John has degrees in theology (Moore Theological College) and ancient history (Macquarie University). He holds the position of Honorary Associate in the Department of Ancient History, Macquarie University, and is engaged in ongoing research into early Christianity. He also teaches a course on World Religions for the Macquarie Christian Studies Institute. John began his writing career in 1993 and has since produced twelve titles, winning Australian Christian Book of the Year in 2000 and 2005. His books have focused on the relevance of the Christian faith in the contemporary world. An ordained Anglican, John has spent the best part of a decade working as a local church minister (most recently with St Andrew’s, Roseville). He has since accepted the role of Writer-in-Residence for Blue Bottle Books, a position which affords him the freedom to research, write and speak on a fulltime basis. John also hosts ‘Reflection’, weeknights at 10pm on Sydney’s FM 103.2.
John and I discuss the historical argument that Jesus of Nazareth actually did exist, based on his book “The Christ Files”.
This is a pretty long show, about one hour twenty. I’m going to be in Sydney until late tomorrow night so there won’t be a show Thursday. This one is long enough to last you at least a couple of days.
If you’re interested in reading more about some of the subjects we discuss in this show, such as the Q Document, the Gospel of Thomas, or the background behind the ancient pagan and Jewish sources which mention Christianity, you can find my source sites on my religion del.icio.us page.
Knowing my opinions on Christianity, you might think I would never show my face in a church. But you’d be wrong. On Xmas Eve I took my family to Father Bob Maguire’s quasi-interdenominational service.
Today my guest is John Allsopp – a software engineer, speaker, writer, educator and surf lifesaver, with a long standing interest in CSS, web design and development. He is also one of the founders and organizers of the web design and development conferences “Web Directions“.
We discuss “Web 2.0”, what it means, and why it is goodness. We also discuss the Web Directions conference that John is involved in running and Western Civilisation, the software business that he and his business partner Maxine run.
Then we venture in John’s views on religion and touch on Qantas’ decision to prevent a passenger from boarding a plane due to his t-shirt.
All this and more (well… not much more actually) on today’s episode!
Don’t forget – if you want to win yourself a $50 Amazon voucher, then enter the G’Day World promotion. All you need to do is send more referrals to this gdayworld.com than any other registered referrer in the month of January. So far there are only a couple of people registered and they should be EASY to beat. Please try to avoid gimmicks like “See Britney Spears Naked”. The objective here is to get people to listen to the show, not get to the site and be annoyed at being mislead. Molly.
Ahem. To all of my Christian friends, readers, listeners, and enemies, who keep telling me about what a good bloke their god, Yahweh, is. I even had one of them, in an email thread, tell me that Yahweh had never committed mass murder. Oh my… Darwin.
Steve Wells has done some math for us.
It’s impossible to say for sure, but plently. How many did God drown in the flood or burn to death in Sodom and Gomorrah? How many first-born Egyptians did he kill? There’s just no way to count them all.
But sometimes the Bible tells us exactly how many were killed by God. Here’s a list of those that I can find. (If you find any that I’ve missed, let me know and I’ll add them to the list.)
So far I come up with a total of 32.9 million (not including, at least in some cases, women and children).
This is the god you choose to believe in? Out of all of the gods you could believe in, this is the one you’re picking? It is estimated that six million Jews died in the Holocaust but that was in the 20th Century. If you were to believe the OT, Yahweh committed his acts of genocide somewhere around 4000BCE – 400BCE when the population of the planet was far smaller. In fact, in the Great Flood, we’re supposed to believe he killed everyone on the planet except some sailor guy and his wife and kids. That’s genocide on a scale that Saddam Hussein could only DREAM of.
If I absolutely *had* to believe in a god… if my life depended on it… I’d pick Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, lust, beauty, and sexuality. Doesn’t that sound like a much better god to worship (if you’re into that kind of thing)?
In another of his never-ending series of ideas, Ewan Spence has come up with the idea of asking random people to guest host TPN Rock. I’m currently listening to Richard Vobes’ episode. Whaaaaaacky. Great idea though. I’m doing an episode in a couple of weeks. Whaddya think? Should I open up G’Day World to y’all to guest host?
