Toast's Theological & Philosophical Meditations & Musings

Based on a few conversations had and articles read over the last few days, I feel obliged to get this off my chest.

To start with, let’s define some terms.

• Doctrine of Grace: Sola Gratia. Not the so-called “five points of Calvinism.
• Calvinism: Reformed theology. Doctrine as preached by Calvin, as preached by Paul, as held sound and biblical. Not the so-called “five points of Calvinism”. Not the doctrine preached by John Piper, or by Paul Washer, or by most of the so-called “Neo-Calvinists”.

As you may have guessed from the above, I am not a fan of certain popular theologians. Actually, I decided by the end of the foreword to Desiring God by John Piper that he seemed to be somewhat off in his attitude, and the more I’ve looked into his preaching the more sure I am. That said, much as I would like to pick on pastor Piper in this posting, I shall refrain and instead discuss more important points. In the proccess, I shall be quoting in some length from Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, as translated by mr Henry Beveridge.

In an effort to be brief, but to point out the most simple and glaring problems with the modern definition of “Calvinism” as meeting simpyl five so-called “doctrines of grace”, we shall look briefly at a few key area of the doctrine so well espoused by Calvin and lifted directly from scripture – those of grace, the Christian life, the sacrementology of the new covenant, and eschatology. Areas with which the supposed resurgence in Calvinism are as we shall see in sore contention.

Calvin’s views of grace where simple and to the point: grace is granted to us by God despite our deserving it. We’re granted grace by faith alone. So far so in agreement, but here’s the rub: predestination. A doctrine which is held in such high regard by the likes of John Piper (a man who goes so far in his opinion of the Lord’s sovreignty as to suggest that God did ordain sin) was one which in Calvin’s institutes consists chiefly of a few lines in the shortest chapter of the book, and which was not even included in the original draft! Indeed, a word of warning comes from Calvin himself as to putting too much emphasis on predestination, when he states that the doctrine is “attended with considerable difficulty [and] is rendered very perplexed and hence perilous by human curiosity, which cannot be restrained from wandering into forbidden paths and climbing to the clouds determined if it can that none of the secret things of God shall remain unexplored.”

Many “neo-calvinists”, both elders and lay-members of the church, have informed me of the importance of repentance in the context of a full turning from sin and choosing to repress it, aiming towards a sinless life. Very noble. However, in Chapter III of his institutes, Calvin seems to take a very different viewpoint;

When it is said that God purifies his Church, so as to be “holy and without blemish,” (Eph. 5: 26, 27Eph. 5: 26, 27
English: Good News Bible (UK) - GNB-UK
26 He did this to dedicate the church to God by his word, after making it clean by washing it in water, ²⁷ in order to present the church to himself in all its beauty — pure and faultless, without spot or wrinkle or any other imperfection.

WP-Bible plugin,) that he promises this cleansing by means of baptism, and performs it in his elect, I understand that reference is made to the guilt rather than to the matter of sin. In regenerating his people God indeed accomplishes this much for them; he destroys the dominion of sin, by supplying the agency of the Spirit, which enables them to come off victorious from the contest. Sin, however, though it ceases to reign, ceases not to dwell in them. Accordingly, though we say that the old man is crucified, and the law of sin is abolished in the children of God, (Rom. 6: 6Rom. 6: 6
English: Good News Bible (UK) - GNB-UK
6 And we know that our old being has been put to death with Christ on his cross, in order that the power of the sinful self might be destroyed, so that we should no longer be the slaves of sin.

WP-Bible plugin,) the remains of sin survive, not to have dominion, but to humble them under a consciousness of their infirmity

Sin survives in us, but our sins are ignored by almighty God! How can we try to pretend that although it is not our master, sin is still our constant companion? Can we ignore that we are saved not because we supress that companion, but in spite of the fact that we fail to? Sin exists in us to keep us humble, not to allow us to express pride that we can cover up its worst excesses.

And it is from this standpoint that the Christian life is best examined. In chapter VII of his institutes, a summary of the Christian life, Calvin states that

The rule which permits us not to go astray in the study of righteousness, requires two things–viz. that man, abandoning his own will, devote himself entirely to the service of God; whence it follows, that we must seek not our own things, but the things of God.

