very brief track record and their malign effect for both themselves and all other life forms.
• Therefore, why did 'God' create the world for humans AND, in his image, too?! Does that not reflect very badly on 'God'? What on earth was 'God' doing creating humans? He was either mad, bad or made a genuine mistake! None of these options are consistent with 'God' and the nature that the theists say he has.

Colin's thought:

If God is all knowing, why would he embark upon a pointless
experiment to test our faith ? After all, he is GOD and would therefore
already know who would fail and who would pass the tests and temptations He
places in our paths. The idea of free will seems equally odd for God would
already know our fate. He would also be aware of the misery and pain we
would inflict upon our fellow, innocent creatures and our planet. This
God, or at least as I understand the whole set up, seems a bit of a sadist.
(I say this whilst checking behind me just in case there is a bolt of
lightening on its way). Colin Port

Myself: Is not a temptation - for example a lustful thought - a sin in itself, quite apart from the act of lust itself? In addition, isn't lust an essential element of human nature to ensure the continuation of the species? The Lord's Prayer, "lead us not into temptation" is well meaning but unrealistic and is asking God to censor our thoughts that is quite impossible ever to happen.

The theists say that God has given us free will, so we are not robots. We are free to disobey him and free to obey him. His omniscience should have told him that there would be the Fall in the Garden of Eden and more disobedience, as you write, and very much more disobedience. So why create the suicidal and ecocidal maniacs that are humans? It just does not add up; no, not one little bit!

However, the scientific, open, objective mind set should properly lead us to agnosticism until there is cast iron proof that it was man who created God. The believers get out of that by saying that it was God who put the thought of himself in their heads and who allowed them to work out his nature. So you can't win!

The Bible says, God created the world, not the solar system, not the

galaxy, not the universe! The Bible view, I believe I'm right in saying,

is of a flat world, with the stars in the heavens as the roof or ceiling

for the world and hell or hades is in the basement. It was the RCs who

tortured Galileo for saying it was nothing like that, I understand! (But I

must check my facts, sometime.)

Hello Tim,

Just one final thought. Atheists are, no doubt, overjoyed by Stephen

Hawking's pronouncement that God's presence was not essential for the

universe to form as this was just a coincidental collision of gases and

elements. The Believers would argue however, that it was God who put the

gases and elements there in the first place. And if that doesn't silence

the doubters, the Believers can always revert to their usual response

"because it says so in the Bible".

On a lighter note, it is said that we are all products of the "Big Bang".

The question is, does that mean we are formed of stardust........ or

nuclear waste?

Colin 7 September 2010

Thanks for this amusing piece.

And, at what point did God create the world and everything in it - at the
Big Bang or when the planet emerged or when life of some kind was first
seen or when the first section of the Bible was written or when the Church
of England was created by King Henry 8th who gave himself the divine right
to rule? The earth and everything on it is constantly and very slowly
changing!

The words that the Christians use for Jesus Christ are also anachronistic
eg King (I'm a republican); Lord (part of the aristocracy); Master (better
to be a servant, according to Jesus). In our history, kings and lords were shockingly brutal
and murderous and rarely exemplary role models.

Tim