Twitter RSS feed question.

You’ve probably not noticed, but there’s now a bit on the side of this page showing my most recent twitter updates.  I had one before that used an RSS feed, but wordpress has now released a bespoke twitter widget so I’m trying it out.

One problem with both versions: I’d much rather have only my actual updates showing and not any @replies, but they show up either way. The wordpress widget doesn’t have a way of stripping them out, or at least not yet (I’ve asked), but I’m guessing it must be possible to find a feed of just my actual updates. I do after all have my twitter updates automatically posted as my facebook status, and that doesn’t include @replies. I’m hoping there might be a way of accessing that feed from twitter to facebook and using it to create a widget, but I wouldn’t know where to start.

Any suggestions gratefully received!

Apologies to any readers who have absolutely no idea what on earth I’m talking about here. I don’t have much idea either, to be honest.

Update: Following a suggestion from Matthew, I took the wordpress widget out and replaced it with an RSS feed taken from facebook rather than twitter. This sort of worked, but then the entries linked back to facebook, and I’d prefer them to link to twitter. So I  followed his other suggestion and dipped my toes into the world of Yahoo Pipes. Good grief – I really had no idea what I was doing, but thankfully found someone else had done exactly what I wanted, so I just copied them. It’s still not perfect, but it’ll do for now.

I still don’t know what I’m talking about, mind.

Stevenage robot stickers have returned.

A few years ago, a series of robot stickers appeared around Stevenage.

Most of the originals are now faded or gone, and I’ve kept my eyes out for any new ones, but assumed that their creator had moved on, or got fed up. This weekend I spotted some new ones – like the one pictured above. And when I went for a walk on Wednesday I spotted some new designs featuring the robot, too.

I always enjoyed spotting him around town before; now I’ll look forward to seeing what else appears.

The Mom Song…

I don’t normally use this blog to share funny things I’ve seen online, but this was shown at church on Sunday morning and had plenty of people in fits of laughter and I wanted to pass it on. Enjoy!

On being a Magistrate

This isn’t my first blog, you know. It’s my fourth. Two are still alive: this one and our family one, which doesn’t get updated much despite all the amazing changes we’re seeing in our son now he’s reached the grand old age of two.

One of the now extinct blogs was set up to record my experience as a newly appointed magistrate in 2004. It didn’t last long; I was trying to write a little about the sort of cases we deal with by using examples I’d seen, but found it really hard to suitably disguise the details sufficiently. The blog was inspired by The Magistrate’s Blog, written by Bystander. He’s a very experienced magistrate who writes well and provokes a lot of discussion on his posts; many of his regular commenters are involved with criminal justice in some way and  have very different views, which makes things lively at times. 

As my own blog (I called it “The Young JP”, in case you’re wondering) never got off the ground, when people want to know about what it’s like to be a magistrate, and exactly what it  is we get up too, Bystander’s blog is one of the places I send them. I’ve also recently discovered a new magistrate’s blog which is making good reading: Radio Free Stan. Stan was appointed as a magistrate only last year, so brings a fresh perspective on things.  And if you want the official view on what we do, check out the relevant pages on direct.gov, which also has details on how to apply.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering about the other extinct blog: that’s a secret…

A question about morals…

Daniel at Unreasonable faith, who I seem to have mentioned a few times lately,  has aked another good question:

Let’s say it was possible for God to be disproved. I don’t think it is possible, but let’s just pretend. You now know, for a fact, that there is no god.

How would it affect your life and morality?

Read his full post – and the comments that follow, here. And if anyone who reads this has anything to add to the debate it’s probably best to leave a comment there rather than here. (Though I’d be interested to know what you’ve said, so let me know if you do!)

Never been a creationist.

In yesterday’s post I mentioned that I was “sure” I’ve never been an “out-and-out creationist”. 

Just to clarify, I can now say more than “sure”. I am now absolutely, 100% certain that I have never been one. Why so sure this morning? Because a friend sent me a link to this write-up about a creationist museum and I feel the overwhelming need to immediately distance myself from such twaddle.  People believe that…?!

If you have a look, it’s definitely worth taking the time to peruse all brilliantly annotated photos while you’re at it.

Science and faith.

