White Diamond

This is very sweet (as long as the link works!)

"Fairytale" by Sara Bareilles

This is a classic song, though I certainly don't feel this way! (Not these days, anyway!)

Cinderella’s on her bedroom floor she’s got a
Crush on the guy at the liquor store
Cause Mr. Charming don’t come home anymore
And she forgets why she came here.
Sleeping Beauty’s in a foul mood for shame she says,
None for you dear prince, I’m tired today.
I’d rather sleep my whole life away than have you keep me from dreaming

CHORUS
’Cause I don’t care for your fairytales
You’re so worried 'bout the maiden though you know
She’s only waiting on the next best thing

Snow White is doing dishes again cause what else can you do
With seven itty-bitty men?
Sends them to bed and she calls up a friend, says will you meet me at midnight?
The tall blonde lets out a cry of despair says,
Would have cut it myself if I knew men could climb hair
I’ll have to find another tower somewhere and keep away from the windows.

CHORUS
’Cause I don’t care for your fairytales
You’re so worried 'bout the maiden though you know
She’s only waiting on the next best thing
Once upon a time in a faraway kingdom
Man made up a story said that I should believe him
Go and tell your white knight that he’s handsome in hindsight
But I don’t want the next best thing
So I sing and hold my head down and I break these walls 'round me
Can’t take no more of your fairytale love

CHORUS
’Cause I don’t care for your fairytales
You’re so worried 'bout the maiden though you know
She’s only waiting on the next best thing
I don’t care
I don’t care
You worry bout the maiden though you know
She’s only waiting spent her whole life being graded on the
Sanctity of patience and a dumb appreciation
But the story needs some mending and a better happy ending
’Cause I don’t want the next best thing
No, no I don’t want the next best thing.

Sew happy!

I've recently become addicted to craft blogs, and collecting projects to have fun with after the thesis. One particularly cool blog I stumbled across is Mix Tape Zine - "a collision of craft, eco-cool and pop culture kitsch!" Based in Melbourne, Justine and Nichola produce a fabulous-looking magazine filled with crafty tidbits. I'd love to subscribe, but I'm trying not to spend too much money these days.

Mix Tape just had a week of give-aways, and I was fortunate enough to win a book - check it out here! I can't wait to make soft toys for my gorgeous niece Anastasia!! Thanks Mix Tape!

Speaking of my gorgeous niece, I haven't seen her in AGES (can't wait for Christmas!) so I have to settle for photos sporadically put up on Flickr by my super talented brother. Here's a few recent favourites:

Awww... She looks so peaceful!

Holding hands with Hannah.

Flying baby!

Very cool!

From the newsletter of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion - Denis Alexander is the director:

Denis Alexander took part in a public debate on Intelligent Design (ID) in Fort Worth, Texas, attended by around 1000 people, discussing the topic (as a theist critical of ID) with an anti-ID atheist, a pro-ID atheist, and a pro-ID agnostic. A further 350 people came to a follow-up discussion with the four panel members the next day.

Page 56

Picked this game up from Bec, who picked it up from Gordo, who picked it up from Facebook.

Give it a go for yourself:

Rules:
* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence along with these instructions in a note to your wall/blog
* Don’t dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

Mine is:

"'The Ocean,' 'The Phoenix,' 'The Consort,' 'The Dolphin,' were passed in turns; but 'The Vivid' was my ship, and it seemed she lay further down."

From Villette by Charlotte Bronte - a book I've given up on once or twice, but I'm trying once more to get through it. I haven't yet reached the point I gave up last time (at least, I don't think I have), but I am enjoying it so far.

I thought about doing this twice earlier in the day (when I read Gordo's post and then when I read Bec's) but I didn't have any books close by. The bookshelves were the closest, and then I would have to choose one. I'm in bed now, and although there are two piles of books on my bedside table, Villette was the top book on the closest pile.

Natural Theology

You read it in the blue wind,
the blue water, the rock spill,
the blue hill

rising like a phoenix from ash. Some mind
makes itself known through the markings of light
on air; where earth rolls, right

comes after, our planet’s bright spoor… If you look, you’ll find
truth etched on the tree trunk,
the shark’s tooth, a shell, a hunk

of root and soil. Study from beginning to end.
Alpha and omega – these are the cirrus alphabet,
the Gnostics’ cloudy “so – and yet.”

If a tree falls in a forest, a scared hind
leaps, hearing branches break;
you crawl under the log and shake

honey out of a hollow, eggs from a nest, ants from the end
of a stick; resting, you read God’s name on the back of a bass
in a blue pool; God grows everywhere, like grass.

Kelly Cherry, Natural Theology, Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 1988, p. 36.

Weakness and Strength

In a moment of weakness this morning, I bought a white chocolate, fig and cranberry cookie at the Coffee Cart.

In a moment of strength, I gave it away to a friend.

Twirly skirt

This is an awesome skirt!

Status

Lara is:

• tired
• wishing she'd brought a cardigan today
• wondering just how ridiculous it is that she was at uni before 7am
• amazed that there's still no parking on High St before 7am
• desperate to finish her thesis
• frustrated that this desperation does not translate into energy and concentration
• starting week 3 of Lite n' Easy
• thinking she might have lost a tiny bit of weight
  
• going to get a coffee
  

Natural Theology by Rudyard Kipling

Primitive

I ate my fill of a whale that died
And stranded after a month at sea. . . .
There is a pain in my inside.
Why have the Gods afflicted me?
Ow! I am purged till I am a wraith!
Wow! I am sick till I cannot see!
What is the sense of Religion and Faith:
Look how the Gods have afflicted me!

Pagan

How can the skin of rat or mouse hold
Anything more than a harmless flea?. . .
The burning plague has taken my household.
Why have my Gods afflicted me?
All my kith and kin are deceased,
Though they were as good as good could be,
I will out and batter the family priest,
Because my Gods have afflicted me!


Medieval

My privy and well drain into each other
After the custom of Christendie. . . .
Fevers and fluxes are wasting my mother.
Why has the Lord afflicted me?
The Saints are helpless for all I offer--
So are the clergy I used to fee.
Henceforward I keep my cash in my coffer,
Because the Lord has afflicted me.


