Cold weather in Korea is prompting an odd development for cold fingered commuters. Rather than pulling off their gloves to use the iPhone citizens of Korea are splashing out for some novel styluses. The iPhone doesn’t work with the traditional “pen” stylus, they’re geared to work with sausages. Which is where we pick up the (oddly translated) story.
Did you know that the term “no holds barred” comes from wrestling? Not the fake stuff. The real ancient art.
I’ve been reading a bunch of articles and discussions online recently surrounding a Christian response to cagefighting. Craig started it in his column at SydneyAnglicans. He suggested we should be coming up with an articulate position on what appears to be a pretty divisive matter of conscience populated by two unbiblical extremes…
For many, their first gut reaction to the sport will define their position. But it may be worth spending some time to work through the issue properly. I predict this sport will become enormously popular in Australia over the next few years, especially amongst young men. If this happens, it will be good if we have done some proper thinking on the subject beforehand.
Now everywhere I turn on the interwebs I’m reading the debate.
Ben commented on it yesterday, the NY Times ran a story about cage fighting churches, Justin Taylor quoted this rebuttal to the kind of Christianity modeled in the times piece and Mark Driscoll has been banging on about UFC for years. Cage fighting is well and truly established there and I haven’t read a middle ground response from the Christian community – you’re either in the Jesus was a cage fighter camp or the sissy pacifist camp… which led to this quote.
It discourages and mocks godly men who aren’t macho. There is an undercurrent of disdain in all of this. Proponents of this testosterone Christianity can’t help but take shots at guys who wear pastels and drink cappuccino. You might not like guys with manicures, but there’s absolutely nothing morally wrong with it. A reserved, quiet, well-groomed man can be a good Christian. Believe it or not.
I think the debate is pretty silly and out of all the Christian interactions I’ve read or experienced they descend in to ad hominem non-arguments the quickest (though arguments about Genesis 1 and alcohol consumption are up there).
From the NY Times:
The goal, these pastors say, is to inject some machismo into their ministries — and into the image of Jesus — in the hope of making Christianity more appealing. “Compassion and love — we agree with all that stuff, too,” said Brandon Beals, 37, the lead pastor at Canyon Creek Church outside of Seattle. “But what led me to find Christ was that Jesus was a fighter.”
Some of the arguments for cage fighting are just stupid. Jesus was not a cage fighter. No matter how hard some of the Americans want to believe that to be the case. Being a cage fighter does not make one a man, it does not even make one more manly. If this is just a correction to the feminisation of the church then it’s an odd and ill directed attempt to get more men along – but Craig was right. This is a discussion we need to have. Cage fighting is huge.
While I think some of the extreme positions on the pro fighting side are silly I wonder how much of the bellicose criticism coming from the anti-violence side of the debate is just ill-conceived grandstanding.
Gentleness is a good thing. Sure. And Christians are called on to turn the other cheek. But to suggest that a sporting endeavour where two combatants engage in a competition with agreed upon rules and parameters is somehow definitively ruled out in the Bible just seems odd to me. It’s a conscience issue – surely.
I’m not out to change anybody’s opinion on this matter – if you think violent sports are wrong then don’t watch or take part in them. I watch boxing. I enjoy WWE (which isn’t real). I haven’t watched much UFC – but I don’t have a problem with it – really. It’s just not my preference. I’d rather watch a bunch of other sports. I love the violence and physicality of league. Anybody who says they don’t watch league for the collisions is just a touch football fan in disguise. Does this make me a bad person? Anybody who thinks that league players don’t go out of their way to “hurt” others has never seen a forward make a tackle or a hit up (and they certainly haven’t spoken to any successful league players).
Why are we pain averse? I don’t understand why causing other people pain it’s clearly expected and mitigated by rules is possibly wrong? Is it less good than not causing them pain? I don’t know… but lines drawn in this debate seem completely arbitrary. League is ok (or perhaps Union), UFC is not – where does the line fall? How do you decide? As an aside – in the comments on Craig’s post Kutz suggested we need a doctrine of sport. I like that idea.
