Despite rumors to the contrary , my "theological blog" is not dead, at least not quite.  In fact, I've got a post regarding the doctrine of atonement in I Peter that will be coming quite soon (I hope!), so watch for that. 

The reason for my recent absence is that I've been ridiculously busy the last several weeks (likely excuse, right?), so this kind of thinking has had to take a back-seat to more pragmatic concerns...like watching Battlestar Galactica [reimagined]...

So Mofast Manna tagged me to participate in a meme wherein I am supposed to tell my life story in six words of undefined length.  

Okay...Here goes!

The singularity of being and nothingness

I am proud and excited to announce the relaunch and redesign of my web design portfolio - singularityconcepts.com .

This redesign has been long needed (I never really liked the original), and I am very pleased with the final outcome.

For this redesign, I not only took a radically different approach to the aesthetics, but I also retooled the purpose of the site.  Originally, I tried to pass off singularityconcepts as a multi-person design firm, utilizing "we" to refer to work that, honestly, only "I" do.  For this redesign, I ditched the disconnected feel of that kind of language and have switched to making this site a personal web technology portfolio of sorts for myself.  

This means radical changes for existdissolve.com as well.  From now on, all of my technology-related posts will happen at singularityconcepts. For those who read this blog (all 3 of you) and are bored by my ramblings about web design, those days of languish are over.  And for those who like that sort of stuff, you will have to change your bookmarks :).  To compensate for this, I am going to endeavor to be more regular in my theological postings.  Life around my house is starting to normalize, so I am hoping to get back into a healthy schedule of reading and writing in addition to the web projects I have in progress.

Anyway, take a second to check out singularityconcepts.com if you get a chance, and either here or there, let me know what you think.

Thanks!

Ok, so I know it's technically Saturday while I'm writing this, but I wanted to get down these Good Friday reflections before the weekend is over...

In pulpits across the country this weekend, congregations will hear various messages about the meaning of Easter: Christ's death and resurrection, the triumph of Christ over sin and damnation, etc.  Obvoiusly, these are fitting subjects to pursue.

However, when we think of Christ's death and resurrection, what does it mean beyond the sin-oriented connotations?  That is, is the cross merely about forgiveness of sins and the defeat of the powers of evil, or it is possible to find even more basic threads of meaning?

For example, is there a primal meaning in Christ's death and resurrection for existence itself?  Let me explain.

We live in a universe that, according to the best evidence, is at least 15 billion years old.  This history of temporal existence is marked by cycles of life and death, decay and new birth.  Stars grow, age and then spectacularly supernova, spewing in their deaths the seeds of "life" that will become the incubators for yet-to-form stars.  Animal life is similar: we grow, age and reproduce, the energies of our lives being passed on (whether through genetic information, assistance with survival, etc.) to prime the ground for the springing into life of new beings.  

As we look at the universe and, more granularly, at our own species, then, we see a dance of life and death, becoming and fading.  Rather than something that is alien and unnatural, we find that this interplay of life and death is, in a very real sense, how the universe "is."  Neither has a moral equivalency to the other, for both walk hand-in-hand in the unfolding of the divine plan for creation.

Now while the rest of the universe has no problem with this arrangement, and goes on in blissful ignorance, humans get tripped up on the reality of death-in-the-universe.  Whether it is something inherent to being self-conscious, or perhaps because humanity's sinfulness has caused us to take an unnaturally close examination of the meaning of our lives in relation to the dance of life and death in the universe, the fear of death is overwhelming to most.  We live our whole lives running from it, scarcely realizing that at every step of growth and movement we participate in the greate dance, ever giving ourselves over to it more completely.  Because we become so self-absorbed with the question of persistence beyond our inevitable un-becoming, death is the ultimate existential taboo, the great moral terror that rules over all.

