too darn busy or too darn lazy

6th February 2008

Seems to be a bit of a better day today – perhaps bad weather draws out the chavs from the woodwork. Weather seems cheerier and so far have not had any idiots through the door. Have now downloaded my Digi souvenir pack from the Linkin Park gig on the 27th – excellent collection of MP3s and jpgs and the rest. The “new” PDA arrived yesterday and works perfectly – came with a bonus sat nav software so will have to get a GPS receiver to make it work! Definitely a very difficult week to spend any time contemplating anything deep as have no time for that at all. I need to understand the nature of “reality” better to have any concept of how to fit a “god” into the quantum model of the Universe. “God” is not just “in the detail” I believe that he “IS the detail”. This is so opposed to those who cannot accept that the so called non-overlapping magisteria do in fact overlap and indeed combine to give a complete answer. I also believe that there is no way we as a race will ever fully comprehend the structure of the Universe as our mind cannot expand that far and indeed Roger Penrose hit the nail on the head when he suggested that we need a separate way of doing physics to cope with understanding how the Universe works. The “Emperors New Mind” is an excellent introduction to this topic. Brian Greene’s “Elegant Universe” is easier to read and Penrose “Road to Reality” is unfathomable without degree level math / physics.

8th February 2008-02-08

Got it! I am a non-realist Christian – stick that in your web search and see where you end up – At least that is what I currently believe – I will need to look deeper and study the philosophical constructs behind this but I feel that it may offer me a way of viewing things the way I do. I find the current trend toward muscular atheism to be as inflexible and unthinking as the monotheistic religions themselves. I do not feel able to associate myself with the self-appointed heads of this new way of doing things e.g. Dawkins and therefore need a more considered approach to my theology. We shall see how this all works out in the fullness of time…

24th February

Have been skiing and busy hence no further writings- poor discipline I’m afraid. Tested positive for TATP at Manchester airport on way out to Switzerland – oo-er. Well at least my laptop did but it appears that other substances can mimic this one and it may be my working environment may have contributed. 2nd test was clear so it was allowed through. I have now generated some security paperwork – I hope I do not get any further issues as that was not really all that funny. You will have to stick TATP into google to find out the info but I suspect that GCHQ monitor all instances of this and probably will “flag” this blog as potentially interesting – I can assure you it isn’t.. Still reading “Pies and prejudice” by Stuart Maconie and am working through “The Witches of Chiswick” by Robert Rankin. If you have never read any Robert Rankin – go out and buy some now – you could enlighten yourself by reading “The hollow chocolate bunnies of the apocalypse”.

Had another occasional “Gone Fishing” mens group meeting at Walney church last night – watched the film Amazing Grace – very good indeed – truly uplifting and a film that everyone should watch – I will certainly have a second sitting.

Have had plenty of time to consider matters divine whilst on the drag lifts in Saas Fee - slow progress but I am coming to an understanding. It would appear to me that we choose our particular theology partly based on what we have been exposed to culturally and partly due to what makes the most consistent sense to us. This does not deny a place to the divine but does mean that what we “use” as our construction of “something other” allows us to group together with other members of the same thinking and form a “church”. In my case this happens to be Christianity but it could just as easily be Islam or Buddhism or “Big Box Fella” (see Robert Rankin). It also fully allows science to exist and provide its own explanations of the world around us. Science at the level of the Universe or at the subatomic level quite often slips into “theories” rather than facts and this alone means that by no means does it fully explain our Universe.

12/3/08


From another blog:
The crew of artists on the China project came and ‘enjoyed’ tree planting in a light snowfall and moderate temperatures - above freezing. They stayed at Parkamoor but did complain of cold. I guess contemporary clothing is just not geared up for cold, damp conditions. I usually suffer from being too hot, tweed and wool is just too much in the heated environment. There is no way people will ever be able to go back from the level of heating that is now the norm. I noticed this recently while staying with friends, their house was full of eco stuff, they had carbon offsetting coming out of all ends. Each year they were planting 6 tiny trees which the label proclaimed would offset an average family’s carbon output. That might have been true but it would be 10 years before they jointly offset more than an average families wind breaking. And all this stuff is as nothing if you have your entire house heated to 24 degrees as they did. My recent experience with central heating (I have moved to a central heated house while Lawson Pk is under the builders) has helped me realise a lot about contemporary society. I realise that central heating is the cause of sloth, anger and dysfunctional behaviour. It is impossible to get the temperature right, the non directional nature of it causes the background temperature to inexorably rise, this terrible heat means that if you do anything more than just sit in your vest and pants you become bad tempered. The rise in the divorce rate is - I now realise closely linked to the development of central heating.


Heating is one of my BIG bugbears - my staff complains it is always cold in our building - I maintain that 16-18 degrees would be more than adequate outside (a lovely late spring day) so it should be more than adequate inside (at any time). I draw the line at maintaining "a healthy draft" like some friends of ours do (That IS cold). Everyone seems to moan about their gas bill and price rises, but the way to combat that is to keep the cost the same and use less of the stuff. Despite my inner need for stewardship of resources, I remain in staunch denial over the global warmng issue, particularly CO2 - the human effort is a mere 6% of the total - true we shouldnt produce CO2 if we can avoid it, but our efforts to stem the tide are mere piddling in the wind.

18th March 2008
Slowly plodding on with System of the World and have now finished reading “I predict a riot” by Bateman. That book is mad. How Bateman gets away with writing what he does about NI, I’ll never know, but he is fairly balanced so that may explain it. Now onto Keith Ward’s book “What the Bible really teaches – A challenge for fundamentalists”. This seems to be a very interesting read and quite a challenge. As I have heard said before and will repeat here “The word fundamental has mental at the very heart of it”. I would personally like to dismember anyone who puts the words creation and science together (they do not go together – you would have to be a retard to think that), as that is the kind of crap that fundamentalists come out with all the time. They blind themselves to other sorts of thinking. There is much that we do not understand about the Bible in the same way that there is much that we do not understand about science. To have a blind belief that excludes all of one whilst accepting all of the other without question, does nothing to forward the cause and is a best unhelpful and at worst complete nonsense. My understanding of theology is at best limited but even I can see that we need to consider the views of a wider group and looking at the extremists on either side is only mildly instructive. Well It has been some time but maybe I will add some more rather sooner than last time.