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I'm a classical guitarist. The skills don't really transfer well. I mean, I learned shredding 100% from metal, but my stance, hand positioning, and pinky use were all skills that I learned from classical guitar.

Also, the picking hand is useless for the first couple years of practice, because my version of tremolo was index+middle+ring+pinky alternating as fast as I could. I think that was the biggest issue for me.

Although the difference between AJ and myself is how many hours of practice a day I gave. I've been playing guitar for almost 6 years now, and on ~2 hours of practice a week I have finally managed to learn all of Crossing the Rubicon (except the solo, I can only do that at like 90% speed, it's waaaaay too hard) If I practiced 2+ hours a day like he did, I'd have definitely reached that goal a lot earlier.

So I don't really think that being a classical guitarist really changes much here. Sorry for my story, I'm bored and I don't really have anyone to talk about music with, so I take whatever opportunity I can get haha • • • • •. Interesting, I guess it's a 'Your mileage may vary kind of situation'. My parents stuck me in classical guitar lessons starting at 5 and I didn't have an electric guitar until I was 13 or so (wasn't allowed, lol) but was quite the shredder even at that age.

I'm 21 now and don't have much trouble with most THA licks with the absolute exception of mostly anything involving sweeping (story later). Fuck sweeping. It may just be the years of scales, building up the muscle memory, efficiency of movement, technique relaxation. But I find myself at the very least given a significant advantage over self-taught and electric only guitarists.

This is not to say that classical technique is superior to electric (even though it is) as adhering to a rigid practice/study curriculum will undoubtedly make you better. I'm definitely not trying to detract from AJ's talent though, he's a beast and a pretty nice guy. Big ups on Crossing the Rubicon. I feel you, recently started working on a degree and lost contact with all of my music buddies. Story time (excuse the fanboy): I briefly mentioned this in another THA post, but I'll go into more detail now that I have someone listening. I was in high school, really into THA along with a close friend who was also a gifted guitarist.

We've been to two of their shows, right against the stage every time and we're both surprised that AJ's as short as we are (5'10 or so). A few months after they last toured I get a message from said friend on facebook; he had apparently been stalking my sister and saw a comment on her wall from AJ Minette, turns out to be the man himself. My sister was working on a Masters in flute performance t USC and had apparently played in ensembles with him. I freaked the fuck out when I found out. My sister said she would have told me but she didn't know that THA was 'big'.

I was already booked to fly to LA to visit my sister as well as have a couple of lessons with Scott Tennant (USC professor, LA Guitar Quartet, one of AJ's teachers) so I asked my sister if she could get me a lesson with AJ. It worked out and I met with him on two other occasions *working primarily on sweeping). I learned a lot, still suck at sweeping, but it was way way cool.

I also got a copy of Nocturne signed by AJ and Dean. Re-reading this I sound like I'm full of shit, but I assure you I am fortunate enough to be thoroughly satisfied with my real life without the need to supplement it with online fantasies.

It's worked far better for me than only practicing sweeping ever did, but admittedly that is purely anecdotal. It's also vastly improved my picking accuracy, string skipping, and all-around note clarity. Ultimately, it's all extremely subjective. I've found that his techniques work for me because I have a similar picking style to him. IMO, picking technique is the single most important factor in determining how you practice, what exercises you need to focus on, and also most weaknesses in your playing. Alt-picking arpeggios has forced me to concentrate on giving each note equal attention, even at the cost of having to start out at a REALLY slow tempo. Additionally, most of the monster sweepers are able to alt-pick their arpeggios (besides Richardson, Cooley and Petrucci come to mind), so I think there is definitely something to be said for that particular method of learning them, even if it might not work for every player.

Just my two cents! That's killer! If there were one musician I'd love to meet, AJ would be the man. He seems like a genuinely awesome guy! There's no reason not to believe you, because there's no reason to lie about something like that. Quick tip with sweeping (because I'm quite good at it) is to practice what you want to do slowly.

