My brother\’s speck and my log

Dave Farquhar Christianity

“I think if we were given the Scriptures, it was not so that we could prove that we were right about everything. If we were given the Scriptures, it was to humble us into realizing that God is right, and the rest of us are just guessing.” — Rich Mullins, famed Christian singer/songwriter

So, let’s say you decide another Christian might be subjecting his/her self to too much temptation. You don’t know that this someone else is sinning, mind you. You just suspect this other person’s actions might make this person tempted to sin. So you pull this person aside, forbid this person from doing whatever it is that might lead to temptation, justify yourself to yourself and this other person by saying you read the Bible, and then go on your merry way.
In 1997, I got fed up with Lutherans not talking about subjects that made them uncomfortable and started attending a non-denominational church that wasn’t scared of those questions. The fact that they weren’t scared of guitars and music written during my lifetime, and that the sermons were about real-life situations didn’t hurt either. That church changed my life.

The Sunday after Easter in 1998, I went back to being Lutheran again. Today, it’s been six and a half years, and I’ve hardly looked back.

What happened?

While in a lot of regards it was a great church, I didn’t feel like you could go there and get involved in anything without feeling like you were being watched. Anything I did or said was being watched by somebody. It might be by someone of the opposite sex who was sizing me up as a potential mate. It might be by someone of the same sex who was trying to hold me accountable. Considering I was 23, I needed a bit of that. But while some of the people’s motivations were clean, some of them seemed to be efforts to justify themselves.

And besides that, you were expected to act a certain way, have a certain set of interests, and to some degree even dress and carry yourself a certain way. It was justified as becoming more like Jesus. But we weren’t becoming more like Jesus. We were becoming more like the group. And Dave, 23 years in the making, was getting squeezed out.

Frankly, the weight was crushing me. I went into therapy in early 1998, where I met a member of a Lutheran church that he claimed offered what I was looking for. In the meantime, I’d read the Bible cover to cover and come to the conclusion that if Lutheran doctrine wasn’t the most correct doctrine I’d come across, it was at least less dangerous than any other I had seen.

So I left.

The other day, I heard a story very much like the second paragraph here. And it reminded me of why I left that fundamentalist church and never looked back.

This type of behavior is specifically prohibited in the Bible.

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?
You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7:3-5)

And just in case we didn’t see it the first time, it’s also in Luke:

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (Luke 6:41-42)

If you’re not perfect yet, then you don’t need to be worrying about the imperfections of the people around you. If you are perfect, then clearly you either aren’t reading the same Bible I am, or you need to go back and read it some more.

So what about 2 Timothy 3:16? All Scripture is Godbreathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.

This verse suggests authority. Before invoking it, we have to consider whether we have it, who gave it to us, and whether the words we are about to say are worthy of someone who has authority over someone else.

One thing that being a Lutheran has taught me is to let scripture interpret scripture. When you want to invoke 1 Timothy 3:16, you have to do it in light of those verses in Matthew and Luke. And since the warning in the Gospels appears twice and was said earlier by Jesus Himself, doesn’t that mean it might be just a little bit more important?

That’s where I think this confrontation breaks down. You see, the thing that bugs me even more about this situation is that the person being confronted isn’t being confronted about sin. The person is being confronted about temptation. But there’s a funny thing about temptation. You and I aren’t necessarily tempted by the same things. When faced with a gourmet cheesecake, you might be tempted to do more than overeat, and devour the whole thing. And if I were standing there, I’d let you, because I’d find the thing repulsive. My only temptation would be to throw the wretched thing in the trash.

St. Paul talks about this in 1 Corinthians, where he says twice that everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial. (1 Cor. 6:12, 1 Cor. 10:23). In 6:12 he goes on to say, “But I will not be mastered by anything.”

The truth is, all of us are mastered by something. Much to the chagrin of marketers, however, we’re all mastered by different things.

Now, I don’t know what the person who confronted the other person was hoping to accomplish. But I do know what the confronter did accomplish: Looking like a Bible-thumper and alienating the other person.

I believe that if Christians took half the time they spend trying to figure out and fix what’s wrong with the people around them and instead spent that time looking instead deep inside themselves, we’d have a lot fewer people in this world who believe and trust in God but aren’t willing to set foot inside a church.

Taking the losses with the wins

Dave Farquhar Toy trains ,

I think I just missed a pretty nice Lionel prewar set today. I spotted it on my way out the door. Unfortunately, a guy was hovering over it, talking on a cell phone.I couldn’t get close enough to it to get much of a look at it. The locomotive was a streamliner type, and the passenger cars all had nickel journals. The whole set had the early Lionel latch couplers that predated the automatic box couplers. So I’m guessing the set was from the 1930s.

