Journal of the Week

Posted on August 18, 2025 by timlyg

8/23/2025 Saturday The GCC Men's Fellowship was led by Frank and I was impressed because Frank of all people, his topic of the day was on Fanny Crosby. He had us singing "To God be the Glory" and "Blessed Assurance". We also sang "I have a Christ in My Heart" because he thought that Wendell Loveless' song was by Crosby. We have scarce recordings of Fanny's talk, as her time was the transition into recording technology.

8/22/2025 Friday

Best tutorial for Arena Chess program engine management: Stockfish is currently the surprising the strongest chess engine, and it's open source!

Tracking my Costco FICO 867 as of 7/22/2025
WellsFargo FICO 848 as of 08/09/2025
Bank of America (BoA-new) FICO 838 as of 8/20/2025

Future FICO updates will be on my google spreadsheet.

8/21/2025 Thursday

Judge Frank Caprio's passing (August 20th, 2025, at 88, on Rhode Island) is spread beyond the U.S. (BBC news) because of him being known as the "Nicest judge in the world". His rulings (i.e. on traffic violation tickets) can easily be found online, generally waving the fines, "forgiving" everyone dramatically. This apparently came from his father, whom he honored enough to invite to his first bench, where he was very strict to a mother with 3 kids, fining her $300. His father later told him that he should have talked to her, understood her problem, that he can't just treat people like that. This drilled deep into him and changed his character ever since.

It's good to have a very forgiving judge, who doesn't want that. However, a judge's job in our modern world is really to rule according to the interpretation of the law. You can forgive, but someone's got to pay. I don't know about how Caprio finalize his pardoning "judgments", but if you were to forgive the $300 fine, you may want to consider paying that $300 out of your own pocket, and this should be done in public, especially in front of the person you forgive. This concept is only understood perfectly in a Christian worldview. Other religions could imitate it, the post-modern (naturalistic liberalism) world view (which would be the closest to influence Caprio) seeks to pervert it.

8/20/2025 Wednesday

USAID is looked down upon even in Africa, per Magatte Wade. She calls it poison. "When welfare becomes chronic, it becomes a problem", "the USA people get to walk around feeling superior for giving aid...not mixing with the locals who receive the aid."

Using "Can't Help Falling in Love" as background music, it's a beautiful video shoot (by Noah Reilly I think, per the Youtube Comment) of Feli's wedding. I only cared about the first 1 min, from aesthetic perspective:

8/19/2025 Tuesday

Epic's founder, Judy Faulkner, had a humble business beginning (from basement).

The First Person Shooting Game, Counter-Strike, by Minh Le, was built in the dorm.

Robot athletes competition in China is fun to watch.

8/18/2025 Monday

This is not necessarily a racist view. But the truth. I may be able to work with someone (Charlie Dates) like this, who do distinguish cultural differences between Black (I would assume African culture) and White (European, liberal West) cultures and look for a triumphant church:

Posted in Music, Theologization | Leave a comment

General and Special Revelations

Posted on August 18, 2025 by timlyg

Many Christians and Reformed wannabes are generally very poor in distinguishing the two.

Yesterday, Rob from church: "Isaiah speaks of Earth being a sphere", "Science affirms the Bible"

This is an example of a bad understanding of general vs. special revelations. I imagine he was referring to Isaiah 40:22, where the word "circle" (חוּג chug) was used for Earth. However, that is not necessarily indicating a spherical (דּוּר dur in Isaiah 22:18) Earth as the word used is more like a flat circle, which could be an artistic description of the fullness of the Earth, or orbit of Earth around the Sun (a bit far fetch from the context, but it's literally more apt than the meaning of a sphere), even if we don't have to account it as a reference to ancient Middle East's concept of Earth as a flat circular disc.

