New Hobart music compilation

Community by Rough Skies Records.

Abyss and Apex didn't want to publish my short story

But they wished me the best of luck and hope to see more of my work in the future.

Suitable starting point for criticising our knowledge and beliefs

Contemporary philosopher, Alvin Plantinga, asks whether it is very helpful to imagine what would be reasonable to believe if we started from nothing. If we didn't know anything, what would it be rational to know?

Plantinga challenges us to explain why somehow this process will give us clear access to truly rational beliefs:

Suppose our battery of ways of forming beliefs, our belief-forming faculties, are in fact reliable; suppose, indeed, that we have been created by God, who intended that we be able to know the sorts of things we think we know by virtue of just such a battery of faculties: reason, memory, sense perception, introspection, sympathy, the sensus divinitatis, and the internal instigation of the Holy Spirit, if there are such sources of belief, and all the rest. What reason is there to think that if these faculties are reliable, then it would appear that they are from the perspective just of reason, that bit of memory, and introspection? (Warranted Christian Belief, p. 130)

This is, indirectly, a partial response to the absolute confidence in the scientific method, as championed by Dawkins et al.

Rules for my unborn son

The best way to say thanks is to wear it. Even if it's for the last time.

A christmas breakfast to make your eyes bleed

We're having breakfast with our family and Nikki's mum. I asked PastorChef Al Dente for ideas on gChat and here's what I've settled on:

• Mango, raspberries and blackberries with honey and cinnamon yoghurt
• Wursthaus pork sausages and scrambled eggs on baguette crostini with homemade strawberry and chilli chutney and spinach cream
• Sparkling wine, OJ and coffee

Ridiculous, huh?

A pro choice person sees the strengths of the pro life argument

 In this intriguing article from New York Magazine:

The Abortion Distortion.

What do you think?

Advice to my unborn son

Don't fill up on bread.

Some descriptions of depression in Infinite Jest

By David Foster Wallace.

jml recommended I read it:

When people call it that I always get pissed off because I always think depression sounds like you just get like really sad, you get quiet and melancholy and just like sit quietly by the window sighing or just lying around... Well this... isn't a state. This is a feeling. I feel it all over. In my arms and legs... It's like horror more than sadness. It's more like horror. It's like something horrible is about to happen, the most horrible thing you can imagine

.... Everything gets horrible. Everything you see is ugly. Lurid is the word... That's the right word for it. And everything sounds harsh, spiny and harsh-sounding, like every sound you hear all of a sudden has teeth.

....Imagine if you felt that way all over, inside. All thorugh you. Like every cell and every atom or brain-cell or whatever was so nauseous it wanted to throw up, but it couldn't, and you felt that way all the time, and you're sure, you're positive the feeling will never go away, you're going to spend the rest of your natural life feeling like this.

 

It also has an amazing chapter about a pot addict waiting to score and preparing for a horrid bong bender.

What I'm doing next year

Next year I'll be working full time as the campus director of the University Fellowship of Christians on the Hobart campus of the University of Tasmania (Facebook page here).

The mission of the University Fellowship is to proclaim the gospel of Christ to the university and to recruit future pastors and missionaries for the world.

So basically I will be an evangelist. This doesn't mean I'll wear a nasty suit, sculpt my hair with hairspray or have a TV program. It does mean I will seek to thoughtfully engage with different philosophies and issues that people face, and respectfully urge people to respond to the Christian gospel.

I'll be overseeing a staff team with two senior staff and two ministry apprecites. I'm responsible for raising my own pay and other ministry expenses. So far I've raised my own pay and $15 000 of ministry expenses. I've kind of enjoyed that.

It's going to be an interesting year.

I have never clicked on on an internet ad

Not on Facebook. Not on Google.

I don't really even notice them. I almost see right through them, like Facebook updates about Mafia Wars.

Have you ever? What did you click on? "How to get abs like the guys in 300"?

Best hip albums of 2009

Nathan has posted up a couple of lists on Facebook recently. Pretty helpful in planning what to buy:

• Rough trade's Albums of the Year
• Resident Records' top 25 (Nathan writes: "Resident Records Brighton is my favourite record store in the world. Its only small, but they stock a hugely diverse range of music, often finding amazing records that i've never heard of before. They do heaps of little extras to ensure people are exposed to loads of new music.
  They actually write a 3 or 4 line review for every record released that week (often numbering in the 30-40s) and post them in their window."):

1. animal collective - merriweather post pavillion
2. the xx - xx
3. fever ray - fever ray
4. the pains of being pure are heart - the pains of being pure at heart
5. health - get colour
6. bill callahan - sometimes i wish we were an eagle
7. yo la tengo - popular songs
8. white denim - fits
9. woods - songs of shame
10. leyland kirby (aka the caretaker) - sadly, the future is no longer what it was
11. micachu & the shapes - jewellery
12. ben frost - by the throat
13. major lazer - guns don't kill people.....lazers do
14. thee oh sees - help
15. carl craig & moritz von oswald - recomposed
16. wavves - wavves
17. lovvers - ocd go go go girls
18. john hopkins - insides
19. here we go magic - here we go magic
20. ochre - like dust of the balance
21. grizzly bear - veckatimest
22. the horrors - primary colours
23. ganglions - monster head room
24. atlas sound - logos
25. bat for lashes - two suns

I suppose Nathan and Paul will be fighting about these lists until the lists for 2010 is released :-)

My life is twilight

A very sad, sad group blog:

• Today I was walking home from campus and my bag was packed full of big books. It felt like there was a stone wall pressing against my back. I thought, "Hmmm, this must be what a hug from Edward feels like."
• Today, I went to a restaurant that looked exactly like the one Edward and Bella went to in Port Angeles, so I ordered a coke and ravioli. I hate ravioli but the scene wouldn't have been complete without it :)
• I was gettin' ready for work and while watching Saved by the Bell I thought "Wow, this JUST like Twilight." Zack is Edward, Kelly is Bella, and Slater is Jacob. At one point they were both after Kelly, but she chose Zack in the end...I actually think they fought in one episode.

They have Edward Cullen dolls in Toyworld. This is horrid. I bought Esther a Strawberry Shortcake instead.

H/T Nathan

How do grownups transport manila folders?

Are briefcases the only solution? I ask on my other blog, Christian Reflections.

Three things husbands can do

1. Notice individual housework tasks and say thanks for, for eg, cleaning the toilet.
2. If you can't do a chore straight away, don't just say you'll get to it, be specific.
3. Take the initiative to bring up issues that you've discussed/fought about in the past, to resolve/revise.