Retractions and Clarifications


I’ve been digging through the archives of the Reformed Theology Discussion List, and after reading a lot of my old posts, I posted the following to the list.
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In looking through the archives, I’m rather surprised at some of my views from a few years ago. I thought I should write up some caveats a) to clarify my position on a few issues, and b) to show that I actually do change my mind over time. 😉

I wrote, on Aug 26, 2000, “Their [Roman Catholics] ‘morality’ stems from their terror of God, and the fear that if they don’t follow all these man-made rules, they’re going to burn in hell.” I don’t have such a wide paintbrush for Roman Catholics… while I still believe there are RCs who think this way, I think they’re few and far between.

On Aug 27, 2000, I wrote “Even though the Bible allows certain things, if the law of the land says it’s illegal, then I can’t do it (Rom 13).” I no longer believe that breaking the law is immoral, independent of what God’s law says. Going over 55 miles per hour is not a sin. Rosa Parks refusing to move to the back of the bus was not a sin. Downloading music online is not a sin. Romans 13 does teach that we need to submit to our rulers, including to whatever punishment they decide is appropriate punishment, but simply breaking a law on the books is not, in itself, immoral.

I’m still believe that images of Christ are sinful.

I still can’t figure out Edward Hassertt.

On July 12, 2000, I wrote the following in defense of copyrights on media (movies and games), “As a software designer, I think that many products work best when open and freely distributable (OS’s, applications, etc), but would you also advocate the free distribution of DVD movies and commercial games software that can take millions to develop? Where would the incentive be to make multi-million dollar projects like X-Men (woohoo), if there was no potential to get back their back their investment with profit?” Since then, my position has drastically changed (I can’t even believe I wrote that!!!), as I do not believe that intellectual property is beneficial at all to society. Of course, in the last four years since I’ve written that, the MPAA and the RIAA have asserted their God-given right to intellectual property ownership. My position now is essentially the position of the Constitutional authors, who believed that copyrights and patents were an artificial monopoly granted by the Federal Government to encourage inventors and authors… they should last for (at the absolute most), 14 years. And I believe that copyright is something that should need to be applied for, and not simply automatically inferred when some intellectual property is created.

I switched from Eudora on Windows to Mozilla on Gentoo Linux.

I still think Robin Griffins positions on God’s law and the civil magistrate are wrong… but I do like him a lot!

I miss Sherry, Jonathan Barlow, Frank Chin, Dale Courtney, Arie Blok, Berek Smith, Robbin Griffin, Rich Bingham, Raymond Regalado, Kate Scot-Bryson, and Randy Oliver.

I no longer work for Ed Walsh at ReformedBookSales.org (although I have since registered ReformedMedia.org, and I’m trying to figure out the best way to utilize it.)

Still a six-day creationist… though I wasn’t always.

I don’t play Pokemon anymore.

Hmmm… that’s it for now. Bedtime.