I did not quite make my personal deadline for posting one more entry of thoughts by the end of 2007, but I'm not too far off thankfully.  At least I started processing and outlining what I wanted to write in late December.  So I wasn't a complete slacker.  So yes.  Here we are in 2008.  Apparently I have a few friends who care to read these thoughts from time to time, and for that I am thankful.  Okay so I made up those friends in my mind, but they could exist.  [In fact I received a report that a nice woman actually read these thoughts (on purpose) recently!!!  Wowzas!  Amazing.]  Seriously, I know some of you actually do read these posts, and I want to say thank you for taking the time to show you care and to engage my expression—especially as dissuading as it may be to some in its frequent admitted verbosity.  I heartily am grateful.

I'm still working at First Presbyterian Church and greatly enjoying that.  I'm just so thankful for a job I enjoy.  Awesome.  It really fits my skill set nicely.  I am so pleased to be around so many cool students too.  And knowing how much youth and college ministers impacted the development of my Faith I am thankful to be in a position where hopefully I can be God's instrument to pour into students willing to receive.  Of course at times I realize how clueless I am and how much more I could be doing.  And yet even though my offering is small and could be so much greater, I trust knowing Who I believe God to be and from the encouragement of others I am being used for wonderful Kingdom building.

One interesting and even saddening development at FPC is its recent disaffiliation with the PCUSA denomination.  FPC has left PCUSA and joined the Evangelical Presbyterian Church; understandably there are hurt feelings over this decision, but it seems to be a good thing.  From my understanding it seems that over the past dozen or so years FPC has worked to take a stand against a trend in the PCUSA towards theological liberalism to the degree that every presbytery can essentially decide to believe whatever it wants regarding certain issues.  The problem with this scenario is it allows the potential for such diversity in credence that one group could evolve to believe the exact opposite as another group on central issues such as the authority of Scripture and Who Jesus is.  Essentially this means each group of churches can decide to believe whatever it wants about such things and there will be no problem supposedly.  In my opinion this is analogous to an organization that starts off as a vegan group.  Then they decide to remain being a vegan group, but they allow non-vegan vegetarians to become members of their group.  Then they say each local chapter can decide what they actually practice regarding veganism—even if that means eating meat.  This poses the question of what's the point of being in a group that doesn't actually believe or practice anything consistently?  (Interestingly I was reviewing my older posts, and this exact issue I discussed for the same reason last year.  Basically what good is it to be part of an organization that is so tolerant of anything that there is no significant distinguishing, unifying belief?)

If Christianity is going to have meaning then it must first be derived from the word's crux: Christ.  If there is not agreement on even who Jesus Christ is after centuries of consistent belief regarding such then this is like having carnivores call themselves vegans and vegans be okay with this.  In our age of tolerance it admittedly seems counterintuitive to suggest that taking a stance which excludes those who believe differently will result in a stronger (and possibly even larger) union.  However I believe the Church will actually be stronger if It is unwilling to compromise on the Divinity, Existence, Sinlessness, and Instruction of Jesus Christ.  To accept without reservation those who do not adhere to these tenants is to water down our Beliefs.  And similarly after you've watered down Christianity to a certain degree it becomes Christianitied down water more than watered down Christianity.  If you're going to believe something then believe it, and understand that to believe something means that you're likely going to encounter people who disagree.  You can still love and respect people with whom you disagree without changing your beliefs.  Perhaps people have come to believe that tolerance means accepting all beliefs as equal, and honestly no one actually believes this.  Sometimes you have to stand unwaveringly on your conviction.  If it is a conviction worth having then prove it by standing unswervingly for it.  Finding that balance (knowing when a conviction should be not compromised or when it doesn't matter) is part of what makes life an adventure.  The issue of Jesus is important enough to stand firmly on in my opinion.

Regarding the disapproval of an elusive, liberal theology I know some people think certain Christians are intolerant of those who believe differently.  I cannot offer much in response other than saying as offensive as people would like to believe Christianity is, I believe Jesus is humanity's only road to Freedom and worth giving an honest and thorough investigation.

So after spending a sizeable percentage of time combating critical issues within the PCUSA for over a decade only to lose more ground, FPC's leadership has researched, deliberated, and prayed to leave the PCUSA and join the EPC.  It's done, and as much as I regularly disassociate from politics (church and/or government), I think this was a good choice.  However it's simultaneously and predictably sad because some people have disagreed with this choice and left the family at FPC.

