[Before you start reading, here's a neato disclaimer:
when i started writing this, i didn't know where i was gonna go with it.
for that reason, the begining and the end aren't really congruent. so bear with it. i apologize.]
cheating.
It starts in elementary school, when you break the rules of a friendly game of tag at recess.
pandemonium ensues as you try to justify your act to the other kids on the playground... "i didn't know! i slipped!"
but everyone knows you're just insecure, or your parents beat you, or something like that.
middle school:
you get the latest half-crappy pc game, and the second thing you do is head to gameFAQs to find cheat codes.
But you don't have friends, so you can't play any multiplayer CIV4 or anything... you just end up playing single player mode. And when you use cheats, all you end up doing is make the game not fun anymore.
Way to go, you just wasted $40 on a game that used to be awsome, until you made it boring.
As we progress onto highschool, this style of thinking gets sophisticated.
Bad at bio?
Tape the answers to the test onto the inside label of your waterbottle, so you can read them through the other side!
Predictable Spanish vocab quiz using your own lined paper?
Use an un-extended mechanical pencil tip to pre-etch the words into the paper, then come quiz time just trace 'em.
My mom was talking to another music teacher tody, whose son got suspended at Noble.
he called a classmate a "bad name".
what does he get?
-doesn't have to go to 5:30 AM hokey practice.
-gets to sit in a room and listen to his iPod and watch movies on a kid's laptop instead of going to class
-he can't go to lunch, so they deliver it to him, for free, dessert included.
the teacher of his class didn't report him; the kid he was mean to didn't report him; some random kid did.
Bottom line?
Make fun of people; they get you 3 days of government-funded awsome.
In The Matrix, Neo, Morpheus, and company have to beat the system of the Matrix to save the city Zion from the machines...
In highschool, kids are constantly skirting the rules to get what they want without punishment.
These are the kids who have that smug little "haha" face when they "win", and you just wanna deck 'em. yeah, those ones.
now, here's a shocker.
That style of thinking doesn't get you anywhere.
incredible, isn't it?
In Ecclesiastes 9:2 [NIV], Solomon says, "All share a common destiny- the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not."
[oddly enough, my NKJ bible doesn't have that entire sentence]
anyway, the point is this: everyone dies.
whether or not you believe the Bible is true, you can't deny that statement.
Bill Gates and I will both be dead; when we're both in the ground, he'll be no different to me. All his money, and all that he's done, have to stay here on Earth, remaining with those who are still alive.
Now.
How was that relevant?
here:
People "beat the system" on things like tests, games, curfew, you name it.
Why can't you apply that style of thinking apply to life as a whole?
Sure, after you graduate you can still beat the system. You can lie at work to get around boring meetings, scam people on ebay, the list goes on and on. But life!
You can't cheat Life.
Really, people have tried.
It can't be done.
No matter how much cheating you've done in life, you still die.
There is no elixir of life that makes you life forever.
Sure, you could be a centi-billionaire. That might get you REMEMBERED forever.
But a memory is only around as long as people are there to carry it on.
The cold, hard fact is that Life isn't a "system".
you can't beat it.
there's no loopholes.
no cheat codes.
you die.
Now, i'm sure you're sitting here, possibly angry with me.
You're thinking, "why did i just read all of that? it's common sense; everyone knows you can't not die."
Right!
of course you knew it.
Now think about it.
You can't beat life.
You have to play by the rules.
What are the rules?
simple.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.
Oh!
and, Love your neighbor as yourself.
see what i'm getting at?
of course you do, you're an educated american!
So what happens if you don't play by the rules?
well, simple.
you die.
And when you do play by the rules, you die...
and live forever.
In a nutshell:
You could cheat thoughout life... but that's dumb!
Because while "playing by the rules" won't get you unearned riches, long drug-enduced stupors, and such, it WILL get you eternal life.
Think about it.
One of these decisions makes sense.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Sunday, November 18, 2007
on sudden realization
mkay.
So theres this song by The Almost (which is the drummer from underoath). We listened to it at minicamp a bunch. It's titled, "dirty and left out"... and theres this one line that reads as such: "Jesus, Jesus... There's something about your name... Master, Savior, Jesus".
Listening to the song on my own after Saralena got me the cd, there was something powerful about that line.
Let's take a time warp to last Saturday.
The cross country team is on the way to northwestern Connecticut for the NEPSTA race. It's a 5 and a half hour bus ride... so we spend an entire day's worth of time in a bus to run for 20 minutes.
Irony aside, someone brought the 3rd Lord of the Rings movie. So we watched it.
During the movie, Gandalf rides with Pippen to Minas Tirith, the City of Kings.
For all of you who only watched the movies for Orlando, it's the big white city on the cliff where the final battle takes place.
For the past forever many years, there has been no king there; it has been ruled by a caretaker. That's unimportant to my point, but, i figured i'd bring more context in.
Anywho, the caretaker's son happened to be Boromir, who was the first and only person to die in the Fellowship (he died from like 30 orc arrows at the begining). Gandalf had been hoping that the caretaker didn't know that his son was dead. But, as he walked into the throneroom, it became quite clear. The caretaker was striken with mourning, and complete bitterness towards Gandalf.
