Results tagged “life”

I started a new job last week and visited Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for the second time ever. This was the first time I got to actually see Pittsburgh since I was busy traveling or interviewing last time. This time I tried to sample some of the shopping and restaurants since I’ll be coming back from time to time for work. Nothing about Pittsburgh has really wow’d me yet other than the tunnel/bridge intro to the downtown area.

Now that I’m home for a week, I’ve started whipping my office into shape. I’ll have more to share regarding my new office in a couple weeks or so, I guess, when I have it in a better place. Right now I’m looking into some shades for the skylight to keep the sun off my head during the afternoon and might need to come up with an interim solution while I wait for those to be fabricated. I’m also doing a much needed culling of all the junk I’ve been collecting since I really don’t need a bunch of empty CD crystal cases (many of them broken) and other miscellaneous crap I’ve built up in my office.

Finally, while I was out, I got a package from Waste Management containing the truck you see pictured above. Gabe has already destroyed it somewhat more than is pictured there since it’s a very intricate truck not really intended for him, but it’s really cool. Apparently when I filled out a survey for them in the past few weeks I suggested they send text messages warning to set out your trash the day before they pick up (since I often forget). Apparently, they liked the idea and I got a hand-written note stating, “Look for ‘Green Alerts’ coming soon.” I thought that was pretty cool and probably obliterates any thoughts we were having about possibly switching to Howie’s Trash Service, which is a new local service with purple (Go State!) trash cans (and Howie’s being a company I’ve liked for some time for various reason).

Anyway, it’s been quite a week for me. I’m now off to do some more organizing in my office.

Cheers.

There is a strange fact about the world, which few will agree with: there are no good people. Years ago, I had a friend who once told me that she thought she would go to heaven because she was a "good person." I knew how to counter this same strange fact then and tried to explain it to her, but she could not hear me because of this very fact: she was not a "good person." What do I mean?

Let me clarify the concept of "good." In some ways, I cringe away from the contrast of "good versus evil." While these are opposites in principle, they are not opposite in essence. A thing can be perfectly good, but it is impossible for something to be perfectly evil. Why? Because no matter how evil a thing is, it still has some good in it.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. — Romans 8:28 (emphasis added)

If you go to your local Christian bookstore, you can find a half dozen or so books written to answer common questions about Christianity. If you examine each, you will probably discover a few very common questions. One of these will certainly be something to this effect, "Why would a good God allow bad things in the world?" This question is interesting in that it reveals one truth everyone with a conscience realizes. It also reveals a common lie that many people believe to be true---it happens to be the same lie that causes them to think there are good people.

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. — Romans 1:19

They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. — Romans 2:15-16

The truth is: we all know, on some internal level, what is good and what is bad. There may be some exceptions where someone's conscience has been damaged or destroyed. There may be some disagreement about some of the details, but, ultimately, everyone has a little nagging sense of good and bad. We have two choices about this "voice" that whispers within our skull. We know from this voice that "bad things" happen. People commit crimes and atrocities. Natural disasters strike down many. Lives can be destroyed in millions of different ways and everyone has felt some amount of harm due to some of these things.

The lie is that the presence of good automatically cancels the power of evil. That is completely false. That isn't to say that an act of good cannot help in the face of evil, but good cannot undo evil. If a man commits murder, no amount of good is going to bring the victim back to life. God is the ultimate good. However, He has not chosen to stop evil from occurring altogether because of these very facts.

If I wash myself with snow water, And cleanse my hands with soap, Yet You will plunge me into the pit, And my own clothes will abhor me. — Job 9:30-31

If a person does evil, that person cannot undo that evil with any amount of good behavior. If you lie to a friend, that lie continues to exist. If you punch someone in the nose, the nose may heal with time, but the pain that was caused cannot be taken away with any amount of kisses in return. Evil is a contamination that persists despite whatever good a person may do. The smallest amount of evil corrupts a person completely and that corruption is what prevents the existence of good people. Every person has succumbed to this corruption. There are no good people.

For there is not a just man on earth who does good And does not sin. — Ecclesiastes 7:20

How did this happen? Well, in the very start of things, this was not the state of the universe.

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. ... And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. — Genesis 1:26-27,31a

Almost everyone knows the rest of the story. The first man and the first woman, Adam and Eve, had one rule. That rule was that they must not eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. This rule provides the test of man and proves man's free will from God. Man is given the choice to either obey God or to turn aside from God and choose to rule himself. At this point, the devil came in and tempted Adam and Eve to disobey and Adam and Eve chose the exhilaration of rebellion over the contentment of obedience. Every man and woman since that day has been born into the corruption that has resulted.

Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. — Romans 15:13

This, then, begs the question, is there no hope? If good cannot undo evil what hope is there for us that desire to be good people? The good news is that there was exactly one man who was able to live on this planet and yet be free from the corruption of evil. He was able to do this because he is the Messiah, Jesus Christ. He is God in the flesh. He came to earth to invoke the "deep magic" C.S. Lewis allegorizes in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The "deep magic" is this, that if one who committed no sin is sacrificed on behalf of those who do sin, the power of sin will be turned backwards for all who are covered by this sacrifice.

because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, "everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame." — Romans 10:9-11

I said that good does not undo evil, but when the Good Creator chooses, he can make it as if no evil ever occurred through this sacrifice. The evil exists, but God has provided a way for it to be forgiven. If you choose to submit to God, accept this sacrifice, and honestly pray for forgiveness for the evil you have committed, you too will be covered by Jesus Christ's sacrifice. You too can hope to follow Christ into the resurrection and life in heaven.

For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? — Mark 8:35-36

The wicked shall be turned into hell, And all the nations that forget God. — Psalm 9:17

Yet, if you choose not to consider or accept this, I will not lie to you or gloss over reality. It would be better for you to have never been born than to die. The evil you have committed requires some amount of compensation. You will experience the forever torment of hell because evil demands an answer.

Amen.

The longer I have been a Christian, the more I have been convinced of the preeminence of the Word of God as revealed in the Bible. In Psalm 19
, David tells us, "The law of the Lord if perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple." I think much of this passage is forgotten today in many churches today.

Each and every Christian should see it as his highest priority in life, above work, above family, above children, above spouses, above home, above fellowship, above politics, above hobbies, above all things to search the Word of God and pray to know Jesus Christ more. Some of scripture is hard and beyond understanding, but nearly all of it is able to "1 Peter 4:11

Do not mishear me. I am not saying that the Bible is the only thing. In fact, by saying the Bible is most important, I am unable to say it is the only thing. To read and apply the Bible with guidance from the Holy Spirit demands that we work hard, we fervently serve our children and wives, we manage our home well, we seek fellowship, we influence others, and we maintain our bodies and health. The Bible holds an impossible standard to follow, but by making it our chief focus we hope to attain something of the prize it describes.

I have, unfortunately, heard Bible study referred to as a "toxic" environment. I have seen it said that Bible study alone can be compared with the filling of the Dead Sea: without an outlet the water becomes toxic and no life can survive in it. In theory, I can suppose that it is possible for Bible study to degenerate in this way, but since this contradicts the clear teaching of scripture I must assume a contradiction has occurred in such "Bible studies."

A Bible study may be a Bible study in name only. If the true purpose of a gathering is actually to share personal experience or fellowship or prayer or singing or acts of service (all good things, I do not malign them) with a Bible present in the room: This a "Bible study" does not make.

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. — 2 Timothy 5:16-17

If you have a "Bible study" that does not engage in teaching the Word but focuses on experience or personal beliefs or fellowship or anything else, you do not have a Bible study. If you have a "Bible study" that does not use the Word to reprove false teaching but merely provides positive applications, you do not have a Bible study. If you have a "Bible study" that does not use the Word to expose error in personal belief and behavior but elevate individual experience over the Bible, you do not have a Bible study. If you do not use the Word of God to train believers as if they were studying hard for the most important final exam of their lives, Final Judgment, but just have a "holy huddle," you do not have a Bible study.

Let us not confuse terms here. A Bible study is focused on the Word of God. Anything else may be excellent, but Bible study must be greatest among all the pursuits of Christians. Everything else may fall into place when this pursuit is realized. Sharing our lives will become an outpouring of our wish to show God's glory exposed in our failures and His miracles. Fellowship will become an opportunity to build one another up. Prayer will become ever more important as the Bible exposes our shortcomings and the Spirit convicts us more and more. Evangelism will become the natural mode of our speech and actions as the Word fills us and breaks down the dams of comfort and convenience we build up in this modern society.