So when we say that a Bible is not a science book, I can't believe some's intelligence could only understand that as the kind of text book you see in schools, as if we are saying that the Bible doesn't have calculus equations. When we say that the Bible is not a science book, we are also not talking about different interpretations of the Bible, because there's no way we can interpret Sunrise and Sunset (Psa 113:3) or the Sun moving around the Earth (Psa 19:4-6) in any scientifically verifiable manner without human literature involved which would depart from science as we know it. So to say that Science affirm the Bible is dangerous, it was the mistake that the Church committed to folks like Galileo on heliocentric cosmology. The only conclusion is that the Bible is not a science book in that the Bible does not tell us how nature works, the Bible does not care about telling us if the Earth is spherical or not. Isaiah 40:22

A quick historical account of a spherical Earth is an interesting supplement here, thanks to Google AI:

The concept of a spherical Earth was first proposed by the ancient Greeks around the 6th century BC, with Pythagoras being one of the earliest proponents. However, it was Aristotle in the 4th century BC who provided empirical evidence, such as ships disappearing hull-first over the horizon and the Earth's round shadow on the moon during eclipses, to solidify the idea. Around 240 BC, Eratosthenes used geometry to calculate the Earth's circumference, demonstrating a more practical understanding of the planet's size. While the idea of a round Earth was known in some cultures for centuries, it wasn't until the space age in the late 20th century that humans could visually confirm it from space.

So the understanding of a spherical Earth isn't as foreign to the ancients as many in the West like to portray it. Pythagoras, Plato, etc. have all suggested a spherical Earth. And the history of geodesy goes as far back to the Phoenician explorers in 610 BC. Contrasting that to Isaiah's probable time period (700BC), then one can argue that the even if the Bible was introducing a spherical Earth, it may not have been a foreign concept, as the ancients have shown, that humans are fully capable of figuring this out themselves that far back in time. I would even say that it was God's requirement for man to figure this out himself. Then again, the Bible really does not care about the science of it, circle just means the fullness in Isaiah 40:22, which is a more stable interpretation. Job 38:12-14 introduces a far better natural description (than Isaiah 40:22) of the working of Earth's rotation by God, but even so, the idea is really not trying to tell us whether Earth is rotating scientifically or not, but the progression of time instead. Same deal with Job 26:7 Elihu: "regarding the Earth suspended in empty space".

We don't ever want to use the Bible as the source of science. God is the source of science, not the Bible, because God is not the Bible, and the Bible is not God. So we don't say, science affirms the Bible. Science (particularly archeology) can affirm some of biblical accounts, but when we speak of natural science, we can only say that science affirms God, or affirms the truth of God. However, since the Bible does not concern itself with science or how nature works, and science can only affirm how nature works, so science cannot affirm what the Bible doesn't talk about.

Posted in Theologization | Leave a comment

The Wellerman, Sea Shanty genre, popularized by Nathan Evans' Acapella version

Posted on August 18, 2025 by timlyg

This swing style version of this (wish I can find the sheet) I heard on FB reminded me of the original:

Level of difficulties from easy to hard:

This is quite impressive:

Of course, what's humanly possible on a single piano is only up to the "very hard" level in this one:

And another swing/jazz version:

Posted in Music | Leave a comment

Journal of the Week

Posted on August 13, 2025 by timlyg

8/15/2025 Friday

Alex posted this on Facebook 呼應老友葛牧之《反智主義》一書：〈《基督教真偽辨》在中國教會的受容〉and I think it's worth checking out (Telling The True Gospel: The Reception of...) as I think I'm behind with names such as 趙天恩. Tong has a little bio on the late 趙天恩, that I think is worth copying into the comment below. Apparently, 趙牧師 is responsible for Stephen Tong's theology series.

First we look at J. Gresham's Machen's Christianity and Liberalism, translated into Chinese by American missionary Samuel Boyle (包義森, 1905–2002). (To be continued...perhaps after I finished reading and reviewing Christianity and Liberalism.

Basic look at training AI, on a laptop, in 5 minutes.

草船借箭 - fact or fiction? I've had trouble with this before, because I had tried to convince others of its factual origin without fact-checking this myself. The real truth is actually just a mystery. Zhuge Liang's story on this was only in the Romance of Three Kingdoms Novel and not the historical accounts (i.e. 三國志). However, there was an account that 周瑜 did turn his boats around in order to balance the arrow weight they received from their attackers. If it was solely Zhou Yu's plan, then the credit obviously does not go to Kong Ming.

8/13/2025 Wednesday The origin of GIT, invention of Linus Torvalds after dispute with Bitkeeper. This could be a good motivator to learn GIT.