Sensing his grief, and feeling that he was partially to blame, Pippen takes a knee to the caretaker and says, "I offer you my service, such as it is, in payment of this debt."
Ans so the caretaker takes him up on his offer, and he becomes a servant to the caretaker; he bound himself to this guy on his own free will.
Thence forth, he had to do whatever the caretaker wanted him to do. Which included singing while he ate.
Anyway, that's the scene i thought of when i heard the song.
We have made Jesus our master.
And in a literal, but not physical way, we have pledged to be his servants; to do what he asks.
If Pippen had decided to back out on his oath, he prolly would have been killed on the spot.
If we back out on our oath, Jesus waits for us to turn back to him.
But the point is, think about that scene. Picture yourself taking a knee to Jesus and pledging Him your loyal service.
Then realize how amazing he is, and that we've been given a mission to fulfill.
And remember that line, "There's something about your name..."
So theres this song by The Almost (which is the drummer from underoath). We listened to it at minicamp a bunch. It's titled, "dirty and left out"... and theres this one line that reads as such: "Jesus, Jesus... There's something about your name... Master, Savior, Jesus".
Listening to the song on my own after Saralena got me the cd, there was something powerful about that line.
Let's take a time warp to last Saturday.
The cross country team is on the way to northwestern Connecticut for the NEPSTA race. It's a 5 and a half hour bus ride... so we spend an entire day's worth of time in a bus to run for 20 minutes.
Irony aside, someone brought the 3rd Lord of the Rings movie. So we watched it.
During the movie, Gandalf rides with Pippen to Minas Tirith, the City of Kings.
For all of you who only watched the movies for Orlando, it's the big white city on the cliff where the final battle takes place.
For the past forever many years, there has been no king there; it has been ruled by a caretaker. That's unimportant to my point, but, i figured i'd bring more context in.
Anywho, the caretaker's son happened to be Boromir, who was the first and only person to die in the Fellowship (he died from like 30 orc arrows at the begining). Gandalf had been hoping that the caretaker didn't know that his son was dead. But, as he walked into the throneroom, it became quite clear. The caretaker was striken with mourning, and complete bitterness towards Gandalf.
Sensing his grief, and feeling that he was partially to blame, Pippen takes a knee to the caretaker and says, "I offer you my service, such as it is, in payment of this debt."
Ans so the caretaker takes him up on his offer, and he becomes a servant to the caretaker; he bound himself to this guy on his own free will.
Thence forth, he had to do whatever the caretaker wanted him to do. Which included singing while he ate.
Anyway, that's the scene i thought of when i heard the song.
We have made Jesus our master.
And in a literal, but not physical way, we have pledged to be his servants; to do what he asks.
If Pippen had decided to back out on his oath, he prolly would have been killed on the spot.
If we back out on our oath, Jesus waits for us to turn back to him.
But the point is, think about that scene. Picture yourself taking a knee to Jesus and pledging Him your loyal service.
Then realize how amazing he is, and that we've been given a mission to fulfill.
And remember that line, "There's something about your name..."
Monday, July 23, 2007
On Harry Potter
J.K.Rowling has created a phenomenon.
She has opened the doors to the industry of making little plastic figurines of book characters.
Even Disney made Halloween Town after harry potter.
Whether it is through her creative writing style, character formulation, or the fact that we've spent too much time reading 6 books already to stop before its over, she has made sure that anyone who reads her books will feel a very real connection to them.
I just started reading the last harry potter book a few weeks ago, cause i never read it.
number 6.
my grandma bought me the last one on preorder and it arrived friday i think.
i read the last page.
cheeky.
Ive been reading the book a little at a time, at night, before bed, before reading my bible. [as awkward as that looks right now...]
anyway, i just closed the book when Dumbledoor gets killed by Snape.
I wanted to punch something.
How could harry be stuck immobilized while he watched his greatest hero die?
I wanted to fly to britain and throttle Rowling for being so cruel to her readers.
Then i calmed down again.
I thought about how difficult it would be for Harry to find the Horcruxes on his own.
I thought about how Dumbledoor was one of the most powerful wizards alive.
I thought about how all of his experience and knowledge of old magic and memories and stuff were lost forever.
Then i came to my senses.
I brushed my teeth.
I looked at the mirror in disbelief.
J.K.Rowling has conceived a story that has drawn people like me into it, to relate to her characters. She has created an ultimate battle between good and evil.
She has made a 7-book, prolly around 5,000 page epic documenting the struggle.
And most convenient for my purposes right now...
she set it all in present times.
HAH!
and you all thought this was about Harry Potter!
...anyway.
Rowling made a book.
She took Evil, or perhaps "Dark Arts", and personified them as Lord Voldemort.
Then she immersed society in them, to the point where people's emotions are rocked by events in her book.
wait.
J.K.Rowling has more money than the Queen of England.
We spend billions of our money for her books, the movies, and the clever marketing of rubberized plastic actions figures.