Any attempt to develop programs or man-made systems to enforce rigorous Bible study will ultimately fail. Men and women of God will either pursue scripture and apply its precepts to their life, as difficult as it is to do so, or they will not. The Spirit will lead this process, not men. Men may provide guidance and wisdom to others, but only the Spirit changes lives and attitudes. It is not an easy standard to live by and its teachings work against many modern innovations in psychology and social behavior and science that seem improve our lives, but the truth is the truth and these things will be found to be man's folly sooner or later. Attempting to use these modern innovations of strategy and community building will prove to serve as a false hope that replaces the true hope found in scripture.

I ask that any Christian that reads this and agrees with it, do not allow compromise on this issue anymore. I pray that God will harden my resolve in this matter so that I will not compromise as I have unfortunately done too often, to the detriment of myself, my family, and those within the realm of my influence. I have gone with the flow of liberal doctrine and allowed man's experiences and learning and "wisdom" to cloud my understanding. I must not allow this disease to persist in my life. I recommend the same in yours.

The Word is the Word and the truth of Jesus is always good and satisfying to those who know Him. If we only take it and use it to its full advantage, there is no task that God can set us to that we will fail. Though, we might find ourselves doing tasks that we would not have sought ourselves. Yet, if we are doing God's work and building up eternal treasures it will be worth it.

Amen.

There is a popular scientific hypothesis right now that has taken on extreme political and religious overtones in the last few years. I am, of course, speaking of the current obsession with climate change and global warming, particularly humanity's hand in these issues. However, I don't put much stock in the evidence to support the hypothesis that climate change over the past few years has been the direct (or even indirect) result of human interference with the atmosphere. I find that, after examining the evidence, I must side with the unconvinced against the so-called "consensus of scientists" that Al Gore has referred to regarding this hypothesis. Furthermore, I believe the current political and religious fervor that have glommed onto this theory demonstrate three forms of hubris that make it difficult for many of these proponents to think objectively on the subject.

Statement of Hubris #1: Humanity can manipulate climate. If we consider the small weather events that happen every day on earth we find that the amount of energy involved in some of the minor events to be well-beyond what humans are able to produce across the entire planet. In face, we use these forces to capture very small amounts of the power via wind turbines and hydroelectric dams. These human machines capture a minuscule portion of the energy produced by the earth's weather to power entire cities.

The claim is that very small changes in the chemical make-up of the atmosphere can yield huge differences in climate because of the massiveness of the system and that humans are making such changes. However, this doesn't really fly in the face of facts. Many natural disasters actual alter the chemical make-up in greater quantities than humanity does and yet the climate does not change very greatly. The sun has been closely linked to changes in climatic conditions here on Earth and on Mars with greater accuracy than many of the simulations run by the computers.

In short, I find that the hypotheses of climate change being lifted up here appeals to our sense of greatness and achievement in a perverse sort of way. We humans are really powerful, like gods. We are so great, we can destroy the earth just by releasing a few chemicals into the oceans and atmosphere. This is a sick kind of pride.

Statement of Hubris #2: Humanity knows how the climate works. This is a flat lie. I've been very careful to refer to humanity's influence in climate change as a hypothesis because that is all it is. We don't yet have a proper scientific framework for even handling the climate to any certain degree. In order for science to work properly you must first be able to create a testable hypothesis and then run repeatable tests that either help to validate that hypothesis or not. For example, one such hypothesis for climate change is that the massive hurricane Katrina was just a precursor for things to come because climate change would cause greater and greater weather disturbances as more energy was held in the system. Yet, the past two summers have not shown this hypothesis to be accurate.

Even so, this is still far to broad a hypothesis to be truly scientific. Science is about eliminating superfluous variables through precise and systematic procedures. Medical science has found double-blind clinical trials to be very useful in providing accurate tests for finding if a particular drug is useful for treating a particular disease. Chemistry uses controlled lab experiments to repeatedly attempt to provide explanations for how chemicals form and release bonds. Every branch of science develops procedures that when followed create reproducible results that either validate or invalidate a particular hypothesis.

Climatology finds much of its basis in computer models based upon other sciences, but the computer models aren't experiments of the real system. They merely predict what will happen if the climatologists hypothesis is correct. It doesn't prove anything scientific regarding reality. In fact, these models leave out huge amounts of important data because there are certain measurements that are difficult to take. For example, one of the most important greenhouse gases is water vapor, but there's no current way to measure water vapor amounts globally. Until there's a way for climatology to really test hypotheses on a scale that is reproducible and useful, climatology has no real support for the hypothesis for human factors in climate change.

When textbook writers summarize scientific research, they tend to say things like "X goes here and Y goes there." Yet, what the scientist actually said was more complicated, "X usually went here even though a statistically insignificant amount didn't in our experiments and same for Y." We don't know if those statistically insignificant things are truly just caused by extra insignificant variables we couldn't control or actually significant factors that we aren't aware of yet. That's why science is never finished, but textbooks give the false indication of the subject being closed. Yet, how often have standing theories been thrown out to be replaced by new and more accurate ones? It happens all the time.

This is an example of humans thinking that because they have answered some questions that we as humans know everything or at least everything important. Pride. In reality, we should realize that every question answered produces three more questions we don't know. Humility. Those questions might have very important answers that could change everything that came before.

Statement of Hubris #3: Humans are worth saving. This is the one that starts to get me laughing. The same people who get upset that humans are harming the earth are either the same folks or those causing a different group to panic and figure out how to save ourselves from this disaster. Part of the rhetoric is that humans need to take action to solve this problem before it destroys our economy, kills millions of people, or completely wipes humanity from the face of the Earth.

My laughing quickly turns cynical because this is the most significant factor in all of this. Politicians and wealthy men across the globe stand to gain a great deal if we listen to this rhetoric. Scientists are corrupted by a desire for influence as well. By controlling what we can buy or by providing new products that we must buy (e.g., taxes to pay for carbon credits), these powerful men can place themselves in a position to be the money handlers.

I've often heard the proponents of climate change theory attacking opponents by claiming that studies countering their view point were funded by corporations trying to save themselves against the truth. That may be. Yet, I can say the same thing about state funded institutions. Anyone who things that
state money is free from the same kind of corruption is completely fooling themselves. Anyone with half a brain knows governments are corrupt, but these people would like to indicate that only corporate funding is corrupt and that government money is pure. Hah. Politicians who desire more power for themselves control the delivery of this money just like corporate tycoons who desire more power for themselves control the delivery of private grants.

We have to go by the facts as they are found and try and discern which are right despite these corrupting influences on all sides.

Back to the point, humanity thinks very highly of itself when we think that we are really worth saving. Spiritually, I believe that humanity is precious because every man and woman is created in the image of God, but physically humanity is completely worthless because every one of us has rejected God despite the goodness of his plan for our lives. We'd rather have our own way than the best way. As such, Christ came to save everyone that would believe in him and his sacrifice for our sin. We each must pay the price of physical death once because of our sin, but that is the only price left to pay for those that believe in Christ. Therefore, as far as humanity is concerned physically, we can all die and the Earth won't be worse without us.

Of course, I don't believe humanity will die because of global climate change that we caused and I don't believe the evidence exists yet to properly support any hypothesis of the sort. Yet, people, in in their redoubtable pride, will continue pushing this hypothesis up as if it were fact to support our pride in power, knowledge, and self-importance until some other event, activity, or hypothesis takes up our fancy to help us do it again in a different form.

This is one of those issues I get annoyed with conservatives over: "Let's make English the official language of the United States." I strongly disagree. My reasoning is very simple: Do we really need another bureaucracy controlling how and what we speak?

I believe that every person coming to the United States should learn English. I believe they should do this for their own benefit. If I moved to Mexico or Spain, I would want to learn Spanish. If I moved to Japan, I would want to learn Japanese. If I moved to Australia or Great Britain, I'd want to learn as much as I could about the differences in dialect. Why? So that I could succeed as much as possible by communicating as clearly as possible with others. Good communication skills are a major key to success in any culture. Those skills start and end with language.

