After leaving Puerto Rico, for a very long time I avoided anything Catholic. First, because mass was always boring. Sit down, stand up, sit down, kneel, sit down, stand up, kneel, stand up, sit down, Amen. There was no heart, no spirit to it! Just rites and rituals, all completely devoid of their spiritual significance after hundreds of years of repetition, rituals which have made God an unapproachable, silent being. Later, that morphed into it seeming to me an archaic institution whose only hope for survival was to continue a grip on people attained during the power vacuum left by the fall of Rome. I guess I bought into all the angst, first the Protestant, then the Atheist.

Lately I’ve started to once again discover the Church, but not as most may imagine. I came to the realization that the spiritual significance of the Mass is defined not by the rituals themselves, but what the persons participating in the sacraments–whether audience or active participant–put into it. I don’t see the Church now as a source of salvation, a matter of dogma, or even as a my personal faith. Rather, I’ve discovered the aesthetic qualities of its mysticism, the beauty and peace found in rituals and ceremonies, its colorful history, and the structure put in place over the span of almost 2,000 years. Suddenly, Mass transforms from something boring to something lively, full, and mystical, a source of art which serves as not only a source of comfort, but also a place–both physical and spiritual–of wonder, where I feel comfortable allowing to myself not have to know, where I can find spiritual shelter.

I find a fair amount of this aesthetic at the local church, but thanks to the Web I can also find it online via videos and podcasts. For video, really, there’s nothing better than EWTN, which you may recognize as the Catholic cable chanel. Here people can get a taste of the Catholic world view. But since I’m usually not in front of a screen (at least not one I can watch videos), I look for podcasts. There are two podcasts I recommend very highly for anyone interested in finding out more about the Church. The first is Catholic Under the Hood, which goes over Catholic history and theology from a Franciscan perspective and is done by Friar Seraphim Beshoner. The second is The Saintcast, done by Dr. Paul Camarata (a neurosurgeon), which covers the lives of the saints, both famous and obscure. This one I’ve been listening to for quite a while, and has become a mainstay in my podcast listening schedule. I’m looking around for more.

I’m not a Catholic, per se, at least not if it means accepting all of the Church’s beliefs. (For example, while I hate the idea of abortion, I am for its legalization; I also think birth control’s a good idea in practice, if not in theory; I’m not against embryonic stem cell research; and I believe in rebirth.) If anything I’m much closer to a Unitarian. Still, it doesn’t change the fact that I’m awed by the pure beauty found in Catholicism, its art, its history, and its meaning. During times where I’m forced to stare into an eternal darkness it gives me hope, and as far as I’m concerned, hope–true or false–is still better than no hope.

As a side note, if you’re interested in a multi-faceted view of theology, check out John Hummel’s Blog The Religions blog and podcast. I had the pleasure of meeting John (Twitter folks, check out @blogthereligions and/or @johnhummel) at a recent Tampa Tweetup.  Although I wrote this before listening to his Podcast #4 (on Catholicism), I recommend you go ahead and take a listen. Interesting stuff for the theologians among us, and definitely on topic. 

I am not what I was in my youth. At merely 28 years, I’m already beginning to feel some of the signs of aging: pains in certain joints, increased healing time, diminished multitasking capabilities. I’m sure most would say that at 28 I’m still “just a kid”, and they’d probably be right, though if you really want to get down to it, “middle age” starts during the early 30′s, biologically speaking. Hardly a “kid”. But unlike most people, I pay overt attention to these signs. I always have. I don’t know why, though I’ve started to see how it affects the way I see things.

So while my resolutions before revolved around writing and advancing these skills, I find more and more that my health–spiritual, mental, and of course physical–has taken prominence. Without addressing these items first, I find I cannot continue in my current path. In fact, I am convinced that my not having yet resolved these issues–particularly the physical one, since it is through that gate that I must walk to address the other two–is in large part at the core of my worrying about the future.

I came to this realization as a result of someone very wise, who I have come to respect very highly, and hold very dear, reminding me that “the unexamined life is not one worth living.” While I thought I knew this, it wasn’t until he pointed out that I hadn’t been examining my life that the message really hit home. I, who value wisdom so much, had become lost without myself.

In the show Babylon 5 there’s a series of episodes during the fourth season in which Dr. Stephen Franklin (Richard Biggs) resigns his post as Chief Medical Officer and goes on a “walkabout”. In Australian aboriginal cultures, a “walkabout” is a ritual in which a young man goes on a solitary journey through the wilderness in an attempt to learn more about his own character and strength. In the show, Franklin explains it this way:

“If you’re not careful, you can lose yourself in the world. When you’re too busy with things and not busy with yourself. You spend your days and nights living someone else’s agendas, fighting someone else’s battles, and you’re doing the work you’re supposed to be doing, but every day there’s less and less of you in it all. ‘Til one day, you come to a fork in the road and because you’re distracted, you’re not thinking, you lose yourself. You go right and the rest of you, the really important part of you goes left and you don’t even know you’ve done it until you realize, you finally realize that you don’t have any idea who you are when you’re not doing all those things.

“The theory is, if you’re separated from yourself, you start walking and you keep walking ntil you meet yourself. Then you sit down and you have a long talk. Talk about everything that you’ve learned, everything you’ve felt, and you talk until you’ve run out of words. Now that’s vital. Because the real important things can’t be said. Then if you’re lucky, you look up, and there’s just you and you can go home.”

Of course, in the epsodeShadow Dancing, the walkabout has a pretty bloody end when Franklin finally meets himself after being stabbed during a drug mugging, and left to die. “You said you had to keep walking until you met yourself,” says the second Franklin. “Well, here I am. So, if we’re gonna talk, let’s talk. Only, I don’t think you have enough time.” Here’s a bit from the synopsis:

He asks Franklin what he has to live for, and what he could possibly want, since he threw it all away the first time. Franklin insists he wants to do it all over again, and begins to regain his determination. He begins to move, and pull himself up the ladder that leads out of his prison. With his healthy self taunting him all the way, and despite his wounded condition, Franklin is eventually able to get out.

Franklin, on a gurney, is taken back to Medlab as the remants of the fleet and the numerous casualties are returned to the station. [Herein he sees the selfishness of his situation, injured trying to find himself while the Universe collapsed around him.]

