myblog -october '11

HAPPY REFORMATION DAY, everyone! enjoy reading your Bibles in your own language freely!

one other awesome general shell (bash, csh, etc) tip. if you are like me, and you at some point tried to grep through a list of files that might start with a "-" (minus) sign or two, you know that this just wont work as the command might think that the filename is a switch (commandline option).. so, what to do? well, you could just do the following:

instead of

grep mypattern *

just do this:

grep mypattern -- *

notice the double dash "--" which apparently means "end of options" haha, cool huh? now you know... and me too!

oh, and make sure your

/etc/sane.d/dll.conf

file has the following line somewhere (usually the bottom is where it will be):

brother3

gahhhh!!! ok, after several weeks of frustration, investigation and more frustration, i have finally resolved my scanner problem. for the benefit of all you xsane, sane, scanimage and gimp users that cant get scanning to work for whatever reason, let me lay out a solution. nothing is easy in this life, so i will walk you through the (summarized) process to get to the solution, and then at the bottom, i will give you the solution.

may this be of help to someone else.

ok, so when i originally installed my scanner drivers on my fedora machine from the brother website, everything worked just fine (obviously, if you havent yet done so, install your drivers from the brother website). at some point, i (foolishly) decided to upgrade, and fedora loves messing with you, so tons of things broke (you can read all about that in previous posts.. try the "linux" and "problems" tags) one of which was scanning and printing for my wireless brother MFC-495CW printer scanner.. in other words, xsane was returning "no devices available" and sane-find-scanner was not finding it either (thats so google can help others find this solution faster too) i reinstalled and reinstalled the drivers and tried everything under the sun.. nothing. however, it worked perfect on both my ubuntu netbook, and my wife's ubuntu laptop. so now it was a matter of finding where the two differed, and "presto", solution encountered.. yeah.. except that process took weeks.

a couple of tools and commands you should know about when troubleshooting these things are:

scanimage -L

to see if your scanner is detected at all. for me, this was a "no"

brsaneconfig3 -q

check the last line to see if your scanner shows up at all. for me, this was a yes. if your answer here is no, then you need to figure out what your machine's IP address is, and run the following command:

brsaneconfig3 -a name=brother-scanner model=MFC-495CW ip=XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX

where instead of XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX you enter your scanner's ip, of course (and MFC-495CW is your scanner model.. MAKE SURE TO GET THIS RIGHT! capitalization and hyphenization are important!). i cant tell you how many times i entered the wrong ip here.. not that it made a difference, since the problem was elsewheres.. but in any case, this might just solve your problem.

ok, so now you have your scanner showing up in brsaneconfig3 -q, so now you try scanimage -L again, if that works, you are done. otherwise, you can run the following awesome diagnostic command:

brsaneconfig3 -d

that should give you a bunch of info that you wont know what to do with. but its still pretty awesome.

since im a master at creating problems (especially when it comes to computer type stuff.. ) i have gotten pretty good at solving them.. since solving computer problems tends to follow the same principles and methods. so the next step i did was to get a listing of all the files that got installed with the driver.. now, im not sure how to do this in ubuntu, debian or whatever other .deb package based distros, but in fedora, redhat, and other .rpm based systems its done like so:

rpm -ql brscan3

where brscan3 is the name of your drivers. this command gave me a nice list of files that were installed with the drivers.. i poked around all the text files (/usr/local/Brother/sane/models3/ext1.ini, /usr/local/Brother/sane/Brsane3.ini, /usr/local/Brother/sane/brsaneconfig3, /usr/local/Brother/sane/brsanenetdevice3.cfg, etc..) and the install script (/usr/local/Brother/sane/setupSaneScan3) ill spare you the process for this part, but in essence, i found nothing useful there. since if you run the rpm (or deb) install on the packages, it will all be redone, and unless the package itself is broken, this shouldnt be the cause of your problems. the other thing i noticed, was the obvious inclusion of .so files. now, here is where the technical know-how comes in. .so files, or "shared object" files are like the dll's of the windows world (if thats helpful to you). that means these are pieces of specialized code that can be shared by multiple other running programs and can be loaded at any given time. in other words, this is the driver. so now the question was, ok, is the driver itself working, is it getting loaded correctly?