On the other hand, if we make English the official language of the United States, what will happen? Obviously, we'll need a special department to define what English is and how it must be officially used. How may it be taught in schools? When and how may other languages be taught? It will define rules as to when and where English must be used and have a list of possible exceptions (airport signs, traffic signs near the Mexico border, certain literature, etc.). Then, it will have to start defining penalties for violating those rules. Otherwise, what difference does it make if English is "official or not? I don't want to see any such thing happen.

If someone can show me how we can make English a requirement for learning without the bureaucracy to define the rules and enforce them, I'm not interested in seeing English become "official" in the United states. I believe it is in the best interest of each individual and society as a whole to learn English in the United States. yet, legislating such will certainly come at a higher than intended cost.

So, this is a little late, but it's important enough that I want to make sure I write this one while it's still on my mind. I'm a little frustrated with "Turkey Day" as Thanksgiving has begun to be euphemistically referred to over the past few years. I am frustrated that this time of Thanksgiving has been turned from a time to reflect upon what God has done for us as a nation to a day of football and gluttony (both of which I enjoy, by the way). I'm glad that family is still a significant part of the tradition for most, but the God-focus of this holiday has been diminished. So, I want to share here what Thanksgiving is according to the first-ever presidential proclamation from President George Washington and then explain why this is important.

I think George Washington's proclamation stands on it's own and is not too hard to read, so here it is as he wrote it. This was copied from the Library of Congress web site. You can see a photo copy
of the original text
there as well.

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor--and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be-- That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks--for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation--for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war--for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed--for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted--for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

and also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions--to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually--to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed--to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord--To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and us--and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

If some chafe under the use of God and prayer by President George W. Bush, the first Presidential proclamation ought to cause apoplexy. The first President declared Thanksgiving to be a national day of public prayer and thanksgiving to Almighty God. Note that he even offers thanks for the Bill of Rights. He seems to be comfortable with invoking God despite declaration for "religious liberty". Thus, an indication that President Washington supports the view held by traditionalists like myself that the separation of Church and State implies the State is to keep it's hands out of religion, but there's no reason why Church cannot be fully involved with State.

The main point being that the entire focus of Thanksgiving, as originally established by President Washtington, is that we need to thank God for his provision of many things and ask Him for pardon for any sins (i.e., "transgressions") we have committed against Him as a nation.

This was not the first Thanksgiving, as any first grader can tell you. Thanksgiving had been celebrated for decades in the United States according to various traditions long before the nation was even established. However, this was the first national decree in the United States. In fact, this was the first Presidential decree of any kind. Thanksgiving was the very first national holiday.

This original decree was only for Thanksgiving in 1789. It was not established as an annual national holiday until 1863 by President Lincoln (whose declaration is a further exposition on divine providence and thanks to God). The actual day was the last Thursday of November in Lincoln's precedent. President Roosevelt moved this up a bit for economic reasons. Congress, then, formally established the holiday's current date legislatively in 1941 as the fourth Thursday of November as we celebrate it today.

Thanksgiving, as celebrated in the United States, was originally established as a day to thank God. I believe this is the appropriate nature of the holiday. If you don't believe in God, who would you thank? Yourself? Your parents? Your neighbors? There's no providence, only chance and skill and why would you thank them? As such, it devolves into "Turkey Day".

I don't care how you want to tell the Plymouth Rock Thanksgiving (which really has little resemblance to the holiday we celebrate today) or if you want to say Plymouth Rock wasn't actually the first or didn't establish the tradition or whatever. All of that is irrelevant. What's relevant, is that this day was established by this nation so that the citizens of this nation may acknowledge and thank our creator for the blessings we've been provided. As American Christians, this should be our focus on this day. I do wish this would be the case for the rest of America as well, but it's free country and the rest of you can do what you please, but I hope I've at least made you aware of the intent of this holiday.

Amen.

This is a topic I've been mulling for the past couple weeks. It was sparked by an offhanded remark a friend made a couple Sundays ago. We were discussing how churches should be run. After prayerful consideration over the past three weeks or so, I've come to the conclusion that pursuing the method is not a waste of time, but very close to it. We should spend the vast majority of our time focusing on the message.

When I say "the message" here I'm referring to the Gospel of Christ, both the message of salvaation and the pursuit of God and godliness following salvation. When I say "the method" here, I'm referring to the style or philosophy used to run a church and it's ministries.

This is my paraphrase of our conversation. I said, "I do agree with the point about focusing on the message. The method is not nearly so important as our message itself." My friend responded, "That's true until our method gets in the way of our message." That statement struck with discord with me, but I couldn't have told you why at the the time. However, on the drive home, I pinned it down as I told my wife, "I suppose stating that 'the method can get in the way of the message' is one way to put this, but the really key thing is that the method is so often pursued without regard to the message itself."

Here's my point. I'm a Calvinist. I believe that God is absolutely sovereign and that man has free will. I'm not a fatalist that believes God determines what is and what isn't. Yet, as Paul made clear in Romans 9:19
and following, God is the great potter. He is the one that designed each of us and some He designed for "noble purposes and some for common use." As such, the delivery of the message will be received well or poorly based upon the workings of the Holy Spirit, not based upon the method of our delivery.

Certainly, we have influence in the way we are used as Christians (as I said, I believe in freedom of will). Yet, that implies that we live a life dedicated to Christ and holiness as outlined by the whole teaching of God found in the Bible. That does not mean that anything more than following the precepts of the Bible is required.

Discerning relevant ways of delivery is a good thing, but you must first be intimately acquainted with the message itself. If you focus on the method of delivery rather than the details of the message, then you will be ill equipped to adapt when faced with a change in parameters. Culture can change quickly in a short-time or you may be confronted by someone from a different culture or sub-culture than your methods were designed. At which point, you may be emphasizing the completely wrong aspects of the message to best reach that person.

Now, the good thing is that even under these circumstances, we still learn that God is sovereign and that the message can reach someone dispite a complete failure in delivery. Therefore, using the wrong method won't hurt, but only if that method includes a firm basis in the message. Too often, I think, Christians fail to deliver the message entirely because they are too focused on how to deliver it.

That's only covering the first side of the coin, though. The other aspect to consider is how to grow baby Christian's into maturity so that they can lead the church of the next generation into the same position and so forth until Christ's return. I believe that the importance of the message still trumps whatever cultural baggage we bring in to how we run our church.

I don't care if members of your church dress up or dress casual or even grungy. I don't care if your church sings hymns, rock songs, or raps. I don't care if your church prays aloud as a group, performs liturgical prayers, or prayers in utter silence. I don't care if you meet on Sunday, Saturday, Wednesday, or every other day.

I care if you're sharing the Scriptures. I care if you're exploring the truth and earnestly seeking God's wisdom. I care if you're using discernment to expel any false teacher who would cause divisions. I care if you're earnestly asking God to conform you to his will and daily taking up your cross to die to self and serve those around you.

All that is to say, use whatever method you have to to make sure you are being equipped for the purposes of sharing the Gospel with those who need to hear it and for the purpose of encouraging and equipping believers who have accepted it. Focus on the Bible and the message God has delivered through it.

Ultimately, let us not get lost in searching for the best way to run a church and simply get about the business of doing it.

I'm taking Todd Stewart's class on Discovering Biblical Christianity at church right now and we had our first class on Sunday. I was a little disappointed at the low attendance, but was pleased with the discussion we had. However, I'm somewhat stunned by the articles that Todd handed out for us to read as homework before the next session.

One was taken from Christianity Today and the other from the Leadership Journal (both published by the same group). I am not personally very familiar with either of these publications, but I am aware that their reputation for reliable evangelical information is not untarnished. However, both of these articles were superb and sound like just the sort of thing I would rant about (though, these were much more reserved in their tone).

The first is titled "Amusing Ourselves on Sunday," which was an editorial posted on Christianity Today October 8, 2007. The article centers around our entertainment culture and how churches no longer seek to change lives as the primary goal, but to sell Jesus as product. This has long been a complaint of mine. I'm not opposed to showing video clips in church, for example, but if you do it so frequently that people are more interested in which movie you're going to bring into the sermon this week than the substance of Christ and Him crucified and resurrected, the church is failing.

