Non-exhaustive thoughts on Facebook: featuring web cammers and scammers

Non-exhaustive thoughts on Facebook

Sunday is a day off from PhD revisions and it is late Sunday night, early Monday morning.

Facebook positives:

Keeping up with old friends:

Facebook has made it much easier for me to stay in touch with old friends and to let them know I would be visiting Wales and England last January, for example. Not that my friends are that old mind you, but they are not as young as they were when I had previously lived in Manchester, of course.

I am older too, but...

hair club (just joking this is a satire site and I have no person in mind)

Reacquainting with my old school friends/acquaintances:

For me this includes, former churches, elementary school, high school, Bible school, seminary and the British Universities I have attended. It is interesting to try and remember as many persons as possible and to look them up and them see if they will be my Facebook friend, that is if I can stomach a certain person and vice versa.;)

That is not always the case with me being as controversial as I am. ;)

I am not stating that I dislike someone if I do not ask him or her to be a Facebook friend, or that I think he or she dislikes me.

Promoting my blogs:

Since I am working on a PhD in Theology, it is good to promote my teaching and academic abilities through this blog, satire and theology, and my more academic blog, thekingpin68 as well. It has been good to meet online both Christians and non-Christians willing to give my material a read.

Strangers:

Sometimes some pleasant people can be met. I look forward to continuing to meet new people.

Facebook negatives:

Strangers:

Group 1: The 'web cammers’.

Through the 'Are You Interested?' application I click on certain women and they some click on me. This is not a dating service in my mind and is simply a way for me to perhaps weed through thousands of women to perhaps meet a Christian one to chat with as a Facebook friend.

I do not expect to ever date anyone through this or anything further than that, but I try.

The web cammers after we are Facebook friends sometimes appear on Facebook chat. Tonight via chat one asked me if I was ready to see her naked. I did not reply and simply deleted her as a friend. This is as my Facebook status headline reads:

Russ does not have a webcam...and is not getting one.

As well I have been asked a few times if I have a webcam and I know that a related invitation to Yahoo Messenger or Windows Messenger is leading to a ‘party’ with her and perhaps a friend, and I just see this as a total waste of time, and of course opposed to Christian morals.

Matthew 5:27-28 (New American Standard Bible)

27"(A)You have heard that it was said, '(B)YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY';

28but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman (C)with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Now I have never claimed to be completely sexually pure in spirit, not at all, but I would like to avoid sexual sin. I delete the women that ask me if I have a webcam as well.

The fact I am a full-time student living in a quite secular part of the Western World and have not met suitable Christian women does not in any way mean that looking at someone on a webcam is going to assist me with issues of loneliness and related.

Group 2: The ‘web scammers’.

I have had quite a few of these from Christian websites and now recently a few on Facebook claim to show interest in me, but the scripts and tactics are all too familiar.

No, I am not going to pay for a young woman to come and see me and have her take the money and share it with her organized crime employers.

One time a Russian young woman after approximately three emails, in which we did not have any deep meaningful conversation, stated she ‘loved me’.

scammers

I posted this yesterday on Facebook and the other blog, but this relates to this point as well.

This is a message from someone, that according to her, is now in Benin, Africa, and was formerly in London and North Carolina. She is on the Facebook 'Are You Interested?' application. She acted ticked when I messaged with her briefly here last week and had not visited her when I was in the UK last month, as she was in London. As if I was going to visit her after two to three short email messages, as she is a stranger and I was nowhere near London. I have no clue what the hell she is writing about.

''sweetie, if i tell you i love you, it doesnt mean facial loving, you talking about facial loving, i havnt met you ,so i believe i just like you but i love the way you talk to me, message me, i can read the feelings you have for me and i believe definetely we are going to me then that means we will one day. i so much chrish your humbleness and the way you talk to me through mails and also your profile is an evidence of you mylove.' '

My reply to this message was...LOL.

Fishy applications:

My final negative with Facebook for this post is when I receive messages stating that so and so, usually a female Facebook friend, wrote such and such about me. I checked with a certain person and she basically stated she had no clue and had done no such thing. This has happened more than once with Facebook applications, and I therefore question the integrity and honesty of some of these programs.

Please check out my other new short article below and leave a short comment if you feel so inclined with both of my posts:

short

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Crazy drivers: both sexes


Caution: This clip is funny, but there is some black humour I would have edited out.

Feinberg on the State of Humankind (PhD edit)

      

Feinberg on the State of Humankind (PhD edit)

This short section has been removed from my revised PhD thesis. Thank you for reading and commenting. I personally take a Biblical, Reformed position on the topic. Russ 

Feinberg on the State of Humankind Feinberg deduces that basic human attributes given by God to human beings are not negated by the Biblical concept of the fall which he accepts as valid.[1] He postulates the idea that the fall led to sin existing in humanity, and that this caused human attributes not to function as they were originally intended.[2] Feinberg also believes that the fall did not overturn the basic laws of nature and physics.[3] John Calvin writes that the original nature of human beings was corrupted due to human disobedience to God leading to the fall and a continuing sin problem in humanity.[4] This thinking likely influenced Feinberg’s concept, and Calvin also notes that human sinful nature is not humanity’s true original nature but is its derangement.[5] Calvin thought human corruption did not dwell in one part of the body, and that not one part was free of the deadly taint of corruption.[6] He notes that the nature of man both intellect and will, according to Scripture, is corrupt and opposed to God.[7] 