I couldn’t gauge condition but it seemed pretty good. The price was more than I had intended to pay for anything, but I know the locomotive alone was worth close to the asking price, and the passenger cars alone had to be worth the asking price, if not more.

The guy obviously had no great love for old Lionels. What I don’t know is if he was doing a friend a favor or if he was out to make a buck.

I wanted that set. I didn’t need it, but I wanted it.

I suppose I could have offered $20 more than the asking price, if I were that sort of person. But that’s not how God wants us to act. So on my way out the door, I took the guy aside, told him he was getting a good deal, that if he weren’t about to buy it I would have jumped on it, and congratulated him.

I also told him, in case he was wondering, that the second pile of Lionel stuff that was next to it was overpriced. I had paid $35 for a similar lot a few months ago. This lot was priced at more than four times that.

He thanked me, and I left.

I still can’t help but think the set would have meant a lot more to me than to him. Losing it stung a little. If doing the right thing felt good, losing out on that felt worse.

But I have an American Flyer passenger set I bought a while back that I still need to put in working order. I guess you call that compensation.

So, do you still think having Internet Explorer on your server is a good idea?

Dave Farquhar Servers and Networking , , , ,

Microsoft is making its updates to IE only available for Windows XP.

To which I say, what about all of those servers out there?Surely they include Server 2003 in this. But that’s a problem. Upgrading to Server 2003 isn’t always an option. Some applications only run on Windows NT 4.0, or on Windows 2000.

Unfortunately, sometimes you have to have a web browser installed on a server to get updates, either from your vendor or from MS. Windows Update, of course, only works with Internet Explorer.

One option is to uninstall Internet Explorer using the tools from litepc.com. A potentially more conservative option is to keep IE installed, use it exclusively for Windows Update, and install another lightweight browser for searching knowledge bases and downloading patches from vendors. Offbyone is a good choice. It has no Java or Javascript, so in theory it should be very secure. It’s standalone, so it won’t add more muck to your system. To install it, copy the executable somewhere. To uninstall it, delete the executable.

An even better option is just to run as few servers on Windows as possible, since they insist on installing unnecessary and potentially exploitable software on servers–Windows Media Player and DirectX are other glaring examples of this–but I seem to hold the minority opinion on that. Maybe now that they wilfully and deliberately install security holes on servers and refuse to patch them unless you run the very newest versions, that will change.

But I’m not holding my breath.

Vertigo!

Dave Farquhar Music

I missed the first play of the new single by U2 on the radio in St. Louis by about five minutes. Crud.The new album is called How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, and will be released in November. The DJs really liked the new song, from what it sounded like, so I must have missed something.

I know nothing else about it, other than the album was produced by Steve Lillywhite, who produced 1980’s Boy, 1981’s October, and 1983’s War before the band started its long and profitable partnership with Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno.

So my guess is this is will sound a little like the really early stuff, the same way All that You can’t Leave Behind sounded a little like Unforgettable Fire and Joshua Tree.

But it’s all speculation until I manage to hear it.

The power of the blog

Dave Farquhar net.culture

Brian Schkerke: [P]ower [is] granted to those who are in power only through the masses’ acquiescence…I’ve read a lot of criticism of blogs through the years, including from people who are bloggers and just don’t want to admit it. And just this week, on a discussion board, when someone asked if anyone knew of any good blogs on a particular subject matter, someone came on and said he avoids all blogs at all costs because reading about all of the personal details of people’s lives is a cure for insomnia.

This is in contrast to the discussions on that board, which sometimes put you to sleep but more often cause your blood pressure to skyrocket–unless watching aristocrats argue and actually mean it is your thing.

Every time you lower the barrier of entry, a lot of junk whooshes in. But something worthwhile will as well. Some blogs are changing the world, some are for entertainment purposes only, and others operate in specialized niches.

Accountability is always a good thing, and blogs provide it, both for each other and for bigger, more traditional media, as well as for the bigger world that the media covers.

I’ll stay in my niches. I played the political pundit game in college and ultimately found it just wasn’t for me, so I wound up “No Left Turns” and closed up that shop for good when they handed me a diploma and pushed me out the door.

Am I a blog fan? I wouldn’t say that. But I will say I always enjoy a good web site. Some of those happen to be run by large media conglomerates, and some happen to be run by someone with a laptop wearning pajamas.

And as for when I do laundry and what I eat for breakfast… That’s for me to know, OK?

Spam that infects your computer

Dave Farquhar Spam , , ,

This really isn’t anything new–I’ve long suspected spam was using ActiveX controls to infect computers with spyware and other unpleasantries, but now a spam message that infects your computer when you opt out is gaining publicity.The usual advice applies. Turn off the preview pane in Outlook/Outlook Express, if you must use a Microsoft program at all to read mail.