again, this is where the problem solving skills come in. there is a convenient way to force the loading of a specific .so before running the program you want. this is how you do it:

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/sane/libsane-brother3.so.1.0.7 scanimage -L

bingo!! it found my scanner!!!

if i ran, say, gimp like that as well, it scanned perfectly

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/sane/libsane-brother3.so.1.0.7 gimp

ok, so notice the command there.. you must type LD_PRELOAD= (no spaces surrounding the "=" sign) to "preload" the shared object. then specify the full path to the object (it can be a relative path too.. if for whatever reason the path has spaces, you must surround it with quotes) and that will load it for you. then a space and the command you want to run, just the same as you would run it. this preloads your .so and PRESTO! it works!

when you install something usually the command "ldconfig" is run, which creates a cache of all the .so paths so its faster to load these (and that way your command doesnt have to create a million file open()s before executing) so, if your driver was installed, but this command was not run, the likelihood is that it will not be found. this was the case. so i ran ldconfig, and nothing. hmm.. ok, so i checked the file that ldconfig uses to build this cache,

/etc/ld.so.conf

and i found the following line:

/usr/lib/sane

ok.. seems normal.. i ran the command again, and still nothing. hmm.. and this is when having a machine that already works comes in handy.. i had been comparing every single command and file on both (hence the amount of days it took to do this) i compared with what my netbook had in its /etc/ld.so.conf file and that line was missing!! so, i deleted it, and BOOM! it worked!!!! yahooo!!

so, the solution for all you impatient people who scrolled all the way to the bottom is:

go to

/etc/ld.so.conf

and delete (or comment out) the following line:

/usr/lib/sane

and then run

ldconfig

and thats all. yerr weeeelcome!

hahah whoa:

Ylmf OS - Ubuntu-based Linux distro identical in look and feel to Windows XP


An Ubuntu-based Linux distro identical in look and feel to Microsoft’s Windows XP’s been updated. Ylmf OS 3.0 has been released from a Chinese software maker with the familiar Luna theme found in Microsoft’s Windows 7 and Windows Vista predecessor. YLMF open source operating system (Ylmf OS) English Edition is released!The interface operation is clean and clear.The adjustment and creation is based on the user’s experience and usage.We firmly believe that Linux can do as well as Windows through our efforts and give customers more choices.

System Requirements:

Bare Minimum

• 300 MHz x86 processor,128 MB RAM
• At least 4 GB of disk space
• VGA graphics card capable of 640×480 resolution

Recommended

• 700 MHz x86 processor
• 8 GB of disk space,512 MB RAM or bigger
• Graphics card capable of 1024×768 resolution or higher

You can check full list of features from here

FACT: abortion in canada is legal throughout the 9 months of pregnancy (court cases show even after the birth of the child) and are subsidized by the government for their full cost.

FACT: birth control pills are not covered by the health care system.

does this make sense to anyone? what is the government trying to say?

REBECCA BLACK - DOOMSDAY
A parody of Rebecca Black Friday. Doomsday


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haha and now ive been blocked from the conversation.. haha.. oh boy these intolerant bigots. youd think that people who cry so much against intolerance and bigotry would at least try not to seem intolerant and bigoted. haha.. oh boy.

poor girl:

Ubuntu Causes Girl To Drop Out of College

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haha how does this even make the news?

some guy i went to school with posted a pic of a really gay-looking "jesus" (notice i didnt capitalize) for the purpose of inciting something.. how do i know? the caption said "Jesus had two dads" and he subtitled: "and he turned out fine".. ahh, and you know i cant let these things fly, so i posted:

"um.. Jesus had one dad.. unless we are talking about a different Jesus"

to which some other guy responded:

"No, he didnt... He grew up to be an asexual, socialist with a god complex. who spent his days either performing magic tricks or (for the first time in the history of the abrahamic faiths) condemning people to eternal torment for nothing more than denying his power or breaking one of the myriad regulatory infractions set down by his totalitarian ideology. Just sayin..."

to which i responded:

"yeah, either that, or He was the perfect sinless Son of God who died for His hated enemies whom He chose to love first, while they were still in their sin and rebellion, offending Him with every thought, deed and desire. dying a shameful death, taking upon Himself the punishment they deserve, all in order to redeem them from the evil they naturally desire that they may experience the fullness of the glory of the perfect Holy Creator God and definer of love, from whom all good and perfect things originate. resulting in a supernatural changing of that heart of stone with a new, living, beating heart that now hates the evil it used to love.

just sayin'.. "

i cant let these fly.. seriously. if God sovereignly allowed them to offend Him publicly, then let me glorify Him publicly through them by preaching that Gospel that saved a wretch like me.

"Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity." Colossians 4:5

"if guns kill people, then... forks make people fat, pencils misspell words, and cars make people drive drunk"

and keyboards!! dont forget teh keyboards!!

i dreamt again that i could fly.. (spellcheck says "dreamt" isnt a word.. oh that spellcheck.. when will it learn english??) well i couldnt actually fly.. more like flap my arms and glide.. it was pretty awesome.. i flew threw this strange mountain type formation that had a big donut hole.. like those photos of thailand.. ah you know what, let me see if i can find one for you



whoa that pic is actually from jerusalem.. no relation to my dream though, mine occurred in the hills of costa rica.. but still interesting that the most fitting image was found on a christian site (actually, im not sure if it is christian.. i didnt really check.. heres the link if you are curious Jesus' Footsteps: From the glory of Galilee to the torture of Jerusalem )

anyways, my dream.. yeah i could fly (sort of, dont make me splain it again) and then the weirdest thing.. it started raining.. haha.. i met some people who were tying themselves to huge kites and floating up in the air with the wind.. and so we were "flying" together.. there were some other things going on in the dream.. but i forget.. and that was really the most noteworthy part.. and flying through that awesome rock formation thing (though in my dream it wasnt made of rock, it was just part of the mountain.. so like.. dirt and grass and so on..) ok me tired, im pressing submit now..

"i'm not a loser, i'm just a winner without any wins"

anyone else agree with me that with the prisoner swap, Hamas has shown that they value the life of one israeli at 1000 palestinian lives?

just upgraded ubuntu on my netbook.. ugh.. yeah, so here are some things you need to know:

from How can I get gnome-panel in ubuntu 11.10?:

You cannot use Gnome2 in Ubuntu 11.10, at least not easily, however there is still a gnome-panel that can be installed with:

apt-get install gnome-session-fallback

This session, which has to be selected at the login screen then looks somewhat like Gnome2. However it behaves a bit different:

• you cannot manually position icons and applets, you are limited to left, right, center positions
• you have to Alt-rightclick to get the regular rightclick menu, which can be quite confusing
• the system menu is gone, stuff there is now in your username menu on the right
• if you move the top-menu out of the way, there is a Nautilus menu hiding under it (bug?!)

Another alternative is to not use Gnome3 at all and switch to XFCE4, which looks and feels very similar to Gnome2. Gnome applets can however not be used without a wrapper called xfce4-xfapplet-plugin, but it might be the better long term alternative, as at the moment it is not clear of long the fallback thing will be maintained and it's not behaving all that great to begin with.

from Install the Classic Desktop in Ubuntu 11.10:

Ubuntu 11.10 will not include the classic GNOME desktop which is available alongside Unity in Ubuntu 11.04. Instead, Unity 2D will be installed to provide the Unity desktop even on systems without 3D graphics capabilities. Fortunately for fans of the old desktop, it will still be available to install from the repositories.

