Pieces of Fruit for Healthy Living
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I'm a fan of "Old Harry's Game". This is a radio comedy programme written by Andy Hamilton who plays Satan. It deals with the day to day problems of running hell - if there are days in hell! It's funny at a surface level and, at the deeper level, makes you think.
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For instance in the latest series a dog turns up in hell. Satan is puzzled. How can a dog commit a sin? After some amusing musings Satan concludes that God has made a mistake. His assistant ripostes that "God doesn't make mistakes". Satan has an answer for that - "If God doesn't make mistakes, why did He give His chosen people the only piece of the Middle East with no oil?" A very good one liner I thought. The assistant came back with another - "They've got plenty of oranges though".
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Then I thought a bit deeper. I know that God doesn’t make mistakes, so why was that particular oil free piece of real estate chosen as the Promised Land? Maybe it means that we don't need the oil. Perhaps God is trying to tell us the pre-industrial farming society model is better than our dependence on fossil fuel current so called civilized model.
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In those earlier times life was much more simple. So was death. If there wasn't enough food to support the group through the winter, people died. There were diseases and other checks on population growth that meant we were closer to the rhythm of the natural world - and perhaps closer to the God who is its Creator and Sustainer. I've even read somewhere that, if all else failed and people started to outgrow the land that could support them, some of them went off to fight some others. That theory was that population pressures cause all wars.
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Many people will agree that it is only in our present industrial society that some evils have come into the world. Global warming is probably the least of our worries as societies across the planet reel under the collapse of a system of putting trust into promissory notes and debased currencies all supported by non existent securities. Having oil under your land can be seen as only making matters worse. I mean, just think about the changes it has made in British Society - and we are still in a mess.
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So, perhaps God didn't make a mistake in not giving His chosen people oil.
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So, who did make the mistake?
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The industrial revolution is a British creation. It was in this green and pleasant land that people moved in droves from the fields into the growing conurbations that are our towns and cities. It could be said that we made the mistake. We could blame Abraham Darby and his colleagues who started it all at Coalbrookdale and Ironbridge.
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But we shouldn't.
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James Burke had a TV series called "Connections" and he blamed the Egyptians. They invented the plough that meant that one man could produce more food than one man could eat. That left the other man to do something else. The first thing he came up with was pots to keep the excess food in until it was needed. Writing swiftly followed so that they would know what was in the pots without having to open them. It was downhill from then on.
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On balance I have to conclude that God doesn't make mistakes. It's humankind that mucks everything up. If anyone is to blame, we are.
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Maybe we should have stuck to eating the oranges He so generously provided instead of tasting the apples that looked so attractive.