English: Inquisitive cows. Fresian cattle and Court House Farm near Hardy Gang Wood (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I have a friend who was born and brought up in Singapore. She went to school, as many children do.
While at school she had textbooks, and in those textbooks were pictures of Fresian cows. However, despite the access she had to this knowledge, not for a single moment did she ever actually think that Fresian cows were real creatures. Based on the information about animals she had available to her the existence of an animal which shares exactly zero colours with its habitat was simply unbelievable.
Put simply, a black-and-white creature living in a green landscape in Singapore would have died off a long time ago, and the idea this could have any other outcome simply couldn’t be entertained.
Yet when she moved to England in her twenties she discovered that this fairy story wasn’t as fictional as she thought. There are black-and-white cows everywhere. Who’da thunk it?!
When she told me about this it made me think about my conversion to Christianity.
My entire life I’d been told about God, but the information available to me through school, friends, TV and church to a certain extent had taught me that God is a fairy story.
But not believing something doesn’t stop it from being true; when I discovered the truth it took me by surprise.