This is just the basic summary of a doctrine of self-denial, of forsaking earthly delights in exchange for surrendering one’s life to God. Why? Because in doing so we concentrate on the importance of the life to come, and we allow the Lord to use us in the way that is most beneficial in his plans thereto. Whereas John Piper chooses to interpret verses of 1 Timothy as advocating “using money in a way that will grant us the greatest and longest gain”, in his commentaries Calvin translates that those of us who the Lord has bestowed with earthly riches are obliged to use them for the good of others. Whilst both men agree that in doing so we are “storing up riches for ourselves in the hereafter”, so to speak, the difference is a subtle but important one: that of intent. Whilst Piper goes on to speak of the persuing of heavenly riches through the use of riches towards generosity, such an idea would have been abhorrent to Calvin, a man who would have rightly seen such an attitude as selfish and incorrect: good works should not be in the pursuit of an end, but in the obeying of God’s command to love all men as onesself, and to place God at the heart of one’s life. Setting one’s purpose on the next life may be the correct aim of the Christian life, but it is still a life of self-denial for the sake of obeying almighty God, not for the sake of enjoying him.

Of course a large part of the Christian life is that of sacrementology, and one in which the neo-Calvinists most disagree with Calvin.

The sacrements are more than mere symbols. Calvin goes to great lengths to define the sacrements, but his brief definition should be enough for most of us to comprehend;

First, we must attend to what a sacrament is. It seems to me, then, a simple and appropriate definition to say, that it is an external sign, by which the Lord seals on our consciences his promises of good-will toward us, in order to sustain the weakness of our faith, and we in our turn testify our piety towards him, both before himself and before angels as well as men. We may also define more briefly by calling it a testimony of the divine favour toward us, confirmed by an external sign, with a corresponding attestation of our faith towards Him. You may make your choice of these definitions, which, in meaning, differ not from that of Augustine, which defines a sacrament to be a visible sign of a sacred thing, or a visible form of an invisible grace, but does not contain a better or surer explanation.

The sarcements are, in other words, the visible symbols of the covenant. As Calvin puts it, they are seals to confirm the promise and symbols of great importance in confirming God’s presense in the church. The spirit is with us as the sacrements are taken, and their importance to the church should not be dismissed.

There are two sacrements: the sacrement of pedobaptism and the sacrement of the Lord’s supper. Whilst most of us in a “reformed” denomination will agree on the Lord’s supper, it is pedobaptism that has caused some of the greatest arguments in the church, and the area on which the vast majority of “Neo-Calvinists” depart entirely from scripture.

This is not an essay arguing in favour of pedobaptism. If I wanted to I could go on at great lengths on the Calvinist view of baptism, but at over 1300 words already I worry that I may be getting to a point of causing boredom and apathy. However the Calvinist view of baptism does need to be stated as important: as part of the covenant with Christ, the children of believers are nominally covered. Baptism of children is a seal of the covenant, stated by Paul as to be exactly identical and analogous to circumcision. To emphasise the importance in the church today, baptised children are noncomminicant members of the church. They’re a part of the church community, they will grow up as part of the community and grow into an understanding of what their baptism means and the importance of their faith. The cradle roll is put into a prominant position in the church so that we can pray for those infant members. Christ tells us that to enter the kingdom of heaven we must become like a little child, and who better to set the example of how we should do so than little children? It’s a loss of communication with the youngest members of our congregations which can lead to the greatest misunderstandings and loss of clarity of scripture.

Finally, we need to briefly touch on eschatology. I’m not an expert on the matter by any means, so it will indeed be very brief: Calvin was an amillenialist. Whilst historic premillenialism can also be argued to fit in with scripture, Calvin’s writing are incompatible with other eschatologies, from John McArthur’s dispensationalism to John Piper’s post-tribulation premillenialism with a gathering of ethnic Israel somewhere in the middle (I’m not exactly sure how that differs from dispensationalism, mind).