Daniel Radcliffe now does shirtless modeling shots.
Many lives have been affected by her books.
let me clarify:
We spend billions of dollars supporting a FICTIONAL book written by some lady originally on napkins on a train.
FICTIONAL.
NOT REAL.
STORY.
BOOK.
LORD VOLDEMORT.
DOES ANYONE REALIZE THAT WE HAVE OUR OWN, V E R Y R E A L BATTLE OF GOOD AND EVIL SURFACING, IN OUR OWN, V E R Y R E A L REALITY?
jeeze people.
stop buying books.
start sending money to missionaries, to Speed the Light, to your Church...
start getting people saved, start using your resources for REALITY instead of a memorizing fantasy that's eating up your time and money.
Use your time for God, use your money for God, and realize that the Devil is a much bigger opponent than Tom Riddle.
And then go find those Horcruxes.
She has opened the doors to the industry of making little plastic figurines of book characters.
Even Disney made Halloween Town after harry potter.
Whether it is through her creative writing style, character formulation, or the fact that we've spent too much time reading 6 books already to stop before its over, she has made sure that anyone who reads her books will feel a very real connection to them.
I just started reading the last harry potter book a few weeks ago, cause i never read it.
number 6.
my grandma bought me the last one on preorder and it arrived friday i think.
i read the last page.
cheeky.
Ive been reading the book a little at a time, at night, before bed, before reading my bible. [as awkward as that looks right now...]
anyway, i just closed the book when Dumbledoor gets killed by Snape.
I wanted to punch something.
How could harry be stuck immobilized while he watched his greatest hero die?
I wanted to fly to britain and throttle Rowling for being so cruel to her readers.
Then i calmed down again.
I thought about how difficult it would be for Harry to find the Horcruxes on his own.
I thought about how Dumbledoor was one of the most powerful wizards alive.
I thought about how all of his experience and knowledge of old magic and memories and stuff were lost forever.
Then i came to my senses.
I brushed my teeth.
I looked at the mirror in disbelief.
J.K.Rowling has conceived a story that has drawn people like me into it, to relate to her characters. She has created an ultimate battle between good and evil.
She has made a 7-book, prolly around 5,000 page epic documenting the struggle.
And most convenient for my purposes right now...
she set it all in present times.
HAH!
and you all thought this was about Harry Potter!
...anyway.
Rowling made a book.
She took Evil, or perhaps "Dark Arts", and personified them as Lord Voldemort.
Then she immersed society in them, to the point where people's emotions are rocked by events in her book.
wait.
J.K.Rowling has more money than the Queen of England.
We spend billions of our money for her books, the movies, and the clever marketing of rubberized plastic actions figures.
Daniel Radcliffe now does shirtless modeling shots.
Many lives have been affected by her books.
let me clarify:
We spend billions of dollars supporting a FICTIONAL book written by some lady originally on napkins on a train.
FICTIONAL.
NOT REAL.
STORY.
BOOK.
LORD VOLDEMORT.
DOES ANYONE REALIZE THAT WE HAVE OUR OWN, V E R Y R E A L BATTLE OF GOOD AND EVIL SURFACING, IN OUR OWN, V E R Y R E A L REALITY?
jeeze people.
stop buying books.
start sending money to missionaries, to Speed the Light, to your Church...
start getting people saved, start using your resources for REALITY instead of a memorizing fantasy that's eating up your time and money.
Use your time for God, use your money for God, and realize that the Devil is a much bigger opponent than Tom Riddle.
And then go find those Horcruxes.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
on dependance
i totally forgot to write this blog when i originally thought to, around monday.
but anyway...
Last sunday at DEC the worship leader, Chris Clough (who by the way is pretty awesome... just like every other chris i know) had the whole church do this thing.
In front of every seat there was a little piece of paper that said, "Depend on Me" on it.
He told everyone to take it and whatever's troubling you, or whatever you have uncertainty about, fears, doubts, etc, and write it on the back of the paper.
Then we folded them so we could read the "depend on me" part.
The point of the exercise was to remind us that no matter what the problem is, no matter what's bothering you or going on in your life, no matter how big or small, we can all Depend on God for it.
This is the guy that created the universe, and set into motion each of our lives, knows how its gonna end, and could tell you everything you've ever done-- the least we can do is trust Him with our petty problems. If you live for God and trust that he'll take care of you, you dont have to worry about much of anything... "let the world worry about the world" and such.
food for thought.
but anyway...
Last sunday at DEC the worship leader, Chris Clough (who by the way is pretty awesome... just like every other chris i know) had the whole church do this thing.
In front of every seat there was a little piece of paper that said, "Depend on Me" on it.
He told everyone to take it and whatever's troubling you, or whatever you have uncertainty about, fears, doubts, etc, and write it on the back of the paper.
Then we folded them so we could read the "depend on me" part.
The point of the exercise was to remind us that no matter what the problem is, no matter what's bothering you or going on in your life, no matter how big or small, we can all Depend on God for it.