The second is titled "iChurch: All We Like Sheep" by Skye Jethani in Leadership Journal (Summer 2006, Vol XXVII, No. 3, Page 28). This article centers around the consumer church. Like the iPod, there are coming new venues for church that essentially allow you to pick your play list and tailor an individual experience. In a certain sense, I suppose, that's very attractive, but the danger is the same as the American church has been suffering for decades: growing individualism at the cost of diminished community. Jethani uses a case study of a couple that left his church because his church no longer offers the right services for their teenagers. He uses that to illustrate how Christian culture is really more oriented around shopping and T-Shirts for Jesus than it is about life-changing personal relationship with Jesus. Ultimately, he concludes, he failed as pastor convince them of the worth in engaging in the community and hopes that the pastors of their next church will do better.

In a sense, both of these articles vindicate Terri and I for choosing to stay with New Hope. We have both been fundamentally at odds with the direction the leadership seemed to be pursuing. However, we felt that it was important to stick with a church unless we had a clear opening to leave and join another community. No such opening has come. It would have been easy to seek Grace Baptist or University Christian since I have friends at both and I believe both of those churches are relative sound and solid. But I just couldn't convince myself that leaving on the basis of my own disagreement when the church we were at was just as sound and solid, just going about things in a way I didn't happen to be happy with.

It's also vindicating in the sense that the church leadership seems to be changing direction in one that would be more in line with my understanding of what a church is to be. I fervently pray that my prayers in this will be answered in that I become myself more in line with God's teaching on the subject and that the church does the same.

I'm very much looking forward to the remainder of this class.

Amen.

Don't tell anyone, but I'm heterosexual, white, male, evangelical, listen to Rush Limbaugh whenever I can, drive a rusty and fuel inefficient pickup, and I'm not vigilant about recycling. I've been around these here Interwebs for a bit and come to find out, I'm not a very popular person. Apparently, I'm a mind-numbed robot for listening to Limbaugh, I'm an oppressor for being white and male, I'm stupid for being an evangelical, I'm probably a homophobe for being heterosexual and evangelical, I'm certainly a fundamentalist whacko, and I'm destroying the environment to boot.

If I were known for publishing harsh language, I'd interject a four letter word here. If I were just talking I probably would. Here's the point: All of you "Holier-Than-Thou's" out there on the Internet and anywhere else can stuff it.

I listen to Rush Limbaugh because he's funny and I get a different point of view to set up against everything else I hear out there. I absolutely do not agree with him on several subjects and I'm no robot. If you want to write off my opinions on that basis, then you're the robot. You're the one who lives by a formula where only one point of view is acceptable and any other shouldn't even be considered.

I've never attempted to oppress anyone. I've recommended people of several different races and of both sexes (and possibly various sexual preferences, I don't usually ask about such things) for jobs I've had influence over in the hiring. I've certainly been friends with people of many different races, religions, genders, and sexual orientations. I even took a Women's Studies course while working on my undergraduate degree and thoroughly enjoyed it.

On the other hand, I absolutely do have my own opinions about what is right and wrong, but I've never managed to "force" those ideas on anyone else. I'm not sure how I can force someone to make up their mind. Just trying to persuade someone doesn't count as foisting my beliefs on others. This is free country and everyone has a right to speak their mind. I'm not going to apologize for sharing mine.

I have two degrees, which doesn't necessarily make me smart, but I'd say that it's evidence that I'm not a complete moron. My coworkers tend to tell me I'm smart, but they could be lying just to make me feel better. On the other hand, I don't think my boss would put up with me if I wasn't smart enough to produce. Christianity isn't a crutch for the dumb or the weak anymore than Atheists are automatically smarter and wiser than everyone else. There have been plenty of very smart people of all religions, it's not about intelligence or wisdom. If you assume that just because I'm a fundie, I must be a dummy, you are the one who is acting dumb or at least ignorant. You have lost your ability to see another perspective and your life is shallower.

The environment thing I just threw in for kicks. No one has ever bothered to convince me that the ecosystem needs saving. Besides, environmentalism is seriously the highest form of hubris I can imagine. The earth is really so important in the universe that we should make sure we don't waste resources or pollute? Humans are so excellent a species that we should worry about saving ourselves? Humans are so omnipotent that we can damage a truly massive environment? (I'm always surprised at how small most people think the earth is.) If someone can present an argument that doesn't sound like it's completely based on humans' thinking extra-highly of ourselves, I'll start paying attention. Not that I'm opposed to responsible use of resources or avoiding pollution for purely selfish reasons, but there's got to be a balance. (Keeping third world countries down in the disease infested, malnourished states they are currently in to save the environment should be criminal, Mr. Gore.)

Anyway, I'm just getting irritated that my opinion and the opinions of others who think like me gets written off as stupid or biased or selfish or unfair just because I or they have an opinion that isn't PC. I'm irritated for my own reasons, but realistically, if you can't listen to someone else's point of view and really try to put yourself in the shoes of someone else, you are an ignorant and weak and shallow person.

I don't change my point of view often, but I do try as best as I can to reevaluate on the basis of my experience and any attempts at persuasion I encounter. This has lead to serious doubts in my self, my faith, my abilities, my comrades, etc., but I like to hope that continually forcing myself to face these doubts and conflicting points of view has made me a stronger person in the end.

Cheers.

Americans are just extremely paranoid. This is even more true when it comes to children. At least once a month a new study comes out showing that something might be bad for us. Butter and fat are bad. Margarine is bad. Saccharine is bad. Aspartame is probably bad. Caffeine is bad. Alcohol is bad. Cough medicine is bad. Anti-depressants are bad. Cub scout badges are bad. Meat containing E. coli is bad.

To make this problem go from bad to worse, we then look to the government to make it better by telling us what we can and can't eat, which medicine we're allowed or not allowed to use, what safety features our cars, car seats, strollers, and everything else must have, etc. As if it weren't enough to be paranoid for ourselves we have to be paranoid on behalf of everyone else.

I believe there are a multitude of reasons for this, but let me outline a few key reasons Americans are so paranoid:

1. We're afraid to die. In a society that no longer accepts cultural norms that were held by Western civilization for centuries, we've lost our faith in God. That doesn't mean we don't believe in God or a god or gods or whatever. It means that we aren't really sure that he, she, or it is really going to let us move on to a happy afterlife. Many Americans cling to life and look at someone like a soldier fighting in Iraq with at least puzzlement and probably much more with scorn that they would take a chance at throwing away their chance at a long life. I'm sure there are some who would prefer a long life of fun to a short life of freedom.
2. We have a lot of free time. Americans and Europeans have more free time than any other culture in the history of earth. We've reached a level of technology whereby we can easily produce a surplus of food without even using all of the arable land. The ancients had no weekends. They worked all the day long every day to survive. The Jews added a single day of rest, but that was not necessarily because they could spare the time. Nowadays most folks have two days off every week and only work an average of 8 hours a day, we build marvelous things that rarely need repair, many people have as much as 4 weeks off from work per year. All this free time gives us time to worry about things and it grants us an especially large amount of time to worry ourselves about others, to become busybodies meddling in the affairs of others.
3. We live a long time. The life span of an American is as long as human life spans have been since before the Flood. Babies and mothers, by and large, survive birth, infancy, and childhood, which wasn't always the case. As such, many people don't even know what death is except possibly in a goldfish or a dog or other pet. Many of us do not know someone who's died for a long time and we usually don't know people who die often until we get much closer to our own. Even 200 years ago, death would have been an ever present reminder of how fragile life really is. Without this reminder, we may know we're going to die, but we can easily ignore it on the emotional level.

As I said, there are a lot of other factors, but I don't really want to drone on. Death is a reality every person faces. Even if science finds a way to eliminate disease, make the body robust to serious accidents, and stop aging, something will get us sooner or later. As the tag line for the Matrix Revolutions stated, "Everything that has a beginning, has an end." You absolutely cannot live forever in this universe.

At the very least, every person should at least be aware they may die and accept it. Not to do so is to live an unhealthy life. If you can't accept the nature of what you are, how can you possibly expect to live your life to your full potential? I hope every American would come to a point like this (though, I'm not nearly naive enough to believe it would actually happen).