I don't have theological verdict on IVF yet. Thus far, I would only say it is the Catholic Church's doctrine that is against IVF, not a Biblical/Christian one. Eugenics is only bad if you replace human excellencies with selfishness, the science of it is not damnable in my view. But to understand further, knowing the capability of today's genetic manipulation is a starting point. Movies like Gattaca (1997) are not enough for any convincing message.

Posted in Biology, Computer Science, Faults, Projects | 1 Comment

On True Marriage

Posted on August 13, 2025 by timlyg

8/12/2025, Yes, this is my birthday. On our way to Pittsburg from Cincinnati, my wife and I had some disagreement on the definition of marriage, when the subject of some church attendees who were allegedly "unmarried" (did not go through proper legal channel) was brought up and how Pastor Chris handled it. Nadia was driving when this argument happened. I find that this is important to delve into and address it. The topic being: Does a marriage require a wedding ceremony/legal recognition/certificate?

My simple answer is, no. But at the risk of sounding like a liberal (that I am permitting everyone to have sex without a legal marital certification), the word, marriage, must be properly defined.

Marriage, from biblical term, is not wedding. Even though a marriage ceremony is essentially the same thing as wedding ceremony. Marriage is a covenant between a man and a woman to commit be husband and wife. A wedding is a ceremony done before a third party/person which, like a marital certificate, affirms a marriage. The true definition of marriage is not the wedding (celebration/affirmation of marriage, not marriage itself) at Cana, but in Genesis 2:24 "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." In a way, God was the one who officiated Adam and Eve's marriage (Genesis 2:22 "...and brought her unto the man"). Therefore, a marriage is true only in the context of holy covenantal commitment to each other before God's eyes (God's recognition/approval).

Affirmation of marriage is important. This is what a wedding/legal proceedings do. The affirmation is important as a public testimony of the covenantal vows. A true marital covenant will always result in a public affirmation, however, a public affirmation/legality is not always the result of a true marital covenant.

Therefore, the marital covenant (marriage) is to be prioritized before a public wedding/legality, not the other way around. In other words, two do not need to first go through the legalities of a wedding in order to begin a true marital relationship. Nevertheless, the law of the land, or the custom of the culture/society may require a formal legal ritual in order for the public to recognize the true marital relationship. Then let it be so (i.e. sex after LEGAL marriage), so that the public will acknowledge the marriage which was already a marriage before the acknowledgement of the public. Such is a public affirmation and celebration of the marriage. Nevertheless, the public can only determine/approve of a LEGAL marriage; God determines a TRUE marriage, which is defined by Genesis 2:24, which is free of the public's approval (Mark 10:9 "...let no man put asunder").

With the above understanding of what marriage is in mind, here is the summary:

--Should a legal marriage be a true one?
Yes, it should.

-Should a true marriage be a legal one?
Yes, it should. What God has joined as husband and wife is no secret matter, God is not a liar.

-Is a legal marriage equivalent to a true marriage?
No. Many legal marriages end in divorces.

-Is a true marriage equivalent to a legal marriage?
No. Such as different age requirements for legal marriages (e.g. You can get legally married at 15 in Mississippi but it considered illegal in New York)

-Is sex before/outside of marriage a sin?
Yes if we're talking about TRUE marriage.
Not necessarily, if we're talking about LEGAL marriage. (e.g. sinful for a 15 year old in NY but not sinful in MS; also, some states/countries require parental approval for LEGAL marriage)

-Is making a marriage legal a requirement of a true marriage?
No, because of Genesis 2:24 and Mark 10:9. However, legalizing a marriage should be sought after for we are to testify what God has done before the public.

Conclusion:

A true marriage (not a legal marriage) should the basis of any discussion on marriage. A distinction between the two kinds of marriage must be clear.

Posted in Theologization | Leave a comment

The Creation Museum Trip

Posted on August 11, 2025 by timlyg

So Nadia asked me to get Tuesday (8/12) and Wednesday off from work, in order to celebrate my birthday in 2025. She thought about Maine road trip at first. But I said, do it in the Fall (fall leaves in Maine would be spectacular), and suggested Kentucky's Ken Ham (Answers in Genesis)'s Creation Museum (built 2007). Then I realized that the Ark Encounter "museum" (built 2016) is actually a separate location from the Creation Museum.

