Overview In this journey we are simply travelling around the site as it stands, just to gather together all the information we have accumulated. The sequence of files is entirely arbitrary at this stage. If a page has incomplete content its name is surrounded by round ( ) brackets. If a page has only very sketchy content it is surrounded by curly brackets {}. A page with no content at all is surrounded by square brackets [ ]. Within the site there are several distinct themes Introductory This group includes a brief account of me, so you know where I'm coming from, and a perspective on life and doctrine that has shaped my thought for twenty years. A key idea from science, abstraction, is discussed as well as its possible limitations. Finally we look at the phenomenon of certainty in our world. Culture The culture folder is intended to draw together some of the elements of contemporary culture, with a view to using them as resources in later journeys. We begin with a look at Science, an important part of contemporary culture. A particular aspect of technology follows, with an introduction to the notion of an interface, which is then teasingly applied to God. The interface idea emerges from my own background in Software Engineering, from which also comes the idea of documentation. Another interest of mine is music. I'm rather less fascinated by film as an art-form, but a particular favourite example is Bagdad Cafe, which speaks of redemption. Human Thought Over the past eight centuries there has been a continuing revolution in the patterns of human thought. We may begin with the Middle Ages, where divine revelation alone disclosed truth. In the Renaissance the primacy of revelation began to be challenged; this continued into the Enlightenment, the crusade of reason that sought to banish religion and superstition from the face of the earth. But the development of thought did not end there. Emmanuel Kant disturbed the edifice of Enlightenment, but others (Nietzsche, Dilthey and Schleiermacher, Heidegger and Gadamer) continued to erode confidence in the Enlightenment Project. From a quite different angle, inroads were made by Darwin and Freud into the conceit of human supremacy. The disintegration of even the Enlightenment patterns of human thought has been carried forward by a group of philosophers known as the post-modernists. Experiences In the experiences folder we find first a brief glance at the processes of change that we undergo, of which perhaps the most significant is death and bereavement. We then turn to the search for meaning in these experiences. A recent addition to these pages considers the matter of commitment. In the post-modern world we are often told that shared experiences are impossible. I remember the time during my schooldays when the topic of conversation among those whose homes boasted a television set (mine didn't!) was "Did you see "1984" yesterday evening?" Or perhaps "The Quatermess Experiment." Those were the days of only one television channel! Shared experiences like that have gone out of the window. How can we now share experiences? God Ah yes, God! In a brief introduction we remind ourselves that the search in which we are engaged has absorbed human attention for a very long time. Two rather technical words follow, transcendence and immanence, but like many technical words they aren't all that hard to understand. Deep questions are raised about God's existence. The remarkable thing is the extent to which people find coherence and purpose amid the chaos of things. Once these basic ideas have been addressed we turn to the big questions, first reminding ourselves that God is not comparable to anything else. Our starting point is the enlightenment. Naturally enough this movement drew a response from philosophers and theologians. Among the series of responses we find neo-protestantism, but against these were soon ranged, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, liberalism, nihilism and existentialism. The twentieth century brought its own particular responses to the clash between religion and materialistic cultures. Some of these went, perhaps, further by way of innovation than the Christian community was eager to go, resulting in a restatement of traditional positions in neo-orthodoxy. A promising line of development was opened up in process theology. How can we talk about God? The traditional and characteristically Christian way, is to talk of the Trinity. But this is by no means the only image of God. Feminist and liberation theologies have emerged, spawning some very imaginative and stimulating variants. What does science say about God? Does science assume limitless human {progress}? What is the place of {reason} in our exploration? What of [creation]? {Evolution} is a very controversial topic today. Many people find it hard to see a God of love  alongside earthly tragedy, and prefer to take their leave of God altogether. And of course other religions present challenges to simplistic absolute faith in one creed. Language Is theological language a coded language for something else? How do Christians use language in church? Theological language is always indirect. It is at its best when it is used to tell stories. Centuries ago a good education included the study of rhetoric, how to use language to persuade. The Bible There are so far four pages about the Bible. First, an Overview, then a brief summary of the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Apocrypha. Theology The focus here is firstly on Jesus, who was he, and who is he? His significance peaks in the years of his ministry and after, but centrally on the cross: why did this happen and what did it achieve? Theories abound. And here is another view. As background we look at the Fall, a key concept for traditional Christian theology. We turn now to stuff that really belongs under the heading of language, a discussion of metaphor and myth. And we divert again to modernism and post-modernism before looking at the central actions of the church in its worship, the sacraments. Chief among these are [Baptism], the [Eucharist] and [Ordination]. A seventh folder, "Journeys through the site", contains this and other files created simply as series of links offering the user various ways of getting into the site and discovering what it is about.