This paranoia about death is getting out of hand. It's starting to lead to a restriction of freedom. It's starting even to lead to bad decisions that may even lead to shorter life spans if it is not careful. For example, eliminating products that could save lives because they might also take lives (air bags, medicines, medical treatments, etc.) is not a good idea. A one-size fits all approach to such things can lead to a decrease in the average life span we all hope to see get longer and longer.

Cheers.

One of my coworkers, Doug
, passed me a link to an article by Jakob Nielsen titled "Write Article's, Not Blogs
." The basic suggestion of the article is summarized as "To demonstrate world-class expertise, avoid quickly written, shallow postings. Instead, invest your time in thorough, value-added content that attracts paying customers." On the face of it, this does seem like good advice, but it makes a basic assumption that is false: blogs and articles fill the same role in business.

Now, to be fair, Nielsen does point out that blogs have value in business and we may not be that far apart in our opinions. However, I still must disagree on his statement that a serious business person should "not [spend] the effort to post numerous short comments on ongoing blogosphere discussions." He suggests that such time would be better spent writing serious and well-researched articles rather than short blog-style posts on topics. He suggests that this will result in more revenue for the serious business person because it avoids "commodity status."

The main disagreement I have is that this sort of statement is like saying that newspapers shouldn't have editorials, but only serious articles. Newscasts should only provide commentary, and skip general reporting. Football quarterbacks should focus on passing and give up running plays. Limiting yourself to a single dimension in your writing can also tell your audience that you don't care about what anyone else is saying, that you are the expert unto yourself. I find myself unimpressed with the sort of expert that can't find value in or contrast himself with the opinions of someone else. The kind of expert that is only capable of writing articles and not able to make concise and witty remarks without the aid of research.

Therefore, I say write blogs when you that's the appropriate medium for the message you have to deliver. If you read an interesting article and want to commend or disagree with the author, this is a blog. If you have an interesting discussion with a client that reveals something about your company's core values, write a blog. If you want to talk about something you see on the horizon as becoming a serious topic of discussion in the next year or two, write an article. There's nothing lost in short blog posts when applied to the right content. However, I do agree with Nielsen that far, serious writing requires a good and well-researched article.

Cheers.

This is a personal blog post that's purely for my own therapy. If you find it interesting, great, if not, you've been warned. I've been considering where I want to be in 5 years. I wouldn't say I'm dissatisfied with my current work. In fact, I quite enjoy most of it. However, I'm not sure it's leading me in the direction I want to be in 5 years. Of course, I haven't the foggiest idea what I want to be doing 5 years from today. I was in much the same position 5 years ago while working toward my M.S. in Computer Science because I didn't really know what to look for in a job and a nearly free M.S. seemed like a good idea at the time (and was an excellent idea in hindsight).

So what do I want to do in 5 years? I have a few vague notions. I want to work at least 50% of the time on Open Source software, which I already do. That's important to me for a number of reasons that I won't go into here. I would like to be working using Perl as my primary language (being the language snob that I am---as Seth likes to point out). I'd say I'm almost there currently too. I would like to still be in Kansas, though I wouldn't mind being in Kansas City or out of Manhattan, though I do love Manhattan quite a bit.

I'd also like to work in an environment surrounded by at least a few of my peers, which is certainly not the case currently. OSCON was nice for the fact that I was surrounded by software developers like myself. I also find my current work environment to be very structured, which I knew I was getting into, but it still chafes. I don't like cubicles. I don't like regular hours. I don't like wearing slacks and a polo, particularly when I could be wearing shorts and a T-shirt. The level of meetings at work is a little higher than I'd consider ideal, but that's not too bad. I miss having a whiteboard, which is something sadly lacking in the office.

I miss having my own office, though that wouldn't be too bad if I could spend more time out of my cubicle... I mostly don't like the cubicle. I was very pleased when we rearranged cubicles, but now that I've had it for this amount of time it's not quite what I want. I miss having an office where I can close the door and work with the music loud enough to penetrate. Some of my best work has been done with the music at an almost unpleasant volume and headphones just don't quite add the same feel to the mood.

I would like to be able to take "time off" from work to focus on a toy project. If I could take 2 weeks off once or twice a year and separate myself from the office to focus on something, that would be great. I would also like to be involved in hackathons and even travel to participate in a few. I haven't had the privilege of being involved in enough of that sort of thing before.

I do miss teaching a bit, but I do not miss the grading. I wouldn't mind giving seminars and such more regularly. Yet, I despise grades and particularly despise giving grades. I always thought I hated school, but it turns out that I just hate the metrics that school performance is judged by. I'd rather be judged by accomplishments than whether the teacher thought I was paying attention. Whether that's really what grades are or not, that's how I've always felt about them. I feel similarly about training. I don't mind giving the lesson, but I don't like being responsible for making sure everyone understands. I'd rather just deliver the information and let everyone do whatever they want with it.

I want to work on building frameworks and applying those frameworks. I don't particularly care if my software is web software as it mostly is now. I don't mind GUI development and games are fun and I really like tool development. I'd really need to be involved in building a GUI library or a gaming toolkit or building a compiler while using each of those to an application, a game, or other programs at the same time. This is why I'm attempting to spend my time split between improving Jifty and writing applications in Jifty. The combination of theory and application is very appealing to me. I was equally attracted to Parrot when I could use it to develop materials for my Computer Architecture course.

For the past 3 years or so, I've had a sense of discontent with my current circumstances. It comes and goes, but tends to come more than goes. I've attempted to overcome this unease a number of times, but it's hard to shake that "It just doesn't feel right" feeling. And no, this doesn't have to do with working for consultants. ;)

Well, I can't really think of anything else to write, so I guess that's about it for today.

Cheers.

Okay, here's my take on OSCON 2007. I had a great time. It was good to be surrounded by professionals who do and care about many of the same things I do. Most notably: software development and Open Source. I met several folks and, being my first real Open Source event, I saw quite a few famous people whom I'd only seen in pictures or Revolution OS.

Tuesday: Travel

I skipped the tutorials (though, not completely willingly). That was mostly because I didn't want to be away from my wife and 7 month old son for longer than 4 days. I traveled to Portland direct from Manhattan, Kansas. Unfortunately, my flight arrangements were such that I was on three flights rather than just two. (My flights were not made by me.) I do thoroughly enjoy the first 40 minute jump from Manhattan to Kansas City on a Beechcraft B1900 turboprop. I also like to laugh at the n00bs on the plane that are a little nervous about riding a plane only holding 16 passengers. "Oh my, it still has propellers." N00bs.

My trip from Manhattan to Kansas City to Phoenix to Portland was pretty much uneventful. I caught the Trimax into downtown and walked over and checked into the hotel. I then met Lance for some Chipotle and headed over to the Doubletree where we met up with Seth and hung out in the bar for a bit. Then back to sleep a bit.

Wednesday: Sessions Day 1

The first keynotes of the day weren't very interesting. I now know what Mark Shuttleworth and Tim O'Reilly look like, but the only talk I found very interesting was the one on Transactional Memory and that for technical reasons I won't elaborate here. As with most conferences, they always try to pack as much of the best stuff into the first day of sessions since that's the day most people stay for. There were at least 3 sessions during each period I wanted to attend.

After the keynotes I hit the expo hall and started picking up free T-shirts, pens, and other swag. Here I met with James Turner, who's been my editor for a couple of my OnLamp.com articles. He was showing off his work on his comic at the Watering Hole. I also saw Mark Tiemann, current OSI President and founder of Cygnus, here, whom I recognized from Revolution OS, handing out OSI T-Shirts in exchange for donations.

For my first sessions I went to How to Herd Cats and Influence People with Jono Bacon of Canonical. The basic recommendation of the session is that if you want a successful community make it very easy to participate. Period. There was a comparison with McDonald's and how they've made it so easy for morons to make burgers and that's the secret to their success. In Open Source, we should learn to do the same.

The second session I attended was Care and Feeding of Large Open Source Applications by Perrin Harkins, which was basically a talk on the project management tools available for Perl development. It was largely a review of what I already knew on the subject, but he did provide some good suggestions that I hadn't really worked with before, such as using Test::Class.