I know it's a dumb tip and you've probably already done this, but you'd be surprised with how many people don't do this. Don't change the speed until you can play it 100% perfectly at the speed that you have it set. Also, technique is huge here, but you already have that since you're a classical guitarist. So you study guitar in school? That's awesome! I wanted to, but I didn't have the drive to practice for hours a day. You see, I should have stuck with my lessons.

I started playing guitar at 16, stopped taking lessons at 19, and then at 21 now (22 this year) I've just been playing guitar and practicing songs on my own. Download Summertime By The Jamies Youtube Broadcast. I've been playing a lot over the past year though, and I think a good 25% of my total advancement as a guitarist came in 2015.

But like I said, I started using a pick a lot later in my guitar career and I had to fix my technique three times (the importance of lessons, folks) as I was doing it incorrectly. Music is fun though, I love playing guitar!

John Polkinghorne Q&A John Polkinghorne Q & A If you have a theological/scientific question for John you can EMail to nb [at] sciteb[dot] com (put this way as an anti-spam) with Q4JCP in the header. If the question looks suitable, I'll give my preliminary response and then fax the question and the preliminary response to John, who will probably in due course add some comments. When he says (as he sometimes does) nothing to add to this excellent response (or words to that effect) my preliminary response is upgraded to response, otherwise his comment is added. Questions and responses are posted on this website. They may also find their way into a book or books by me and John. My preliminary responses are done quite quickly and outside normal working hours, so occasionally they are too intemperate - mea culpa but please don't attribute my errors to John!

Please note that John is unable to review unpublished MSS for their authors. The Questions & Answers so far (6 Jan 2008, 183 to date) are given below: the newest ones are in this box: • •? • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Search WWW Search starcourse.org • • • • • • • •?

• • • • • your and randomness? • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Minor technicality: due to the quirks of the British honors system John, being a Priest, is not 'Sir John' even though he has a knighthood. NB • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • (and a related question) • • • • • • • • • • •. • • • • • • • ' • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • (and a ) • • •? • • • • • • • • •? We've just posted some comments on ID on the Q&A pages. What about intelligent design?

Has John's thinking evolved from such thinking or is his thinking different all together? Preliminary Response: The basic problem with ID is that God is never spoken of as a “designer” in the Bible: He is Creator and Father and a Father does not “design” his children.

It seems that Evolution is one of the principles, like Gravity, which God has used to create the Universe: there is no more a conflict between Evolution and Creation than between Gravity and Creation. John adds: ID also makes a scientific claim of identifying molecular biological systems of irreducable complexity, but I do not believe it has made its case.

It is not enough to consider a single system in isolation, since evolution works in an improvisatory way, coopting what has been useful for one purpose to help acheive another. ID also seems tacitly to make the theological mistake that God, who is the creator and sustainer of nature, would not be conetent to work through natural processes, which are as much expressions of the divine will as anything else. Entropy: I have a question for the Rev Polkinghorne about. I have two starting premises: (so that you can tell me if these are in error!) 1. According to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, a closed system tends towards disorder. Observation reveals a universe of beauty, pattern, complexity and order, particularly in the natural world, where pattern appears to emerge at every level.

(actually I'm wondering if this is true. There is certainly chaos as well. But perhaps it's fair to say that even chaotic systems tend towards pattern and order. Although is this just about reducing energy?) I've been interested in these ideas in considering the 'warfare theodicy' proposed by many (most? All?) open theists. I guess you would describe yourself as an open theist?

(or something similar) Do you believe in a world at war? Are there aspects of the universe that support these 'warfare' ideas?

(as I believe quantum mechanics appears to support openness) I've been interested in what it means to live in a 'fallen world' - in a world which at the physical level is not how it was intended. But yet a world in which God is always at work revealing himself and working out his purposes.

For example, the two effects I've described above appear to battle against each other. The 2nd Law tells us that disorder should increase, but yet order and pattern emerge everywhere.

It sounds like a cosmic battle in some ways, although I realise this a simplistic way of understanding both aspects. As I understand it, the physical universe runs in a way that means that everything eventually runs down and everything is reduced to disorder and randomness, (however, I understand that there's nothing 'spooky' or arbitrary about the Laws of Thermodynamics, they just describe how energy works). But it is amazing that the universe is beautiful and bright and that animals and plants tend towards order and complexity.

