Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Fall from Grace

Today

Paul is in the middle of reading "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. Dawkins believes passionately in the abitilty of science eventually to explain everything. He quotes from a blog which says that those that answer questions by saying "it's the work of God" are basically saying a spiritual "dunno".

And I agree. It isn't the answer to attribute the unknown to the works of God. It means that we either stop all forms of research or that theists accept that, as we find out more answers, things that can be attributed to God will get fewer and fewer.

Dawkins book doesn't, of course, prove that there isn't a God either; merely that we should fearlessly examine the evidence for everything in this world.

In My Day

We were not brought up to be religious. Daddy had a good knowledge of the New Testament, but saw Jesus in humanist terms. That is; follow his rules of good behaviour, but the God bit can be ignored. Mamma was brought up as a Lutheran, despite her father being Jewish, but we were not taken to church.

I started going to Church, more for social reasons than any other. There was a damn good youth club up at All Saints and the curate (Mr MacDonald) was young and scrummy. Chris and I both started going to the club. (I think Chris even had a girlfriend there.) Going to church was part of it, so I went. I think Mamma was actually delighted when I decided, at age 16, to be christened and confirmed.

The club included a wide range of social activities - walks, dances, socials; I remember a visit to Coventry Cathedral. Belonging to the Church also provided me with a good regular income as a trusted babysitter for other churchgoers. We frequently met to discuss various theological and religious topics all designed to strengthen our faith.

I remember the day I bowed out of the Christian religion. We'd been studying Milton's "Paradise Lost" for A level at school. That Sunday during the club's discussion the curate talked about God being purely the God of love and goodness. "But," I said, "If Lucifer was one of God's angels; therefore a creation of God, God's creation must also encompass evil, since Lucifer was evil." A simple and frequently enough asked question, I'm sure. But Mr Mac couldn't find an answer. I think I could have accepted a view that answered "yes, but the choice of God, Jesus and thus mankind is for good". But all I got was flannel.

I reflected and decided that this cast doubt on the whole idea of God.

I feel confident that I can make good choices and live life rightly without a spurious belief in God. If others need God to live life rightly, fine by me. But I've no time for those who use God to justify cruelty, bigotry or to disguise hate with a mantle that says love.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

C'mon light my fire

Today

Decided to light a fire tonight. It's a bit chilly out there and we're not going out.

Over Christmas we lit a couple of fires. Becky's friend who was visiting us for Christmas was just delighted on Christmas Eve. "You've got a real fire", he grinned.

I lit one last week when my nephews and nieces were visiting and gave them a quick lesson in how to do it. Of course, we've got central heating and anyway, this Winter's another mild one. In fact we had a discussion about whether we'd be too hot.

In My Day

When we were children we only had one source of heating in the main rooms and that was a coal fire. We lived in a great Victorian pile and the living room was about 30ft by 18 with a 15ft foot high ceiling. There were floor to ceiling sash windows at each end so the room wasn't exactly draught-proof. (For those who don't know, sash windows are intentionally draughty to give the fire some up-draught so that it won't go out.)

If you were lucky enough to get a seat by the fire, your legs got very hot and red on one side while the other side of you was distinctly chilly. Daddy or Mamma built the fire like this:

Newspaper first. Then a wigwam of kindling sticks. Finally the coal. If the weather was bad the fire might be reluctant to draw at all and sometime smoke, very black & dirty, blew into the room. Occasionally there was a chimney fire.

The fireplace itself had clearly been reduced in size, probably in the '30s to economise on the amount of coal that it burnt.

Daddy had his own set of chimney brushes, which slotted together so that you could go up to the top. We also had the chimney swept regularly by a professional. I can remember the fine film of soot everywhere after he'd finished, as well as the smell. Mamma & daddy were scathing when vaccuum cleaners began to be used instead. An ancient skill might have been lost, but it was much cleaner.

Mamma and Daddy were also critical of those who had central heating; I can't now remember why. I do remember Daddy caving in and buying some cylindrical heaters, that looked rather like the paraffin heaters available at the time. There was a large one for the living room and small ones for our bedrooms. At least that put paid to frost on the inside of our bedroom windows.

Later, when the clean air act came into force, we had to use coke or other smokeless fuel. It might have been cleaner but it wasn't such fun to light or to look at.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to sitting by the fire tonight with a nice glass of red wine!

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Figgy Pudding

Today

Well, I made and iced the cake. I made a lovely veggie christmas pudding (alcohol free so that Aron could enjoy it). Paul always worries that we won't have enough mince pies so I bought 24 miniature and 12 normal Duchy Original mince pies.

So we were all set.

This is how much of these provisions we ate:

About 8 of the miniature mince pies on Christmas Eve and the rest (of the miniature ones) on Boxing day when my enormous family turned up.

And that's it.

So I still have all the other fruit-rich goodies in the cupboard.

In My Day

Mamma used to make several Christmas puddings. They were very black and sticky. She made them in pudding basins, covered first in greaseproof paper, then with muslin tied with string.

We ate the first on Christmas day immediately after the turkey. Others were eaten at Easter, Daddy's birthday etc. They appeared to last forever.

The Christmas cake was probably tackled on Boxing day. It, too, was very black, and a little went a long way.

Mamma bought mincemeat which had suet in it, but made her mince pies with flaky pastry - a very time-consuming business, with its layers of butter. She'd dust them with icing sugar before serving. I think we started eating these on Christmas day and fresh batches were made from time to time.

Anyway, it's as I feared; not only will the cake not get eaten, my icing skills aren't a patch on Mamma's