Calvin views human corruption as leading to bondage to sin that does not allow a human being to make a voluntary movement towards goodness; by goodness Calvin means the desire to seek God, and the ability of a human being to please God without any wrong doing.[8] However, Calvin, like Feinberg centuries later, seemingly did not think that all human attributes given by God were totally negated. Calvin explains that humanity still possessed a limited free will and could seek evil and oppose God, but could not please their creator.[9] This opposition to God was not done by force or coercion by God, but was committed by humanity freely.[10] The fall would lead to, from a Calvinistic perspective, ‘total depravity’ which noted Calvinist Andrew Fuller (1754-1815)[11] describes as the notion that each person’s heart is by nature totally destitute of the love of God, and thus does not posses any true virtue that could possibly please God.[12] This type of historical, theological approach to the fall and human nature within Calvinism would certainly influence Feinberg’s sovereignty defence. The fall was discussed in Chapter Two from the perspective of Augustine’s traditional, literal, historical view, and modern views that would disagree with that perspective.[13] For the sake of avoiding repetition I will summarize and provide some new perspectives. 

Erickson reasons that from his traditional Calvinistic theology, which he views as being in line with the Apostle Paul, the fall of the human race and the resulting sin prevents human beings from properly perceiving God.[14] As noted previously, Calvin believed that humanity fell into disobedience from God.[15] However, if the fall is a debatable concept within academia, then the corrupt nature resulting from it would also be debatable. David A. Pailin explained to me it is possible that the state of humanity, as it is today, is as it has always been, that is less than perfect.[16] There is no documented historical evidence of a human civilization that did not deal with the problem of evil.[17] It may be that actual human nature and attributes do not turn towards God or the type of God that Feinberg, Calvin and Calvinists believe inspired the Bible to be written.[18] 

John Macquarrie (1999) comments that since the Enlightenment, some humanists have had anti-Christian feelings in regard to notions concerning the sinful nature of humanity.[19] The humanism accepted by some modern philosophers and theologians, would not understand humanity to be corrupt.[20] Humanists often believe that human beings have proper values that do not need religious support. Many within secular academia see human beings as not being corrupt.[22] Humanists often believe that human beings have proper values that do not need religious support.[23] 

[1] Feinberg (1994: 126-127).

[2] Feinberg (1994: 126-127). 

[3] Feinberg (1994: 127). 

[4] Calvin (1539)(1998: Book II, Chapter 2, 7).

[5] Calvin (1539)(1998: Book II, Chapter 2, 7).

[6] Calvin (1539)(1998: Book II, Chapter 2, 7). 

[7] Calvin (1539)(1998: Book II, Chapter 3, 2).

[8] Calvin (1539)(1998: Book II, Chapter 3, 5).

[9] Calvin (1543)(1996: 69).

[10] Calvin (1543)(1996: 69). 

[11] Green (1971: 83).

[12] Fuller (1785)(1971: 84). 

[13] Augustine (398-399)(1992: 149). Jackson (1941)(2006: 1). Fretheim (1994: 152-153).

[14] Erickson (1994: 170).

[15] Calvin (1539)(1998: Book II, Chapter 2, 7). 

[16] Pailin (1999: interview).

[17] Pailin (1999: interview). 

[18] Pailin (1999: interview). 

[19] Macquarrie (1999: 272-273). 

[20] Macquarrie (1999: 272-273).

[22] Macquarrie (1999: 272-273).

[23] Macquarrie (1999: 272-273). 

AUGUSTINE (398-399)(1992) Confessions, Translated by Henry Chadwick, Oxford, Oxford University Press. 

CALVIN, JOHN (1539)(1998) The Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book II, Grand Rapids, Wheaton College. http://www.smartlink.net/~douglas/calvin/

ERICKSON, MILLARD (1994) Christian Theology, Grand Rapids, Baker Book House. 

FEINBERG, JOHN S. (1994) The Many Faces of Evil, Grand Rapids, Zondervan Publishing House. 

FRETHEIM, TERENCE E. (1994) ‘Is Genesis 3 a Fall Story?’, in Word and World, Luther Seminary, pp. 144-153. Saint Paul, Luther Seminary. 

FULLER, ANDREW (1875)(1971) ‘Point One: Total Depravity’, in Five Points of Calvinism, Grand Rapids, Sovereign Grace Publishers.

GREEN, JAY (1971) Five Points of Calvinism, ‘Forward’, Grand Rapids, Sovereign Grace Publishers. 

JACKSON, JOHN G. (1941)(2006) Pagan Origins of the Christ Myth, New York, Truth Seeker Co. 

MACQUARRIE, JOHN (1999) ‘Humanism’, in Alan Richardson and John Bowden (eds.), A New Dictionary of Christian Theology, Kent, SCM Press Ltd. 

PAILIN DAVID A. (1999) ‘Interview’, November-December, in The University of Manchester, Manchester, The University of Manchester.