Tony Fleming

My name is Tony Fleming.  I'm a Catholic.  I haven't been to mass on
Sundays on aregular basis for a couple of years-I go from time to
time.  I don't classify myself as a lapsed Catholic for the following
reasons:  I married an Anglican and we had two kids.  We separated in
1990, my daughter lives with my wife, and my son lives with me.  Since
my wife wasn't into actually going to church, the kids started not
going before we separated.  My feeling is that if I go to mass, my son
will be alone and feeling pretty lonely, and separation is pretty hard
on kids, especially when they have to be on their own a lot if their
sole-parent works full time.  I'm looking forward to going to mass
regularly when my son gets a bit older, he's currently 14 1/2.  I have
Jewish ancestry, ( great grand parents) and I take a special pride in
this, especially when I think of the WW2 holocaust.  My father was
'converted' to catholicism by his mother who I believe didn't go to
church much.  He has a broad (semantic sense of the word catholic)
faith and has passed this on to me.

In regards my religious beliefs, I'm very much a believer in a
benevolent, wise creator, who continues to care for his wayward
creation mankind. A brief personal history in religious matters:  I was
raised along Jesuitic lines.  Having discovered girls as a teenager, I
decided there was no God, and become a fully fledged atheist.  Being of
scientific mind, I looked into the dark abyss of the universe and
death.  Pretty lonely thing to do as an atheist.  I was pretty down,
when a 'born again' christian named Joe, got me to pray for the first
time in several years ( I was about 23) and I had a religious
experience of peace and tranquility.  I've been a believer since.  I
emphasise that this process has not made me a saint by any stretch of
the imagination, but it has helped me considerably to live my life in
this God-forsaken modern world.  I experience many things that continue
to give me great consolation and faith.  I'm sure that there is life
after death, and that God truly allows us all to be individuals, while
I'm sure he treasures our efforts in the cause of Christianity.  By
this I don't believe in mission work for everyone, but I do have a firm
conviction that as a scientist I have a responsibility to do my job as
best I can, as truthfully as I can-no dogmas, just honest to God
science.  My favourite person in Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

When I was young, I went to a public school, St John Fisher's in
Surrey, England, and went to Xavier College here in Melbourne when I
came back.  I've always been good at maths; there seems to be a genetic
ability-my father won a scholarship test out of about 6,000-10,000
kids.  I've studied applied maths and engineering, and later numerical
methods as applied to electromagnetics.  I work in the area of
bioelectromagnetics, and I have some ideas regarding better ways to
perform hyperthermia treatment, as well as some novel theories
regarding ion diffusion as applied to biological tissues.  I'm
fascinated by the electromagnetics found in nature, including man.