An accidental blog

"If God is sovereign, then his lordship must extend over all of life, and it cannot be restricted to the walls of the church or within the Christian orbit." Abraham Kuyper Common Grace 1.1.

Thursday 31 May 2007

Chaos remains gig

Chaos Remains, my son's band, played a gig recently. I videoed their final song and have posted it on YouTube. Here it is:

Saturday 26 May 2007

Reformational papers

Thanks to the generosity of Kenn Hermann and Bruce Wearne I'm now the recipient of a few hundred reformational papers. Over the next few weeks I'll get a list up of them and if anyone is interested I can see about sending copies of them out.
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Friday 25 May 2007

Odds and sods

Nigel Warburton has a podcast on Machiavelli's The Prince.

Charles Cameron explains his work on G C Berkouwer

101 Keyboard cuts [lifehack]

David Field explains how to read

A worksheet on Pentecost by Dave off the Cartoon blog

101 116 essential blogging resources [ht lifehack]



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Wednesday 23 May 2007

Translate this page ...

Observant readers will have noticed that I have added a 'Translate this page' icon in the side bar. I don't know how accurate the translation is being monolingual, but to add it to your own site go here for the code.


Tuesday 22 May 2007

A Christian view of technology

This is an experiment to see how this works

This was originally published in Spectrum vol 23 (1991) the journal of the Association of Christian Teachers. It is now called Education and Christian Belief.

Monday 21 May 2007

Boiling a frog

I've just started a book by Scottish author Christopher Brookmyre, Boiling a Frog. It's very good so far. He has some insightful comments (and I've only reached the end of chapter 2 so far).

Labour politicians had always been acused of abandoning their principles in pursuit of power, since long before Tony Balir appeared on the scene. It was part of the Tories' time-served pincer-movement staryegy: if you took a hard line you were a dangerous lefty out to wreck the economy; if you softened your position, you were an unprincipled chancer who'd do anything for a sniff of power. The Tories knew they'd never face the same charge becasue they didn't have any principles in the first place. How do you compromise a stance built on greed, materialism and xenophobia?

Of one of the characters, Elspeth Doyle, he has this to say:

That was why, in her 'unsexy' opinion, what went on in politicians' bedrooms (or indeed lavatory cubicles) was a matter of public interest, and their sexual conduct did have ramifications for their professional character. There was no greater test of character, in fact. If a politician lacked the self-discipline to deny himself indulgencs that breached the contract that he had agreed with the person who was supposed to be his closest companion, what did this say about his likely fidelity in other agreements, or even his self-discipline?

An excellent reason why the public/ private split is ridiculous.

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Odds and sods

Charles Cameron has an interesting post on his Theology of G C Berkouwer blog comparing Berkouwer, Kuyper, Bavinck and Hepp.

Nigel Warburton has another chapter from his book Philosophy: the Classics on mp3: Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy.

Steve Hollinghurst has an interesting piece on the gospel according to Buffy.

Where do you compose your blog? Is a question Digital Inspiration asks. The vote so far suggests that the web based sditors are favourite (60%). I often use scribefire - but it adds an advert and the spacing often messes up, so I, if I have the time, go to the blogger editor and tidy it up.

Here's a useful comparison between Wordpress and Blogger - useful if oyu are considering changing or starting a new blog.

Sunday 20 May 2007

THE KIRBY LAING INSTITUTE

FOR CHRISTIAN ETHICS

Annual Book Colloquium

The Ways of Judgment

by Oliver O’Donovan

3rd/4th July 2007, Tyndale House, Cambridge

PROGRAMME

All sessions are held at Newnham College, which is adjacent to Tyndale House.

With Nigel Biggar, Jonathan Chaplin, Ben Quash and Oliver O'Donovan

chiasmus

I've just noticed that the titles of some recent posts form a chiasmus:

A Now that's what I call music ...

B Odds and sods

C More on mindmapping

B' Odds and sods

A' Now that's what i call music ...


Now what does that say? Probably, that I'm low on ideas for posts!

Jazz is alive and well...

...and living in Europe. Here's the evidence.

From Sweden
EST




From Norway

Tord Gustavsen Trio


Jan Garbarek



From UK
Polar Bear


From UK
Led Bib

From UK
Acoustic ladyland and here


From Poland
Thomas Stanko and Trio


From England, Norway and Greece
Marshall, Andersen and Tsabropoulos

Gummi's now out

Stafrænn Hákon's new CD Gummi is now out - hear some of the sounds here

And check out this:
eder live

Thursday 17 May 2007

odds and sods

Nigel Warburton reads another chapter from his book Philosophy: The Classics, this time on Aristotle. It is also now available on iTunes here.

