havoc's blog

John Mark Reynolds has dropped a blog over at ScriptoriumDaily that I could hardly agree with more:

Forget the good old days, this is a great time to be alive. When I remember the stories my grandparents told me of their childhood, then it puts todays headlines in perspective.

Number 1: The Christian church is booming globally.
....

from The Constructive Curmudgeon by Doug Groothuis

Concerning Obama's relationship to the Jeremiah Wright:

1. Either (a) he knew of his irrational, conspiritorial, and divisive views or (b) he didn't.
2. If (a), Obama is culpable for supporting egegrious error.
3. If (b), Obama is an ignoramus about the basic teachings of his own church, and not a serious church goer (even though he avows that he is and is appealing to many religious people for this reason).

I really hope this doesn't sound like whining. My goal is actually to share encouragement that I have received.

Last week was awful! I was wrongly accused. I felt conspired against. I felt ensnared. I was assailed. I felt beaten down. When I left school Friday, I was seriously considering other options for a job. I was wrestling with the commitment I made to my boss about staying put with the school. I was seriously considering homeschooling the boys.

I was tired.

But this little incident has always lingered in my mind as a sort of parable. Most modern histories of mankind begin with the word evolution, and with a rather wordy exposition of evolution, for much the same reason that operated in this case. There is something slow and soothing and gradual about the word even about the idea. As a matter of fact, it is not, touching these primary things, a very practical word or a very profitable idea. Nobody can imagine how nothing could turn into something. Nobody can get an inch nearer to it by explaining how something could turn into something else.

Virtues cannot be created instantaneously; the process by which they are acquired is part of the nature of having them. Each of us is given an opportunity to develop into a better or worse person. But we cannot grow in an environment that is free of risk and danger and disappointment. Just as God had good reasons for creating us with free will and for placing us in a lawlike environment, God also had good reasons for placing us in an environment that is challenging, that tests us.
-- Ron Nash, Faith and Reason, p 204

I did an upgrade on the site software earlier this week, and that has caused some kind of problems for our in-line flash player that I prefer. I tried frantically to debug the issue for a while on Tuesday, then just gave up and switched to a less desirable alternative. At least it works.

I'll try to make time to figure out what happened with the first string player. In the mean time, if the current player bugs you, bug me. (That'll inspire me to make it a higher priority.)

It's always very tempting lie to defend ones self against all kinds of accusations. Sometimes we even want to defend ourselves from the truth with a lie. It may be more tempting to lie to defend organizations, groups or causes that we are aligned with because of our commitment to them. Lying to defend others is actually a little easier because it's harder to know for sure that we're actually lying, and harder for others to verify that we're "billowing smoke."

The "Problem of Evil" (wikipedia) has been and is probably the toughest question atheists have posed to Christians. A theist's answer to this problem is called a "theodicy." It takes a good theology to pose a good theodicy, but maybe I'll cover that later.

What I'm primarily interested in right now is not the threat that the Problem of Evil poses for Christianity, but the problem it poses for atheism.

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
- Steven Weinberg

Well, Steven, there's a problem there.... a fairly obvious problem, once you've looked at it.

It seems that there is a lot of interest in Christian education about teaching kids and adults how to debate for their faith. I probably agreed with this one day in my past, but I've come to the conclusion that this is a very, very, very bad idea.

I'll pretend that someone is interested in knowing why I think it's a bad idea, and I'll tell you. I am probably more prepared to debate scientific, intellectual and philosophical reasons for believing in Christianity than 95% of Christians in America.... and I've had my head handed to me time after time.

I have a lot of thoughts I'd like to share about atheism, and how it fails for me intellectually and philisophically, but it seems that when I get ready to try to write them down, the thoughts never condense into words. It feels a bit like standing in a field with butterflies flying all around you, but never being able to get them to land in the right places.... or not.... that's a worse analogy.

Maybe I'll try capturing my thoughts in a wiki and see if I can hammer them into something worth reading.

Looks like there's not a lot of interest in the "Big May Giveaway." So far, a grand total of 5 people have signed up. Dan and I have decided that we may have included something in the prize package that people don't want. We will be sending, along with the winner confirmation message, a note stating, "if there's anything in the prize package that you don't want, let us know, and we'll keep it."

Tell us what your favorite shows are.... We'd like to know.

It's been a long week. I just pushed tomorrow's show to the server, and I should have had that done hours ago.

I've been fighting with software, and my truck is overheating. I finally got the software to start cooperating, but I have to take the truck into the shop tomorrow (which means the whole day is pretty much shot at thT point).

Today's show completes Disc 11! Woohoo!

Disc 11:

#44 - "Fellowship -- It's an Essential Part of Every Healthy Christian Life" (11:05)
#45 - "Fellowship Outside -- What Happens When We Take Fellowship Beyond the Church?" (7:39)
#46 - "Priorities - Where They Come From, How They Affect Us, How They Affect The Church." (12:38)
#47 - "Children In Church Part 2 - Feedback from John Wilkerson." (18:22)
#48 - "Traditions - Making and Breaking Them While Some Make or Break Us" (10:13)
#49 - "The Parable of the Older Brother.... That's You!" (11:12)

No Sidecast this week. We didn't get to record this week.

Update:
- We now how 3 people signed up for the Big May Giveaway
- We have some more people joining in the discussion forums
- Pray for Dan. He has a terrible infection in his foot that his doctor is fighting with.
- Send us feedback. We love feedback.

Long story short: Last week, we initiated a simple upgrade for my server, bumping the RAM from 1 GB to 2 GB. Ugliness. The server was up-again/down-again for three days. Services were going belly-up. One minute I'd have mail, the next minute I wouldn't. It was ugly. Turned out that one of the memory sticks was bad.... FINALLY, last night they did another upgrade, and everything looks good so far.

What a mess. It appears to be done, now. So, OpenDiscipleship.org as well as the rest of the sites on my server should be running faster now. that's a good thing!

CNN Breaking News:
-- David Evans, one of the three men exonerated today when the final charges in the Duke lacrosse sex case were dropped, said they went "to hell and back" and he hoped changes to the legal system would be made as a result of their case.

Just got that in my inbox. Then, I got to thinking about it....

It seems that Mr. Evans has a considerable underestimation of 'hell.' Not to be too harsh on Mr. Evans, but it seems to me that we have used that term, 'to hell and back' with such abandon that it has really lost it's meaning.

Yay! I published Chapter 5 of Mere Christianity: Leaders' Notes for Book 2 ("What Christians Believe") this morning.

Thanks to John Wilkerson, I discovered ClassicAstronomy.com today, and thanks to ClassicalAstronomy.com, I learned about The Astronomy of Easter today.

That's cool science, cool math, cool history and some cool theology all in one!

nice.