So to overcome this great existential crisis, we attempt to shore up our personal existence against the overwhelming march of life and death by suggesting an existential transcendence over the same.  We are immortal souls placed in mortal containers, it is said, and when the shell passes we--our true, immortal selves--will persist.  But even with such a brilliantly devised escape from the "problem" of mortality, we are hounded by the nagging terror of losing the self-conscoiusness which we hold so dearly, and ostensibly curse our mortality to sanctify the immortal.

Into this conflagration comes the Incarnation of very God in Christ, and Christ's death and resurrection into the newness of life in God.  But what does this mean in light of the history of the universe?  In my mind, the juxtaposition of the history of the universe and the reality of Christ's death and resurrection is one of the most profound truths that could possibly be comprehended.  You see, immortal souls do not need a resurrection.  If we--our "true" selves--are defined not by our mortality and "creatureliness," but rather by some abstract metaphysical principle of ontology, then the resurrection is moot, for "we" would persist in being beyond the cessation of mortal experience.  In such a scenario, the resurrection is an odd appendage and might be understood as even a unneeded hindrance to an existence of immortal soul-life.

Yet as the history of the universe and our own experiences in life clearly reveal, we--our true selves--are not simply embodied immortality; rather, we are products of the universe in which we live, the sons and daughters of the interplay of mortality--life and death.  But interestingly, when this perspective is assumed, an entirely new vista of meaning is opened for contemplating the life, death and resurrection of Christ.  The meaning of the Incarnation, is exploded wide, for in the coming of God to creation, we begin to see more radically the immense love of God.  Rather than coming merely to "rescue" us from sinfulness, the Incarnation is a beautiful manifestation of God's care and valuation of creation.  It is the story of a God who loves the finite so much that God enters into the primal existence of creation that it might be assumed into the very life of God; the Creator has become, in Christ, the created so that the creation might share in the abundant and eternal life of God.

But even more profoundly, the resurrection of Christ sheds light on the seeming meaninglessness of the cycles of life and death in our universe.  Christ did not enter into the resurrection life of God simply through Incarnation.  Rather, like the seed which must first die before it can spring to the newness of life, it was in death that resurrection was granted unto Christ by the Father.  Yet lest we miss the point, notice how closely Christ's life, death and resurrection mirror the cycles of life which have already been outlined.  It is the epic drama of God embracing creation not simply as something to be possessed, but rather as a reality in which very God will participate fully, even to the death of Christ, the God-man.

So what is this all moving towards?  Let us grant that the life-death-resurrection of Christ is somehow corollary to the experience of mortal existence in the universe.  What does it mean?  

If it is truly God who is in Christ and who is bringing into the life of God the whole of creation through the Incarnation, death and resurrection of Christ, then we must certainly reevaluate the nature of the universe.  That is, if Christ, in his life-death-resurrection, is somehow an archetype for the nature of that which Christ subsumes in his person, it is no longer possible to look on the history of the universe as a series of random, chaotic and meaningless occurences.  To the contrary, as God in Christ has taken unto Godself these very cycles of existence, it is clear that the structure of such a universe is a providential act of God, a setting of the stage for the ultimate fulfillment of the divine plan for the cosmos in the person and work of Christ.  These cycles of life and death, from the very first moments of space-time, have been moving, building and working towards God's design for creation, the making of all things new in Christ through resurrection.  As Christ's coming marks the ultimate unfolding and fulfillment of God's creative work, so in death and resurrection Christ sums up, or recapitulates the whole history of life and death, revealing them to be the handiwork of very God.

But further, such conclusions force us to resist the temptation to reduce the meaningfulness of resurrection to the salvation of the "immortal" soul.  Rather, it seems that the story of God's plan in the history of creation as revealed in Christ is that God has come not to simply to save immortal souls, but to more thoroughly to grant newness of life and perpetuation of existence to that creation which God created mortal and finite.  In the resurrection of Christ, it becomes plain that the universe's history of the dance of life-and-death is not something alien and undesired by God; rather, it is the mysterious unfolding of God's plan for the completion of God's creative work in the newness of life granted in resurrection.  Thus, in a master brush stroke, the lines of salvation as realized in Christ's death and resurrection are exploded beyond the narrow bounds of forensic justification or the procurement of a final destination for the immortal soul.  Much more profoundly, the life, death and resurrection of the Saviour reveals that the whole of our beings--life, death mortality and existense itself--is being transformed radically to participate in the everlasting life of the Father, a life which is never ending and whose light shall shine eternally.

