Wednesday, July 3, 2002

End of Categories After struggling with categories, I've decided to get rid of them. I've changed the name of the weblog to Theology Notes, which is what I was using on the Movable Type weblog. This represents a theological emphasis, but I'm not limiting the content to theology in the strict sense of the word. The following quote from Martin Thornton's English Spirituality about the 12th century school of St. Victor supports this inclusiveness: "The Victorines make a further improvement by seeing spirituality nurtured not only by 'religious' doctrine but by all knowledge and experience whatsoever. And this is because, by the doctrine of creation, everything is 'religious'. The universe is 'symbolic' of God, 'science' is but one way among many of probing its mysteries, of 'meditating' upon the created order to find out more and more about the mind of the Creator." 9:57:16 PM

Scott Litvinoff on God's Sovereignty I'm copying some stuff over that I had posted on my MT weblog, and I want to save this quote by Scott Litvinoff, "Calvinism would seem to so carefully guard God's sovereignty that it actually lessens it as a result. What it basically comes down to is that Calvinism proposes that God is so sovereign that there is at least one thing He CANNOT do: create creatures and grant them wills of their own." 8:57:43 PM

Palestinian Agenda "It is difficult to see the strategy behind Palestinian tactics. Suicide bombing has clearly become a mainstream Palestinian tactic, one that makes the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip unlikely to the point of impossibility. It not only locks Israel into a war-fighting mode but also eases diplomatic pressure on Israel to make a settlement. The Palestinians know this. So why have the Palestinians adopted this tactic? "The answer lies in what must be a fundamental strategic shift on the part of the Palestinians. They no longer see the creation of a rump Palestinian state as a feasible or desirable end. Rather, despite the hardship of an extremely extended struggle, they have moved toward a strategy whose only goal must be the destruction of Israel. Since that is hardly likely to happen any time soon, the Palestinians must see forces at work in the Islamic world that make this goal conceivable and not just a fantasy." Although I had not really put these pieces together before, I've had the feeling that something like this was coming down. [Curiouser and curiouser!] 8:50:41 PM

Perl is Internet Yiddish "As I've grown up I've heard snatches of Yiddish all around me, but never enough to learn it. This is a great regret to me. I try and learn, but I can't concentrate on anything for that long these days. Obviously, this gives me Guilt. Yiddish is disappearing fast, and even though I can't speak it, I love it." "Perl, unlike most programming languages, was created by a linguist. That's why you get bizarre constructs like conditional modifiers, (print "Hello" unless $x < 3) which make most computer scientists spit in disgust. However, most of its syntax and vocabulary reflects its UNIX admin heritage: it's a mess of C, Bourne shell, sed, awk, POSIX etc. (This is primarily because Perl was not created to be pretty; it was created to Get Stuff Done. It's nicknamed the Swiss Army Chainsaw for a reason. But it still has plenty of irritating inconsistencies and pitfalls.)" 8:48:12 PM

Go Supplies Ishi Press sells Go books and supplies. 8:47:07 PM

A Tribute As I read Psalm 11 yesterday morning, I thought of a priest that I greatly admire, who has suffered under very difficult circumstances for many years. "For, behold, the wicked bend the bow, They make ready their arrow upon the string to shoot in darkness at the upright in heart. If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?" When you see such a good man suffer so much, and see his ministry under constant attack, it can seem like there is no hope. But we always have this hope, "The LORD is in His holy temple; the LORD'S throne is in heaven; His eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men." God knows this man's faithfulness, and even if things look bad today, his good deeds have their fruit in the spiritual realm, and he will receive his reward. "For the LORD is righteous, He loves righteousness; The upright will behold His face." 8:46:05 PM

After playing with Movable Type for a while, I'm back using Radio. The main reason is I've paid for Radio, and the price includes web hosting. The best deal I could get for the Perl hosting required for MT was $100/year. Well, it was a nice experiment, at least. 8:44:02 PM