Why do these appear? I'm not primarily interested in making an argument from design, etc. My main interest is in the idea of a world at war, and what that could mean in the physical universe. I wondered if you had any insights on these things.

I studied physics only to undergrad level and clearly my scientific understanding and description is very clumsy. Have you written about these ideas in any of your books? Preliminary Response: I'm not familiar with 'warfare theodicy' and a quick google leaves me little the wiser. Although cosmic warfare is certainly a fairly important theme in the Bible, it is hard to see it as much help in theodicy. To answer 'Why does God allow evil and suffering' with 'because there is Cosmic Warfare with the Powers of Evil.'

Doesn't seem to get very far unless there is a good answer to: 'why does God allow the Powers of Evil to wage Cosmic Warfare' – which John and I find 'deeply puzzling'. It is in fact tempting to see 'the Powers of Evil' as emergent properties of the evil caused by mis-applied human freewill, although this is highly speculative. There are some puzzles about the 2nd law, but the standard answer to how living systems can increase order is that they increase order locally at the expense of greater disorder (technically, higher entropy) globally. So for example plants take the very low entropy of photons from the sun and turn it into low entropy life and high entropy gasses. We are only beginning to understand how higher order 'emergent' properties come into being (Stuart Kaufmann did some pioneering work on this, there is fascinating work under way by about how evolutionary dynamics leads, under suitable conditions, to cooperation and order, and has been developing the philosophical implications of systems biology) and there is little doubt that a deeper understanding of what John has called 'active information' is one of the key challenges of the 21st Century. John adds: Modern science has come to recognise that regimes in which truly novel consequences can emerge are always 'at the edge of chaos', that is: their circumstances are such that order and disorder, chance and necessity, interlace. Hence there is an inescapable shadow side to great fruitfulness.

The idea of Satan, or the Devil. While I realize many thoughtful Christians (like C.S. Lewis) believed in demons and the devil, and it's in Scripture, the concept has become difficult for me to swallow. The 'red guy with a pitchfork' is a poor conceptualization, I know, but so is the idea that all human actions of 'evil' on this planet are somehow the end-products of his or his invisible minions' tempations. Any thoughts on a solid, modern understanding (not medieval or Dante-esque) of who the devil is would be helpful (why I feel the need for clarification on this matter is anyone's guess). Preliminary Response: It's very hard to know what to think about Satan, Demons and Angels.

The Bible says little about them. Angels seem to be spiritual beings who worship God but are occasionally sent to be His messengers on earth. Download All Files Ftp Directory Vb Net Savefiledialog.

The Biblical picture of Satan (which means 'the Accuser' in Hebrew) seems to vary: in the prologue to Job (Job BTW is, roughly, a Play and not intended to be 'factual', but it is one of the most profound books in the Bible) he's a kind of rogue courtier but Jesus talks about him as the fundamental quasi-personal influence behind much of the evil in the world. When Jesus says, to Peter 'Get behind me, Satan, for you do not judge according to God's ways, but men's' (Mark 8:33 & par) he is not suggesting that Peter is 'possessed' by the Devil or that Peter is not making these very prudent suggestions for his Master's safety of his own free will. He seems to be saying that Peter is unwittingly falling in with Satan's designs. So describing Satan as the ultimate 'force' behind the sin in the world does not mean that humans are absolved of their responsibilities.

But the Bible is clear that there is a cosmic struggle going on and not just a human one. It's tempting to use the language of Chaos Theory here and make the analogy between Satan and a 'Strange Attractor' which is a dynamical path (of non-integer dimension) that is not necessarily actually reached by other dynamical paths in the system but whose existence and characteristics influence the behaviours of the dynamical paths that come near it. John adds: All I would add to Nicholas's helpful response is that when one considers a terrible event like the Holocaust, there are of course human factors at work (the wills of wicked men, the social sin of unquestioning obedience to the state, ordinary people's compromises and cowardice), but the weight of evil involved is so great that I myself cannot rule out the influence of some form of evil spiritual power at work. Where such a power came from and why it is allowed to operate are, of course, very perplexing questions. What about James Lovelock's ultra-frightening new prediction on the effects global warming will have on the human population within the next 60-some years. As I'm sure you know by now, he has predicted that upwards of 6 billion people will perish by the end of the century and what's left will be trying to stay alive near the north and south poles. Your opinion on these warnings and how, as Christians, we should feel about it would be much appreciated.

