Application

Skills I wish I had applied myself to learn properly:

1. Sewing
I have a lesson to give tomorrow involving a teddy bear and a coat. Not having the coat, it would be lovely to have the ability to whip one up in suitably sparkly material. I used to pride myself on not being a "girly girl", but in reality I was only shooting myself in the foot...

2. Knitting
We live in a cold climate, and being able to knit warm jumpers would also be handy. Sadly, I never progressed much beyond the thin scarves my Nan helped me make.

3. Playing Piano
I was very good at concocting excuses as to why I couldn't do piano lessons. In hindsight, I was simply bored with the foundation-learning of scales, arpeggios, and theory. I wanted to be able to sit down and play fun pieces. So here I am as an adult, still unable to play for fun, sounding more like a hesitant 7 year old instead.

4. Drawing
I regularly give children's talks in church, and love using the big fat chalks I used to see Owen Shelley use. Problem is, I can't draw for quids, so my creations are rather more pedestrian, unfortunately!


Which skills do you wish you'd learned as a child?


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Random Facts

I've been tagged for a random facts meme, and unfortunately until now I haven't felt creative enough to do it justice. So here goes. The rules are:

1.Link to the person who ‘tagged’ you! Prue
2. Post the rules on your blog!
3. List 6 random facts about yourself!
4. Tag 6 people at the end of your post!
5. Let each person know they have been tagged by commenting on their blog!
6. Let the tagger know the entry is posted on your blog!

Six random (and uninteresting) facts about me:

1. I am allergic to tree nuts. So delicacies such as baklava, toblerone, all swiss chocolate and nutella are forbidden for me.

2. We are getting our house recarpeted. Partly because we suspect that the previous owners may have had a bladder failure of fairly major proportions shortly before we took on the new house, but mainly because it was old and spotty. And smelly.

3. We own two miniature schnauzer dogs who are very cute, very knotty, one who has chronic halitosis. Unfortunately she also loves to lick faces, which makes for a rather unpleasant reception for visitors.

4. My weight-loss goals are constantly thwarted by my overweening desire for chocolate. And my lack of self-control. I am beginning to look rather mumsy as a result.

5. I am a terrible gadget girl. Although my current work-free status has limited our income somewhat, my window shopping habits usually revolve around things like iPhones and other geeky accoutrements.

6. Being a mother has made me acutely aware of my own selfishness and limitations.

This is an opinion piece which was published in today's Sydney Morning Herald. I've reproduced the text here:

Why not every scientist worships at Darwin's feet

John Lennox
August 18, 2008

Next year marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's On The Origin Of Species. The momentous occasion will be celebrated with new books, articles, documentaries and editorials. One commentator has called for a public holiday in Britain to honour Darwin - the "humble Shrewsbury family man who changed the world forever".

For some, this anniversary celebrates the high point of human liberation from stultifying religion and superstition, our freedom from past theological "delusions". For others, it is more complicated.

The leading atheist Richard Dawkins, speaking of this God delusion, as he calls it, offers a succinct summary of Darwin's theory. "Given sufficient time, the non-random survival of hereditary entities … will generate complexity, diversity, beauty, and an illusion of design so persuasive that it is almost impossible to distinguish from deliberate intelligent design." The power of evolution to simulate the illusion of design, says Dawkins, is threatening to what he suggestively calls a "certain kind of mind". Mostly he means unscientific, naive or stupid.

But things aren't so simple. Scattered among the world's top scientists are those who do believe in a conscious intention behind nature's processes. I think of people such as Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project, and Professor Bill Phillips, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1997. The presence of such people poses awkward questions for the view that evolutionary theory and a sophisticated scientific brain lead inexorably towards atheism. There must be more to the so-called "science versus God" story than this.

Indeed, the fact that there are brilliant scientists who believe in God and brilliant scientists who don't makes it clear that the conflict is not a simplistic one between science and religion, but between opposing world views - naturalism and theism. Naturalism opposes supernaturalism and insists that the natural world exists without incursion from outside, or as Carl Sagan put it: "The cosmos is all there is, or was, or ever shall be." The theistic view finds expression in the opening words of Genesis: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Theism understands the universe not to be a closed system, but a creation, initiated and maintained by God.

The Genesis statement is a statement of belief, not a statement of science. This is precisely the case with Sagan's assertion as well. He is expressing a personal belief that emanates from a world view, rather than science. When we ask ourselves whether science has sounded the death knell of God, we are really asking: "Which world view does science support, naturalism or theism?"

One scientist views images captured by the Hubble telescope of the unimaginably large scale of the universe and remains convinced of the random nature of a godless existence. Another stares through a scanning tunnelling microscope at the unimaginably small and complex entities of molecular biology and feels compelled to worship the creator. It isn't the science itself that is definitive for the question of the divine.

The late evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould wrote that science simply cannot "adjudicate the issue of God's possible superintendence of nature". For Gould, it was a mistake to apply scientific principles to questions of metaphysics.

