The Friendly Atheist thought it was pretty funny that Google says mean things about some Christian leaders when you type their names and “is” using Google’s predictive search thing.
I ran the test. I came up with some interesting results.
Here they are.
Google gets this one right…
This is probably highly irresponsible. But stun guns aren’t readily available in Australia so I feel safe reposting it. Plus it’s available on Make Magazine’s YouTube channel. A stun gun triggered potato cannon. Brilliant. Science at its best. This one is basically for Tim. I reckon we should make a couple next year Tim, what say you?
Alternatively, we could put together a potato gatling gun.
I often feel discouraged when talking to my atheist friends. Not because their arguments are compelling, but because I love them and believe Christianity is true and offers hope.
It’s hard. It’s like talking to a brick wall. But this long quote gives me a fair bit of hope that all is not lost.
“My commitment to atheism essentially came in three steps. The first was when I was in junior high school and began asking Christians uncomfortable questions, like, “How can there be a loving God with so much suffering in the world?” And, “How can a loving God send people to hell?” And, “How can Jesus be the only way to God?” Rather than engage with me, they basically told me to keep my questions to myself. I quickly concluded that the reason they didn’t want to discuss these matters was because there were no good answers from the Christian perspective.
The second step came when I began studying neo-Darwinism in high school. I was particularly struck by Stanley Miller’s 1959 experiment in which he recreated what he thought was the original atmosphere of the primitive Earth, shot electricity through it to simulate lightning, and discovered the creation of some amino acids, the building blocks of life. I naively concluded that Miller had proven that life could have emerged in a purely naturalistic way. To me, that meant God was out of a job!”
That’s Lee Strobel – American author of a number of books of Christian apologetics. He said it in answers to a series of questions from the Friendly Atheist back in January.
You can find them here, here, here, and here. It’s a great example of respectful dialogue between two opposing camps.
And here’s the encouraging rub.
For nearly two years, I investigated science, philosophy, and history. I read literature (both pro and con), quizzed experts, and studied archaeology. On November 8th, 1981, alone in my room, I took a yellow legal pad and began summarizing the evidence I had encountered. In light of the scientific evidence that points toward a Creator and the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, I came to the conclusion that it would have required more faith for me to maintain my atheism than to become a Christian.
Essentially, I realized that to stay an atheist, I would have to believe that nothing produces everything; non-life produces life; randomness produces fine-tuning; chaos produces information; unconsciousness produces consciousness; and non-reason produces reason. Those leaps of faith were simply too big for me to take, especially in light of the affirmative case for God’s existence and Jesus’ resurrection (and, hence, his divinity). In other words, in my assessment the Christian worldview accounted for the totality of the evidence much better than the atheistic worldview.
Technology has an incredibly limited shelf life. Remember the floppy disk? They were those square three and a quarter inch plastic things. There were even bigger ones than that once upon a time. Back in the olden days. Coming across a box of redundant technology is just like discovering buried dinosaur bones…
Artist Christopher Locke has created a bunch of fossilised redundant technology.
So you’re a wimp. It’s ok. You can’t all be big and strong like me. And having to interact with those of us who walk in the land of giants must be tough when you have such puny arms. Especially on the roads – where you never know who’s going to cut you off, requiring an extra stern stare. This can get you in a bit of trouble. Because you are a runt who can’t take on anybody.
Avoid needless confrontation by sticking one of these on your car. It’ll be the best US$0.50 you’ve ever spent.
You know how coffee smells incredible. It does. It’s awesome. It’s also just as good for you as drinking it. Well, almost… a guy named Han-Seok Seo, of the Seoul National University in South Korea did this study with rats. Good news people. Good news. From a wholelattelove.
“Seo and his colleagues have done studies on lab rats which were stressed by sleep deprivation. They allowed the sleep deprived Rats to sniff the aroma that coffee produces. They then compared the expression of certain genes and proteins in the rats’ brains with other sleep deprived rats who were not allowed to sniff the coffee. They found in the rats that sniffed the coffee, some of the genes expressed proteins that have healthful antioxidant properties that are known to protect nerve cells from stress related damage. The rats that were not allowed to smell the coffee aroma did not show these expressions in their genes.”
The first movie I ever saw on a cinema screen was All Dogs Go To Heaven. It was in the little cinema in Grafton, 40 minutes from our home town in Maclean. It’s a Disney cartoon with really bad theology. There’s no Biblical reason to expect your pet to be in heaven with you (except perhaps for the Biblical illustration of lions lying down with lambs… but I’d say that’s more an allusion…).
Even the atheists know this. In fact. In the same vein as the service that sends post cards to your unsaved loved ones post rapture comes a new service offering to care for your pets.
