Painting Fakes

About 18 months ago I had a good laugh at the expense of then Queensland Opposition Leader Campbell Newman's plan to "move on" colonies of flying foxes which have taken up residence in urban areas.  As I pointed out, the idea sounds good in a soundbite but is rather absurd in practice since flying foxes are not easy to herd. Of course we all know that since then Newman has become Queensland Premier with such a thumping majority that he thinks everyone now has to do his bidding, even wild animals.  Every silly thing he said as opposition leader has now become law - including move-on powers against giant fruit bats.  He is annoyed that some local governments are not falling into line, and is threatening to override them, arrange for the bat move-on himself (at least get one of his slaves to do it - or several!) then send the local council the bill. Sometimes I think I might be one of the few sane people left in Queensland but the Brisbane Times reassures me I'...

Benjamin Disraeli is supposed to have said, "Prediction is extraordinarily difficult, particularly when it concerns the future."  He lived in simpler times.  Now Australian political commentators are all at sea trying to even work out what happened in the past.  After a week of even greater than usual instability in the federal Labor Party, our Prime Minister Julia Gillard retained the leadership by default when Kevin Rudd declined to put his name forward.  No doubt Rudd's supporters are now wondering why they bothered.  Australian electors are also wondering.  Is he a man of principle who kept his word, refusing to challenge despite the pressure from his colleagues?  Or is he a cynical bastard who hung his supporters out to dry when it was clear he would lose?  Either way, Gillard achieves, even if by default, the miracle of surviving yet again.  Whether she can perform the same feat in September against an opponent who will m...

Well blow me down with a feather duster.  After not hearing Lewis' Trilemma (the "lunatic, liar or Lord" argument) for years, I hear it twice in a fortnight. I couple of weeks ago I told you how I heard it from the pulpit in my own church.  Fair enough, our rector is a busy working pastor and doesn't have time to think through the fine points of every sermon.  Then last Thursday a good friend graduated from the Queensland Theological College and I went along to clap as he got his hard-earned piece of paper.  There it was again, popping up its three ugly heads at the close of Douglas O'Donnell's guest speech.  I hope the theological graduates were shaking their heads at the faux pas . It slightly spoiled what was otherwise an intriguing address.  O'Donnell's subject was the Sermon on the Mount, and his point was that the central theme of the sermon is Jesus' authority.  In support of this idea he cited four pieces of evidence. The first ...

Reading Tom Frame  has got me thinking again about the idea of atheism.  When someone says they are an atheist, what are they saying about themselves?  What do the words "I am an atheist" tell you about a person's world view? If you were to ask me my worldview, I would say I am a Christian.  I might qualify that - I am a progressive Christian who has been strongly influenced by liberation theology. From this, you would be able to deduce a lot about my worldview.  You would know that I believe there is a god, although I don't claim full knowledge by any means.  You would know I place a high value on the teachings of Jesus and try to follow them, that I am particularly driven by concern for social justice and for the elimination of poverty.  You would know that I value compassion and empathy, that I have a more or less traditional Chrisitan view about what is right or wrong. The same would be true of someone who said they were a Buddhist, or...

It's interesting how you can live in a society, and yet know so little about it.  You have an intimate circle of friends and relations and you have a reasonable idea what they think and how they react, but you have no way of knowing, without detailed research, if what you and your friends think and experience is typical. Tom Frame is a former Anglican Bishop to the Defence Forces and current Director of St Mark's National Theological Centre in Canberra.  His book  Losing My Religion is an attempt to lift the veil on one aspect of our society - the level and nature of religious belief and unbelief in Australia.  Has unbelief increased in Australia?  If so what are the causes of this growing unbelief, and what are its consequences?  Sadly, his attempt to answer these questions is at best only partly successful.  There are two reasons for this.  One is that the available evidence is insufficient to answer such a complex question. ...

I was surprised in church last Sunday to hear our preacher propound the "lunatic, liar or Lord" argument.  I thought he might have known better. This argument did not originate with CS Lewis, but he popularised it in his 1952 book Mere Christianity, and it has been widely used by Evangelical apologists ever since.  The argument runs something like this: Jesus made a number of quite startling claims about himself, like "the Father and I are one", or "no-one comes to the Father but through me".  In the light of these claims, it is not reasonable to suggest that Jesus was merely a good man or an inspired teacher.  If he made these claims believing them to be true, but they were not, he was a lunatic with delusions of gradeur.  If he made them knowing they were  not  true, he was simply a charlatan.  If he was neither of these things, then we are forced to acknowledge his lordship and submit to him. Apologetics serves two purposes.  It...