In concluding, Calvinism is the sum of its parts. Parts that are deeply rooted in the scriptures that Calvin masterfully wrote down in his only way exactly as they where preached many centuries before. Calvinism is not some easy doctrine that can be mashed into any old theology, and Calvinism is definitely not what is today called Calvinism. Following Calvin’s 500th birthday last week, that’s something that seems to have been forgotten by so many. Would Calvin really be happy with his legacy?

I like Ray Comfort. I like his book, The Way of The Master. He seems a nice enough guy, he’s got a great compassion for the lost and he has some good lessons to teach on evangelism.

Ray Comfort stated on his blog that I am an “obvious non-Christian” and potentially a mass murderer. Why? Because I mentioned in a blog post of “random facts about me” that I want to do something I’ll be remembered for. It was a throwaway remark.

Over the last few years, I’ve noticed that Living Waters has been moving worryingly away from the true gospel. Ray spends most of his time arguing about evolution – worse, presenting unscientific facts and fabricated “evidence” to try and not only argue against theories such as natural selection, but to try and claim that no true Christian can hold to such facts – he’s openly stated multiple times that theosophic evolutionists are idolatrers.

If I may quote Augustine of Hippo at this juncture, I feel that my words cannot summarise the problem as well as those found in The Literal Meaning of Genesis;

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience.

Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writer held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men.

If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?

Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertions.

 

Now, arguing about evolution isn’t in itself a problem – it’s not essential to the gospel, and other than his mistaken view on its importance Ray isn’t really doing anything wrong here. No, the problem is that Ray’s “Way Of The Master” method of evangelism has moved from what is at heart a very good and valid point – the use of the law in evangelism to reveal that we are all sinners – to a cultish and worrying insistence on the use of a specific method – the “good person test”, which can lead potentially lead to the exact situation Ray claims to be trying to avoid – the creation of “false converts”. Indeed, one of the reasons I recently decided to distance myself from Ray’s School of biblical Evangelism and its community was that I was observing there an unashamed loyalty to Ray and the taking of his views as gospel, along with what seems to be an inability to think critically and indpendantly analyse what one is saying, a reliance on quoting verbatim the words of others being preferred. Indeed a number of members rather proudly stated their closed-mindedness when challenged on the issue.

Indeed, ray’s biggest crime, and one to which his entire minsitry by nature needs to be held accountable, is his insistence that his is “the only biblical method of evangelism”.  This is a view that I’ve heard stated by many fo his followers, and one which I feel requires special attention.

Point the first: Ray states that the only biblical method of evangelism is “the law to the proud, and grace tot he humble”.  Fair enough you say, but wait? What does Ray tell us in regards to the challenging questions we may be asked? This brings us nicely onto

Point the second: Well, what he says is to “bypass the intellect”. Ray doesn’t believe in apologetics, and whilst he supplies plenty of “evidence” for the bible (to be honest a lot of it isn’t really worth quoting. Ray cites urban legends, takes passages of scripture out of context, and quote mines) he also makes it clear that one should avoid getting into apologetics and instead insist on using the law to make sinners speechless.  I’m sure that works in some places, Ray, but let me assure you there’s a good reason that you don’t tend to impress people in academic debates with that attitude.

 Point the third: Whilst Ray’s argument that the presenting of the law is definitely “the way of the Master” holds ground – the examples given of Christ using the law to talk to people in the gospel are for the most part acurate – his argument begins to slip when we realise it isn’t “the way of the apostles”. Throughout the book of acts we see evangelism through miracles, we see evangelism through apologetics, and we see evangelism throught he reading of prophetic scriptures. The use of the law is most certainly not the main method of evangelism used, if we can say that one “main method” does exist.

Which leads us nicely onto our final point, point the fifth: Do the scriptures really contain a step-by-step outline for evangelism? Is there actually an instruction manual there? Can we actually state that any “method” is “biblical”? In the two years that I’ve been actively going out of my way to reach out to the lost, I’ve yet to see two encounters that followed the exact same pattern. Different people have different questions, different thoughts, different needs. All we can ask is that the holy spirit guide us and show us what we need to do.