This is the guy that created the universe, and set into motion each of our lives, knows how its gonna end, and could tell you everything you've ever done-- the least we can do is trust Him with our petty problems. If you live for God and trust that he'll take care of you, you dont have to worry about much of anything... "let the world worry about the world" and such.
food for thought.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
sunburn
we all got sunburns at the uturn carwash on saturday.
mine is especially bad on the left side of my neck, because i stood with my left to the sun for about an hour holding a sign.
this is mostly bad because it's exactly where my bass strap rubs against my neck, on top of a bug bite in the same spot, so it better heal fast or im gonna be miserable during the launch party.
anyway, yeah. sunburns.
they're always a bummer:
you go out in the sun, overestimate your sunscreen (or your manliness), and you end up burnt.
but wait.
just a liiiiiiiittle less sun and you would have had a nice tan, right?
everyone loves getting tan, except people like stephen hawkings who is like allergic to it or something.
tans: they make you look better, they make you think your skin is healthier, they make you look like you dont
spend all your time indoors, basically, they're good.
but burns are bad.
its interesting how the same thing (the sun) can both tan, and burn. good and bad.
okay, now you're thinking, "he's either retarded, or is trying to go somewhere with this.".
well, yes, and yes.
when you get a really bad sunburn, your skin starts to peel.
especially noses for some reason.
your nose always peels, and every time you brush against it you end up with little pieces of skin all over your hand or something, and you think to yourself, "man, im so ugly."
then the best part: when your skin peels all off, you're left with a nice layer of white, new, fresh skin underneath.
emphasis of new and fresh.
im gonna do a stretch here and try to link the sun with pressure, trials, struggles, adversities, and lame-o team-building activities commonly found at ropes courses.
if you get enough pressure/adversities to get outside your comfort zone [think: going outside], you grow. [you get a tan]
but if you get too much crap piled on top of you, you burn. when that happens, too often we think, "ow", and put on that nasty smelling moisturizing lotion that mom's had in the closet for 15 years. then we go back out into the sun and get more burned.
but i think sometimes, you have to just let it peel.
let the new skin come out, put on more sunscreen, and face your adversities with a new wind/vigor/perspective/outlook/motivational catchphrase.
and i think that's what im gonna try to do.
mine is especially bad on the left side of my neck, because i stood with my left to the sun for about an hour holding a sign.
this is mostly bad because it's exactly where my bass strap rubs against my neck, on top of a bug bite in the same spot, so it better heal fast or im gonna be miserable during the launch party.
anyway, yeah. sunburns.
they're always a bummer:
you go out in the sun, overestimate your sunscreen (or your manliness), and you end up burnt.
but wait.
just a liiiiiiiittle less sun and you would have had a nice tan, right?
everyone loves getting tan, except people like stephen hawkings who is like allergic to it or something.
tans: they make you look better, they make you think your skin is healthier, they make you look like you dont
spend all your time indoors, basically, they're good.
but burns are bad.
its interesting how the same thing (the sun) can both tan, and burn. good and bad.
okay, now you're thinking, "he's either retarded, or is trying to go somewhere with this.".
well, yes, and yes.
when you get a really bad sunburn, your skin starts to peel.
especially noses for some reason.
your nose always peels, and every time you brush against it you end up with little pieces of skin all over your hand or something, and you think to yourself, "man, im so ugly."
then the best part: when your skin peels all off, you're left with a nice layer of white, new, fresh skin underneath.
emphasis of new and fresh.
im gonna do a stretch here and try to link the sun with pressure, trials, struggles, adversities, and lame-o team-building activities commonly found at ropes courses.
if you get enough pressure/adversities to get outside your comfort zone [think: going outside], you grow. [you get a tan]
but if you get too much crap piled on top of you, you burn. when that happens, too often we think, "ow", and put on that nasty smelling moisturizing lotion that mom's had in the closet for 15 years. then we go back out into the sun and get more burned.
but i think sometimes, you have to just let it peel.
let the new skin come out, put on more sunscreen, and face your adversities with a new wind/vigor/perspective/outlook/motivational catchphrase.
and i think that's what im gonna try to do.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
on highschool
i was reading one of those lame bulletin stories that people repost all the time.
It was supposed to be this cute love-story type thing, except it was full of idiot spelling mistakes and generally lacked any style at all. reading it was a pain to the eyes.
But anyway, it talked about this highschool guy who was on the football team, and was dying of cancer.
Right before he died, he was allowed to play in the championship football game for his school and they won and blah blah, his last words were the following:
"I told you this was my dream to win the championship.. to be in the big game.. to die on this feild.. I made history."
now... obviously this isn't real.
but, i want to point something out to you.
this character's seemingly SOLE dream was to win the championship. not only that, but he thought he made history.
IDIOT.
the sad part about this story?
it reflects on that SO MANY teenagers dont know what they should be living for.
Recall Napoleon Dynamite, and Napoleon's uncle.
yeah, the dude that kept video taping himself throwing a football and getting hurt.
he talked about how if they hadn't blown their -highschool football championship-, he would have been pro or something.
now, direct yourself to your nearest yearbook.
sometimes, i hear people (girls, they're always girls) talk about Prom.
