OH NO SHE DIDN'T!

'We are constantly assured that the churches are empty because preachers insist too much upon doctrine – “dull dogma”, as people call it. The fact is the precise opposite. It is the neglect of dogma that makes for dullness. The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man – and the dogma is the drama.'
- Dorothy Sayers

You go girl!

Against Developmental Philosophy

We think our fathers fools,

So wise we grow;

Our wiser sons,

No doubt will think us so.

Alexander Pope

Bertrand Russell was Wrong

Any philosophy can be internally consistent, but you’ve gotta get ur axioms right. Here’s the logical outworking of atheism – a thought system built on the most erroneous of first principles - according to Berty:

That man is the product of causes that had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins- all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding dispair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built.

If there were no God (absurd!), and all we had to look forward to was the inevitable heat death of the universe, then Russell - and all his pessimistic clan - are right. Thankfully, they're not.

Listen to Local Natives

These guys own – sounds like a more modern (read: not 19th Century) Fleet Foxes. Plus I’ve got mad love for Casey-Affleck-Assassination-of-Jesse-James-moustaches, as sported by frontman Taylor Rice.

Is Jesus Pitchfork Approved?

A friend recently gave me a copy of Douglas Moo’s Encountering Romans.

It got me thinking: there’s a surprising amount of good theological (or at least quasi-biblical) allusion going on in Pitchfork-approved bands - given that Christianity is pretty much the cardinal sin for hipsters.

A brief selection:

Anything by Sufjan Stevens (hello Seven Swans/Songs for Christmas)

Wolf Parade: “What makes a sinner serve, unless he knows you’re alive?” (cf. Romans 1:4)

Surfer Blood:

Forget the second coming

I need you in the here and now

Instead of dreaming up a way to spread your name across the world somehow

When you told me you were leaving

I wasn’t thirsty for revenge

No I wasn’t disappointed much at all

Coz you’ll be back again

Pseudo-Modernity: The Cultural Vacuum

Nigga READ MY MIND

In postmodernism, one read, watched, listened, as before. In pseudo-modernism one phones, clicks, presses, surfs, chooses, moves, downloads. There is a generation gap here, roughly separating people born before and after 1980. Those born later might see their peers as free, autonomous, inventive, expressive, dynamic, empowered, independent, their voices unique, raised and heard: postmodernism and everything before it will by contrast seem elitist, dull, a distant and droning monologue which oppresses and occludes them. Those bornbefore 1980 may see, not the people, but contemporary texts which are alternately violent, pornographic, unreal, trite, vapid, conformist, consumerist, meaningless and brainless (see the drivel found, say, on some Wikipedia pages, or the lack of context on Ceefax). To them what came before pseudo-modernism will increasingly seem a golden age of intelligence, creativity, rebellion and authenticity. Hence the name ‘pseudo-modernism’ also connotes the tension between the sophistication of the technological means, and the vapidity or ignorance of the content conveyed by it – a cultural moment summed up by the fatuity of the mobile phone user’s “I’m on the bus”.

On the plus side, following @NotPopeBenedict, @fakepastormark and @fakejohnpiper via twitter give Web 2.0 some meaning xD

Wife Acquisition Algorithm

Inspired by Mark Driscoll's sermon on dating.