[When Franklin gets better, he] tells Sheridan that he [was using drugs] to do more [work], when what he needed was to do better, and he knows that he ran away when he quit to avoid being fired. He explains that he has, for his entire life, looked at himself in terms of what he wasn’t, but never what he was, and that he missed a lot of important things because of it. He knows he can’t go back and undo his past mistakes, but can appreciate what he has now, and he can define himself by what he is and not what he isn’t. Sheridan asks what that is. “I’m alive,” Franklin tells him. “Everything else is negotiable.”

I guess I went on my own walkabout when I quit a number of the things I was doing. I felt I had lost myself, lost my drive, lost my direction, and instead spent my life chasing what others said I should be doing. I tried to do more, when I should have been doing better; I focused on what I wasn’t instead of what I was. Yet, during this time I’ve become more selfish, more secluded, more worried, and generally more miserable, none of which came to light until I finally started examining my own life. Right race, wrong direction. I wouldn’t have known unless I started examining my life.

For the past few days, I’ve been doing a lot of walking, thinking, and praying. For the first time in my life, I feel that my prayers are actually worth something, that they’re not simply a litany of requests I make from the Almighty to fit around my own schedule, but that they are a conversation in which He controls the mic. (Is this the “walking meditation” I hear so much about?)

During the walks, I’ve reviewed my life, from the time of my first memories. I’ve thought about people I knew, things I thought and did, and beliefs I held. When I was a kid, I worried about my parents dying. I still remember a dream I had when I was five in which my mom died in a car crash on a mountain. Then I feared the depletion of the Ozone layer, and had dreams about people dying of cancer. (One of my dreams played out like a movie. I still remember the announcer’s voice as he announced “El Fin del Mundo” (“The End of the World”). After that it was my being the last person on Earth (Stupid The Quiet Earth movie), then it was World War 3 and Nostradamus, then it was aliens, then… the end of the World. After that, during my teen years, I took a fascination with death: it was real, it was raw, it was… cool. Before that I had tried to be a Fundamentalist Christian (Southern Baptist), so no matter what happened I was saved, right? Mind you, this didn’t sit right with me, but I denied myself for the sake of my faith, as if I knew that that meant. Then I became dark and gothy (though never emo. That’s just too self indulged, though I still like the music). After that, I started looking into other faiths and religions, to find… meaning? Significance? Peace? Whatever it was, I just wanted to make sense of things. And I didn’t want to be alone. This was a big one: I’m was never a real loner, no matter how much I pretended to be, or how bad I’ve been at keeping relationships going. (I hereby apologize to everyone who I’ve failed to stay in touch with.)

Over the past few months, I’ve also been studying Christian Mysticism. While I’m far from an expert in it, I have through it come to a very interesting realization: faith is not about logic. Too much time have I spent attempting to logicize my faith, to believe only those things which could be explained via the scientific method. Yet, the logical part of the brain is only one part of it, one way of thinking. Thinking upon the mystical in order to achieve a state of simply “being” is another. The two work together. Coming to this realization has freed me to once again believe, truly and honestly, in the existence of a “God”, even though I don’t know what that God is (personal or not? in the universe, outside of it? in us or outside? all of these?) except to know that He is like a mirror: everyone looking in sees something different.

During one of my recent prayer times a thought came to me (though I attribute it to a message from God due to the way it hit me, the power with which it resonated in my mind). The message was a simple one:

“Why do you spend so much time thinking about death when you have so much life right now to live?”

I guess until then I had never really thought about it that way. I realized that the majority of my life had in some way revolved around the issue of death, and my capability to handle it. I tried believing in God, not believing in God, believing in a soul and not. Perhaps it was the Christian upbringing (and the refutation thereof), in which attainment of Heaven is so fervently emphasized (as is the reality of Hell). Perhaps it’s because I wish to understand, and my mind can’t cope with believing that this life is it, a thought which while I have tried to believe, I can’t bring myself to.

After that point, I started to see exactly ho much time I’ve spent worrying about death and the afterlife. So much that I completely missed what was right in front of me. In Paradise Lost, Milton observed that the human mind is a wonderful thing, that it could make a hell out of heaven and a heaven out of hell. It can also, it seems, make a death out of life and life out of death.

I started keeping a journal which allows me to really write what I’m thinking about, what thoughts and revelations have come to me during this time. (In other words, stuff I can’t always talk about here.) I haven’t liked a lot of what I’ve seen, what I’ve written, and have started to rectify the situations, though they will take time.

Of course, the subject of death is still important, though I see it’s not as important as the subject of how you live your life.

And yet, I’m still on walkabout, examining my life in order to make it one worth living.

“Not really,” I answered. “Sometimes.”

“Oh, so you view it via the Internet.”

“Not, really, no. I mean once in a while,” I again replied, in a matter of fact tone.

“Do you at least believe in the Bible?” he again asked. Now he looked worried.

“Some parts,” I told him. “I’m not sure I agree with everything it says, though it seems that most people can’t agree with each other when they say they agree with what the Bible says, anyway.”

“Like what?”

I started explaining to him that some things, like the concept of Hell, an infinite punishment for a finite wrong, didn’t make any sense to me, since how can you judge someone for eternity (trillions and trillions of years) after a mere 70 year existence? I also told him that I don’t believe God is small enough to fit within one religion, and that the belief that you had to be a Christian in order to not be sent to Hell forever and ever didn’t sit well with me. In fact, it makes no sense.

“Do you believe that Jesus is the son of God?”

“That’s a tricky question. I believe Jesus was a son of God, and that while the teachings may be true, much of the magical mysticism surrounding it–”

“Then you’re going against the Word of God,” my father answered, shaking his head and smiling.

And this was when my sister, the Fundamentalist Christian, jumped into the conversation. From that point on it wasn’t a matter of trying to find out what I believe, so much as trying to tell me why I believed wrongly. “You haven’t studied this deeply enough” was one I heard often, even though I’ve spent more time in theological books and speaking with teachers than both combined.

My “favorite” part was when my sister began with the following:

“See, you’re trying to apply logic to all of this, and you just can’t. You just have to have faith.”

“How can I believe in something [Hell, in this case] which I not only find illogical, but so deeply and horribly abhorrent that only the mind of a sick man could have been able to conceive it?”

