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In 30 days, theologygeekblog.us will expire and will no longer point to this site. In November, geekspaces.net will expire and so will my hosting contract. I may let it go and just stop blogging, but I haven’t decided yet.

Yes, the horse is dead and I am still beating it…

The old modernists rejected Christianity on the basis that it simply not logical. The supernatural wasn’t possible. Miracles were simply unbelievable. What was left was simply a nice moral religion philosophy.

Those days are gone.  Today, culture no longer cares about logic.  The thing that is real is the thing that can be felt.  The theology of the heart has been welcomed with wide arms since the first great awakening.  The theology of the mind has been closing since that same time.

I still believe that religion without emotion leads to dead ceremony and religion without reason leads to heresy.  In a perfect world, we would have a church that is well taught in the doctrines of the Bible and one where emotion is not lost

technorati tags:emotion, theology, relativism, truth, feelings

Most hamfests are pretty much the same. Of course, some have more events, some are larger and some are smaller. This is the first year that I have attended the Charlotte hamfest, so I can’t really compare it to previous year’s hamfests. However, I can tell you although it was one of the physically larger hamfests, it wasn’t all that great.

The hamfest occupied two large rooms at the Charlotte Merchandise Mart. The first of the rooms was the dealer room. Icom, MFJ, and TenTec were all them, but also were the smaller dealers. Surprisingly, so were the Girls Scout and theCivil Air Partrol; two groups that I hadn’t seen at a hamfest before.
The other room was for the folks who normally sell used equipment, electronics parts and tailgaters. The room had more computer and general electronics equipment than radio. Of course, that’s almost par for the course with many hamfests.
In my opinion, many of the best deals that one finds at hamfests come from the tailgaters, and Charlotte’s hamfest had none of those. This was a surprise to me and a but of a downer. Personally, I was looking for a single band transmitter or tranceiver for HF SSB, and since I can’t afford the prices of a new rig, I hoped to find something used like a tube based boatanchor. The pickings were certainly slim for that kind of thing.

What I did end up buying was some breadboard for an upcoming project as well as a $2 external CW filter and an older MFJ 144/220 SWR meter for $10.

The last thing that I was able to pick was a General class license. I passed my test, and I will be on HF shortly.

technorati tags:hamfest

“oh, that’s pretty” she said. Her arms were wrapped around the arm of the young man that she was with. The man had a bored look in his eyes, but he smiled and said, “it sure is”. The painting before them was of a woman who was wearing an old fashioned dress holding a young child. Also in the boat was a man who was rowing them into the middle of the lake. The young woman felt a little misty-eyed looking at the pleasant face of the woman. “That’s what I hope our family will be like someday. The young man held her tightly and kissed her on the cheek.

Much art is pleasing to the senses. It is meant to evoke an emotional response. However many times it has much more of a story to tell than just what is on the surface. So much of what we see everyday is meant to be “nice” but nothing more. A pattern is found that seems to be pleasing to some and is then reproduced over and over for maximum effect. This is not the same thing as art, it is simply meant to be pretty.

Americans get so much for so cheap. Have we forgotten what it means to have meaning? Are those who want to appreciate something more than the obvious now considered to just be geeks of one kind or another?

Most of us confessionals know that In the 1970’s, the LCMS fought a battle over the inerrancy of scripture. In the 21st Century, we are losing the war. The theological liberals have not gained any new arguments to help their cause. Instead, the tide of the war has changed because we no longer need to worry about inerrancy. It is no longer relevant to the church.

Today’s Christian teaching has very little to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ or the theological writings of St Paul and the other apostles. The teaching is more “practical”. One notorious church is currently doing a sermon series on good sex. Many are hearing the gospel according to Joel Osteen or some other self-help guru. Still others are hearing about being better parents and helping the poor. While most “conservative” evangelicals, will uphold the doctrine of inerrancy, it doesn’t really matter when it comes down to what is being taught in the church.