Material

I run eight hundred hens to the acre
They die by dozens mysteriously. . . .
I am more than doubtful concerning my Maker,
Why has the Lord afflicted me?
What a return for all my endeavour--
Not to mention the L. S. D!
I am an atheist now and for ever,
Because this God has afflicted me!


Progressive

Money spent on an Army or Fleet
Is homicidal lunacy. . . .
My son has been killed in the Mons retreat,
Why is the Lord afflicting me?
Why are murder, pillage and arson
And rape allowed by the Deity?
I will write to the Times, deriding our parson
Because my God has afflicted me.


Chorus

We had a kettle: we let it leak:
Our not repairing it made it worse.
We haven't had any tea for a week. . .
The bottom is out of the Universe!


Conclusion

This was none of the good Lord's pleasure,
For the Spirit He breathed in Man is free;
But what comes after is measure for measure,
And not a God that afflicteth thee.
As was the sowing so the reaping
Is now and evermore shall be.
Thou art delivered to thine own keeping.
Only Thyself hath afflicted thee!

HURRAH!

I'm going to see Kylie!

I'm so excited!

The concert is on December 17, and my thesis is due on December 15, so it will be a great way to celebrate!

I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!

1 week down...

Well, I've survived one whole week on Lite n' Easy. The food itself is not bad, but the portions are rather small. This morning for breakfast I had one small slice of toast with some cheesy creamed corn, plus a mandarin. And I just realised that the mandarin was supposed to be my morning snack. Oops.

I am on the lowest calorie plan (1200 calories per day), which explains why the portions are so small. I do add a few things in, though. You're allowed to have extra vegetables, and if you really need it, an extra piece of fruit and bread. I usually have a banana, a low-fat/low-sugar yoghurt and a Skinny Cow ice-cream block. Those are awesome - only 84 calories!

So, it's not easy, and I'm often hungry, but it's a lot better than Optifast! I haven't noticed any difference in my weight yet (although I don't weigh myself - just waiting to see if my clothes fit better), but I'm sure it will come. It would help if I was doing more exercise, but it's hard to find the energy sometimes!

Bias, Prejudice and Free-Thinking

Dr Peter Slezak, senior lecturer in history and philosophy of science at UNSW, has an interesting opinion piece in today's SMH.

I first took one of Peter's subjects in my first year at uni. I remember talking to a Christian friend about the subjects I was studying, and when he heard I was taking "Science: Good, Bad & Bogus" he told me that Peter Slezak was really "anti-Christian." This got me worried, but I shouldn't have been. Sure, Peter is a staunch atheist who has no time for unintellectual views, but we actually got along very well. Sure, he'd poke fun of beliefs he thought were stupid, but he was always quite happy for students to stand up and disagree with him, as long as they produced a decent argument.

In total, I took five subjects with Peter as an undergraduate - I like to call that a minor in Slezak Studies! His "efforts at brainwashing" failed, however. I'm still a Christian, and even after 3 years of anti-SSK messages, I've become somewhat sympathetic to a sociological view of scientific knowledge. I think Peter is more disappointed about the latter...

I think it's of crucial importance that academics are allowed freedom of thought and expression in universities. I think all students should have their beliefs challenged, no matter what they are. Universities should be places where students learn to think critically, and to question everything. The great thing about Peter's classes is that he wasn't really trying to brainwash his students with his point of view - he was trying to get students to think. Bias and prejudice are unavoidable - everything is always taught from some kind of perspective - but as long as students are being marked on their ability to think and argue critically, rather than on their adherence to a party line, what is the problem?

God said go forth, multiply - but have fun, too!

It's awesome to see articles like this in the mainstream media!

This is me on a diet

But not this time! Day 6 of Lite n' Easy, and I'm doing pretty well! I feel a bit sorry for my husband and my mum, the ones who hear me whinge the most about how hungry I am!

I love electronic journals!

Currently revising chapter 2 of my thesis. I have a section on natural theology in the Bible, including some discussion of Romans 1:19-20. I'd commented that whatever Paul's intention in these verses, later theologians had interpreted these verses to favour the pursuit of natural theology. I'd left a note to myself asking "which theologians?" Google "natural theology" + Romans. First hit - an article titled "Natural Theology in Paul? Reading Romans 1:19-20" in the International Journal of Systematic Theology. Fortunately, the UNSW library has an electronic subscription. So I can get the article without even leaving my desk. Well, except for walking a few metres to the printer (I printed double sided, of course!)

SCORE!

In other news, I'm on day 3 of my Lite n' Easy diet. I've already eaten my breakfast and morning snack, and I'm HUNGRY!

Vicious cycle

Today, I was trying to finish the final draft of chapter 1. I was determined to stay at uni until it was ready to send off to my supervisors. It's not done. I'm going home. Oh well.

There are two sections that still need major work, and a few smaller points to deal with. I don't ever seem to finish a whole draft in one go. Whenever I send it to my supervisor for feedback, there are always notes to myself in the margin (love the "Comment" feature in Word!) on parts that still need more work or questions that I still need to answer. And then my supervisor adds more comments (he loves Track Changes!), some of which get dealt with as soon as I get the revised version back, but others have been waiting around for a year or more.

While I was working on one section today (criticisms of the "Jacob thesis" concerning the "Anglican origins of modern science," in case you're interested), I came across an old loan slip in one of the books I was using. It seems I borrowed the book on May 6, 2005, and most likely, that wasn't the first time. It reminded me of how long I have been working on this thesis - the number of times I've borrowed particular books and still not finished using them - the way I've gone over, and over, and over these chapter drafts, and they're still not done - the amount of time I've spent on this thesis (nearly 5 years), though it still feels like a last-minute job - and the fact that I'm supposed to submit the thesis on December 15, but there's still so much work to do!

AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGG
GGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(In case you were wondering, as I'm sure you all were, the book in question was Larry Stewart, The Rise of Public Science: Rhetoric, Technology, and Natural Philosophy in Newtonian Britain, 1660-1750, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992.)

Ouch!

From a review of Margaret C. Jacob's The Newtonians and the English Revolution, 1679-1720 (1976):

It would not be unfair to add that both vigour and tenacity are manifest in the continual reiteration of salient points: something for which undergraduates will be grateful, though more sophisticated readers may be frequently conscious of a numbing effect, not unlike that produced by close proximity to a pneumatic drill.

- Geoffrey Holmes, "Science, Reason, and Religion in the Age of Newton," BJHS 11 (1978), 167.

