Nuanced Reading

A few weeks ago at my aunty Linda's birthday she told me, "Rohan I love to read your blog! I'm very interested in your postmodern position." In light of this high praise, there are a few things that are now obvious to me:

• I am from a family of academics
• Aunty Linda reads my blog, something of which I had previously been blissfuly unaware (Hi Linda!)
• I am now somewhat justified in posting my philosophical hot air

So! I wrote a thing that might be of interest to you, and maybe food for discussion and thought. On Tumblr I follow a lot of atheists. I didn't mean for it to work that way, it just kind of happened. As such, I see a lot of stuff like this:

Usually I don't respond to stuff like that. Not because I am "trying to be the better person" or anything, but usually I just don't have anything interesting to say. In response to that image, however, I waded in:

This is a deliberate paradox in Genesis. The writer of this part of that book is trying to distinguish capital-G God, the El Shaddai — God Almighty — from the other creator-gods prominent at the time such as El and Ra, who were associated with the sun. This writer is saying that God is the master of even these god-kings, and that all light and life spring first from God and nobody else. Nuanced reading, man. It rules.

After I posted that I received a question in my ask box: "I'm confused. Are you christian?" to which I responded:

Yep. Although I should say, in the previous post to this one I was dealing with the idea of God according to Judaism, which is very similar to that of God in the Christian sense, but not exactly the same. Like, I know that the creator of that image is trying to piss off Creationists, but I’m trying to say that a nuanced reading of the Biblical texts is necessary for both the religious and non-religious (and the religious that do not happen to follow an Abrahamic faith). Like, nuanced reading is why I don’t actually hold to the six-day creation idea. While Genesis contains a creation story (actually, it contains two) the authors of those stories are not just trying to tell the reader about how things came to be, they are trying to paint a much broader picture of who God is and his relationship to people. These authors are doing so long after the world came to be, so they’re really writing about their present experience, and not necessarily about the past.

I should point out that these ideas are not entirely my own. I am re-reading Rob Bell's (in)famous book Velvet Elvis on my lunch breaks at work. My co-workers ask, "What are you reading, Rohan?" and I say, "Oh, it is basically an argument for the application of postmodern philosophies in modern Christian theology." Then they back away slowly and I get to read in peace! I'm so good with people.

Anyway, if you haven't read Velvet Elvis yet you should because some of the ideas in there are just beautiful, and it's really easy to read. And it's only AU$16.24 from Bookdepository.com! Don't anyone tell my boss I'm sending people there on my blog, or I'll be in trouble.

Oh who am I kidding? I'm handing in my resignation on Friday! Blabber away!

Working holiday, Shirts

I have not been updating this blog, which is a shame because I've been meaning to update it. Anyway, I'm here now. Let's not focus on my grim absent past and instead focus on the glorious updatey future that awaits this blog! Maybe!

My last post where I was pissed about being pushed back to part-time work? I'm still annoyed, but I've decided to make the most of it, so tomorrow I will make a real Poultry Press video. You read correctly there, friend/internet stalker/curious relative, we're talking about a made-for-the-internet, not-foolin' proper YouTube video. How glorious.

A few things have been happening while I was busy slacking from this blog:

• I was accepted to volunteer at the Iona Community
• I received my working visa to the UK
• My RoboFillet and Kingdom Assignment shirts are going ahead
• I booked my hotel room for VidCon

I'm so keen to get working at Iona. I just want to be there; have that rhythm of life going. I reckon it's going to be really hard for the most part, but I expect it'll also be rewarding. Also, I'll have VidCon to look forward to really soon afterward as well. I just booked my hotel room for that. So far I know I'm going to be staying with my dear friend Steve; hopefully we can find two others to stay with us as well to split costs.

As for the RoboFillet shirts, I want to write a little bit about the RoboFillet shirts. Specifically, I feel like A LOT OF A DOUCHE for having RoboFillet shirts. Like, who am I to think that I'm awesome enough to have a shirt that represents myself and then have the audacity to actually charge other people money for the privilege of wearing said shirts? I'm no Pizza John, for example:

Yes, that is me wearing a Pizza John while holding a pizza.

But the thing is when I floated the idea to make the shirts I had some people say they want one. Specifically, these people are the people who read this blog, @reply me on Twitter all the time, comment on my videos, reblog me on Tumblr... these are the people I make content for. I like to make these people happy and there is very little I wouldn't do for them. If they like the idea of shirts, then I'm going to make some shirts, and they are going to be GOOD SHIRTS. Even if these are the only people who would even consider getting a RoboFillet shirt, I'm going to be pretty stoked they would show that much interest in the stuff that I make, so I'm going to make sure the shirts are worth their while. You know? You know.

I would give you a sneak peak at the shirts, but they are nearly done and I don't want to spoil them. I'll show you next time once it's all finished. Despite still feeling a bit pretentious for actually having shirts — shirts! — I am pretty excited about them because the designs have turned out really nicely.

So anyway, I should probably get to bed because I have a dentist's appointment at 2:45 in the afternoon. Totally. A day that full can really wear out a guy, so think of me while I lie there having my teeth scrich-scratched with pointy tools.

Just kidding, I really need to make a start on clearing out my room. What am I going to do with all my stuff? I don't even know, and I don't even have that much stuff in the first place. Anyway, I'll see you here soon.