“You’re thinking way too hard about it. And feeling bad has nothing to do with forgiveness or repentance. Salvation only comes by grace,” she stated.

“But that’s my point: grace is afforded only to those who believe like you do? What about Christian mystics? What about Hindus, or Buddhists, or Muslims? What of people who simply are confused about this and just do the best they can?” I asked.

“You’re thinking about this too hard,” she again said.

“Don’t confuse my questioning with your lack of willingness to. The difference between you and me is that I’m willing to accept that I may be wrong, that no one will find this answer for me, and that I have to seek myself.”

“See, that’s what you call not having faith,” she retorted.

“Then define faith!” I yelled. I’d had enough by this time, I didn’t care to be grilled by people who hadn’t taken the time to see the world through other points of view. “Your idea of faith seems to be that I have to accept something which seems so wrong to me that it doesn’t stand up to questioning, something with which I disagree, can’t possibly understand, and find nothing short of sickening. If that’s faith, then I don’t care to have it.”

I continued. “To answer your previous question…” I looked at my dad, then my sister “…I do believe in God. However, we differ in what our ideas of God are. You believe in the God of your church. I believe in a God which is much, much bigger than that. And I can only believe in that which I can observe, and have faith in that which after study I may not understand, but I feel is right. I cannot believe or have faith in something seems so wrong that I have no choice but to disbelieve. And I seek for myself because I can’t unquestioningly take someone’s interpretive hand-me-down. To see it through their filter simply has me looking at their God.”

“You’re trying to make God fit into your own box, and that’s your problem,” my sister answered.

“I could easily say the same of you: what about those who don’t believe in the one strike, you’re out rule? What about things like reincarnation?”

“Alright, now you’re just getting weird,” she said.

“What, weirder than if I don’t believe in something then I’ll burn in Hell forever and ever? Sorry, but the Jews and Christian mystics all believe in reincarnation, and scientific studies are actually going on in that field, so it may not be all that far-fetched. Seems like you’re running away when someone confronts you by saying that God may be much bigger than you can possibly imagine.”

She started walking away at this point and I added, “And if faith in God means that I have to believe someone will be tortured without the hope of redemption — everlasting life in hopeless agony and fear — if they don’t believe like me, though they may be good people and peacemakers who make the world a better place for others, then that’s a God I don’t wish to worship, a heaven of which I don’t care to partake.”

At that point I turned to my dad, who asked me, “So you do believe in God?”

I answered “Yes,” then added. “However, I also understand that in order for me to truly believe I have to be able to understand. I understand that some of this will result in me not being able to logically understand, and I’m fine with that, since the logical part of the mind is only one part, and some things I can only understand via things like emotions — love, and empathy, for example. However, if I feel something at my gut is wrong, then how can I be asked to violate my ethics in order to believe something I find not only nonsensical, but also wrong, just so in the hope that one day I get into a heaven filled with people and a God I disagree with?”

“Just don’t doubt yourself,” he said.

“I won’t,” I answered. “But neither will I ever cease putting my beliefs up to scrutiny based on new observations or evidence. It’s here that I believe Mystics have it right: whenever something new comes into the picture, it’s not a matter of fighting it, but understanding it and seeing whether it’s simply another missing piece, something we’ll need from now on.”

“Of course,” I then added, “I might be entirely wrong. And I’m willing to accept that.”

Alright, so that didn’t work out as planned. If it had been planned. I really should start reading more modern poetry. (Although by now you may already be aware of how I feel about poetry.)

Anyway, so here it is: another episode of Le Linkage, and this one’s about all the wonderful stuff making its way into my RSS reader as of late. Some of it is thought provoking, some just fun to read, but most, I’m sure you’ll side with me, won’t make your eyeballs bleed. (There now, that’s better, though not by much.)

What If…: What if you could go back in time to change something about your life? I’m of the opinion that is not only useful when learning your lessons from past mistakes (especially the mistake of inaction). This post, however, puts a new twist to this question, one that makes you really ask “what if…?” (h/t A Rain of Frogs).

The Search for Meaning: When are people truly happy? Not after the fact of accomplishment, but in the act of the accomplishing. We are creators, and as such true happiness comes to us when we have a purpose, and when that purpose has a meaning. (Think of the word “meaningful”, what does it say to you? This gives us a clue as to the importance of meaning.) The lack of meaning brings desperation. The existence of a meaning brings with it faith and subsequently hope. (h/t Wurkit Books)

The Need to Understand Pop Culture: I’m not exactly what you’d call a “fan” of pop culture, yet the need to understand it has made itself apparent to me over the years. It hasn’t been an easy transition — I, like other social outcasts, thought it to be somehow beneath me — but it has been an enlightening one. What I find most perplexing now is how one person can deride and even ignore his own culture on one hand while on the other glorifying another which does the same, but in another language. (h/t Helpdesk Magazine)

Why Unsubscribe from a Blog: RSS is a wonderful thing. With one click you can get all of the content from a website you’ve just found delivered to you directly. Of course, the subscription part is easy, it’s the unsubscribing part that sometimes isn’t (depending on how much of a pack rat you are, I guess). What gets you to unsubscribe from a blog? Conversely, why would you really want to subscribe to one in the first place? As for me, I’m very picky about who I subscribe to, and most often won’t subscribe on a first visit. If I find I’ve visited your site multiple times, then I’ll put you on. This is because I have a strong pack rat instinct, which means that once your on my RSS reader you’ll probably not get off of it, unless I find your content boring in the long run (meaning for months), or your blog goes to bunk. (Lack of updates will NOT get me to unsubscribe.) (h/t Pelfism is Contagious)

Gender and Fan Studies: I’ve been around the anime/japanophile subculture for quite a bit, and one thing I’ve always found interesting is how almost predictably rigid the characteristics of people in that subculture are. I suppose these are but accented outgrowths of the culture in general, but I find they’re much easier to identify there than in other subcultures. The following is a set of essays in Professor Henry Jenkin’s blog studying just that: the role of gender in fan cultures. Very interesting read, especially to students of gender studies. The title link, by the way, is only the first post in the conversation. Here are the others: (1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 4, 4.5, 5, 5.5, 6, 6.5, 7) I’m sure there will be more, so keep an eye out. (h/t Confessions of an Aca/Fan — This, by the way, is one of my favorite blogs, and is a suitable supplement to the question asked by Helpdesk Magazine’s Michael Ono.)

