Nathan Campbell – Page 241

Literarily speaking

I was thinking tonight – while sitting in a Christmas Eve service in Dalby – that I don’t understand why the liberals or “progressives” are so keen to see the narratives of the birth of Jesus as “metaphors” or hyperbole. Not because that’s what the church in Dalby did – the Christmas story was presented in all its glory.

The story of an unlikely conception, occurring in such a way that the baby arrived in a city that did not have room to receive the incoming “king”, who was pursued ruthlessly by a rival king, and heralded by angels is a story laden with significant metaphors and literary devices – I just don’t know why the presence of metaphors makes the truth of the story any less likely.

It seems the liberal and progressive arm of Christianity isn’t prepared to cut God any slack to act in a creative way. Why shouldn’t we expect God to use metaphors, similes and miracles? Jesus spent a fair bit of time teaching in parables. I just don’t get the mindset that says that God firstly must act in a way consistent with our scientific observations and secondly limits him to acting and communicating in a mundane and boring manner. If Jesus was just an ordinary baby born in an ordinary way there’d be nothing to celebrate about his arrival.

And I still can’t get my head around what you have left if you toss out all the supernatural bits of God. If you don’t believe that God could cause a virgin to conceive or the dead to be raised then what’s the point?

Merry Christmas.

December 24, 2009

A curious confession

Remember Dr Paul? If not you can read my past correspondence with him here (and check out our phone calls on YouTube).

He sent me a curious email today – four months after our last exchange.

Here’s what he had to say for himself… Now I have to decide how to respond. I’m 99.999999% sure that he is going to try to scam me again. Lets see how it goes.

Dear.
How are you today. my dear i want to tell you some thing now. for now am child God now that name Dr paul acquah is not my name, my really name is Emmanuel onyekwere am from Nigheria i came down to ghana because of problem that is why am start anwser Dr paul acquah. so now am child God i have give my life to Jesus that is why am telling you the truth now. so my dear if you like to contact me back this is my email address
emmanuelonyekwere@hotmail.com, this is my mobile if you like to call me so i will tell you more. +233-24-1111-297, my dear one advice i want to give you any body that contact you from Africa told you that you have consignment please dont follow the person he want to scam you money at last you can not get any thing. so my dear if you can move head will me i will open you eye for you and tell you more things in inter net.my dear i will like you to been my good friend. Am looking forward to hear from you soon.

Yours Friend
Mr.Emmnuel onyekwere

I wrote back…

Dear Emmanuel,

I’m glad we are now being honest with one another – and I am happy to hear that you have come to know Jesus.

Perhaps, as a token of good faith, you would now be prepared to send me a photograph of yourself – and so I know it is you – perhaps you would like to include a verse from the Bible on a sign that you are holding.

I look forward to hearing more from you.

Your friend,

Nathan

December 24, 2009

Shirt of the Day: Mario in the morning

Mario’s Closet design @ © SplitReason.com

This picture has the possibility of becoming an awesome shirt for those days when you’re not sure what you want to wear… it’s being voted on at that link above.

And Andrew from Daily Vowel Movements sent it my way.

If you’ve got anything you think would be good blog fodder for me – send it my way.

My email address is in the footer (down the bottom of the page). Sometime this week I’ll try to replace the two pictures of coffee cups that are down there with something a little less repetitive.

December 24, 2009

An open letter to annoying people who have music autoplaying on their websites

Dear stupid,

Please do not have music autoplaying on your website. Actually, please do not have any sound autoplaying on your website. You might think it’s totally cool and awesome. You might assume that everybody wants to hear what you can do with a little bit of code.

You are wrong.

People these days browse using tabs. They might have 30 tabs open with things they are considering blogging. They might have had the sound off and your tab opened for days.

They might be about to listen to some new awesome tunes that their CEO told them about while he’s standing there listening to it.

If these things are true they don’t want “Our God is an Awesome God” blaring out in all it’s bad midi glory from a tab they can’t find and quickly terminate.

And their CEO might think that they’re some weird “Jesus Freak” who listens to bad music on the company’s dollar – when in fact they are a normal Jesus Freak who blogs about stuff like this on the company’s dollar.

Luckily, my CEO knows that I’m leaving to go to Bible College – so he already thinks I’m a weird Jesus Freak – his comment about my “choice” of music was “you can keep that”…

This is the band I was checking out. I shut a lot of tabs – but I believe this was the cultprit(sic).

I also hate MySpace.