In 2009, when the champagne is uncorked in celebration of Darwin's legacy, we might pause to consider the presuppositions we bring to the question of what his theory tells us about God. There are essentially only two options. Either the wonder of human intelligence ultimately owes its origin to mindless matter; or there is a creator. It remains a mystery to me why some people claim it is their intelligence that leads them to prefer the first to the second.

John Lennox is professor of mathematics and fellow in the philosophy of science at Oxford University. He is a visiting scholar of the Centre for Public Christianity.

Lock up your sons...

Video games ratings are a hot issue at the moment. Thanks to growing pressure from the games industry, the joint attorneys-general are opening up the R-rating issue for public comment.

Now, if you go to most games websites, the overwhelming attitude will be: "give us R-rated games! We're not kids anymore! How can we be one of the few nations in the world that don't allow R-rated games into our stores?"

I have a few problems with this attitude, as I've mentioned in an earlier post. There are two issues: the increased level of interactivity, and the uncontrolled nature of games releases (and uneducated community attitudes).

Here's a statement from a games developer regarding their philosophy on an upcoming release:

"Often times, brutality is expressed in a spiteful nature. There are already plenty of games out there that hit this mark; however, we decided that MADWORLD's brutality should be aimed at providing the user with a sense of exhilaration during play."

How are they going to do this? Read on (slightly disturbing):

"To give you an example from gameplay, we have a scene where you can pull a street sign from the ground and shove it into a enemy's head. However, I thought that it is much more fun to stab someone with a sign that actually has some sort of meaning as opposed to a knife. We tried the idea out, and the reaction amongst the team was so positive, I knew this was the way to proceed."

Um ... ok...


I don't know whether this will be given an R rating. It's a cartoon-styled game, so chances are it may only be rated MA15+. Which begs the question: if our ratings system allows this sort of game into circulation, why on earth do we need anything more violent???

Human Frailty

When I was younger, it was a badge of honour for me that I had avoided many of the common communicable diseases of childhood. Illnesses like the flu were a rare occurrence for me, and I completely avoided things like conjunctivitis altogether. While I wished for more days off school, it became a source of pride that I didn't get sick like the other kids (silly me!).

Since having small children, however, I've come face to face with my frailty as a human, and we've been hit with illness after illness. The latest is a bout of, yes, conjunctivitis. I can no longer claim an iron immune system, and have to swallow my pride on that point!

Gaining a new World View

World view is an interesting concept, isn't it?

Photo from smh.com.au

The Olympics have been a great time with the kids, helping to broaden their understanding of the world. We've had a large world map poster beside the TV for a couple of days now, and Eldest has taken great delight in trying to find the countries he sees represented in the events. The poster has the world flags displayed around the border, so after he finds the countries on the map, he looks for their flag. Even Boo has gotten in on the act, too - though her main questions focus on what that big pink blob is at the top (the Russian Federation is a rather large land mass, isn't it?).

At the same time, I've been reading this book:I think this should be compulsory reading for all kids in public high schools, or those going to uni, and their parents. It's a fantastic book. Inside, you find a short chapter briefly outlining the key identifiers of various world views, like modernism, postmodernism, utilitarianism and so on. It isn't preachy, but just highlights the key difference between these views and the Christian world view. It helps you to understand the foundations from which many school curricula operate, like the modernist approach to science, or the postmodern thread through the English curriculum. While there's nothing new here, it's presented in an easy-to-read format that makes it understandable for the non-philosophy students out there.

Spending most of my schooling in a Christian school, I would have appreciated this book before I went to uni. It's well worth a look!


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Irony

It's hard to take Global Warming seriously when it's snowing...

(But with a carbon emissions trading scheme on the way, we need to try!)


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But seriously...

I read yesterday that in Australia at the moment, $160 is being spent for every $100 earned. That's a recipe for disaster if ever I saw one...

Cut up your credit cards, people!!!

Friday Funnies - it's too cold for homegrown fun...

So I'm once again shamelessly borrowing from elsewhere...

Argh!!!

There's been a whole lot of buzz about the new invasion of privacy: Google Street View.

Among other things so far, people have been snapped being homeless, getting dressed, parking where they shouldn't, and even cheating on their partners. In our local town, a quick scan of the main street will show you a woman caught leaving the local adult shop.

I thought that for fun I'd check our local area to see what was around. What I didn't expect was to see myself.

Yes, I am on Google Street View for all to see, on one of the rare occasions that I've actually had decent enough weather to get out into the garden. You can see me in all my fatty glory complete with garden hat at various stages of contemplating my vegetable garden. In one picture I must have been looking at the approaching car, and my appearance is blurred. But for the most part I'm right there, looking down at the small patch of earth that has failed to produce anything much at all, apart from an internet presence.

It must have been during the late summer, when I was removing the tomato plants to make way for carrots. Our car is absent from our driveway, so my husband must have been on one of his many trips to get parts for the little white car that can be seen on stands inside our shed.

It's all rather embarrassing, really. And no, I'm not telling you where it is. It's too invasive.


Are you on Google Street View, too?