Article in Stretton Focus, August 2019 We have acquired a new character in our household, identified as ‘she’, who only responds when addressed by name. She is extraordinarily gifted, having answers to many questions. We can ask her to count, to calculate, to solve equations, and she is almost invariably right. The capital of any […]
Article in Stretton Focus, September 2019 The leaders of world religions should be sounding a wake-up call to their own followers, instead of just defending their own beliefs, and trying to convert others to it. The higher purpose of any religion should be to point beyond itself, to some all-embracing reality that might be called […]
Article in Stretton Focus, November 2019 My title is the daily, and even hourly, offering of Radio Shropshire Travel. It is essential listening for anyone daring to set off along the A49. These days I still cycle, but never on the A49, and I have stopped driving a car altogether. So now I have the […]
Article in Stretton Focus, December 2019 So who were the three wise men, some call them kings, who Mathew tells us visited the infant Jesus? We must not take the story literally. The story of Jesus’ birth was created in the latter half of the first century to address the need for a ‘biography’ which […]
Article in Stretton Focus, January 2018 Towards the end of last year some statistics were published in the media about religious identity. They read that some 53% of people in a survey identified themselves as non-religious and among young people it was higher at 71%. Apart from the usual suspicion about damn lies and statistics, […]
Article in Stretton Focus, June 2018 My title is an unfinished sentence. It must always be so, because the word GOD stands for a mystery beyond reach of words: beyond reach of our finite minds. Nevertheless it is a word which is widely (if not wisely!) used. Whoever uses it should realise that they are […]
Article in Stretton Focus, October 2018 Religions tend to have their Gods pre-packaged and wrapped up in creeds and doctrines for general consumption. This pre-packaged God appeals to those who are afraid to think for themselves, and so such a religion will always have a following. But for many people today, God is greater than […]
Article in Stretton Focus, November 2018 Jesus had no grand plan, whatever religious theorists might suggest about predicting his own arrest and execution. Foresight was applied to his story after the event. Nor did he plan the creation of a worldwide religion to replace the Jewish Temple, nor was he the first Christian and he […]
Article in Stretton Focus, January 2017 At the beginning of a New Year, we might become more aware of time’s winged chariot hurrying near. Time is passing, because that’s what time does – too quickly for some us! There is a time to be born and a time to die and in between is the […]
Article in Stretton Focus, May 2017 The number 42 in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams is the ‘Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything’. It is calculated by an enormous computer named Deep Thought over a period of 7.5 million years. Unfortunately by the time the answer […]