Public Service Announcement on the 9Rules/Pokemon Quarantine: Alright, so the rest of this stuff is thought provoking, now for something more light hearted. This is one of the funniest posts I’ve read, and while it’s pretty much a “you had to be there” humor piece (specifically dealing with a Pokemon thread which garnered over 1300 replies in a forum where a “big” thread gets just over 50), it should be good for at least a smile. (h/t hthth)

Blogathon for Cancer Research: Fellow 9Ruler Kamigoroshi’s blogging for a good cause, and you can help! She’s looking for sponsors for a 24 hour blogathon. All proceeds go towards cancer research (and seeing as Kamigoroshi’s a cancer researcher, this is only fitting). The sponsorships don’t have to be much — maybe $10, or the price of a couple of frappuccinos at Starbucks — and every dime helps. Considering cancer rates are rising, doesn’t it make sense to help, since there’s a fairly good chance you’ll need the research in the future? Factoid: 0.8% of the total US population is diagnosed with cancer every year. Think about that. Now, go and donate.

(Edit) Why Barack Obama Scares Me: “What really scares me about Obama is that he quit smoking!… We don’t need a president who might nuke Mexico over a bad burrito because he’s having a nicotine fit.” (h/t Roblimo)

The God Delusion

In any case what follows is a BBC profile of Dr. Dawkins and an interview by Stephen Colbert. Enjoy.

BBC Profile: Richard Dawkins, parts 1, 2, and 3

Stephen Colbert Interviews Dawkins

Who doesn’t know the difference between right and wrong? Yet that essential knowledge, generally assumed to come from parental teaching or religious or legal instruction, could turn out to have a quite different origin… [P]eople are born with a moral grammar wired into their neural circuits by evolution… [T]he grammar generates instant moral judgments which, in part because of the quick decisions that must be made in life-or-death situations, are inaccessible to the conscious mind.

(The aricle, by the way, is titled An Evolutionary Theory of Right and Wrong, which is highly misleading. Namely, no successful predictions have been made yet using this set of ideas and as such it is still only a hypothesis.)

Recently I’ve been thinking about the logic of morality. In a recent Wired article, and atheist philosopher expressed concerns about the necessity of a god or some sort of theology in order to create moral guidance. While I disagree with him — I’m of the belief that morality can generally be come to via logical conclusion — to say that the subject is simple is an outright lie, and to say that it is difficult is a still major understatement.

Nevertheless, this article is rather interesting in that it points to another realm of morality: primordial, as opposed to logical or imposed.

“Highly intelligent people are mostly atheists,” [Dawkins] says. “Not a single member of either house of Congress admits to being an atheist. It just doesn’t add up. Either they’re stupid, or they’re lying” … Dawkins does not merely disagree with religious myths. He disagrees with tolerating them, with cooperating in their colonization of the brains of innocent tykes.

“How much do we regard children as being the property of their parents?” Dawkins asks. “It’s one thing to say people should be free to believe whatever they like, but should they be free to impose their beliefs on their children? Is there something to be said for society stepping in? What about bringing up children to believe manifest falsehoods?”

It’s nice to see atheists have militant nut-job fundies, too.

————- Bulletin Message ————-
From: Matt
Date: Oct 18, 2006 12:57 PM

Hi, boys and girls! I just had this funky fresh conversation with some dude who randomly sent me a message, trying to sell his book or something. He picked the wrong guy to send this message to, or the right one, depending on how you look at it. Cause, you know, I’m self-righteous and everything. But he couldn’t help it; apparently, he has no control over his own actions. Hmmmm…

Disclaimer: I don’t necessarily agree with everything I said to him. I tried to phrase everything in a way that would keep the conversation on track and provoke his thought process.

Enjoy!

————- Original Message ————-
From: OC Church
Date: Oct 17, 2006 5:36 PM

“Everything has already been decided. It was known long ago what each person would be. So there’s no use arguing with God about your destiny.” Ecclesiastes 6:10

Have you ever read Romans 9:11-24? It absolutely targets and refutes free-will.

But it comes down to the question, “Is there only one Creator?”

“The Lord has created all things for Himself, yea even the wicked for the day of evil.” Proverbs 16:4

Free-will is self-righteousness, the idea that there is some good in you apart from God.

Look on my blogs for more,

J

————- Original Message ————-
From: Matt
Date: Oct 17, 2006 3:35 PM

Of course Christianity refutes free-will. That’s part of what makes it the single most effective method of mass-manipulation in the history of the world. What better way to control people than to make them believe that they can’t control themselves?

————- Original Message ————-
From: OC Church
Date: Oct 17, 2006 7:44 PM

Actually, why manipulate anyone if you believe that only those to whom it is given will come to Christ? We just preach and God gives the increase.

If it were up to man’s will, I would be manipulating all day long. I would pray to free-will and not God for man to turn.

As it is, some will, some won’t, so what.

J

————- Original Message ————-
From: Matt
Date: Oct 17, 2006 5:08 PM

You misunderstand me. The believers are not the ones doing the manipulating. They’re the ones being manipulated.

————- Original Message ————-
From: OC Church
Date: Oct 17, 2006 8:39 PM

So who is doing the manipulating if believers are not the ones doing the manipulating?

Why were you born? Did you deserve to be born? Were you born by chance? Or was there a greater purpose that placed you here?

I prefer the third explanation. The first seems self centered, the second provides no meaning to the value of life. The third places God’s sovereignty above the will of man (your parents).

I would agree that Christians believe themselves manipulated by God because they believe themselves His creation. He has rights as God.

They also believe those who do not give God all the credit, self-righteous.

Are you saying that self-righteousness is good, vital and important to distinguish you from numb headed people? What makes you different, better? Must you be in control?

————- Original Message ————-
From: Matt
Date: Oct 18, 2006 6:12 AM

The manipulation is done by nonbelievers who use the religion to bend believers to their will.

Why was I born? Given those three choices, I’d say the explanation is a combination of the second and the third. I don’t think that they’re necessarily mutually exclusive.

But I don’t agree with your premise that having a greater purpose “places God’s sovereignty over the will of man”, or your premise that “those who do not give God all the credit” are “self-righteous”.

