(D)evolving faith.

I have had a very significant transition in how I view Christianity recently. For me it just seems to get simpler and yet more orthodox the more I go along.

There is that feeling you get when just stopping from exercising or working hard all day, like when I used to bike all the time. Where your diaphragm is tired from breathing heavy all day, all your muscles are sore from the constant exertion of being pushed, ready to finally rest. Then there is that 'winded' feeling and light airy fatigue that lasts well into the evening. That's how my soul feels, right now.

I remember trying to put together a bible study about prayer and getting myself so bogged down in the mumbo jumbo I had been taught in the word faith/apostolic/prophetic stuff that I couldn't do it. I don't remember if that was a significant turning point for me at the time but in retrospect it is a good example of how messed up I was.

When I was a child we attended a Calvinist church, which was very legalistic and restrictive. Eventually later we went to a baptist church which by comparison was much freer. I remember going to several different revival conferences and such and being moved emotionally so much, I was always going down to the front to be saved, re-saved, or renew my commitment or whatever the pastor or speaker called it that day.

Later in my teen years it really got me down that it seemed like it never took. I always fell apart. I was supposed to be all happy and good, wasn't I? Dealing with depression and anxiety was a far cry from the victorious christian life. Going to the Baptist Church we were always striving to be better Christians, to not sin so much. But that didn't work and I got really down.

Once I was able to get my parents off my back about making me go to church I finally stopped going. I think that was around the height of the worst part of my depression experience. My parents didn't understand what was going on at the time either. They were just extremely frustrated that they couldn't control me anymore.

So I abandoned Christianity, for a year or so anyway. I still believed in God and Jesus, I just didn't want to be associated with Christianity anymore. It wasn't until I got involved in a nasty relationship and later joined a men's bible study that got me considering things again. Eventually I got around to going to bible college. Because, surely, I would find my answers there...

Bible college was an interesting experience for me. It was just good to be responsible for myself for a change. To be out of my parents house. I can't say I had any real epiphanies there, except maybe that the bible college I went to was too caught up in it's formalities to recognize someone that needed help. Though, now I think their doctrinal position would be what made that impossible.

The only redeeming thing about that whole experience is that that is where I met my wife.

So after bible college and marriage we were both frustrated with Baptists, so we ended up going to a charismatic, apostolic/prophetic church. Falling in the spirit speaking in tongues and all that. We were first a little freaked out but we kept going and we decided that if that was God we wanted it. So we, at least I, threw myself at the experience.

Then one night surfing across the Internet I came across kundilini yoga and saw how similar it was. I was a little concerned about it but I came to the conclusion that evil spirits can only counterfeit real experiences. That was the simple theological grid I came up with dealing with it at the time. Though I did start praying different. When I was 'getting prayed for' I would basically be 'asking God in my heart', that if the experience was from Him I wanted the experience, but if it was not from him I didn't want it. That was around the time I stopped experiencing much of the 'manifestations'.

Shortly after that we went to Australia on a sort of unofficial discipleship training course. Much of the teaching was very good. I learned a lot of how the post modern spirituality worked and its history. The theology of the course was all was alright but emergent leaning. The experience itself was very profound for both my wife and I. We experienced a small taste of what community could be. It was enticing. 6 months of that and the Australian surf made it hard to return to Canada but we had a 3 month old child and limited resources.

The limited employment situation in Ontario sent us off to Alberta where we couldn't get ourselves into a church that we could connect with. I know we could have tried harder but we decided that church wasn't for us. I started playing with all kinds of ideas about what church was supposed to be. I went through all kinds of ideas. There was so many things that church could be depending on how you spun it. The book Pagan Christianity was influential for me. We were flirting with ideas surrounding the emergent movement and such. Though we didn't buy into much of it. We could do church on our own with a small group of people I thought. We even got involved in some deliverance ministry stuff. All romantic ideas but...

All the while since Bible College I had been listening to all sorts of podcasts. I am generally always listening to something. With my current job driving, I tend to need something to listen to that is engaging to help me maintain my concentration on the road. That is always how my brain has always worked. The podcasts were all generally Christian based, from bible commentary, sermons, and apologetics to news and 'conspiracy' commentary and more recently economic and political podcasts as well. All stuff I was honestly interested in. One podcast came on my horizon from a guy I met through Facebook. This one was a bit different than the rest as I would figure out.

All through my Christian experience I was always told the gift of salvation was free! I could go to heaven when I died, or more accurately I would be part of the resurrection. Only after you received salvation you had all sorts of requirements in order to maintain salvation, or something... It has always been the classic bait and switch. Always bait and switch everywhere I turned.