Visualising the Bible

This image received an honourable mention in the National Geographic's Best Science Images of 2008 competition.

A colorful rainbow brings to light the interconnected nature of one of the world's most familiar books.

The Bible's 1,189 chapters are plotted along the horizontal axis at the bottom of the image, with each bar's length determined by the number of verses.

The arcs above the graph show the 63,779 cross-references between each chapter.

"It almost looks like one monolithic volume," said Carnegie Mellon's Chris Harrison, who--along with Christoph Romhild of North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hamburg, Germany--won an honorable mention for illustrations in the 2008 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge.

—Image courtesy Chris Harrison, Carnegie Mellon University; Christoph Romhild, North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church/Science (and National Geographic).

And from here:

This diagram arose from a collaboration between a Carnegie-Mellon Ph.D student and a Lutheran pastor to create a grand map of Biblical cross-references: "We wanted something that honored and revealed the complexity of the data at every level –- as one leans in, smaller details should become visible. This ultimately led us to the multi-colored arc diagram... The bar graph that runs along the bottom represents all of the chapters in the Bible. Books alternate in color between white and light gray. The length of each bar denotes the number of verses in the chapter. Each of the 63,779 cross references found in the Bible is depicted by a single arc - the color corresponds to the distance between the two chapters, creating a rainbow-like effect."

I think it's pretty, and original, and I would have wondered if it might have won, if not for the religious theme, until I saw the one that did receive first place in the illustrations category:

"Zoom Into the Human Bloodstream"

Deft manipulation of perspective gives viewers a detailed look inside the human circulatory system.

The relationship between a tiny oxygen atom and the giant organ of the heart was accomplished with a common painting technique that fits many scales into a single picture, according to Jennifer Frazier of San Francisco's Exploratorium.

The unusual view won artist Linda Nye first place in the illustration category of the 2008 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge.

—Image courtesy Linda Nye and the Exploratorium Visualization Laboratory; The Exploratorium/Science (and National Geographic).

That's awesome!

Still, I think the first one is a nice mix of science and religion!

Colouring in for adults?

I've sometimes thought it a shame that colouring-in is considered a kids' activity. I can't draw, but I have a beautiful set of Derwent pencils. What am I to do with them?

Maybe I could use this:

peer is one big ol' collaboration of 25 of the most exciting working artists that I know of. each artist drew a self portrait for you to color, so you're actually finishing the piece!

Each print is 8 x 8" on an 8 1/2" x 8 1/2" page, with easy removal for framing. With the incredible artists involved, you might just want to keep it in book form on your coffee table.

There's even a Flickr group for people to post their finished products. Very cool indeed.

Anxiety and the Grace of God

When I first started reading the web comic Piled High and Deeper (PHD), I was amazed by how much it reflected my life as a PhD student. It was such a comfort to know that I wasn't alone!

This most recent comic particularly resonated with me. I have a tendency to be quite an anxious person. If I have a huge amount of work to do, I'm likely to stress about it to the point where I can't actually do any of it! I'll be absolutely exhausted, but I'll lie awake in bed stressing instead of sleeping. It's so incredibly frustrating. I know that the only way I'm going to get any of the work done at all is to get some sleep, but my mind just won't let me. It has to continue worrying! Very, very frustrating.

My struggles with anxiety are not as bad as they have been in the past, but as I'm coming to the end of my PhD, and the amount of work left seems too much for the amount of time left, I do stress out a bit. There are times when I just don't seem to have the energy to do any work at all, and that's very frustrating when I know (a) how much work I have to get done, and (b) how much I want to get this whole PhD thing over and done with! Sometimes it makes me wonder whether I am cut out for the academic life at all.

I've been reading through John Piper's excellent book Future Grace lately, and I've been greatly encouraged and challenged about my anxiety. (I was also challenged by a fantastic sermon at church last week, on Philippians 4, where the preacher said that we can't be constant pray-ers and constant worriers). Piper's book is about trusting the grace of God to come, not just living in the light of the grace that God has already shown us. Scattered through the book are chapters dealing with different "problems" that we all face, and showing how this idea of Future Grace helps us to deal with them. Fortunately for me, the first of these is anxiety!

Piper writes that the root cause of anxiety is unbelief in God's future grace. By this, he is not meaning to blame anxious people for their feelings, or make them feel even worse about what they are experiencing. Instead, he points out that knowing the fundamental cause of the anxiety can help us deal with it. One possible response he considers is the person who says "I have to deal with feelings of anxiety almost every day; and so I feel like my faith in God's grace must be totally inadequate. So I wonder if I can have any assurance of being saved at all." Piper responds with an awesome illustration:

Suppose you are in a car race and your enemy, who doesn't want you to finish the race, throws mud on your windshield. The fact that you temporarily lose sight of your goal and start to swerve, does not mean that you are going to quit the race. And it certainly doesn't mean that you are on the wrong race track. Otherwise the enemy wouldn't bother you at all. What it means is that you should turn on your windshield wipers and use your windshield washer.

When anxiety strikes and blurs our vision of God's glory and the greatness of the future that he plans for us, this does not mean that we are faithless, or that we will not make it to heaven. It means our faith is being attacked. At first blow, our belief in God's promises may sputter and swerve. But whether we stay on track and make it to the finish line depends on whether, by grace, we set in motion a process of resistance - whether we fight back against the unbelief of anxiety.

(John Piper, Future Grace, Multnomah, Oregon, 1995, pp. 55-56)

I know that John Piper is talking about assurance of salvation here, but I found this illustration encouraging with regard to my PhD. I've been working on my PhD for nearly 5 years, which is way too long, and my deadline of December 15 is looking dicey. However, the fact that I'm struggling with it doesn't necessarily mean that I shouldn't be doing it, or that I'm just not cut out for academic life. Maybe it does, but if that were the case, surely my supervisor would have picked up on that by now? After all, he's an intelligent man, and a widely-respected academic. If I was absolutely hopeless, he would not speak so highly of me, nor would he be so encouraging.

(This is connected with the so-called Impostor Syndrome, where you think that it's only a matter of time until people find out that you really have no idea what you're doing, and that you've just been fooling everyone into thinking that you're capable. Apparently this is very common among academics, but one of my supervisors once told me that it's the people who don't think that they are impostors who really are!)