We are a group of dedicated animal lovers, and atheists. Each
Eternal Earth-Bound Pet representative is a confirmed atheist, and as such will still be here on Earth after you’ve received your reward. Our network of animal activists are committed to step in when you step up to Jesus.
For those who doubted – this is proof that atheists can be moral people after all.
Which is sweet. We’ll have two very appreciative turtles – which is lucky – because apparently turtles are impervious to fire.
The Japanese are responsible for a lot of great television. This isn’t one of those moments. Pig rodeos. What will they think of next.
Tetris is making a comeback. With a new version. I didn’t know it had ever left. Here’s the new ad.
New York…
And Seoul…
Izaac has introduced a new weekly feature. One sentence summaries of books of the Bible.
In the spirit of this feature comes this site offering one sentence summaries of heaps of movies. Like these…
FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF: Amoral narcissist makes world dance for his amusement.
BLADE: Obsessed loner stalks minority group.
FIGHT CLUB: Deranged sociopath guides yuppies to their deaths.
STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE: Religious extremist terrorists destroy government installation, killing thousands.
STAR WARS: EMPIRE STRIKES BACK: Boy is abused by midget, kisses sister, attempts patricide.
STAR WARS: RETURN OF THE JEDI: Handicapped mass murderer kills septugenarian, is lauded.
I’ve ranted and raved a little bit previously about how Sydney is oversaturated with good, evangelical ministers. It’s not entirely true. Sydney needs good evangelical ministers. It’s the lifeblood of evangelical work in Australia. But it would be incredibly nice to have them donate some blood elsewhere occasionally.
I’d be really interested to see how a model like the one education departments around the country would work when applied to ministry – where graduates have to go out into rural and regional areas to serve and earn their stripes before heading to the city. I think the Anglican system precludes this a little – so it’s a great opportunity for the Pressies with our statewide system of governance.
Sam, from thefountainside, posted something yesterday about some of the unhelpful tactics us country people use when we’re trying to lure people away from the bright lights of Sydney. I can understand his frustration – and he suggests a much better way to appeal to people when it comes to serving God – the glorification of God. I’m with him on that.
What I’m not with him on is the idea that staying in Sydney is not the default position of most Sydney based students, particularly Sydney based students who are from Sydney. This is largely anecdotal and based purely on the handful of people I know – but looking at the people in ministry, that I know of, the vast majority of evangelical ministers serving outside of Sydney were not from Sydney originally. There must be a little bit to this. Because every country area I’ve lived in, and every country church I know of, feels this frustration to a degree.
Jesus called for his followers to go “to the world” with the gospel. The world includes, but is not limited to, Sydney.
I’ve said far more than I should, far more aggressively than I should, over at thefountainside (and I’ve apologised – this issue makes my blood boil like one of those berserkers who goes nuts at the first signs of battle) – and I should have posted this here much sooner. But here’s a little summary of my thinking.
“If people can change chocolate, they can change the world,” joked Miss Abraham. Well, i dont think it’s a joke, because i think changing chocolate for the better is changing the world and making it a better place. This quote came from a news article which was emailed to me at 7.50am from someone who knows the importance of chocolate. It’s about how Cadbury, mirroring Coke’s ‘New Coke/Coke Classic’ situation of the 1980s, has changed its recipe back to their old recipe. I had to write a blog about it:
1. because i loved old Cadbury.
2. because i had an awesome pun to use as the title and that’s what blogging is all about.
I disliked the new recipe and disliked Cadbury for making me eat it (at least they were generous enough to put it in smaller portions so the pain was short lived…). But this makes me love Cadbury again – they listened to the customer and the customer is (mostly) always right. Sure, its a little bit embarassing for them, and sure they’re still saying they substituted cocoa butter with palm oil for smoothness (and not cheapness), and they did downsize their products without downsizing the price, and they did sell rubbish products for a few months, but now they’re giving the customer what the customer wants and all will be forgotten (especially if they through in a couple more gorilla suits and kids with funny eyebrows, or maybe even a gorilla with funny eyebrows – now that would be advertising genius)
This time i let all the other customers fight cadbury on my behalf and things got changed. Seeing their efforts be rewarded makes me feel empowered. So, I have made a new (belated financial) year’s resolution – everytime i don’t like a product i am sending an email to customer services. Obviously it works. And even if the company don’t change the product back to how it was in the good old days, but if the company knows whats good for them they will know if they repond to my complaint i will love them more. So, I might at least get a cheque for $3.45 as a refund for my snakes alive complaint (they only have 2 blue snakes – not good enough!!!). And, any cheques received this year wont be cashed, they’ll be kept as trophies because for some reason that would be highly satisfying.
I’ll keep you posted.
How not to lose friends and alienate bloggers
There is a better way.
August 20, 2009