From my experience:
The Calvinist church I went to wanted you to tithe, work hard, and follow the rules.
The Baptist church wanted you to tithe, not just be a Sunday Christian, and not sin so much.
The Charismatics, needed you to tithe because it brought a tenfold blessing, muster up as much spiritualliness as you could, bare down real hard and fight in the spirit realm by making 'declarations' and dressing down spiritual forces... or have enough faith to believe in miracles because that was what 'real' Christians did. Then go to every conference possible and get as much spiritually whirliness from everyone you could so you could have dreams and visions and eventually be lost on some spiritual plain of existence with Jesus or something. It's what had to be done.

Then the house church movement would have you think that you could abandon doctrinal instruction and relational structures that have been part of Christianity from the beginning and still be somehow walking in truth, not getting hung up in all kinds of errors. Sure the institutional church has lots and lots and lots and lots of problems, but abandoning the basic things altogether because of how the early church did something for purely pragmatic reasons.

So this new podcast I mentioned is actually hosted by a Lutheran. I have never been taught about Lutheranism before. One of my commentaries would mention how Lutherans have got soteriology down.

It has taken a little while but I think the 'penny has dropped' for me. The host of the podcast described semipelagianism and argued against it and how it is the basis for all these problems I have outlined with every denomination I have here. It has been very convincing. All these institutions all by their actions condone a "Jesus + Something" theology. They would never ever say that but it is inherent in their preaching and activity. Sure if you just read their statement of faith on their website or whatever they say it right, but if you sat through their 'services' week in and week out you get a far different message eventually. They are obviously preaching from a different handbook than what they say they are. This is something this podcast host refereed to as three dimensional theology. It makes sense to me logically and biblically speaking.

Where do I stand now. Well I don't consider myself a Lutheran or anything yet. I have a few issues that need to be resolved, 'the taking of the sacraments' every Sunday, infant baptism. I am sure I could come up with some other stuff. But I really do resonate very strongly with the Soteriology of Lutheranism. I believe it is biblical. I have seen hints of it here and there through my life of searching through Christianity but nothing this concise.

So what am I saying. Well I believe I am ready to shrug off all this baggage that I have been carrying for so long. To allow my faith to be extremely simple and unencumbered by all the garbage semipelagianism brings. To realize that reading the bible is far simpler than I have been taught. That the second reading is the important reading. Repentance, or thinking again so to speak. Look at it all through Christ and Him crucified.

I no longer want to be affiliated with any sort of evangelical, baptist, or charismatic church. They seemed to be based in much error. They don't make sense to me anymore, all I have ever experienced is grief and torture at the hands of these. In their theology I could only ever be as Sisyphus was, when it came to my salvation. I finally feel as though I can be free for once. The rat wheel is broken.

I am finally finished riding so hard on my bike. I feel like my labour is finally over. I feel a great relief. The gospel gives me more peace now than ever. The wind is cool on my face and my sweat is just about dry. From here on I know God is making a way for me. This definitely feels like I have come around the other side of the blind corner. I am still full of questions, I think that will always be the case but at least I finally have confidence in my salvation.

The confidence in salvation is something I want to talk about but that is a whole other story for another day.

So for now I am abandoning more recent ideas of what Christianity is, Baptist, Evangelical, Charismatic/apostolic/prophetic, post modern, home church... In favour of something closer to where I started. Something that doesn't rely so heavily on modern or postmodern interpretation of the scriptures. Those ideas and philosophies are fun to play with but they don't hold a candle to the gospel, to Christ and Him Crucified for my sins, because I am absolutely incapable of any righteousness on my own, dead in sins without the gospel. Thank you Jesus.

Garry's Mod for Mac, Subversion(SVN) Tutorial.

Difficulty Level: Super Easy

I got around to thinking about my, soon to be, Garry's Mod for Mac installation, and I saw one potential hurdle that I would eventually have to take on. That hurdle will be all the addons that employ subversion in order to keep them up to date. After a few fruitless searches, I discovered I would either have to purchase a subversion client or figure out a command line interface. Being that I am very probably of Hebrew descent and very certainly raised by dutch people the former option is right out.

Fortunately Snow Leopard has made using command line subversion incredibly easy by including version 1.4 of SVN in it's installation. That saves me trying to discern which piece of free software to install.

So here we go:

I believe the trickiest part to adding your addons may just be finding the Garry's Mod addon directory.
Though I do not have Garry's Mod installed on my Mac yet (as it has not been released yet) I am very certain it is going to exist here:

/(Harddisk)/Users/(Username)/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/(SteamUsername)/garrysmod/garrysmod/addons

You will definitely have to navigate to that directory with 'Termnial', the console application included with OS X.