So, where does all this leave me? I still struggle with anxiety and feelings of self-doubt, but I'm trying to put it all in God's hands and trust in his purposes. If finishing my PhD by December 15 is part of his plan for me, I believe that he will help me to accomplish this. If he has called me to serve him as an academic, he will help me get there in the end. That doesn't mean it will be easy, but "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength."

Skweekettes are gonna be happy!

I'm so excited! My very clever husband found a site where we can play Skweek online! Skweek is an arcade game that I had for our Amiga back in the day. I just have to discipline myself not to play it when I'm supposed to be working on the thesis...

God made wine to make us feel better

Psalm 104:14-15 - You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man’s heart.

See Lionel's post on The Sola Panel: What's wrong with drunkenness?

Photo from Mister Tim's Photostream on Flickr.

What does the Bible really say...

...about the end of the wicked? Try this Hell Quiz. And check out this post on Doug's blog.

Unmentionables

These are almost as good as Happy Bunny!

Conversations

I don't know how to say this
I don't know how to stand
I don't know where to put my feet
Or where to put my hands

I've got them in my pockets
My fingers are freezing cold
They're wrapped around a ticket stub
That's four weeks old
And I don't know how to say this

I think we've figured out
This world is bigger than you and I
We've exhausted our wealth of knowledge
And have no more answers for mankind

We've had every conversation in the world
About what is right and what has all gone bad
But have I mentioned to you that this is all I am
This is all that I have

I'm not trying to judge you
That's not my job
I am just a seeker too
In search of God

Somewhere somehow this subject became taboo
I have no other way to communicate to you
This is all that I am
This is all that I have

We've had every conversation in the world
About what is right and what has all gone bad
But have I mentioned to you that this is all I am
This is all that I have

I would like to share with you
What makes me complete.
I don't claim to have found the Truth
But I know it has found me

The only thing that isn't meaningless to me
Is Jesus Christ and and way he set me free
This is all that I have
This is all that I am

- Sara Groves

Faraday Institute now on YouTube

Click here.

In other news:

Those in the Birmingham UK area might be interested to know that on Saturday, 27th September, at 4.0 p.m. in the George Hotel, Lichfield, the Institute Director (Professor Denis Alexander) will be in debate with Prof. Steve Fuller (Prof. of Sociology at Warwick University) at the Lichfield Literary Festival on the subject of Intelligent Design. This is a somewhat counterintuitive debate in that Prof. Fuller, an agnostic, is an ID supporter whereas the Director, a theist, is a critic of ID. Hopefully the exchange of views will clarify rather than further obfuscate a topic perennially surrounded by a thick fog of confusion.

I wish I lived in England!

Anastasia Grace

On the weekend, Matt and I finally made it down to Canberra to catch up with Tim and Tegan and to meet our gorgeous new niece, Anastasia. I've only started to become clucky in the last few years, but for now, I'm definitely happy to just be an aunt! I enjoyed cuddling Anastasia and changing her clothes twice (I left the nappies to Tim and Tegan!), but it's good to give her back when she starts screaming! Well, I guess I can't really give her what she wants in that situation anyway...



She's such a sweet little baby - very snuggly. She takes her sleep very seriously, and it can be difficult to wake her up for a feed! Even though she's hungry and makes little sucking motions with her mouth, she just doesn't seem to want to wake up the whole way!






It's lovely to watch my big brother Tim with his little daughter. He and Tegan both seem to be adjusting very well to parenthood! It's amazing how well they're doing on so little sleep.


It was also lovely to see Matt with Anastasia. She's so tiny in comparison to him!




I can't wait to get down to Canberra again! It's such a shame that it's a 3 hour drive and petrol is so expensive. I want to watch my little niece grow!

My new niece

Anastasia - 12 hours old
Originally uploaded by Mister Tim

Isn't she beautiful? This is Anastasia Grace, born last night to my brother Tim and my lovely sister-in-law Tegan.

Matt and I are very excited to be an uncle and aunt for the first time, and we can't wait to meet this gorgeous new addition to our family.

Congratulations Tim and Tegan, and welcome to the world Anastasia!

Vital stats:

3.895kg (8.6 pounds), 51cm long, head circumference of 36cm.

More JAS Classics

From another meeting with my supervisor:

People are dumb... You're going to meet a lot of people who heave their heads up their bums, pardon the expression, about historiography.

There's more to natural philosophy than meets the actor's eye.

The idea is that it's not just the ideas.

There be Jesuits there! I shouldn't go there if I were you!

It's so "yesterday" to think about mathematical sciences. Like there would have been a modern world if there hadn't been any mathematical sciences and scientific revolution, if it had all been natural history. For Christ's sake. It's just they don't know anything. They don't want to.

Opinions and arguments

Update: My letter was published! Here's what my supervisor had to say about one of the correspondents:

I think that [he] may have been (maybe still is) an ultra green goon who used to be tied up with the STS (Science and Technology Studies) criminals and leftwing ratbags at Wollongong.

Hmm...

---

John Lennox, an Oxford mathematician and philosopher of science, is currently in Sydney making several appearances for the Centre for Public Christianity, EU and National Science Week. I've met him once at a conference, where he was supporting Intelligent Design in the midst of an unfriendly audience (in a fairly theoretical, speculative, "let's just think about this" kind of way), and he seems a nice and very interesting guy. I don't agree with everything he says (I'm not terribly sympathetic to Intelligent Design) but I thought his opinion piece in yesterday's SMH was spot on.

I was not so keen on the responses today from Vic Stenger and Paul Gittings, so I wrote a couple of letters to the editor. They probably won't get published, so I'll post them here instead, in the tradition of Andrew's Daily Vowel Movements.

The first is a response to Vic Stenger's opinion piece, "Science demands that seeing is believing."

Vic Stenger (“Science demands that seeing is believing”, August 19) claims that science can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that God doesn’t exist, and yet also states that science cannot be used to answer purely metaphysical questions. He argues that if God exists, evidence of his intervention in creation should be seen in our study of the natural world. However, a scientist and philosopher such as Stenger should be aware of the principle of underdetermination. For any evidence we collect about nature, we can develop multiple theories to explain it. Scientific data cannot necessarily decide between theories – these decisions are based on other criteria, such as simplicity, elegance and coherence. As John Lennox (“Why not every scientist worships at Darwin’s feet”, August 18) pointed out, scientific evidence alone cannot adjudicate between naturalism and theism. For a theist, science involves understanding the world and the processes by which God created. But the belief in God comes from outside science, and so does an assumption that there is no God.