So as we contemplate the meaning of Christ's death and resurrection, let us remember intently that its meaning is not constrained merely to conceptions of forgiveness and justification, but is expanded infintely to powerfully proclaim the fulfillment of God's creation as realized in the life, death and resurrection of Christ.

Ok, so for those who know me, I've never exactly been the biggest fan of ANYTHING that Microsoft has forced upon the genearl computing public.  IMO, Word is about the best thing that they've done, and even that is pretty lame.

Obviously, I have complained more than once about how Microsoft does (or maybe I should say "doesn't do) the web.  However, because of the fact that the majority of people still use this inferior browser, I've tolerated it.  

Well, this last week, the beta of IE8 came out .  

(Warning: To install IE8 you will have to install it over the top of IE7--you can't run them side-by-side.  However, IE8 does allow for the emulation of IE7, which is a reasonable compromise)

Over the last couple of weeks, I've done a fair bit of reading about IE8, and even blogged about it .  So it was with some anticipation that I signed up for the beta.  On the whole, the improvements are positive.  The interface itself looks a bit better (less off-color-ish than IE7 and IE6) and cleaner.  There are a bunch of add-ons (called "Actions") that can be downloaded, and for what is the first time (I think), developers can actually begin developing their own addons to ship to the general public (huh, Firefox was doing that from day one).  Also, IE8 comes built-in with "Developer Tools" that are somewhat like Firebug for Firefox which allows for DOM inspection, javascript debugging etc, albeit severely less robust than Firebug.

The big negative, however, is that it has extremely terrible support for the web, especially--and ironically--Microsoft-specific sites.  I tried logging into my Hotmail account (more about this below) in IE8, but it would not load.  I got the same results with some visits to other Microsoft-related sites.

This is interesting, for one of IE8's biggest "tease" features is that it would encapsulate a more standards-compliant web experience without "breaking the web."  However, it looks like this is happening anyway.  Now obviously, this is only beta, but it is somewhat ironic that the answer to the IE-upgrade problem does exactly what everyone feared would happen with an upgrade, and that this problem is most notable on Microsoft-developed sites...

Anyway, back to the original statement.  I've had it with Microsoft.  I look at what Microsoft puts out, and then at what is avaible for free and open-sourced for the possibility of customization and extension through personal development--and all I can do is shake my head.  Not only does the latter often behave in far superior ways, but there is no proprietary crap that has to be traversed just to use it.  

So, in my own form of personal revolt, I am cutting as many ties to Microsoft as possible.  The Hotmail account I've had for years?  I'm not using it anymore.  Messenger?  Nope.  But lest anyone think that my reaction is simply the result of being disgruntled, rest assured that my reasons are sound.  Hotmail is an archaic, slow and feature-less mail client.  I finally reached my breaking point with spending dozens of minutes everyday waiting for the pathetic interface to load, not to mention being randomly logged out while in the middle of composing an email message for which there is no auto-save option (arggghh...).

And Windows Live Messenger is even worse.  Like Hotmail, it is slow and extremely limited in functionality.  And have you ever tried to send a file with it?  Don't bother: the 50k file will take several minutes to reach it's destination, just a bit longer than it will take to attach it to a Hotmail message.

So, yeah, if you want to reach me on IM, go to Google Talk.  (My Hotmail is still forwarding to my new address: existdissolve@gmail.com, however).

