Archive

WOW! Just Installed K2!

Published
by
David
on 2007-06-30
in Meta and Web Dev
. Closed

This is some kind of excellent tool for those of you using wordpress. It offers an excellent search tool upgrade, and some other nice features that make for a very nice presentation and set of upgrades. I would recommend it. Moreover, it comes from the same folk(s) that make the standard theme for wordpress v2, kubrick (hence the name K2). Try it. I think you will like it.

Ack! Upgrade to 2.2.1 Complete

Published
by
David
on 2007-06-28
in Meta
. Closed

I just finished upgrading from 2.1.3 to 2.2.1. I like the new visual editing textarea. This is just a sweet application all the way around. Makes me wish I had some real programming skills, instead of being a wanna-be web programmer. This may just be sleepy talk, but I think it is also true. :) Good night.

Jesus, Son of God. God the Son?

Published
by
David
on 2007-06-23
in Atheism, Theology/Doctrine and Worship
. Closed

Many today deny the deity of Christ from the Scriptures, “Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Mormons, many Liberal Christians (as in the Jesus Seminar, with notable fellow Bishop Shelby Spong, DD). Why would they say that he is not the Son of God? Maybe a more appropriate question would be, why would anyone say he is the son of God?

Consider John 9, where the man born blind saw Christ after being interrogated by the Pharisees:

35 Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God?

36 He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him?

37 And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee.

38 And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him.

39 And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.

40 And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also?

41 Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.

Note here that Jesus does not rebuke the man born blind for his worshiping him. That is not the only example. Consider also the example of Thomas’ worship of him after his seeing him following the resurrection. He worshipped him calling him, “Lord” and “God.”

27 Then saith he to Thomas, reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.

28 And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.

29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

If he was not God, he would have been a liar, and a blasphemer as the Pharisees said often of him. More than that, the fact that he called himself the Son of God all the time was making himself like unto God, as the Pharisees often affirmed.

Consider also the following (from John 1), where Jesus is called God—“In the beginning was the Word,…,and the Word was God,” etc.:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2 The same was in the beginning with God.

3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

And Hebrews 1, where God calls the Son, God, and commands the Angels to worship Him, etc.:

6 And again, when he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him.

7 And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire.

8 But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.

9 Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.

10 in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands:

Consider that no one is to be worshipped in this manner but God. John, when he received the vision was in the presence of an angel, and John worshipped him. Then the angel corrected John, calling himself a fellow servant, Rev. 22.8,9, and again, consider Peter, who when Cornelius worshiped him, corrected him (Ac 10.25,26). In the Old Testament (OT), Jesus is often foreshadowed, and known by David to be God, a member of the Godhead, as with the aforementioned passage in Hebrews, And the Lord said to my Lord, sit thou at my right hand (Psalm 110.1). Consider from the OT: Isaiah 9.1-7, esp. 6; and from the NT: John 10.28-ff • Col. 1.16-19.

I will try to expound on this more later. But in the meantime, it would be fair to say that if the Bible is correct, and I believe it is, Christ is the Son of God. But if Christ be not the Son of God, because the Scripture shows that he is not, then the Scripture is full of error, because it also shows that he is, so cast off your foolhardy faith before this ship goes down. Consider the foolishness, darkness and fundamental flaw of this heresy, in the end, his name is Immanuel/Emmanuel, or “God with us.” Even the Pharisees understood that he ‘made himself like God (John 10.33).’ How much more plain must it be?

Environmentalists ‘Bad for People’ & Down the Rabbit Hole

Published
by
David
on 2007-05-20
in Atheism, Current Events, Media and Science
. Closed

It is ridiculous to think that I can cover so many bases in one story. I am only posting it now until I can pull it down and piece it out into separate stories.

In a recent story in news.com.au, Sarah Kate Templeton (London) said that children are bad for the planet, in her story, Children ‘Bad for Planet.’ Her thesis is basically this: the more children people have (especially in developed nations) the more resources we use, which leads ot a greater carbon footprint. Neat! What does that mean to real people?

Of course that means that the world is headed for gloom and doom. The fallout is going to be terrible if we don’t change our ways. What is carbon (dioxide) really doing for us? In 1997, Dr. Richard Lindzen of MIT gave testimony to the senate on this subject. During which he cited from the American Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC):

Our ability to quantify the human influence on global climate is currently limited because the expected signal is still emerging from the noise of natural variability

There are a couple problems with this whole global warming thing: it is at its root godless. It presumes that science is king, not God. But science is man’s knowledge, where the Bible is God’s knowledge. Men constantly waffle and bend on their views, noteworthy among them is the fact that in the not-so-distant past, American scientists thought we were headed for an ice age, and thought it was prudent that we ramp up to curb the ebb of that activity. Now we are saying that we are headed for global warming.

The hypocrisy of the media is not helpful. They continue in the pattern of Dan Rather, Jayson Blair, CNN’s Iraq coverage, and the BBC’s coverage of all things American, to spin things that they think are appropriate. The problem with that is that they don’t have the knowledge to keep them from being bowled over by their interviewees. But they do not mind, because they are looking for a scientist to support their own theses, not for the most honest or correct. This is the very problem that science has always had: if you go into your work with a hypothesis, you will slant your work. If you go in without a hypothesis or direction, you will not know where to begin or end or what to collect.

