Nathan runs St Eutychus. He loves Jesus. His wife. His daughter. His son. His other daughter. His dog. Coffee. And the Internet. He is the pastor of City South Presbyterian Church, a church in Brisbane, a graduate of Queensland Theological College (M. Div) and the Queensland University of Technology (B. Journ). He spent a significant portion of his pre-ministry-as-a-full-time-job life working in Public Relations, and now loves promoting Jesus in Brisbane and online. He can't believe how great it is that people pay him to talk and think about Jesus. If you'd like to support his writing financially you can do that by giving to his church.
Here’s my hot tip. Which might be obvious to many of you. If you are drowning in an unread sea switch to “list view” using the link on the top right of your screen. Scroll through the headings, click the interesting ones, star the ones you want to save and then click “Mark all as read”…
You’ll save much time and energy.
I only started doing this this week. It has saved me a lot of wasted time already. I commend it to you.
"Using a list of countries generated by The World Factbook database, flags of countries fetched from Wikipedia (as of 26th May 2007) are analysed by a custom made python script to calculate the proportions of colours on each of them. That is then translated on to a piechart using another python script. The proportions of colours on all unique flags are used to finally generate a piechart of proportions of colours for all the flags combined. (note: Colours making up less than 1% may not appear)"
Almost as much as the lecture I got from a couple of premillenial dispensationalists last night. Sometimes different elements of Christianity can be funny. And I’m all for self deprecation.
I’m fairly convinced by my take on both Genesis and Revelation – but I’m much more convinced that neither actually truly matters. I don’t get people who make these bits of the Bible the big deal. Or points of division and distinction. Though I do get how your eschatology shapes your actions here and now… so I can see how it is important (but not essential).
Largely because I’ve been approaching the deadline for the printing of our Annual Report.
It’s kind of a big deal. Today was the day. It’s now at the printers.
Hooray.
I’m sure my brother-out-law, Hilton, won’t mind the gratuitous use of this photo of us. It displays the emotion I am currently feeling quite adequately.
Speaking of atheism… which I’ve been doing a lot lately…
Dave Walker has kindly agreed to post his talk that he gave to JCU’s Society of Atheist Philosophy last week as a series of posts here. It’ll be online as an audio file as soon as I get it off my iPhone (provided the recording actually audibly worked).
Dave works for AFES in Townsville. He has one wife and four sons. He studied sciency stuff at University so isn’t completely ignorant when it comes to matters of science (like I am) and shouldn’t be dismissed on that basis.
This is a photo of Dave in silhouette form.
He is a real person. He has feelings. Be nice to Dave.
I’ve been having an interesting debate with some atheists (well I think it’s interesting and this is my blog afterall) over at the Friendly Atheist after the Friendly Atheist himself made this claim:
“Now, how do we shame those people who believe in reincarnation?
Or those people who believe that Heaven or Hell are actual places?
Or those people who believe that a god created the world in a week, that Adam and Eve were actual people, or that Jesus came back to life after being killed and has any ability to cleanse us of sins now?
It’s all the same degree of delusion“
Emphasis mine.
I didn’t like the idea that Christians, who are monotheists, are as delusional as either pantheists those who see God in everything, everywhere (eg Hindus who, crudely speaking, believe in reincarnation because spiritual matter can not be lost), or polytheists who believe in many Gods.
I think as soon as you add the word “degree” into a statement like that you have to show that all these beliefs are equally ridiculous. I think it’s patently clear that they’re not. Mostly because there are certain beliefs that are universally ridiculed – like Scientology.
I think it’s funny that atheists seem quite happy generalising about Christians using the most crazy fundamentalist doctrines they can find while at the same time refusing to allow Christians to generalise about atheists – because they’re all different.
In the discussion I put forward a proposition, which I think was a good one, and as yet nobody has addressed it in their responses… I’ll reproduce it here.
“I often wonder if the atheist cause would be better served by supporting the Christians who are trying to teach other Christians good doctrine rather than throwing out the proverbial baby and bathwater.”
My new commenting platform, IntenseDebate (which you should try out) gives you the ability to add your own YouTube videos.
So I’m thinking that rather than post my own YouTube video this week you should all post your favourites. I’ll put a post up. I may even put my own favourite video in the comments. And then you can all go nuts.
If it works I might occasionally have a YouTube Tuesday category like music or something funny… I’m not holding high hopes. Because most of you are pretty slack at commenting (based on the ratio of regular visitors v commenters).
One of the fundamental, and mostly unmentioned, elements of “pick on someone your own size” is the idea that if you don’t there may in fact be a sibling or protector involved in the equation that you haven’t yet considered.
One of the things I’ve been truly amazed by as I search for funny google autofill results for my new blog is how often people ask google questions about poo.
People are clearly worried.
So if you googled “should my poo float” or “should my poo smell” or “why is my poo green” then perhaps this infographic will solve all of your problems…
And remember people. The best feces are like bananas.
To celebrate the Brisbane Zombie Walk (which happened today) I thought I’d post eleven great zombie things from around the interwebs. But before I begin – the ABC is releasing all its footage and photos of the Zombie Walk into the open source ether through a service called pool.org.au which looks pretty cool.
“ABC is building an online ‘town square’ for all Australians. Pool is a collaborative space where audiences become ‘co-creators’. It’s a place to share and talk about creative work – music, photos, videos, documentaries, interviews, animations and more.”
I see trees of green, undead zombies too, I look around and think… well, I’ll leave watching this to you…
Shooting zombies with shotguns is the best way to get rid of them… but to do that you’ll need some target practice. Which is why it’s lucky that this company called law enforcement targets has targets you can use down at the shooting range…
If you want to plot your strategy using Lego men on a model of your city then you’ll need an accurate rendition of your zombie fighting weapons – and BrickArms has you covered.
In the event that zombies are overrunning the planet you might need a deterrent. Give the other zombies the impression that your house is already undead meat and they’ll head next door…
If zombies do take over the world then you’re going to have to learn how to get ahead in life. Your career in the new zombie world is going to depend on your man-eat-man approach to life. Which is where this book comes in…
Churches won’t really be safe in a zompocalypse. Gatherings of people will be too much like a buffet. Decapolis has you sorted with a nice approach to your devotional life…
“During a zombie attack, it’s really easy to be anxious. Zombies want your brain, and you probably would like to keep it for yourself. Yes, you have to think about physical stuff like, “Where’s the shotgun,” and “aim for the head,” but beneath all situations is a spiritual level.
…
You have to be able to point to something God has actually said if you are to have a real peace.
RO 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Ah! There’s a promise God made. I can point to that verse and go, “Hey, I believe that promise.”
Now think of the things that make you anxious and replace “in all things” with your situation…
And we know that during zombie attacks God works for the good of those who love him.”
YouTube Tuesday: Video by request
Hey peoples.
I want to try something new this week.
My new commenting platform, IntenseDebate (which you should try out) gives you the ability to add your own YouTube videos.
So I’m thinking that rather than post my own YouTube video this week you should all post your favourites. I’ll put a post up. I may even put my own favourite video in the comments. And then you can all go nuts.
If it works I might occasionally have a YouTube Tuesday category like music or something funny… I’m not holding high hopes. Because most of you are pretty slack at commenting (based on the ratio of regular visitors v commenters).
Here’s a couple of samples…
October 26, 2009