They talk about how it was such an amazing night, how they'll remember it for the rest of their lives, blah blah blah, "i felt like a princess"... and most of you people went to/will go to prom with someone who wont end up your husband or wife.
and want to know something else?
PROM ISN'T THE GREATEST NIGHT OF YOUR LIFE.
in fact, it will be/was probably among the most lame.
why do we in america put so much emphasis on highschool, what we do in highschool, dances in highschool, highschool sports, and prom?
it's totally ridiculous.
Face it. the 4 years we spend in highschool shouldn't have THAT a dramatic impact on your life for the next 25 years.
Sure, we should make good memories, grow as much as we can, and learn everything we need to, but come on!
One day, you'll have a career, which will occupy most of your time.
Your highschool friends begin to fade away the very moment you set foot on a college campus.
sports teams really shouldn't mean anything to you after you graduate. Sure, we can be fans of our city's highschool sports, but why would you spend the rest of your life thinking about how well you could have done? its over. get used to it.
i dont know, it just bugs me that american youth spends so much effort turning highschool into what they think will be the most fun years of their lives.
It was supposed to be this cute love-story type thing, except it was full of idiot spelling mistakes and generally lacked any style at all. reading it was a pain to the eyes.
But anyway, it talked about this highschool guy who was on the football team, and was dying of cancer.
Right before he died, he was allowed to play in the championship football game for his school and they won and blah blah, his last words were the following:
"I told you this was my dream to win the championship.. to be in the big game.. to die on this feild.. I made history."
now... obviously this isn't real.
but, i want to point something out to you.
this character's seemingly SOLE dream was to win the championship. not only that, but he thought he made history.
IDIOT.
the sad part about this story?
it reflects on that SO MANY teenagers dont know what they should be living for.
Recall Napoleon Dynamite, and Napoleon's uncle.
yeah, the dude that kept video taping himself throwing a football and getting hurt.
he talked about how if they hadn't blown their -highschool football championship-, he would have been pro or something.
now, direct yourself to your nearest yearbook.
sometimes, i hear people (girls, they're always girls) talk about Prom.
They talk about how it was such an amazing night, how they'll remember it for the rest of their lives, blah blah blah, "i felt like a princess"... and most of you people went to/will go to prom with someone who wont end up your husband or wife.
and want to know something else?
PROM ISN'T THE GREATEST NIGHT OF YOUR LIFE.
in fact, it will be/was probably among the most lame.
why do we in america put so much emphasis on highschool, what we do in highschool, dances in highschool, highschool sports, and prom?
it's totally ridiculous.
Face it. the 4 years we spend in highschool shouldn't have THAT a dramatic impact on your life for the next 25 years.
Sure, we should make good memories, grow as much as we can, and learn everything we need to, but come on!
One day, you'll have a career, which will occupy most of your time.
Your highschool friends begin to fade away the very moment you set foot on a college campus.
sports teams really shouldn't mean anything to you after you graduate. Sure, we can be fans of our city's highschool sports, but why would you spend the rest of your life thinking about how well you could have done? its over. get used to it.
i dont know, it just bugs me that american youth spends so much effort turning highschool into what they think will be the most fun years of their lives.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
my dog doesn't sit down to take a dump.
Evolution says that traits that help a species survive are the ones that are kept, and thus are the ones that contribute to evolution.
When my dog goes outside and needs to take a dump, he doesn't find a nice comfy place in some bushes and make sure he has enough privacy.
Instead, he finds a patch of ground, does a weird little squat thing, and starts pumping chunks of poo out his bum, while walking around.
Now. My dog is a domesticated animal.
He doesn't have to worry about predators coming and killing him and eating his babies.
But wild animals... they do.
They always talk about those human things that weren't humans, but weren't apes, like Neandrathols or whatever.
They were supposedly hairy short people things that walked on two legs.
I'm sure they had predators, just like animals do. Them cheetahs and lions and 3-toed sloths can do some major damage.
Did "early humans" have to sit down to take a dump?
Cause im pretty sure that if i was a Puma, and i wanted a tasty Prehistoric People Dinner, i'd go after 'em while they were on the can.
Even if they didn't have porcelain back then, they could have dug holes in the ground next to a tree or something.
And what about girls peeing sitting down?
They must have been easy targets at the dawn of human civilization.
It just doesn't make sense that we'd win the "survival of the fittest" thing with having to sit down to poop.
i dunno man.
When my dog goes outside and needs to take a dump, he doesn't find a nice comfy place in some bushes and make sure he has enough privacy.
Instead, he finds a patch of ground, does a weird little squat thing, and starts pumping chunks of poo out his bum, while walking around.
Now. My dog is a domesticated animal.
He doesn't have to worry about predators coming and killing him and eating his babies.
But wild animals... they do.
They always talk about those human things that weren't humans, but weren't apes, like Neandrathols or whatever.
They were supposedly hairy short people things that walked on two legs.
I'm sure they had predators, just like animals do. Them cheetahs and lions and 3-toed sloths can do some major damage.
Did "early humans" have to sit down to take a dump?
