The Incongruent Believer

Tonight is the unification fight for the WBO, WBA and IBF heavyweight title fight between Anthony Joshua and Joseph Parker, and I, for one, will be glued to the TV! I have watched boxing most of my life, one of my earliest memories was watching "Smokin' Joe" Frazier defeat Muhammud Ali on a black and white portable TV in the kitchenette of my foster parents home. It was March, 8th 1971 and back then I was glued to the TV, my "Uncle" Ted was a huge boxing fan and had introduced me to the Art of pugilism from a very young age. Even back then there were a number of titles available; the WBC and the WBA, this was in spite of a rationalisation of the IBU, NYCA and NBA into the World Boxing Council (the WBA). These were joined in 1983 by the IBF and in 1989 by the WBO. There has only been one period - between 1885 and 1919 - when there was only one unified title, last held by Jack Dempsey. To me it seems totally ridiculous, putting the two darts titles BDO and PDC i...

Have you heard of Puddles the clown? He caused a sensation on America's Got Talent with his rendition of the song, "Chandelier" made popular by the zany Sia from Australia. If not, clink on the photo below to sample the brilliance of this odd, somewhat scary looking character. I have fallen in love with his eclectic arrangement of old and new songs and enjoy watching Puddles on YouTube. When getting in the shower today I selected a Puddles play-list for company, however, the listening experience was missing something. It was then I realised that Puddles, whilst having the most amazing voice, was a visual artist. To enjoy his act one had to watch as well as listen! This sparked a lengthy meditation on faith, that faith isn't about what you read in the Bible or what you do at church, it's about experience! What do I mean by experience? Well an old friend of mine Ron Achterkirch, from Minnesota told me once the Christianity was not about religion, but about a...

Because of the volunteer youth work I used to do and did for nearly a decade between 2000 and 20109, I have had the pleasure of working with dozens of young people who are devoted to their faith. Seen them develop as individuals and make a positive contribution to the church and their community, the world being a much better place with them in it. However, I was puzzled for some time by the behaviour of some of the young women I knew/know and their approach to the world. I'm not going to mention names, but these young women seemed devoted beyond question to their faith, active and committed to the church, with their personal lives seemingly fitting around the expression of their dedication and commitment. I found it quite odd that these young women choose to associate with much older, single or widowed women, rather than there peers. No love interests, no partying, hardly any secular activity at all apart from that required of the faith that they expressed. I guess because of my s...

I heard on the radio today that Sir Roger Bannister, the first person to run a sub-four minute mile, died yesterday, the various presenters referring to this as "sad news." This struck me in a couple of ways, the first being was it sad news for that presenter, were they referring to the probable sadness being experienced by Sir Roger's family, or perhaps they were assuming that all their listeners and perhaps the entire country would be sad because we had lost such an iconic and history making athlete? But what would Sir Roger make of this, he may have pointed to that time in 1954 whilst studying at Oxford, when he reached the pinnacle of his athletic achievement watched by the young Norris McWhirter (the co-author of the Guiness Book of Records) as an exciting an event, but not something that defined his life. Roger received the full benefit of the education afforded by coming from a comfortable-off middle-class family and after studying at Oxford he went on to become a...

.....shame the devil! I heard this phrase in the most unlikely of places; TalkSport Radio. The presenters were discussing the abuse of a teenage referee by the parents of two of the players in an Under-10's match. We don't often hear about the importance of truth in our society; it seems we are intent on saying anything or doing anything to either gain some advantage, to look 'cool', to be seen to be politically correct, or to support the interests of those in our inner circle - partisans aren't limited to military conflicts! Whilst there are a number of claims to the origins of this phrase, it appears in Shakespeare's Henry IV Part 1 when Hotspur exclaims:  "And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil By telling truth: tell truth and shame the devil. If thou have power to raise him, bring him hither, And I'll be sworn I have power to shame him hence. O, while you live, tell truth and shame the devil!" Humanist would argue, ...