I suggested flight, Nadia preferred driving. So we drove East on Saturday (8/9/2025) morning at 7:15 am. I drove first. I've charged and loaded both my E-scooter and Nadia's E-bike into the trunk of the car the night before. However, I've left the air pump charging and forgotten to bring it along after filling both scooter and bike tires with air. I've also made sure I've brought my goggle and underwater headset as my wife prepped my swimming trunk. I also downloaded a bunch of youtube videos on the two museums as well as tips on Columbus & Cincinnati, OH & Pittsburg, PA. I purposely picked two videos on these museums from Atheists' perspective. Primatologist, Erika's quite impressive despite being possibly atheist. Nadia had booked the hotels using my $300+ OneKeyCard credits from Wells Fargo. It was a big saving!

Saturday 8/9: 9:30am, stopped at Costco Gas Station in Harrisburg, PA to fill gas and ordered Costco's Cold Brew Mocha Freeze. Nadia thought she could just walked straight to the Costco Canteen without scan, but we were caught by the membership counter person, Nadia thought that staff got nothing better to do, I told her it's our fault, not hers. Nadia drove from here.

1:51pm, stopped at Ohio Westbound I-70 Rest Area for a quick restroom break. Very clean area. We finished some left over Biryani lamb rice here. I drove from here.

4:10pm, Arriving at Columbus, filling gas at Costco first in Easton, before checking in a few blocks away in Hilton's Hampton Inn & Suites Columbus-Easton Area Hotel. We then tried out the Skyline Chili (signature dish of Kentucky & Ohio), the 3-Way and 2 of their Cheese Coneys. We loved it.

6PM, Nadia drove us to downtown of Columbus, parked for free at Scioto Audubon Metro Park and biked along the Scioto River northward. This took up about 1 hour.

7:30PM, We drove to the more Asian neighborhood (more like Japanese), which is the Tensuke Market plaza. We thought of visiting OSU (Ohio State University) on the way but gave up on it, and went back to the hotel by 8PM. I drove. I swam in our hotel's pool for about 30mins.

Sunday 8/10/2025

8AM, Ate hotel's complimentary breakfast (no promised bacon - promised by the check-in staff the day before), but it's still a good standard meal (scrambled eggs, sausage patties, oatmeal, juices, etc.).

9:24 AM, checked out and drove to Cincinnati. I drove.

11:13 AM, Lunch at Skyline Chili in Hebron, Kentucky. Our 2nd Skyline Chili meal. This time I looked at their menu and we ordered 2 5-Ways, small. Still delicious. The I drove us to England Idlewild Park in waiting for Creation Museum to open at 1pm. Nothing much at the park. I drove us to the Creation Museum using the shortest route which is the country road with not so bad scenery.

12:53AM, Arriving at the Creation Museum. There's a line (about 50+ people) by the entrance of the Welcome Center. Went through a quick security check. And we walked pass the garden in order to get to the museum.

I took virtually all of the Museum's displays with my Insta360 and my phone camera. Their Planetarium isn't as impressive as I thought, the projector they use is common, not pairing with laser lights used by some museum (NYC's Hayden Planetarium) to show more realistic stars. I almost fell asleep in the middle of the 25 min Created Cosmos show. Their 4K 3D theater however, was spectacular. Battery operated 3D glasses were used. We watched at 2pm, Encounter the Wonder (10 min of brief timeline from creation to salvation), then at 2:30pm, Dragons: Quest for Truth (10 min about dragons vs. dinosaurs). The graphic effects and music were marvelous. The 3rd and last show was "In Six Days" at 5:15PM for 25 mins. It was also beautifully presented. I only have a minor beef with this last show as it starts with "DAY ONE" before reading the first chapter of Genesis with great graphics. You don't start with DAY ONE because God didn't start with Day One. God counted the days following the work done on that day, and only after the light has been created. This is a Young Earth Creationist error, by presupposing a 6,000 year creation of the universe and then force interpreting the Genesis beginning starts with Day One. Biblically, we need not necessarily count day 1 starting from the 1st verse. Though I have long seen Ken Ham as a SOLO Scriptura guy, this museum does get credit for presentation, which is a rare thing for Fundamentalist Christians. Also, I have purchased the only book at the giftshop that interest me: Miraculous! The Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis Story by Ken Ham. I also picked up a free Christian Blue Pages (Christian Business Directory) just to check it out before I discarded it. I think the businesses are probably by faithful Christians of a wider spectrum (they are promoting The Chosen TV series after all), not likely all would hold to Ken Ham's narrow view on Creation.

