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.

Humble pie co

I subscribed to an atheist blog recently – just to see how the other side thinks. It’s called “the friendly atheist” and if this guy and his commenters are the “friendly” side of atheism I’m not looking forward to the unfriendly side. They’re generally sneeringly intolerant and arrogant – probably just what they say about most “Christians” (I put that in inverted commas because I’m talking about anybody who calls themselves a Christian)…

But this post is all about “questions which stump atheists” – the answer, from about 70 comments is “not much, we know everything”… and “~~Christians~~ are dumb”… my favourite bit is where one commenter suggests his fellows eat some humble pie.

So, atheists (and I know at least two of you read), do you ever have doubts? I’m humble enough to admit that I don’t and can’t know everything. Are you?

May 27, 2009

Nobody framed Roger Rabbit

Movies go too long. About 90 minutes too long in some cases. At least according to this site – which condenses movies into four frames. Unfortunately there’s no framing of Roger Rabbit there – which is a shame, because it would have worked nicely with my heading. Oh well. Here’s four movies in 16 frames.

Any guesses on the movies featured here? First one to get all four gets a great intangible prize.

May 27, 2009

Advanced Origami

This is quite incredible – a series of pictures essentially folded into sheets of paper.

May 27, 2009

Giant tool

That’s what I’d call anyone who carries this Swiss Army Knife featuring 110 “tools”. It doesn’t even fit in your pocket. Pretty much missing the whole “pocket knife” concept. I suspect you have to put the knife on the ground and throw whatever you want to chop at the blade.

May 27, 2009

Hitting the right note

If you’re more advanced than those who consider beans the musical fruit – but still not above a little bit of an orchestral performance in the bathroom then these toilet seats (priced at about $US169 each) are for you…

May 27, 2009

A salt and battery

This is a beautiful, hopefully pun inspired, piece of kitchen design. From this Turkish designer.

Found here.

May 27, 2009

My New Friend part 2

Michel Roberts just rang me on the telephone at work. Which surprised me somewhat. He’s definitely a man.

He rang to see if I’d read his latest email. And to tell me that his life is in danger. I did read his email, and I don’t really care. Here are some highlights from the email.

“I want you to understand that I had bestowed my hope in you believing that you will not cheat me or seat on my fund once the security company deliver the consignment to your care. Therefore,you are to impose love, trust and confidence in me so that we shall achieve our aim. Mostly is trust because without trust that’s mean we are not making any progress,I have the believe that you are a God sent to me and also a God fearing person, and I think it will be nice for us to handle this by both of us because I don’t want someone else to know about the consignment in the security company.Please my dear lets keep the secret between us.”

“Remember that you promised to help me and you also said that you will stand by me. Note that our relationship can not only be built on money but it has got a lot to do with trust and love for people. How can we build this trust? Should we be binded by a contract bond which will be legally signed and sealed in the law court here in this country to avoid cheats from the both of us before we proceed? I need your opinion on this. And bear in mind that I can never do anything that will hurt your heart. It’s a promise. I assure you that this project is 100% risk free and legal, you will not have any problem in assisting me in this project as everything is legal and risk free.”

And here’s my response.

Thank you once again for your timely response. I feel they would be quicker if you wrote slightly shorter emails.

I notice that you did not answer my question from my last email. As I said, the biggest reason I have for continuing to do business with you is your religion. I have a personal rule about not doing business with anybody who does not fear the Lord. You did not answer my question about baptism. Does this mean you are in favour of baptising children?

I was writing this when you made your phone call. Please do not call me by phone in the future – I can not talk about this matter in front of my colleagues. We will have to conduct our communication by email or I will not be continuing our transaction.

I would like you to send me the details for the security company.

Thank you for your call. It is nice to know you are a real person – I have heard of people having money stolen in situations like this – so I believe it is important that we establish this trust.

I have another question for you to answer to help me trust you. Do you love Jesus?

My goal is to preach the gospel to this scammer. Lets see how far I get.

May 27, 2009

New friend

I have a new friend. His/her name is Michel(le). (S)he is from Cote d’ Ivoire. I’m helping him/her out with a little inheritance problem. Apparently his/her late father didn’t trust his countrymen.