Cause im pretty sure that if i was a Puma, and i wanted a tasty Prehistoric People Dinner, i'd go after 'em while they were on the can.
Even if they didn't have porcelain back then, they could have dug holes in the ground next to a tree or something.
And what about girls peeing sitting down?
They must have been easy targets at the dawn of human civilization.
It just doesn't make sense that we'd win the "survival of the fittest" thing with having to sit down to poop.
i dunno man.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
hark! you make me sick.
The Bible is a wonderful book.
Today, i would like to point you all to John 15:18-19. I'll be quoting in NIV.
[Jesus Speaking]"If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but i have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you."
Now, i know that theres a million different ways to interperate passages from the bible, and for each of those theres another denomination. But what i get out of this is that it should be a wakeup call. Does the world hate you?
If it doesn't, should it?
Teenagers have a really bad problem of always needing to fit in; We're not just an age group in America, but America's teenagers function under a Mob Mentality. That is to say, teenagers work as a collective.
You see things like myspace--almost every teenager in america has one. Fasion, popular words or phrases, whether or not its cool to call someone a fag-- thats all decided by the group.
When one idea starts in a highschool in San Fransisco, it spreads in a matter of weeks all the way here to New England.
So naturally, we have a need to fit in.
In my mind, what Jesus is telling us, is that we cant fit in.
A christian teenager who spends all his time trying to fit in, is going to have to shirk the responsibilities of following Christ at some point.
Sure, we can be cool. People should look at you, and think, "woah, that kids differemt."
What's that great verse thats in the MuteMath song?
oh yeah. Peculiar People.
Different.
So dont fit in.
Dont think you have to do all the crap your friends are doing.
Go against the grain.
And stop making me sick.
Today, i would like to point you all to John 15:18-19. I'll be quoting in NIV.
[Jesus Speaking]"If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but i have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you."
Now, i know that theres a million different ways to interperate passages from the bible, and for each of those theres another denomination. But what i get out of this is that it should be a wakeup call. Does the world hate you?
If it doesn't, should it?
Teenagers have a really bad problem of always needing to fit in; We're not just an age group in America, but America's teenagers function under a Mob Mentality. That is to say, teenagers work as a collective.
You see things like myspace--almost every teenager in america has one. Fasion, popular words or phrases, whether or not its cool to call someone a fag-- thats all decided by the group.
When one idea starts in a highschool in San Fransisco, it spreads in a matter of weeks all the way here to New England.
So naturally, we have a need to fit in.
In my mind, what Jesus is telling us, is that we cant fit in.
A christian teenager who spends all his time trying to fit in, is going to have to shirk the responsibilities of following Christ at some point.
Sure, we can be cool. People should look at you, and think, "woah, that kids differemt."
What's that great verse thats in the MuteMath song?
oh yeah. Peculiar People.
Different.
So dont fit in.
Dont think you have to do all the crap your friends are doing.
Go against the grain.
And stop making me sick.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
on modern science
Thesis Statement:
Modern practices of science have taught humanity that it's okay to be ignorant, as long as you can justify it.
Science. Since the renneisance, Science has been about using a combination of deductive and inductive reasoning to arrive at new conclusions, new ideas, and new ways to do things.
Now, what's wrong with this, you say?
nothing, of course. We're advancing society and the human race through logical thinking.
So i was at school today, and we were talking about the differences between agnostics and atheists. We decided that an Agnostic person doesn't believe in God, but will let you prove it to you.
One of my favorite teachers ever said, "i'm an atheist. you can prove God to me, but i'll still know you're wrong."
the topic devolved into how "God cant exist because God is supposed to be compassionate, but he lets all sorts of people die all the time, and since i would help those people if i were God, it makes me better than him, therefore he cant exist. And dont even start with that original sin crap."
People rag on Christians all the time because, probably out of the fact that we know we're right and have a passion for spreading the Gospel, we're always trying to get people to believe what we do. They call us ignorant.
But by that very statement about being more compassionate than God, you might as well take a tattooist's pen and tattoo "Ignorant" on your forehead permanently.
Or if you're a three stooges fan, you might even opt to go for "Ignoramus".
You see, Mr. Knight, you basically just told me that you know nothing about God, the bible, or christianity as a whole. You really just know that you dont like what I believe, even though you dont know what it is.
We've gotten rid of God through science with PERFECTLY logical statements like that. "god cant exist because blah blah". And it makes sense, yeah.
But if you think about it, it PROVES that the one true God isn't anything that a human could have made up; everything humans do is logical. We only do something if it makes sense to us.
If a human had made up God, He would have made more sense, like the Greek gods, who behaved exactly like humans do, just with mythical powers.
at the same time, God makes perfect sense.
Why are people all over the world dieing?
its not God's fault, obviously. God is faultless.
If we go back to the fact that humans brought the entire world's pain and suffering on ourselves, and knowingly disobeyed God, what's his motive to save us anyway?
We screwed up. He isn't obligated to rescue us from our messes.
Yet he showed compassion by sending his son, his SON, to us, let us kill him, and through that we're saved from an eternaty of suffering.
logical?
no.
compassionate?
absolutely!!