Once there, you can begin adding your svn directories.

I have discovered that you do not have to create directories for each addon like Tortoise for windows would have you do. Svn will create them on it's own. Though you may want to rename them after they have been set up.

To install The Phoenix Model pack you would simply enter:

svn checkout https://phoenix-storms.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/phoenix-storms

inside the addons folder.
This will create a folder called 'phoenix-storms', which I later renamed to 'phx3', and populate that folder with the remote contents from the sourceforge server.

To check for and install the updates the procedure is just as simple. Use Terminal to navigate to the addons directory and to update the 'phoenix-storms' directory simply navigate into that directory ('cd phoenix-storms', or in my case 'cd phx3') and enter:

svn update

Svn will at least output the revision the addon is at if it does not have any updates.

Easy as pie, perhaps as yummy.

So I hope you do not bother searching for other answers. This should be all you need for setting up all your Garry's Mod svn addons. Mind you if you do come up with something simpler(unlikely), I would like to hear about it.

See you on Lildood's Server! (R.I.P. RAWR build)

Ooo here are some links to must have gmod addon svns, imho.

PHX3 - https://phoenix-storms.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/phoenix-storms
PlayX - http://playx.googlecode.com/svn/branches/latest-stable/PlayX/
Wiremod - https://wiremod.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/wiremod/trunk/wire/
Wiremod Model Pack - https://wiremod.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/wiremod/trunk/wire model pack 1/
Wire Extras - http://www.wiremod.com/forum/wiremod-addons/5216-unofficial-wire-extras-svn-uwsvn.html
Advanced Duplicator - https://wiremod.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/wiremod/trunk/Adv Duplicator/
Depth Hud - http://depthhudinfo.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/

Space Build (SBEP) and Gcombat are fun too but I do not use them as much.
Also make sure you use weight tool if you are building, I do not know what I would do without it.
Enjoy.

xdaveyx

Socialist Utopianism.

I explicitly reject socialist utopianism.
I reject utopianism because I believe that in our fallen condition men are incapable of maintaining any sort of consistent structure where everyone's needs are maintained at all times. I believe that if we are to be free we must accept as inevitable the rising and falling of societies, ideas, and philosophies. If utopianism is only possible through coercion then it is no longer utopianism.
I reject socialism because the distribution of resources cannot be managed in any meaningful way by people with no personal vested interest in the resources in question. People must own these resources and must be engaged in trade in order to see the efficient movement of resources from where it is abundant to where it is scarce. Equilibrium can be met only through mutually beneficial voluntary trade.
That's my thought for today.

Our Future Is Still Up To Us.

I was watching a clip on the news recently. The people of Greece are on the streets, there was a shot of a middle aged man, who looks as though he had just got off the couch threw on his jacket and, though he did not know what, he was out to do something. He did not look like a punk kid trying to take advantage of a situation, or an activist with passionate pleas, something about the look in his eyes seemed to say that he had had enough and he finally had to make a change.

Lately I have been learning about social sentiment and how it affects a society.

Right now, at least in Canada, we seem to be on the leeward side of a very high high in social mood. People are generally happy, or at least apathetic, they have their own lives that are generally unaffected by outside circumstances. The prevailing attitude is that the sky is the limit, yes we had a falter in our finances recently, but that is behind us now and we are returning to that place in the sky...

We, being seemingly unaffected, do not feel the need to question situations or opinions around us. In Canada it sometimes seems that this is considered rude if not a violation of some sort of unspoken moral law.

I believe that this attitude is something that has been cultured into us only recently. Our grand parents, and for some of us our parents, were typically people with strong opinions that they often made sure they were heard. Our generation on the other hand seem to be quite indifferent. Our laws, education, and to some extent our media has helped this. Libel and slander laws help us fearfully keep any strong opinions to ourselves, whether they are 'right' or 'wrong'. Socialized school systems educating to the lowest common denominator have created a homogenizing effect on our opinions. The media has incrementally thrust one idea after another upon us, whether it is some new moral doctrine, the latest fashion trend, or the forecasts of 'educated' pundits. Each increment is a step somewhere. Though I have some, I would like to think, good ideas about where that might lead, I am probably going to be wrong.

We of 'lowly' opinion do have values though, a set of beliefs that govern the way we live or want to live. If you will allow me to speak for you, I believe we want above all freedom. Freedom to live by our own convictions, freedom to love who we want to love, freedom from being hurt, abused or killed. Freedom to keep what belongs to us, and from having it stolen from us. Freedom from being ripped off, from being taken advantage of. Freedom to scratch out an existence for ourselves and the ones we care about, and to reap the benefit of our accomplishments. I'm sure I could name much more, but I think we can agree on at least those. We have laws to help us shore up these values for us,

but...

