2/21/2025 CUDA Programming for Python Developers.
2/20/2025 Latest on Migraine treatment and understanding. Gepants are the latest known effective medication.
Hebrews 4:1 What many preachers who emphasize too much on grace fail. Stephen Tong's "either too fast (Charismatics focus on fast number); or too slow (not doing our part to the fullest of what is given by God), are both sinful" I would say our pastor's message often times, because of overly focus on grace, fail in the latter: "nothing to worry about, God has already saved you, leave everything to God, in fact, your sins won't even be judged in heaven" was the gist of his message. Not that he is advocating for unaccountability, but it seems that he's quite vague about it when it comes to it, falling to the fundamentalist's legalism: i.e. head covering, etc. instead.
2/19/2025 Came across this video about a Taoist called Zhongli Quan, 钟离权. But I couldn't match the story told here on google. So I asked in the comment and was given this response:
Me: Great story. Where did you find this story? Wikipedia on 李铁拐 / 钟离权 doesn't relate to this story LOL
LearnChineseNow: In English Eva Wong wrote many books on Taoist stories. If you want the really old stories, you need to go to the source texts, like《夷坚志》
So I downloaded some fragments of 《夷坚志》by 洪迈. Also downloaded "Record of the Listener: Selected Stories from Hong Mai's Yijian Zhi", for English version.
2/18/2025 Websites capable of taking screenshots of your screens.
Ruby On Rails on the Web (WASM), a brief how to.
The basics of making Web Extensions, by Hui Jing Chen.
The trendy song 아파트 Apt. by Rose (New Zealand/South Korean singer) & Bruno Mars is everywhere in kids' instagram. It's popular like many modern songs in going through their fad, due to their catchy words, such as A-Pa-Teu = Apartment in Korean, Opa Gangnam Style, etc.
2/16/2025 Sun Sunday School on William Gurnall's The Christian In Complete Armor. I think Nadia mistaken the pastor's beginning prayer "Father...teach us, challenge us..." as the pastor's admission to pray for challenges. Though I could be wrong and Nadia could be right, I think what the pastor meant was just challenge us with questions in discussions, not challenges/sufferings of life which is the will of God (1 Peter 4:19) which I have always find it hard for folks in this church including the pastor to accept.
The pastor asked why is it impossible to walk away from the Bible feeling neutral about it. This is a vague question, though I think his point was the imperative message of God's word. He just asked a bad question for that. His English should be good, the reason of this fail is perhaps as Nadia puts it, fear of the people, or I would also say the inability to handle paradoxes. Thus, the answers everyone tried to give weren't to his satisfaction. i.e. Patty's response from Jeremiah 23:29 "Is not my word like fire, declares the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?" Tom's "you mean believer vs. unbeliever?"
It's interesting he gave the Quran some credit a few times. It's good, but it begs the question why doesn't he point out that the only two sacred texts claiming to have divine origin/authorship are the Bible and the Quran (discounting the Book of Mormon, of course, because it's more descriptive than serious prescription).
I think a good term to use would have been that the Bible is the LIVING word of God, rather than using the term "supernatural", which is vague and possibly shallow in the understatement sense.
@6:50 Patty always came up with great questions. Here she asked what does it mean "Word of God, OT? NT? etc." This would have been a great time to tackle against the Pentecostal's belief that the Holy Spirit supersedes the Bible. And pointing to the difference between General vs. Special revelations, something the Baptists are very weak in despite knowing the terminologies, so no surprise here when this is not communicated during the Sunday School. This is why I stressed the importance of church history, you going to have to touch on how the Bible comes to be, what Rome did with the Apocryphal, etc. I think the pastor's beginning to see the importance of church history. @8:15 Phil also alluded to apostles in Pentecostal churches today.
@20:30 The pastor asked a great question to challenge for similarities and differences between the Bible and other sources. Sadly, those who responded only heard "differences". It's also interesting that their only comparison is Western moral sources of morality. They know nothing about the East, which is where religions come from. Again, the talk circles around the inability to distinguish general vs. special revelations.
@24:30 The pastor's example about parents mapping out their children's life path to graduate from ivy league universities as legalism, is what I would rather call materialism. It will take more revelation to call something deeper legalistic.
@32:30 The pastor's view of Rome's primary motive for not having the Bible translated was because of having control or power, is not accurate, though that's not off the table. Rome's best defense of this would be interpretation of the Scripture runs wild, should everyone have access to it.
Of course, at this point, it begs the question, why didn't I say anything. My best response to this would be: They love to talk, I let them talk.