Automatic poetry

Google’s homepage 1998–1999 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Allow me to show you some poignant, although perhaps depressing, poetry I wrote in about five seconds just now:

It’s your Birthday,
It’s your story;
It’s your choice.

It’s your move.

That’s fantastic, though I say it myself.

And I actually wrote two words of that: ‘It’s your’; the rest of it was written by Google’s automatic suggested search terms. Give it a go yourself! Head over to Google and type in a couple of words, and allow Google to write a poem for you itself.

Here are a couple more to show you how great this is:

I don’t think you’re ready for this jelly,
I don’t think so.
I don’t think so, Tim,
I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.

Just one more:

I need a job
I need a dollar
I need a doctor
I need a hero

 

Please share your best ones in the comments!

Related articles

• These ‘Google Poems’ Are Hauntingly Beautiful (huffingtonpost.com)
• The Accidental Poetry of Google’s Predictive Search (fastcocreate.com)

The difference between born and unborn children

English: Newborn infant, 4 hours after birth Deutsch: Neugeborenes, 4 Stunden nach der Geburt (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Anyone who’s a regular reader of this blog will know that I’m not a fan of abortion. The argument from pro-abortionists is often along the lines of ‘let’s decide a date upon which the unborn becomes human’, which strikes me as a little ridiculous.

But look no further than the Journal of Medical Ethics, some very important and intelligent people have put some proper thought into it, and concluded (as I would), that there’s literally no difference between newborns and the unborn outside of criteria which would make no difference to someone’s personhood in other circumstances:

• location (in the womb) – you’d never say someone was ‘less human’ for being in a different location
• size (very small) – little people are not ‘less human’ than tall people
• development (still undergoing physical development) – aren’t we all?
• dependency on the mother – let’s kill disabled people while we’re at it, shall we?

There’s clearly no difference in personhood (and therefore human rights) between the unborn and the born. So go over to the Journal of Medical Ethics and check out what they’re proposing (and I quote, because I almost don’t believe this):

By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.

Ignoring the point about where newborns/babies in the womb are disabled (what difference does that make?) do you see how this argument is absolutely ridiculous? They demonstrate clearly that newborns and the unborn are no different (go and read it, it’s pretty obvious), but conclude that therefore newborn babies are not ‘actual persons’.

Wow.

God help us.

The full paper’s available here.

Related articles

• Court rules unborn is ‘child’ (wnd.com)
• Abortionist Turned Pro-Life Apostle: True Story of Dr. Stojan Adasevic (catholicglasses.com)
• If life doesn’t begin at conception, then where do we draw the line? (liveactionnews.org)
• We know they are killing children – All of us know (revivalandreformation.wordpress.com)

The art of the self-defeating statement

Morality Play (novel) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’m entirely unable to write English.

For the quick-witted among you, I’m sure you already spotted that the above sentence is pointless – you don’t need years of analysis to figure out that the sentence proves itself to be incorrect. But we do fall into the trap of believing these self-defeating statements from time-to-time.

Shall we look at a couple of examples?

No-one can know any truth about religion.

Well, for that to be true, it must not be true…shame.

You can’t know anything for sure.

Are you sure?

You shouldn’t force your morality on people.

Ever heard this one? Why shouldn’t I? Is it morally wrong? Stop forcing your morality on me!

You should just accept people as they are.

I’m assuming that the only exception to this rule is you then, who haven’t just accepted me as I am?

Now I don’t want to be that guy who just shouts at people then refuses to listen to them, but at the same time I don’t want to just roll over in the face of clearly flawed reasoning.

Any suggestions as to how to spot these, or any other examples that might be useful?

New: share this post on Twitter!

Related articles

• The “Necessity” Of an Evolved Moral Sense (atheistethicist.blogspot.com)
• Super Short Introduction to Postmodern Theory, Part III – Morals and Politics (theivoryland.wordpress.com)
• The Evolution of Morality and Ethics (tismond.wordpress.com)

Social media etiquette

Image via CrunchBase

I like antisocial media. I use it quite a lot – between Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google Plus I probably get into double digits when it comes to the number of times I check social media sites. And I probably enjoy reading people’s posts, seeing their photos, laughing at videos and thinking about blog posts far more than I let on, because I’m really not very good at publicly ‘liking’ them.

