Nathan Campbell – Page 284

The camp camp

I’m sorry. I feel compelled to put finger to keyboard to comment on a social phenomena probably best left to Ben.

I can no long stay silent on this topic. It’s divisive. It’s controversial.

I think my gaydar is broken. It used to be well honed because gay men had an air of difference about the way they presented themselves. They were more articulate, more likely to wear shirts with plunging necklines, and more likely to wear tight pants.

Over the weekend (which we spent in Brisbane for the Rugby and some impromptu father’s day meals) I could have used these descriptors on 90% of the men I cam across. Statistically this figure should have been much lower. Even in the valley.

What’s going on? This can’t really be any good for either camp. Neither the camp camp, nor the straight camp benefits from this fashion osmosis.

It reminds me of the time I walked into City Beach and couldn’t tell which clothes were for men and which ones were for women. But that’s another story.

I’m just saying…

September 7, 2009

More on pragmatism

Mark Baddely on Pragmatism after a comment from Tony Payne on this Solapanel post…

“But a church or Christian who engages in life apart from the knowledge of God and ourselves that the Word gives us will also go nowhere. A pragmatism that abstracts ends from the gospel, and then sees the getting of those ends as a practical, and not theological, matter can’t be the process for growth in the knowledge of God either.”

I think the problem people are suggesting with pragmatism is academic rather than practical. Tony’s comment is perhaps echoing my thinking…

“It seems to me that as I observe those pastors and/or churches that I really admire, they have this constant running interplay between theological principle and smart practice. On the one hand, they are always being driven by the Bible and the gospel and the ‘strategies’ that God himself lays down in Scripture (knowledge of God), and they recognize their utter dependency on these. But on the other hand they keep noticing things about themselves and people and the way church and ministry ‘works’, and adjusting their practice accordingly (knowledge of ourselves). And the two aren’t separate, non-overlapping magisteria. The knowledge of God feeds into and informs the the understanding of people and how they tick, and the understanding of people and how they tick seems only to reinforce and foster more growth in the knowledge of God.”

September 6, 2009

Subtitled hymns

I post this without editorial, for your viewing pleasure.

Actually, I posted it without seeing the thumbnail frame. It’s a bit rude. Here’s the link to the video.

Here’s a new fangled version…

September 5, 2009

All the trappings

The humble mouse trap has not really evolved in my lifetime – despite the complexity offered by the Rube Goldbergesque “Mouse Trap” board game.

This designer, Sarah Dery, obviously got sick of picking up dead mice…

September 4, 2009

Be a blockhead

Tetris makes you smarter. Which makes Robyn the smartest of all my Facebook friends.

This is a scientifically proven fact (well, almost) backed up by proper medical research… Here’s the study.

Here’s the summary from wired…

“The study, funded by Tetris‘ makers and authored by investigators at the Mind Research Network in New Mexico, shows that playing the classic puzzle game had two distinct effects on the brains of research subjects: Some areas in the brain showed greater efficiency (the blue areas in the diagram above), and different areas showed thicker cortexes, which is a sign of more grey matter (red).”

September 4, 2009

Super Mario Art

I’ve probably used this heading before. But it seems fitting. You can generate your own Mario ending sequence here. They come out a little something like this:

September 4, 2009

Is pragmatism a dirty word?

It seems pragmatism is on the nose. I’ve read a few posts around the Christian blogosphere that bag out a “pragmatic” approach to ministry.

Why is this? Am I missing something? I would have thought a ministry based on the ability to know and proclaim an absolute truth, where the methodology of communication is based roughly on “that which works” was both right and Biblical – those would seem to be key areas of the pragmatic school of thought – and yet, we seem to be so keen for our ministries not to be ego boosting that we’re fleeing the notion of pragmatism having a bearing on what we do.

Didn’t God give us the innate ability to strategise, plan for the future, and gifts to equip us for ministry. Shouldn’t we work with these gifts in a way that maximises our return (while being faithful to other imperatives – like not being proud etc). Does pragmatism necessarily lead to people planting churches with big screen video links?

This whole anti-pragmatism thing is strange to me. Perhaps I’m getting the wrong end of the stick… your thoughts?

September 4, 2009

The union war

K-Rudd has declared an end to the History Wars that crippling battle for supremacy between Australia’s academic elite… but there’s one philosophical battle between the elite and the working class that will not be ended by Prime Ministerial decree…

We’re flying to Brisbane this weekend. We’re heading south for a Rugby match. Of all the things to head south for… I don’t really like Rugby. But Robyn does. So we’re going to watch Australia play South Africa.

Robyn really likes Rugby. She owns a number of jerseys and actually understands the rules enough to yell at the ref about an infringement before he gives a penalty. This is what marriage is about.

But, so that my protest is recorded for posterities sake – here are three areas where Rugby League is clearly the superior game…

Pointscoring – the union point scoring matrix is messed up. It discourages attacking play. Union can not hope to be a spectacle while a penalty goal is worth more than half an unconverted try. There is no incentive to chance your arm for a try when you can do half the work and score more than half the points. Drop goals are also significantly overvalued. If Union swallowed its pride and adopted League’s point scoring methodology attack would be suitably rewarded.
Penalties – Penalty goals are only such an issue because penalties are so common. Seriously. Is there anything in Union that you’re actually allowed to do? Every time the ref watches the play closely he blows his whistle and the team in possession boots the ball between the posts.
Scrums – The claim by Union fans that I find most risible is that their scrums are superior to those used in League. Contested, yes, superior, no. 98% of scrums contested in a Union test are packed more than once, 65% result in penalties. 12% result in wins against the feed (I made these stats up). They’re just as pointless as the scrums in league – it’s like a coin toss to see whether the attacking side gets a penalty or has to stand around in a hemorrhoid inducing group hug.

