Easter approaches; Jesus enters Jerusalem

Three palm crosses I have made or been given recently, laid on the text of the Passion narrative at the end of Mark's Gospel; "The Englishman's Greek New Testament with Interlinear Translation"

Today is Palm Sunday, when Christians remember the honour Jesus was shown by crowds of ordinary people as he entered Jerusalem as the 'upside-down King', riding not a war horse, but a humble donkey, echoing Zechariah 9:9.

The same crowds which laid their cloaks down for him to ride upon and paused in their festival celebrations to honour him were not slow to turn their cheers into jeers once he had been handed over to the authorities. Let those of us who claim to follow him and aim to glorify his name in these times not be so quick to reject our upside-down King.

The prophet Isaiah proclaimed:

Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

[Isaiah 53, ESV emphasis my own]

the best you've got

The best, or in any case most intriguing and appealing, presentation of atheism I've heard for a while was by Cambridge philosopher Dr Arif Ahmed in his debate with William Lane Craig. I disagree with certain Christian bloggers & think he (Dr. AA) did quite well, aside from a condescending attitude and I suspect from my initial listen, some self-contradictions. It did however also help to confirm some suspicions I've had for a little while about the way such arguments run and about the unenviable project of defending the claims of ontological naturalism.

For the mp3, ~25Mb:
http://apologetics315.blogspot.com/2009/10/william-lane-craig-vs-arif-ahmed-is.html

For some comment, some of which is productive:
http://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/debate-summary-craig-vs-ahmed-on-does-god-exist-ahmeds-first-speech/

UPDATE: Listening to a discussion between NT Wright & John Dominic Crossan (to get it e.g. right click on Wright, Save Target As...) on the resurrection, I hear a point I think is absolutely brilliant. 1Corinthians 15:58, the end of a key (& early) text on the resurrection shows the consequences of the physical yet also spiritual (both-and) resurrection for our life in this tangible world; our labour is not in vain. Dr Ahmed is wrong, life in this world is important to Christians - yes, as Craig says, because it will determine our future; yes as my initial response was, because our lives are important to God; but most fundamentally because the full resurrection of the dead is yet to come and the Lord has given us work to do.

"May I have your babies?"

"No, but adopting is a great idea. There are tons of babies that are in need of a loving family."

It's been a while, but with so many asking me the titular question, I had to share the above wisdom, taken from http://www.asilaydying.com/faqs.html

This one is also relevant, since I don't have any musical aspirations:
Q: Can I be in your band?
A: Probably not.

The names of some (presumably Metal) bands amuse me somewhat; like, how about listening to some Municipal Waste in your messy bedroom, or if you're bored with what's on TV, absorb a little Through The Eyes of The Dead or, hey, why not turn to It Dies Today or A Vacant Affair for your wedding band? (It seems the season for engagements after all.)

tibta - 1st Edn

Things I've Been Thinking About, Edition 1:
(Why anyone would actually be particularly interested in this eludes me slightly; but people keep on visiting this site, so we'll have to see what scares them off / bores them to salty tears which destroy their laptops/ Russian-computers...)

Foundations of the scientific enterprise
The surprise of new friends and slightly older ones
The strategic placement of swearwords in rap music
Public speaking/teaching & inexplicable bouts of nervousness
Honor. And avoiding American spelling in Bible translations
Dignity. Frugality. Money and the ease with which it is spent.
Time and the ease with which it is spent.
Social capital and the ease with which it is spent.
The amount of effort to put into making conversation
The Problem of War in the OT (it's a book and a thought)
The is and the ought
The spoken word and poetic structure
The structure and polemic of Genesis 1-3ish
The nonexistent border between whimsicality and dorkishness.

microscopes

P1) I do not like microscopes. (3 reasons: eyelashes, glasses, cluelessness)
P2) I study molecular biology. (It turned out that chemistry wasn't entirely my thing)

=> ??

There would appear to be some kind of problem here. I'm not sure if I even want to think about possible logical conclusions.

I was reminded of the first premise, as well as the second, by my lab on Wed, trying to get red blood cells to splat (that's the correct term) onto microscope slides in such a way that they release their chromosomal contents in a nicely dispersed, clearly visible way. I attempted to tuck my sleeves into my gloves, I centrifuged, I pipetted various mixtures, I waited (as anyone who believes in deep time will know, this is the central task of the biologist), I repeated the process various times and then 2+hrs later I expectantly dropped my cell culture onto the glass slides. As for most of the rest of the lab, it didn't work. So they'll just do it for us. Not too satisfying, strangely.

Perhaps One Day

As part of an interesting pdf put out by the Templeton Foundation (approx1Mb), primatologist Jane Goodall says:

When I was a child, born into a Christian family, I accepted the reality of an unseen God without question. And now that I have lived almost three quarters of a century I still believe in a great spiritual power. I have described elsewhere the experience I had when I first visited Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. When, as I gazed at the great rose window, glowing in the morning sun, the air was suddenly filled with the glorious sound of an organ playing Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. It filled me with joy, brought tears to my eyes. How could I believe that blind chance had led to that moment in time—the cathedral, the collective faith of those who had prayed and worshiped within, the genius of Bach, the emergence of a conscious mind that could, as mine did then, question the purpose of life on Earth. Was all the wonder and beauty simply the result of purposeless gyrations of bits of cosmic dust at the beginning of time? If not, then there must be some extra-cosmic power, the creator of the big bang. A purpose in the universe. Perhaps, one day, that purpose will be revealed.