If you’ve been reading regularly (yes, I know that means not many of you) then you’ll be aware that I subscribe to the blog “Unreasonable Faith” and that it often feeds my doubts. Along with Dawkins’ God Delusion, it has been one of the main things that’s led me to struggle with all manner of things I once thought I believed in. Prayer, miracles, a creator God; all are on shaky ground. But some of you will be pleased to know that they’re not the only kind of things I read. I subscribe to many blogs on a variety of subjects, and most of my “faith and church” reading is written by ministers and the like, so I am trying to get a balanced view (although I admit that it’s Daniel at Unreasonable Faith who gets my attention more often than not).

I’m sure I’ve never been an out-and-out creationist, but what is now called “intelligent design” has probably been close to my position. (Put simply, “nature is complex, therefore it must have had a designer, therefore God exists”.) Nowadays I’m completely happy to say that Darwin’s explanations seem to be by far the most likely explanation for both origins and diversity of life – without needing a designer. But what Dawkins and those like him go on to conclude is this: because evolution is as good as certain, there can therefore be no god. And I’ve come pretty close to going along with that recently. 

The one thing that’s stopped me so far is knowing that there are many far more intelligent than I who are perfectly happy to accept evolution without rejecting God. So I’ve been looking out for explanations I can understand for how they do this. Ironically, one of the first I came across lately was indirectly a result of a link from Unreasonable Faith. Daniel posted a link to a video interview between Richard Dawkins and Derren Brown (in which Derren brilliantly debunks all manner of mediums and spiritualism), and following on from that I watched Dawkins interview with a Father George Coyne. I couldn’t follow all his reasoning, but here is a man of deep scientific conviction who seems to say what it is I feel like I’m looking for. It’s worth a watch, and you can find it on YouTube here.  (Just to warn you, though, if you watch all seven parts it’ll take about an hour. The Derren Brown interview is also worth a watch here, and it’s about as long.)

One blog I read is by Bishop Alan Wilson of Buckingham, and he recently wrote a helpful post entitled “Reading the bible 101″ which caught my attention, and has pointed me in slightly different direction.

And now my own minister is in on the act, too. Not a blog (maybe we can persuade him to start one?), but his message in this month’s church Briefing was bang on the nail. I hope he won’t mind me reproducing it below…

Let’s leave silly behind. 

Galileo built himself a telescope in 1610 and made some startling discoveries. He confirmed the revolutionary theories of Copernicus, the most important of which was that the Earth circled the sun. He also discovered the scandalous fact that the moon was made of similar material to Earth. Revolution? Scandal? Why? 

The church had always taught that the earth was the centre of the universe and that the ‘heavenly bodies’ were made of different elements to the Earth. Both beliefs were based partly on mis-interpretations of the Bible. It took 359 years to establish beyond a doubt that Galileo’s discovery about the moon was true. In 1969 astronauts Armstrong and Aldrin collected 22kg of lunar samples, analysis of which confirmed Galileo’s belief. 

After the church had got over itself, no-one really doubted it was true (except perhaps Wallace and Gromit!). Current efforts to prove a 6 day creation, a young earth or even so-called ‘Intelligent Design’ does what the church did to Galileo: makes itself look silly. The Bible is God’s Word, but we need to respect it for what it is, an ancient document written by real people who had their own way of viewing the world. To expect the Bible to contain 21st century standards of scientific discovery is to make the Bible incomprehensible until now. And what will happen when a future Galileo or Darwin makes further revolutionary scientific discoveries? Our text books of today will need to be re-written, unlike God’s Word which is always relevant. 

There is no conflict between science and Christianity. The Bible answers the question, “why?” but not the, “how?” The ‘why’ is that God is infinitely loving and creative and expressed most clearly in Jesus Christ, the Word of God, who holds all of creation together. The ‘how’ will continue to be answered, but never finally because it is limited by those who try to answer it. 

So, find a new confidence to talk to your neighbours, friends and work colleagues about God, science and the natural world.  Let’s leave silly behind. 

Your pastor 

Dave Morris

So there you have it. Just a wee update to let you know that I haven’t quite fallen hook, line, and sinker for the “science has disproved god” argument. I’m still thinking about it.