And Slaters Go Plop

There is a parable in the Bible that goes something along the lines of “it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of God”.

Originally written in Greek, the word for ‘camel’ is κάμηλον. Interestingly, the Greek word for ‘rope’ is κάμιλον.

κάμηλον
κάμιλον

See the similarity? I’m thinking that the word ‘rope’ makes sense in the context of difficult things to thread through the eye of a needle. Especially because things like ropes (i.e. thread) can go through the eye of a needle.

I remember hearing an explanation for this long ago that the ‘eye of the needle’ was actually a gate in the wall of a city and that the camels entering this gate would have to shuffle through on their knees - a nice analogy of humility - but now I’m wondering if someone just made this up in order to cover for what is an odd-ball parable because of a mistranslation.

Any Greek scholars out there? Is this odd parable the result of a simple mistranslation?

As most of us know, Jesus was bodily resurrected about 2000 years ago. After he was resurrected he ascended up into heaven. But where did he go? Did he wait until everyone had gone home and then came back down again? Did he continue on out into space to an undisclosed location? We just don’t know.

What we can know however, is the vicinity in which he must be. Even travelling at the speed of light (~300,000km per second) he’s still somewhere in our galaxy:

(Obviously, these images are of galaxies other than our own but they’re of a similar size and type. Our galaxy is about 100,000 light years across and we’re located out on one of the spiral arms.)

On this day 199 years ago Charles Darwin was born. Famous for his contributions to the discovery of the mechanisms of evolution by way of natural selection he is considered to be one of the most important figures in the history of scientific enquiry.

The implications of his discoveries have caused turmoil among the egocentric of the world and the fallout continues to this day. Charles Darwin himself was extremely reluctant to publish his discovery because of the contention it would cause in a world dominated by young earth creationism - a view he held for many years against all evidence.

In my opinion, evolution is the most mind-blowing natural process ever discovered. It’s life changing in more ways than one and if you don’t have a full understanding of it I encourage you to take some time out today to learn more - you’ll never look at a blade of grass or a drop of water the same again.

If you listen to podcasts check out the excellent introductory series by Dr Zachary Moore called Evolution 101, otherwise take a look through the introduction to evolution resource at Berkeley.

TV One in New Zealand is showing a documentary about the life and ideas of Lloyd Geering who was tried by the Presbyterian Church for heresy in 1969. I’ve never read any of Geering’s work but he appears to have some unconventional views and the documentary should be fairly interesting.

Lloyd is still alive and well at the age of 89 and, by all accounts, as sharp as a tack.

It’s showing at 9.45pm on Saturday 12 January on TV One and again the next morning at 9.30am for those who missed it.

I regularly listen to the weekly BBC In Our Time podcast with Melvyn Bragg. It’s a podcast that covers a huge range of topics from a historical perspective. The usual format is Melvyn accompanied by two or three experts who then spend about 40 minutes dissecting whatever the topic du jour is.In the past he’s covered things like the Fibonacci sequence, oxygen, guilt, Socraties, hell, Zoroastrianism, relativism, tea… the list just goes on and on. If you are into diversity then I thoroughly recommend you check it out.

The point of this post is that next week he’s going to be addressing the topic of the Nicene Creed which, to be honest, has me positively squirming with excitement. The reason for my excitement is that it’s very difficult to find a neutral and informed conversation on this topic and I’m looking forward to hearing what his panel of experts have to say about it.

Going by the usual gold standard he sets with regard to the quality of his experts this will be a must for anyone who’s ever heard of the Nicene Creed. (If you haven’t heard of it before it’s to do with how the Bible was originally compiled about 1600 years ago and the politics that surrounded the task).

[edit] As pointed out by Dale in the comments, the creed is quite different from the council where they compiled the list of books for the Christian Bible.

Also, I was away on holiday when this aired and I’m unable to download the archived version so if anyone has an mp3 copy of this show please let me know!

Carl Sagan died eleven years ago today. His enthusiasm for the universe and everything in it was contagious and he is responsible for the sense of awe I and many, many others feel when we look up at the stars at night.

Our brains are not capable of comprehending the true vastness of space but Carl managed to help us expand our comprehension to the point of vertigo and, with it, and closer understanding of our true standing within the universe.

My thoughts are with his family and I, like many others, wish he was still here.

Just over a month ago I wrote about the shootings in Finland and, tongue-in-cheek, expressed what many in the fundamentalist blogosphere were saying.

Sadly, I spoke too soon. According to the Independent, in New South Wales an English creationist has stabbed a Scottish man to death during a heated debate about evolution. They were on a fruit-picking working holiday and had been drinking in a pub where the row broke out. The stabbing took place later that evening back at the camp ground where they were staying.

The creationist, Alexander York, was given a maximum of five years on a charge of manslaughter, not murder. The judge ruled that, while York knew he had a knife in his hand he had not thought of the consequences of his actions when he lashed out.

If not for the truly tragic nature of this news item it would almost make for a classic Gary Larson cartoon. I can just picture two scientists in a heated (excuse the pun) row about the Second Law of Thermodynamics. I guess this is an example of how beliefs and reality clash on a day to day basis.

Then again, the guy may have just been a nut-job who would have flipped over another issue given the same circumstances and enough alcohol.

Yes!

Link

Here is the preview of the upcoming Golden Compass movie:

And here is a video by a bloke who’s pretty upset about it (mind the volume, he’s a shouty one):
What he doesn’t realise is that he’s just made it ten times more likely that people are going to go out an watch it now. I know I’m going to. Hell, I might even buy the trilogy.

Way to go that guy, way to go. And good luck selling your 23 page rebuttal booklet of the movie for $5 a pop.

Finally. The complete documentary has been posted on YouTube. Here is the entire documentary, split into eleven parts…

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