Install the classic GNOME desktop by installing the gnome-panel package.

sudo apt-get install gnome-panel

Before you log in, click the gear icon and select GNOME Classic. This will give you a traditional GNOME desktop with top and bottom panels and the Compiz window manager. If you don’t want Compiz’s desktop effects, select the GNOME Classic (No effects) option for the Metacity window manager instead.

from Return to Ubuntu Classic Desktop in Ubuntu 11.10:

sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback

After installing, restart or logout and choose Gnome Classic Desktop.

and from How do I change the theme?:

I just upgraded to 11.10 for better or worse.

When I launch "Appearance" I see only Ambiance/Radiance themes available

In /usr/share/themes and ~/.themes there are other themes that aren't listed, so I'm curious where are themes located.

I use Unity 2D with Metacity.

answer:

It's not a problem of where they are located. It is a matter of how 11.10 and GNOME 3 have changed. For some reason (I don't know why) the GNOME developers have removed appearance properties from the system settings, under the impression that users should not have the power to choose their own theme.

The Ubuntu developers where kind enough to patch the control centre to allow for us to use Ambiance and Radiance, but if you want to use other GTK+ 3 themes you will need to install gnome-tweak-tool Install gnome-tweak-tool. After installing, you can find it by opening "Advanced Settings" from the Dash.

yeah seriously.. what a bunch of left over thanksgiving turkey..

obama has aides.. pass it on..

Christian Girl, Family in Pakistan Expelled Over Misspelling

LAHORE, Pakistan – An eighth-grade student in Pakistan has been expelled from school and her family forced to relocate after the Christian girl misspelled an Urdu word, leading to accusations of “blasphemy,” sources said.

In the garrison city of Abbottabad, 13-year-old Faryal Bhatti, a student at the Sir Syed Girls High School in Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF) Colony Havelian, misspelled a word on an Urdu exam last Thursday (Sept. 22) while answering a question on a poem in praise of the Muslim prophet Muhammad, according to area Christians.

Faryal wrote laanat, the transliteration of the Urdu word for “curse,” instead of naat, which means a poem written in praise of Islam’s prophet, they said. The school administration and local Islamists declared that the error was serious enough to violate Pakistan’s widely condemned laws against blaspheming Muhammad and Islam.

Conviction under Section 295-C of Pakistan’s blasphemy law for derogatory comments about Muhammad is punishable by death, though life imprisonment is also possible.

Faryal’s Urdu teacher was collecting the answer sheets from her students when she noticed the word on Faryal’s paper. The teacher, identified only as Fareeda, summoned the Christian girl, scolded her and beat her, area sources told Compass by telephone.

Fareeda then notified the principal, who in turn informed school officials as news of the error spread throughout the colony. The next day, male students at the school as well as some Muslim representatives staged a demonstration, demanding registration of a criminal case against the eighth-grader and her eviction from the area, sources said.

Prayer leaders within the Muslim community also condemned the incident in their Friday sermons, asking the colony’s administration to take action against Faryal as well as her family, sources said.

POF Colony Havelian Managing Director Asif Siddiki called a meeting of clerics and school teachers to discuss the conflict, according to reports, at which the girl and her mother were ordered to appear; they explained that it was a mere error caused by a resemblance between the two words.

The girl and her mother immediately apologized, contending that Faryal had no malicious intentions, but in a move apparently designed to pacify Muslim cries for punishment, the POF administration expelled her from the school on Saturday (Sept. 24).

School administrator Junaid Sarfraz said Faryal had confessed that she had inadvertently made the mistake and the school administration, after consulting local clerics, decided to expel her. Sarfraz claimed that Faryal’s teacher was certain that she had made the mistake intentionally and that the matter was referred to clerics because Faryal had previously aroused similar suspicions of blasphemy.