The Way of the Master is fast becoming dangerous, inadvertantly spreading a view that leads Christians to judge each other, question the salvation of those who may struggle or not follow the perfect definition of a good, conservative, evangelical protestant.  Attracting largely those who lack the skills to properly think things through for themselves, those who are easily lead, those who find something missing in modern evangelism but make the mistake of trusting what on the surface appears to be the answer but don’t quite delve in deeply enough.

For all that, Living Waters produce some of the best gospel tracts I know of. Ray’s book, the Way of The Master, is still one of the best evangelical resources available and the first series of the TV show at least is highly reccomended.  Maybe satan siezes upon potentially good things in order to pervert them into furthering his agenda?

John 4:1-42John 4:1-42
English: Good News Bible (UK) - GNB-UK
Jesus and the Samaritan Woman ^{4 1} The Pharisees heard that Jesus was winning and baptizing more disciples than John. ^{2 3} So when Jesus heard what was being said, he left Judea and went back to Galilee; ⁴ on his way there he had to go through Samaria. ⁵ In Samaria he came to a town named Sychar, which was not far from the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. : ; ⁶ Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. ⁷ A Samaritan woman came to draw some water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink of water.” ^{8 9} The woman answered, “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan — so how can you ask me for a drink?” Jews will not use the same cups and bowls that Samaritans use; or Jews will have nothing to do with Samaritans. : ; ¹⁰ Jesus answered, “If only you knew what God gives and who it is that is asking you for a drink, you would ask him, and he would give you life-giving water.” ¹¹ “Sir,” the woman said, “you haven't got a bucket, and the well is deep. Where would you get that life-giving water? ¹² It was our ancestor Jacob who gave us this well; he and his sons and his flocks all drank from it. You don't claim to be greater than Jacob, do you?” ¹³ Jesus answered, “All those who drink this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring which will provide him with life-giving water and give him eternal life.” ¹⁵ “Sir,” the woman said, “give me that water! Then I will never be thirsty again, nor will I have to come here to draw water.” ¹⁶ “Go and call your husband,” Jesus told her, “and come back.” ¹⁷ “I haven't got a husband,” she answered. Jesus replied, “You are right when you say you haven't got a husband. ¹⁸ You have been married to five men, and the man you live with now is not really your husband. You have told me the truth.” ¹⁹ “I see you are a prophet, sir,” the woman said. ²⁰ “My Samaritan ancestors worshipped God on this mountain, but you Jews say that Jerusalem is the place where we should worship God.” ²¹ Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, the time will come when people will not worship the Father either on this mountain or in Jerusalem. ²² You Samaritans do not really know whom you worship; but we Jews know whom we worship, because it is from the Jews that salvation comes. ²³ But the time is coming and is already here, when by the power of God's Spirit people will worship the Father as he really is, offering him the true worship that he wants. ²⁴ God is Spirit, and only by the power of his Spirit can people worship him as he really is.” ²⁵ The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah will come, and when he comes, he will tell us everything.” ²⁶ Jesus answered, “I am he, I who am talking with you.” ²⁷ At that moment Jesus' disciples returned, and they were greatly surprised to find him talking with a woman. But none of them said to her, “What do you want?” or asked him, “Why are you talking with her?” ²⁸ Then the woman left her water jar, went back to the town, and said to the people there, ²⁹ “Come and see the man who told me everything I have ever done. Could he be the Messiah?” ³⁰ So they left the town and went to Jesus. ³¹ In the meantime the disciples were begging Jesus, “Teacher, have something to eat!” ³² But he answered, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” ³³ So the disciples started asking among themselves, “Could somebody have brought him food?” ³⁴ “My food,” Jesus said to them, “is to obey the will of the one who sent me and to finish the work he gave me to do. ³⁵ You have a saying, ‘Four more months and then the harvest.’ But I tell you, take a good look at the fields; the crops are now ripe and ready to be harvested! ³⁶ The one who reaps the harvest is being paid and gathers the crops for eternal life; so another who sows and the one who reaps will be glad together. ³⁷ The saying is true, ‘One sows, another reaps.’ ³⁸ I have sent you to reap a harvest in a field where you did not work; others worked there, and you profit from their work.” ³⁹ Many of the Samaritans in that town believed in Jesus because the woman had said, “He told me everything I have ever done.” ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans came to him, they begged him to stay with them, and Jesus stayed there two days. ⁴¹ Many more believed because of his message, ⁴² and they said to the woman, “We believe now, not because of what you said, but because we ourselves have heard him, and we know that he really is the Saviour of the world.”

