The Faint Blue Dot

When Voyager 1 was two billion miles from the sun, and moving away from the solar system into deep space it photographed planet Earth.  The image produced by NASA showed a faint blue dot in the cosmos, a tiny speck orbiting a star in a remote part of a galaxy containing billions of stars, itself one of countless numbers of galaxies. On this dot a strange coincidence happened in a soup of molecules and the eventual result was the myriad of life forms that exist on Earth today.
The ancients thought the Earth was the centre of the universe, Galileo know different but could he have imagined what an insignificant speck we were?  The Doppler effect shows that the universe is expanding outwards, and that means it all started with a big bang estimated to be about 13.8 billion years ago.  What happened before the big bang, was there a before?   We don't know, but does this mean that I believe in a deity?  The short answer in no.
St.Thomas Aquinas tried to prove the existence of God in his Summa Theologica  but it was doomed to failure because it is one of those things that cannot be proved or disproved.  His five proofs don't stand up to critical analysis, but let us assume for the sake of argument that believers are right and that God exists.  In that case it would be impossible to know the nature of such a being, but Christians, Muslims and Jews profess to know the nature of deity and ascribe to it all kinds of human attributes; love, mercy etcetera, and even in the Old Testament jealousy!
Where do they get this information?  They get it from prophets, and from Jesus.  These men have a direct line to this God, they speak to him and he gives them answers.  Jesus is said to have a filial relationship with this deity, has been put on Earth for a purpose, and has magical powers.  I could go on, but the point is there is no credible evidence that any of this is true, certainly none that would stand up to scientific scrutiny.  If these prophets really could communicate with a deity they would know that far from being the centre of everything we were just a faint blue speck, and that at unimaginable distances away there were other worlds, possibly with other creatures that may, or may not be like us.
31.07.15

Hypocrite!

David Cameron has said that this is a Christian country and while it may be true that the Church of England is the established church and the Archbishop of Canterbury presides over great State occasions, the population is in fact made up of people of many faiths and also many of no faith.
However if we take David Cameron at his word then surely it follows that he, and the government must adhere to basic Christian principles.  I am not talking about dogma here, Christians differ on this, I am talking about fundamental precepts. "Love thy neighbour," "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."  Why is this relevant?  Because there are many genuine refugees from Syria and elsewhere in the region who have ended up in Greece and Italy after much hardship and tribulation.  They have lost everything they own and are desperate to start a new life.  These people are not layabouts; many were professional or had other skills and would soon integrate into their host country.  Many would even hope to go back home one day.  They are illegal only because they have no legitimate way of claiming asylum, and the European Union has decided that the only fair way of dealing with this problem is for each member country to accept a quota.  Britain has flatly refused to accept any of these desperate people.  To put it politely (and I am tempted to do otherwise) the British government is saying we don't care what happens to you, it's not our problem.
A very Christian attitude from a Prime Minister who professes to be one!
Michael Jimack
18.7.15

This site has been dormant for a number of years but I intend re-activating it.
Why?  I will tell you why.  I am 85 years old and there are many things about today's society that anger, frustrate, and irritate me, and and I am fed up at shouting at the TV and the radio, so from time to time I will be sounding off, giving vent to my feelings. I wouldn't want you to think I dislike everything about today's society.  I am impressed and amazed at modern scientific developments and inventions, especially the internet, and the way you can get about two million transistors on a piece of silicon the size of a full stop! I might get a few interested readers and that will be good.  What I will not be doing is chatting about family matters  or posting pictures of my son and his wife.
Michael J. 7 July 2015