Archive for June, 2005

The TheoMeme

I just coined this word – and because I just coined it, I’m going to use it fairly soon – and I’m taking the credit for it, should it take off 😀

I just had one of those “stroke of lightning” ideas, while I was on one of my nightly “thinking cap” sessions.

The Supposition:

A meme is a popular thing, in the blogosphere. There are book-memes, quiz-memes, community-memes…

Memes can be powerful – so, let’s harness them for something the Godblogosphere can uniquely address – theology. Not to mention actually learning about theology. The catechism – blog style.

The Structure:

Post something short, which brings up a point of theology – and list 5 short questions which serve to bring out doctrinal stance on that theological issue. Add one question to the end: What denomination or church group, (or neither) do you belong to. I’ll explain that soon.

The Strategy:

Address that meme to 5 people who regularly read your blog, and will find it quickly. Spread meme. Have them trackback to your original post, and collect the links to their answers. Answers will be collected for the next Vox Apologia, two weeks later, so that the meme has time to spread. Start meme two weeks ahead of time, and keep the pace going – post a new meme every week, and maintain that pace. You will always get an answer, and there will always be content, and discussion on that content, which adds to the body of information.

Categorize the answers by doctrinal/congregational affiliation, so that the stances from various groups can be annotated and tracked – and provide a sort of “comparative theology” study.

Thoughts?

Apelles: Blogging out Loud

The idea that blogs would succeed in the Christian community ought not be a surprise. When it comes to community, believers should always outstrip those who are not obedient to the Gospel. Believers should always out-community any unbelieving community, whether it be the local Kiwanis or the worshippers at the local football stadium. There’s no biblical directive to blog, but if blogging is community and believers are blogging, we ought to be outdoing any unregenerate blogging effort.

Did you catch that? Excellence – because we are His.

Check out the Blogdom of God, on the TLB communities page. We are the largest blogging community there is. Bar none. We have networked FAR beyond what we would be expected to – and we have more influence than you would expect – and far more readers from outside the Christian community than we will ever know about. I see them come by, like smoke – due to my referral logs, and traffic tracking. I know why they came, and i know why they come back. We have something they want to see. We take what we believe seriously – and we take what we have to say seriously.

Now, with my editorial comments at a close – read the rest of the post I referenced, from Apelles.

(I have them in my “extremely sharp” category for a reason – I reward excellence :D)

Now, if they would only fix their trackbacks…

The Daily Cut – 6-23

Fun tools:

Click to select the code
(javascript required)

Gives you this:

  • Note: Remove spaces after opening “< " and before the closing "<"

    Gives you the latest 15 posts in the Aggregator, to display on your blog.

    Click to select the code
    (javascript required)

    Gives you this:

  • Once again, Note: Remove spaces after opening “< " and before the closing "<"

    This gives you the external blogrolling list for the aggregator, to display on your blog.

    There’s some fun tools for today.

    Hrmm, whats this now?

    Ok, enough compulsive coding.

    But I borrowed this from Nick Queen’s Out of the Wilderness new blog showcase script. I adapted it, themed it to Vox, and something very much like this will be available, should I get some help for Vox, like I mentioned below.

    You can put it on your site, and we’ll update it weekly, for Vox – it’ll update everywhere it is displayed.

    Now, if you’ll excuse me.. it’s time to go to bed. I’m supposed to be at my girlfriend’s house tomorrow at some sort of decent time – like when it’s still daylight outside.

    (Just kidding honey! I’ll be there on time.. albeit tired. Doesn’t it look cool though?)

    … awaits his well-deserved thumping when he gets there …

    hehe.

    The Daily Cut – 6/22

    News and Updates:

    I’ve created a new page for the Aggregator – you can find it below.

    Now, for something less cool.

    I really like Vox Apologia’s Symposiums – but as you may have noticed, I haven’t been promoting, or planning new ones. For several reasons.