As you might suspect, I believe that in the grandeur of Bach & rose windows, Goodall has missed the best good of all; a humble baby asleep in a manger, the self revelation of the one behind it all; the only one truly worth meeting.

And if anyone noticed an accidental possible sly reference to one of my favourite bands, here's some examples: check it out. And this one. And hey, if you're blessed with more broadband than I, why not this one too?

another half-finished 1, complete with editing-brackets

This one is about John 1, with a hint of Revelation

Check it out, it's the beginning!
And there's one, just one who's sitting
At [the] right hand of the Holy One.

(Would you plonk 'self down by a King,
bro? No, hell no - I don't think so.
Who could, who would; maybe the King's son?)

He chose to enter Creation.

[Pre-existent, stain resistant;
He is sinless and in glory;
[Mysterious yet consistent;]
Actor, writer in this story]

Pulled down this wall: real vs ideal .
[Platonically-cogitational now relational
Pre-cosmological now temporo-spatial]

[Philosophical confusion?
God's better; ignores the 'meta'
In 'Metaphysics'; He's the Word
As you've heard, He's got solutions.]

For love/fun God only knows why
We bend words in pseudo-rhymes, while
He plays with space, matter and time

He is the true, real, free-grace deal
Others come to [destroy and] steal
He came to save and to heal

He is gonna make, all things, new
‘Tis written down, [for] these words are true.

Rev 21:5 And the one seated on the throne said: “Look! I am making all things new!”
Then he said to me, “Write it down, because these words are reliable and true.”

They are really reliable
He / [T/His word] is undeniable

[[This is genuine; it's for real.

Deny existence or its creator
Both are folly; none is greater

[He is for real.]

[He's said: The truth shall set you free.
If you let it; sufficed for me.] ]]

[Blinded eyes made to clearly see.
Sight of light breaking thru the night
Earth[ly focus] switched on to eternity]


God's law was given through Moses
Grace and truth thru this man Jesus;
God's own [has made] God truly known.


And all the people said: Amen.

Glorious Mother Russia! (to be said in a thick accent)

It's (semi) official - this site has had a visit from Russia! As they're no longer mostly atheists over there, it's unlikely to be the KGB trying to shut me down, so that's even better! In fact, I'm so excited that I say in a loud slightly slurred voice: "vodkas on the house!" (You can choose any house you like to drink your alcohol atop of, just not mine. The slurring is due to tiredness and that alone.)

If I could remember any of the handful of Russian words I once learnt, I would say something witty for this visitor in the unlikely event that he/she returns. But I don't, so I wont.

tired

I'm a little tired of the kind of arrogant atheism that belittles wherever it turns up and sees no reason to bother considering what the other side has to say outside of, at best a couple of disciplines which happen to be materialism-friendly at the moment. For some intellectual relief, I think I'll turn to a highly-praised book by a Professor of the Public Understanding of Science, at the University of Oxford no less! ... *reads title* ... uh oh ...

Ironies

*"Mono-syllabic" contains five syllables.

1 ≠ 5


* ... (I'll think of more)


*Myself. A few billion cells and some kind of soul together constituting one Irony.

Cells (mine) + Soul (mine) = Irony

as it stands, it limps and falls. And then dies, as weak things cannot live

"If a being suffers, there can be no moral justification for disregarding that suffering, or for refusing to count it equally with the like suffering of any other being. But the converse of this is also true. If a being is not capable of suffering, or of enjoyment, there is nothing to take into account" - Peter Singer

As it stands, this hardly needs refuting it seems to me. The idea that all suffering is equal is intriguing. The idea that being able to "suffer" or enjoy is required in order for someone to be morally important is bizarre. Those in a coma or anaesthetized in hospital would perhaps agree with me; once they woke up anyway. "Suffering" usually means a kind of psychological torment, but I think Singer uses it more in the sense of pain. A richer conception of suffering e.g. that would allow someone wronged/killed whilst in a temporary coma to "suffer" would presumably cause difficulties for his extreme position on abortion and other issues.

I recommend this event

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=330772797289

Perhaps the astute amongst you will realise that I have some bias wrt it. Then again, a biasless situation would I guess be one with no humans in it. And few such situations make for awesome social events, so maybe it's not too much of a problem.

This is an event at which you're allowed to ask those questions which will prove to everyone else how smart you are, like "ah, that's all cool bro, but who made God?" There should be various faculty type folks around and freakishly awesome people like me, so basically it'll be better than whatever's on TV; and even better than whatever show you wish was on TV! Even, possibly, better than Facebook! I won't promise more than that, but
I will be there.