Response: the 'Revenge of Gaia' predictions appear to be scaremongering, although it is very hard to be certain of anything long-term. It is very clear that climate change is a serious problem, and that radical solutions will be required, some involving social changes and some involving large-scale applications of technology. For example, Lovelock has also proposed a very interesting approach to helping 'global cooling' with wave-operated pumps. Christians should be engaged in these issues, without succumbing to the Neo-Paganism that elevates the Environment into a Godess.

Anything that poses serious risks to the lives of millions, or billions, needs to be taken seriously as part of our duty to be stewards of God's world. Samaritans: I read your article, 'The Truth In Religion,' which appeared in the TLS and I would like to comment on a side issue that you mentioned in it. You wrote: 'When it [Dawkin's book] asserts that Jesus’ call to love our neighbour referred only to relations between Jews (despite this claim being in clear contradiction to the point of the parable of the Good Samaritan), the only support quoted for this highly questionable statement is a book written by an anaesthesiologist.' Perhaps you might consider reconsidering you reading of the parable of the Good Samaritan?

In his book, History of the Samaritans (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1992), Nathan Schur writes: 'The process of drawing apart [of Samaritans from Jews] was certainly a very gradual oneIn spite of some nasty name calling from both sides and some violent action on part of the Hasmonean rulers, the responsible Jewish halakhic authorities continued to regard the Samaritans from certain points of view still as Jews till late into the second century ADJews still joined the Samaritans in one of their last uprisings against the Byzantine government in 556 AD. Thus the process of estrangement was a very slow one, spread over many centuries and completed only a millennium after it had started.' In my own article, Samaritans, Jews and Philosophers. Expository Times 113:5: 152-6 (2002), I wrote: 'A Jewish writer would never mention a Samaritan as an example of a gentile or generic human being.

It is true Jews and Samaritans had their differences and conflicts. So did the Northern and Southern Kingdoms of biblical Israel. The relationship of Jews and Samaritans to each other was quite dissimilar to that holding between Palestinians and Israelis. A better (yet still obviously imperfect) historical analogy might be to the relationship between Anglicans and the Church of Rome. If Jesus had intended to overthrow the particularity of Leviticus, he made a poor choice in speaking of a 'Good Samaritan'. If only Jesus had spoken of a good Greek or idolater!

Then it would be reasonable to speculate that he meant, in this particular story, to call for a universal ethic of love.' If you would like, I can email a copy of my complete article to you. I should mention that more generally speaking, I am in agreement with your criticisms of Dawkins & co. John says: I’m interested in your scholarly comments on the Samaritans. However I think that Jesus’s choice of a Samaritan in the parable implies that he would have been seen as in less than a brotherly relationship to the Jews. As to the contra Dawkins point, the admonitions in the Torah to care for the stranger seem enough to make the point that he is wrong to assert that there is no real concern for non-Jews. Embryonic stem-cell research.

I am only newly acquainted with Dr. Polkinghorne, having heard him speak today at Belmont University in Nashville TN. He was brilliant (stardust!) and I am filled with wonder. After the lecture he allowed a few questions.

One had to do with the morality of embryonic stem cell research. Polkinghorne answered by discussing at what point an embryo becomes a human person (at 14 days I think).

I would like to ask how the love principle – that God created a universe which allows beings to be and make themselves – would address this issue. If the potential for human life exists in the embryo before 14 days, should love allow it to become? I look forward to further exploring your website and reading his books. Thank you for your good work, John says: The embryo is human life from the start, and deserves high moral respect because of that, but I do not think that initially it has the absolute ethical status of personhood.

Apparent wastefulness of natural selection Does the apparent wastefulness of natural selection go some way to discrediting the idea that God is loving and merciful? How can a God of life allow a creation to develop where so many species die in, often, horrific and protracted suffering? I appreciate the idea that life was given the freedom to 'make itself' but still the developmental process that leads to sentiency seems nonsensically brutal.