    1. It is a MASSIVE time sink.
    2. The response is pretty crappy, when I don’t VERY actively promote it.
    3. I’m just not getting the necessary response/feedback

    Now, don’t think I’m trying to be a nag – I’m really not. But, if I’m going to do this, I’m going to need a few people to help. The volunteers I got to start with really wanted to help – but, unfortunately, almost all of us ran into time issues.

    So, here is a request: If you want to see a Vox Apologia Symposium – I need you to help me put it up, and work the logistics required.

    It’s a fairly large task, as any of you who have hosted one before can attest to. I moved it to a central location so that we wouldn’t have any “missing blog” issues later on. That tends to happen, if you don’t pay attention, and if the blogs in question change urls, or et cetera. Vox Apologia is a nice site – and I’ve done some neat things with it, I think. However, in order for it to be used, and live up to it’s promise, it needs more than just me maintaining it.

    This post will be re-posted to Vox’s blog – and it’s an example of what you could see daily on the blog, if we had the support of multiple posters for it. The Symposium is no different – it also needs volunteers to make it work properly.

    The Librarium could use maintenance and additions to it, and I have an “instant update” system in place that only takes seconds to add content or links to pertinent content. It’s really that easy.

    If you enjoy this site, and all the cool stuff I have linked here – Vox could be 10 times better. It’s already a lot better. It just needs more hands to run, as it was designed big, to be run by a team. My blog is designed to be run by… me.

    You could maintain the Library, help post daily-cut style roundups of apologetics material, work on the symposium, or do a host of other things. Just volunteer. It’s really easy to do something like this, if you have enough people.

    If you want to help: email me.

    Apologetics:

    An absolutely brilliant post from Metacrock, on Cadre Comments.

      The post is called Everything Needs a Cause, Right?.

      We hear a lot about the cosmological argument – and the Kalam argument, especially. This post does a fair job of blowing that to bits – and coming up with something more interesting in it’s place. Check it out.

    I do have a reason for some of the more… unnoticed… members of the Aggregator.

    The Huntington Apologetics Team has two good ones. I’m adding both to the Vox Librarium.

    Cut-Rate Thesaurus:

    I have a confession to make. I like country music, and I’m not even from the South. I’m marrying a southern girl, though, if that counts…

    Anyway, I ran across a truly funny song recently, called The Talking Song Repair Blues, by the inimitable Alan Jackson. There’s an absolutely funny line in there.

    An’ I know you’ve been using a cut-rate Thesaurus
    ‘Cause your adverbs are backed up into your chorus:
    Now your verse is runnin’ on verbs that are way too weak.

    I love it! So, as I’m running through the blogosphere, I’m going to be on the lookout for posts with serious issues.

    Don’t be that blogger. You might get an award you really don’t want.

    Scornful Skeptic Award:

    This week’s award goes to Positive Blasphemy – mostly because they are just so over the top – it isn’t funny.

    You’ll see why.

    Anyway, each week will give you a different blog – which will be “awarded” the title of “Scornful Skeptic”. They get this award by being so outrageously anti-Christian, they aren’t even amusing. Just eaten up by their own self-deceit.

    Science and Science Fiction:

    The Minor Prophet has a couple in this category.

    John Zuhone has a scientific point to make, and a resource to give us. One I agree with, one of which I don’t. My regular readers know by now which is which.

    Just as a supplement – I had a recent discussion with my dad about Old Earth vs. Young Earth creationism. I also had a discussion with Chad, from Doxazo Theos, about the same basic subject over im.

    Are we ready for another scientific topic for Vox Apologia? I do believe that #7 – “Creation vs. Evolution: So What?” was the biggest draw, as far as entrants, in Vox Apologia history.

    So: Do we need to take another look, or a more specific look at the subject, or one similar?

    How about my recent infinity discussion?

    Stem Cell Research? (*cough* Imago Dei *cough*)

    Slavery – a Biblical Response?

