Things in my head

The thinkings of a Londoner lost in the mire of Essex

Friday, September 30, 2005

It's all getting a bit technological...

Hello again. I know that I'm going a bit mental with all the posting but I might have come up with quite a good idea. Just below my profile on the right is this instant chat thing. Its a good idea, but the problem is that for anyone to see it or write on it, they have to be on my blog.

So I had this idea, because if we post the link below on to all our templates, then we'll all see all the messages written, so we can really easily see if anyone's about when we're blogging away. I'll explain how to do it so it shouldn't be too hard, even for the technophobes. But it will work best if as many of us as possible do it. Unless you think its a crappy idea.

Right, the thing that you will need to paste is at this link. It will open a word document.

All you need to do is highlight it all, then go to change settings, which is on the dashboard next to the 'new post' icon. Click on it, and then click on template. This is where all the information on your blog is stored. Scroll down until you see the words "Main archive page" which is about 2/3rds of the way down the page. Press enter a few times, and then in the space paste the link. Save the changes, and then check out your blog. You might need to press refresh, but it should come up with some chat between me and my brother Dan. Each one should be exactly the same anytime that one of us posts an instant message. Then we can get chatting.


Hope it works!

Subbuteo challenge



Right, a few of us have been reminiscing about good old Subbuteo. So I thought, how about our very own Subbuteo challenge. Click on the link below, and there's a game that will appear. See who scores most, post it as a comment, and there may even be a prize for the winner. (There wont be).

Let the games begin

Thursday, September 29, 2005

Biblical authority
























Ok, so a few of us have been talking about Old Testment interpretation and part 2. A little while ago though, Tim O was talking about the Authority of the Bible and I thought it would be interesting to talk about how we understand the Bible, because I think we will have quite a number of different perspectives.

This is something that I'm not totally sure about. I do believe some key things about the Bible: It has challenged, comforted and inspired me in my life. I get pretty much all my values from it. I want to follow Jesus and his teaching, and I think that the best place to find Jesus' teaching is in the Bible. But further than that I'm not sure, you know infalliability and all that.

I don't think that the Bible is inerrant. In matters of science and history or whatever, even the 'original' documents might have errors. But that is not to say that it isn't an extremely reliable source- probably he most reliable for the periods and places that it talks about. I do believe that on matters of faith and practice it is fully trustworthy. (But of course we have to engage in careful interpretatoion to find out what that is). I think that this is called the infallibist view- that the Bible isn't a text book, so the facts aren't the most important thing.

This is also to do with how I believe God likes to work in the world. As He is a relational God (trinity etc), he likes to work through partnership and stuff. So he chooses to use falliable humans to get His plans done, coz it gives Him a kick, or brings Him more glory or whatever. He takes a risk though when He does it, with choosing Israel, when using Paul, or me or Billy Graham. Each time God takes a risk by using us rather than doing it Himself. And I think that He did that with the Bible. He took a risk by partnering with people who could get things wrong.

Anyway, I'm getting a bit lost here. As Tim O said in his recent post, I believe that some of the Bible's authority lies in the fact that it is kind of a family document. A history of our roots. Of a bunch of people who had crazy experiences of God, or went through mad things with God or wrote to God with pretty words. But its also a history of the development human race as well. Our routes- roots and routes! So Adam and Eve were some sort of primitive human beings who didn't know much about God, but knew Him. Then Abram gets a promise, Moses some commands, etc. So some of the authority of the Bible comes from it historcal value. But I think that its more than that.

Most evangelical Christians aren't big fans of what Karl Barth says about scriptural authority, but I think its got quite a lot of merit. He believes that scripture is a human product, and that it gains it's authority only if God gives it, which He has.

right, now an explanation for the horribly disjointed rant. I wrote this pretty good long post, then the bloomin maintainance people take the whole site offline. So I lose my original post, and have to wait an hour to find out that its been lost. So I write another one, in a mood, at 3'o'clock in the morning. Happy days! And I've got to work tomorrow. Bugger. So all I can hope is that this is a starting point for some more eloquent and structured discussion, and that I get a good sleep tonight!

I think in fact that the best thing I can do is give you a link to something I've just found by NT Wright (who Tim O was talking about a bit) about the authority of scripture. I'm going to print it off and read it, so I thought I might as well give you the link here

Monday, September 26, 2005

A Quick Question

After you have been dead for a long time, would you rather be:

a) forgotten

or

b) hatefully remembered

Also, does anyone else other than Ginger Jon think that I am a girl?

Also also, for anyone in still doubt about the coolness of Ligers, check out the link that I posted on at the bottom of the discussion...

Thursday, September 22, 2005

The existence of UFO's in essex!!!!



Ok guys, no joking around now. This is a place for serious discussion. Two saturdays ago, as my brother and I were getting out of my car at my house we spotted 3 bright lights in the sky. We looked at them for several minutes, and found them to be quite unlike anything we had seen before. I have lived in the area for many years and never seen anything quite like this. It was a truly strange thing. We went in to the house and thought nothing more of it until we heard that it had been reported to the MOD and in the national press (the Sun, no less). A short search on the internet has uncovered several videos and pictures of the sighting- and I promise you they really are exactly like the one's my brother and I saw on that saturday. Some of the sights that report on it are reputable UFO sites- such as rense.com and hbccufo.org, a Canadian UFO research site, and ufocasebook.com. There are two others that actually have video of it that you can watch here and here. I wasn't sure about UFO's, nor really bothered by them, and I'm still not sure, but its quite exciting that I have witnessed my very own UFO sighting! I suppose it would make Rob's existence on the planet a little more understandable though. What do other people reckon on the possibility of us not being alone in the universe? I guess at the very least it makes Jon's knitting admission seem a bit less weird...

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

The best animals in the WORLD!!!


I've got to say that Ligers are absolutely positively the best animals in the world. I can't even imagine a cooler one. Look at the size of it. Napoleon Dynamite was right when he said tht they are pretty much his favourite animal. Dare any of you suggest a better one?

Friday, September 16, 2005

Meetings, meetings, meetings

This is my first post, and all I have to say is that I HATE meetings right now. I've had to contribute to or lead evening meetings on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday morning and possibly Sunday night. That is all for now...