Regards,

Nathan

December 23, 2009

Atheist Bingo

I’m going to find some atheist friends and use as many of these lines as I can over the Christmas period. I know that’s kind of the unpoint, but I don’t care.

On a serious note – how many of these lines do you routinely trot out to your non-believing friends? Maybe it’s time for some new material. Any suggestions?

December 23, 2009

For the hoodielums

If you fancy a bit or reptilian martial arts this January but need a target to direct your renaissance inspired ire towards… then why not buy an unfriend this Shredder hoodie and then proceed to kung-fu the Christmas overindulgence out of them.

Shredder Jumper Ninja Turtles

December 23, 2009

Copywrongs

You know what is worse than Christians flagrantly disregarding copyright and intellectual property laws* (you know the whole “Thou shall not steal” bit of the Bible)… Christians flagrantly disregarding copyright for the purpose of bad commercial parody.

Making money by stealing other people’s intellectual property is much worse than just stealing their intellectual property for yourself. Making money by stealing someone’s material for second rate parody “Jesus Junk” is somewhere down the bottom. Here’s a story that made my stomach churn.

Jesus Junk - a really bad shirt

Trademark attorney Michael G. Atkins of Seattle said legal parodies of commercial trademarks are protected under the First Amendment, but such religious products generally don’t fall into that category.

“You could take Microsoft and change their logo around to make fun of Microsoft, and that would be legal,” he said. “But I can’t use the Microsoft logo to promote my Christian theme because there’s no real connection there. That’s illegal.”

Here’s what one of the creators and purveyors of Jesus Junk had to say for himself (as reported in the USA Today story)… Kerusso is the company responsible for producing a bunch of terrible shirts.

Kinnett views the commercial spoofs — which only make up 15% or so of Kerusso’s merchandise — as modern-day parables.

“If Jesus were here today would he make parody T-shirts? I doubt it,” Kinnett said. “But in his day, he did use parables. He used things that were common and recognized in everyday life to make a point or say something with a deeper meaning.”

* I still think Christian copyright holders should not “hold” their “rights” for the sake of the kingdom – but if they don’t then the end users have to respect that decision (and the law).

December 22, 2009

When I survey

This week the Sydney Morning Herald published yet another survey on religiosity in Australia. The results continue to show that the majority of Australians call themselves Christians while the minority are actually actively involved in church… how should the church fix that disparity?

The more conventional Christians, those who believe in – and occasionally worship – a personal God make up a neat 50 per cent of the nation.

There are some interesting demographic breakdowns…

Women are more certain that God created the world (27 per cent to 18 per cent) and wrote the Bible (40 per cent to 28 per cent) but aren’t so sure every word of the Good Book has to be taken to be literally true (25 per cent to 30 per cent). The least Christian community in Australia is young men; the most Christian are women of a certain age.

It seems that the “progressives” are gaining some traction.

They [Christians] are convinced (94 per cent) that Christ was a historical figure; fairly confident (91 per cent) that He was the Son of God; increasingly sceptical (72 per cent) about the Virgin Birth; and oddly – considering its key importance to the faith – uncertain that He rose from the dead (85 per cent). These beliefs are held very confidently. The Nielsen poll found almost nine out of 10 Australian Christians were absolutely or fairly certain of their beliefs.

Across all faiths and no faith 34 per cent of the population thought these texts were the word of God. A clear majority (61 per cent) thought they were written by man. Christians showed far greater confidence in the Bible (58 per cent) than other religions showed in their texts (35 per cent).

Then the findings just got a little weird…

Astrology
Christians seem hardly more likely (44 per cent) than the rest of us to put their faith in the stars.

Psychics
The Christians in our midst are markedly more likely (52 per cent) to put their faith in telepathy, clairvoyance, psychic healing etc.

The beliefs regarding science and the origin of life were also pretty interesting…

Most Australians believe God played a part in the process. That He created all life at a stroke about 10,000 years ago is believed by 23 per cent of us. That He guided a long process over time is believed by another 32 per cent. The beliefs of Australian Christians are even more dramatic, with 38 per cent supporting Genesis and another 47 per cent favouring the God of Design.

In the year in which the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth was celebrated around the world, only 12 per cent of Australian Christians believe his theory of natural selection. For all the talk of Darwin’s preeminence in modern science, attitudes to evolution remain the litmus test of belief and disbelief in Australia. Christians offer the most meager support, while 89 per cent of those who deny God’s existence back Darwin.

What do the other 11% who deny God’s existence back?