The clincher (for me) came up in the Sydney Anglicans discussion. I love the stories of violence in the Old Testament – I don’t glory in them (too much) – but I see them as pictures of justice and of the struggle between good and evil. The Bible contains more violence from righteous men than UFC will ever produce.
If it comes down to a question of “purpose” and violence not being suitable for entertainment then I wonder how many of the brothers coming out against UFC enjoy violent movies or TV shows? How can one affirm the quality of the Godfather while decrying a sport?
If it’s a problem with the unholiness of the entertainment then what about every TV show that contains sexual immorality… if it’s that the sin is real and not imagined then what about game shows where contestants are motivated by greed?
I don’t see why the objections to this passion or interest are so heated and so different to the reactions to anything else – except perhaps for a declaration that one considers the earth to be billions, not thousands, of years old or the suggestion that beer is one of God’s best ideas.
I meant to keep track of occasions where non mutual Facebook friends had similar status updates close to each other. But like so many of my promises and ideas that one was put to the side (my current exciting idea is photo flash cards for Greek vocab – Greek verbs often describe an action that has many English equivalents like our paradigm word luo (which I can’t be bothered writing in Greek characters).
But now I want to share an odd coincidence and then three people who had the same theme in their status within an hour of each other this morning…
On Tuesday we were driving home from college and I took the wrong turn – while we were trying to figure out how to best get back on track JJJ started playing a song – I didn’t catch the name – but the lyrics were “this is not the way home” and “you’re going the wrong way”… It was like I was driving Bumblebee.
Coffee related status updates are not uncommon on Facebook – but this morning was a coffee withdrawal overload.
The statuses were as follows:
Person one: Coffee Cravings :/
Person two: is going to find some coffee… probably good coffee… probably Campos coffee.
Person three: Need coffee.
What was it about today that prompted this outpouring of caffeine related feelings?
Names are funny things. In the Bible there are heaps of characters whose names either shape their lives – or their lives later shape the names – I can’t figure that out. Did Esau mean hairy before Esau turned out to be hairy? Or did Esau’s hairiness change the meaning of the word?
There are plenty of occasions where God communicates with parents to be who then name their child on the basis of the role they will play – like with Jesus.
When I moved to Brisbane in 1999 two people gave me the same nickname without having the chance to collude – and thus “Smiley” was born. I was called Smiley for six years. When I moved to Townsville the name didn’t really come with me.
Now that I’m back in Brisbane and amongst a mix of people who I’ve never met before and people who’ve known me for years I have to decide which name to propagate. I’m not sure. I don’t know how much I want my name to be synonymous with an emoticon. Especially after a friend just used this emoticon to describe me in a conversation on google buzz…
![](http://images.zaazu.com/img/injured-injury-injured-cast-smiley-emoticon-000407-large.gif"/)
It’s a lame smiley.
I mentioned in a post a while ago that a dear friend and brother in the Lord suggested that I am “not deep” in a conversation before we left Townsville.
The comment stung, and I have been pondering it since, as deep people are wont to do.
I have come to this conclusion.
It’s not that I’m bad at being deep, I’m just better at being shallow.
I think, reflecting deeply (as capably as I can), this applies to relationships as much as it does to thought.
Furthermore, I wondered if using long and complicated words and explanations would give the appearance of depth. But I don’t think complexity is deep. And I think it’s harder to be clearly understood than it is to be complex. I’m not afraid of complexity – I just prefer the elegance of simplicity.
So there.
That is all.
After a week of studying theology and one team meeting bandying about a bit of (in my opinion) a speculative theological interpretation of Acts 15 (see Andrew’s blog for details) I’ve been wondering about how to balance the excitement I feel at new “special knowledge” interpretations of old passages.
On the one hand I think there’s lots to learn from better understanding the original culture and context of passages and grappling with different nuances of the original languages – and on the other I have a high view of God’s sovereignty and the perspicuity of scripture (the idea that God teaches truths clearly through his word).