    Note, first – before you go ANY farther. This post is a specific answer for this post, and the material found within it’s comments. It is nothing more – and nothing less.

    It is neither an apologetic for the institution of slavery, nor an endorsement of any sort of racial supremacy. It is certainly not a call to return to the practices of early American slavery – not by any means. It is a simple answer, in response to this question:

    If slavery were still around today, then those of us who claim to be God’s children would have to fight against it, even at the cost of our own lives. Right?

    My answer: Slavery, as an institution, is not something which is Biblically mandated that we fight against. Abuses in slavery is what we fight against.

    A minor delineation, perhaps – but one I feel has to be made.

    Read on for more, including a point by point response to Shrode’s comments.

    Read the rest of this entry

    The Daily Cut – 6/20

    Welcome Vincent Cheung to the Aggregator!

    This guy really knows his stuff.

    I’ve also asked two more members of the Apologetics Resource Center to join as well. Hopefully, they’ll both say yes 😀

    Incidentally – click the link to your left, underneath the aggregator links, that says “other apologists”. If you’re listed there, i want you to join too.

    Also note that I have updated the aggregator links on Vox Apologia to match, and did some minor link update maintenance as well.

    I don’t have a Vox Apologia Symposium topic – nor have we had many entries at all the past few weeks (prior to my suspension of it). I had my daughter the past two weeks, so I really didn’t have time for it, to be honest. I’m still looking for some frequent contributors for a REAL “daily cut” style apologetics roundup as well, over at Vox. As in, you help roundup posts. I just don’t have the time, kids. I’m really just looking for some help with that group blog.. that’s basically just been a second personal blog for me. As you can see, i rarely have time to even keep this blog updated. So, a second one just isn’t working well.

    Who’s up for it?

    Anyway. Hope you had a nice Father’s Day. I was “lucky” enough to have to take my daughter back home the day before Father’s day, for various scheduling reasons. Consider yourself blessed if you have your kids with you. The alternative is not very palatable – nor does a phone call really substitute. (Although I thank her mother for being considerate and ensuring I got to talk to her today)

    So… that’s about it. Oh, my birthday is coming up. I’ll be 27 years old. Yay for me.

    Ripped from my comment at Joe’s Evangelical Outpost, and slightly revised.

    They will realize what we’re saying, eventually, and quit reciting the media mantra of “ESC promises great results” like mouldering zombies. One day. That would involve them realizing that there is, actually, no evidence whatsoever for ESC promise, and every evidence for adult cell promise.

    It would also require a mindset which ceases to disregard life.

    I find it absolutely apalling that there is a group of Americans who will make any excuse, and take any road which involves the destruction of human life – just to be able to say “I have that right to choose” ( their death). Not their right to choose life – that is the road of ASC, or abortion alternative counseling – or even adoption proponents! Instead, they consciously, staggeringly, and even viciously end the life of another human being – just because they can then say they chose it.

    Pro-Choice. Yeah. I’m Pro-Choice too. Except my choice is for life. I get to choose too, you know. That’s fine, though. Call yourself “Pro-Choice” – we know better. It’s not about our choices, though. It’s about theirs – the ones the “Pro-Choice” movement never offers a choice to at all.

    It’s easier to talk about as a “fetus”, or a “blob of protoplasm” – or even “research with such great promise” (true or not). Never mind THEIR choices. Just pack em into the freight cars. We know what it is you’re doing. We aren’t quiet about it, though. Is that why you’re so hot to drag us away from in front of the abortion clinics? We’re actually refering to the “Solution of Choice” sans euphemisms? In public?

    That just won’t do, will it? Then people would know about the freight cars and the suction hoses used to rip babies into pieces, and the saline solution used to burn them to death. They would know that you were creating babies solely to kill them, for some ephemeral chance for “a cure” with no history of success. They would know that for every baby that is successfully brought to term with IVF, that the others are simply discarded like garbage.