Heaven, hell, angels, witches and the devil get a tick from about 10 per cent of those who doubt or disbelieve the existence of God. A quarter support miracles; 27 per cent put their faith in astrology and UFOs; and a mighty 34 per cent believe in ESP. So a third of the nation’s atheists, agnostics and doubters have turned their back on God, but not on magic.

But it seems Australia is trending towards atheism. Nearly half of young men aged under 25 identify as atheists. Atheism is de rigueur for the angry young man.

Men outnumber women by two to one in the ranks of the deniers. They are joined by nearly half (42 per cent) of Australians under 25. But only a quarter of those over 55 are as sure that no God awaits them as their end approaches.

Here are the results for a similar survey in the US.

82% of American adults believe in God
76% believe in miracles
75% believe in heaven
73% believe Jesus is God or the Son of God
72% believe in angels
71% believe in the survival of the soul after death
70% believe in the resurrection of Jesus
45% of adults believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution
40% believe in creationism.
61% of adults believe in hell
61% believe in the virgin birth (Jesus born of Mary)
60% believe in the devil
42% believe in ghosts
32% believe in UFOs
26% believe in astrology
23% believe in witches

December 22, 2009

YouTube Tuesday: Goal

FIFA’s goal of the year candidates are pretty special. You

December 22, 2009

Studying Pokemon leads to exam failure

I’m not a Pokemon fan at all. That’s one Japanese fad that passed me by. I do know that drawing Pokemon characters on your exam paper is not a shortcut to success. Especially if your teacher can out fox you (or out Pokemon you) as was the case for this mathlete…

December 21, 2009

Beware the unbread

This zombie toast statue looks like it should be blasted with a shotgun – and definitely not purchased.

December 21, 2009

How I write complaint letters

You may, if you’re a regular reader, be wondering what became of my complaints to Cadbury and Jetstar.

Well.

Cadbury sent me a voucher for $5 to spend on Turkish Delight and Jetstar sent me $100 to spend on my next flight.

This complaint letter thing is fun and rewarding.

Here are my six tips for writing a complaint letter that gets read…

Establish a connection with the company – tell them that you’re familiar with the product you’re complaining about. Being a regular customer who is sold on the brand will give you credibility with the reader – and make them want to help you out.
Find the right person to contact – for the Cadbury one I phoned Cadbury rather than using an anonymous web form, for the Jetstar one I emailed it directly to the Customer Service manager as well as posting it. The more senior the person you address the letter to the better.
Give good details – tell the reader exactly what your experience was from start to finish. Set the scene. Help them to pinpoint the nature of your complaint.
Use the right tone – be polite – don’t complain about rudeness by being rude. Try using humour – it’ll make your letter different to the hundreds of other letters they receive. Be memorable.
Have a call to action – give the company some recourse – let them know what you expect in return for your letter. Do you want a reply detailing what went wrong and what they’ll do to fix it? Do you want a refund? You won’t get exactly what you want without asking for it.
Be contactable – give good details for follow up – you won’t get free stuff if the company doesn’t know where to send things.

Those are the things I do – how ’bout you? What are your tips for writing complaint letters that bear fruit.

December 21, 2009

Resignation Limerick

I told my CEO verbally that I’d be leaving three weeks ago. Our policy requires that resignations be delivered in writing so today I wrote this resignation limerick…

It is with sadness and regret,

But conditions must be met,

And so now I resign,

In verse, and five lines.

But I won’t be leaving just yet.

It’s not as cool as these resignations… by cake, and by game… but I didn’t want a boring write by numbers kind of deal.

December 21, 2009

The problem with surveys

You know what I hate more than anything else in TV news bulletins. The viewer poll. The viewer poll is not news – nor is it indicative of the public’s actual thoughts on an issue. It is a revenue raiser. A tax on those stupid enough to phone or SMS an expensive number.

You can write a survey and skew a question any way you want. For polling to be legit it needs to be carrier out objectively by a company that can produce and moderate results to ensure a proper sample of the community is represented – and it needs to include the number of people who didn’t care enough about the issue to respond either positively or negatively.

Dinosaur Comics explains…

Here’s a completely unrelated Dinosaur comic that made me laugh…

December 21, 2009

Well, well, well

Dave Miers is raising money to buy wells in Cambodia. You should head over to his blog and read the post and think about donating.

Once you’ve done that you should do your last minute “really useful gift” shopping at the St Eutychus Store. Buy some food for some kids who don’t eat good…

There isn’t enough time for cards to be sent out before Christmas – so you’ll have to do the environmentally responsible thing and select an e-card.

December 21, 2009