My friend drew me my dream car on Facebook… Thank you!!

We had a delicious curry at the Rayfields’ on Saturday night followed by poker.  I was able to capture a bit of the action on my mobile phone…

This fish (Lazarus - female, we have discovered since naming her!) always plays dead!  I am not sure why.

Yesterday I helped George pack for Uni.  I say helped….

I concluded by replying again and saying that these things are really not important, what is important is that God loves her and died for her so she could be saved. John 3:16 is better news than any so-called wisdom that I might possess, any ‘theology’ or anything like that. When you grasp the volume of the gospel message, whether or not God allows carcinogens to cause cancer is astonishingly insignificant.

Her post:

Ok, you had a long post so I am going to try to answer some of your claims.

As for the “creative designer” theory, otherwise known as the “intelligent designer” theory, I know for a fact that several state Supreme Courts have struck teaching intelligent design in schools recently. It violates seperation of church and state.

In fact, in 1987, the US Supreme Court ruled that public schools could not teach the biblical account of creation instead of evolution, because doing so would violate the constitutional ban on establishment of an official religion.

You also state that the Bible teaches to love and accept people, not to kill, to be generous, etc. Well, the Bible is NOT unique in that. EVERY major religion, from Judaism to Hinduism to Buddhism to Muslim … they ALL teach this.

There are SEVERAL problems with the intelligent design theory, but the main problem is this: If intelligent design holds credibility for prior genes, then a new gene with new information conferring a brand new function on an organism could never come into existence without a designer because a new function requires complex specified information.

Anyone who is versed in science can tell you this is just not true. There are new genes ALL THE TIME that come into existence and form a new function, including the HIV gene, the AIDS gene, and several other genes that have evolved.

So are you telling me that your intelligent designer designed the AIDS gene, the HIV gene, the cancer gene, etc? Why would a kind benevolent God do that to his people? Why create genes that serve no purpose but to slowly eat away at internal vital organs?

Evolution was and still is the only scientific theory for life that can explain how we get complexity from simplicity and diversity from uniformity.

Intelligent design offers nothing comparable to evolution. It begins with complexity — a Supreme Being — and also ends there. The explanations offered by ID are not really explanations at all, most scientists say. They’re more like last resorts. And, scientists argue, there is a danger in pretending that ID belongs next to evolution in textbooks.

There is absolutely NO scientific proof that prayer or God has healed anyone. There are people who claim that — but it is just that — a claim. There is also no proof that he healed the sick or that he has raised the dead. Those are merely claims in the Bible that have no basis. It is fine to beleive in the Bible, but it is false to claim that the Bible is “fact”.

And as for the Darwin bit — that is one of the biggest lies in history. It started with a woman named Lady Hope. She had, she maintained, visited Darwin on his deathbed. She claimed he had been reading the Epostle to the Hebrews, had asked for the local Sunday school to sing in a summerhouse on the grounds, and had confessed: “How I wish I had not expressed my theory of evolution as I have done.” He went on, she said, to say that he would like her to gather a congregation since he “would like to speak to them of Christ Jesus and His salvation, being in a state where he was eagerly savouring the heavenly anticipation of bliss.”

The problem? It is entirely a fabrication. Almost EVERYONE who knew Darwin well, including family, says that there is nothing from Darwin’s friends, colleagues, his own statements or writings to substantiate it. If Darwin did experience something so dramatic as a conversion to Jesus Christ and a complete revision of the theory of evolution that characterized his life and work, there isn’t a shred of evidence of it outside of the claims of Lady Hope.

One lady’s bizarre story is hardly credible.

You are correct … it is “up to me” to decide — and I have decided I believe in something a little bit more grounded.

I wish you peace in your spiritual journeys …

MY RESPONSE: Dear ***Insert name***,

Thank you for setting me straight on a few issues. I will try to respond to your claims one by one. Please don’t be offended by anything that I write, I am merely writing a few points for consideration, as I enjoy a good discussion - I wouldn’t want to start a riot!!

Firstly, you are absolutely right, the theory is intelligent design, not creative design - my mistake, perhaps I shouldn’t try to talk about something that I don’t know enough about. However, I was referring to the UK where such laws have not yet been passed. This aside, the constitutional ban of an official religion meaning that the theory cannot be taught in American schools is merely a government ruling (which doesn’t entirely make sense, as in my opinion evolution and atheism is as much of a religion as any other), it cannot be taken as representative of the views of all scientists, let alone the truth.