Nadia noted some interesting Q&A problems in their Answers in Genesis books. One in particular, 365 Days of Faith and Science with Ken Ham, was the question "Is the Bible a Science Textbook?" and Nadia immediately recalled what I taught Eleni and Rudolfo the distinction between Solo and Sola Scriptura. Ken Ham's answer to this question, also posted in AiG website, is a clear example of Ken Ham being a Solo Scriptura person. An error that Reformed theologians would fully be aware of. His answer, which Nadia had me taken photo of the pages, was basically Yes. The Bible is a science book as well. Galileo knew better in his "God gave us two books: The Bible, Nature" in distinguishing two different revelations of God (General & Special), which fundamentalist folks like Ken Ham obviously conflates. However, he tried to show he knew better by following Henry Morris' distinction of Observational (operational) Science and Historical (origins) Science. That the Bible would be responsible for historical science. This distinction, when I first saw it, is unnecessary. It's a made up term by an for the YEC folks to make themselves look smarter.

Some other materials I picked up was the Fearfully & Wonderfully Made (Pro life flyer), which is related to HeartbeatInternational.org and Care-Net.org.

7:08PM, Checking in at The Holiday Inn Express & Suites Florence - Cincinnati Airport Hotel. Then we dined at Chuy, Mexican restaurant next block. I ordered a small Tortilla Soup and Chuychanga from House Specialties while Nadia had the seasoned ground beef burrito (Big as Yo' Face). It was good and too filling. I swam in the pool, cleaner than the previous one and all by myself this time, for about 30 mins.

Posted in Biology, Theologization | Leave a comment

Lithium-ion Battery

Posted on August 8, 2025 by timlyg

A general understanding of it:

Posted in Technical | Leave a comment

If you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth

Posted on August 4, 2025 by timlyg

Full quote by C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity:

If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth.

Posted in Theologization | Leave a comment

Journal of the Week

Posted on August 3, 2025 by timlyg

8/7/2025 Thursday

To learn about the college drop out behind FIGMA, Dylan Field and Mark Zuckerberg both had the backing of entrepreneur Peter Thiel, with Field partnering with his Brown University TA, Evan Wallace, started Figma as web apps. Now this company went IPO last week from $33 to $120. Now it's around $70. Some called Dylan the most humble billionaire.

To learn a little bit about HTML and DOM from today's perspective.

8/5/2025 Tuesday

A few days ago, I learned from AI source that Kathy Keller was originally studying to be a PCUSA pastor. I'm not referencing it here as there are many sources out there online.

8/4/2025 Monday

Liquid Glass - mimicking it on HTML-SVG.

Mysterious "missionaries" using secret audio devices to evangelize Brazil’s isolated peoples. Reported by BBC. Broadcasting biblical messages (Bible & American Baptist pastor's sermons, etc.) in Spanish and Portuguese, a device found in Korubo village in Brazil.

"The device that reached the hands of the Korubo is called Messenger and is distributed by the Baptist organisation In Touch Ministries, based in Atlanta, Georgia. It is now a curiosity in the possession of the Korubo community matriarch, Mayá."

Psalm 19:3 无言无语，也无声音可听。

8/3/2025 Sunday

"Not found else where", Stephen Tong's definition for Faith: 信是理性歸回真理 is the return of the created reasoning to the revealed truth:

＃竭力追求完全，為何不能沒有理性❓信仰如何是理性歸回真理❓靈恩派以什麼取代理性❓（希伯來書要理問答 第785問）

Rational vs. Rationalist: Rationalists replace God with reasoning power. Our reasoning power is created, limited, polluted. Only humans are created with reason, animals are not. So we must use reason.