Well, there it is.  I'm done with Microsoft on the web.  I think I will put my energies into companies like Google and Firefox that are actually creating useful and progressive products that have an eye toward the future, a far cry from the self-satisfied, but ever rapidly self-marginalizing approach of Microsoft that believes it can dictate to the world what the web should be.  News Flash, MS--you have never done the web well, and you never will.  Get over it.

(Please ignore the absurdity of the title--I couldn't help myself!)

A little over a week ago, Adobe officially released Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) 1.0 along with Flex 3 .  While I've looked into a AIR a bit in conjunction with Flex apps, I've not really gone beyond that.  

However, with the official release, I decided to take another look.

What is AIR?  As the full name explicates, it is a runtime that can be used to, um, run programs on your computer, mobile device, etc.  So as with Microsoft's .NET framework, AIR allows developers to create programs that can be packaged up and installed on these devices.

However, unlike Windows-only or Mac-Only (or Linux-Only) programs, AIR is ambivalent about the OS.  As long as the client machine has the runtime installed, any application developed in AIR can run on it.  This in itself is really cool, and takes the bite off the exclusivity of OS platforms.

But the coolest part about AIR is that you can leverage different technologies when building applications.  For example, a while ago I built an extremely simple Countdown application using Flex 3.  Easy enough.  

But what if I don't want to use ActionScript 3?  No problem!  Using the HTML, CSS and Javascript skills I already have, I can create an app using ONLY THESE TECHNOLOGIES without any need to learn a whole new language.

Although I really like Flex 3 (and hope to get into a lot more in the future), being able to use regular web technologies to create desktop apps is extremely sexy to me, and will take half the time to develop an application than it would if I were to wrestle what is a still foreign language like ActionScript 3.0.  

But Wait!  That's not all!  AIR platform overcomes some of the weaknesses of standard web-based technology.  For example, in all of my SPRY javascript examples, I generally build datasets from xml data returned from ColdFusion.  Why do I do this?  For one, sometimes the data I need is in a database, and ColdFusion is my means to grab it out.  But most importantly, I use ColdFusion because if I need to return xml data from a remote data source (such as another website), javascript alone cannot do this because the browser security model will not allow client browser cross-scripting.  While this is not a problem for a web-based application (because I can use CF to grab the data, parse it, and pass it back to SPRY), it cannot be transferred to the desktop because not everyone has ColdFusion installed on their computer (although they should...), among other things.

To overcome this, AIR incorporates the concept of "sandboxes."  There are two forms, the Application and Non-Application sandboxes.

The Application sandbox is where the heart of AIR lives, and is tightly restricted because of the level of contact that AIR's

APIs have with the client machine, such as memory resources, file systems, etc.  So trying to do remote scripting in the Application sandbox will be met with angry AIR error messages.

To get around this, you can use the Non-Application sandbox.  Here, remote calls can be easily made, and even functions defined in the Application sandbox can be exposed to use in the Non-Application sandbox.  In short, whereas in the past I could not build a Spry data-set directly from a remote RSS feed, now I can.  So there.

What's that, you say?  You want some more awesome features?  You got it!  AIR comes bundled with a native database--SQL Lite.  

You know what that means--yes, now you can use AIR's javascript-esque API's to create and manage databases and database content.  To me, this is one of best features of AIR, for it removes entirely the need for an external, addon application framework just to interact with a database.  Rather, I can simply gather form data (or Cookie data, or whatever), parse it out with javascript, and use AIR's APIs to create SQL Lite databases that will store the data on the client's machine.  That's pretty flippin' cool, and opens up a huge world of possibilities in my mind for what I'd like to do with AIR in conjunction with my web-based apps.

So yeah, anyway, I'm finding that AIR is extremely cool.  Over the last week, I began development on a little test project (a blog manager) that is, if nothing else, a good training ground for exploring what AIR can do in conjunction with simple HTML, CSS and Javascript.  When I am at a stopping point, I will post it here so that everyone can let me know what they think of it.