The second is in response to Paul Gitting's letter about John Lennox.

Paul Gittings (Letters, August 19) writes that theism says “I don’t know, I don’t want to understand, I just want to be happy in my irrational beliefs.” Can he really believe this of an Oxford professor of mathematics and philosophy of science?

It really seemed to me that both Stenger and Gittings just weren't getting what Lennox was saying. Nowhere in the opinion piece did Lennox come out in support of Intelligent Design, nor did he promote any kind of "god of the gaps" theory. He wasn't arguing that positing God as creator solves any problems currently unresolved by science. Rather, he pointed out that, as an underlying assumption about the world, theism (assuming an intelligent creator) is no more faith-based than naturalism (assuming that everything in the universe came about by purely natural means).

Update: I received an email to say that my letter had been shortlisted for publication in tomorrow's Herald. Just don't know which one...

The War on Terror

Our lovely sister Lynley bought us the War on Terror board game as an engagement present earlier this year. I'm very happy to say that the last time we played, despite Matt turning terrorist and attempting to wipe out all that was good and democratic in the world, my pink empire prevailed and I won the game. I'm not usually all that competitive, but I'm still really stoked about winning - I'm not usually good at strategy games, and given that this game is like a cross between Risk and Settlers of Catan, I surprised myself!

Anyway, it's quite a fun game but apparently not as innocent as I had thought...

The wonderful boys in blue of the Kent constabulary decided to confiscate three copies of War on Terror from activists at this year's Climate Camp at Kingsnorth Power Station. Apparently the EVIL balaclava could be used to commit criminal acts... It's official, our board game is dangerous. Lots of journalist types decided to write about our game getting confiscated rather than the impending doom that is climate chaos and our government's inability to do shit all about it.

Read more here.



This is a photo of Matt in the "evil balaclava" taken the first time we played the game by my brother Tim, a very talented photographer.

A Mere Christian

I currently attend an Anglican church, but I would not call myself an Anglican. I used to attend a Baptist church, and I was baptised, by full immersion, as a believer, at age 12, but I would not call myself a Baptist.

I am a Christian, a Mere Christian, of no other Religion; and the Church that I am of is the Christian Church… But must you know what Sect or Party I am of? I am against all Sects and dividing Parties…

- Richard Baxter, Church History of the Government of Bishops, 1680

The Omnivore's Hundred

From Laura's blog.

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating (I italicised - couldn't figure out strike-through on blogger!)
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin (Clay?)
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant (Well, an SMH hatted restaurant.)
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Aldridge

Continuing on from yesterday's post about changing my name...

My supervisor was also commenting that "Aldridge" sounded very American upper class - "The Aldridges of Boston" or something like that. He thought it might have been a Mayflower name, but after a quick Google search, I can't find any evidence of that.

However, Aldridge is a town in England, which Matt and I visited while we were over there. We were hoping to get a photo of the newest Aldridge in front of a nice "Welcome to Aldridge" sign, but we couldn't find one. We asked at a shop, and apparently touched on a sore point - the shop keeper was just reading over the minutes of a council meeting about trying to get such a sign!



Interestingly, Aldridge is in Walsall, which is where my grandfather was from. So, in becoming an Aldridge by marriage, I've really just returned to my roots!



Update: I think my supervisor was confusing "Aldridge" with "Alden" - John Alden was a character in a poem called The Courtship of Miles Standish. He mentioned this story, and the possibility that there was a John Aldridge involved, but sadly it was John Alden.

Hilarious!

I wonder if I can work an excuse like this into my review next week?

The last time I studied Malebranche’s Reserche de la Verite was back in the mid-sixties. I was mistakenly given credit for French competence as my dissertation topic was Duhem, but I never managed to find the building where the course on non-fiction French was held. The only English translation of Malebranche back then was the seventeenth century one. At UT Austin it was kept in the rare book room at the top (26th) of the library. While dutifully studying it I heard a drum beat and looking out the window I saw a procession far below carrying a coffin. I went down to find out what was going on. It turned out to be an anti-war demonstration, which I joined and never went back. Well, not quite. In August 1966 I planned to return, but a friend (who, being a native Texan, took assassinations and mass murders in stride as an everyday thing in those days) casually told me I probably should delay my visit, as about 50 people had been shot and a score had been killed. This was the famous Texas Tower Sniper, and the library was closed off after he was killed above the 26th floor. That’s my excuse for not grasping Malebranche in graduate school.

as well as I should have.

Long time, no post

Before I can post a real post, I figure I should at least make a brief comment about the fact that I've been gone so long. Wedding, honeymoon, conferences, settling into married life... It's been an insanely crazy couple of months.

Strangely enough, I post more when I'm working harder on my PhD, so perhaps now that I'm starting to get back into the swing of things, I'll post here more regularly...

I'm loving Garage Hymnal

In other news, I'm getting married in 6 days!!

The Bangles rock!

And that's all I have to say about that.

Except...

I'm getting married in 10 days!!!

This is an awesome poem!

Why Are Fire Engines Red?

They have four wheels and eight men;
four plus eight is twelve;
twelve inches make a ruler;
a ruler is Queen Elizabeth;
Queen Elizabeth sails the seven seas;
the seven seas have fish;
the fish have fins;
the Finns hate the Russians;
the Russians are red;
fire engines are always rushin';
so they're red.

H/t Robert Velarde at A Reasonable Imagination.

In other news, I'm getting married in 24 days!!

The editors of the NIV are not men!

Want to know what's wrong with America? Check out this video...

Totally random video

Complementarity without hierarchy

A very interesting blog.

5 weeks to go!

Or 35 days.

Either way, it's getting scary. It's both a very long and a very short period of time!

Evil?

This is the man that I'm going to marry:


The "evil balaclava" is from the hilarious War on Terror board game given to us by my lovely sister-in-law-to-be, Lynley.

Submission

In preparation for our impending marriage (44 days to go!), Matt and I have talked quite a lot about what we think headship and submission mean in a Christian marriage. Believe it or not, for those who think I'm a raving feminist, we will be having a reading from Ephesians at the wedding, and a sermon that will address this topic.