Response: Well “species” don’t suffer. Clearly some higher animals do, although we must avoid the “pathetic fallacy” of attributing human feeling to non-humans.

The problem of pain – even when we eliminate the doubtful cases - is a real and serious one. But no-one has ever suggested a better way than Natural Selection to allow life to “make itself” indeed some suggest that it is the only possible way. Vastness of the universe Does the sheer vastness of the universe make the inference of God based on fine-tuning less compelling?

Couldn't one argue that God wasted a lot of space (no pun intended) in order to create life? Response: The size of the universe is essentially a function of its age. And we need enough time to create 2nd generation stars, and then for life to evolve. So c14bn years seems about right.

In many respects there is no real difference between 14,000 years, 14m years and 14bn years: they are all immense to us, and all equally comprehensible to God. The fine tuning is of course about the fundamental constants of nature, which (as far as we know) are the same throughout the universe. Experiment as basis for post-Aristotelian philosophy The Wikipedia article about you includes this sentence, with reference to your philosophical outlook: 'Because scientific experiments work very hard to eliminate extraneous influences, he believes that they are thus highly atypical of what goes on in nature.' My question is: Would you agree that at about the time of the Reformation, the synthesis with Aristotelian thought which had previously been achieved by the Christian church through the work of, e.g.

Thomas Aquinas, was disrupted, not only with respect to the old Aristotelian certainties’ (the sky wheels around the earth, bodies fall under gravity at a constant velocity etc.) but also with respect to the Aristotelian theory of knowledge, i.e. “when from many notions gained by experience, one universal judgement about similar objects is produced” (Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book 1 Chapter 1, translation in Ackrill 1987) Isn’t the epistemological basis for the empiricism of Locke and later Hume just this ‘atypical’ probing by experimenters, from Bacon and Galileo onwards? And isn’t it most likely that the scepticism of Hume, and later Kant and twentieth century positivism (which I think we both dislike), a response, not to anything in the new philosophy which necessarily replaced Aristotle, but to the severe pressure put on it by a society which includes religious believers who insist on retaining ideas (e.g. That mind can exist independently of brain) for which there is no objective evidence? Preliminary Response: I don't want to get drawn into Aristotle and Locke. But I don't think there has ever been severe pressure put on science by religious believers - until Darwin almost all the great scientists were religious believers and it's really only in the 20thC that this has not been the case - although of course there are many great 20th and 21st C scientists who are religious believers as well.

It is obviously self-refuting to hold that 'you should only believe in ideas for which you have objective evidence' and it is clearly logically possible for the mind to exist independently of the brain (otherwise AI would be impossible by defintion) - the actual relationship between human brains and the minds associated with them is certainly intimate and certainly un-clear. John adds: I agree that science considers a particular kind of experience (impersonal) encountered usually in special circumstances (experiments). I understand that John seems to entertain both. I wonder how he manages to do this.

Surely this presents huge doctrinal difficulties if we reject the Genesis account, or take it as allegory, in favour of the Theory of Evolution as the definitive description of reailty and history. If man evolved, and was not created, then we're just another animal and not necessarily created in the image of God.

There are huge philosophical consequences if man has evolved rather than created, not least the death and destruction in the world prior to original sin. I find that the evolution theory is a faith destroyer for many people who might otherwise be Christians. Not just the problems in Genesis 3, but also Noah's flood which science doesn't entertain, as with the account of the tower of Babel which would explain the origination of different languages and how & why humans dispersed all over the world. Then if one accepts human evolution, which suggests humans have been around for 200,000 years, then how can one reconcile this with human history only being up to 10,000 years ago at the same time as agriculture started in the middle east. 190,000 years of no history or agriculture? And only 7bn people in the world after 200,000 years of existance?

It seems absurd to me. How does John reconcile these things? I feel forced to choose and I do choose God's revelation in Genesis rather than the evolutionists view of pre-history (if there is such a thing). I admit I'm inspired by the arguments of creationist ministries such as Answers in Genesis. I understand many are nervous of endorsing such ministries, but don't they have a point?

