Soul Survivor

I’m in a bit of a writing mood this evening so I thought id raise the subject of Soul Survivor.

Soul Survivor is a Christian camp that I (briefly) went to last week. For those who are observant you may wonder why I put ‘briefly’ in brackets. Well I only actually stayed until the 3rd day at Soul survivor at which time I decided to go home. To put it simply I seriously didn’t enjoy the event. I shall explain why without being too pessimistic!

Soul Survivor is by far the most eccentric event I have ever attended in my life. Loads of people like this aspect of the camp but for me it seemed to cast a shadow over the real issue which was God. Now in honesty I would be lying if I were to describe myself as a Christian at the moment, atheism looks like a far more realistic belief (however that is another subject altogether!) and for that reason I don’t want to talk about God’s interaction at Soul Survivor since it wouldn’t be my place. From a personal point of view I was gaining nothing out of the talks or worship which took place. It’s clear other people were as discussions seemed to be sprouting between people at the camp. I actually got involved in a discussion about the idea of Hell. This conversation sparked a realisation within me and almost an anger against Christianity simply because most faithful followers seem to take faith as something to be proud of.

Only a fortnight ago we were given a questionnaire at my youth group about finding out what Spiritual Gifts we may have. The test involved numbering certain boxes against a question we either strongly agreed to or didn’t agree with. Now when this ‘test’ was given to me I thought it was some kind of joke and started laughing to myself. I then looked up to see a room full of concentrating, serious faces! I couldn’t believe it; people were actually taking this test seriously! It made me realise how much power religion has over some people and how the blind believing of faith can make people do stupid things or even believe ridiculous things. I did the test anyway and was glad to receive a single point for faith. Made me realise I’m not mad!

Soul Survivor seemed to play off those grounds of blind believing and for that reason that is maybe why the majority of people enjoy it. However I’m a person that doesn’t like blind faith, I just can’t be convinced by it simply because it’s the ignorance of evidence and reason. On the first night 160 people went up to the front to become Christians and I honestly couldn’t work out why, I still can’t. The talk before had just been about having a relationship with God of which no historical or scientific evidence had been given. People just bought into the idea that a God must exist because he exists! I understand that everyone is different and everyone has their own special reasons for believing but surely all belief should be backed with reason? It reminds me of a terrible but comical talk given by a preacher named J John last year. His talk was simply a Christian rant against anybody who wasn’t Christian and of which over a 1000 people came to the front to commit their lives to Christianity.

Now I am not disputing the fact that a God may exist. He may! But I am sad to say that I am being more and more convinced that his existence his nothing but mere emotional reaction for most people. It was for me when I was confirmed 3 years ago. You may wonder why I said ‘Sad to Say’; a personal God would be amazing, just to know that somebody more powerful than yourself is with you all the time and helping you feels great. However I no longer have this feeling and for that reason it is sad since this feeling has probably departed forever. However I would rather live an unhappy truth than a deluded comfort.

Time for a Job Change

Its time I started looking for a new Job but it’s not that easy!

I’m not entirely sure what to do. If I were to find a job based off my skill areas then that would be something to do with technology and arguing. I don’t think such a job exists sadly so instead it’s time to do a mass CV drop again. Epsom tomorrow and hopefully I may strike lucky! A job where I sell geeky gadgets or books would be the ideal job at the moment but the chances of finding such a job is so slim considering the masses of other people on the job hunt as well. All I can do at the moment is join the crowd of job hungry sheep and maybe at some point will find become lucky and find a small farm gate!

On a different note I am selling a domain name. I’m new to domain name selling but am doing alright so far! It’s not a bad address either (tbuild.com) so hopefully I may earn some cash of that. I’ll keep all of you blog readers updated with that story.

The Alps

For the second part of my holiday this year I stayed in a villa located in the Alps. The house was situated in a valley which meant we had mountains all around us. Even though we were in the valley we must have been fairly high up since clouds appeared very low. In fact one day there was a thunderstorm and after a while my dad realised that we were standing inside of the thunder cloud. Noticing his haste to return inside I copied him and instead watched sky!