I ate lunch with Seth and a couple other attendees and then moved on to the afternoon sessions. I nearly went to Beautiful and Unique Snowflakes: Cooking with Catalyst with Matt Trout, whom I've chatted with on IRC but missed shaking hands with at OSCON, unfortunately. However, I saw that his session was introductory and I've already built Catalyst applications (including a blog I used on this site briefly), so it probably wouldn't have been the best session to attend. Instead, I went on to Who Am I? The Age of the Digital Identity by Robert Richards, which was about OpenID and InfoCard. His talk was interesting, particularly since I'm writing an SSO application, CAS+, but I had a hard time following the talk. I hope to implement OpenID in my application, but I can't just yet (or at least, not as the primary login mechanism) as our clients aren't quite ready for it.

After this I went to the Perl 6 Update with Larry Wall, which was interesting as ever. One reason I got into Perl 5 was because of what I'd read about Perl 6. I decided on Perl as my language of preference during my first year as a grad student. I had hacked around in Perl before while working on Anomy Mail tools when I was with Network Resource Group, but I didn't take any particular liking or disliking to the language at that time. As I started my Masters Degree I was trying to decide which language I liked for building web applications since I already new I didn't like Java and while I liked C++, it's not considered an ideal language for web development. I tried out Python and then taught myself some better Perl and felt an affinity to Perl immediately. I can think Perl. I read the first couple Apocalypses and was sold when I found out what Perl 6 would (eventually) be. Larry Wall and the Perl 6 language team continue to impress with more good ideas and the elimination of more bad ideas.

After the Perl 6 Update, I went to the Programming with SQLite talk by Michael Owens with Lance and Seth. The main thing I learned from this talk is that SQLite isn't like other SQL databases and requires a little more manual intervention to make things work just the way you want, which can be seen as an advantage or disadvantage. That is, if you want to use SQLite efficiently, take your locking seriously.

Lastly, I went to Myths of Innovation by Scott Berkun and then promptly went down to the book store and bought his book. I don't agree with everything in the book (particularly the veiled hostility toward spirituality), but it is a good book overall.

At the end of the day, I took Lance and Seth out to the Rock Bottom Brewery where they had a couple pints and a microbrew sampler. I even drank a couple of the samples and enjoyed them as much as anyone who doesn't drink can. We then headed over to the OpenSolaris party at the Doubletree and I met Donnie, who's a PhD student at OSU, one of the top guys at Gentoo Linux, and a friend of Lance's. After chatting at the party for awhile, Lance and I headed back to the Red Lion to end another day.

Thursday: Session Day 2

The Thursday keynotes were very interesting. The keynote by Robin Hansen on Bias was simply depressing, but basically stated a fundamental Christian belief, people have a veil pulled over their eyes and refuse to believe truth when it whacks them in the face. Of course, he didn't make any spiritual remarks and my statements would be construed as my own biases in his view. He also made some good points that the key to discouraging bias in the work place is to use competition or even gambling as a mechanism for encouraging truthful predictions of project timelines and such.

Bill Hilf of Microsoft announced that they were sending their Shared Source licenses to the OSI for approval, which got applause. I don't really remember anything else about his talk. He was followed by Rick Falkvinge of the Swedish Pirate Party, which is a political party in Sweden based on the single issue of IP rights. He made some very good arguments about why copyrights are being abused to harm consumers and individual liberties while working to aid corporate and governmental power. His platform is very interesting and I've added Sweden to the places I'd like to visit someday.

The best talk of the morning, though, was Steven Yegge's talk about marketing and branding. He works for Google and was basically saying that OSI needs to remember to be focused on branding. Our brand is very important and the brands of individual products and even developers help us market our products to the wide world. He was very entertaining as well, especially since I think he was probably best representation of the audience that we saw give a keynote. He was one of us and I think he was persuasive only because of that. If a marketing guy had stood up there and said the same thing, he probably would have been written off in that crowd.

After hitting the Expo Hall again for yet more free stuff, I went to the morning Lightning Talks. The talks I noted most were the talk by Donnie on the state of Gentoo and the talk on the current state of Linux, which is mostly funny because the speaker (whose name has escaped me) and his daughter give the talk together. He reads off every patch and improvement made in the last year and she holds up signs summarizing things and then mocking him and penguins toward the end. The most important statistic: Linux receives an average of 3.8 patches per hour all year long.

After lunch, I did want to go to Sam Vilain's Next Generation Version Control systems to learn more about GIT, but I decided to go shopping with Seth instead to pick something up to bring home. I ended up with a shadowbox frame with the cow jumping over the moon for Gabe's room.

When we got back, I went to straight over to Jesse Vincent's talk on Domain Specific Languages, which is interesting talk for me since it was about software I used regularly. It's also interesting because he was discussing work he and others have been doing on Jifty to create mini-languages in pure Perl. The declarative language used by Jifty to create models, action definitions, dispatchers, templates, and (coming soon) web application tests. All of these are written using pure Perl, but it doesn't look like traditional Perl because of how he's stretched the syntax a little bit. I like the ideas a lot and I've always been a fan of DSL's (I did write one for my multi-agent system for my MS a while back). This was first opportunity to do more than just shake Jesse's hand as we hadn't met but over IRC previously. I also stood by and watch Jesse, Larry Wall, and Matt Trout discuss some backport issues from Perl 6 to Perl 5, which was interesting and a little amusing.

Afterward, I went back to the Expo Hall to hang out with the OSL guys for a bit before the evening sessions. In the evening sessions, I went to the Perl Lightning talks. Andy Lester gave his talk on ack (and alternative to grep) and his assertion that we should call Perl work "programs" rather than "scripts" (which got cat-called by Larry Wall). There was also a rendition of a song by Bare Naked Ladies with new lyrics, Perl in a Nutshell. After the lightning talks, I went to the rest room and met Chromatic (another of my OnLamp editors) on the way out and chatting with him on the way back to where Larry was going to give the State of the Onion. At one point, I had both him and Jesse in front of me so I suggested that we needed a Jifty book. Perhaps we will someday soon. I also got to meet a few of Jesse's "minions" and others here, though I confess that my brain has blurred all the names other than Kevin Falcone.

Outside we waited for the Perl Foundation auction to end while everyone made fun of the proceedings inside. However, we were shortly inside and listening to Larry Wall deliver the State of the Onion address, which is something I'd been looking forward to. Larry gave a summary of his history with language and reasserted his view that programming is hard and scripting is easy, so he strongly disagreed with Andy Lester's statement about what we should call Perl application components. He went on to discuss all the different areas where a scripting language can vary: strong typing or weak typing, early binding or late binding, etc. He also showed why he thinks Perl 6 is going to win in the end because Perl 6 isn't so much a new programming language, but the root of a family of programming languages, which played nicely into Jesse's earlier talk about DSLs.

After this, I dropped my stuff off at the hotel and hopped on the train to get over to the Thirsty Lion to attend the Open Source Lab party, sponsored by Jive. We chatted some and then went to the Irish Pub across the street to get some dinner. Lance needed to get back to Corvallis so he checked out and headed home and I spend the evening in the hotel room half-working and half-relaxing.

Friday: Session Day 3

Unfortunately, the last day had come. I wasn't really ready for it to be done. But it was. The keynotes today were certainly the funniest and most memorable of all. Philip Rosedale of Linden Labs gave a talk about Second Life. The most interesting thing about his talk was that Linden Labs does all their meetings in Second Life, which I think would be cool if they had better tools for collaboration that were easier to get to, but with everything going Open Source, perhaps they will.

Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia fame gave the second talk about Wikia which is the "Wiki to End All Wikis" (or he would like it to be) and also about his hope to provide a true Open Source search engine where everything from the algorithms to the data is all open. Which is a good idea, if it can get enough support to work.

Then came the "Keynote Resignation" of Simon Wardley where it was announced that Fotango (though he didn't use the company name) has refused to let it's subsidiary Zimki Open Source it's web development platform, which Wardley was to announce during his keynote. Too bad. It looked interesting and I'm guessing that if they'd Open Sourced it Zimki could have had a chance at becoming a bigger player, now they will be relegated to the same obscurity as the other hosted frameworks. However, his replacement talk on IT Commidization was very funny, though I have no recollection of what points he made other than he likes ducks.

