An atheist blogger has suggested a new product line… Richard Dawkins cologne. Its odour is no doubt offensive to Christians everywhere.
Author: Nathan Campbell
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.
Word word locator…
Ever wondered how often and where a particular word occurs in the Bible? Well, here’s a nice little webapp that lets you track down every reference to any word. Pretty awesome stuff. Here’s an example of the results searching for “faith”. There’s a nice guide for why you might use this here.
Church Planting Conference
Dad is speaking at this Moore College conference today. I was surprised to learn that. I thought he was just attending. I only realised that he was speaking because Nigel Fortesque is liveblogging it on Twitter and kept writing things @philcampbell – only, the Phil Campbell on Twitter is not my father. He’ll no doubt be very confused with the series of messages arriving in his Twitter inbox.
That amused me.
The conference looks interesting – and I’ll be following along.
Open letter to people who make “urgent” requests
Dear “Urgent” requester,
I understand that you want me to do something urgently but the fact that you write “urgent” on an unsolicited email does not (unless you are my boss or you are responsible for a significant amount of my funding) – make your request urgent.
If you send it to me between 4.30pm and 5pm when I am watching the clock I will be likely to treat it with the contempt it deserves.
Perhaps if the job is so urgent it is your planning process that needs timely revision.
That is all.
Open letter to Queensland
Dear Queensland,
Poking fun at people from outside the state because of the result of a football game they had no control over is not clever. It’s not really funny either – unless you’re a funny person.
I did not play football for New South Wales last night. Neither did 6,889,983 other New South Welshmen… ignoring that part of that population statistic are migratory Queenslanders. Nor would I have picked 70% of the chosen players to represent me on the Rugby League field.
To pick on me because of that result is ludicrous. It’s also pretty close to the dictionary definition of racism:
1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.
Just something to think about next time you insult me on the basis of having been born interstate.
That is all.
Regards,
Nathan Campbell,
Townsville
A bunch of links – June 24, 2009
- What is Your Theology of the Arts?
- Michael Bay can blow up ILM computers too…
- Church – ink or pencil?
- An idiot#39;s guide to denominational hierarchy
- And No, Clip Art Is Not The Answer.
- How To Look A Bit Less Crap #43
- Burkhas and Religious Freedom
- I Still Don#39;t Get It
- Watson, quot;Is the Abortion Debate Over?quot;
- Lewis on Seeing Everything Your Enemies Do as Bad
- Dad is a pastor? Hunh; why didn#39;t God think of that?
- Review: There Is a God – How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind
Hover Craft
Wow. You know how the lava lamp was a category breaker when it came to home/cubicle lighting… well perhaps you didn’t… but now you do. This stands to have the same effect on home/cubicle decorating. Levitating stuff. Your stuff. Hovering.
As long as your object weighs less than four ounces (100 grams) it’ll float on this platform – complete with spotlight.
Now that’s awesome. And it’s hard to believe it could get better. But it does. How about this floating record player… (it’s conceptual, the other one will be retailing by the end of the year).
The 100+ word description:
The record player uses a carrier and dock outfitted with a magnetic and auto-calibrating control system which carries the LP into thin air as it is playing music. a self-running record player shaped in the form of a red sphere, contains a needle, amplifier and speaker, spins around the record, bringing the music to life. the sphere that plays the vinyl was technically influenced by the ‘vinyl killer’, currently the world’s smallest LP player that has a built-in motor, amplifier and speaker.
Simple colors and shapes express a kind of astronomical movement between the object and space.
The levitation is managed electronically. once turning the player on, you can manage the elevation levels through the touch sensors on the front side of the base unit.”
The one word description: Awesome.
Critic critique
Some of my friends are movie buffs. The annoying and condescendingly superior type. I like them. But they are movie snobs. I imagine I come across the same way when I’m talking about coffee or bagging out U2.
Critics are never happy. Well not until everything is 100% correct. This annoys me in every aspect of life except coffee (and when I’m bagging out U2). I find it particularly annoying when it comes to movies and reading movie reviews. Movies, in my mind (and this touches on the recent Wonderland discussion) are about entertainment and appreciation of execution. Both don’t have to be perfect for me to walk out of a movie feeling like I got my moneys worth. When both are perfect – ala the Godfather 1 – it’s a more satisfying experience obviously… but here are two examples of the problem…
An SMH review of Transformers 2…
“Michael Bay thinks that movies are a sandbox and, to some extent, they are. The trick is to create something meaningful from the tools in the sandbox. The first film did that; the second is a sandy imitation.”
Here’s the problem with this review – Transformers is a movie based on a series of action figures. It’s made primarily for an audience of males who like having stuff blown up. By all accounts Transformers 2 has bigger, better explosions with bigger and better fights between the alien robots. Reviews that take plot and stuff like that into account are missing the point. Nobody cares. It’s going to make bucket loads of money.
Point Two is just a continuation of my conversation with Ben… he said that Tim Burton should relinquish some control of his movies in order to produce compelling visual spectacles with nice Burtonesque aesthetics.
I like to think of Tim Burton’s movies as a vehicle for his aesthetics – and I’m happy to enjoy them even if the plot makes no sense. Like in Mars Attacks.
Image etiquette
This link appeared in my shared items a while ago. It was in the grey area between funny enough to post and too obscure for everybody to care. But I feel like posting it now – after reading this thread on Ben’s blog.
Using other people’s images on your site is a grey area. Images are bandwidth hogs – and bandwidth is expensive. I tend to only use other people’s images (hotlinked) if I’m promoting their product or service with my post.
But this series of emails is just too funny not to be brought up at this point in the debate.
Things that brighten my day #1
Arguments about trivial things with a worthy opponent.
Blocktastic
I’ve written about Pacman, I’ve written about Rubiks Cubes, I’ve written about Super Mario Bros, and I’ve written about art. That’s a lot of topics to converge in a single post. But I’ve done it. Well, more correctly, somebody else has – I’m just here to show you the fruits of their labour. Art made from Rubiks Cubes… not just art… geek art. I would have thought a Tetris inspired design would be appropriate – but perhaps too easy…
YouTube Tuesday: Come Play
Kudos to Tim for posting this today. If World Cup bids were judged by production of the bid video then we’d be in with a shot.
Salad LOLs
I subscribed to PETA’s media releases recently just for the laughs. It hasn’t disappointed. They’re about to protest the Southern Baptists. They want to convert them to vegetarianism.
“PETA members — including one dressed as Jesus carrying a sign reading, “For Christ’s Sake, Go Vegetarian,” and another dressed as a chicken with a sign that says, “Jesus Loves Me Too”– will bring a pro-vegetarian message based on biblical teachings of compassion to people attending the Southern Baptist Convention in Louisville on Tuesday. Other members will hold signs reading, “Thou Shalt Not Kill. Go Vegetarian” and “Blessed Are the Merciful. Go Vegetarian.” They will also hand out leaflets that relate vegetarian living to Christian teachings.”
Seems they’re a little bit confused about the difference between chickens and people. That sentence could be made much clearer with a comma – either after the “compassion” or after the “people”… the easily misinterpreted (if you don’t put too much effort in) sentence pretty much somes up most of my problems with PETA – then there’s the fact that the Bible makes eating meat perfectly acceptable. The fact that meat tastes so good means that God meant us to be carnivores. Surely.