During the week in the Alps we went up two mountains by cable car. One of the mountains was 10,000ft high and the second was 11,000ft. At that those kinds of heights the temperature really does drop at the summit. When climbing the 11,000ft mountain the temperature dropped from 32c to 0c! As you will see in the pictures Glaciers were at the top peaks and on the 11,000ft mountain we were actually above the cloud. We also visited a third mountain during our visit to the Alps which we actually climbed! It was 5000ft high and at the top was a mountain lake. The lake does look beautiful in the pictures but at the time it seemed a bit disappointing. I think the mere fact it took 3 hours to reach the lake I was beginning to imagine something more worthwhile!

Not only were going up the mountains amazing but so was simply walking around them. Most of the pictures taken in the Alps were taken looking up at the mountains. At one point I managed to take a picture of a snow capped mountain with two greener mountains either side. The scenery was absolutely stunning! It’s something you only ever seem to see in Microsoft desktop background!

Overall it was a good fun time. Only after I got home I realised how pure the Alpine air was and I really do miss it. Next year the family are thinking of returning to a different part of the Alps, perhaps ever going to Italian Alps. I have included some of the pictures which I took during the holiday in this post.

What does it mean to be a Christian?

Really my thoughts at the moment are based around this topic. Recently I have seriously considered Atheism from some of the conclusions which I have come to resulting from this question. I think many Christians think about this question sub consciously. Especially during times of doubt and it seems this question is always at the core, it is for me.

Does being a Christian mean going to church every Sunday? Being good all the time? If both answers to these questions were to be yes then an image of a fundamental, mindless and possibly bored person comes to my mind. Is that what Christianity is all about? After thinking... it just couldn’t be. In fact I think the state of the church at the moment is a classic example of what an unhealthy Christian looks like. Now I don’t want to be misunderstood as I believe avoiding sin and attending church are all very healthy things but there is so much more. I don’t like the word Christian; it makes me feel like I’m useless, brainless, cut off from civilisation. In fact I prefer saying “Yes, I do believe in God because if a God does exist then he would only have all the qualities which are shown through Christianity.” Being a Christian is about living for what we were intended for. We all need to understand that there are more than pleasures for the body. If you look around you will see evidence for this, how else can you explain how you know what is good and bad, how people cry out for a power greater than themselves during pain or how we somehow have an idea of what is perfect in a world full of pain? We are not defined by our names or actions. We are defined through our creator as he has designed each and every one of us for a purpose. Our lives are a gift from God and each breath should be made in honour of him, not against him. People need to recognize that although we may look different in body that our spirits are all the same, no matter how much sin we have committed or how far away from God we feel we are. We are all equal in a world full of brokenness; the world as it is now was never intended for us and so we are all foreigners in a land of pain. Some of us are lost when we lose track of God’s great light, his love for us and these are the times we start to feel the guilt and pain as the world closes in around us. We need to learn that the only way to get through these troubles is to keep hold of God, even when the road gets rough.

A Holiday of Experiences!

The end of the first week of my holiday is coming to an end now and wow I have had a lot of experiences! I have spent 2 days in Paris, a city I have never visited before and been up the Eiffel Tower, visited the art gallery seen in the Divinci Code and to a second art gallery to see famous original artworks by Monet, Reniro, Whistler and Van Gogh.

Not only that but I have also spent 2 whole days at Disney Land Paris (9am – 11:45pm)! My best ride at Disney was definitely Big Thunder Mountain which was surrounded in amazing life like scenery which made the ride even more stunning! I also went on the rides Pirates of the Caribbean, Phantom Manor, Disney Land Railroad, Star Tours, Buzz Lightyear Lazer Blast and “it’s a small world”. Disney Land Studios was also open and there I watched a motor car stunt show which was great! I have done so much more than listed here but overall it was a great fun time! The only down side to Disney Land is the pipe music which constantly plays around the park which did slowly drive me mad!