I'm not going to go into a lot of detail now about what we think about submission and headship - I'll need more time for that than I currently have - but I'd like to share one thought that we received from Tim MacBride (preacher and musician extraordinaire, and associate pastor at my church). He said that if there are gender roles in marriage (he's not entirely convinced of the headship/submission distinction) it's not about who takes leadership or responsibility, or who gets to make the decisions. It's about who gets to be the bigger servant.

I think this is kind of reflected in the most common argument that Matt and I have. We're generally pretty good with arguments - we don't have too many. We've occasionally conflicted over big issues, but have always managed to sort things out. The issues we disagree over most, and generally refuse to compromise, are ones that don't matter at all. But this exchange, in the comments on this post and quoted below, is our most common argument:

chindogu said... My Fiancee is cooler!

lara said... Nuh uh! Mine is so much cooler!

chindogu said... I think not. Yours is cool, but mine is definatly cooler!

lara said... Nuh uh! Mine is definitely the cooler fiance!

chindogu said... I demand that you submit to my headship! My Fiancee is cooler!

lara said... OK!

It's the only time Matt would ever demand that I submit, and the only time that I would submit to such a demand!

And yes, I know, it's sickeningly sweet. We're kind of like that at the moment...

Don't sneeze on ducks!

I'm preparing for my classes today, doing a reading about flu epidemics. The author is talking about how viruses can mutate and pass between species, and makes this classic comment:

Many scientists now recommend that people not sneeze on ducks unless they are intent on making a new strain of flu.

Achoo!

45 days to go!

Hurrah!

I could write about all the things that we've still got to do, but that would waste the time I should be spending on actually doing the things! So, I'll just say this:

I can't wait to be married to the most wonderful man I've ever known! I love my fiance!!

Freezing!

When I got to uni this morning I noticed two things:

1. It's quieter than usual in the FASS

2. It's a lot colder than usual in the FASS.

It took me about 5 minutes before I put 1 and 2 together and got 3:

3. The air conditioning is not on.

I'm freezing!

On Speed

A recent release from New York University Press. I bought it today for one reason, and one reason alone - I got a mention in the acknowledgments!!

"The research assistance of [Lara] was most helpful in completing the work."

It's not much, but it's still exciting!

And ok, there was another reason I bought the book. The research I did (little though it was) was actually very interesting - looking at studies on the use of amphetamines in the military. And while I was fixing up the references, the bits I got to skim looked interesting too. I'm not sure I'll actually get a chance to read it in the near future, but that's never stopped me buying a book before!

2 months to go!

Very exciting indeed!

I need help!

This is a bizarre website!

Why???

I tutor an online subject on Science and Religion, and I always seem to get the most hyperactive groups. Compare the number of messages posted in each group so far. Mine are groups 4 and 5, in purple below:

Tute 1 140 Messages

Tute 2 64 Messages

Tute 3 99 Messages

Tute 4 348 Messages

Tute 5 239 Messages

Tute 6 94 Messages

Tute 7 104 Messages

Tute 8 172 Messages

This is just ridiculous! Tutors should get paid by the message instead of a flat rate per week!

Science and religion - friends?

One of the students in my Science and Religion class posted this excerpt from an episode of Friends. It's classic!

PHOEBE: You know, there're a lot of things that I don't believe in, but that doesn't mean they're not true.

JOEY: Such as?

PHOEBE: Like crop circles, or the Bermuda triangle, or evolution?

ROSS: Whoa, whoa, whoa. What, you don't, uh, you don't believe in evolution?

PHOEBE: Nah. Not really.

ROSS: You don't believe in evolution?

PHOEBE: I don't know, it's just, you know...monkeys, Darwin, you know, it's a, it's a nice story, I just think it's a little too easy.

ROSS: Too easy? Too...The process of every living thing on this planet evolving over millions of years from single-celled organisms, too easy?

PHOEBE: Yeah, I just don't buy it.

ROSS: Uh, excuse me. Evolution is not for you to buy, Phoebe. Evolution is scientific fact, like, like, like the air we breathe, like gravity.

PHOEBE: Ok, don't get me started on gravity.

ROSS: You uh, you don't believe in gravity?

PHOEBE: Well, it's not so much that you know, like I don't believe in it, you know, it's just...I don't know, lately I get the feeling that I'm not so much being pulled down as I am being pushed.

ROSS: How can you not believe in evolution?

PHOEBE: Just don't. Look at this funky shirt!

ROSS: Pheebs, I have studied evolution my entire adult life. Ok, I can tell you, we have collected fossils from all over the world that actually show the evolution of different species, ok? You can literally see them evolving through time.

PHOEBE: Really? You can actually see it?

ROSS: You bet. In the U.S., China, Africa, all over.

PHOEBE: See, I didn't know that.

ROSS: Well, there you go.

PHOEBE: Huh. So now, the real question is, who put those fossils there, and why?

ROSS: Ok, Pheebs. See how I'm making these little toys move? Opposable thumbs. Without evolution, how do you explain opposable thumbs?

PHOEBE: Maybe the overlords needed them to steer their spacecrafts.

ROSS: Please tell me you're joking.

PHOEBE: Look, can't we just say that you believe in something, and I don't.

ROSS: No, no, Pheebs, we can't, ok, because--

PHOEBE: What is this obsessive need you have to make everyone agree with you? No, what's that all about? I think, I think maybe it's time you put Ross under the microscope.

ROSS: Ok, Phoebe, this is it. In this briefcase I carry actual scientific facts. A briefcase of facts, if you will. Some of these fossils are over 200 million years old.

PHOEBE: Ok, look, before you even start, I'm not denying evolution, ok, I'm just saying that it's one of the possibilities.

ROSS: It's the only possibility, Phoebe.

PHOEBE: Ok, Ross, could you just open your mind like this much, ok? Wasn't there a time when the brightest minds in the world believed that the world was flat? And, up until like what, 50 years ago, you all thought the atom was the smallest thing, until you split it open, and this like, whole mess of crap came out. Now, are you telling me that you are so unbelievably arrogant that you can't admit that there's a teeny tiny possibility that you could be wrong about this?

ROSS: There might be, a teeny, tiny, possibility.

PHOEBE: I can't believe you caved.

ROSS: What?