WP-Bible plugin

Someone recently told me that the woman at the well should be used as an example of how to evangelise – Christ wasn’t confrontational, and he didn’t go condemning the woman as a sinner.

Ray Comfort, who those who’ve chatted to me about evangelism probably know I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with, also uses this incident as an example of how Christ evangelised: he confronted the woman with her the law, by showing her that she’d sinned. All well and good, but I have a problem with both these arguments.

See the thing is, Jesus didn’t just confront the woman with the law: he told her that she was an adulterer. He actually knew this, despite the fact he wasn’t an acquaintance. He showed her that he was the messiah. Now, if the Lord ever grants me the ability to tell complete strangers their sins, and thus demonstrate the great power of our holy God, I will most certainly use it in his service to bring others to him – after I’ve finished freaking out, anyway. But really,t hat’s not a realistic option right now for me, or for most others.

In Luke 18:18-25Luke 18:18-25
English: Good News Bible (UK) - GNB-UK
The Rich Man ¹⁸ A Jewish leader asked Jesus, “Good Teacher, what must I do to receive eternal life?” ¹⁹ “Why do you call me good?” Jesus asked him. “No one is good except God alone. ²⁰ You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery; do not commit murder; do not steal; do not accuse anyone falsely; respect your father and your mother.’ ” : ; ²¹ The man replied, “Ever since I was young, I have obeyed all these commandments.” ²² When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “There is still one more thing you need to do. Sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven; then come and follow me.” ²³ But when the man heard this, he became very sad, because he was very rich. ²⁴ Jesus saw that he was sad and said, “How hard it is for rich people to enter the Kingdom of God! ²⁵ It is much harder for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.”

WP-Bible plugin, we see an example in which Christ uses the essence of the first commandment in talking to the rich young ruler. Now isn’t this a better example of how Christ did things, and one we can actually use? Maybe. But then this does beg an interesting question – how did the early church evangelise? Now, to me this is a far more important question – Christ may be the head of the church, but he’s also God. And as shown, we generally can’t just go using all his methods.

In acts, Peter is very confrontational in witnessing at the temple. And at Pentecost. In fact he’s rather confrontational throughout. Paul on Mars Hill gives a simple gospel presentation, beginning with an apologetic in which he takes advantage of the extreme religious nature of the people of Athens to explain the difference between the false gods and the one true God. Stephen rebuked the Sanhedrin, drawing on Jewish history to show that they had over and over again rejected and disobeyed God. He was confrontational in his witness even against men who wanted to kill him!

The Ethiopian eunuch was convinced by scripture after it was explained to him, although we don’t know exactly what was said.  However, he was convicted by scripture. I suppose we can say this was not so confrontational.

There isn’t a set rule, pattern, or method through which we should evangelise. But what we can safely say is that a certain Samaritan woman is dragged up all too often as an example, almost as if we’re trying to avoid admitting that sometimes the direct and confrontational method is required.

Or am I just talking nonsense again?

Here’s some fancy logic for you, in a very low-level format.

(Originally posted on the WOTM School of Biblical Evangelism forum)

Where All men = A, some of A = a, the state of being elected to salvation = S, and the state of being condemed to hell = H. Meanwhile P = the state of being predestined. Keep an eye on P.

(S = ¬H) = T
(H = ¬S) = T

According to double predestination, A = P. Thus;

A = H
However through God’s grace a = S
As such, a = S and a = H

If double predestination is not true and only singular predestination, for want of a better word is, then a = P, thusly;

a = S, a =  ¬P.

