It seems spammers have found my blog. And the spam protection of Wordpress isn’t that great. Don’t go for those cheap meds that they advertise in the comments.
In other news, nothing has really happened since my last post 2 months ago. Honours has been pretty tough, experiments failing left right and centre. I’ve started going into uni on Saturdays now so I can hopefully squeeze more work in, to finish everything by the August 25th deadline. I doubt I’ll finish but hey that’s honours for you!
A few interesting things over the last few weeks.
Sara and I went to Makoto (is that how to spell it?) in Chatswood last week, and were greeted with a nice public hair (minus the L) sitting atop a slice of lemon, wedged between two salmon sushi things. We spied it, and left it to travel on its journey around the conveyer belt. Lo and behold, a few minutes later, the hairy dish returned and it got too much - we had to tell someone. So we pointed it out to one of the waitresses, and she took a while to understand what was wrong - perhaps this kind of thing is not uncommon. Extra protein perhaps. The more shocking thing came later, when she presented the dish to one of the chefs standing in the middle area. He took the dish, and good on him for wearing gloves and protecting himself from the hair - he proceeded to remove it from the lemon slice and throw it underneath the bench. But he didn’t change gloves, and after putting the dish aside on the bench, resumed making the other sushi. Needless to say, we didn’t feel like eating there anymore.
In other news, this Da Vinci Code movie coming out seems like it’ll be fun for Christians and non-Christians alike. I’m surprised by how much the media and the public in general actually have to say about religion in general. Secular papers like the SMH have an article or three on religion every week. A few weeks ago, it was a dicussion on “whateverism”, what teens see these days as the religion of choice - “you can believe in one thing and change your mind, whatever” it went. Then a few days later on the front page was the revelation of the Gospel of Judas (I think), which was meant to challenge Christianity at its roots and present the view that Judas was a scapegoat and was actually commanded by Jesus himself to betray him. Interesting stuff.
Today in Stay in Touch, readers presented their thoughts on commandments for a new religion. Funny suggestions galore, at the end of the article was this: “Luke says we should stick with the Bible’s ancient commandments since ’science, the great god of the 21st century, cannot agree with itself for more than a couple of years’.”
And thanks to the Da Vinci Code, the SMH (in its typical antagonistic style) has put out a few articles such as the one talking about churches spending $50,000 on advertising spree to debunk the “offences and historical and theological errors” of Dan Brown’s book. One of the sites these articles refer to, challengingdavinci, is actually quite interesting and presents a realistic view on the issues presented by Brown’s novel. The other site, thedavincichallenge, also seems interesting and intellectually stimulating.
The Catholic church is massively protesting the launch of the movie, and is urging its members to boycott the thing. Other Christian societies say that the Da Vinci Code is a “wonderful opportunity for Christians … to discuss issues raised in the film“. And I think what Rob Forsyth, an ex-EU treasurer and now Bishop, says about the movie is good: “We’ve been surprised and challenged in that The Da Vinci Code has created a lot of interest in Jesus. We are not afraid of the film. We are not seeking to discourage people from seeing it.” I agree with this, in that Christians should not be afraid of the film, and should not discourage others from seeing it. The film may raise doubts, but with sound reasoning and proper intellectual understanding, Dan Brown’s work of fiction should not cause any major rifts. It should probably instead create many opportunities to talk about these issues with friends and family. Such an evangelistic tool, camouflaged though it may be, should not be done away with out of fear. That said, the faith of some Christians might not be able to withstand the battering that the Da Vinci Code presents, and therefore a stumbling block should probably be avoided by such people.
It would be good for Christians to be ready to talk intelligently about the issues the Da Vinci Code presents, and to give an account of the faith they possess. We know what is the truth, and so should not be afraid of things like Dan Brown’s novel.
It’s actually quite a good read. And I normally hate books.