So I wonder what place new theological ideas grounded in particular and special knowledge (as opposed to general knowledge and a plain understanding of the text understood in the context of the Bible rather than in the context of history) has when it comes to application.
Because I’m now all about nuance and balance I have come up with this fence sitting position where you can own both the perspicuous reading of a passage and the more historically and theologically nuanced position at the same time – unless they are in direct conflict with one another.
The example I’m thinking most about is the Acts 15 passage that Andrew wrote about. Acts 15 is a little story where the church leaders are called on to decide how Gentile converts to what is essentially the continuation of the Messianic Jewish faith should conduct themselves. Some Jews want Gentiles to circumcise themselves and obey the law – but the church leaders decide this is unnecessary because salvation is through grace, not the law.
But they do give the Gentiles some ground rules – rules that have been traditionally understood as relating to how Gentile and Jewish Christians could share “table fellowship” – ie eat together as brothers – while not causing one another offense.
Kutz’s position (based on someone else’s position) on Acts 15 is slightly more exciting. The Gentile Christians are given a list of four things they are not to do as Christians. They can’t eat food sacrificed to idols, food strangled, food with the blood still in it, and they can’t engage in sexual immorality. These requirements tie in to the Levitical law (and in Leviticus also apply to gentiles sojourning amongst believers). The exciting new bit is that this may well have been shorthand for not participating in first century idol temple worship. All of the prohibitions address elements of that practice.
I would argue that the everyday Christian believer throughout the last two thousand years would understand this passage on the basis of table fellowship – I don’t think the new argument is convincing enough to do away with this perspicuous understanding – it is enough to nuance it though. We can better understand that these actions were synonymous with the worship of idols, but that doesn’t negate the understanding that Gentiles should be avoiding that conduct in order to stay in fellowship with Jewish believers.
In conclusion, I think it’s a case of “both” not “either”. And I wonder how this is going to work out as we continue to grapple with new and exciting ideas. I think the temptation can be to throw out the old understanding when we come up with something better, rather than improving our understanding of the old. And I don’t know what that does to two thousand years of church history which if you’re a trinitarian and Calvinist is Holy Spirit inspired and God ordained.
I signed up for Google Buzz just then – have you? Google is going after Facebook. And they’ve integrated with gmail so that I have a nice one stop shop.
Here, in case you’re wondering, is my google profile (that existed before Buzz) – I don’t know how “friending” works with this thing yet – but feel free to work it out and add me.
A long time ago in a galaxy far away a stream of text was released with earth as in its path. Or so it seems.
This video made me laugh.
I have to confess that other than that she was the girl Kanye interrupted there’s not a whole lot I know about Taylor Swift. Apparently I’m not missing much though… here’s an infographic about the themes and motiffs of her songs. It’s probably slanderously simplistic. But I like it. So there.
From here (an article that is doubtlessly slanderous in its views – perhaps justifiably so).
If Swift’s work connects with teenage girls, it does so on the most simplistic, reductive territory of all: pining for boys, walking in the rain, kissing in the rain, crying drops of tears on her guitar, driving in trucks with cool boys, wanting boys she can’t have, more rain, more letter-writing, more stalking, more broken hearts, breathing problems as a side-effect of broken hearts, fairytale princess this, white horse that, more pining at the window, more psuedo-stalking, more incomplete hearts yearning for your touch, and one song that misinterprets Shakespeare and The Scarlet Letter so criminally I’m certain she’s never read either.
Swift simply hasn’t had the life experience and doesn’t inherently possess the emotional maturity to create great art. Which is fine — most young pop stars don’t, which is why they don’t win Grammys.
Nice.
I love my lava lamp. I picked it up for $15 from a market about eight years ago – much to my father’s chagrin. “It’ll never last,” said he. It has thus far proved him wrong. And he was, at one point, admittedly envious.
