' by Marcus Borg extremely helpful: referring to exclusive passages of scripture::"...whatever these passages may have meant in their first century contexts, they need not be understood to mean that Jesus (or Christianity) is the only way of salvation. Instead , we might understand them (and similar Christian statements about Jesus being "The only way") as reflecting the joy of having found one's salvation through Jesus, and the intensity of Christian devotion to Jesus. They should be understood as exclamations, not doctrines, and as "the poetry of devotion and the hyperbole of the heart" So decisive need not mean "only"
But the claim does mean that for us, as Christians, Jesus is the decisive revelation of God, and of what a life full of God is like. Indeed I see this as the defining characteristic that makes us Christian rather than something else. If we found the decisive revelation of God in the Torah or Koran, then we would be Jews or Muslims..."
36"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'[b] 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'[c]Having a liberal persuasion you can affirm both these two commandments with more freedom.
Image via WikipediaAlternative rocker Nick Cave has been voted the musician Australians would most like to see installed as prime minister.Its a good first political act! Though I suspect he know the problems of prophets becoming leaders. You just have to look at poor Peter Garret.
The singer behind the bands Grinderman and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds fought off competition from Powderfinger's Bernard Fanning and John Butler in the MySpace poll.
On hearing the news, Cave joked: "My first political act will be to introduce legislation forcing all Australians to lower their expectations."
Image via Wikipedia
Image by freestone via Flickr" by Marcus Borg and NT Wright.Once a story has taken hold of people's minds and imaginations, it is told again and again with minimal alteration.
Image via Wikipedia”There is something distinctly odd about the argument, however. Believing is not something you can decide to do as a matter of policy. At least, it is not something you can decide to do as an act of will. I can decide to go to church and I can decide to recite the Nicene Creed, and I can decide to swear on a stack of bible that I believe every word inside them. But none can make me actually believe it if I don’t. Pascal’s Wager could only ever be an argument for feigning belief in God. And the God that you claim to believe in had better not be of the omniscient kind or he’d see through the deception. The ludicrous idea that believing is something you can decide to do is deliciously mocked by Douglas Adams in Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, where we meet the roboti Electic Monk, a labour-saving device that you buy ‘to do your believing for you. The de luxe moel is advertised as ‘Capable of believing thingsthey wouldn’t believe in Salt Lake City’.
- the Bible says to be wary of half truths - like calling Family First "a party with a primary focus on looking out for families".I think he is right. The majority of policies do not represent the average Australian family. Rather a Christian, Pentecostal-Fundamentalist understanding of family values.
It is still a party focussed on "right wing Christian" values - not "Australian Family" values.
In Australia, based on 2006 ABS statistics, there are 5,219,165 families - meaning the majority of Australians live in some kind of family community.
So polling of what families want should [generally] reflect what Australians want - you should never see a case where the vast majority of Australians disagree with what "families" want.
If you do see this, you see a party with another agenda.
On abortion - polling shows that the vast majority of Australians (families included) support abortion rights. Family First opposes abortion of all forms. (Polling in support of Family First's policy is as little as 7%!)
On mandatory internet filtering - despite all polling showing the majority of Australians do not support support a filter, plus experts proving that it will not [as Family First claims] improve "child protection" (due to the fact that it will be impossible to effectively and accurately manage censorship of over 10 BILLION webpages and 234 million websites, and the filter will not affect Usenet, BitTorrents, IRC etc)....
...Still, Family First still supports an infeasible, unpopular, unmanageable, expensive (tens-of-millions of dollars) policy.
There are other examples (e.g. Climate Change), but you see my point: Family First is still, fundamentally, a political party representing the Christian "Right" - not putting families first.
It would be nice to have a party supporting family values (one with wider appeal) - but we're still looking at a Christian party in sheep's clothing.
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| gas attached |
Image via WikipediaApple has a long history of treating iPhone application developers with disdain and iPhone owners with contempt. iPhone applications mysteriously disappear from the online app store when they clash with Apple's business model or with those of Apple's business partners....
Apple head honcho Steve Jobs is famed for his arrogance when dealing with customer complaints. When details first emerged of the iPhone 4's reception issues Job's flippant response was "don't hold it that way". He eventually conceded the reception problem was a serious issue and Apple now offers a few case to iPhone 4 owners, which alleviates the problem.
Android's flexibility is its strength. Such flexibility lets phone makers build a variety of devices to meet different needs, while it also lets users run applications they want and customise the phone as they see fit. It's a stark contrast to Apple's one-size-fits approach. Now Android is reaching a critical mass, Apple's heavy-handed approach to dealing with developers and customers could work in Android's favour.
There has been much talk lately about the Federal Governments National Broadband Network rollout.
