Why I Am a Christian

     The short answer, of course, is that I was blessed to have been brought up that way. I have always felt God's guiding hand on my shoulder. I have always lived in His presence, and known the peace of mind and the exaltation that brings. But when you grow to man's estate, and it is obvious that what you were taught is rejected by many, it behoves you to determine whether it can be justified intellectually as well as experientially.
     For myself, my degrees were in science, with particular emphasis on zoology. But over the decades I have sought to satisfy my curiosity about such fields as history, anthropology, and psychology. A cynic once declared that I have read widely, but not deeply. By that as it may, it provides an advantage over those whose studies have been intense in a single field and limited in others. It has always appeared incongruous to me that any educated person could be a non-believer - especially if his field is astronomy or ancient history, when he must face the issues head on.

Why I Would Have Voted for Trump If I Were an American

     Watching from the other side of the Pacific, I see that my long held prediction about the United States has at last come true: the lunatics have finally taken over the asylum. It is not so much who won the election, but the fact that it was a choice between the two worst candidates. As one of our commentators put it, it was between "a vulgar and undisciplined popularist and a morally compromised machine politician". Another put it more succinctly: between the mad and the bad. (And Sanders wasn't so great, either.) No, I wasn't surprised at the Trump win. I need only refer to the prediction given by Wayne Root, but other commentators from both the left and the right had made the same point: when voting is non-compulsory, the really important factor is the enthusiasm of the candidate's followers. As an outsider, I am not going to talk about Benghazi, the Clinton Foundation, the insecure laptop, or Wikileaks. Nor am I going to praise Trump's virtues because, basically, I can't think of any. Indeed, if it were my country, I would be really be concerned about a loose cannon rolling around the corridors of power. Nevertheless, I had been hoping - nay, praying - for a Trump triumph, for two good reasons.