But I’m a good husband. So I’ll go along without pointing out too many of these areas.

September 4, 2009

Argument with argument

I have a bone to pick with logic. I am sick to death of putting forward great arguments backed by examples and employing a suitable amount of pathos only to be ignored because I’ve broken one of the codified rules of “logical argument”.

I have news for you Messrs Logic and Reason – nobody cares if you think I’m arguing with a “straw man” or producing some sort of syllogismic fallacy. Nobody cares if you hate analogies so much that the very presence of one as a piece of supporting evidence is enough for you to completely ignore the material at hand and instead dish out a lecture on what are essentially the “Queensbury Rules” of discourse. Nobody likes the Queensbury rules. They’re for losers who can’t fight with all the tools at their disposal.

Perhaps my line of reasoning is a straw man – but your job isn’t to point out that this invalidates my argument, it’s to correct my thinking. Perhaps my analogy isn’t perfect. Few are. A perfect analogy is like a rare pearl – hard to find and expensive.

When did the style of a debate become more important than the substance?

September 4, 2009

Visible Holiness

I mentioned my theory of the “Holiness Shelf” back when I had about ten readers (but curiously could attract 31 comments on a trivial post).

The Holiness Shelf is a dedicated space on a public bookshelf. Typically at eye level. The idea is that people judge you by the books in your collection, and your music and DVDs. If the first thing they see is overwhelming holiness manifested in your well thumbed “Gospel and Kingdom” or “The Cross of Christ” they’ll judge you positively.

It’s a tactic I recommended to many single guys, while I was myself single. I’m not sure it works.

Ali makes a good point in this post that people are now judged by their online presence. Facebook has replaced the bookshelf. Which is why it’s important to list good bands and intelligent books in your Facebook profile (I’ll post a list of impressive books for your profile later). Christians are pretty bad at judging each other on the basis of faith and holiness too – so the availability of information like what books, movies and music you like opens you up to all sorts of questions from others. Should I tell everybody that my favourite movies are Fight Club and the Godfather (both R rated)? Or should I pretend I love the Passion of the Christ (which I’ve never seen), and Amazing Grace (which I did like)?

The personal “brand” we build online opens us up in a new way to Christians who may or may not be weaker brothers, and may or may not be the judgemental type who emphasise the “not of the world” part of “in the world, but not of it”. This raises questions about what you should and shouldn’t blog about if you’re bloggingly inclined. You should read Ali’s post, and join the discussion there.

I post just about anything. I’m not sure I’d want people making an assessment of my holiness on the basis of that which appears in the right hand column of this page. Especially the bits about toilet paper.

I don’t want to be more discerning about what I blog about, it would take away half the fun. But nor do I want to be judged solely on what I blog about.

September 3, 2009

Cereal Offender

I love cereal. I eat it all the time. I think that cereal companies should be most upset that they’ve been pigeon-holed as “breakfast cereal”.

I don’t think trivial rebrands solve any problems, so I don’t understand the NRL’s pitch to change their logo in order to resurrect its credibility.

If a lobby group consisting of Kellogs, Sanitarium and other major cereal players was to form in a bid to rebrand their products as all day things I would totally understand that sort of thing. And support it.

I am eating a bowl of Fruit Loops as I write this.

That is all.

September 3, 2009

When to make unpopular decisions

John Howard has re-entered the political fray – and probably done more bolster Rudd’s leadership than to aid his former parliamentary colleagues. He’s commended Rudd on a couple of points – and made this interesting comment, which I think probably applies to starting at a new church too…

From the SMH.

The time for unpopular or difficult reforms should always be in the first term for new prime ministers, who tended to be cut a lot of slack by the public.

When you’ve been there two years, you haven’t done anything that’s the least bit unfriendly – jeez, it gets hard in the third year.

September 3, 2009

Leaning tower of pizzas

No posts yesterday. I’m a slacker. Actually, it’s quite the reverse. I was busy. I’ll try to rectify this today.

Round two of my little “cooking school” is happening tonight. We’re doing gourmet pizzas. By popular demand. Anybody got a favourite pizza topping/strategy?

Oh, and check out this cool optical illusion…

Find out what’s so special about it here.

September 3, 2009

YouTube Toosday: Mario Cart the movie

This joins a long list of old games being turned into movie trailers. And it’s amusing, if you like this sort of thing…

September 1, 2009

YouTube Twosday: Ricky Gervais on Christianity

Anyone who checked out the iMonk’s post on atheism may have seen this already… but this is the “new” new atheism. Not rabid, but friendly. Not insulting, but funny. Not arrogant, but “humble”, not scientific, but cultural…

How do you counter these arguments of religion as a positive form of social control that isn’t necessary for “enlightened” people?

I’d suggest it’s not like the Pyromaniac Centuri0n would have us do it… he suggests, in a series of posts, that we move away from apologetics, and just preach the gospel – both the iMonk and Frank Turk (Centuri0n) suggest the likes of William Lane Craig have the approach wrong – and we should either be cultural or biblical – not philosophical.

Me, being a pragmatist, I think we need to have a balance of all three. You can’t use the Bible on people who reject the fundamental premise of a book authored by God. Especially if they insist on deduction rather than induction. So you need to take the philosophical apologetic when arguing for the existence of God. And you can’t do any of this without getting the cultural element right – and I’d say one of the big issues there is the damage done to our reputation by nominal or apathetic Christians. So don’t be one of those.

September 1, 2009