December 2004

Critiquing Penal Substitution

December 31, 2004

Wink is determined to show that you can critique penal substitution without being a neo-liberal. He accepts the punishment bit unlike most neo-liberals but denies substitution. I will interact with this more later- in the meantime any one else up for the debate with him?

Read the full article →

Happy New Year in a world of suffering?

December 31, 2004

Mark D Roberts argues that not only is it OK to celebrate new year tonight despite the tsunami, it is vital that we do. In the midst of great pain and heaviness the world needs joy. Lets generously enjoy the New Year and make today another record day of giving financial aid to the victims [...]

Read the full article →

The Public keeps on giving

December 31, 2004

Scotsman.com reports that Britons have now donated more than 32 million to Tsunami charity work, whilst Amazon.com has also collected a stunning $7,279,808.35 on its own! I wonder what the total worldwide charitable giving curently stands at.

Read the full article →

Confessions of a GenXer

December 31, 2004

Josh at In the Agora explains how challenging to his conservative comforts he has found the recent events.

Read the full article →

Searching Google for "Jesus Christ" shows the Mormons as top

December 31, 2004

Wesleyblog wonders wether listings at Google are rigged and asks “how did the Mormons get the top spot?”. Well the answer is no the results are not rigged but yes they are very sensitive to links especially those found on blogs. The mormon site will appear at the top for the search “Jesus Christ” simply [...]

Read the full article →

Systems failure caused failure to warn of tsunami

December 31, 2004

Herald Sun. There is now no doubt at all that simple communication would have prevented many deaths as there WAS an advance warning but “no telephone numbers” to call. We HAVE to learn to work together accross the nations, and it is clear that failure to do so was the biggest factor in the scale [...]

Read the full article →

Minor tweaks, major thanks

December 31, 2004

Some of you will have noticed an improvement to my blog’s appearance tonight- for ages now on certain PCs and at certain times the side bar has disappeared to the bottom of the page. Many thanks to The Minor Prophet who has kindly fixed it for me! He has been granted entrance into the Blogdom [...]

Read the full article →

Governments are giving more than first planned

December 30, 2004

Earlier today I predicted that embarrassed by their own people, the governments of the world would give more to tsunami relief. Indeed they already are. Sweden was reported as increasing giving first, and just a few minutes ago big increases in government giving were reported. I am sure that the US will follow suit. But [...]

Read the full article →

Incredibly: Tourists return to Maldives

December 30, 2004

News24 says “In resorts Thursday, tourists swam and snorkeled near resort buildings that had windows and balconies smashed by the tsunami. Scuba divers descended next to concrete breakwaters in which the wave had punched gaping holes.”

Read the full article →

Could it be that up to 400,000 have died in Indonesia alone?

December 30, 2004

Hat tip to MediaSoul who passes on Drudge’s report that up to “400,000 are Possibly Dead” in Indonesia alone. So far Ghanaweb has it but no other news sources except the agency cited on both these pages- Bernama, the Malaysian National News Agency- KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 30 (Bernama) — The death toll in Acheh, the [...]

Read the full article →

Tsunami Adds to Belief in Animals’ ‘Sixth Sense’

December 30, 2004

Yahoo! News reports: “Wild animals seem to have escaped the Indian Ocean tsunami, adding weight to notions they possess a ‘sixth sense’ for disasters, experts said Thursday.”

Read the full article →

Sweden raises the bar……

December 30, 2004

The Swedish Government has led the by announcing a massive donation of 75 million dollars to tsunami efforts throwing into sharp relief the efforts of other nations governments. This genorisity of the Swedes is no doubt connected to their terrible loss of tourists. In total private and public giving now excedes $350million. Amazingly, Amazon has [...]

Read the full article →

The purposes of God for man

December 30, 2004

Day 2 of the purpose driven life discusses the purposes of God for each and every man. Psalm 139 is quoted (although not in a familiar version) O LORD , you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern [...]

Read the full article →

Thailand could’ve been warned

December 30, 2004

Messy Christian passes on Irene’s observation that a Thai paper is reporting its seismologists did not put out a warning for fear of the impact on tourism. Of course the fault does not lie with any one individual or even government but with the lack of a global system to warn of such catastrophes and [...]

Read the full article →

New Year Celebrations replaced by call to national time of prayer in Malaysia

December 30, 2004

Irene Q reports that New Year celebrations have been cancelled and the whole nation called to prayer in Malaysia. I wonder if such a call will spread to other nations, indeed the whole world.

Read the full article →

The people embarrass their governments

December 30, 2004

In the UK 20m has been donated to the charities disasters emergency committee. Amazon.com’s laudable efforts to raise money for the Red Cross has just crossed the $4million. As the death toll approaches 120,000 and millions are homeless and without food or water why have governments given less than their people? In the UK the [...]

Read the full article →

Hugh Hewitt writes another book on Blogs

December 30, 2004

Hugh Hewitt is one of those rare individuals with a foot both in the “old” world of communications (he is a radio show host) and the “new” of blogging (he is the most well linked blog in the Blogdom of God) His new book “Blog” sounds great although its going to take me a couple [...]

Read the full article →

Defining Penal Substitution

December 30, 2004

Wink has made an attempt at Parableman: Defining Penal Substitution following on from which he intends to show why he believes it is inaccurate.

Read the full article →

Tsunami survivors- call home and tell them you are safe

December 30, 2004

This morning it struck me suddenly just how massive the losses are from this Tsunami. It was strange but it took the sudden realisation that it was strange not to have heard from a friend of mine (a girl called Kate) who I knew to be in the viccinity. I was fortunate in that I [...]

Read the full article →

Donating to aid the Tsunami victims

December 30, 2004

I am late to mention this, but as the night has gone on I realised I couldnt go to bed without doing something practical about the disaster that is unfolding before us. The following are a few organisations you can donate to in the knowledge that relief will flow to the victims of this catastrophe. [...]

Read the full article →