A few weeks ago I went with a friend to Oxford to hear William Lane Craig discuss Richard Dawkins book ‘The God Delusion’. The event was planned by the organisers to be a debate between Lane Craig and Richard Dawkins on the book. Craig is a Christian apologetic and philosopher and was on a tour of the UK.

 

Dawkins however declined to come to the visit citing a number of reasons. I have not read his book and don’t intend to, but I have seen enough of Dawkins on YouTube to know his very strong views against religion. He seems to be most venomous in his attack on Christianity in particular and on those who have a faith in God. He has compared the belief in God on the same level as believing in pixies.

 

The time in Oxford would have been a great opportunity for Richard Dawkins to debate William Lane Craig and for both view points to be heard. Among Dawkins reasons such as he only debates bishops and not a nobody like Craig, seems to take away the fact the Dawkins has debated many people within the Christian world.

 

The debate was moderated by an atheist who had himself debated Craig the previous week. He was a professional and completely impartial moderator and did the job tremendously and I’ve no doubt that had Dawkins attended the debate, that the debate would have been run fairly, impartially with both view points being heard.

 

The three guest panelists from the non-creationist point of view were two philosophers and a scientist all from Oxford University.

 

When the third panelist took to the stand to give their view, he spoke about how he didn’t believe in God. I felt a great sadness and emptiness as he spoke about this. I alway find it amazing that people can look around at our incredible earth and believe it all to be an accident. It is incredibly sad that people such as Dawkins then attack Christianity so adamantly.

 

How can this world, this solar system that is so complex have happened just by accident? How can life have started from just one cell and then developed into the complex organisms such as ourselves without a divine creator? All around us we can see the beauty of our world.

 

Romans 1:20 says: ”For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.”

 

Louis Gigalo in a series of videos talks about the wonders of our universe in the video below.

I was very sad to hear the news that Steve Jobs had lost his battle with cancer. I woke up during the night on the 6th October and as I often do I checked my phone, this time to see a CNN alert announcing Steve’s death.

 

I’ve not been an Apple fan for long.  After a disastrous flirtation with Windows Vista in 2007 (which I uninstalled after 5 weeks and reverted back to Windows XP) I vowed never to buy a new Microsoft powered machine unless it was for testing purposes. It was only in September 2009 that I ‘saw the light’ and invested in my first Mac. Apple products aren’t perfect and there seems to be as many in the anti-Apple camp as there are in the anti-Microsoft camp but Apple have created some amazing products.

 

Their products and their innovations have truly changed the way that we connect. Whilst the Tablet PC has been around for a decade, it was Steve Job’s vision of the iPad that made the tablet such a success. Their products have benefited everyone from students to world leaders. President Obama on Steve’s passing said “there may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented”.  Whilst there is obviously a large team of creative geniuses at Apple, Steve’s personal involvement in the products is widely publicised. It was reported that even the day before he died, Steve was involved in the development of the next Apple product.

 

His keynote speeches were something that many in the IT industry looked forward to as new products and updates were announced. I have looked forward to the Apple Keynotes and trying to find the time to spend the 1.5 – 2 hours watching these when they became available online.

 

Steve was reported to be worth $7 billion. A phenomenal amount of money making him the 110th richest person in 2011 (Forbes). His private life was private and this was also the case with what he did for his money.

 

Yet despite the huge success and wealth Steve had, there was one thing that money couldn’t buy: good health. Diagnosed with cancer in 2003, this horrible disease was what caused Steve to die early.

 

It is incredibly sad when someone leaves this life but when it is someone who was as successful and rich in life as Steve I am always struck by how irrelevant these successes are.

 

We can spend a life time trying to achieve things in life:
spouse, family, good job, good home, nice car

 

All these things may be good and noble and there may be nothing wrong with these aims, but the truth is that one day our time will also come and it will be our turn to leave this life.  We may be worth 7 billion (!) or we may not have a penny to our name, but nothing from this life can be taken with us. What counts is: do we know Jesus Christ and have we asked for his forgiveness and for Him to be Lord of our life.

 

Steve was know to be a Buddhist, and I don’t know if he came to know Jesus or not. No one can know the true heart of someone except God.

 

In this great span of eternity, these few years on earth will go and we will all have to stand before God and give an account of our lives. 

So KyleCottington.com for many years has shown a blog with 6 entries, last updated in 2007.  I have thus decided to delete the old blog and setup a new one with the aim of regularly blogging on whatever my mind is led to blog on.