I’m told that Andrew and Simone’s boys like some of the stuff I post here – and I know they’ve been working on their own lava lamps… so here’s a Lava Lamp recipe I found at “What’s that stuff“… a cool site exploring the ingredients of stuff. Sadly it seems most of the ingredients are a “trade secret” or not available in the home laboratory… but this is a start.
Water and wax, which the original patents name as main ingredients, remain components of the commercial recipe, says Tom Spain, vice president of sales, marketing, and product development for Haggerty Enterprises, the official U.S. manufacturer of Lava brand lamps. Additional agents, he explains, help the wax gently plume upward instead of breaking apart into bubbles as it is heated and keep wax from sticking to the sides of the container.
Walker’s U.S. patent mentions additives such as dye, mineral oil, carbon tetrachloride, and polyethylene glycol (PEG), but the exact formula of commercial lamps is a trade secret. Spain tells C&EN that only five or six staff chemists know the formula and are in charge of occasional reformulations. Densities must be recorded for each batch of wax that Haggerty makes, which is mixed in 5-foot-tall vats in factories in China.
Last but not least, the water layer is added to the cooled wax very slowly so as to avoid creating emulsions, which are cloudy-looking oil-water mixtures. In fact, the recipe for the water layer is carefully adjusted to perfectly complement the density of each unique batch of wax.
For those looking to brighten up a loungeroom or home theatre with some Pacmany goodness I suggest going no further than this set of shelves. For those not looking to do that – I suggest checking out this shelf and reconsidering.
This is a cool sculpture. Created by artist Caleb Larsen, it is set up to perpetually sell itself on eBay.
Every ten minutes the black box pings a server on the internet via the ethernet connection to check if it is for sale on the eBay. If its auction has ended or it has sold, it automatically creates a new auction of itself.
If a person buys it on eBay, the current owner is required to send it to the new owner. The new owner must then plug it into ethernet, and the cycle repeats itself.
A few days ago I shared a bunch of odd books for kids – here’s the equivalent post for adults. Most of these come from this list of ten strange books… which in turn comes from the Abe Books “Weird Books Room“. Every aspiring writer wants their tome to end up listed here… don’t they?
Here’s one for impressing your guests:
And one for the Emo first home buyer… how hard can it be to just paint everything black?
Looking for some Bible study material? How about Bible study with the Clampetts?
How about some arts and crafts for the construction site where all you have is Duct Tape?
Want a romantic career? Consider proctology and get yourself a copy of “The Romance of Proctology” which has been out of print since the publishing company realised what proctology actually was and pulled their fingers out.
And finally, here’s one I might actually buy – If I ever want to properly take over the world…
The black Iron Man Decal for the Mac a few weeks ago was pretty cool – but it’s not as cool as this coloured one. Also from Etsy.
One of the perks of moving back to Brisbane is that we’re living around the corner from my gran for the first time ever – she moved to Brisbane this year from regional New South Wales. It’s nice having the family together.
I have no doubt that my gran would be horrified by the story I’m about to share with you. It comes after Robyn and I (along with some other first years at QTC) took a crash course in English grammar as part of our first Greek lesson today.
There may be hope for us yet – apparently first year university students in Canada are demonstrating a complete lack of proficiency in the English language. This is happening all over the world, but some of the quotes from lecturers at the university are brilliant.
“Little happy faces … or a sad face … little abbreviations,” show up even in letters of academic appeal, says Khan Hemani.
“Instead of ‘because’, it’s ‘cuz’. That’s one I see fairly frequently,” she says, and these are new in the past five years.
I must confess – in the past I was a complete comma fiend. My father always used to bang on about run on sentences. I solved that problem by replacing commas with dashes and throwing in the occasional ellipses between disparate clauses. This little quote from a second professor is pretty funny.
“Punctuation errors are huge, and apostrophe errors. Students seem to have absolutely no idea what an apostrophe is for. None. Absolutely none.”
“I get their essays and I go ‘You obviously don’t know what a sentence fragment is. You think commas are sort of like parmesan cheese that you sprinkle on your words’,” said Budra.