Open Source therapy by the conference MC, Nat Torkington, was basically just an attempt to tell us all to get along with one another. Which I certainly agree with. I may mock Python, Ruby, Java, and PHP every now and then, but I don't mock those that use them (unless they really are worth mocking for other reasons). Anyway, there are certainly lessons that Perl can learn from each. PHP, for example, teaches that ease of deployment can make all the difference in the world to popularity. It also reminds of how bad things get if a language doesn't provide namespaces.

Pimp My Garage by James Larrson is easily the most humorous of all the talks. I hope he posts his videos online, but he basically like to take household junk and revamp it so that it's either funnier or more dangerous. He had some excellent visuals and I think he has a thing for tall leather boots.

For the last two sessions, I thought about going to Hack Your Manager, but ended up in Adventures in Copyright Reform with Karl Fogel, which was somewhat enlightening as to how the RIAA and MPAA are trying to restrict civil liberties in order to help their clients (record companies and movie producers) continue making money the old fashioned way rather than adapting to the new media. The new media tends to favor the artist over the producer, which producers don't like very much since there's a lot of money to be earned in production.

Finally, I went to Running Your Language on Parrot with Chromatic and Patrick Michaud. One of the things I regret leaving K-State for is the fact that I no longer get to play with Parrot as much. I was hoping to use Parrot more to teach my class on Computer Architecture, but, alas, I don't have much need to play with it as a web developer. However, the talk showed me all the new cool toys they've added in the last two years since I've played with it and it's getting to be very nice indeed. If you have a chance to play with Parrot, I highly recommend it.

The End of the conference. I didn't go to the last talk since I wasn't very interested in Open Source Hardware (I'm really not much of a hardware guy) and worked on some stuff for Jifty instead.

Friday: Corvallis

After the conference ended. Seth and I grabbed some lunch at the Doubletree, picked up a rental and headed south to Corvallis. Corvallis is the home of Oregon State University, where Lance now works for Open Source Lab. He gave us a tour starting with meeting his boss who was still around waiting to start an after hours meeting. He then showed us the lab itself including many of the Open Source projects they host. He took us in to his office where one of his students was still working to fix some DB problems with Drupal.

I'm a little jealous of Lance and all his toys. However, I enjoy software development far more than I enjoy systems administration, so I'm not that jealous (but a little). OSL has a very nice facility, much nicer than anything I had at K-State. Lance also has some phenomenal students working for him. I am jealous for that being the lone wolf at my current job.

After the tour, we went out to Newport and had some seafood on the bay and then headed back to Portland. Seth and I said farewell and so ended my time in Portland.

Saturday: More Travel

My trip back to Manhattan was pretty uneventful, so I won't bore you with anymore details.

I had a lot of fun on my trip to OSCON and I look forward to making the trek again next year.

Cheers.

Update: (2007-09-30) Corrected references to Andy Lester. Thanks for the correction, Andy.

This is a general indictment of Christians, with myself included. I do not exclude myself from what I'm about to say.

What is the primary consideration of most Christians? Do we want to know God? Do we have a passion for saving souls? No. We do not. Most of us (the vast majority) are primarily interested in global warming, climate change, open source software, politics, work, getting better education for children, opposing abortion, and many others. We spend so much time in the idol worship of our pet issues.

Are these bad things to be concerned about? Never! Should we be expending more energy on these things than on knowing God, praying to Him, reaching out to our brothers and sisters, and attempting to persuade some to believe? May it never be! And yet... so many of us are wrapped up in non-issues. My Christian friends so often express more outrage that humans are polluting the earth than that people are dying and even about worshiping our God who has sovereign control over such things. I find myself getting more excited about software and opportunities to enhance my resume and yet neglect to study and pray as I should.

What's important? To love the Lord our God with all of our heart, mind, and spirit and to love others as we love ourselves. But why aren't these things more important to us? I think it's because we live in a world designed to distract us and we have no one holding us accountable to God's standard.

What's my solution? I don't know. However, I felt led to share this and I can spend some time today in prayer.

Cheers.

Two conversations I had today bring this up. One where folks on one of my IRC channels were mocking Mormons and Catholics for some aspects of their beliefs and the other because of a friend's discussion of beliefs that used a Scripture passage incorrectly. Both of these problems are matters of doctrine. Both of them demonstrate why doctrine is important and why the evangelical tendency toward diminishing the importance of doctrine is fatal.

Doctrine is "a belief or set of beliefs held and taught by a church, political party, or other group" according to the Oxford American Dictionary. The Bible often uses the word "faith" as a synonym for doctrine. Doctrine is what sets the Mormons apart from Evangelicals and sets the Catholics apart from both. However, doctrine is very weekly emphasized in all three (at least for the most part). I'd take a guess that at least 50% of the people professing to believe in Mormonism, Evangelical Christianity, and Catholicism can actually name the beliefs of their particular sect accurately and most can probably only name a couple things that are important, like "there is a God."

But why are there different beliefs at all? All three find their origins in the same historical figure, Jesus Christ (members of all three sects refer to themselves as "Christians" though that means something quite different in each case). How did this happen?

There is no simple reason, but I'll try not to write a book. However, I am going to use the doctrine I believe to point out the reasons. First and foremost, mankind is fallen. God, in his perfection, chose to create mankind in His image. That means He gave us the free will decide right from wrong. If we choose to do right all our lives, always doing what is best for God, those around us, and ourselves we choose to truly be as much that image as God intended. However, no person ever has done this. Every person rebels in small and large ways and in doing so, we reject the perfection of the image and twist it. Because of the severity of the first such mistake, this has become our first nature: we are sinners.

Because we seek our own way, we seek to create our own religion. This may include God, it may not. Yet, God hasn't left us alone. He gave us prophets like Noah, Moses, Samuel, David, Isaiah, Elijah, Peter, and Paul. They were given the words of God with authority, evidences, and miracles to prove their reliability. From this we've received the Bible.

The Bible is a book, but an amazingly consistent one, especially given the span of time over which it was written and the number of different authors involved. If you are patient and careful it teaches many things and very little of it is difficult to read and understand. However, there are parts of it that can be confusing and there's enough text that you can make it say nearly anything if you take a sentence alone without knowing it's context.

Because of this a heretic can twist the truth if there aren't people that are educated to know doctrine as the Bible teaches it. If a larger enough and out-spoken enough group is not able to defend the Scriptures teaching, the door is open for such a heretic to come in and destroy the beliefs held by a church. Evangelicals seek to extend the work of the reformers by attempting to understand the Bible and Christianity on the same terms as Paul and Peter would have understood it. However, if Christians are not taught carefully what those things are and how we come to believe them, a convincing liar can come in and ensnare those who aren't wary and do not know better. This is a terrible flaw in the desire of Evangelicals to avoid teaching doctrine because of it's potential to divide and offend the "seeker."

Catholicism became what it is through centuries of subtle additions and changes that neither Paul or Peter ever taught. These changes were made possible because of the increasingly political nature of the Church. Mormonism has come to what it believes because one young man became disillusioned in all the different (and heretical) ideas about Christianity being taught in "revivals" during his time. Joseph Smith found his own religion on ideals he built out of whole cloth and based loosely upon the Bible.

There are many Evangelical sects that have done both of these things over time as well. As for myself, I will do what I can to make sure my family and friends do know the truth when I can.

Cheers.

Terri and I watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory last night. While we were watching it, we also played the RiffTrax MP3 from RiffTrax.com
featuring Mike Nelson
(former host of MST3K) and Neil Patrick Harris
(of How I Met Your Mother and Doogie Howser, M.D.).

I ran across RiffTrax after a friend, Eric, sent me a link to Chad Vader, Day Shift Manager
on YouTube. After watching several Chad Vader episodes (which I also highly recommend), there was one where Chad Vader goes to help make the RiffTrax for Star Wars: Episode II. I looked into RiffTrax and so we tried this one out. It was very funny.

Anyway, I just wanted to share that in case you like making fun of movies, you should definitely be interested in RiffTrax. The only difficulty is keeping it the MP3 file synced up with the DVD and that wasn't bad at all, particularly once I figured out a trick to their "Advanced Synchronization Technology." Basically, there's a voice on the track that says a line from the movie every few minutes. If correctly synced, you should hear that at the same time as the line is said on the screen. I've found if I pause the MP3 player right after that when it's read and then set the DVD playback to before the line I start the MP3 player immediately after the line is read. That might actually be a tip in the README file that comes with the audio file, but I read that a week ago, so I didn't remember it last night.