God has blessed us with free will. I do not think that I am different or better than anyone. I’m not ‘self’-righteous. We, all of us, are righteous beings. And we do have control, if we choose to use the gift that God has given us.

That’s what I mean when I say: “If you refuse to use the gift of free will, you choose to lose.”

————- Original Message ————-
From: OC Church
Date: Oct 18, 2006 10:57 AM

M,

If we are all righteous beings, then none of us can lose. a tree produces fruit after its kind. Righteous people are known by their fruit and so on. I have never seen an apple tree produce watermelons.

You say that “God has given” and this is where you begin with free-will. But somewhere in the mix, you have made an intellectual disconnect.

If all comes from God, including as you say, free-will, then all is dependent upon Him. i am not saying that we do not choose freely. But we choose out of what is already inside us at any given circumstance. We are creation. And who made us?

Somehow, you see yourself as higher than simply God’s creation. Because you are able to create your character, identity, and destiny apart from God through free-will. This gives ultimate glory to you, not to Him.

You are an unmoved mover and not God’s total creation. And yet, you look to God for this “gift” or “ability” He has given you. If He gave you this ability, does He also give inability? Or can you be omnipotent as He from this gift?

I believe that God by definition is absolute, the Source of all. This would include destiny, human goodness, and the will. The will is simply a manifestation of the heart’s condition. Who created your heart?

To say that you can do a little good apart from God is to say by definition that you are self-good, self-righteous. It’s ok if you feel this way, but don’t disconnect on apparent logic. “I’ll take it from here God” theology is self-righteous. It’s what you ultimately look to in order to distance yourself from losers or “those who lose.”

J

————- Original Message ————-
From: Matt
Date: Oct 18, 2006 8:37 AM

I said we are righteous beings; I did not say we are gods. I did not mean to imply that we are infallible. We all have our failures and our losses. This is because of our free will, the choices we are able to make.

You say that you are not denying that we choose freely. But that’s the definition of free will. If everything is predestined, if God pulls the strings and controls everything according to a predetermined plan: we’re not making choices at all. We merely have the illusion of such. I don’t believe that to be true.

I’m finding some of your language toward the second half of your message a little unclear, so forgive me if I misunderstand. You say that I think I’m something higher than simply God’s creation. That’s true. A rock is simply God’s creation. I believe that I’m higher than a rock. I possess the ability to think and to reason and to make choices. So do you. That’s what makes us righteous beings, because that is the way in which we are created in the image of God. Not with God’s physical appearance (God has no physical appearance), but with a taste of God’s righteousness.

You say that I claim “ultimate glory” for myself. Honestly, I’m tempted to dismiss that as Christian rhetoric. But I’ll just say that, yes, I pride myself on the decisions I make, and I thank God for the ability to make them.

I have no idea what you mean by the sentence: “you are an unmoved mover and not God’s total creation.” You can explain that to me if you want to. You ask if God gives ability, does He also give inability? Inability does not need to be given; it is innate. But, to reply to your next question, the gift of free will alone does not render us omnipotent.

“The will is simply a manifestation of the heart’s condition”? The heart is an organ that pumps blood through the body. If you’re referring to the soul, then I agree. The will is a manifestation of the soul. And the soul was created by God. So free will was given to us by God. Unless I misunderstand you, you’re agreeing with me.

You finish with the claim that my self-righteousness is what I “ultimately look to in order to distance yourself from losers or ‘those who lose.’” I already told you: I’m not trying to distance myself from anyone. We’re all righteous beings, and we all make some bad choices.

————- Original Message ————-
From: OC Church
Date: Oct 18, 2006 12:25 PM

M,

When I say that we chose freely…let me give an example…

Martin Luther was approached by a nun. And the woman said to him, “Dr. Luther, you are such a good man. It must break your heart when you sin.” Luther looked at her and said, “Woman, when I sin, I do it with all my heart.”

His point was that whether there was conflict or not, when he did sin, he was in forward motion all the way.

So, when we choose, we are not outwardly forced to do it. We do it with all our hearts. In this sense, we do it freely.

But who made us? Who made the soul?

You still go to God in your response for giving you all, especially free-will. And yet, you somehow disconnect when it comes to your destiny.

It is my belief that from the crown of your head to the soles of your feet, you are nothing more and nothing less than creation, made in His image, but made none the less.

Look down and you will most probably find a belly button. That should give you a hint that you came from something, all of you.

Now to all being righteous who make some mistakes: Was that what WWII was all about? Was Hitler a righteous being? How about the guys that flew that plane into the world trade center? Would you not want to distance yourself from them? Are you telling me that you could sit in a concentration camp watching the systematic death of the Jews and say, “I don’t want to distance myself from anyone.”?

Ultimately, I think you don’t really know what you believe. And that’s ok as long as you believe in yourself, kind of message.

The difference between you and I is that I don’t trust myself. I trust in Christ and believe in God’s absolute salvation through Him, to see me through.

This has been fun. And thanks for the banter.

(By the way, if you enjoyed this and you’re looking for a good read — or even if you didn’t enjoy this, but are looking for a good read — check out Matt’s latest novel, Nova. I recommend ordering 10 copies and giving 9 of them out as Diwali, Eid, Channukah, and/or Christmas gifts, or maybe giving them out to all those people who have birthdays in November. Get your copy today!)

Searching for Free Music with Google: Using this page, look for any artist or any song and with the help of a special a Google search query, this site may well just find it for you. Heck, I even found stuff by Sun Yan Zi, which is almost impossible to come by in this side of the world.

Strangest grammatically correct English sentence: Really, if you’re into grammar and the weirdness of the English language then you’ll love this short article on the strangest grammatically correct sentence in English. After reading that, I thought of my own: “Dogs dogs dog dog dogs dogs dog,” which translates to “Dogs other dogs chase, chase dogs other dogs chase.” Can you come up with others?

Drivers! Glorious Windows Drivers!: There’s nothing I hate more about software than having to find drivers. The problem is especially bad if you’re using Windows, since the OS is pretty much useless unless you have the drivers needed for it to work properly with your computer. (In Linux this isn’t much of a problem.) Anyway, if you’re stuck for drivers, this site may just have what you need.

