Barefoot in the wilderness
in search of understanding

D-E-F-I-N-I-T-E-L-Y

Now, here is someone who’s got a bee in their bonnet about spelling! As single-issue websites go, it’s a doozy.

pax et bonum

Safe in Google's hands?

The Register is reporting a glitch in Google’s personalised page feature. People’s carefully constructed settings have vanished, and Google’s official response is that they don ‘t know what happened and they don’t know whether they’ll be able to retrieve the information. (Which, by the way, I think is a good answer – saying you don’t know when you don’t know actually builds confidence in the times you do give a positive response.)

The point is, though, the number of people whose entire online life is in the hands of one online service or another – all your email contacts stored in GMail, all your calendar likewise, word processing online, backups on a remote server, and so on. These services are all well and good, and fill a need, but don’t rely on them always to be there. Even Google could vanish overnight, and take all your details with it. If it’s important, really really make sure you have a copy yourself.

This whole topic has a personal aspect just at the moment – the main system drive for my home computer died on Wednesday. Totally dead, isn’t recognised by the BIOS at boot time, hardware-failure dead. And, of course, my last backup is three months old. Time to see how good those data recovery services are…

Back your data up, folks. External hard drives are very cheap these days. I’ve just ordered one of these – a 250 GB external drive, which is more than large enough to store everything for several years, and just plugs into a USB port, for just £55.

pax et bonum

Irony in Israel

Ekklesia reports that the Israeli military have shot (with a rubber bullet) and gassed a Nobel Peace Prize winner who was taking part in a nonviolent protest.

pax et bonum

Public music

This article from the Washington Post is fascinating. They tried something out – what would happen if a world-class musician tried his hand at busking? Would he get a crowd? Would he make any money? Would anyone even notice? They ask, “If a great musician makes great music and no one hears, was he really any good?”

pax et bonum

Poorly

I’m ill.

If you don’t hear from me for a few days, don’t worry – I’ll reply to any comments after Easter. We’re having a computer-free weekend!

pax et bonum

Proof - Powerpoint is bad for you

Researchers at the University of New South Wales in Australia found the brain is limited in the amount of information it can absorb – and presenting the same information in visual and verbal form – like reading from a typical Powerpoint slide – overloads this part of memory and makes absorbing information more difficult. (From The Register.)

Finally, proof of what we’ve all known for years! The scientists go on to explain that it’s the habit of reading out Powerpoint slides that is the problem – explaining a graph or chart is quite different, because the visual and verbal information is different. But simply reading out what you’ve written on the screen is a No No.

Will they learn, though?

pax et bonum

Pronunciation

I rather like this suggested pronunciation. (It’s an audio file, so use your headphones if at work!)

pax et bonum

Words, words, words

Paperback Writer posts some interesting word links. Basically, it’s a set of online dictionaries, but including some that specialise in strange and obscure words – lovely things like “campaniform” (bell-shaped), “transvolation” (flying higher than normal) and “Aauaua” (a river in Brazil).

pax et bonum

Are Neanderthals saved?

Our friend Ruth (not daughter Ruth!) asked a good question today, in the comments to a previous post, and I thought it deserved its own post. Her question was this:

Went to a dinosaur park today and saw models of neaderthal man. They got me thinking. They made tools and fires and things. But was God their God? I know that we didn’t evolve from them. But at what point in evolution did God become the God that he is for human-kind?

Good question! The first thing to say is that we don’t know the answer, and can’t this side of heaven. But I do have a few thoughts.

It’s usually been held by the Church that the thing setting humanity apart from the animals is the possession of a rational soul. That is, the power to think, speak and reason is what makes us human. If so, we would have to suggest that Neanderthals were also human in this sense. And so, yes, God would be their God, too. Of course, God is the God of the animals and the rocks and the stars, too, so in that sense it’s trivial. But, if the Neanderthals sought any God then the triune God would the One to whom they would be reaching. And I believe that God would reach back to them.

(click for more)

Followup on price

In my previous post, Hammertime asked a cogent question. I’ve answered him in the comments there, but I thought it bore repeating as a higher-level article.

If you truly believe that the price has been paid, not to God but by God, who has it been paid to?

The first thing to say is that I don’t find a “price” model of the atonement particularly useful, partly for this reason. The idea that the crucifixion was a price paid to God has serious issues – Jeffrey John articulated some of them. But, for a starter, there’s a definite logical problem with God requiring payment and then, by legal sleight of hand, paying Himself and claiming that that makes everything alright. If He could sidestep payment by paying Himself, why require the payment in the first place? The alternative (which is the idea actually found in the NT) is that the price was paid to Satan – we were slaves to sin and Christ redeemed us (i.e. paid the price) from that slavery and set us free. But I don’t like this idea much, either, if taken too literally, because I don’t think that Satan has that much power.

(click for more)

The price is paid

There’s been quite a fuss in the Press this week about a Lenten talk given by Dean Jeffrey John. The fuss comes, once again, because he addresses the idea of the Cross and how Jesus ‘paid the price’ for our sins. There have been the usual knee-jerk responses (sadly from bishops in the Church of England, too, this time!) that, because he rejects penal substitution, he is somehow heretical and rejects all substitutionary ideas. Nothing could be further from the truth. If you actually listen to what he said (or read the transcript), you’ll see that he’s very firmly still in the substutionary mould. It’s just that the focus is away from a God who is mostly wrathful and bent on punishment to a God who is all Love. And, I don’t know about you, but I know which God I meet in the Bible and, most particularly, in the Person who said “whoever has seen me has seen the Father”.

On the cross Jesus dies for our sins; the price of our sin is paid; but it is not paid to God but by God.

Not to God but by God.

pax et bonum