Your point on genetics and new genes was interesting, but I have yet to find any evidence that new genes have formed, particularly the ones that you refer to. We are born with a genetic make-up and those genes can mutate. One example you gave was cancer… The ‘cancer gene’ that you refer to is a mutated gene caused by carcinogens, smoking and other things that we have created. Is this God’s fault? I would not say so. If we had also listened to God’s advice about homosexuality, sex outside of wedlock etc etc then maybe millions of people wouldn’t die of AIDS daily.

You ask if a loving God would inflict these things upon people, well aside from the fact that we have caused most of them, who are we to say what God should or shouldn’t do? The fact is very simple really, He either exists, or He doesn’t. If He does then the fact that we might consider some things in the world cruel are neither here nor there, it doesn’t make him cease to exist.

“Evolution was and still is the only scientific theory for life that can explain how we get complexity from simplicity and diversity from uniformity.” - this quote actually doesn’t make any logical sense, it is a bit of a blanket statement. To which complexity, simplicity, diversity and uniformity are you referring? Creation started with simplicity (nothing). I am not sure where or when there was ever uniformity.

With the point about Christianity not being the only religion to teach love etc, I totally agree, I never said it was, simply that it was good. You only have to look at history and lineage though to discover how all the other major world religions came into being and, in doing this, I discovered Christianity to be the truth.

I will not accept that Intelligent Design as a theory (although I believe that the IDer is the Christian God) is a last resort. It has always been and always will be the first AND last resort - you are absolutely right, it does start and end with a complexity, but what is the problem with this? It says in the Bible “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end”. We have come up with evolution, the big bang and every other theory. The only danger of placing creation alongside evolution in a textbook is likely to be more plausible.

With regards to there being no scientific proof that anyone has ever been healed by prayer, you are right. Whilst you could talk to doctors who will have no other explanation, this is still not proof. You cannot say that claims in the Bible have no basis, the basis is 66 books that all concur with one another along with many other writings of the time (they wrote a lot in those days!) If you wish to say that writings are no kind of basis for any kind of fact, then all of your own theories about science (many of which have far less evidence attached) are invalidated immediately. How can any one thing in the Universe therefore accepted as fact? You can only have faith in them (or perhaps a better word is conviction), which is why I refer to it as religion.

I apologise for the Darwin reference, I had not realised that it was a myth - thank you for your correction. Although one has to beg the question that if one bizarre lady’s story is not credible the one bizarre man’s may not have been also.

I am glad that you have made a decision (which is of course not final if you don’t want it to be, unless of course you randomly drop dead) but I will leave you with this reflection…

If we are indeed scientific accidents, as the big bang and evolution suggest (after all noone could have intended for us to be unless there is an intender), then why do morals matter? It must be ok to kill people, to commit crime, for AIDS to be rife in this world killing people, for us to not even be bothered by that…. Why? Because there is no basis for morality without God. Why would it matter what we do (animals kill)? If people die and nothing happens to them then so what? Ok so it hurts people but would they actually hurt if they didn’t have a soul? (They wouldn’t have a soul right, if there is no scientific purpose for a soul?) Science doesn’t work like that - in science everything has a purpose. Was it because they loved the person who died? What is love and can they really love? (The Bible says that God is love). There is no scientific purpose to emotion. There can be no morals and without morals there is no conflict of interest (good vs. bad etc) because what are we comparing them to? What is our standard for good or bad?

Thanks for the discussion, all very interesting stuff.

I have been taking part in a discussion on Facebook that took my interest, simply entitled “why do people believe in God?”  I only entered the discussion because, after reading a few posts, I was refreshed to see that a lot of Christians had been able to give their input and a lot of non-Christians were being sympathetic.  I was concerned that it would be full of atheists telling people that they wanted an excuse for life or a crutch to lean on etc.  The posts of this nature saddened me, because the title was why DO people believe in God, not why SHOULDN’T people believe in God.

So I typed my entry, only to receive a response back asking me to clarify what I meant by my comment that stated that more and more scientists and doctors and others in the scientific field are coming to the conclusion that creation and indeed the Bible is truth.  I was also ask to expand on the existence of God and prove it.  I typed a response and have received an interesting one back.  I am now carefully constructing my reply and will post the two thoughts here for you to look at.

Recently we decided that it would make sense to transfer all our bills to my student account, as it has a large interest-free overdraft, which should help us to avoid bank charges.  My heart sank at the prospect of having to perform my favourite activity - speaking to telephone customer services!!