Reporters are no different. They don’t know what they are talking about, they only find people who seem to. If reporters knew what they were talking about, they would be the expert and reporters would be asking them the questions. So where does this leave us?

We need reporters, because we live in a democratic system, and they help us to make informed decisions, they ensure that our right to know is maintained, and a bunch of other cliché tripe: We are not guaranteed (so far as I know) a right to a fourth estate (which acts more like a fifth column anyway). The only right to know we seem to be guaranteed is by the Government, and that is only the stuff that they say we are allowed to know with the freedom of information act. We are not a democracy or a democratic republic. We are a representative republic, we are probably most akin to an aristocracy.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (2001, May 2). On the Climate Change Debate. Cambridge, MA: Lindzen, Richard S. Retrieved July 17, 2006 from the World Wide Web: <http://eaps.mit.edu/ /faculty/lindzen/Testimony/Senate2001.pdf>

So-Called Science

Published
by
David
on 2007-05-20
in Atheism, Science and Theology/Doctrine
. Closed

There are three scientific thoughts which run parallel to each other and which are technically separate from one another, but are truly logically intertwined, and are in a most wicked friendship: atheism, Darwinism and modern thought on geology. They are at the face separable, and they are at the root separable, but somewhere in between, they are of a very strong accord.

Evolution is a belief based in Darwin’s thought that gradual transitions in the composition of animals (transitional forms) allowed for species to make adaptations to their surroundings over time, which would allow them to thrive in any circumstance, and become increasingly complex and well-suited to their environments.

Phyletic Gradualism (PG) is the assertion that evolution takes place in slow progression. Notable among the illustrations is the lizard: who seeking for an ever-escaping food source begins to stretch its neck and its scales, over time, become feathers, etc. until it is able to leave the ground for its food source.

PG has generally been left in light of the new school of thinking, called punctuated equilibrium (PE). This considers evolution to occur in fits and starts. A lizard could give birth to a sort of intermediate bird lizard thing that may in the future give birth to a bird through successive generations, but not with the generations of gradual changes, rather in a few short steps that may be rather abrupt.

Already there are a number of insurmountable problems with this line of thinking: Namely among them are sexual reproduction, speciation, cellular and genetic biology, etc. If the Lord allows addressing those topics will come later.

An Excuse…

Published
by
David
on 2007-05-08
in Meta
. Closed

I am busy between finals at Washburn and classes at Friends. I will get on this evolution thing soon. While I imagine there are not any reading, or interested to know, I am doing my part to patronize and placate.

Recent Flooding in Topeka

Published
by
David
on 2007-05-07
in Meta
. Closed

This is only a quick note for any of you concerned: We are safe here in Topeka. The waters were pretty high in the creek near our apartment last night. But they have receeded receded subsided today. As you probably know, we have received something in the order of 10 inches of water in the past 48 hours. For now, everything is going fine, with minimal flooding in two three church families’ homes, and only some difficulty moving around town (and outlying communities).

New Web Dev App for Mac

Published
by
David
on 2007-04-28
in Web Dev
. Closed

There is a great new web development tool for Mac: Coda from Panic (the makers of Transmit). It runs on SubethaEdit’s core, and has a souped-up Transmit FTP engine. While I am a pretty big fan of CSSEdit, it has an excellent CSS app built-in as well. It also comes with some great books, and some junk I am not able to use well yet, like SSH terminal. But I am not fond of the live preview, and while I have heard great things about SubEthaEdit, it is not BBEdit. It does not support http/live preview (like BBEdit and CSSEdit), so it only does light client side page rendering. But Cabel says it should soon support that as well relatively soon. I think it is the best single replacement for Dreamweaver, if you are not a big fan. I think DW is a glitchy mess, though I use it all day long at work on a W2K machine. It is an all-in-one application for people that like to code by hand and post it with relative ease. There is a lot great about this. But it is not a complete replacement for BBEdit/Transmit/CSSEdit(/Safari/Firefox), as it stands. Though I would not mind if it is. I don’t know if it is worth the 70 bucks I paid yet, but I don’t doubt that it will be soon. I hope you’ll think about trying it.

I have heard some good things about TextMate, and would love to hear more about it. But for now, I am quite content with BBEdit.

Considering the Roots of Our Thinking

Published
by
David
on 2007-04-22
in Philosophy and Theology/Doctrine
. Closed

Why We Think What We Think

I am, like you, a presuppositionalist. (I am sure that sounds presumptuous, and some of you may disagree.) There are certain things in life that cannot be proved. In this case, I am a Biblical presuppositionalist: I believe that the Bible is true as a primary tenet of my understanding of things. We all take things for granted, like those who drafted the Declaration of Independence, who said, “We hold these truths to be self-evident,” speaking of natural right. When considering the root of our thoughts, it is worthwhile to note that we all believe things that cannot be proven. When Moses wrote the book of Genesis, he said that God created the world.