Last year I wrote a short series of posts on Jesus' miracles .  For some reason the first of the series has been read by quite a lot of people, although since not that many have read the subsequent posts it seems likely they didn't find what they were looking for. What I was trying to say is that the miracle stories in the Gospels were not intended to demonstrate Jesus' divine power.  Jesus said explicitly that they were not, and if they were their message on this subject is at best ambiguous.  Rather, the miracle stories, like the other deeds of Jesus (I suspect the gospel writers didn't necessarily distinguish between miraculous and non-miraculous deeds), are dramas intended to illustrate aspects of Jesus' message and mission.  They dramatise the forgiveness, inclusion, abundance and peacefulness of the Kingdom of God. Lately I've been thinking about the relationship between the miracle stories and the idea of the Incarnation - the idea that Jesus was G...

It's been said that to us an alien of sufficient power and complexity would be indistinguishable from a god.  It's also been said that if we had enough knowledge we would be able to prove, one way or another, the truth of religion.  However, if we could do that its character would change completely.  It would no longer involve faith and belief, it would simply be another branch of science, the gods other beings who could be studied and communicated with, heaven and hell realms of exploration and even conquest.   I'm not sure what Iain Banks' religious views are.  From his novels I would be surprised if he was not an atheist, or at least an agnostic.  Yet he has arguably the most fertile imagination of any living speculative fiction writer and he is certainly more than capable of imagining heaven, hell and all manner of gods or demons to inhabit them.   Many of his science fiction novels are set in a Galactic-scale civilisation kno...

Apropos of Oscar Pistorius and Reeva Steenkamp , here's another little song for you.  It's an old English folk song that goes by the name Polly Vaughan, Polly Von, Molly Bond  or other variations thereof.  Here's a version by Anne Briggs. Come all you young fellows that handle a gun Beware how you shoot when the night's coming on For young Jimmy met his true love, he mistook her for a swan And he shot her and killed her by the setting of the sun As Polly was walking all in a shower of rain She sheltered in a green bush, her beauty to save With her apron throwed over her he mistook her for a swan And he shot her and killed her by the setting of the sun Then home ran young Jimmy with his dog and his gun Crying Uncle dear Uncle have you heard what I done? I met my own true love, I mistook her for a swan And I shot her and killed her by the setting of the sun Then out rushed his uncle with his locks hanging grey Crying Jimmy oh dear Jimmy don't y...

Here's a little song for you.  It's called What Are Their Names?.  It was written by David Crosby and first recorded on his 1971 solo album, If I Could Only Remember My Name.   He has been singing it ever since with Crosby Stills and Nash, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, in duet with Graham Nash or as here with many other musicians who admire him and this song.  Who are the men who really run this land And why do they run it with such a careless hand? What are their names and on what streets do they live? I'd like to ride right over this afternoon and give Them a piece of my mind about peace for mankind Peace is not an awful lot to ask. Crosby and co are well known peacenicks.  They sang at Woodstock, protested the Vietnam war, sided with the anti-war protestors killed at Ohio State University, and wrote a large number of anti-war and anti-nuclear anthems.  They're still at it.  In 2006 Neil Young got the band back together to do ...

In the years after the Second World War, science fiction was essentially a pulp genre.  Magazines and niche publishers put out small print runs of short stories and slim novels.  Most of the writing was clunky, the stories strong on technological marvels and weak on plot and characterisation.  This all started to change in the 1960s.  Not all at once and not everywhere - there is still plenty of pulp science fiction written even now - but a new breed of writers started to focus more on the fiction and less on the science.  Philip K Dick's best novels are masterpieces of imagination, beautifully characterised and exploring issues of drug use, mental health, religion and the meaning of being human.  His school-mate Ursula Le Guin wrote stories of lyrical beauty and moral depth. Some legacies of the pulp era remained.  Circulations were still small, and if they wanted to make a living from their writing they had to keep...

It's hard to avoid Dan Sultan these days.  Ever since he appeared in the ridiculously funny Bran Nue Dae he's been constantly in the media, recieving music awards, playing at celebrity concerts, promoting worthy causes.  He seems a level headed young man, comfortable with his Aboriginal heritage and not afraid to speak up for himself.  He's also no mean singer, belting out an infectious brand of soul-inflected pop music. However, I have to admit I find myself a lot more fascinated by his long-time collaborator Scott Wilson.  When I first saw Sultan live on stage - a vibrant set at Byron Bay Bluesfest - it was obvious Wilson was the key to the band, playing lead guitar, counting everyone in,  holding the whole thing together while Sultan did his charismatic performing thing. So I've been digging.  On Sultan's most recent album, Get Out While You Can,   released in late 2009, Wilson plays a large number of different gui...