I was stunned to complete the tiresome task within an hour, with every single phone call running as smoothly as a baby’s bottom!  Until I got to Orange…  JT’s phone contract…  I passed the phone to JT in order that he could confirm that I was his wife and that I was allowed to talk to them - all ok.  I then proceeded to ask them why they had decided to take £65 for a £35 phone bill.  Eventually we established that they had not taken a payment in July so taken two in August because apparently I had changed something (which, of course, I hadn’t).  I decided to agree after checking my bank statements and discovering that they hadn’t taken a July payment - it was easier this way.

I asked to change the bank details and he said “Can you tell me the number of the phone that you wish to change?”  “er… this one that we have been talking about all along and that my husband has given permission for you to talk to me about”.  “oohhhh  ok madam.  The new account is in the name of Mr John Turner?”  “No my name is Naomi Turner”…blah blah blah….  “Right, right ok.  All done”.  “Thanks very much.  Could you just verify that you won’t take two payments at once again?  It is a bit of a shock to the bank account…”.  “To be honest madam, that will not happen  again.”  “Right, well if you are convinced of that then ok.  Could you possibly back up the new direct debit confirmation in the post so that I know it has been done?” (I was not feeling very confident by this stage).  “To be honest madam, we can’t do that no.”  WHY?!  I was not feeling the honesty - to be honest. I said that if it hadn’t gone through I’d ring back next month.  I was assured that “to be honest” it would.

This morning I received a direct debit confirmation in the post.  WHY DO PEOPLE LIE??  I don’t mind if they say “I don’t really know how the system works” but when they just make stuff up it makes me mad!  Ugh.

Today George and Dave took me to the park.  We played on all the toys, it was so much fun!!

Last night some good friends, Jon and Sarah came to dinner.  Jon is six months older than JT and Sarah is five months older than me and we share a lot of other similarities also.  Jon is a senior designer of fast exciting cars (Ferrari, Masserati etc!) and aeroplane interiors and Sarah is training as a senior school maths teacher.  Jon likes boy films (like JT) and Sarah likes girl films (like me).  I look forward to getting to know them better over the next few months as they only live around the corner -  woohoo!

We had a fun evening which involved trying to build Optimus Prime by candlelight, eating, drinking, chatting etc.

The latest headlines from dahn aahhhh street:

*  The postman whistles a happy tune - without fail, every day.  He doesn’t whistle anything recognisable or even vaguely tuneful, but you always know when you are going to get your post.

* We have new neighbours who very kindly gave us a box of chocolates!   They can move in more often…  They have a little baby.

*  Further proof that the pirate is a pirate:  He is thinking of moving to the New Forest for a bit.  The new forest (I think) is somewhere near Southampton, a major port! Also his friend (who is even more pirate-like) looked at me in shock yesterday and said “good grief.”  I looked at him quizzically.  “Well I just saw you down in Leckhampton…  Recognise the frock.  Easy to really, when you’re just ambling about”.  I continued to look at him quizically, I didn’t think it too remarkable that I should be wandering around the streets where I live.  Granted, the ‘frock’ thing was a bit weird, I haven’t heard the word ‘frock’ for years!  I reckoned that maybe he saw it because it had sparkly bits on (treasure) and he wanted to steal it.

He then proceeded to inform me that he had just popped out to check on the toothless dog in his van who was being “staggeringly well behaved” (at this point I concluded that he is just far to in to his superlatives).  He reminded me about how Twinkle had tried to jump into his van a few months ago and then said “anyway…” and did that classic little move that only an aging man can muster in saying goodbye where they bow their heads and freeze, looking at their right foot, whilst holding up a sort of ’scout’s honour’ hand gesture.  With that, he retreated back into the pirate ship.  “Land ahoy!”  I muttered to myself as I retreated slowly back into the house.  I had only gone to put a cat food tin in the recycle box!!

*  There is an old man who takes a golden retriever for a poo every night at about 10:30pm.  Unfortunately the retriever does not retrieve his own poo, so the old man has to walk around with a little plastic bag.

*  There is a house to let just opposite…  Watch this space!

*  We  have met about 4 other cats on the road including a bit chunky one with a hilarious miaow.  It is very friendly though.  Talking of which, last night at about 5am I felt something like a spider crawling up my arm.  Fear struck, for about two seconds, until I heard a short scurry, felt a paw on my arm and heard a little bit of munching.  At this point Monty crawled under the duvet and fell asleep purring loudly.  What a hero!