How, pray tell, would he prove that? Rene Decartes said, “Cogito Ergo Sum,” or I think therefore I am. How do you imagine Mr. Descartes might demonstrate that his thinking proves his being? I do not deny our existence, I deny our ability to prove it. (Otherwise, why am I writing this?) I am no solipsist; a solipsist would say that he can prove his own existence, I will not even assert that, how can you?

Realizing that it is nearly impossible to prove a thing, there are some things that we take for granted, i.e. that we are alive, that we require nourishment to live. (I have no interest in disproving that.)

Some Examples of the Best Cyclical Thinking

There are two good examples of cyclical thinking that are worth noting, right after the best and broadest example, Christian Faith: Calvin’s admonition that to know God you must know yourself, and to know yourself, you must know God; and that in most reformation confessions, the first article addresses the Word of God and its being given by God. I think if I had been writing a confession today, I would have started on the subject of creation. But I think it would not have been as good a way to start, though it makes all the sense in the world to me. It may be that those men who fashioned the London Baptist and Westminster Confessions, had in mind that early sin in the Garden, namely, Satan’s undermining derision, “Yea, hath God said?”

That said, I will go on in my frail consideration, with the knowledge that there are two scriptural reasons to why it may be sometimes appropriate to start with creation, namely, Gen 1.1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth and Romans 1 shows that natural revelation is sufficient unto condemnation. So, while knowing about creation will not save a man, scoffing at God in light of it will damn a man. So, Genesis 1 shows us that God begins with the foregone conclusion that God began not with the argument that the Scriptures are His word, but that He created. Secondly, Romans shows us that creation knowledge is quite perilous, and powerful, though not life-giving.

In the beginning God…

God exists. He is the immaterial first Cause. There is nothing made but by his hand. While Scriptures are not needed to see this, it is by Scripture that I know that they are not needed to see this (Rom 1.19-21):

19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. 20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

However, all the only thing raw reason does is show us his existence, not his essence. I am frail, and my thinking feeble, as I have to reflect in my constant struggle with unbelief, I can rightly pray with that father in Mark 9.24, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.

What is there that was not made? Kelvin’s law of Energy Conservation says, Matter cannot be created, nor destroyed, it can only change forms, from matter to energy, and then energy cannot be destroyed. So we know that matter cannot create itself. However, truly, to think that anything could create itself is fundamentally absurd. It does not take a scientist to figure that out. But that is my point. To think that the universe could create itself is fundamentally absurd. If you really think otherwise, write me. I will not be able to straighten you out, though. Your problems are deep.

I am going to end here for now. I have too much to tackle here. This is an ongoing thing. I will next address the absurdity of evolution, if the Lord allows.

Fallout from Virginian Tragedy

Published
by
David
on 2007-04-19
in Constitution, Philosophy and Politics
. Closed

I am sorry for those who have lost loved ones in the tragedy in Virginia. I am blessed to have no relations (that I know of) that have been involved in that tragedy at Virginia Tech this week.

In the wake of those harrowing events at the VT campus this week, there is concern over campus security, and ensuring the safety of students. There are three basic problems with that:

  • Its focus is too narrow.
  • It is quite likely unconstitutional.
  • It is cost-ineffective (for now).

I think it is shortsighted to say that we need to take better care to secure students throughout the land. We are often only concerned with our own personal circumstances and callings. Consider, there is nothing that kept that from happening to people in the World Trade Center, a Colorado High School, an Oklahoma Federal Building or an Oklahoma Post Office. All people need to be protected: subway and airplane passengers, soldiers (from fellow soldiers), children from parents, and vice versa. What state can prevent all of that? I know of none. However, if we are interested in safety, we must consider all venues, not only the one from which we are reeling.

The second problem is that the protection that would be required by some would be entirely unconstitutional, consider the fourth amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Circumstances like these are generally improbable, so how would you protect yourself against them? If we undermine the constitution, we live in an arbitrary state, at the mercy of our newfound dictator. If we continue down this course we live a life like all have lived in times past, one that has uncertainty and fear. This is not new. The state cannot protect us from that in the end.

I believe there could easily come a point where we would have such a state where it would be possible for the government to so easily monitor our behavior through the use of video surveillance and RFID that we could be secure in a way that would assuage the fears of most Americans. But we would not be able to do the most sensitive things without our Big Brother knowing what is going on. There would no longer be wire taps, there would be an open phone system, that is constantly being passed through a governmental audio algorithm. All corners monitored by cameras, all corridors and all public school restrooms. However, one thing is forgotten here: monitoring is not protecting. In the end the state can only survey and hope to get there to limit the fallout. Security is freedom from danger, etc. When I lived at home, my dad used to say, “Son, I cannot make you do anything, I can only make you wish you had.” Likewise, the government cannot secure us they can only limit us and manage the aftermath. And every time more security measures are put in place, people overcome them, consider notorious hackers, they live to breach obstacles. Those men in the planes on 11 September 2001, Timothy McVey, Eric Klebold and Dylan Harris were all murderous engineers, devising the best way to maximize bloodshed.

Consider the following:

Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it? (Amos 3.6) Cf. similar passages.

Maybe we should be considering the source of safety and tragedy is the same, and repent before him, rather than railing against our god, the state.