Jottings on science, religion, technology, pop culture and faith from the Antipodes.
You are currently browsing the monthly archive for May 2004.
From the NZ Greenpeace web site: Greenpeace : McDonalds go for non-GE feed
21 April 2004, Auckland, New Zealand: Ronald McDonald being forcibly removed by management at the Queen Street McDonald’s after resigning as the company mascot, over GE feed used in McDonalds meat products. (C) FOTOPRESS/Geoff Dale.
Click on image for larger (in-focus) picture.
Free Images of Ronald’s arrest: greenpeace.org.nz/photos/11may04
Free Images of Ronald’s resignation: greenpeace.org.nz/photos/21April04/
Several things came together in my mind this weekend as I read and thought about various things.
Firstly I’d been reading Steve’s posting (e~mergent kiwi: Reading Whale Rider: Reweaving in Godzone) about reweaving or reintegrating the various strands of Aotearoa New Zealand theology into an integrated whole.
Secondly, it was Pentecost Sunday so I’m thinking thoughts about the Spirit and the new community formed at that time.
And thirdly, I read the article “Beer & Fear by Ear” by Olivia Kember in this week’s Listener on the vowel merger of “ea” and “ee” blends in the New Zealand accent (or should that be the “Nu Zulund ucksant”).
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The current issue of Science & Spirit available online is dedicated to the theme of forgiveness
I was moved particularly by the article An Unforgivable Act?.
Eleven-year-old Merita Shabiu believed the American forces in Kosovo were there to protect and save her. But after she was found buried in the snow with a bullet in her head, the devastated Shabiu family was told she died at the hands of one of those “saviors.”
Cleared myself of lectures for a while and marking is still a week or two away so it’s time to have a look at some of the books waiting on my bookshelf.
Participating in God: Creation and Trinity by Samuel M. Powell is part of Fortess Press’ series “Theology and the Sciences”. Looks like it has some useful comments on technology in it.
Light from the East: Theology, Science, and the Eastern Orthodox Tradition by physicist Alexei V. Nesteruk has some extended discussions on the nature of the human person which also looks helpful to the thesis. It’s another in the Fortress Press series.
Taking the Red Pill: Science, Philosophy and Religion in The Matrix edited by Glenn Yeffeth is a collection of essays on topics intersecting with my research interests in virtual reality and AI. Some of the essays have been published elsewhere (e.g. Peter B. Lloyd’s, GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM) but hopefully it’ll be worthwhile dipping into.
Tip of the ice berg really. If there’s an earthquake (a real possibility here in NZ) I’ll in danger of being pummelled to death by falling books I should have read by now. Also, trying to find time to read Douglas Coupland’s “Hey, Nostrodamus”, the collection of short stories in “Disco 2000″ edited by Sarah Champion, Cynthia West’s “Techno-Human Mesh”, Edward Tenner’s “Our Own Devices” and David Noble’s “The Religion of Technology”.
Amnesty International have released their annual report on global human rights covering 2003. (SeeAmnesty International Report 2004).
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Couple of potentially useful MacOS X software apps came across my scanner over the last few days.
Firstly ImageWell is an excellent little (free!) app that you drop and image onto and it posts it to the web location (iDisk, FTP, WebDAV) you choose (or the default). And it allows you to perform cropping, scaling, basic editting etc. in the image before it goes up the line. Great for dropping a set of pictures onto, having then automatically scaled etc., and then posted to your images directory. Saves having to fire up Fireworks/Dreamweaver or Graphic Converter to do the job and then manually upload the images.
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W I L D L A N D S : Komodo. Rather them than me getting the camera in place.
Lynne beats me by an hour or so to posting about Wildlands at Lynne Taylor: On good news….
I’ve just been listening to the interview by Linda Clark on National Radio with James Frankham about his virtual documentary visiting the wild places of the world and documenting them real-time so people can experience (virtually) those worlds. Check out the awesome web site WILDLANDS. Yes! Yes! Yes!
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Steve’s posting, e~mergent kiwi: world:views, about the Hoiho (Yellow-eyed Penguin) has been rattling around inside my head this week as I think about “the new heaven and the new earth” found in the Christian hope.
Made me stop and think about the penguins, who appear on cheese wrappers sometime - buy this brand of cheese and help save the penguins. Realized I didn’t know anymore than that about them so went and did some looking for more information on them.
Some good web links can be found at:
Hoiho resources. They have links to most of the other NZ penguin related sites and images of them.
Also the children’s section of the local library had the book Helping the Hoiho. by Dean Schneider. (Published by Shortland Publications, 1995.) on display today - looked like it had some good practical information too.
