The Curse of Artificial Intelligence.

Artifice, deception, is right there in the name.

AI will make video, audio, and images untrustworthy.

So good job, AI. You’re making the world more unsafe and more dishonest.

The New Donatism

Is American ‘Evangelicalism’.  And we’re at the dawning of a new ‘Donatist’ controversy; ‘evangelicals’ will not be seen, and cannot be seen, as Christians by actual Christians and, for their part, the ‘evangelicals’ will claim to be the ‘real’ church no matter how far they run from Jesus to embrace a politician.

What’s old becomes new over and over again because those who refuse to learn the lessons of history suffer the fate of all such persons.

How To Write a Review of A Ridiculous Book

@sentantiq – This is classical scholarship at its most delightful: #Bentley on #Barnes

It’s also how to write a review of a nonsense book.

Who Can You Trust?

Only blogs bearing this Imprimatur should be deemed trustworthy.  If your’s is, I shall send you a copy of this Imprimatur.  If you see this Imprimatur somewhere and wonder if it is legitimate, or has been stolen, just ask.  I will tell you.

(thanks to Jeff Carter for fixing this up)

Before You Start Criticizing the Faith of Someone Else..

• Before you criticize a Muslim, visit a Mosque.
• Before you criticize a Jew, visit a Synagogue.
• Before you criticize a Methodist, visit a Methodist church.
• Before you criticize a Catholic, go to a Mass.
• Before you criticize a Baptist, go to a Baptist church.

Or shut up.

Print Is Better

Print is and will always be superior.

The Inevitable Result of the Lunacy Known as ‘Political Correctness’

via Ref.ch

On the Making of Enemies: an Observation

I would rather make enemies of 10,000 ignoramuses than lose 1 intelligent friend.

Calvin on Rancour and Discord (Or, How Luther Was a Hatemonger)

Were we only well agreed among ourselves, I would be much less anxious; but in the midst of those hostile preparations on the other side, that certain persons should find leisure enough for senseless quarrelling with one another, looks rather portentous. Upon the other hand, too, some one or other, in an elegy, has attacked Osiander, a person who is himself rather wanting in good sense.

In desiring to clear himself, he has so besprinkled his book with rancour, that for myself I was mightily ashamed of him; but nothing has given me more vexation, than that he insults the Zuinglians in every third line. It is even after such a sort as this that we seem to have hired ourselves, both hand and tongue, to the ungodly, that we may afford them sport and pastime by tearing one another to pieces. Who is there that would not lose heart entirely where so many stumblingblocks are thrown in the way?

I do most readily acknowledge, that there is no one so iron-hearted who would not be utterly cast down, unless he look continually unto the Lord. And, therefore, I so read the meaning of all this, that it appears to be the Lord’s will, by every possible means, to try us whether our dependence is placed on men; and, for my own part, it is so far from overwhelming me, that, on the contrary, no slender confirmation thence arises of my faith. For while I see the Church marvellously steered by the Lord in the midst of those mighty waves, so that it cannot be overwhelmed; while these very tempests are at their height, until everything would seem as if about to mingle in wild disorder, yet I see that the noise of the waves is stilled, and in a moment they are calm; wherefore, then, may I not thence conceive good hope of the future?

Let us therefore haste forward in the race of our calling, leaning upon this confidence, that the Church, which has God for the perpetual Guardian of her safety, will at length surmount these perils; but because every one has not the same strength of mind, the more familiarly I repose these matters in your confidence, all the more on that account you will be careful as to the few to whom you may communicate them.*

I very much appreciate Mike Bird referencing a fragment of this fragment (which I have highlighted).  I think it quite interesting that Calvin’s ire is raised because of Luther’s denunciations of the Zwinglians.

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*Letters of John Calvin (Vol. 1, pp. 445–446).

Oh Huldrych… You Say The Darndest Things

Hannibal, the most dangerous enemy of the Romans (except covetousness, which was the worst enemy of the Romans and proved their undoing), could not be conquered until he allowed the soldiers to become effeminate. But after he had been at Capua for a winter and permitted the soldiers to disport themselves in wantonness and lust, in the next spring Hannibal began to be defeated, and it was generally said that Hannibal had led an army of men to Capua and was taking a crowd of women away.*

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*The Latin Works and The Correspondence of Huldreich Zwingli: Together with Selections from His German Works, (Vol. 1, pp. 145–146).

Fun Facts From Church History

In the early editions of the Loci, Melanchthon didn’t discuss the doctrine of the Trinity because he had a certain bit of scorn for attempts to explain the mystery of the divine unity in trinity.

He accepted the doctrine and thought efforts to rationalize it silly.

He was only forced to include it later because of the spate of heretics that arose in the wake of the Reformation.  All those ‘readers of the bible’ who came up with their own addled ideas born of minds throttled by invincible ignorance.