Personal Responsibility

I've been running a crypto workshop all week and now know more about RSA, SHA-1 and TripleDES algorithms invoked from java on a z9 than I ever thought I would! A great experience where the customer achieved all of their objectives and more. People from Croatia are indeed a very friendly bunch and I learned a lot.

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Today is the 494th anniversary of Gerardus Mercator’s birth in 1512. The famed mapmaker went on to live a life of great moral courage. Mercator’s time was a rough one for astronomy and astronomers. Despite a prison sentence and threats of torture and death for his beliefs, Mercator went on to design a globe of the earth in 1541 and one for the heavens ten years later. One sphere within a larger one - and all without the many complexities envisioned by Ptolemy a millennium before him.

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Many thanks for the math link, I didn't realise that there was a "Pi day".

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I heard an objection to Christianity, that it is a morally corrosive doctrine because it undermines personal responsibility, encourages people to believe that God is going to solve all of their problems for them, kill all their enemies, and build them a whole new world.

There are parts of The Bible (OT especially) that sell this message and an extension of it - "it's not my fault - or even if it is, I can truly repent and I am forgiven" - seems quite Catholic, a religion in which you are able to "hang your sins upon the sky".

A better message comes from the New Testament, where personal responsibility is important, where one has to actively love one's neighbour, which is sometimes not easy. This is a moral commandment - or call - to an individual. I don't believe one should pray for the strength to love their neighbour - and then (if the strength does not come) - say "Oh well, it must be God's wish that I do not love this particular neighbour, as God did not give me the ability to do so".

And that person might also add "... God is telling me this because this particular neighbour is not saved/in the employ of Satan/etc, so it's OK not to love them".

I think this is the most offensive twisting of the doctrine of Christianity, perpetuated in some part by The Church and organized religion, but an attitude that appears to be endemnic where I come from.

Looking around, these reasons are those that cause people to attack the message of The Bible. I am trying to avoid acting in such a way that causes others to attack Christianity.

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Happy Sunday to you Brother !