Maulana Alla Dita, head of the area’s prominent mosque, reportedly said the school administration had made the right decision in expelling Faryal from school. Dita claimed that he had met with Faryal, who had apologized for the mistaken use of the word. Dita said he wasn’t clear about Faryal’s intentions, but that “the word she had used was sacrilegious,” according to press reports.

Faryal’s mother, Sarafeen Bhatti, a staff nurse at the POF Hospital Havelian for several years, was immediately transferred to POF Wah Cantonment Hospital. Abbottabad District Commissioner Syed Imtiaz Hussain Shah said the 13-year-old had been expelled for using “derogatory words” and her mother had consequently been “moved to another place.”

A Christian lawyer in Havelian who was among the community members making efforts to defuse area tensions told Compass by phone that the military had acted swiftly to save the lives of Faryal and her mother.

“The military swung into action soon after protests broke out calling for a blasphemy case against the teenager,” said the attorney on condition of anonymity. “They bundled the family in an ambulance and took them away before the situation could turn violent.”

A text-message campaign also started on Saturday (Sept. 24) calling for action against the family, he said. “Some Christian families living in the area panicked, but the situation has been under control so far,” he said. An area Christian told Compass there were 13 or 14 Christian families in the colony who now have fears about security. He said that Faryal’s family had little contact with other Christians living in the area. The resident also praised the army for acting timely, “or else the mullahs would have punished all of us for the little girl’s error.” The incident has instilled fear in Christian parents that an unintentional mistake by their children could cause them personal disaster. Shazia Imran, mother to three schoolchildren, told Compass that Faryal’s episode had left her distressed.

“Ever since I came to know about the young girl’s story, I have been unable to sleep properly,” she said. “We have been continuously telling our children not to discuss their faith with anyone in school and to avoid getting into religious discussions with their Muslim class fellows, but this was beyond my imagination.”

She added that she and her husband were now “very disturbed and fearful” about their children’s future in Pakistan. Azra George, a Christian mother to a college student, said the incident had shocked her and the congregation at her Presbyterian church.

“Everyone at church was discussing this sorry incident on Sunday,” she said. “Parents of school-going children were particularly perturbed. This blasphemy thing will always remain hanging on our heads like a sword, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.”

Compass’s repeated attempts to reach the Bhatti family were unsuccessful as they had moved to an undisclosed location due to security concerns.

Asif Aqeel, executive director of the Community Development Initiative, an affiliate of the European Centre for Law and Justice, said the incident showed how Pakistani society was getting sensitized over the issue of blasphemy.

“Only a small number of people are formally accused of blasphemy – we do not know the number of people who, like Faryal and her family, are harassed without a legal charge,” he said. “Members of Pakistan’s minority communities are afraid of moving around and expressing themselves freely due to the fear of being accused of blasphemy.”

Christians make up only 2.45 percent of Pakistan’s population, which is more than 95 percent Muslim, according to Operation World. Section 295-B of Pakistan’s blasphemy law makes willful desecration of the Quran or use of an extract in a derogatory manner punishable with life imprisonment. Section 295-A prohibits injuring or defiling places of worship and “acts intended to outrage religious feelings.” It is punishable by life imprisonment, which in Pakistan is 25 years.

Aqeel said a Christian boy was recently implicated in a criminal case of harassment by the family of a Muslim girl who was in love with him. Aqeel said the boy’s family urged the police investigating officer to free the boy, whose name was withheld for security reasons, as the charges were baseless. “The family was taken aback when the police official told them that their son had mocked the Sunnah [sayings and teachings] of prophet Muhammad by keeping a French beard,” Aqeel said. Thus, although the harassment case had nothing to do with the blasphemy law, the mere mention of the law forced the family to keep silent, he said.

Similarly, Christian teachers avoid lessons that mention Islamic history or anything related to the religion out of fear that any misstep could bring criminal charges. Likewise, Urdu language and social studies textbooks include several lessons on Islamic religious thought, so Christian teachers avoid nearly half of these books to avoid being charged with blasphemy, he said.