But that’s what annoys me most about other people! I take the time to write a witty, clever observation in 140 characters, and how many retweets/favourites/likes/thumbs up do I get? None! This leads me to two potential conclusions:

1. It wasn’t that witty or clever; people just didn’t like it that much.
2. People did like it, but it would have taken a moment to have pressed like or whatever, so they didn’t.

Now, ignoring the fact that I’m almost certainly not as witty or clever as I think I am, I’m going to lean towards the second conclusion because that’s how I use social media; Facebook and everything else is all about me! It’s not about me liking other people’s work, it’s about me putting a fun picture up there, and everyone else thinking, ‘Wow, Sam’s definitely both clever and witty.’

I’m part of an online community of bloggers, and there’s a reasonable proportion of the community who log on, post a link to their blog, and don’t even bother to look at other people’s stuff (as far as anyone can tell). They’re known as post-and-runners, and they’re annoying.

I wonder, would social media be a nicer place if we all publicly liked each other more?

This may be a tenuous verse to bring in, but I reckon it fits:

By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13:35)

Related articles

• A Week Without Social Media (kevmill.wordpress.com)
• Are We Losing Friendships Over Social Media? (blogher.com)
• Social media changes experience of being “snowed in” (denverpost.com)
• 10 Social Media Sins to Ditch for Your Valentine’s Day Date (liveconsciouslynow.com)
• Do you need to work on your social media etiquette? (immediatefuture.co.uk)
• Should social media classes be taught to kids? (worldradio.ch)

Book review: Draw the Circle by Mark Batterson

Leading on from Mark Batterson’s book The Circle Maker, this is a 40-day devotional-style book. In each of the 40 chapters there’s a Bible verse or passage, a true inspiring story of someone who prayed, and an application point for the day. The chapters are short and readable, and are well-suited to the design of the book.

There were things that I liked about this book – its incredibly well-written, and each chapter is clearly thought through. The application points from each chapter are challenging and Bible-based.

But, unfortunately, I wanted to love this book a bit more than I did. I haven’t read The Circle Maker so don’t know if it’s explained in there, but even after having read this I still have no idea what Batterson means by ‘circling’. In the book it seems like at times it means taking a pen and drawing a ring around a particular Bible verse (e.g. ‘circling 2 Corinthians 7:14′), at others it means praying over a particular location while walking around it (e.g. ‘circling the living room’), and at others just praying about something (e.g. ‘circling a job interview’). Apart from being confusing this means that it lost its meaning, like when the author took Jesus’ command to ‘keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking,’ and added ‘keep circling’ – what does that even mean?!

Something else that frustrated me was that the overall tone of the book made it seem like this guy just had everything in his life sorted now that he’d got ‘circling’ sorted out. There was quite a lot of things like ‘when I hit trouble I just circle it in prayer, trust in God, and continue in life with a smile on my face’ – not something I find useful.

The referencing also got on my nerves – some stories weren’t referenced at all (I’d never heard of Honi until this book talked about him in passing and I had to research him to understand it!), and the others had footnotes in really odd places, which for me broke up some excellent quotes unnecessarily.

Finally, although the book starts by saying that the purpose of circling stuff in prayer is more to learn God’s will rather than to get what we want, there was a bit too much talk about ‘you can get your dream through prayer’ which, again, I didn’t find useful.

Now, although this book did end up annoying me I still want to recommend it – the action points for each day are genuinely good, and if reading it is going to increase the amount of regular prayer (I can’t see why it wouldn’t), that can’t be a bad thing.

I got this book for free from booksneeze.com in exchange for an honest review.

Related articles

• Post 1 (circlemakers.wordpress.com)
• Book Review: Draw The Circle by Mark Batterson (schelastic.wordpress.com)
• 40 Days To Change My Life (thegirlshouse.wordpress.com)
• Why I Highly Recommend “The Circle Maker” by Mark Batterson (faithfulprovisions.com)
• Book Giveaway! | The Circle Maker (ruthiedean.com)

What is a karate class like?