    That’s the problem. We’re using non-euphemisms, and speaking about the “Solution of Choice” before the country is fully “sanitized” of all these “religious fanatics”- we are not following the herd. The herd curiously referred to as “Pro-Choice”. The levels of irony involved in this whole set of issues… especially from the side that calls itself “Pro-Choice” – and gives the victim of that choice no choice at all… staggering. No wonder there’s the huge media push to silence the “religious extremists” these days. We don’t speak of the “Choice Solution” in it’s “pretty” little euphemisms. We call it what it is. Murder.

    That, my friends, is what they can’t stand. Any more than that grain of truth to make the lie sound believable, and they get uncomfortable. They don’t want to know – and they’re mad at us for dragging it all out into the light of day, instead of the comfortable euphemistic corner they’d buried it in.

    My heart bleeds for their comfort zone – really.

    P.S. – Tried a trackback to Joe’s post – got errors. I’ll check back later.

    Mostly because I’m really cool…

    I made everyone on the Aggregator (that didn’t have one) an 80×15 button for their blog.

    You can see them all on the right.

    Cool, huh?

    So, feel free to use them. If you don’t have your own webspace, feel free to link my hosting of them. If you do, please host them yourself for use on your own blog.

    Q and A with RK: 6/8

    Culled from two im conversations:

    HydroPhoboe: what about this example..
    HydroPhoboe: Could God eat an infinitely long hot dog?
    RazorsKiss: Nothing but God is infinite, in my opinion.
    RazorsKiss: How could anything but God be equal to God?
    RazorsKiss: Is a hot dog equal to God? 😀
    HydroPhoboe: Lol
    HydroPhoboe: no
    RazorsKiss: So, if God is infinite, how can anything else be, and not be equal to God in that respect?
    RazorsKiss: it’s a logical contradiction, in my humble opinion – for a Christian, at least
    RazorsKiss: I think that was profound
    RazorsKiss: but it may not have been
    RazorsKiss: it’s hard to tell with hot dogs
    RazorsKiss: if it was polish sausage, we wouldn’t even be discussing it!

    End first conversation… but I can’t help thinking about that one.

    So, I quote it to Bethany, and continue my train of thought.

    RazorsKiss: I crack me up.
    Bethany: lol
    Bethany: okay…that is…um…weird?
    RazorsKiss: but.. funny
    Bethany: yeah. funny.
    Bethany: but weird….
    RazorsKiss: see if this makes sense to you
    RazorsKiss: I had to think about it for a minute
    RazorsKiss: the very concept of an infinite *thing* is impossible, in my opinion
    RazorsKiss: because the very concept of “thing” implies limits, or measure
    RazorsKiss: infinity is a concept which flatly denies measure, or limit
    RazorsKiss: follow me?
    RazorsKiss: So, it would be an inherent contradiction, both logically, and conceptually
    RazorsKiss: Or am I off-base?
    Bethany: yes…I follow and I agree.
    RazorsKiss: Ok, so the “could God make a rock large enough He couldn’t lift it” is an inherently illogical statement – because limit is implied in the statement “rock”, and “heavy”
    Bethany: I think so.
    RazorsKiss: a rock is inherently limited by the fact that it is a thing – a rock
    Bethany: and is not infinite…
    RazorsKiss: it is inherently limited by weight – which is a measure
    RazorsKiss: it can neither be a rock, nor heavy, to be infinite – to be infinite is reserved for God, therefore it can neither be too heavy to lift, or a rock, to be infinite – and the only thing impossible is something equal to or greater than God
    RazorsKiss: so… the statement is inherently illogical, and conceptually impossible
    RazorsKiss: w00t. I’ll be a philosopher yet…
    RazorsKiss: unless I’m wrong.
    Bethany: lol!
    Bethany: indeed…you shall.
    RazorsKiss: that is SO going to my blog.

    My brain hurts – but that was fun.

    I know, I’m flying in the face of mathematics – but really – who has measured infinity?

    I still say the only thing infinite is God – period.

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