Napolean Qayyum, a leader of the Minorities Wing of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party, condemned the incident, saying it was unfortunate that a 13-year-old had to suffer this ordeal over a miniscule error.

“The army’s timely intervention saved the Christians’ lives, but most people are not so fortunate,” he said, adding that the incident showed how intolerance towards minorities was taking root in Pakistani society.

“Would the teacher have highlighted the same mistake if it was made by a Muslim student?” he said. “I would guess not.”

dont forget, they want to pass this blasphemy law at the UN..

oh yeah and the whole reason why i even posted in the first place, and yet, obviously thats exactly what i forget to post.. cuz thatz just how i roll.. and no, i didnt mean to type "thatz" but why not just leave it there for your your enjoyment.

ok before i forget yet again.. hahah.. so my little toe on my right foot is purple..ugh.. im so good at injuring myself. this time, i was showering so we could go out to buy some stuff, and as i was stepping out of the shower, BANG!! oh man, i banged my foot onto.. wait for it.. the toilet seat!! how in the WORLD does that even happen? who knows, but i found the way.. i found the way to, while stepping out of the shower in reverse (yeah, for some reason i was stepping out backwards, so make it a double achievement here) and managed to bang my toe downwards onto the toilet seat. for crying out loud. who does such a thing.. in any case, it hurt like crazy, but i figured i was ok to go out.. so i just wrapped a bit of tissue paper on it, so it didnt squish against the other toe, which it naturally does anyways (its from my mother's mother's side, apparently) but yeah, it hurt.. so i was limping for the next 3 hours.. hahah.. oh man, yeah, that doesnt sound good.. but like i said, thats just how i roll dawg.. so i get back home, and it hurt enough for me to want to take my sock off and inspect the damage.. yep.. the pain served its intended purpose.. the poor sucka was all purple.. ah man, when will i learn.. and this of course keeping in mind that ive been trying to auto-surgery my left foot too, due to the sharp pain that i have on that foot's sole sometimes.. and where i found a small bump, which ive been trying to remove (i figure its like a little piece of something that got stuck under my skin, that all i have to do is remove and i will magically feel better thereafter.. yep.. no luck yet.. ill let you know how that goes..

i also had to temporarily disable the forums while i try to find a solution to all the stupid spambots that keep getting past the registration process.. we currently have only 3 real users.. one of them me.. ill let you know when the forums are back up.. ugh.. spammers..

my computer is still dead.. im currently using one of joelie's old computers (thanks joelie1!).. actually, i had one of his computers cannibalize another.. so the processor from one is in the other.. this system has exactly as much ram as my old one did before running into trouble (1.5gb).. i also upgraded the BIOS to try to get it to
1) recognize the new processor and use the full speed and stop giving me the "stepping" error.. and
b) recognize my old video card (which is much better than the one it came with.. well maybe not "much" but it definitely was at least supported by the latest nvidia drivers.. so that makes it "much" better by default
in any case, the processor is an intel p4 running at 2.3ghz.. whilst my old compie (i just remembered i used to call it my compoopoo) was a barton core athlon xp 2500.. which ran at 1.8ghz.. and boy, it felt much faster than this p4.. my last intel was a celeron 300 if i remember correctly.. since right after that intel introduced its p3 processors, which had a serial number that could be read over the internet.. yeah.. creepy, and a huge violation of privacy so i vowed not to buy intel since. and i havent. and im currently looking at getting a phenom 2 hopefully black edition (easier to overclock.. not that i will but that i want to have the option) and at least 3 cores.. maybe even 6.. we shall see..
also, im looking at it being an am3 socket, so i can do ddr3, and at least 4gb if not 8gb right away.. and if i go nuts, and its cheap enough (cuz i really dont want to go over $400) i might even go right upto 16gb. i want nvidia chipset, because well, ati's drivers on linux are not really upto par yet. which really limits my options given that amd bought ati.. and i want onboard video too, and sound, and why not, gigabit ethernet. what will really limit my options is my desire to have an ide port.. im not sure how attached i am to the idea, but my main HDD is an ide, and transferring the whole thing to the new sata drive (cuz i will need to have a sata drive, otherwise itll just be a bottleneck of gargantuan proportions)
oh man, i just got bored of typing this up.. i think i wrote up all the stuff im looking for.. you might know before me what i will end up buying.. in any case, the point is that im not at full productivity, and wont be for a couple days.. maybe even weeks.. and i really need to be now.. i need to get back to speed on everything i need to be doing that i put slightly on pause with the elections.. oh yeah, i really need to post on that.. haha, and the bday post is still in a tab waiting to be written (the notes are still there) haha oh boy.. lazy guy.. pray for my efficiency, and that i might honor God in my projects. that is all. amen. bye.