Hope, Despair and Memory: An essay by Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel discusses why for him, hope without memory is like memory without hope. “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” This essay is especially powerful given recent world events.

Ubuntu System on a Memory Drive: The coolest thing about CD-based Linux distributions is the fact that you can have your Linux distro just about anywhere. The bad part is that with those distros, you really can’t save anything so you’re pretty much relegated to single session computing. Sure, you can set up printers, have programs load up at lightning speed, and even download stuff off the Web. But if you’re the type to tote your OS around on a CD for use in different places, you’re also probably the type that likes to customize his environment, and that’s where the problem is: one reboot and it’s all over. Well now, if you use Ubuntu, you can save your system settings (and other items) on a memory drive! Just plug this baby in and you have YOUR computer with YOUR stuff back, with just a CD and a memory card. How cool is that?!

Alan Watts MP3′s and Podcasts: If you enjoy eastern philosophy, but don’t have the time to read a bunch of texts, then the downloadable Alan Watts lessons are definitely for you. If you know who Watts is you’ll know the value of these recordings. If you’ve never heard of the guy, click on one of the links and find out a bit about him.

Online Game: Proximity: This game’s pretty simple: Place your pieces in such a way as to make most of the board yours. What gets complicated is the strategy involved in order to make it happen. Very addicting, fun game.

What if she died?

Out of nowhere, a random scenario played itself in my mind as vividly as if being watched in a theater. I was standing at the entrance to the living room and kitchen, just at the end of the little hallway that leads to the door to our apartment. As I stood there, I watched her collapse. She fainted. I thought she had just passed out, maybe due to not having eaten enough that day (she tends to do that), but as I tried to wake her, I noticed her heartbeat was shallow, and her breathing almost non-existent.

I tried again to wake her. She wouldn’t wake. I called 911.

At that moment, a was at the hospital, receiving the news that she had died. All light had left me. I didn’t cry; it was as if every emotion and every ounce of strength dissapated. I called my family, who was in absolute shock. I called her parents, and to her mom — who’s a nurse — I had to explain what happened.

After she died, I had no idea what to do. Pictures flooded my mind of spending a year doing nothing but going to the gym and reading, staying at my parents’ home, or going off to a far off, secluded place, where I could let what just happened sink in, where I could review my life. Would I take a vow of silence and go off into a monastery, or would I simply try to start another life somewhere else? Would I ever…? I don’t know.

As I thought about this, my knees buckled, and my stomach tightened. The 70-pounds I was doing tricept-curls with suddenly seemed like a million pounds, and my arms felt like broken violin strings. I put the weight down. I had the sudden urge to run home, to be with her.

Then I started to come back to my senses: I was at the gym. She was at home, sleeping safely. Everything was OK. I just needed to control the random fluctuations of my mind.

Later, as I drove home, a thought came to me: anguish comes from attachment. Whenever I would read Buddhist writings, I would read those words and apply them only to those material things, things like clothing, cars, and money, things to which we often assign way too much importance. Never did I think to apply that logic to people, least of all to her.

I guess that by losing her, I made the connection.

As I came to this realization, another thought struck me: if attachment leads to anguish, and detachment leads to the elimination of anguish, how does this apply to “success principles”? How does it affect the goal-oriented person? After all, do not all goals have emotional components to them? Components to which you attach yourself?

While I won’t yet venture to try and answer that question, the realization of importance here is that attachment leads to anguish, which inevitably leads to all manner of suffering, while detachment eliminates anguish (and therefore, suffering), and that the only thing we have to detach ourselves from is the idea that something is permanent.

All things shall pass. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.

This realization makes for one hell of a hard pill to swallow. No wonder people believe it takes many lifetimes to really understand this.

Tonight, as I look at her in bed, sleeping safely, I begin to realize that while I rest with the comfort of knowing that she’s fine, I paradoxically find the idea that one day it won’t matter of some comfort.

Not much. Just some.

(Afterthought: Actually, another paradox arises: what of the idea of an afterlife? Is that merely a stumbling block on the path to detachment, a way for us to feign detachment for this life while harboring it? If there isn’t rebirth, would believing that there is be an attachment, or would it be an item of attachment? To anyone who’s truly detached, I guess the answer is that it doesn’t matter — afterlife or no afterlife, all that matters is to be in the now — but I’m probably wrong, and maybe someone can help me out with that.)

Jesus is Not a Republican: An article by professor Randall Balmer which explains the history of the Republican/Evangelist Christian partnership from the perspective of a Bible-belt evangelist, as well as the dangers that such a partnership poses to both the Church and the political climate in general. Great read for anyone tired of the whole “You’re either a Republican or are going to Hell” crowd. Kierkegaard must be rolling in his grave.

Free Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science Video Lectures: I’ll be the first one to admit that although I may not have the brains for higher level mathematics and theoretical CS, I certainly don’t have the patience for them, at least not enough to pay for a college course in them. Still, finding free video lectures like these is always a treat. After all, although I may not be crazy about mathematics, I can’t deny the simple beauty found in an equation.

Family Guy: The Best of Stewie Griffin, Part 1: This is self explanatory. If you like Family Guy, this is a great find. If you don’t like Family Guy, this is still a great find, since it’ll allow you to see what everyone else finds so funny without having to waste half an hour of your life.

BetterHumans: For a while now, I’ve had a deep interest in the field of cryonics, the practice of cryopreserving humans or animas that can no longer be sustained by current medical technology for possible later revival in the future. This eventually led me to information on a number of new philosophical ideas, such as transhumanism (the idea that new sciences and technologies should be used to enhance human physical and cognitive abilities). This site covers news and information regarding that movement. (I’ll very likely be discussing this in the future on Gnorb.NET, especially after some recent posts I’ve read across some of my favorite blogs.)

That’s all I’ve got for now. More later (whenever that may be).

1. Take inventory of your worth.
If you had a friend who lost his legs in an accident, but got $10M for it, would you trade places with him? Probably not, so count that as part of your worth. Remember: Self worth has nothing to do with how much money you have.

2. Make sure your appearance is good.
Keep yourself well groomed, hygienically sound, and looking sharp. The quickest, cheapest way to increase your self image: dress sharper. Go out and invest in a couple of good quality dress shirts, polos (double mercerized cotton is great), dress pants/slacks and shoes. Looking good automatically boosts your self image because, hey, if you dress the part, how much harder is it to play it?

