What Hacking?

I don't buy the Melbourne Herald Sun, I haven't for a a few years. The reasons are are a few reasons

• I like good journalism which is more about what happens rather than opinion.
• I want to support media diversify; independent of the Murdoch's.
• I'm not really interested in first page headlines of 'cute cats up trees'

I have of late with the 'News of the World' hacking drama, looked at the free Herald Sun in McDonald's and the Library. What has surprised me is compared to the Fairfax papers which has the subject front page or close to the front. The Herald Sun has put it way back and today's reporting was more about Murdoch's wife Wendy Deng and her hit! (Bizarre: there are people out there reporting this could bring down the British government!) I was surprised that The Herald Sun's editorial was related to the 'hacking' but more of a defense from Julia Gillard who had her concerns with impropriety of the Murdoch empire in Australia.  You would think that the paper would be out there scrutinizing it operation and convincing its readers that they are squeaky clean...Mind you would bite the hand that feeds them?
I find it hard to believe that The Herald Sun can be impartial and have good journalism when its owners are the Murdoch's. Unfortunately this is is just reinforced when I read the paper.
It just convinced me more that we need more media diversification, instead of been owned by one or two.

The Spirit of things: The buddhist Athiest

Interesting program on Radio National's Spirit of things with Rachael Kohn, "The Buddhist Atheist" The thing that I found interesting and was how within Buddhism there are those who struggle; that are more 'left' leaning for want of a better word.
The interview is with Buddhist Author and former monk Stephen Bachelor, who doubts reincarnation. It is similar to how liberal Christian often doubt the virgin birth or the atonement etc etc.
What I found interesting is that I think within most major religion there are those that doubt. Who don't fit into the orthodox.

Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity, Ch 4, God the Heart of Reality

Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity, Ch 4, God the Heart of Reality.

Borg makes an important point initially in the Chapter; to be called a Christian you need to accept the reality of God. He then points out an amazing statistic 95% of Americans believe in God while in the UK this figure is 35%! (Makes me wonder what it is in Australia, probably closer to the UK).
Borg talks about world view and then two concepts of 'God'; these are

• Supernatural Theism :: God as 'person like', with a person like being there is a separates, between God and the world. God as 'up in heaven', 'out there' beyond in the Universe. The clearest expression of this according to Borg is with Paul's writing.
• Pantheism::  God and the world relationship is different. 'An encompassing Spirit'. The universe is very much entwined with God. Pantheism does not speak of divine intervention as as Supernatural Theism rather a God of divine intention and divine interaction.

A side aspect of this chapter is prayer. Why pray intercessory or petitonary prayer  with a panentheistic God. Borg's answer

Panentheism does not deny the efficacy of such prayer. Its framework allows for prayers to have effects, including prayers for healing. It does not rule out extraordinary events. But it refuses to see efficaious prayer or extraordinary events as the result of divine intervention. It does so for more than one reason. Intervention counters its notion of God: it does not see God as absent, but present. Moreover, it sees the notion of divine intervention as having an insuperable difficulty: if God sometimes intervenes, how does one account for the non-intervention? Given all the horrible things that happen, does the notion that God ever intervenes make any sense?

(This above paragraph was a light going off in my head. Many of problems that I inherently had with Christianity disappeared. Especially in the light of suffering in the world and praying for it.)

Borg goes onto write some of the issues regarding supernatural theism many of which I agree with

• most westerners only have this as the only worldview of God.
• Panentheism is just as biblical as supernatural theism if not more.

God as Personal

God as personal has difficulty with a Panenthiesm view of God it is much more suited to a Supernatural theism.  Though whatever God is like we still have to interact with him which becomes personal because that is what we are. I get the impression that Borg has not yet acquired the language or able describe how a 'personal' panethestic God interacts. He discusses the word 'Transpersonal' "more than personal"

The Character of God

Borg starts off writing that the Character of God shapes our faithfulness as well what the Christian life is about.

Basically you could sum it up as Law vs Grace. That the Church although might point to Grace but it traditionally leans in the direction on Law. Ultimately Gods Character is one of grace and love.

Narnia

Cover of C.S. Lewis

I'm currently watching the BBC version of Narnia with Jemima my daughter; It is compared to the recent movie it appears to be much more loyal to the book by C.S Lewis than the recent movie.

In once scene early on in the BBC Peter and Susan go to the professor who they are living with, asking advice regarding Lucy who is adamant that she has been to another world 'Narnia'. The professor gives three logical bits of advice either that Lucy is a lier, she made the whole story up (Which is unlike her character), Lucy is telling the truth or is mad.

This is basically Lewis's Trilemma, Jesus was either a Lier, the Lord or a Lunatic.

Interestingly the Professor goes on further than Lewis Trilemma when addressing the subject of Lucy by saying 'Until further evidence comes along'.

Maybe that evidence is starting to take shape; N'T Wright address the issue of the Trilemma

...argument lacks historical context, oversimplifying first century Judaism's understanding of the nature of God's dealings with his people.^[23] Wright points out that arguments over the claims of Jesus regarding divinity have been passed over by more recent scholarship, which sees a more complex understanding of the idea of God in first century Judaism.

Naked Spirituality, Brian McLaren, Thanks! The Happiness of Appreciation

Naked Spirituality, Brian McLaren, Thanks! The Happiness of Appreciation 

 

As the heading suggests, having an appreciation for what God has given us.  For me this is pretty straight forward but as I suspect with many others, something that I often forget. This chapter reminded me of what I often lack in my communication with God.  No amazing insights with the chapter rather a reminder.

 

Previously

Naked Spirituality, Brian McLaren, Here: Naming the Mystery
Naked Spirituality, Brian McLaren, Here: Starting Right Now
Naked Spirituality, Brian McLaren, Twelve Simple Words
Naked Spirituality, Brian McLaren, But I'm Spiritual
Spiritual Experiences and Spiritual Experience.

Green House Calculator

The EPA has got a new greenhouse calculator.

We did it for our house and came out at about 17 tonnes of green house gasses. We are a bit over 4 tonnes per person. Well under the Australian average.

Our main issues was transport, even though we have small cars, living in the country means we have to drive distances. The other is our split system for heating and cooling. There are a lot more fuel efficient systems out there. Our big bonus was the the solar panels reducing our emissions by about 4 tonnes.

Exgesis and the can of worms

Image via Wikipedia

I can always remember some of the initial words of my lecturer when I was studying exegesis. 'When reading the Bible let the plain thing be the main thing'. In other words, when you read the Bible the most obvious of how you understand the text is most probably what it means.

Things get blurrier with the addition of a number of thing, the most import is context. Context means understanding when something is written, who wrote it, who the audience was, when it was written and why. All of these factors can give important understanding to Biblical literature. What is rarely acknowledged from the minister on a Sunday morning is that is rare that scholars agree on any of all these contextual points for biblical literature.

The more you move away from the 'plain thing is the main thing', and the deeper you look into the contextual who why when and where, everything gets shakier.

I can understand why people stop, they only want to dig so far into scripture. It is a hole which can only get deeper and deeper. There is a comfortableness with faith that doesn't need rocking.  If it is rocked though a recalibration of everything is often needed.