If you ask me, people who don’t like Jim Carrey’s comedy don’t have enough fun. So enjoy (I said ENJOY!!!) this little video of him as a karate instructor (and former world champion).

What we mean when we say ‘Christ’

Each Wednesday I’m looking at what I posted exactly one year ago. On 6 March 2012 I had a look at Jesus’ title ‘Christ’.

—

English: Resurrection of Christ (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When we say ‘Jesus Christ’, we know exactly who we mean: Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter’s son. But do we actually realise how significant that title is?

Obviously ‘Jesus Christ’ wasn’t Jesus’ actual name; most Christians know that ‘Christ’ is the Greek version of the Hebrew title ‘Messiah’, and that it means ‘Anointed One’, and that Jesus fulfilled all the messianic prophecies, blah blah blah, but – just think about it…

21st Century Jews are still waiting for Messiah to come, in a similar way to the Jews in the 1st Century. Back then they’d been waiting for a couple of thousand years too. Then this ugly, homeless guy born to a single teenage girl showed up, and literally within one generation thousands and thousands of people claimed that that guy from Nazareth was the Messiah.

If you’re not too sure, just imagine something with me. In Acts 2, 3,000 Jews are recorded as having believed in Jesus as Messiah, all in one day – and all at a time thousands of years before trains, telephones, or Twitter.

Do we actually realise how significant this is? Imagine if tomorrow’s newspapers reported 3,000 Jews in one town all at once saying that they were remaining orthodox Jews but that God had been born a man and had fulfilled all the messianic prophecies.

Jesus was far more extraordinary than we give him credit for.

You can read the original post here.

Related articles

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I read The Life of Pi. It was good.

Crooked Little Vein and Life of Pi (Photo credit: Rich_Lem)

I haven’t seen the film yet, but having read the book I’d quite like to. Before reading it someone said to me that it isn’t so much about him in a boat with a tiger as the adverts make it seem…but it really is, isn’t it.

Anyway, it was a good book. Gripping, interesting, perhaps a tad gory in places, with a disturbing twist at the end – incredible writing, although I’d probably have rather it finished in Disney style, because that’s the sort of guy I am.

But some of the most enjoyable moments for me came towards the start of it, where Pi is discovering Christianity for the first time. For a start, check out his first reaction when he walks into a church:

Something about a human sacrifice. An angry god who had to be appeased with blood. Dazed women staring up into the air and fat babies with tiny wings flying about. A charismatic bird. Which one was the god?

Well captured; how confusing must it be for non-Christians to encounter Christianity for the first time? A good reminder for us.

Then, Pi encounters a priest, who starts to explain things to him, and Pi begins to understand.

…the stories that came before it – and there were many – were simply prologue to the Christians. Their religion had one Story, and to it they came back again and again, over and over. It was story enough for them.

Preach it, Pi!

I can’t imagine Lord Krishna consenting to be stripped naked, whipped, mocked, dragged through the streets and, to top it off, crucified – and at the hands of mere humans, to boot.

Indeed; surely only a God with infinite power and self assurance would allow something like that to happen.

But once a dead God, always a dead God, even resurrected. The Son must have the taste of death forever in his mouth…there must be a certain stench at the right hand of God the Father. The horror must be real. Why would God wish that upon Himself? Why not leave death to the mortals? Why make dirty what is beautiful, spoil what is perfect?

A good question – what was the answer that Pi discovered?

Love.

Wow. And that’s the Good News. But the book explains yet more about Christianity, and how it differs from other world religions.

In a moment you are lost or saved. Christianity stretches back through the ages, but in essence it only exists at one time: right now.

Spot on. That’s called grace. Yes, God existed before time, and we’ll live with him for eternity, yet all that really matters is right here, right now.