PHOEBE: You just abandoned your whole belief system. I mean, before, I didn't agree with you, but at least I respected you. How, how, how are you going to go into work tomorrow? How, how are you going to face the other science guys? How, how are you going to face yourself? Oh! That was fun. So who's hungry?

75 days to go!

I had a friend tell me I couldn't count down by the day until there were only 30 days to go - she simply wouldn't allow it. Good thing I don't care what does and does not allow!

I think I'll post every five days now. It's getting close, but not close enough! I just can't wait to be married!

Matt and I are going to count down the rest of the days until our wedding by reading through the Psalms, two a day. I'll try to post some thoughts on here, if I get a chance.

Wedding preparations are going quite well (though I can't say the same for my thesis...) The main thing at the moment is finding somewhere to live. We've had two applications to rent units knocked back so far, and we're waiting to hear about another. I'm going to check out a few places in Miranda and Caringbah tomorrow. It's good that I have flexible working hours so I can do these things during the day! It must be so hard for couples who both work 9-5.

Revelation - A Preview

A preview of my church's upcoming series on Revelation.



The main guy speaking is Tim MacBride, our associate pastor. The one who comes in to tell him to clean up the car park is Ange, the senior pastor. Christian, who Tim calls on the phone with a "ministry opportunity" is our (relatively) new student pastor. The girl who comes in at the end is Hayley, who works in the office one day a week.

80 days to go!

Very exciting indeed!

CPX

The Centre for Public Christianity website has launched.

Check it out!

5 songs I'm loving at the moment

1. Sweet About Me, by Gabriella Cilmi
2. Mercy, by Duffy
3. Saving my Face, by KT Tunstall
4. Untouched, by the Veronicas
5. Hot, by Avril Lavigne


Go ahead. Mock my taste!

For geeks with money?

Click here.

The Hermeneutics Quiz

Click here.

I scored 54, which makes me a moderate, albeit on the conservative end of the scale.

Oops

I missed the "90 days to go" milestone. That was yesterday. Now it's only 89 days to go!

I'm in a bad mood today. I got an email from my supervisor yesterday with comments on my draft of chapter 5 and the news that I have to rethink a lot of the way the second half of my thesis is structured and rationalised. Not good. At the moment, I'm feeling completely defeated by my thesis.

Why can't we just elope now and I'll finish the thesis later?!

The Seven Habits of Highly Testy Philosophers

Click here.

Three months to go!

OK, now this is just getting scary! I can't wait to get married to my wonderful fiance, but when I think about all the stuff that I have to get done by then, I freak out a little. OK, I freak out a lot. Pulling my hair out and moaning is usually involved. Here's a snapshot of what needs to be done:

• Finish PhD (by June 1, otherwise Matt says the wedding is off!)
• It's hard to estimate the percentage completed, but I've got one chapter in nearly final form, two chapters getting close to that, and three chapters that still need a lot of work. Plus the conclusion and introduction. And formatting and referencing.
• 11 weeks of teaching
• I'm teaching three subjects this session. I've got three face-to-face hours of teaching per week (two for history of medicine, one for the scientific revolution) and two online groups for science and religion
• Beyond preparing for and facilitating tutorial discussions, there's all the marking. I get out of the take-home exam for one subject because it's due while I'm on the honeymoon (!), and fortunately I have a whole week to mark all the science and religion journals before the wedding.
• Wedding planning
• Wedding cars
• Hair and make-up (i.e. find someone to do it on the day)
• Dress fittings for me and the bridesmaids
  
• Decide on vows, sermon, readings etc.
• Finalise music and ask musicians
• Decide on stuff for the reception - will there be dancing, what kind of music etc.
• Make and send invitations
• Order bonbonniere, make place cards
• Decide on flowers - I went to see the florist on Monday night, but I had a migraine, so it was a bit difficult to make decisions
• Gift registry
• Probably other things that I can't think of right now
  
• We still need to find somewhere to live.
  
• We put in an application yesterday for a unit that would have been perfect, but we missed out. Oh well. That would have been just too easy! Now it's back to the drawing board...
  

Overall, we're doing quite well with the wedding stuff. We've finished our marriage preparation course with Matt's minister, and that was very interesting and helpful. A lot of things have been done, and I know we'll get there in the end. Actually, it's probably the PhD that's stressing me out the most at the moment.

Still, only three months until I get to marry the most wonderful man in the world! Hurrah!

An interesting discussion thread

Interesting.

What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan You are an evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition. You believe that God's grace enables you to choose to believe in him, even though you yourself are totally depraved. The gift of the Holy Spirit gives you assurance of your salvation, and he also enables you to live the life of obedience to which God has called us. You are influenced heavly by John Wesley and the Methodists. Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 79% Neo orthodox 64% Emergent/Postmodern 61% Reformed Evangelical 50% Classical Liberal 25% Roman Catholic 25% Fundamentalist 21% Charismatic/Pentecostal 14% Modern Liberal 4%

Overloaded

I think I have taken on way too much teaching this session. One of my subjects is an online Science and Religion course. I've tutored it a number of times now, and once again I seem to have been stuck with the hyperactive students who post more than all the other groups put together!

OK, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but last session both my groups posted twice as many times as the next most prolific group. And they weren't just short, nonsense posts either - they had some really good things to say! So I guess I can't complain too much...

One really amazing thing: for the first time someone has suggested rules/guidelines for making sure the discussion doesn't get out of hand. A brilliant idea - it's a controversial topic, people are passionate about their own views, and being online, people seem to feel that they have more freedom to be rude than they would be in person, and comments are open to much more misinterpretation. I've seen some nasty exchanges in the past - I hope this session is different.

Happy International Women's Day!

Click here for more information.

Getting my hopes up

Received this email this morning:

Dear Amazon.com Customer,

We've noticed that customers who have purchased or rated Cambridge Platonist Spirituality (Classics of Western Spirituality) by Charles Taliaferro have also purchased The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context: Politics, Metaphysics and Religion (International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives internationales d'histoire des idées) by G.A. Rogers. For this reason, you might like to know that The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context: Politics, Metaphysics and Religion (International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives internationales d'histoire des idées) is now available. You can order yours for just $230.00 by following the link below.

The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context: Politics, Metaphysics and Religion (International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives internationales d'histoire des idées)
G.A. Rogers
Price: $230.00

Just $230? And I was getting all excited when I saw "Cambridge Platonists" in the subject line of an email from Amazon...