You say you would get rid of all the suffering in the world?
Scenario: A man walks into Wal-Mart with a loaded AK-47, yells at everyone to get down, and then shoots everything he sees.
Suffering? Of course. People would die.
How would you prevent this, if you were God?
To me, what would make the most sense would be to make the crazy guy with the gun not so crazy.
how do you do this?
hmmm....
how about you show the ultimate sign of compassion by sending your son to die for the mr. assault rifle in everyone, and if we're smart enough to figure it out, we can accept reality, ask for forgiveness, and then realize how easy it is to not shell out a few grand on military surpluss weapons.
You cant apply the same rules of deductive reasoning from science to God.
when you can come up with proof that he doesn't exist, without any of your lame logic holes, i'll believe you. maybe.
i'll probably come back to this later after i realize how incoherant it is.
Modern practices of science have taught humanity that it's okay to be ignorant, as long as you can justify it.
Science. Since the renneisance, Science has been about using a combination of deductive and inductive reasoning to arrive at new conclusions, new ideas, and new ways to do things.
Now, what's wrong with this, you say?
nothing, of course. We're advancing society and the human race through logical thinking.
So i was at school today, and we were talking about the differences between agnostics and atheists. We decided that an Agnostic person doesn't believe in God, but will let you prove it to you.
One of my favorite teachers ever said, "i'm an atheist. you can prove God to me, but i'll still know you're wrong."
the topic devolved into how "God cant exist because God is supposed to be compassionate, but he lets all sorts of people die all the time, and since i would help those people if i were God, it makes me better than him, therefore he cant exist. And dont even start with that original sin crap."
People rag on Christians all the time because, probably out of the fact that we know we're right and have a passion for spreading the Gospel, we're always trying to get people to believe what we do. They call us ignorant.
But by that very statement about being more compassionate than God, you might as well take a tattooist's pen and tattoo "Ignorant" on your forehead permanently.
Or if you're a three stooges fan, you might even opt to go for "Ignoramus".
You see, Mr. Knight, you basically just told me that you know nothing about God, the bible, or christianity as a whole. You really just know that you dont like what I believe, even though you dont know what it is.
We've gotten rid of God through science with PERFECTLY logical statements like that. "god cant exist because blah blah". And it makes sense, yeah.
But if you think about it, it PROVES that the one true God isn't anything that a human could have made up; everything humans do is logical. We only do something if it makes sense to us.
If a human had made up God, He would have made more sense, like the Greek gods, who behaved exactly like humans do, just with mythical powers.
at the same time, God makes perfect sense.
Why are people all over the world dieing?
its not God's fault, obviously. God is faultless.
If we go back to the fact that humans brought the entire world's pain and suffering on ourselves, and knowingly disobeyed God, what's his motive to save us anyway?
We screwed up. He isn't obligated to rescue us from our messes.
Yet he showed compassion by sending his son, his SON, to us, let us kill him, and through that we're saved from an eternaty of suffering.
logical?
no.
compassionate?
absolutely!!
You say you would get rid of all the suffering in the world?
Scenario: A man walks into Wal-Mart with a loaded AK-47, yells at everyone to get down, and then shoots everything he sees.
Suffering? Of course. People would die.
How would you prevent this, if you were God?
To me, what would make the most sense would be to make the crazy guy with the gun not so crazy.
how do you do this?
hmmm....
how about you show the ultimate sign of compassion by sending your son to die for the mr. assault rifle in everyone, and if we're smart enough to figure it out, we can accept reality, ask for forgiveness, and then realize how easy it is to not shell out a few grand on military surpluss weapons.
You cant apply the same rules of deductive reasoning from science to God.
when you can come up with proof that he doesn't exist, without any of your lame logic holes, i'll believe you. maybe.
i'll probably come back to this later after i realize how incoherant it is.
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
on pharmecuticals
one of those "hot topics" in the world these days is pharmecuticals. and i have absoutely no idea if i spelled that correctly.
but in my latest sudden urge to write a blog, i'm going to throw my own ideas on the table.
First of all, ask any left wing politician or the latest scientists, and they'll tell you straight up that modern medicine is the best its ever been, and that we're saving millions of lives through advanced knowledge of diseases and better treatment options.
my take: this is a complete load of crap.
while we certainly appear to be able to treat ailments better than ever before, it is by no means the result of better understanding of anything. Truth be told, we're just throwing so much money at the problem, that we can afford more trial-and-error than ever before, so we are able to get it right easier.
lets look at one of the most popular anti-depressant drugs in history: Prozac.
This stuff's main ingreadient is this junk called Fluxotine. It's been around since the '80s, and it's company, Eli Lilly, claims that it's helped over 50 million people.
