I'm sorry I started this!

In the proper scientific spirit of assembling evidence without pre-judging the conclusion, I would point out the following:

Said grandmother was
a) a convinced member of the Church of England all her long life,
b)as mentioned, didn't believe in fiction,
c)had a mother who expressed the opinion, c.1929, that all the science worth knowing could be learned by an intelligent person in 2 weeks and
d) married into my alarmingly scientific family, who have been self-confessed agnostics since Huxley coined the word

If you don't know what I mean by alarmingly scientific, check out my profile.

Emma

Intelligent design?

Intelligent design always seems to me one of the less convincing arguments for the existence of God. Given the human passion for patterns, we want to make them out of things, to the point of seeing them even where they don't exist, like the canals on Mars, or people who think that 37 hasn't come up on the lottery for weeks, so it's bound to now.

So if you argue from intelligent design, you are doing so from a position of seeing the patterns that appear to prove the existence of God, and being relatively blind to the random things that don't.

Emma

You require proof of God?

Does one need a torch to see the sun?

JB

<Added>

(Zen Koan)

Who he? (Zen Koan, not God)

Zen Koan is the younger brother of Travick Koan, famous for guiding travellers along the long road to enBrightonment.

Tee hee hee.

A koan is a saying, like a little proverb.

JB

Zen Koan is the younger brother of Travick Koan, famous for guiding travellers along the long road to enBrightonment.

As in Zen and the Art of Motorway Maintenance?

Emma

Yikes, look at those google adds.

Grinder

I didn't even know He was a Full Member.

Alex the Thunderbolt Target

Somewhere in Seattle there is someone who is paid to work out how many mentions of a particular word there should be on a thread before the ads change to suit it.

And someone else has written the software to check everything we post, and add those mentions up.

Ugh!

Emma

I was just having a good old laugh at the ads.

Does God Still Speak?

Just above: Conversations with God.

Um...I guess so then...

JB

I believe the BBC News website uses similar software to put in all the "related links" and "related news items" stuff, so the Google ads are following an established trend if that's what they are doing.

I'd be interested to know how clever the software is. Shall we try talking about Godot, and see what happens? What if we say "the Lord"? Do you think we'll get lots of ads for ermine gowns?

Alex

Satan Satan Satan

Okay, let's see what turns up when I mention SATAN

Did I say Satan?

Joe

PS yes I did say Satan, I've just read over the post and clearly I can see the word 'Satan'

<Added>

Isn't there a novel called 'Satan Satan Satan', published by ... was it Attack! or was it not called Satan but 'Stan Stan Stan' (apologies to Wendy Holden, Fame Fatale, for nicking her joke about Stan and Satan)

And aplogies to Satan for taking his name in vain.

Joe

<Added>

Oops, that should be 'apologies to Satan', not 'aplogies to Satan'.

You missed a trick there, Jo. You should have said "or was it not called Satan Satan Satan but 'Stan Stan Stan' ", instead of "or was it no called Satan ..."

Satan