Here are some of the details:

l am Michelle Robert, the only child of late Chief and Mrs Benjamin Robert, My father was a very wealthy cocoa merchant in Abidjan here, the economic capital of Ivory Coast, he was poisoned to death by his business associates on one of their business meeting. My mother died on the 20th January 1988 and my father took me so special because l am motherless.

Poor kid. Sounds so sad.

He also explained to me that it was because of this wealth that he was poisioned by his business associates , that l should seek for a GOD fearing foreign partner in a country of my choice where l will transfer this money and use it for proper investment purpose ,that I must finish my university education by the help of a business partner abroad,that he or she should help me obtain a resident permit in his or her country.

That was from the first email – signed off by Michelle. The second, after I indicated a willingness to continue discussions contained the following:

Hope you are fine today and your family , Happiness to hear that you will be willing to assist me retrieve this consignment deposited by my late father in the security company here in this country as you know I really appreciate the time you made out to reply to my mail to you. God in his infinite mercy will richly reward you for your concern and honesty towards me in this my difficult moment in life. God bless you abundantly.

This one was signed off by a “Michel” – and included a decidedly male photo.

I will question him/her about it in future emails. I had much more important questions to ask before pursuing any sort of business deal…

Here’s my response.

I am a very wealthy business man – and I didn’t get to that stage without being cautious about who I do business with. I’m very glad to say that you sound trustworthy – I too am a believer in God, and his mercy. Were we not on the same page theologically I would find it hard to continue in this matter.

Can you tell me – what are your thoughts on baptism?

I googled “Business Man” and used this picture – I hope the virtual me doesn’t mind.

May 27, 2009

Holy Consigliore?

There’s a story I’ve been following a bit – and thinking about writing about – about a family who didn’t want their son receiving medical treatment for cancer because it is “inconsistent” with their religious beliefs. I don’t know where the Bible talks about radiation therapy, or in fact not receiving any medical treatment. Jesus even said something about the sick needing doctors – not the healthy (to paraphrase without context)… But it’s ok, because they’ve relented. The boy gets treatment. Hooray. The really awesome thing though is the name of the family’s lawyer. Tom Hagen. The SMH reports…

“This family clearly loves and cares for Danny,” attorney Tom Hagen said. “The environment at the Hausers’ home is loving and caring. It is a healing place. Their main interest is in making sure Danny is OK.”

If my name was Tom Hagen I’d totally become a lawyer too. Though I’d specialise in entertainment law. And this would be my business card and I’d have these cushions on chairs in my waiting room. This would appear to be him – so if you want an awesomely named lawyer in the states – check him out. He works for these guys, who are currently virtually “under construction” and (according to Google he votes/donates Republican…)

May 27, 2009

YouTube Tuesday: Chk, Chk, Boom

There’s a slight language (and racism) warning to this video. Though I assume that unless you’ve been living under a rock you’ve already seen it.

Opinion on this whole situation – where a 19 year old gives a fake eyewitness account to a TV camera after a non-fatal shooting – is pretty split. I’m in the “I think this was a hilarious way to teach the media a lesson about verifying sources and not looking for a sensationalised quote at all costs” camp.

Seriously, reporting of this sort of shooting with “on the spot, live to air” broadcasts – or even rapid fire report filing – lends itself to this sort of treatment. And I hope she (Clare Werbeloff) rides this 15 minutes of fame as far as it takes her. The media deserve it – and the associated condemnation/celebration being carried out in print and over the airwaves just perpetuates the problem and justifies the behaviour.

May 26, 2009

Get soap in all the right places

It can be challenging to get Tetris pieces in the right place at the right time, just as it can be challenging to get soap into all the nooks and crannies… ok, that’s probably more talk about bathing than you can handled, particularly if you visualise things as you read… these Tetris soaps from Etsy might help.

May 26, 2009

3D pong

This is a beautifully rendered version of the classic computer game pong – well, actually, it’s a 3D rendering of a 2D rendering of a 3D game – that is to say it’s just Table Tennis – with a table designed to look like Pong. Confused? Well check it out – it’s from this guy…

May 26, 2009

How to evangelise

The Christian world’s preeminent blogger – Tim Challies – has a post featuring a ~~great~~ terrible guide to evangelism from the 50s. Here’s a clip – the post has heaps more…