100 days to go!

WOOHOO!

You might have noticed the countdown timer to the right - courtesy of my pet nerd!

A Woman's World

This sounds like a fascinating book.

Perhaps I'll buy a copy when classes start and I'm earning money again!

Darn. I just looked at a blurb for the book on Amazon, and I think it gave away the big twist! Grr.

I'm an oxymoron

Apparently I'm a "Christian" Feminist, and that means I'm an oxymoron. This post is a response to my earlier comments on "gender-specific education."

To be clear this has nothing to do with how smart or capable a woman is and it has everything to do with God’s order for society. Lara, is a PhD student so I’m fairly certain God blessed her with an articulate tongue and a quick wit, as evidenced in her writings. I happen to think my wife is brilliant. God has given her the ability to think and to write and to be a blessing to those around her. These gifting are not lost because she submits to her husband, rather they are enhanced.

I've been doing a lot of reading about submission in marriage because I'm getting married soon, and I want to be clear on what the Bible says about the roles of the husband and wife in a marriage, and how to live that out in my relationship with Matt. I've read a lot of comments along the lines of "submitting doesn't mean a woman is not intelligent." But, a lot of what I've read has suggested that the only place for a woman to exercise these gifts is in the home. One blog I visited seemed to be arguing that the only reason for a woman to get an education is so she'll be better equipped to home-school her children.

I find it hard to get straight answers, though. What exactly does it mean for a woman to submit to her husband? What exactly is the wife's role in marriage? If I want to be a godly wife to Matt, does that mean that all my efforts should be put into our home and to supporting him, or am I allowed to use my intellect to help others as well? Would that be restricted to helping other women, perhaps by blogging or running a women's bible study, or am I allowed to go out into the secular world of the university to teach, encourage students and give public lectures? Am I allowed to write articles and books that will be read by men? I might seem petulant here, but for me these are real questions.

Someone anonymously commented on my post (I'm getting really tired of anonymous comments, and will probably end up not replying to any):

Could you explain more about why her blog makes you angry? I'm confused. She is only stating what she and her husband believe about the world and how they should guide their children. Nowhere did she state in her blog that "Lara in Australia" MUST do as I am teaching my daughters!" If she had done so, of course your anger would be justified, as she has no authority over you and no business guiding your life. But she does hold these positions in relation to her own family. Her blog is not about attacking others, but rather her purpose is to explain how God has led her family and why they do the things they do. Why does this make you angry? I would realy like to understand.

Why am I angry? It's a good question. But I think the blog I linked to gives some of the answer. People like this are not simply describing they way that they live - they are prescribing it as the only correct way for Christians to live.

What is confusing about Lara is she claims to be a Christian and says the Bible is her favorite book, “above all else“. The confusing part is how someone who reads the Bible can claim that feminism is a good thing and even countenance it as a philosophy.

Firstly, I don't know where he got the idea that I'm a "self-proclaimed reluctant feminist," or that I claim feminism as a good thing, and countenance it as a philosophy. Most of the posts I've put on my blog about feminism have been attempts to work through the issues, and I've explicitly said that I don't call myself a feminism. I'm a Christian - that's why my favourite book is the Bible, and not Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique. I don't derive my guidance on how to live from feminist texts - in fact, I can only really claim to have read one (Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth) - I derive it from Scripture. The thing is, people's interpretations of Scripture differ. I'm not talking about ultra-liberal, everything in the Bible is just a fable-type people. I'm talking about honest, God-following, truth-seeking Christians. The Bible, while being God's word, is still a text written in human language, and we're still fallible and sinful humans. We can never hope to agree on absolutely everything. So, we shouldn't be arrogant about our own interpretations. And that leads me to my second point.

Anonymous wrote, "Nowhere did she state in her blog that "Lara in Australia" MUST do as I am teaching my daughters!" If she had done so, of course your anger would be justified, as she has no authority over you and no business guiding your life."

Well, in a sense, she was. If someone writes that universities are places of pagan indoctrination and that a degree is just a piece of paper certifying that you've been "fully indoctrinated with statist, marxist-freudian ideologies," what is this saying about Christians who not only choose to receive a university education, but actually pursue several degrees and enjoy the process? And even the Vaughnshire Farm blogger is claiming that Christians shouldn't be educated in secular universities: "As to the socialist humanistic education system, I don’t think it is helpful for men or women. Why would we go to the God hating Darwinist to ask them to teach us about God’s world?"

Another question. What if my husband tells me to go out and work in a secular job rather than be a full-time stay-at-home wife? Should I submit?! The Vaughnshire Farm blogger wrote that his wife's giftings were enhanced because she submits. I believe that this would also happen in my marriage to Matt, because he encourages me to use the gifts that God has given me - not just in the home, but also in the wider world.

I should point out again that I've got nothing at all against women who choose to be stay-at-home wifes and mothers. That doesn't make me angry at all. Why should it? Such women are trying to live out what they see as the biblical model for marriage and family. What does make me angry is any kind of assumption that women who don't follow this exact model are sinning or disobeying God. I think it's arrogance to presume that one's own interpretation of the Bible (and especially the technicalities of how that interpretation is lived out) is the only correct one. I get angry when someone implies that going to uni is only about pagan indoctrination when I've spent the last 9 years seeking to honour God through my studies. I get upset when someone implies that I should be staying at home to serve my husband full-time once I get married instead of seeking to use the gifts and opportunities God has given me to encourage other Christians and to reach the lost. I get incensed when people seem to presume that a woman who wants to work outside the home is seeking worldly glory instead of seeking to honour God. I get frustrated by seeming inconsistency - "I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God" (1 Timothy 2:9-10) but yet wives should make sure they're all dolled up before their husband leaves for work and again when he gets home, to make sure he doesn't stray.

That's probably enough ranting for now. I should be working on my PhD - after all, the sooner I finish it, the sooner I can escape the pagan environment of the university. But to conclude, I'll just add that I'm quite ready to admit that I've misunderstood or misinterpreted what I've read about the points above. Maybe I've got no reason to be angry - maybe these people are not trying to impose their view of God's order on everyone. Or maybe they are right, and I'm just stuck in my worldly indoctrination. I'm still trying to figure these things out. This blog does not contain the final word on anything. It's a work in progress, just like me.