IF a = ¬P THEN a = S OR a = H and so

a = S, a = (S || H)

Ergo, either A = P OR ¬C, where C = Calvinism.

Reposted from my other blog, because I feel it needs said. Again.

(originally psoted June 4 2008)

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When asked by a student to sum up what was msot important about his life’s work and theology in as few words as possible, Karl barth replied, “in the words of a song my mother used to sing me, ‘Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so”. To me, this rather nicely summarises what theology should be. Now, I’ll admit I don’t have a firm understanding of Calvin’s Institutes. I can’t get my head round the idea of election, I don’t have a huge interest in Hebrew or Greek and I just don’t see where people get some of their interpretations of Revelation from. Neither does it tend to bother me. In Matthew 18, Christ says, “unless you become like little children, you shall never enter the kingdom of heaven”. [Note: all references will be taken from the TNIV translation of the Bible unless otherwise noted.] In Luke 10, we see that “[God has] hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children”. I feel from this that my aproach to Scripture – that of a small child – is a fair and acceptable one. Can I stand and debate complicated issues? Not really. Do I need to? Only for fun. I’ll leave such things to pastors, thanks.
However, here is what I understand, from the scriptures, by just taking things at face value, as they where given.

1)I am saved by grace alone (Ephesian 2)
2)All that is required of me to be saved is that I trust in the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 14)
3)Faith without deeds is useless(James 2)
4)The perceived contradiction there is because you think too hard
5)All are equal in Christ: race, gender, age etc are meaningless (Galations 3/4)
6)My actions are meaningless in regards to my salvation (Epehesians 2)
7)All scripture is innerant (2 Timothy 3)
8)We win(Revelation in general)
9)We don’t know and cannot predict when Christ will return(Matthew 24)
10)Jesus loves me, this I know, for the bible tells me so.

That’s just a few points that sprung to mind. I think we can all agree that these points can’t be argued, non?

Actually, it’s quite a small list. Nevertheless, here’s a list of folk who for whatever reason are bloody inspiring and I feel the need to point you in the direction of.  Generally because they have an effect on all the writing I’m doing here!

Anyway, here goes;

• God – without whom I wouldn’t be writing this.  Goes without saying, really.
• Charles Haddon Spurgeon – It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of Spurgeon, despite our disagreements on certain issues (namely child/adult baptism, and millenialism). Spurgeon’s writings have both been an inspiration to me when inspiration was lacking, and a helper in times of hardship.
• Ray Comfort – Sure we don’t agree on certain issues, and admitably a lot of his followers make me feel ill, but Ray was in a big part responsible for indling a great compassion for the lost in me, and pushing me to do something about it. Incidently, his book, The Way of the Master, is a must read.
• CS Lewis – Much of what I know abotu Apologetics, I learned from CS Lewis. Also, I like Narnia.
• Stephen – The guy who appears for two chapters in Acts, and gets stoned to death. Sure I might be biased as I have the same name, but I honestly think he’s a great example for us all
• Hunter S Thompson – Showed me that English lessons don’t neccesarily show the best way to write…

So anyway, as I’ve ranted about numerous times already, I can’t connect to blogger.com from uni. Or rather, I can’t connect to it from the main UOD netork, which seems to have the domain blocked: the School of Computing netowork’s actually quite happy to let me visit anything on the internet.

But here’s the big problem: I’ve got some dieas floating around in my head that I want to get written down (more on that in a minute), and I need a blog to do so in. I don’t like livejournal, so this here self-hosted wordpress is the solution.

So basically, I’m going to write a few comments on various isses that I seem to be getting into a lot of argumets over lately, and also a set of meditations on issues that I just never seem to think enough on to really hold a proper opinion. This shall be fun. Oh yes!

And now for a small request to anyone who reads this: please comment. If I say something you disagree with, tell me. Discuss it. If you see something you think worth further discussion, again SAY SO! That’s the entire idea here. The one thing I do request is that arguments should be cognent and properly backed up.  Hopefully something worthwhile’ll come from it all…

-Stephen Whitehead, January 24, 2009