Full webpage screen capture tools at techjive.

Macht has started to blog through Dawkins' God Delusion. I and II. As always, Macht has some insightful comments.

This link is for Mark Roques!

Monday 14 May 2007

More on mindmapping

I have found mindmapping and concept mapping to be an effective tool for education. I have mentioned a number of online webtool for mindmapping - Argey in the comments to my previous post mentions two more: bubbl.us and kayuda. What he didn't mention was 3D topiscape a 3D mindmapping tool that he has helped to develop. I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but the screenshots look really cool.

The topicscape website also has a mindmap directory, when you have a spare hour or two it;s well worth checking out (its 40 pages and contains around 600 maps)!

Here's one of my concept maps; this was drawn using the draw facility on Word some time ago.

The black joining lines and text haven't come out on the blog's black background - click on the image to see a better version.

Sunday 13 May 2007

Odds and sods

MakeUseOf.com has an excellent list of web annotation tools

Lifehack lists the 15 coolest firefox tricks ever

Lifehacker explains how to create web buttons and a list of the top 10 Mac utilities

Nigel Warburton reads his chapter on Plato's Republic from his book Philosophy: The Classics

I've mentioned mindmapping before - but here's a new twist on it at mindmeister [HT Lifehacker]

Toodledo is a web-based to do list, but it now offers a printable booklet version utilising similar technology to the excellent pocketmod. [HT lifehacker]

Now that's what I call music ....

Thursday 10 May 2007

Hope in troubled times


Hope in Troubled Times is a new book by Bob Goudzwaard, Mark Vander Vennen and David Van Heemst.

The contents list, foreword by Desmond Tutu and an excerpt are available here.

More information is on the Baker website here.





We want to have it all: financial strength, secure homes, clean air and water for our children. With the latest technological advances available, we deserve to have every dilemma resolved. Isn't that the way it's supposed to work? Hope in Troubled Times dares to say "no."

Poverty, terrorism, and overtaxed land are planetary problems that make even believers despair. But the authors point to Christ as the source of hope. Our choice is obvious. We work together, learning to live unselfishly, or we watch civilization sink further into the abyss. With a foreword by renowned human rights activist Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Hope in Troubled Times provides real-world solutions to life-threatening problems. The authors show that with God's guidance we can knock down the idols that stunt clear thinking.

Monday 7 May 2007

More on annihilation

Mark Roques made an excellent point: God is merciful and just. The traditional view emphasises the justice of God, the universalism view emphasises the mercy of God, but the annihilation view (conditional immortality) emphasises both the justice and mercy of God.

One argument that the traditionalists point to is the unquenchable or eternal fire. However, the fire may well be unquenchable, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the thing (or person) in the fire will go on burning.

Jesus refers to Gehenna (often translated as hell in the Second / New Testament) as the place where the wicked are burnt (eg Mt 5:22, 29-30; Mt 10:28; Mt 18:9; 23: 15, 33). Gehenna is derived from the Hebrew 'Valley of Hinnom', where children were sacrificed to the god Molech, this was situated outside Jerusalem. It was the city rubbish tip where the rubbish was burnt on the fires. The fires never went out, but it does not mean that the rubbish was continually burnt - the fire did its job: consumed the rubbish.

Sunday 6 May 2007

WWJD?

I must admit that I have problems with the WWJD attitude, the issue is not WWJD, but what would Jesus have me do? However, here's a WWJD that I have more time for: What Would Jesus Drive? is a discussion initiated by the Evangelical Environmental Network & Creation Care Magazine because 'transportation is a moral issue'.

Saturday 5 May 2007

odds and sods

Stuck for prayers? Chris Tilling has some popular evangelical liturgy that might inspire

Ed Babainski (a former Christian) of Debunking Christianity - a blog that attempts to do as it title suggests - has a post with C S Lewis resources, pro and con.

Also on Debunking Christianity there has been an interesting post on slavery in the USA as well as here

The metaphysical club also have a post on slavery [HT dangerous idea]

I addressed the issue of slavery in the First/ Old Testament here.

Doug Groothuis on what philosophers wish theologians ... knew about philosophers (mp3)



Send yourself a bookmarklet [lifehack]



How to open Google notebook in Firefox sidebar [Lifehacker]



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