3. Read biographies and autobiographies of successful people.
I’ve been doing this for the past two months and it has totally turned my life around by changing almost entirely the way I look at things. (For an example, check out my synopsis on Richard Branson’s Losing My Virginity: Part I, Part II, and on collecting assets.)

4. Listen to speakers, preachers, and teachers who build mankind.
It’s tempting to eschew a teacher because he doesn’t hold the same beliefs at you. Still, more often than not, if you can overlook the parts you disagree with, you’ll often find that listening to these people is incredibly educational, uplifting and rewarding. Here’s an example: ever listen to Joel Osteen? Like his theology or not, you have to admit that he’s a great motivator and uplifter of people. Same for people like Robert Kiyosaki and Tony Robins.

5. Begin any goal with small, easy steps, then increase the difficulty.
Success begets success. When you see yourself succeeding in little things, it makes it easier to go to the next level and begin succeeding there.

6. Smile and complement others.
Build people up constantly. You’ll find that this works as a feedback loop, and as you uplift others, you yourself will be uplifted.

7. Do something for someone else wholeheartedly.
Expect nothing in return, ask for nothing in reward, and accept nothing in return. “It is better to give than to receive.”

8. Deliberately associate with uplifters and good-finders.
No one can long be positive associating with people who drag them down, so make an effort to find people who are positive and uplifting, people who go out of their way to find good in people. Clubs like the Toastmasters are a good way for anyone to start finding uplifters and good-finders in their area.

9. Remember all the good about you.
Make a list of all your positive qualities in a card. Carry that card with you and read it to yourself a few times a day. Brag about yourself to yourself. Be confident in who you are, without being arrogant.

10. Make a list of all the past victories in your life.
Again, success begets success. A lot of times we minimize what we’ve accomplished while maximizing what others have done. We compare our worst to their best. Think of the good you have done and the victories you’ve been part of.

11. Avoid adult programs, soap operas, and horoscopes.
You can’t continually see man at his worst and feel good about yourself.

12. Learn from successful failures.
See how often successful people failed before they succeeded. The only difference between you and someone who’s succeeded in the long term is that they’ve probably failed a lot more than you.

13. Join an organization with worthwhile goals that encourages public speaking.
One of the best, quickest, and most efficient ways to improve your self image and performance is to join an organization that has worthwhile goals and encourages public speaking.

14. Look at people in the eyes when you talk to them.
This is surprisingly one of the hardest things to do. When you look at people in the eye, they can see how honest you are and how proud you are of doing whatever it is you’re doing. If they can’t look at you in the eyes it’s because they usually have a low self esteem, normally because they feel (whether justly or not) that they have something to hide, something which is best not seen.

15. Earnestly and honestly work towards being physically fit.
It’s no secret that people who are physically fit, or are working towards that goal, have more stamina, are happier, and exude more confidence than those who are not fit and are not working towards that kind of goal. You may not be fit and may not be working towards that type of goal, but still be positive. How much more so will you be when you combine your naturally good disposition with the psychological and biological advantages offered by good health?

Edit: In retrospect, I should have probably added a 16th step: work. Whenever someone does something for you which you can do for yourself, your self esteem goes down a bit. Make a habit of having people do things for you which you can do for yourself and your self image will go down the drain. (Ever go to a welfare line and try to look at the eyes of people there? Most of the time, sadly, the thing you see the least of in their eyes is pride: most of them have attrociously low self images, and you will never earn more than your self image dictates you should.) Likewise, when someone gives you something which you can earn for yourself (gifts are an exception most of the time), they are inadvertantly denying you the chance to earn it. All of us, to a certain extent, tie the work we do and the things we accomplish to our self image, so a quick way to raise your self esteem is to work for what you want.

It should be noted that this has not been edited and much of it is “stream of consciousness” type of thought. As such, don’t expect a clean post. It’s not meant to be that. It’s mean to be a “this’ll get you thinking” post. Mostly, it’s a post to remind myself later of what I was thinking today because it’s a line of thought I wish to continue with in the future.

Thought: The only difference between god and man is the ways in which we can think.

Note: Throughout this post I’ll be using terms such as “god” and “man” in a different manner than most of us are accustumed. For our purposes, there are two types of “god”. The first is the status of “god”, someone or something whose thoughts transcend the capabilities of man, just like the thoughts of man transcend the capabilities of a computer, for example. This is to differetiate from the being of “God”, creator of the universe. “God” is an individual (again, for a lack of a better term, but for our purposes this will have to do) whereas “god” is a title, something that, like a “manager” or “CEO”, something or someone can grow or evolve into being. Again: “God” = particular being, “god” = title or state.

Have you ever thought that the reason you see the world the way you do, or have the thoughts you have, is largely due because of the construct of the words that you use? For example, in English “green” and “blue” are two separate words, two separate concepts. While they are both colors, each is a distict color, each with its own set of individual properties and applications. But what if instead, we used the same word for “blue” and “green” as part of our language. Would we really be able to tell the difference between blue and green, at least as sharply as we do now? Let’s say that word was “bleen”. We would refer to the sky as being “bleen” and plants as being “bleen”. The sky just happens to be a lighter shade of “bleen” than the grass, which is “earth bleen”, or “dark bleen”. Again, “sky bleen” and “earth bleen.”

Of course, that example again takes us to the path of two different colors, but as you can see, the lines between the color of trees and grass and the color of the sky is blurred slightly. Let’s continue with this example:

If you’ve ever been on an airplane, I’m sure you’ve noticed that the sky nearer to the horizon is a lighter blue than the sky straight above you. In fact, if you’re high enough, the sky above you gets close and closer to being black. So the shades go from “light” or “sky” blue, to dark blue.

Forllowing the “bleen” example, suppose that the color at the top of the sky wasn’t known as either “blue” or “black”. Suppose it was called “Ackue”. So what we now know as “black” would be “dark ackue” and what we see in the sky is “light ackue”. So in essence, the sky is not “blue”, the sky is two colors: bleen and ackue. As such, our kids, when they drawing the sky and earth in kindergarden, may paint the grass and lower part of the sky one color — basic “bleen” — and the top of the sky “ackue”

How would that affect the way we do things like paint or decorate our houses? How would that affect what colors we consider “fashionable” and what colors we don’t? And isn’t it interesting how the paradigm we set up for the language is now the paradigm we have for our thoughts about those items?