You can hear the penguins by clicking: here (.au file)
Interesting article about computer games in education at Water Cooler Games - Education Arcade, day 1 where Ian Bogost (an academic game researcher, game designer, and educational publisher) looks at education and computer games at E3. Some interesting ideas in the comments of those he summarizes about using games to interpret life and make sense of the world around us.
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Jon Reid’s posted a thoughtful piece about Iraqi prisoners and the monster lurking inside each of us over at blog one another: The Monster at Abu Ghraib.
Definitely ++ Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. ++
Just read Culture Watch - Bob the Builder. My simple faith in Bob and the gang deconstructed in a few minutes of reading.
Bob’s relationship with his workforce of machines has also prompted much discussion as to the socio-political leanings of the programme. Is Bob representative of the entrepreneurial ideal of capitalism, as he monopolises the construction needs of his community? Or perhaps his willingness to share the work and rewards with his happy band of misfit machines points towards a more egalitarian view of a society structured for the sake of the many rather than the privileged few. Every episode of the programme passes comment on the society that Bob finds himself a part of, and his attempts to improve the way things are. Bob has a wide social vision, but whether he works to reinforce and prop up a crumbling world order, or to usher in a glorious new age remains unclear.
See the link above for the full text.
Prodigal’s been blogging a bit about desert spirituality over at: Prodigal Kiwi Blog: Another Desert Story.
The spirituality of the desert fathers and mothers has interested me since I was introduced to it in a Christian spirituality paper a few years ago. In one particular exercise our lecturer had pinned various sayings from them around the room (with each one having an image attached to them). For an hour or so we wandered from saying to saying until we found one we wanted to meditate upon and then sat or stood by that one.
I’ve also used their sayings when introducing people to different types of prayers. In a similar fashion I pinned a wide range of prayers around a large room and had people move about them reading and thinking about their content and style. Some desert sayings were included along with Kiwi psalms, various prayers from the NZ Prayer Book and other sources from around the world.
I often come back to the desert fathers and mothers. Just flicking through, seeing something, reading, thinking and then moving on. In some ways it’s a journey into an alien environment and in other ways it connects deeply. And it’s the short, pithy stories of real life and faith. This saying has always struck me from sayings about prayer.
Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and he said to him, “Abba, as far as I can, I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?” Then the old man stood up and streched his hands toward heaven; his fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, “If you will, you can become all flame.”
If you hunt on the net then there are various collections of sayings, information and images out there on desert spirituality. (Search with Yahoo rather than Google as the Google search seemed to index bookshops for the first 100 entries).
Pray, meditate, feed, rest.
I’m lecturing next week on the Christian hope for creation. (Specific title “Cosmic Eschatology”). It reminded me of this meditation that I’ve used before by Terry Falla that draws us back to God as creator and sustainer.
Alpha and OmegaBefore galaxies burned in empty night,
planets hurled through deepest space,
waves broke upon primeval shores,
volcanoes roared with molten rock;Before lightning split an angry sky,
glaciers cut through tortured steeps,
flowers danced in zephyr winds,
streams chattered by forest glades,You were already God.
And when in unimagined aeons
the earth ignites in flames of dying sun;
or missiles flash to cities doomed,
ash drifts, boughs break, unheard, unseen,You will still be God.
Christ risen, what futile, cold assurance,
if he were not our God! But Alpha, cosmic,
crucified, he comes in grace confounding:
Omega, Father, Saviour, Friend;Our Judge, our Breath, our Joy.
From: “Be Our Freedom, Lord.” by Terry C. Falla (p.42)
A good, thought provoking article in this week’s Listener by David Young on the lack of Pakaha ritual and spirituality in relation to the land. He argues that Pakeha may try to meet as equals in a bicultural setting but that they have lost the knowledge and practice of ritual that would allow them to contribute as participants rather than observers.
Have a read and a think about it: NZ Listener | A spiritual bypass by David Young
Hurricanes 37 bt. Crusaders 20
Still got that warm glow inside.
More of the glorious event at: tvnz.co.nz | SPORT | RUGBY | Hurricanes give Crusaders a fright
I’ve been reading (and reading) about different people’s models or descriptions of science-religion interaction over the past few months. In the last week I was following up some of Willem B. Drees’ work and came across this poetic creation story he wrote to introduce his book Creation: From Nothing Until Now. It ends like this,
In us
our heritage,
matter,
information,
and a box
full of stories.
Between
hope and fear
our neighbors
life
here on Earth,
between
hope and fear
the great project
of thought
and compassion
on a road
of freedom.
The full text is here: A creation story.
I like the idea of humans comprising, in part, stories.