Tomorrow I am off for the last week and half of my holiday. We are all staying in a villa somewhere up in the Alps which apparently has beautiful surroundings. Since we are close to the borders we may visit Switzerland on one day but that has yet to be decided.

London McDonalds Bomb Scare

(This message was typed before the blog entry date)

Today I have had a rather worryingly close encounter with terrorism. It all started at London McDonalds after somebody left a suspicious looking suitcase. Due to the terrorist attacks in London this suitcase was reported and was regarded as a possible bomb. At the time I was working in the Mindshare offices which are located several floors above McDonalds’ which meant that our offices were in possible high danger. However since this was a possible bomb threat the main instruction given to the police to us was to simply stay away from the windows (windows would shatter in the event of an explosion). I was fine with this instruction although admittedly worried since if a bomb did go off the building would be devastated. The police realising this possible danger said that evacuation on our level of Mindshare was optional. After having thought of the phrase “Better safe than sorry” I decided to leave the building and made my way outside where the road had been taped off all the way up to Leister Square.

Luckily the threat turned out to be false in the end and instead the whole drama managed to give me time off from working! It’s scary to think how much pain is caused in the name of religion.

Life Ramblings

I’m so bored! Today has been a rather good day since I have had the whole day to complete all my Cisco exams which means I now have no more work left for my holidays but sadly I don’t have much planned for this evening.

Helen has gone off to the Cinema to see Harry Potter with her friends this evening. I really wanted to go along but sadly it didn’t work out. The tickets were booked before it was confirmed I was going along so a bit annoyed about that but it’s not that bigger issue. Just feel a bit left out! Instead I’m going to help down at youth group this evening. Young kids aren’t really ‘my thing’ but hopefully this evening will go well and maybe get some good conversations going.

Tomorrow is my last shift at McDonalds since I’m on holiday for 2 weeks from the end of next week. I only have a 6 hour shift tomorrow which is nice and hopefully it will go quickly!
Work experience next week as well!

I’m working down at a big advertising agency (can’t remember the name) who are the 3rd biggest in the UK. Although it’s nice doing all the work experience I have a feeling next week will be a busy week and then I’m on holiday! So I’m not sure how much social time I’ll have before holiday but the experience will be great! Since the GMTV studio is close by where I’m working I maybe able to watch GMTV being filmed live in the morning! Sounds like good educational fun!
Oh yes, travelling in London with a critical terrorist risk will also be interesting. Although I’m not really that concerned about the prospect of religious extremists I guess my eye will always be kept open. It’s strange how religion seems to be the cause of all this violence. As a young child I always viewed religion as something which was calm and peaceful but I guess with any faith you’re going to get the odd extreme people.

I think this has been my first blog entry which mimics that of a diary. I have thought about keeping a diary but I never seem to get around to doing it. I find on a blog you always have to be careful with what you write since anybody could be reading. However with a diary you can fully speak your mind without upsetting anybody. Maybe this holiday I shall start a diary.

I have food now so I’d better post this blog entry now!

Exciting Bible

I have to admit that I have never been a huge fan of theology. The prospect of a bible study at cell or church never really got my heart racing and I’m sure that a lot of people would think the same way. However recently I have honestly found the bible amazing! My youth leader has lent me a different version of the bible, ‘The Contemporary English Version’ and it’s so easy to understand. My second bible is the ‘English Standard Version’ and although this is the most accurate translation to date the sentence structures are poor compared to the CEV. Last night I had a read of Romans from the CEV bible and it was actually like reading a real letter! All the language flowed incredibly well and I actually enjoyed reading it, so much so I completed reading Romans in about 40 minutes. It’s amazing what a person can do when they put their mind to it.

My aim now is to really deepen my relationship with God by reading the bible. Previously I have heard people talking about how reading the bible strengthens your relationship with God and I honestly regarded them as foolish. Now I understand that it actually does strengthen the relationship.