Anyway, if you're looking for some comedy, I highly recommend RiffTrax. They're only $2 to $3 per audio file and if you rent the movie from Digital Shelf
, you're only out $3 to $6 total.

Cheers.

At Halloween, children are often told to never to accept fruit in their bags. The usual reason for this is the story about razor blades being concealed in the food. These fears are almost, but not entirely, groundless because it is extremely unusual (you're more likely to be struck by lightning unusual) and when it actually occurs, the harm is pretty minimal (stitches are likely your worse case scenario). If you do a search for "razor blades apples urban legend
" you can find the research on the subject.

However, the story is evocative of a fairly horrible image of biting into such an apple. The reason I bring it up is that I think the Christian church does itself no favors by attempting to do the same thing.

Another word picture, what if you bought a foam toy sword for your child to play with. Your child played with it for awhile and one day hits someone with it and causes a long wound on another child's arm. You take the toy and look and find that a really sharp rapier is actually concealed within the foam. What would you do? Well, if a manufacturer really sold such a thing you'd sue them into oblivion. You'd probably sue the store, the safety inspectors, and everyone else. You'd probably expect criminal charges to be brought up. It would be all over the news and it would be completely outrageous.

In my opinion, this is exactly what many Christians try to do with their message. They try to soften the blow of the message by giving out the beneficial parts and trying not to mention the less positive aspects. It's not that these folks aren't Christians (though some certainly aren't) or want to conceal the message. Mostly they want to draw the unbelievers in and make sure they know we care before giving them the bad news: Christianity won't solve all your problems, make you happier, help you make friends, or julienne your fries. Christianity doesn't mean much of anything except helping you understand who you are, what you were made for, and giving you confidence that life after death will be worth it.

The bad news is that if you don't "take our pill," you go to Hell. Forever. That's a pretty sharp injury if you're not expecting it. Furthermore, it's dishonest enough that a person that doesn't really tests out the product might never find the real sword inside, which is tantamount to never sharing the real product with them in the first place. They go to Hell anyway because they never really found out what they bought. Okay. Enough metaphor.

Christians ought to be honest and tell the whole truth. Christians ought to believe what they preach: God is in control. If God is sovereign, we don't need to be too afraid of hurting someone's feelings. I don't meant his to indicate that we beat people over the head or go around without being cautious or relevant with how we deliver our message. What I'm saying is that if we get hung up and steering clear of offending people with an essentially offensive message, we're being dishonest. We are being hypocrites. We're saying that our message isn't important or believable enough to tell it straight and deal with the consequences. We'd rather meander around the message and hope somebody asks us for enough details that we feel safe telling them the rest.

As for me, I hope that I'm remembered as being someone who told it straight. I usually don't feel that bold (except for right here in this blog on occasion) and I usually feel guilty for not being forthcoming enough (of course, I also feel guilty if I talk too much, but that's my own insecurity). Yet, it is my goal to try and be courageous enough to tell people the whole truth. I don't want to beat people with it, but I don't want to embellish or hide anything. I pray that God will convict more Christians to do the same.

Cheers.

Here it is: the much awaited and anticipated and hoped for, etc. etc. movie all about Gabe's life. This one ranges from mid-February (at 2 months old) to early April (almost 4 months old). This one features much more playing and smiling.

Enjoy!

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» Download: Quicktime | iPod

Seems like an odd question for a guy to ask himself, but it is an important one in the life of a Christian. We were visiting Terri's home church
in Hutch today and the pastor, Rick
, was discussing the Transfiguration
. Along the way he quoted a very profound passage in Luke about two sisters, Mary and Martha. This is a challenging passage because it serious challenges the way most churches in America operate. It's a personal challenge for me because I find myself identifying with Martha when I ought to identify myself with Mary.

Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me." But the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her." — Luke 10:38-42 (ESV)

Essentially, Christ has told Martha that Mary really has the right idea and that Martha is choosing a lesser way. Jesus doesn't exactly rebuke Martha, but you do get the feeling that he's at least scolding her a bit for her attitude.

I've heard some messages in the past where the pastor has tried to say that Martha was doing a good thing until she tried to get Jesus to scold Mary, but that's not at all what I read here. Jesus starts with, "Martha, Martha," which already sounds like scolding to me, I suppose I could be misreading this through the lens of my own culture, but that's what it reads to me.

He continues, "you are anxious and troubled about many things." This can't be complimentary. Christ has already been on the record as scolding his disciples for worrying about food and clothing. "Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" (Matthew 6:27
ESV) Similarly, he is telling Martha that all her fussing isn't really necessary, "but only one thing is necessary." Focus on Christ, that's the one thing. He's tell Martha, "really, you should stop fussing and listen to me because my teaching is way more important than your preparations."

Now, don't get me wrong, he's not telling Martha she's being foolish or that her effort has been wasted. He's merely telling her that of the two things she could be doing now, listening to his teaching is the better. If Martha had gone about her preparations content, it seems that we might not have even had this object lesson recorded for us.

Fortunately, Martha's bad attitude was remembered well enough that it was recorded for us to read because this little vignette tells us something important: dedication to Jesus is more important than working to serve him. What did Mary do? She "sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching." She wasn't really doing anything but listening.

The lesson for me is that when I feel compelled to work on this project or that project in an attempt to please God, I'm not spending my time as wisely as I could if I haven't first taken the time to listen to Christ's teaching. If my focus and attitude isn't on Jesus and his ways first and foremost, I'm not really pleasing God as I could. If I'm not really pursuing my prayer and Bible study (or even just Bible reading) as the top priority in my life, I've missed it. Jesus doesn't condemn this work, but my work is really a secondary occupation to my first job of knowing Him who saved me.

For the Church, the question is, are we dedicated first and foremost to Christ's word? Or are we concerned with developing a good children's program? A good youth ministry? A good Sunday school or equipping program? Are we more concerned with developing our community than we are about knowing Jesus Christ? These are all good things and God won't condemn our efforts here, but we might find ourselves scolded on the other side of death for pursuing those works instead of pursuing Christ first.

Cheers.

I was scrolling through my morning feeds and came across this gem on Slashdot, "Should Schools Block Sites Like Wikipedia?
" The story goes on to describe someone's question regarding the fact that the local school board decided to block access to Wikipedia "because students may be exposed to misinformation". This simply describes an opportunity lost and a new form of book banning.

I grew up learning about how books like the Wizard of Oz were banned from schools because some people didn't like the fact that it had a witch. Other books were banned because they praised opposing political ideals. Now, apparently, it's vogue to ban something because it might not be accurate. However, this is still just as bad an idea as all the original book bans.

Where do you stop? The New York Times has in the past few years had at least one reporter fired because he fabricated information published in the Times. Should we block the New York Times because it might expose students to misinformation? Should we also block cable television because certain news anchors published stories in that medium without verifying the facts? Should we start blocking the text books because they sometimes contain errors or misrepresent facts?

Should we stop allowing teachers in the class room because sometimes teachers share incorrect informatino? I once had a teacher tell me that NASA was experimenting with mounting monkeys heads on robots and that the monkeys were controlling the robots successfully, but only for a few hours until the head died. Should we throw all the teachers out because there are some that are crackpots?

No! Of course not. This is an opportunity to explain that all sources are suspect until they are corroborated. If you read something in Wikipedia, you take a note to check any fact you can't verify from your own experience. You then verify that fact in the quoted source (for articles that properly quote sources), you can check your local library and do a database search, check another encyclopedia, look in a journal or magazine, find related books, etc. I find that Wikipedia is a great place to get started, but I certainly don't think of it as authoritative.

On the other hand, you should always do the same thing, insofar as you are able, for any source of information. If a source of information makes a claim, you should check it's sources and possibly verify the claim in other places. It's easy to make an unverified claim. It's hard to make a claim that is cited and backed up with facts and also backed up by other unrelated sources.

The lesson is that some sources are more trustworthy than others, but none are beyond suspicion. The lesson should be that you should always check your sources and verify that what you're reading is factual and reliable. Banning a source only means that you take this object lesson away and you raise students that are actually less able to think for themselves and more ignorant. Great, that's just what we need. Good job Anonymous School Board.

Cheers.