Preliminary Response: There is no conflict between Creation and the science of Evolution, any more than Creation and astrophysics. The Bible says God made the stars - it is not interested in the scientific details of quantum physics etc. God creates through the operation of His faithful principles which we partially discern in scientific laws. One of the reasons for this seems to be that we are then able to gain a deeper understanding of His creation, and to be His 'fellow-workers'. Now in reading the Bible we have to understand what God is trying to tell us at each point, and what kind of writing we are reading. It is obvious that the Bible does not intend us to take all the details of the creation account literally, because the details are different in Genesis 1 and Genesis 3. If I say f=ma I don't mean that 'fry' means the same as 'mary'.

As you know as a mathematician, in order to communicate anything deep you need to use appropriate symbols: this does not make what you say 'symbolic' in the sense of 'untrue' but in order to understand what is being said you always need to understand what the terms used mean. Of course the Theory of Evolution is no more a definitive description of reality than the Theory of Gravity. Just as ideas about gravity have advanced and changed considerably since Galilleo, so ideas about Evolution continue to advance.

In particular it is clear that there is a lot more going on than the simplistic and rather dogmatic views of classical neo-Darwinism might suggest. In particular the fact that evolution uses 'random' processes doesn't mean that the results are random or that God is incapable of directing the outcomes: indeed it looks as if it is precisely the fact that the outcomes are under-determined at the physical level that allows God to nudge the processes without breaking His own laws. To touch breifly on your other points: • Original Sin is spiritual not biological.

When we make moral choices that turn us away from loving union with God the biological facts of pain and death have different spiritual implications. • It seems unlikely that Noah's Flood is meant to be taken entirely literally. But science now shows that there have been a number of catastrophic flood events (incl the Med and the Black Sea) and 'the whole earth' in Hebrew doesn't need to mean the whole planet. • Presumably if humans had lived together in a perfect loving community loving God and Neighbour then we would all speak one language.

But at some point, falling away from this (due to arrogance and greed) led humans to become dispersed. That is what Babel is about.

• I don't think the other problems are at all serious. Technological progress is somewhat exponential and cumulative - and although we take things like writing and agriculture for granted now they are pretty amazing innovations that depend on a great deal. As for the population - until recently this was limited by 'Mathusian' processes.

John adds: If God is the God of love, his creation cannot just be a puppet theatre in which the divine Puppet-master pulls every string. There will be the gift of some due form of independence to creatures to be themselves and to 'make themselves'. The evolutionary exploration of Gog-given potentiality seems to me to fit in well with this understanding. You might find it useful to take a look at Theology and Science.

Security of the Believer I suppose my question has to do with the security of the believer (if it exists). Having grown up in a Christian church (I'm 24 now), I've never at any point doubted that God was real and that Christ is who he said he is. However, over the past few months I've found myself desperately trying not to 'walk away' from the faith I once thought was so unshakable. Most of my questions that have led me to doubt Christianity have involved the following: Evolution/Anthropology, the historicity of the Bible, eschatology, and the idea of the miraculous.

I've read several books on the matter including Exploring Reality and The God of Hope. These and other books have given me a substantial rational basis for Christianity, however, I still feel this deep sense of fear and longing as though an old friend has just died. Maybe you can help.

• During my search, I've learned of several people with Christian backgrounds who are now skeptics. It does not appear that these people wanted to leave their faith, and it doesn't seem like they are particularly happy for having done so. Will God be merciful towards them? Will God be merciful towards me even in my doubt? • It seems like theism is the most rational position of all. It seems ridiculous that we would be here contemplating ourselves for no reason and despite many, many odds.

However, even as John acknowledged,'it is a big step from general theism to Christological belief'. How exactly do you take that step? And furthermore, how do I pursue a real relationship with Christ when I am not even sure I believe in him anymore?

• To you, do the claims in the the NT ever just seem too hard to believe? Sometimes it really just does seem like a made up story with little more weight than any other religious legend. Do you recommend any other books on this subject? Being rather new to asking strangers about quite serious.