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Sam Radford


For a little bit of everything (and more of some).


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Mark Zuckerberg: TIME Magazine's person of the year

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Finally got round to reading TIME Magazine's article on Mark Zuckerberg, their person of the year. It's a fascinating insight into the guy behind Facebook and is well worth a read.

Thought these quotes were interesting:

"One of the interests Zuckerberg lists on his Facebook page is "Eliminating Desire." "I just want to focus on what we're doing," Zuckerberg says. "When I put it in my profile, that's what I was focused on. I think it's probably Buddhist? To me it's just — I don't know, I think it would be very easy to get distracted and get caught up in short-term things or material things that don't matter. The phrase is actually 'Eliminating desire for all that doesn't really matter.'"" (Emphasis mine.)

"The reality is that Zuckerberg isn't alienated, and he isn't a loner. He's the opposite. He's spent his whole life in tight, supportive, intensely connected social environments: first in the bosom of the Zuckerberg family, then in the dorms at Harvard and now at Facebook, where his best friends are his staff, there are no offices and work is awesome. Zuckerberg loves being around people. He didn't build Facebook so he could have a social life like the rest of us. He built it because he wanted the rest of us to have his." (Emphasis mine.)

"Whereas earlier entrepreneurs looked at the Internet and saw a network of computers, Zuckerberg saw a network of people."

Read full article: http://smrd.me/dIdX00

 


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Baby Jesus had Poopy Diapers

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John Eldredge wrote the following piece on his blog that I thought I'd share.

Last May I had the opportunity, while in London, to visit the National Gallery. Loving art, and being with my son who is an art major, I was excited to spend hours there. I loved the Van Gogh, the Monet, the Rembrandt paintings and many more. But there was one massive disappointment. No, it was more than disappointment. Massive frustration. 

I did not see one portrait of Christ, in all the famous works of him, that came anywhere close to depicting Jesus as he really is. Not one.

They are all wispy, pale Jesus, looking haunted, a ghost-like figure floating along through life making vague gestures and even vaguer statements. The Nativity scenes were particularly ridiculous. The classic art depicting the infant – themes now repeated on Christmas cards and in the creche scenes displayed in churches and on suburban coffee tables – portrays a rather mature baby, very white, radiantly clean as no baby is ever clean, arms outstretched to reassure the nervous adults around him, intelligent, without need, halo glowing, conscious with an adult consciousness. Superbaby.

This infant clearly never pooped his diapers. He looks ready to take up the Prime Minister-ship.

Why did it make me angry? Because when we lose his humanity, we lose Jesus. The Incarnation is one of the greatest treasures of our faith. The world keeps pushing God away, but in the coming of Jesus he draws near. Incredibly near. He takes on our humanity. "Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity..." (Hebrews 2:14). 

But we have so sanitized and religious-ized the baby Jesus that most of our imagery of the Nativity now adds to those horrible religious views of him. Jesus becomes a vague though impressive figure with wonder powers who is floating above this life that the rest of us are slogging through. Life was easy for Jesus, right? He barely broke a sweat. O, wait - there was that terrible sweat in Gethsemane. Hmm.

The Incarnation – the beyond-all-doubt evidence that whatever else he was Jesus was surely a human being – it has been stolen from us. And with it innumerable treasures regarding the humanity of Jesus and, therefore, our humanity too.

One of my favorite Christmas meditations comes from this passage by Chesterton. (He is speaking of Bethlehem, and what it held in its hills that fateful night.)

"…as the strange kings fade into a far country and the mountains resound no more with the feet of the shepherds; and only the night and the cavern lie in fold upon fold over something more human than humanity."

Savor that last passage for a moment. That feeding-trough-turned-cradle held something more human than humanity? What? Do you think of Jesus as the most human human-being that ever lived? 

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Christmas Reflection #1 | Miracles

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This is the first in a mini-series of reflections I'm writing during the build up to Christmas. My hope is simply that it will provoke people to take at least a few moments to ponder afresh the amazing and - yes - unlikely story (well, stories really) behind all our Christmas celebrations.

Today we'll explore the miraculous side to the Christmas stories. And let's be clear, there's no denying that the stories are full of improbable happenings - most famously of course, the virgin birth.