Before i continue, allow me to give my own testimonial of the drug.
last year, this creepy phyciatrist guy put me on prozac. Not because i was depressed, he just seemed to think it would help me somehow. err...
okay... so we get it, and i start taking the stuff. a few weeks in, and, nothing's happened. so he doubles my dosage.
woo.
i was on this stuff from around may until the end of july. and it didn't do anything. i stopped taking it, and wow, i didn't notice any change.
now we go back to why he perscribed it, and the answer is....... for no reason whatsoever. Doctors perscribe stuff like prozac as if it's a "cure-all", not just for depression patients, but also for anorexia and such.
there have been countless "cure-all" drugs on the market before. Take, for example, COCAIN. Sigmund Froyd got himself addicted to it during the height of it's LEGAL popularity in the 20's. It helped everything from anorexia, depression, stomach aches, you name it. The only problem is that once you got addicted it it, obvously, you were stuck on it. and it got pricey after a while.
Of course, people finally figured this out, and it became illigal.
good.
now, back to prozac.
I'm not saying it's dangerous like coke is, but, its idiotic to treat anything like a cure-all drug.
Let's switch gears.
direct your attention to http://www.prozac.com/how_prozac/how_it_works.jsp?reqNavId=2.2
this is Prozac's official page on "how it works".
take note of how many times they use words such as "appear", "seems", and "may". just by reading their very official sounding language, you get the impression that WE DONT KNOW HOW IT WORKS. and no, we dont.
we just know that it seems to increase serritonin levels, and through testing, we know that an imbalance of serritonin seems to be a cause of depression.
and of course, treating serritonin imbalances doesn't actually cure depression, it just makes the symptoms go away.
HELLO?!
we're not making millions of people actually BETTER, we're just treating their symptoms.
King C. Gillette, guy who invented Gillette razors, had an ingenious buisiness strategy that revolved around William Painter's Crown Cork bottle cap with the idea that a Successful Invention is one that has to be purchased over and over again.
over and over again, does that remind you of all them brown translucent medicine bottles?
The pharmecutical industry is enourmous, and they get you hooked on drugs that, even though they've been through hundreds of animal and human tests, we dont even know why or how they work.
and they get you to buy them month after month!
to all you left-wing, "i have FAITH in modern medicine!!" idiots: Go Die in a Hole.
the end.
goodbye.
wit, out!
but in my latest sudden urge to write a blog, i'm going to throw my own ideas on the table.
First of all, ask any left wing politician or the latest scientists, and they'll tell you straight up that modern medicine is the best its ever been, and that we're saving millions of lives through advanced knowledge of diseases and better treatment options.
my take: this is a complete load of crap.
while we certainly appear to be able to treat ailments better than ever before, it is by no means the result of better understanding of anything. Truth be told, we're just throwing so much money at the problem, that we can afford more trial-and-error than ever before, so we are able to get it right easier.
lets look at one of the most popular anti-depressant drugs in history: Prozac.
This stuff's main ingreadient is this junk called Fluxotine. It's been around since the '80s, and it's company, Eli Lilly, claims that it's helped over 50 million people.
Before i continue, allow me to give my own testimonial of the drug.
last year, this creepy phyciatrist guy put me on prozac. Not because i was depressed, he just seemed to think it would help me somehow. err...
okay... so we get it, and i start taking the stuff. a few weeks in, and, nothing's happened. so he doubles my dosage.
woo.
i was on this stuff from around may until the end of july. and it didn't do anything. i stopped taking it, and wow, i didn't notice any change.
now we go back to why he perscribed it, and the answer is....... for no reason whatsoever. Doctors perscribe stuff like prozac as if it's a "cure-all", not just for depression patients, but also for anorexia and such.
there have been countless "cure-all" drugs on the market before. Take, for example, COCAIN. Sigmund Froyd got himself addicted to it during the height of it's LEGAL popularity in the 20's. It helped everything from anorexia, depression, stomach aches, you name it. The only problem is that once you got addicted it it, obvously, you were stuck on it. and it got pricey after a while.
Of course, people finally figured this out, and it became illigal.
good.
now, back to prozac.
I'm not saying it's dangerous like coke is, but, its idiotic to treat anything like a cure-all drug.
Let's switch gears.
direct your attention to http://www.prozac.com/how_prozac/how_it_works.jsp?reqNavId=2.2
this is Prozac's official page on "how it works".
take note of how many times they use words such as "appear", "seems", and "may". just by reading their very official sounding language, you get the impression that WE DONT KNOW HOW IT WORKS. and no, we dont.
we just know that it seems to increase serritonin levels, and through testing, we know that an imbalance of serritonin seems to be a cause of depression.
and of course, treating serritonin imbalances doesn't actually cure depression, it just makes the symptoms go away.
HELLO?!
we're not making millions of people actually BETTER, we're just treating their symptoms.
King C. Gillette, guy who invented Gillette razors, had an ingenious buisiness strategy that revolved around William Painter's Crown Cork bottle cap with the idea that a Successful Invention is one that has to be purchased over and over again.
over and over again, does that remind you of all them brown translucent medicine bottles?
The pharmecutical industry is enourmous, and they get you hooked on drugs that, even though they've been through hundreds of animal and human tests, we dont even know why or how they work.
and they get you to buy them month after month!
to all you left-wing, "i have FAITH in modern medicine!!" idiots: Go Die in a Hole.
the end.
goodbye.
wit, out!
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