and a HAPPY BDAY to joelie (aka big baby)!! (lest i leave it to when i finally wake up to mention.. and then obviously forget)

wooohooo!! 166 votes!! thats 66 over my projected minimum, but still not the 500 that i thought was possible.. and i didnt beat the candidate i was aiming to beat .. however, some other candidate did.. which was really weird.. i'll have to look into that.. (neither of them reached 500 votes either.. btw) not bad for my first incursion into politics, eh? (see what i did there?) especially given i dropped my name in the hat the day before the last day possible, and ran a 3 week crash campaign on $102 (no, thats not a typo) i was interviewed for radio, and chinese TV, and appeared on a couple of news sites.. wo yeah, it was a pretty awesome experience.. learned so much about so much..

lets see how well i do the next time around!

learn your heresies here at insaner.com:

Sabellianism,

Christian heresy that was a more developed and less naive form of Modalistic Monarchianism (see Monarchianism); it was propounded by Sabellius (fl. c. 217–c. 220), who was possibly a presbyter in Rome. Little is actually known of his life because the most detailed information about him was contained in the prejudiced reports of his contemporary, Hippolytus, an anti-Monarchian Roman theologian. In Rome there was an active struggle between the Monarchians, or Modalists, and those who affirmed permanent distinctions (“Persons”) within the Godhead. The Monarchians, in their concern for the divine monarchy (the absolute unity and indivisibility of God), denied that such distinctions were ultimate or permanent. Sabellius evidently taught that the Godhead is a monad, expressing itself in three operations: as Father, in creation; as Son, in redemption; and as Holy Spirit, in sanctification. Pope Calixtus was at first inclined to be sympathetic to Sabellius’ teaching but later condemned it and excommunicated Sabellius.

The heresy broke out again 30 years later in Libya and was opposed by Dionysius of Alexandria. In the 4th century, Arius accused his bishop of Sabellianism, and throughout the Arian controversy this charge was levelled at the supporters of Nicene orthodoxy (those who accepted the doctrine of the Trinity set forth in the Nicene Creed), whose emphasis on the unity of substance of Father and Son was interpreted by Arians to mean that the orthodox denied any personal distinctions within the Godhead. About 375 the heresy was renewed at Neocaesarea and was attacked by Basil the Great. In Spain Priscillian seems to have enunciated a doctrine of the divine unity in Sabellian terms.

At the time of the Reformation, Sabellianism was reformulated by Michael Servetus, a Spanish theologian and physician, to the effect that Christ and the Holy Spirit are merely representative forms of the one Godhead, the Father. In the 18th century, Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish mystical philosopher and scientist, also taught this doctrine, as did his disciples, who founded the New Church.

source: encyclopedia britannica

interesting, servetus was a modalist.. hmm.. didnt know that

also, not sure why they refer to "pope" calixtus.. as this is anachronistic (calixtus would not have been using that term for himself, nor would anybody else have), but whatever..

Dennis Miller Explains Why Barack Obama Can Do No Wrong
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