Archive for March, 2009

Hackers?!?!? Problem solved!

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

I wake up this morning, and all of my links are messed up!  I’m trying a back-up and upgrade of my WordPress software.  Stay Tuned!

Update: I tried upgrading the WordPress software, which (maybe?) should have rebuilt all the links.  It didn’t work.  That’s all I can try for the moment–I might be down for a day or two.  (I hope my entire database isn’t corrupted!  I’m not sure how to fix that.)

Further Update: I remembered that there’s a “Permalinks” setting, where you can change what the URLs for you site will look like.  So I played with that, and that forced all the urls to get fixed.  Yay!  I’m not sure how the problem started, but I’m glad it was an easy fix.  (Especially since I didn’t have a recent backup of the blog!)

Posted in Miscellaneous | No Comments »

Irony: An Atheist on ‘Skeptics’

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

As a follow-up on my brief entry about the irony of the term “free-thinker”, here’s an article from an atheist, lamenting the credulity of so-called “critical, skeptical people”.  This followed a lecture from Richard Carrier, related to his upcoming book arguing against the historicity of Jesus.

An excerpt:

It concerns me that so many people were convinced to reverse their position on the basis of a single, brief talk without (1) checking Carrier’s sources, (2) reading other scholars on the subject, or (3) reading rebuttals of Carrier’s points.

Mind you, this was a roomful of atheists. Critical, skeptical people, right? Not so! Nearly half of them were willing to be instantly persuaded by a single talk without checking any sources or reading any rebuttals. Many of them were totally unaware of how historical scholarship was even done. I feel like I could have made up a bunch of stuff, claimed that it was held by the majority of historians, and then persuaded half the audience to believe that Jesus was a Persian myth.

[...]

Anyway, this is one of a thousand events that lead me to think atheists are not generally more rational or careful than belivers. Thus, my plea to all people is: Do not be quickly persuaded. Investigate. Challenge. Doubt.

Amen, sir.  Amen.

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Posted in Apologetics | 4 Comments »

On the Dangers of Podcasts

Sunday, March 22nd, 2009

Frank Turk did a post of miscellaneous thoughts, including some commentary on celebrity culture in Christianity.  It included the following gem for podcast aficionados:

May we all have the opportunity to use our gifts for the goods works God intended them to be used for, amen? But let’s never forget that while it is a virtue to do those things which God has ordained beforehand, it is not a virtue to merely admire those who are doing what God has ordained and then nothing else. You are not a Paul-plus-James Christian if you merely enjoy the podcasts from all the T4G guys and all the Gospel Coalition guys. You are a Paul-plus-James Christian if you count trial as joy, and can say that you see that the aim of what the apostles taught is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

That hit home for me.  I love the T4G guys, and I listen to podcasts somewhat obsessively.  And I’ve noticed some dangers:

  1. Letting podcasts act as a substitute for your devotional walk with God.
  2. Spiritual pride based on the people you listen to/like.  Justification by podcast.
  3. Picking podcasts for the interesting controversy, rather than the edification.

Aside from the podcast issue, Frank’s point was key, about how “the aim of what the apostles taught is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith”.  (How much easier to be a hearer-but-not-a-doer, in this age where hearing is so easy?)

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Posted in Miscellaneous | 2 Comments »

Response thread for a TeamPyro post

Wednesday, March 11th, 2009

I posted some comments over at the TeamPyro blog, related to prophecy & charismatics.  We were off-topic for the post, so we cut it short.  I’m posting this here so that anyone coming from there has a chance to continue the discussion.

The post was Evangelicalism down the drain?.

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Posted in Misc. Theology | 33 Comments »