The Kingdom Come

Okay, I'll admit it, I'm a geek.  Well, I'm sort of a geek.  I began using the Internet when all the Internet was was a loose collection of college BBS's (bulletin board systems).  These were text-based, menu driven formats that looked like the screen shot below.

The commands to navigate from screen to screen were not always the same with each BBS.  And no, there were not any graphics, no pictures beyond "ASCII art" (see example #1, #2).  Joan Stark's work will live on forever!

By psychosis I don't mean to imply Christians are crazy per se, after all I am a Christian and I hope I'm not crazy -- however as a humorous aside, how would a crazy person really know they are crazy?  Anyhow, by psychosis I do mean that many people who claim to be Christian do seem...well a bit odd.  I know, I know.  Define odd.  But I think most people know what I mean. 

Many Christians behave in an unstable or socially untenable manner. For example, many Christians while supposed to be well grounded in source-able biblical precepts are instead champions of vagaries.  Did I just prove my own point? 

We've heard the slogan, "Truth Always Prevails", but often when we are enduring some lie that is being perpetrated, either generally or against us personally it seems like truth has lost and liars have won the day.  It makes it worse when people or organizations which we may respect have also bought into the lie.

On a personal note, as readers may know I have been enduring the lies of a group called "hyperpreterists".  Hyperpreterists are a cultic, heretical group that advocates four main things in contradiction to the united belief of Christianity.

Who knew Google could be so powerful?  I was searching around for some data and I came across a very helpful Google page called "Search Features".  This page gives examples how to use Google to find information faster and more accurately.  Suppose you wanted to know the conversion factor between the euro and the dollar.  You don't have to google "conversion euro to dollar" but simply input into the search field; 1 eur to usd This will return the conversion.  You can do other neat tricks like; movies 46220 (replace 46220 with you own zipcode), or unit conversions like 1 cm to inches, or as a calculator 5*15+2, or to find current time in any city in the world, time Indianapolis (replace Indianapolis with any city), or to see instant stock quotes MSFT, or to find things on sites that might not have a good internal search method, you can use something like Obama socialist site:cnn.com

I tried some of the same tricks with bing.com, Microsofts search engine and it seems to operate about the same.  So, get to it!!!  Get out there and get informed.

As a geek who made his bread and butter by knowing how to use the old style Microsoft products, I've felt a little frustrated trying to use the new versions.
Well, here is the solution.  Downloading and running these interactives allows you to carry out the commands you know from the old interface and then immediately be shown how to do the same thing in the new interface.  After a while you can take off the training wheels.

• Excel -- http://www.microsoft.com/DOWNLOADS/details.aspx?familyid=89718ABD-2758-47B3-9F90-93788112B985
• Word -- http://www.microsoft.com/DOWNLOADS/details.aspx?familyid=9044790B-4E24-4277-B714-66D7B18D0AA1
• Powerpoint -- http://www.microsoft.com/DOWNLOADS/details.aspx?familyid=BEF41DC3-8E28-4282-82D4-CEC2F416CD40
• Access -- http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=b9574c72-657f-438c-9de9-f8f70dd2d40d

Some of the theological forums I read recently adopted a list of rules created by a seminary president. At first blush, the rules seem to be good -- at least "good" at keeping peace. But then I started thinking, why do these forums need and want these rules in place? The forums in question claim to be "Christian" forums, yet the rules were triggered in part by the very people who remain at those forums (I purposely have no desire to join these forums because, rules or no rules most of the people there behave unChristian, due in part to their heretical hyperpreteristi theology). I want to post the rules here and then break each of them down, especially since these rules are being called Scripture-based.

Dear Lord, I am 41 years old.  I have so far spent my time on this earth, being the husband of one wife, the father of one child.  I have endeavored to live my life by biblical precepts, failing at times as all sinners are apt.  I have employed the biblical ethic of doing all things in an orderly manner.  Even in my battles with heretics, though they may call me a "jerk" or whatever names they like, even there I have tried to conduct myself with ingetrity...because it is not my name which suffers, as I have no name.  It is the name of Christ Jesus, our Lord and King.  There is shame when we speak beyond and when we don't speak when needed.

Ok time for more random stuff as a blog entry.  I was recently invited to try out Google Voice. It is an integration of telephonics & the Internet. (see video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4Q9MJdT5Ds)  Basically, what it does is allow you to have one number that you can use to ring any other phone AND it will record voice mail messages as audio & text transcript.  I'm still trying it out but so far I like it.

As frequent readers of this website are aware, I am a FORMER hyperpreteristⁱ. A hyperpreterist is someone who believes & advocates 4 main heretical things: 1) that Jesus came back once & for all in the first-century 2) that the resurrection of the believers happened in the first-century & it was not physical 3) that the judgment of the wicked & righteous happened in the first-century 4) that there will be no culmination of the world & of God's plan. The first question should be, "How in the world does someone get into a belief like that?" The answer is that typically when people fall into such heresies it is due to their own private interpretations overriding everything else. And often, while such a person is espousing an aberrant belief such as hyperpreterism, they will claim they are simply reading the Bible for what it says. They may even use the motto, "Sola Scriptura" (Bible Alone) when really they mean their own private interpretation alone.

So, I like many other perhaps well-meaning & some not so well-meaning people had fallen into the heresy of hyperpreterism by disconnecting myself from 2000 years of Christian interpretation & instead coming to believe wild theories that placed me outside of historic Christianity. In December 2007, I renounced my 15-year rocky association with the hyperpreterist movement (see account). It was rocky because even while I was a hyperpreterist, I would spend much time disagreeing with the more radical & liberal elements within the movement.

Originally, when I announced I was leaving the movement, some still within the movement claimed it was a ploy for attention, though I'm not certain why I would have wanted the kind of negative & hateful attention I would receive from my former associates --- even death threats. During this process of removing myself from the movement & getting back to REAL Christianity, I sought to undo as much of the damage I could. I removed every hyperpreterist promoting article from my website. I asked every website that had carried my former articles to also remove them from their sites. Most complied. However, one website ran by a Romanian immigrant named Virgil Vaduva continues to periodically trout out some old article I wrote as if he owns the rights to my material (I think he still has his communistic mindset from when he was in Romania). Anyhow, he does this to try to rile me up, knowing full well I do not want to be the object that causes another person to buy into the lie of hyperpreterism. Recently, Vaduva republished what at the time I had considered perhaps my main case for hyperpreterism.

The title of the article is The Eschatology of Jesus Christ. (EJC) It was written in 2005 & made into a 20 page booklet. I'd like to take this opportunity to refute my former belief by refuting what I had produced on it. I will indent the segmented content of EJC & comment immediately after.

BING.COM

Bing is a new search engine produced by Microsoft.  You would have thought they would have jumped into this business a bit sooner.  Bing makes claims of being different than say, Google in that Bing claims to be a "decision engine" not just a search engine of often disconnected facts.