I have a Icom IC-F3s VHF HT. It is a military surplus. It transmits and received from 136 to 174mhz. It has not been modded, this is the standard frequency coverage for this HT. I have the computer programming cable, software on floppy (or cdrom), an extra alkaline battery pack and antenna. The downside is that it is ONLY programmable by PC, but it has 32 channels, CTCSS, and all of the functions of any other high-grade HT. Output is 5 watts.

http://www.icomamerica.com/land_mobile/portablevhf/icf3sf4s.asp

$125 or best offer. Looking for an older HF rig (Heathkit, Swan, Atlas) or a 6M SSB rig.

I originally posted this about a year ago, but this is so important that I am posting it again.

The following is a list of sermons from Church of the Advent in
Birmingham, AL. Included is a series of talks by Rod Rosenbladt
entitled, “When Good Fathers Die, It’s Always Too Soon“.
This is good stuff. Some of it may make you want to tear up. That’s
okay. It’s not sappy or sentimental, but a good outline of what a Man
and a Father should be.

Here are the actual links:

http://adventbirmingham.org/adventsermons/110803rr-pta.ram

http://adventbirmingham.org/adventsermons/110803rr-ptb.ram

http://adventbirmingham.org/adventsermons/110803rr-ptc.ram

technorati tags:Rosenbladt, fatherhood, fathers, sons, stories

On February 23rd, 2007 at 12:01 AM EST, the FCC removed the Morse Code requirement for all Amateur Radio licenses. The previous requirement was a 5 word per minute proficiency to operate on the 10 meter (28 mhz) and lower frequencies. These frequencies are more commonly known as the “shortwave” or “HF” bands.

I imagine that there will be a lot of us “technician class” who will jump forwards and upgrade to the “general class” licenses. Will this the removal of this restriction bring in a huge influx of new ham? I’m not holding my breath. I don’t see how the removal of the morse code requirement will convince people to join an hobby that has been falling into obscurity for decades. The fact is that many folks do not see the purpose of ham radio, nor do they care. Ham radio is not a hobby of instant gratification. By nature, ham radio is not all that seeker friendly. It is a structured hobby with rules and regulations and there isn’t a whole lot of room for personal creativity while being on the air. Not, to mention, you can’t make any money out of being a ham, nor are you going to be famous.

I also question, the FCC and the ARRL’s motives for the removal of this morse code requirement. It seems to me that the goal is to bring in as many people as possible. Well, what is the trade off? My fear is that the trade off is going to be a loss of focus on what Ham Radio is all about.  Ham radio has two primary purposes.  The first is experimentation.  The second is community service.  If you de-emphasize these two main aspects in order to gain users, then , in my opinion, you have lost what Ham radio is all about.

Epic Church is affiliated with The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, a biblically conservative branch of the Lutheran Church.We stand on the authoritative Word of God and uphold moral values. Visit the LCMS website at www.lcms.org for more details.

from epicwired.com

Frank at Putting Out the Fire is currently hammering Epic Church’s series on Sex at his blog. The posts are called What Church is Not and What Church is Not Part 2. However, this brief re-introduction to Epic Church brings up another, though nor totally unrelated, topic.

I haveno doubt the clergy and congregation at Epic consider themselves to be “biblically conservative”. Heck, so does Joel Osteen and most of the Southern Baptist Convention. The problem is that conservative is such a loose term that it is nearly meaningless. The description also says that they “stand on the authoritative Word of God and uphold moral values”. Well, that’s a little more precise, but not much. Again, is there anything there that a Jehovah’s Witness could also not affirm?

This post is beginning to look likes it’s going to be another big rambling affair, so let me cut to the chase. If the point of the game is to grow as large as possible in the shortest amount of time, then kudos for every Megachurch and Megachurch wannabe. If the goal is quality, not quantity, then it’s not enough to be biblically conservative. It’s not enough to moral, and it’s not even enough to even want to “share to love of Jesus” If Christianity is real, then the followers of Christ should be treated as such with complete solemnity and seriousness. Real Christians must be fed the Word of God. There, we will enough about every human condition to keep us occupied for the rest of our lives. There we will also find the grace and the hope to live every day.

The ascetics fell off the boat when it came to devotion to the law, but at least they knew that this Christian life is one of serious devotion to Christ. Religious zeal has been replaced by fun, and subscription to a standard confession has been replaced with being “biblically conservative”.

technorati tags:epicwired, lutheran, devotion, megachurch, conservative