When it comes to these stories, many simply dismiss them because of their impossibility. It's impossible for a virgin to give birth to a baby so therefore it didn't happen, the thinking goes. Those who do believe it did happen are accused of lacking rationality and blindly adhering to the teaching of the church.

But is it irrational to believe in the virgin birth, or indeed the many other miraculous elements surrounding the Christmas story? I don't think so.

It all comes down to faith. Some people believe that there is no God and that everything can be explained in solely scientific terms. Others - myself included - believe that God does exist and - whilst embracing the wonderful insights and understanding that comes through science - also believe that because God exists, there are possibilities that stretch beyond the realm of science or explanation.

Note that both these positions are positions of faith. And these positions of faith shape what we perceive to be possible or not. My faith paradigm sees no reason why the virgin birth (and other kinds of miraculous activity) might not be possible. If God exists, why couldn't something like that happen? It is - based on my perspective - a perfectly rational point of view.

Similarly, the person who's faith paradigm has no space for God, will not be able to see the possibility of miracles and something like the virgin birth. Within their paradigm, it simply isn't possible. And, again, this also is a rational point of view.

So, this Christmas, let's not mock those who don't see things the way we do. Let's not claim that our view is rational and their view irrational. It is no more intellectually superior to either believe in God and miracles or to believe that God and miracles don't exist and can't happen. It is simply a different paradigm.

And, whether we believe that the biblical stories we recall at Christmas are historically accurate and true or nothing more than myths, there's still hope and inspiration we can all gather from these stories. And that's what I hope to explore throughout this mini-series of reflections.

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Does atheism have a monopoly on reason?

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There's a billboard campaign by American Athiests happening in the US at the moment that has been getting a lot of mainstream attention recently. There are several interesting aspects to the poster, but the sentence that stands out to me the most is this:

"This Season, Celebrate REASON!"

This mention of reason ties in with various conversations I've had lately with people who are atheists. In almost all instances the atheists genuinely feel that they have a monopoly on reason. They think that atheism is what anyone who uses reason would choose; anything else simply highlights a clear lack of reason.

My issue with this is that it is complete and utter nonsense! And don't worry, I'm not saying that belief in God is truly reasonable and anything else isn't. I'm simply saying that belief in God and belief in the non-existence in God are both positions that can be reached reasonably.

Note too that both positions - though they can each be reached on the basis of reason - are ultimately and equally positions of faith. No one can prove the existence or non-existence of God. Based on experiences, paradigms, and interpretations, both groups of people have taken a step of faith.

Having said all that, I do accept that too many religious people have a tendency to not use their brains much. They simply accept what they've been told without question or thought. This is dangerous and unhealthy. Whilst I don't think questions of faith and spirituality should ever be limited to the realm of the mind, engaging our minds is crucial to a healthy approach to life and faith. 

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Wherever you are, you could celebrate Thanksgiving today

Seth Godin hits the mark as ever:

Wherever you are, you could celebrate Thanksgiving today.

Not the Thanksgiving of a bountiful harvest before the long winter, the holiday of pilgrims and pie. That's a holiday of scarcity averted. I'm imagining something else...

A modern Thanksgiving would celebrate two things:

The people in our lives who give us the support and love we need to make a difference, and...

The opportunity to build something bigger than ourselves, something worth contributing. The ability to make connections, to lend a hand, to invent and create.


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The illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship

I stumbled across a fascinating article in TIME magazine today talking about the importance of having times when we turn off our phones and fully engage with friends and family.

Linked with this, the below quote jumped out at me, particularly the middle paragraph:

"What I'm seeing is a generation that says consistently, 'I would rather text than make a telephone call.' Why? It's less risky. I can just get the information out there. I don't have to get all involved; it's more efficient," said Dr. Sherry Turkle, a psychologist, professor and director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self in the PBS/Frontline documentary Digital Nation.

"There's this sense that you can have the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship. The real demands of friendship, of intimacy, are complicated. They're hard. They involve a lot of negotiation."

Digital efficiency also means the relegation of friends and loved ones to one slice of attention in a life spent multitasking. But multitasking shouldn't be confused with efficiency: data suggest that multitaskers overestimate the amount of attention they can really pay to each task (or person).

The whole article is well worth a read.