I don’t know why I have suddenly found an excitement for the bible, it seems strange. Surely I should find the bible boring and lengthy? Now instead of looking at the bible as only an historic piece of evidence I am started to see ways in which God works and how I need to change my life.

Money and Holidays

Almost the end of sixth form for this year! School breaks up the end of this week and then I have a weeks work experience up at London. Shortly after I'm off to France for 2 weeks which should be great, apart from not seeing Helen. The outlook on my life looks great and my only aim at the moment is to make sure I don't spend all my money! My last working day at Macdonald's is this Saturday and for the next month I need to make sure my money outcome is low since I won't be earning!

For my Holiday I shall be purchasing 'Mere Christianity' by CS Lewis which is bound to be a good read.

Anyway this is a rather pointless blog entry as I currently have nothing better to do with my time. Hence why I'm considering doing pod casts on my blog. Maybe some feedback if you would like pod casts?


(Since starting up this blog I have been very fickle about which design and template I should use but now the searching is over! I have decided to keep using the current template which you now see before you.)

Writing

For a while now I have been thinking it and now I have made my decision. I'm going to write a book! Basically more and more I am seeing how the words 'faith', 'religion/religious' etc, are just completely taken out of meaning or given new meanings which are completely untrue for the context they represent. I'm going to attempt to write a philosophical styled book on the 'Concept of Faith' and try to show how some of our societies ideas are wrong or misunderstood about Christianity. To be honest the book may just end up to be a very large essay but its worth a try!

Weekend at Worcester

After having seen Surrey, Gloucester and Reading university I seem to be fast approaching a gyro knowledge of university's! This weekend was spent visiting Worcester university and it wasn't that bad! Since the open day was early Sunday morning it would have been ridiculous to try and attempt the 3 hour car journey there and back again in one day. For this reason the weekend gave an opportunity to once again stay over at a friends house in Worcestershire.


The Saturday evening was spent playing guitars, watching funny videos and drinking. Well when I say drinking it was my Dad who seemed to do most of that after having woken up the following morning with a mild hangover! At first he seemed surprised by this but after having conferred with my mum about the bottle of wine and crate of bear he had the surprised look upon his face soon vanished!


After having arrived at the university we were greeted by a protester against vivisection (animal testing) . It seems Worcester University does animal testing on some of its courses. Instantly I knew this university was definitely an option for me.


Although the course wasn't quite what I was looking for the uni would definitely be a good 4th or 5th choice on my UCAS application. The most interesting thing about Worcester university is the accommodation. The most expensive rooms available offer 'hotel like' services with everyday room cleaning and clean sheets provided. £87 a week may sound expensive, but its worth it!

Shrinking Cisco

Right from the beginning of the year my Cisco networking class has been shrinking. What originally started out as a class of 10 students has now dropped to a class of 5. The two latest drop outs were Josh and Simon which have actually wanted to give up the course ages ago because they weren't enjoying it and also seemed to be struggling.

During the year we also lost one of our teachers since he wanted to move back to Australia which put the school under a lot of pressure to continue the course. That was all sorted once Steve O'Neil was hired to be a part time Cisco instructor. However our future instructor for year 13 today has decided to pull out at the last minute which has once again put myself and everyone else taking the course in a state of uncertainty.

All of these problems isn't really the school's fault at all, just a bit of bad luck but I fear I am loosing passion for the subject. At the beginning of the year I seemed to have a real urge to learn Cisco and to work the best I could, now when I work I worry about what all my hard spent time is going to buy me. Ah well, all I can do is wait and spend my time programming those routers!

English Annoyances

Back at school for real now and year 13 looks to be a good year but for some unknown reason we still have to take the subjects we are going to drop!

I'm dropping English... fast!

It has been my worst subject for year 12 and it isn't getting better. I have now done my English exam and have completed all the year 12 work and now the class is moving onto year 13 work. However none of the students are not able to drop their subjects until the end of year 12. Its stupid!