Bass Coast was identified as one of six locations Australia wide to receive the first installation of fibre-optic cable under the Regional Backbone Blackspots Program.
A company called Nextgen won the national tender and in conjunction with Visonstream plan to lay the cable in the South-West Gippsland section in the second half of 2010. Most of the cable will be attached to the existing power pole infrastructure.
Cable is currently being laid by a different company along the desalination pipeline route. When joined with the Nextgen cable, this will create a loop throughout south-west Gippsland
A host of other companies called third-party providers, mainly internet service providers (ISPs) and telcos, will sign up individual residential and commercial customers....
Image via WikipediaTelstra's chief executive David Thodey says the carrier's main problem is its failure to retain customers when they move from fixed-line to mobile services.Some good and bad news I think for consumers.
He says now is a transitional time for the company, during which it will embark on a new suite of strategies to stop the company from losing more market share.
"Today the greatest asset that Telstra has is our customer base, and we have been losing too many customers and we cannot allow it, in fact I am not going to allow it to continue," he said.
He says that might mean sacrificing some profits in the short-term.
"Do we maximise short-term cash returns, by reducing costs and losing market share, or do we bite the bullet and invest for longer-term growth?" Mr Thodey asked rhetorically.
' labelled the Greens "anti-Christian" and "sweet-camouflaged poison". Cardinal Pell also claimed the Greens policies are expensive and will not help poor people.'
'...our approach as a church at CityLife is to be politically neutral, in that we don't tell people who or what party to vote for. We encourage prayerful and diligent research, so that followers of Christ make intelligent use of their privilege as an Australian citizen to vote for those who will govern us. So, never have I said and never will say, "Vote for Julia Gillard" ... or anyone else for that matter.
Image via WikipediaJudge Vaughn Walker in San Francisco has ruled that banning gays and lesbians from tying the knot is discriminatory and violates the US constitution.I can see Australia going down this path. I'm not really that hassled really. 'Civil Union' and a 'Defacto' relationship has almost the same legal implications as marriage except marriage is for a 'man' and woman'. So really it is just about definition and language. Maybe some implaction down the track are:
Only five states and Washington DC currently allow same-sex marriage.
One of the plaintiffs, Jeff Zarrillo, says the United States is supposed to be about equality.
"Well this decision today brings Paul and I and so many others like us closer to that equality too," he said.
Smith was raised on the Mornington Peninsula and joined the Victoria Police Force in 1989. During his ten years of service he was stationed in the local area and achieved the rank of Senior Constable. A Tyabb resident, Smith has served as a Counciloor on Mornington Peninsula Shire for the past eight years and works as supervisor in the Security Industry and as a Project Manager for Community Development Projects. He also works casually in the Film and Television Industry and is involved in local environment groups.
A bit of a suprise considering family first is associated with been a 'Christian Party' whose roots are Pentecostal/Fundementalist.
We were also very happy to be joined by Councillor Reade Smith (Mt Eliza Shire)
but recently on her facebook page she put up the following:
For those who care, and I understand if you don't: Today I quit being a Christian. I'm out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being "Christian" or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to "belong" to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.
My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn't understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me. But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become.
Mr Gagliano-Ventura, 21, who lists his address as Southbank, appeared to struggle when asked what he thought were the important issues for Flinders electorate.
He said the Hastings pier obviously needed some work, at which point Cr Reade Smith, who is running for Family First, pointed out the pier was being renovated by Parks Victoria.
Mr Gagliano-Ventura said there was "a footpath in Rye" that he would lobby to have built, although he could not say where in Rye it was. He said he had been involved in politics since he was a toddler, going to meetings with his mother, a single parent.
The Tabor College Victoria Board is delighted to announce that from January 2011, Tabor College Victoria will co-locate at the Churches of Christ Theological College (CCTC) campus on Jacksons Road Mulgrave. This means that the two colleges will provide parallel operations on the one site. This new arrangement does not change the programs of CCTC or Tabor College Victoria.
Image via Wikipedia
, Frank Viola
this is the group in Australia you should be linking into.
"Each of the last three decades has been substantially warmer than the decade before it," he said.
"On a decade scale, that is very clear. The 1980s was the warmest decade on record as of December 31, 1989, but every single year in the 90s was warmer than that decade's average temperature."
Peter Thorne, of the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites, says the scientists were not swayed by the debate over climate data and whether it had previously been manipulated.
"What this data is doing is screaming that the world is warming, and that cannot be driven by any single individual or even a small set of groups, because the evidence is there to see - there are lots of groups doing this stuff," Mr Thorne said.
The scientists say the warming is due to greenhouse gases and while there were signs of human fingerprints, the report was not designed to attribute blame.
