life in 553

I bought these Marks & Spencer Curls because they resemble the fragrant, crumbly 蛋卷 (egg rolls) we used to eat in Taiwan. I was deceived. These biscuits can only serve to remind me that there are no Angmoh (Caucasian) substitutions for Asian food. I love being Asian.

Last night, I had the opportunity to attend a lecture delivered by John Lennox, a Reader in Mathematics at Oxford University and Fellow in Mathematics and Philosophy of Science at Green College. Dr Lennox’s sense of humour made it a light-hearted yet intellectually stimulating evening. It was a fruitful session as a few “big” questions which I have been grappling with were touched on. Unfortunately, time was too short (30min lecture + Q&A) for these questions to be discussed fully, nonetheless, my thoughts have been given a little more form, as opposed to being the undefined swirling mass (pun intended) in my head. Yes, I know, neurons and synapses…but I always imagine some form of spinning or swirling in my head.

“A lot of Christians have no problems with evolution.”
This statement made me very happy. I am very sick of defending evolution (I refer to the Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection) when faced with people whose only perspective of evolution is from Dawkins and other new atheists. They incorrectly believe that “evolution” is a subset of atheism. It really makes me mad when they treat Darwinian evolution so dismissively because DUDES, HOW CAN YOU DENY NATURAL SELECTION?! You can’t deny it as much as you can’t deny that there is a supreme Creator. One salient argument which Dr Lennox put forth is that the existence of a mechanism ≠ the non-existence of an agent. I wish I could have expressed it so concisely myself. An illustration he gave was one of his “Aunt Matilda” who baked a cake. A group composing of the best minds in Science would be able to give a great analysis of the cake, yet, none of them would have the answer to “Why did Aunty Matilda bake the cake?”.

Dr Lennox also focused us on the central role of the Word (Bible) as evidence for our faith. Contrary to what atheists believe of our faith, that it is blind, faith is in reality, a response to evidences. Having said that, I am planning to attend the public discussion on “The resurrection of Jesus: religious invention or historical fact?” where Gary Habermas and Ken Humphrey will (hopefully) engage in a very very rigorous discussion. I’m also looking forward to watching my “The God Delusion Debate” DVD featuring Lennox and Dawkins and reading God’s Undertaker (thank you PR!).