Or more particularly the implications of gender for robot design and human-robot interaction: Robot Sex.
Must be Robot Week out there on the web.
Recent article on the use of robots for the care of the elderly. Early work so far, working on supporting those with failing memories, but I remember seeing a video of Pearl (the robot in question) last year and it looked promising.
Robot helps elderly with personal care.
Video clips available at CMU/Pitt Nursebot Project.
Doing some surfing around the science and religion web sites on the net and came across this recent article by Paul Davies posted at Metanexus: Metanexus Institute: Into the 21st Century.
It’s an interesting (and quite readable) opinion piece on science and religion interaction as we move into the next century. It’s worth a read if you’re interesting in this sort of thing (or even if you’re not).
Religion faces extraordinary challenges in the 21st century. Dazzling advances in science and technology have transformed our world view and produced dramatic changes in lifestyle and material wellbeing. But this enormous progress has left religion behind. Few theologians have kept up with the revolutionary developments at the forefront of astronomy, physics, molecular biology or genetics. Churches and other religious institutions seem ill-equipped to deal with the brave new world of big bang cosmology, quantum reality, genetic engineering and nanotechnology. As a result, many people see religion on the defensive against the onslaught of scientific progress. They think of science as undermining or displacing religion.
PhD supervision meeting postponed until next Monday and today I found someone who’d developed a model of technology/religion interaction that is similar (but subtly different) from the one I’ve been thinking about (i.e. trying to invent) for the past month or so.
A measure of God’s grace, perhaps.
Over in his new blog Tall Skinny Kiwi has posted about people borrowing Teilhard de Chardin’s concept of the noosphere - a global mind or interconnected consciousness or even soul - to visualise cyberspace. (See: RecycledSpam: Noosphere). It was interesting to see it crop up as I’ve just finished writing a paper that looks at how cyberspace technologists “borrow” religious concepts or language to inspire or describe what they are doing, and Teilhard crops up being cited by a variety of people from a variety of backgrounds.
Teilhard’s vision of the noosphere, from the Greek nous for �mind,� is seen as the materialization of a global consciousness, that results the earth being clothed in a �new skin� and even a soul. Its arrival is portrayed by Teilhard in The Phenomenon of Man in terms of fire,
A glow ripples outward from the first spark of conscious reflection. The point of ignition grows larger. The fire spreads in ever widening circles till finally the whole planet is covered with incandescence.
If you’re interested in that sort of thing then the following books and articles will give you some idea of how Teilhard (and others) crop up in cyberspace creators’ imaginations.
Cobb, Jennifer. A Globe, Clothing Itself with a Brain [Internet]. Wired Magazine, June 1995. Available from http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.06/teilhard_pr.html.
Cobb, Jennifer. Cybergrace : The Search for God in the Digital World. 1st ed. New York: Crown, 1998.
Davis, Erik. Techgnosis : Myth, Magic, Mysticism in the Age of Information. 1st ed. New York: Harmony Books, 1998. Reprint, London: Serpent’s Tail, 1999.
Wertheim, Margaret. The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Space from Dante to the Internet. New York: W.W. Norton, 1999. Reprint, London: Virago Press, 2000.
Most of these people have also published stuff on the net so have a search there as well.
Found this editorial the other day when looking for a reference to a paper in The Christian Century. It’s about a survey of what sort of pastors churches desire and what’s actually available.
Churches seeking a new pastor tend to want a man under 40, preferably married to a nonworking woman who volunteers on church committees. It’s a caricature, but only slightly so, says sociologist Adair Lummis, who is describing not congregations from the 1950s, but those today. This preference exists “even in those denominations which have ordained women to full ministerial status for 50 years or more,” according to her little-publicized nationwide study.
It’s an interesting, if somewhat depressing read. You can find the article at: Young, male and married: What search committees want.
I was flicking through the April edition of Third Way magazine yesterday in the library and was struck by Michael Symmons Robert’s poem Jairus. We are left to our own devices to imagine what Jairus and his family felt after their daughter is brought back to life by Jesus but this poem captures some of how it might have been.
Jairus
by Michael Symmons RobertsSo, God takes your child by the hand
and pulls her from her deathbed.
He says: “Feed her, she is ravenous.”You give her fruits with thick hides
– pomegranate, cantaloupe –
food with weight, to keep her here.
You can read the rest of the poem here at: Ploughshares: Jairus.
I was so struck by the poem that I did a search of the net to see if there were others out there by Roberts. Sure enough there were.
I like the incarnational, fleshly imagery.
I see there he written several books of poems. so I’ll be checking the libraries to see if they have any.