Yes I say BUT. This is the crux of the story. Keep reading please.

...but, there is a line between freedom and oppression. No I am not wearing a tinfoil hat, I am serious as a heart attack, has anyone you loved died of a heart attack? Yes, that serious, please.

We all know that we are entering a new idea of what society is, the internet, the free fast flow of information, has changed so many aspects about the way we live now. Also perceived threats, like terrorism, economic collapse, and environmental issues. We have scientists, politicians, philosophers, economists, etc. all giving us facts, opinions, charts, plans, and even threats. Can we trust them? I do not know for sure but we do need to push forward.

One of the ways our government has chosen to do so is to add to the laws that govern our lives. Many laws are being talked about that are promised to bring us more security and a more balanced economy, they are attempting to balance an idea of freedom with an idea of security, greater wealth with greater control, but they must be watched.

Have you ever watched CPAC for a while? Sometimes there are great civilized discussions going on and other times it is purely cat fights and posturing.

Please believe that these people are human beings and they are representing 'you' in more ways than you are lead to believe. As human beings with the rights and privileges you have given them, they must be watched and held accountable. If you can imagine, what they say is not always what they mean, what they fight for is not always superficially defined. You must understand that those rights and privileges we give them can and must be revoked when our values and way of life are at stake.

So with a large people group that is generally indifferent, and a small group of people representing them and not being held to account on many matters, we have a potential for things to go badly. I believe that people, especially people in politics love power. Yes there is people in it for the right reasons, but I wonder if they might just be out numbered. There is the opportunity for the balance to fail, especially with the circumstances that are currently upon us.

Now this has happened before, thousands of times in history, we are not immune. It is happening in Greece right now, other countries will soon follow.

Look I am not saying that things are going to be as bad as pre-world war II Germany or even Greece here, at least not for many years, and with many bad decisions. What went on in those places was in the making, and scores of people allowed it to get as bad as it did.

But we need to be careful and observant now. While we are still happy and complacent, and when we don't necessarily want to.

Our economy did take a big hit and the fallout has not been fully realized yet, the market is very over priced right now, there is a gap between what things are actually worth and what people think they are worth. Companies are taking losses in order to pay out to shareholders to keep the perceived value up, unemployment rates are still up, economists are saying things like 'jobless recovery'(wtf?). This cannot continue forever. We may have a few more years of grace here, but it could very well be 'borrowed time'.
Our government, and the American government are treating this recovery as bona fide.

So what am I asking you to do?
Well I am asking you to not wait until the social mood catches up with the reality of what is happening to our world right now.

All I want you to do is look at the ideas and opinions that you have about what makes up our society, look at your values and how you have been educated. Realize that there is a huge diversity of ideas and ways we can be educated and that they are not necessarily better than each other.

I believe that many of the doctrines that are supposed upon us in all levels of the Canadian socialized education may not be entirely correct, and when fleshed out may not reflect our values, to suppose otherwise would have to be ignorance.

So educate yourself, watch videos on youtube, read articles, listen to podcasts, whatever is convenient for you. Don't get all your news from one source especially mainstream sources, these are owned by people that have disturbing and silent agendas that are well documented. Take advantage of the vast resources we have at our finger tips!

Talk to your MP. Talk to people about politics, when you find a differing opinion challenge it and engage it, learn more about it, present counter arguments, consider their refutations. You may find a better opinion in the gap between your opinions. Be willing to change your opinion, your opinion is not you(This is important). It is your best interpretation of truth, and your interpretation can always be improved upon, we are not perfect and to think that we are is a delusion at best. Be humble!

As far as doing something, when the time is right, if you have educated yourself you will know what to do, because that is when something will 'HAVE TO BE DONE'. The reason I am asking you to learn more now is that you will likely take action before that man in Greece would have and that means there will be some positive change before we will have riots in the streets or soup lines.

Do I advocate violence? Never. A smart person when dealing with a civilized political system, which we still have by the way, will never have to resort to violence, and if they do it will always backfire. Revolutions only happen when the government refuses to concede to the people's wishes, or some social change, and the dialogue has far from broken down in Canada.

Maybe this is far fetched for you, for many people I believe it is. What if I am wrong? Well if I am wrong and you take my advice, what is the worst that can happen? Your head will contain a little more knowledge? You will be able to have great social, political, economic conversations at dinner parties?

If I am right our country could be better off for it, better suited to serve us at our values. Our country is us, it is designed in such a way that it represent us and is not a servant of someone else, but if we do not have values supported by strong opinions we will be over run by people who will determine them for us.

Day I was born

This is the day I was born