＃為何基督徒應當是理性的，但絕不是理性主義者❓（希伯來書要理問答 第784問）

After this, I will not be posting these Hebrews series of Stephen Tong here (Weekly Journal entries) but in the relevant entries such as the Bible Study entry on Hebrews.

Sunday School, week 3 on The Medieval Church:

The Holy Roman Empire was neither "holy" nor "Roman" nor truly an "Empire" as it began with Charlemagne's (Charles the Great) coronation (800AD), essentially a Frankish-Germanic kingdom. Reformed education, supported monasteries, enforced Christian law, modeled himself after Israelite kings, used Carolingian script.

Posted in Theologization | Leave a comment

Mariology

Posted on July 30, 2025 by timlyg

Catholics vs. Protestant

Allie Beth Stuckey's team does a good job on this overall. This is not her first dealing with Catholicism. She's talked with George Farmer (Candace Owen's shy Catholic husband), Trent Horn (Catholic apologist), Lila Rose, Matt Walsh, Michael Knowles. Each probably worth a look into.

When we talk about Mariology, we are basically talking about 4 things about Mary, mother of Jesus:

  1. Mother of God (Theotokos - God-bearer) Legit.
  2. Immaculate Conception (Mary being born sinless, without original sin) Catholics error.
  3. Perpetual Virginity (Mary never have other children nor had sex with Joseph) Catholics error.
  4. Assumption (Mary ascended to Heaven skipping death) Catholics error.

I would disagree with Allie on #1. when she said ours and Catholics have different view on this. It's possible that some Catholics were misguided on Theotokos, but that doesn't represent Catholicism as a whole on this.

#2. Comes from Catechism of the Catholic Church: Article 9, Paragraph 6: calling Mary as Queen over all things. Weak but their best scriptural basis: Luke 1:28. Augustine of Hippo also cited as a special Mary in terms of sinfulness in 415AD.

#3. From 2nd council of Constantinople in 553AD: Aeiparthenos, some defend it using Luke 1:34, John 19:26 (no siblings to take care of the mother?), as Mary's vow, Matthew 1:25 "Joseph knew her not". Protoevangelium of James (Gospel of James) of 150AD, is also another of their source.

Allie's response: "Until" in Matthew 1:25 means a change after the stated time.
John 2:12 "siblings" = from the same womb, not cousins.
Luke 2:7 "first born" not "only child".
Acts 1:14, John 7:5
Matthew 13:55-56

#4. From Pope Pius XII in 1950, based on Enoch and Elijah's testimonies. Though not clear on if she was assumed after death or no death. No remains of bodily Mary as relics. Used Revelation 12:1-6, but not all Catholics agree on this, as some (Trent Horn of Catholic Answers) say it's symbolic. I would disagree with Allie that "if you're not a Christian I do not recommend starting in the book of Revelation." because of the false notion that Revelation is comforting only for Christians, an idea that many preachers hold. Revelation can also be a tool for the Gospel: the Good guy wins in the end!

Allie's response: Luke 11:27-28, on veneration of Mary.

Allie: The above 4 are Catholics teachings that all Catholics are required to hold.

@27:00 Mary venerated as Mediatrix by Catholicism. Allie: 1Timothy 2:5, Hebrews 7:25, Romans 8:26-27, 2Corinthians 1:11 (no indication of praying to saints/Mary with supernatural languages ability)

@32:10 Mary as the new Eve, because Jesus called Mary "Woman". Mary was also referenced as the new ark of the covenant from Exodus 25:10.

@40:30 Allie seems uncomfortable with using "theotokos", unless it's said in the context of a fully God fully man, Jesus, "we might affirm the title theotokos", otherwise she just prefers "Mother of Jesus" (a Nestorian view). This maybe due to her flawed baptist view that Jesus' human nature is NOT created.

Update 2026-02-16: I believe mariology can easily be defeated by pointing out Mary's sins (Luke 2:49 & John 2:4) in the Bible, which all Catholics (maybe even some protestant Christians) today would deny. I've run this experiment on Facebook to see if Catholics would explode, worked as a charm. This matter is actually quite important, because it touches on how we view sin to even the slightest kind before God.

Posted in Theologization | Leave a comment