Journalism

This week at school we have had something called a 'UCAS Week'. This is an opportunity for all the students to research the courses and universities which are open to them. For me this has been a very difficult decision because my ideal career would be journalism. Apart from this field of work being very competative it is also one of those few jobs which you get to purely by your experiances (apart from the more specialised Journalism fields). For this reason I have started to pursue as much journalism experiance as possible. For instance I have managed to get permission to write an article for the school magazine. I also hope to get some of my writing published by the local guardian or Surry Comet however I still need to work on that.

If any anybody reading this blog knows of any journalism contacts that maybe useful for me or has any useful advice then please leave the appropriate comment. Thanks!

In the Ubuntu Spirit!

A while ago I saw an advertisement by Ubuntu Linux for free operating systems to be sent straight to your home. Now me being one of these geeky type of guys certainly had to try this out and I am proud to say that it worked! This morning 3 operating systems turned up at my door, 2x 32bit installations and one 64bit version. Ubuntu also went that little bit further and included free stickers! With the prospect of McDonalds work for most of the day this certainly is today’s highlight... well of course until I see Helen later on!

Farewell Fishy

Sadly the biggest fish inside of my fish tank will have to go this weekend. Its now grown to 14.5 inches and is a complete pest inside the tank. There is also a faint possibility of me purchasing a brand new fish tank soon which will be slightly smaller than my current tank which is about 140 litres.

The scientific name for the fish I will have to get rid of is called a Plecostomus. A picture of it can be seen below.

Summer Start

Well I can safely say that at the moment we have summer weather! This is great for most of us but for the more ‘metallic’ of my family members this is a big problem. Yes, my computer has started overheating again which means less computing time for me. Well I guess that can only be a good thing! Half term has also started which is usually a big deal for me but since I have been in the house ‘revising’ most days the idea of having more time at home isn’t that appealing.
Tomorrow I am going back to McDonalds to work. It seems that my desire to drive a car is greater than that for giving up McDonalds. I’m actually sending off for my provisional driving licence soon, to my shock and horror it will cost me £45, this driving nonsense is expensive! My shift time starts at about 12pm till 6pm which isn’t bad at all but I fear for my life being put on the express lane again.

Bulk of Exams Looming

Tomorrow I have 6 hours worth of exams. Id be lying if I said I wasnt nervous about the prospect of going through 3 hours worth of english papers. Anyway all I can do is hold myself together for one more day and hope everything goes smooth through the exams.

Mcdonalds Sucks

I have just come home from Mcdonalds after the worst ever day. I was put onto the express lane with a broken chip dispenser, a lack in large chips and a huge que of people. After an hour of working on the express lane I was ready to die. My first attempt to ask to go on break was directed at one of the main managers near to me. He asked how long id been working for and it has been 3 hours and he said he wanted his break first and then just walked off. I then attempted to ask a second manager and he seemed to igonre me twice. Eventually I decided to just walk up to him and say I was ill (which was true in the sense I had a huge stomach ache and was ready to die). He told me to sit outside and have a drink and see how I feel, he also said that if I was truely ill then there was no point me working since I was around food the whole time. I took a water sat outside for about 3 minutes and then decided to clock myself out and leave. I suppose I should have told one of the managers but I was so fed up with the stressy girl who I was working with (she was horribly sarcastic) and the lack for managers to care about their employees that i just left.

Ill phone Mcdonalds much later today and say sorry for my sudden leave but I felt quite sick. I think ill also hand in my notice since this job really isnt for me. I can use my brain but im really not a physical person.

Waves

Im on study leave now and it is so boring. With the exception of Tuesday I have been stuck in ever day of this week revising. Im a bit nervous about some up coming exams as well since I really cant afford to muck these ones up. After speaking with Helen last night it seems that our relationship is a bit rocky as well. Its a problem I have seen up coming and it was bad that we had to speak over msn about it, msn seems to always make things worse than they actually are. So in conclusion im not having the best time of my life at the moment. Its amazing how time moves on and changes, sometimes I so wish we could sometimes move the clock backwards.