Let’s take another example: Suppose we didn’t have ten fingers. Suppose we had only one fingers. We couldn’t count from one to ten, at least not naturally. We would count to “one”, We would count “Zero, one…. many”. Of course, we would devise better methods than that. Eventually we would probably come up with binary. (Funny how a person with 10 fingers figured out binary.)

Now, suppose we used binary. In our current number system — based on ten numbers, because we have ten fingers — there are 10 numbers: 0 – 9. When we want to add another number, greater than 9 we add a “1″ to the ten’s place: “1″ and “0″; “1″ and “1″; “1″ and “2″. Eventually we started calling these “ten”, “eleven” and “twelve”, and we called that leading number as being in the “tens” place. Eventually we figured out how to deal with larger numbers: 23,000, 989,454,345 — and even parts of numbers: 834.12, 85,9023443, 1,4142136. We made up words like “tens” “hundreds” and “thousands” to show how many “tens” we had accumulated, or were accounting for.

In the binary system, we make that jump of leading numbers as soon as we hit “two”. 0 = zero. 1 = one. 10 = two. 11 = three. 100 = four. 101 = five. 110 = six… and so on. That leading character, in binary, is called the “twos” place. If there are three numbers shown (100, for example), that leading number is the four’s place, so that leading “1″ in “100″ represents the number “4″. 101″ would be “1 in the four’s place” plus “none in the two’s place” plus “1 in the 1′s place”, which is “5″.

(To clear it up, think about our number system: 475 is “a four in the hundred’s place” (meaning there are four-one hundreds) plus “seven in the tens place” (meaning there are seven-tens) plus “fife in the one’s place” (meaning there are 5), This gives us “Four-Hundred Seventy Five”)

If we all only had one finger, how would you pronounce “101″? Would you say “one-houndred one”? No. You’d say something like “six” or “six-oh-oh”. (On the bright side, this would probably cut down the number of bad sequels an initially successful fim could have.)

With all that in mind, let me ask, how do we know that we can even ever ask the right questions? Is there any way for us to move away from the paradigm we’ve set up for not only our language, but our species (biologically) and start thinking in other ways, tying things in ways unimaginable to us now?

It’s like music. Why was Mozart such a genius? We consider him so because he took the patterns set up before him by other composers and imbued his music so deeply with them that he, in essence, perfected classical music. Here’s what’s even more interesting; He never invented any sort of music. He never deviated from the rules set forth for that type of music. It took a deaf man, Beethoven, to break out of the classical mold and “create” the new “romantic” paradigm. Once that realization was made by others, people like Berlioz, Lizt, and Chopin began to stretch those forms as far as they could take them. It got to the point where people like Mahler would create these incredibly long lines of music, all within the romantic framework. Then, out of left field, came Charles Ives, who brought into the world of classical music a completely different paradigm. “Poly-melodic poly-tempo? What’s that?!”. After him we had Stravinsky and “The Rite of Spring”, Schoenberg and his “twelve-tone scale”, Lizt and Debussy with their “whole-tone scale” melodies. Then again, out of left field, after sufficient evolution, we had John Cage, who dared to say that one day we would be using non-musical sounds to make music. (He said this because he saw music not as a construct, but as blocks to build upon.) To this day, you trun on the radio and hear something by Bjork and — guess what? Cage was proven right. Most techno attests to his ideas.

And it’s all about building blocks. One cube block on top of another cube block on top of another cube block. We’re like children playing with building blocks. And we applaud ouselves and our “geniuses” for putting the blocks in arrangements we never thought about.

But it’s all cube blocks. Then we meet another culture and realize that they’ve been using dodecahedrons. Now, we’re building with blocks and dodecahedrons, and more complex methods are being developed, and we appalud ourselves for these accomplishments.

All the while, those who would be “gods” aren’t even building with blocks. They’re past that. They oversee us playing with blocks and think “how cute”, as they do other things and think in ways unimaginable to those of us playing with blocks.

And words. They’re the same thing. Frankly, it’s because of this that although I’m a writer, I hate languages. Languages limit what we allow ourselves to think.

I think in English. Somethimes I think in Spanish, and sometimes I even jump over to French. Most of the time, however, I think in thoughts, not words. But I can’t transfer thoughts. I can only transfer words. So, I clumsily figure out how to turn these thoughts into words and — well, you know the result. You know how hard it can be to get someone “in sync” with you.

Wouldn’t it be great if we never had to communicate with words? If we could instead communicate with thought? How incredibly great would the world be if that were the case?

There arises another question: what does the thinking? Where are thougths stored? And why did we, a collection of cells and minerals, start thinking of ourselves as one cohesive unit? —

We run on electricity. That much is known. Electricity powers our nerves with powers everything else. The question then arrises, what makes us “us”? Do we require our biological components in order to be us? I’m obviously not my arm or my legs. If those were cut off I’d still be me.

It is believed that we are our brain. And while it is our brain which “contains” the information which we collect throughout our lives, what about our electricity? Is our electricity also like our legs and arms? If you take it away, but preserve the brain, is the person still there? If you then run electricity back through that brain, does the person turn back on like some sort of Frankenstinian monster? (Hmm… “Monster?” Is that what we call it?) Or is the electricity that which makes our soul? When we “turn off”, what happens to that electricity? Does it merely dissepate into thin air? And can we only be us when that electricity and our biological brain are working together?

Can that electricity — for all intensive purpoises, the “chi” — garner consciousness? Is it conscious and can it be se apart from its central information storage and processing unit?

Can we ever really ask the right question, or will we be condemned to thinking only in the way which our limited biology dictates? Will we ever grow past our language and mental barriers and transcend thought?

And will doing so allow us to earn the status of “gods”? Or is a god born a god? It’s like asking if a sufficiently advanced enough machine can ever really ear the title of “man” (or “human”), or whether that’s relegated to a biological body and brain? Or to DNA? Or to those who are “born” as humans? Or to those who, as in Speilberg’s “AI” and Asimov’s “Bicentenial Man”, can “die” a human enough death? (This brings up the question of “is an immortal human still a human”, but that’s a subject for another time.