On prohibition of female pastors and submission of wives to husbands by the Southern Baptists, former president Jimmy Carter and his wife broke away from their denomination. Saying: "I
think there ought to be the ability for Baptists who have slightly
different commitments to Christianity to get along, work together and
love each other."
I find this rather funny that he said "...to get along..." yet he was the one who broke ties with the denomination.
To deal with the fanatic of the Great Commission-Only, the traditionals have sided with the likes of Karl Barth and Walter Rauschenbusch to promote social gospel.
Cultural Mandate has Gospel value, but it does not replace the Gospel Mandate. So it is never married to the great commission. Those who emphasize culture mandate, shouldn't forget that they need to stand in front of an unbeliever, testifying their faith, having their conviction challenged, laboring in giving birth to spiritual souls, instead of just dancing with 'prospective allies' and calling that the whole duty of 'preaching the gospel'.
Kallinikos of Heliopolis, Syrian chemist, who couldn't get his caliph to use his invention "Greek Fire", because the Syrians were winning the greeks, so he sold it to the enemy, the greeks...and the tide turned.
I have to admit I laughed for a while. But I hope I'm not as selfish as Kallinikos. In spite of the arrogance of America.
"Application not found"
on the Fujitsu Menu program on my lifebook p1620.
Solution: Go to Edit of the Menu (which somehow shows a row of blank buttons and a button at a bottom called Edit.) & Click on the default button at the bottom right corner.
Done!
Authority works hand in hand with justice. Therefore, it works hand in hand with integrity.
If those wonder why they gain no respect, in spite of their post and their demands, it is because of their injustice. Even the slightest injustice would ruin their whole authority.
Playing without looking at fingers or keyboards is a rather helpful discipline.
Bought the Netgear wireless router with 4 ports (N150 Wireless router WNR1000v3).
I disabled wifi feature. Set the static internet ip/subnet/gateway to match that of 64.61....
DNS would be the first router's ip: 192.168.1.1
Then I went to disable the new router (second router) DHCP server and set the LAN IP to 192.168.1.215. Restart computer, done.
I was thinking of getting a network hub instead initially, but the price difference is not so much nowadays. The Netgear router costs $40 at Bestbuy.
I've been brought to the attention of Russell's book/lecture on "Why I
am not a Christian". It was due to an article I saw on Alex's blog regarding
his trip to Indonesia.
I had always wanted to read this. Then I was confused who the author was.
When I realized it is quite short, I read it.
I thought this would be a challenging book, but it really isn't. Classic stuff. Unless I had the wrong book.
Russell
basically defined Christianity and listed all reasonings of God's
existence a Christian would use and he would disprove them one by one.
His Christian definition is fair enough.
As for his arguments, I shall just summarize my defense as follows:
1.
The First-cause Argument: Who made God? Russell ended up throwing the
solution away instead of replacing the solution with 'another', so he
has no answer. He had responsibly defined the word Christian but he
didn't do a good job for the rest of his work. To ask "Who made God", is
like a novel character asking 'who authored the author?'. First it is
impossible for the character to perceive anything beyond the laws set
forth by the author's ink. All imaginations have to abide by the laws
set by the pen of the novel. A character is free to choose a color of
the word "ball" in the novel if color was written so but no more. So the
same it is with us, trying to draw the creator of time and space within
the boundry of the space-time continuum. Dr. Tong had covered this:
Creator is therefore not created.
2. The Natural-law Argument:
Russell first assumed that giving credit to God for the works of God is
an excuse for Christians to stop fathoming, hence his whole logic falls
like the domino effect.
3. The Argument from Design: His view is like that of the evolutionists. But it is of a different topic: one attempts to clarify the source of origin, while the other attempts merely to ask why and how.
4. The Moral Arguments for Deity: Russell is confused in the logical understanding between "God is Good" and "God set what is right and wrong".
5. The Argument for the Remedying of Injustice: The idea Russell accused against was by itself problematic. To blame such problem on Christianity is by itself folly of injustice. I would only argue if the sense of justice in a man is attributed to God or not. Not what the broken world needs, this is a subject of believers.
6. The Character of Christ: The bad testimony of those who claimed Christian belief is therefore an excuse for Russell's unbelief.
7. Defects in Christ's Teaching: Russell thought Christ's second coming would be sooner, as Abraham did his firstborn.
8. The Moral Problem: How could there be eternal punishment? Russell did not realize the damnation of man began since Adam. The fact that we are alive today is but the mercy of God. There is hell, because God is good. Not because God is good, so there should be no hell.
9. The Emotional Factor: I agree with this premise of Russell. As for bad examples of the "christians", I have answered that above.
10. How the Churches Have Retarded Progress: Russell made autonomous happiness as the foundation of morals. Thus, if a child is forbidden by his parents to eat candies, the parents have retarded the child's progress by restricting the happiness of mankind.
11. Fear, the Foundation of Religion: It is as though Russell would like to have this sensitivity cut off in drunkenness.
12. What We Must Do: the Overman concept. We ought to...we should...ourselves. Yes, I agree we have responsibilities, but if you go too far, you would want everyone to listen to you as god.
Many Chinese Christians, have hoped and tried to claim the presence of God in the Chinese history. The Chinese reverence towards the metaphysics.
Sometimes to a point it would smear the line between a genuine faith and mere superstition.
I could only conclude that the knowledge of reverence towards the mysterious from His handiworks is to be categorized in what the Reformers would call: The general revelation.
The Chinese culture has suceeded where the Greeks, the Romans, the West, have failed in their religious testimony. One would question, why then was it the Greeks who got the Gospel first and not the Chinese.
In spite of God's sovereignty, I see it is crucial that the authenticity of a religion be determined also by the need of a mediator...viz. the priests. The view of priesthood of the west and the Israelites stood out quite dinstinctively from the Chinese culture. Despite priesthood corruptions, such religions have achieved certain advancement in the relational espect of the Divine, while the Chinese focused on the non-relational praise of the divine.
Parable, Parable,
People, People,
Prophecy, Power.
Parables dealt with Prayers.
People dealt with Procession to Kingdom of God.
Prophecy dealt with Passion of Christ.
Power dealt with Peace holding.
1, 9, 15, 18, 31, 35