How we can learn from the Scottish Cardinal

Cardinal Keith O’Brien (Photo credit: Catholic Church (England and Wales))

In case you missed it, the Roman Catholic Church is in a bit of a pickle. After all of the stories involving the words Vatican, child, sex, abuse and cover-up had been and gone, I’m sure we all thought that this was an unpleasant chapter we could say goodbye to after a brief yet thorough investigation, but that was not to be.

Three priests plus an ex-priest then just had to claim that there had been more goings-on with the most senior member of the RC church in the UK, to be joined by another after the fact. That’s right, Cardinal O’Brien, the guy who was so vocal at speaking out against homosexuality that he won Stonewall’s prize of ‘Bigot of the Year’ (and they think that everyone’s bigoted, so that says something).

He was planning on retiring anyway, but after having taken advice from the Pope (at the time) he stepped down immediately to allow the world to not be distracted by him, and denied everything.

And it now turns out that, actually, he shouldn’t have denied everything, because the claims were true.

Bad news for Roman Catholicism. Again.

And probably the most confusing part of all of this is the double life he’s lived: publicly condemning homosexuality, while privately being tempted by it; he’s certainly not the first.

Of course, people like Stonewall are screaming about it because that’s what they do, but how about we take the opportunity to examine ourselves? Who can genuinely say that their lives have been lives of integrity in public and in private to the point that we’ve never done something we’d have disapproved of publicly?

To put it in Jesus’ words: ‘Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.’ (John 8:7) The answer is that none of us are without sin, even when we judge sin by our own judgments and not God’s.

Let’s not use this story to judge Keith o’Brien, or the Roman Catholic Church, or homosexuality, or religion in general. Let’s use it to remind ourselves that we are condemned based on the courthouse in our heads, let alone the heavenly courthouse judged by the perfect, infinite, holy and powerful King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And let’s remember that we can be confident that we are judged not guilty in Christ alone by grace alone.

Related articles

• Cardinal to face Vatican inquiry (bbc.co.uk)
• Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s fall from grace is a lesson for us all (godandpoliticsuk.org)

Book review: Afraid to Believe in Free Will by Carl E. Begley

This book is a bit of an odd one, because I can’t quite nail it down. I suppose I was expecting a comparison between Calvinism and Arminianism, and this is definitely not that. It’s quite academic in flavour, looking at the philosophical and psychological history of belief in free will along with an analysis of societal contexts within which a stronger belief in free will would help.

First things first: I found this pretty interesting. I’m sure I’ll bring up stuff I’ve read here in conversations, and it definitely got me thinking. I’ve never put any time or effort into thinking through the ideas of whether or not we have free will, or whether or not belief in free will makes any difference, and this book has kick-started that thought process for me.

However, it’s fair to say that I don’t really get this book. It’s very academic in everything except the overall structure, which is frustrating – it took a while for me to understand where the author was going with this, and after having read it I’m not sure I get it even now, other than him saying that we ought to believe in free will. To say it’s branded as a Christian book that Christian input is fairly quiet throughout, and even when it comes in it’s analysed in the same way as any other philosophical source. The Bible’s quoted to back up Begley’s arguments and not to initiate thought, so I certainly didn’t feel like I’d learnt ‘the Christian view’ of free will here.

What particularly frustrated me was the way that the book looked at a couple of examples to demonstrate how belief in free will affects society, but the focus then shifted too far (in my eyes) onto the author’s own view of those particular situations; apparently offering financial support to the unemployed makes them lazy and reliant on good, hard-working citizens; of course communism is an idea from the devil himself; and scientific evidence shows that child abuse isn’t as harmful as society tells us it is. Yes, that last one is perhaps slightly skewing what the author says, but the particular chapter it’s in is long story about the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association and the confusion between the two – I still have no idea what the difference is, and I still have no idea how that relates to a belief in free will.

So in conclusion this has started some good thought processes, but I don’t think it’s done the best job at it – it’s got an academic tone without an academic objective, it gets too bogged down with the examples without explaining fully what we should conclude, and it doesn’t reinforce a Christian focus enough.

I got this ebook for free from BookSneeze.com in exchange for an honest review.