Install a spam filter. I used POPFile. Outclass allows POPFile to work with Outlook, even in Exchange Corporate Workgroup environments.

Consider getting a Yahoo mail account, or, if you ever happen to get an invitation, a Gmail account. They filter your spam for you and do a pretty good job, in my experience.

If spam gets through, don’t even open it. Tell me, why would any legitimate e-mail have a subject line like “Drugs online no prior prescription needed?” Or “Gen.eric Vioxx, Gen.eric Am.bien, Gen.eric Paxil, and more?”

And of course, get an antivirus program and keep the virus definitions up to date. Newer antivirus programs are even starting to detect and eliminate spyware, finally.

One person told me he reads and responds to all spam, because if he didn’t, he wouldn’t get any e-mail. If you or someone you know reads spam out of loneliness, that’s curable too. Install a spam filter and then fill the void by going to Yahoo Groups and look for an active group on something that interests you. I think every single time I’ve gotten interested in something or someone’s asked me a question, I’ve found a Yahoo group that pertains to it. The person is almost guaranteed to learn something, and chances of making some new friends are pretty high.

Fascination with old technology

Dave Farquhar net.culture , , , , , , , , , , ,

I found this New York Times story on retro technology today. I have my own take on retro gaming.

My girlfriend tells me the 1980s are terribly hip with her students. As she was grading papers last night, I noticed one student had doodled Pac-Man on a paper, the way I remember my classmates and I doing in 1982.

I dig it.

Read more

Selling my soul to Google

Dave Farquhar This weblog

I’ve enabled Google ads on my site for all visitors. Previously, for the past three months or so, I had been displaying ads only when the site referrer was something outside of this site.

If you object to online advertising, you can easily log in to the site, go to your preferences, scroll to the bottom, and check all the boxes you want, leaving the Google Ads block unchecked. So long as you don’t sign out before your next visit, the site will hold that preference the same way it holds your theme of choice. You can turn off other blocks as well, to make the page load faster or whatever.I don’t object to advertising as long as it’s somewhat relevant. I used to buy Computer Shopper magazine primarily for the ads, back in the days when it was the size of a Sears catalog. Seems hard to believe, looking at it now, but in the days before the ‘net, it was the way people in the know bought their gear.

I do believe that the ad and editorial departments should be completely separate. I deliberately choose not to subscribe to one particular hobby publication specifically because its editorial content seems to cater too much to its advertisers.

Outsourcing the advertising to a third party like Google is a good way to do that. I have no way of controlling what ads Google places and where. So I write what I would normally write, and Google tries to come up with some ads that are relevant. I carry on just as I normally would, and if all goes well, I make a little money.

Bounty-hunting spammers

Dave Farquhar Spam , , ,

I missed posting a reference to the FTC bounty on spammers this week.

The FTC says a bounty is about the only thing that will work. In other news, the Pope is still Catholic.You can make spam illegal all you want, but the problem is tracking the people down. They’ve had years to practice concealing their origins. If you and I can’t track them down, then chances are law enforcement can’t track them down all that easily either.

Without inside information, you won’t track them down, at least not without going 1984 on everybody. And if there’s one thing that makes people scream louder than spam, it’s encroaching on their rights, whether those rights are perceived or real.

But the people with inside information don’t have much incentive to turn spammers in.

The question is where the funding comes from. Hopefully the fines levied against the lawbreakers will be enough to pay the whistleblowers. To me, it’s a very legitimate use of the money.

Of course, the direct marketing people are screaming and hollering that too much power is going to anti-spam groups. They would have less problem if they had taken a strong stand against spam in the first place.

I don’t think they’ll get much sympathy. At least I hope not. A few local business owners made headlines when they ignored Missouri’s Don’t-Call list and then were sued out of business. I didn’t have any sympathy for them. They knew the law was coming and what they had to do in order to comply. Besides, if I need my windshield fixed, do you think I’m going to wait for a telemarketer to call me in the middle of dinner?

Additionally, many of these spammers are breaking other laws as well. Since when is it legal to sell me Valium without a prescription? And if bigoea@yahoo.com is a licensed pharmacist, why is he resorting to spamming people at random to get customers? If you know of a pharmacy that’s hurting for business, I’d sure like to know about it because I’ll go there and so will everyone else I know who’s tired of waiting 30 minutes to get a prescription.

More than likely, the person hiding behind theat Yahoo address is either misrepresenting what he’s selling (fraud) or selling prescription drugs without a license (drug trafficking), and he may very well be guilty of breaking numerous other laws and needs to be put away anyway.

Tell me again why direct marketers haven’t done everything they possibly can to distance themselves from these people?

Giving the insider who turns the spammer in enough money to take a year (or five, depending on lifestyle) off work seems the best way to eliminate some of these lowlives who continue to clog our inboxes and our Internet connections.