So, how about some comments about the world...

Blair has been meeting Bush again. It really is enough to make you want to vomit. OK, one can speak to the halfwit, but to slaver at his feet like a lovesick poodle is something else entirely. For all Blair talks about being a moderating influence, I think the reality is something quite different.

As for the Middle East situation. My own feeling about any country which claims that it has a divine right to exist is to regard it with considerable caution. In the case of Israel and Palestine, both have their faults - and any solution will have to recognise that there needs to be justice for the Palestinians, and security for Israel. Israel will have to accept its borders do not encompass the occupied territories, and Palestine will have to accept the presence of Israel. Whether thet will be possiblt is another matter. When God starts to get involved in the case of national territory you are asking for trouble.

I wonder how any rational person can believe in a God which actively intervenes in the world when it is so blatantly obvious that His intervention is via people? I mean, just think of all the prayers for miraculous, interventionist healing? Even if we accept the claims - all totally unverified - which emanate from our charismanic friends, it still leaves the vast majority unheeded. Funny sort of God who selects just a few people to heal, and ignores the others.
But then, conservative evangelicals worship a funny sort of God all told - a sort of right wing doctatorial headmaster in the sky, with human attributes and feelings, who constantly requires obedience and throws a paddy if he doesn't get it.

Enough to make you want to be an atheist, but fortunately there are alternatives.