Treasure hunting without magic peepstones

The National Library of Australia recently launched Trove. Trove combines all of the National Library's online discovery services into one search tool. Once testing is completed, with bugs ironed out, additional features added, and improvements made, Trove will replace all of these services to become a national information portal, harvesting content from such a variety of sources, including library, archive and museum collections, university repositories, digitised newspapers, web archives and online biographical databases. A sample search dug up a range of great documents about Australia's longest serving Prime Minister, Robert Menzies. The NLA are to be commended for showing how libraries are still relevant in the Internet age by creating value added web services. Let's see Google try to top that.

The sanctification of video gaming

Believe it or not, some boffins have created a downloadable Bible for the XBox 360, which can be read on screen and navigated using the buttons on your controller. It all sounds pretty nifty, with searching and bookmarking functions, as well as a presentation mode that features a larger display suitable for use with a data projector. This will be just the thing to salve one's conscience after a session of killing and destruction in Call of Duty 4. On the other hand, this application is only available if your console is hard drive equipped, and you have an Xbox live membership and broadband connection with a generous download allowance. It looks like I'll be stuck with my paper or audio Bibles for the time being. Who'd have thought that playing video games could be spiritually beneficial? My initial reaction is, "Why not?" Using this content delivery platform is a great way of making the Bible accessible to those who might not otherwise read it regularly. The medium may have changed, but the message hasn't.

Don't write Jesus off yet

RESEARCH REVEALS AUSTRALIANS STILL HAVE A HIGH RESPECT FOR JESUS

A study commissioned by the evangelical organisation Jesus All About Life claims that 54% of Australians ranked Jesus as the number one most influential person in history, over scientist Albert Einstein (16%) and Charles Darwin (9%). Although not a rigorous academic study, the resulting qualitative data also claimed to reveal, against all expectations, that Australia is a nation of believers - with 83% responding that Jesus was a real figure from history. Of these believers 43% believed Jesus had miraculous powers and was the Son of God.

Only 40% of Australians practice a religion and 27% do not believe in any form of divinity. 63% did not believe Jesus would return with many surmising that if He were alive today He would probably be unemployed. If employed, though, He would most likely be a charity worker (23%), or carpenter (18%) according to those surveyed. While the majority of Australians do not practice a religion, 57% have prayed at various times during their lives. Of those who pray, 29% pray daily, and 19% only a few times every year - when faced with challenges or when a loved one is sick.

Young adults held to the most traditional prayer practices such as closing eyes, placing hands together and bowing heads but 3 in 5 had no particular rules for their praying. This lack of structure was found to increase with age as Australians aged 64 and over were the least likely to have rules for their prayers.

Other findings included:

* 63% of Australians turn to their partners/spouse for help and emotional support and half of Australians turn to other family members.

* Nearly half (49%) of Australians turn to their friends for help and support.

* Nearly a third (28%) of Australians turn to God in their time of need, while 15% turn to Jesus.

* The Internet offered the least support with only 6% of Australians turning to online friends through Facebook or Twitter when in need, and 4% to consult Google and the like.

Australians identifying Jesus as the most significant figure in history is not surprising given that our nation is a product of Western Civilisation, which is based upon Judeo-Christian roots, laws, culture and faith, and that the most outstanding works of art, music and literature throughout the 2000 years since Jesus died, have grappled with issues of faith or portrayed stories and personages from the Bible, and even the non-believers amongst us cannot deny that.

Source: Insight Magazine

I am not a theocrat

Joe Hockey, Shadow Federal Treasurer, recently addressed the Sydney Institute on the sometimes thorny issue of the separation of religion and state. Click here to read the text of this speech. Hockey quite eloquently asserts that religion does have a place in political discourse in a secular democracy such as Australia, and argues that it is unreasonable to ask religious politicians to set aside their beliefs when making decisions. This is a perfectly valid observation to make.

I'm not sure what to make of the other points he raises. They are less well articulated, so that without the benefit of being able to speak to Hockey directly, it's difficult to put the finger on where he's coming from. As far as the Bible is concerned, he appears to assert that it is no longer possible to support a literalist reading of Scripture. It's not exactly clear what he means by this. Read a good book on Biblical interpretation, and one of the key principles is that the Bible is to be taken literally unless the context demands otherwise. Part of the task of hermeneutics is to determine how to apply this principle.

Hockey is a politician, and for this reason needs to be pragmatic in his public statements. He affirms the positive values that religious faith contributes to the fabric of society.

In his words, these are "a fair go, tolerance and respect, the importance of family and of making a contribution to the lives of others."

You don't need to be religious to subscribe to these values. In fact, you'll sometimes find that atheists or agnostics do a better job of embodying these values than the religious, which raises another set of questions. And broadly speaking, all the major religions may support these values, but that does not mean that all religions have the same essential underlying message. On closer inspection you will find great variance in the teachings of the major religions. This is not the place to explore this question, but I'd encourage any independent thinking and intellectually honest spiritual seeker to do so.

A good story and well told

Susannah Walker reports on Shaun Micallef finally achieving long overdue mainstream popularity.

The Shaun identity - TV & Radio - Entertainment - theage.com.au

Strike me down with all of your hatred

November is going to be a good month for Star Wars fans who also play video games, and without wanting to perpetuate stereotypes, chances are that they probably do. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition is a follow up to last year's best seller with additional levels. The game takes place in an alternate Star Wars universe in which Darth Vader takes a secret apprentice, named Starkiller, who is sent out to kill the remnants of the Jedi order. The game received mixed reviews, but the storyline, set between the prequels and the original movie trilogy, was actually quite compelling, with lots of twists and turns. Click on this link for more information. Unlike the previous game, this expanded version will only be released on Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and high spec PCs.

Pedantry corner returns

Casual observers will notice that one of the trends in Australian politics is that when in opposition, the Liberal Party often attacks Labor governments for what they see as squandering of taxpayers' money. Sometimes this is justified, as was the case with the Cain-Kirner government that held office in Victoria from 1982 to 1992. This government had an appalling record of financial mismanagement. The most tragic result of this was the election of the Kennett government in 1992. In order to repay massive government debt, over the next seven years, Premier Jeff Kennett embarked on an unpopular program of mass public servant sackings, privatization of government utilities, and slashing funding on infrastructure, health, education, and other public goods.

Now Federal Liberal Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull has picked up the baton, as reported in our national broadsheet, accusing the Rudd Labor government of massive overspending and waste.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26213921-26103,00.html

Pity about the typo in the headline. What's an oppsotion? It just goes to show again that you cannot rely solely on an automated spellchecker. Occasionally it pays to manually proofread your copy. No elephant stamp for you this time, News Limited.