It's Life Jim, But Not As We Know It

I had a quality interlude yesterday morning; Ian's Blog came in to my RSS reader and I noted he was in Starbucks in Oxford. So having confirmed that he was still there I nipped out to see him. It was a great (albeit brief) time and we were both amused by the slightly random way in which the Blogosphere had caused an off-chance meeting.

Anyway, Ian had recently been to lunch in Christ Church and commented on how there was much more to Oxford than the shopping streets and buses which meet the eye. This got me thinking; I know that I've posted here before about the randomness of life within the Oxford Bubble (like the time no-one batted an eyelid at the dude with fairy wings) but I feel it's time for me to share a few more thoughts.

When I visited Sam in Leeds we were passed in the street by some girls, one of whom proclaimed loudly that "Evolution is s**t". Sam confirmed my suspicions that there was club in Leeds called Evolution, and I couldn't help thinking that if it had been Oxford the default assumption would be that this girl disagreed with Charles Darwin.

Now in most places, students usually only get in to trouble for things like vandalism or very anti-social behaviour. (Or, in Leeds' Bodington Hall, fireworks are evidently perceived to be a problem). Yet here in Oxford I was reminded the other day that one of my contempararies landed himself in trouble for "holding an illegal communion service". Need I say more?

Thanks to Sam (again) for this link to the Facebook Song. It's awesome!

Comments

Anonymous said…
Illegal communion services?! You guys sure know how to party in Oxford!
Fri Feb 10, 08:33:00 AM GMT
James.R.Skinner said…
All i can say is that i feel sorry for the sad git who decided that hosting illegal communion services was a problem! Swansea has numerous cases of vandalism and drugs (after all...it is Swansea) but i think judging communion services a problem is taking things a little too far.
Fri Feb 10, 12:57:00 PM GMT
Anonymous said…
The receving of the body and blood of Our Lord is no laughing matter! If anyone could be handing out the Blessed Host willy-nilly, who knows what could happen!
Fri Feb 10, 10:49:00 PM GMT
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

the purpose of religion

One of the things which featured in the recent debate on this post is the idea that “religion should be about improving oneself”. This has got me thinking; ‘religion’ of course takes many forms, but in the vast majority of cases I disagree with this. To paraphrase MarkC, religion is certainly something which as a by-product might help with “improving oneself”, but however you measure self-improvement it is not the sole point, certainly not in the Judeo-Christian case. In fact, if your sole aim is to “improve yourself”, why waste your time playing around with the trappings of religion? Most religions are based around the idea of faith in God, and that, surely, is the point. Considering Christianity specifically, Jesus said “ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself ” and so ‘religion’ should not be in danger of becoming all about wo...
Read more

atheism is a matter of faith, not science: the debate continues

Following the letters page in last Wednesday's Metro and the follow-up comment on this post I’m pleased to see that the beginnings of a debate are brewing, and I intend to use this post to pick up the baton again. Unsurprisingly, I’m going to start by responding to the aforementioned comment. I apologise if my tone was deemed to be a bit sharp, but I have no hesitation in defending the point I was trying to make. According to dictionary.com , faith can be defined as “belief that is not based on proof.” As there is no proof that God does not exist, belief that God does not exist (i.e. atheism) must be faith. Now, I take your point that “as human beings we are always revising and fine tuning what we hold to be true based on the evidence to hand, what we discover and our ability to determine what is probable or improbable.” To digress slightly, that is why switching on the Large Hadron Collider is going to be something of a milestone, as it could eit...
Read more

milk and sugar?

I've been debating with my housemate as to whether tea or coffee is more popular world-wide. We've both done quick web-searches, and we've both got results to match our different claims. I say tea, he says coffee. So, to settle the debate, it's down to you. Do you prefer tea or coffee? Please leave a comment below - one word is all it takes.
Read more