I went to see my buddy Jon Schmidt enter into a connubial relationship in Baltimore last weekend.  It was a wonderful trip.  At first I was not planning to go to the wedding.  After the reply cards were due (I'd sent mine in a few days late with a negative response) Jon called me and asked if I was coming.  I told him sadly I was not planning to do so.  He said he could help me out with a place to stay and possibly a ride around if necessary.  This was so awesome and helpful; the next day I booked the flight.  In all honesty I just don't handle logistics well.  I wanted to be there, but I didn't want to deal with booking a flight, a car, and a hotel room all by myself.  I know this sounds pathetic; I'm just being honest with my deficiencies.  Handling and organizing new stuff/details intimidates me; it's not my skill set in my opinion.  So I often just go without.  Jon basically stood in for my weakness and helped me make it there.  It was well beyond what he was expected to do with the wedding coming up so soon, but in his likely stressful time he quite exemplified why he's so loveable.  Jon is a generous, noble, and loyal man and friend; I'm so pleased he and Beth found each other—Beth seems to be a fantastic person as well.  I am so pleased I got to celebrate his wedding with him and others, and I know it was because of him being the fantastic person he is that I was there.  Awesome.

Furthermore some other friends from Baton Rouge and I stayed with a couple in Baltimore that were simply just too fantastic.  They celebrated their 50th anniversary in 2007, and it was quite a pleasure to meet and visit with them.  And hanging with some of my friends from Baton Rouge whom I do not often see was splendid as well.  We had a 20-hour road trip home from Baltimore (which we did in one day), and it was fun and filled with plenty of shenanigans which one might expect from four young adult men on a 20-hour car ride.  Good times.  Oh yeah also I saw a box of tissue in front of a light switch and said "Don't cry light switch."  This became a hit joke of the trip.

Two of my buddies mentioned they like a song I wrote years ago called Circles.  One friend said he didn't know if he agreed with the song theologically, but he still liked it.  Without getting a full explanation of why he possibly disagreed I preemptively attempted to explain the song which has a line about "whatever you give you have received", is not about endorsing a karma type of philosophy.  I do not subscribe to karma, but I know admittedly the lyrics could be interpreted as such.  I explained instead the idea is that hate begets hate and Love begets Love.  Like a circle, we pour out what we have received.  In order to pour out Love we must first receive Love from outside ourselves—and sometimes people give us Love, and we do not receive it.  Without receiving Love we are doomed and trapped in the slavery of selfishness.  (I subscribe to the mankind is inherently evil viewpoint.)  My friend seemed quite pleased to hear this explication.

At this point I would like to point out even though I personally do not believe in karma and I do believe Christ is the unique road to our Freedom I also believe non-Christian viewpoints some times capture Biblical Truth accurately or at least partially.  I believe some people who are not Christians are closer than others to following Christ, and consequentially some persons who don't follow Christ espouse some of His Truth faithfully (even if unintentionally).  Also it would be unfortunate for me to neglect to mention as a follower of Christ I also don't believe I have everything figured out regarding life or Christianity, but I hope to be teachable through whomever God would choose to use—even if it's not a Believer.

One notably strange experience did occur Friday night in Baltimore though.  Jon invited me to the rehearsal dinner, which was lovely and fun.  I really enjoyed speaking with Jon's sister and her husband about Regent; they're both Regent graduates.  After the dinner some of the Baton Rouge guys were in a car together waiting at a red light right outside the restaurant we had just left.  Jon had mentioned we were not far from a not extremely safe part of Baltimore.  The section we were in seemed fine, but a group of maybe thirty or so teenagers suddenly appeared and then started seriously beating up one kid.  They threw him to the ground and started kicking and punching him.  I felt so useless.  I didn't know what to do.  It was a chaotic, strange, surreal experience, and strangely enough we were listening to a Ben Fold's song about the difficulties being male, middle class, and white while we witnessed this.  I guess I should have called 911?  I just didn't know what to do or how to respond to what I was seeing.  I briefly thought about getting out of the car and trying to jump in to make peace or at least deter the event, but that seemed like it would have been a ridiculous sacrifice.  Like I said: strange.

Transitioning:

I mentioned earlier in this post about balance, and I would like to explore that a little more.  I believe balance is important in life, and the search for balance is the result of the presence of tension between opposing sides.  This tension can be a good thing—causing us to process information we might otherwise neglect.  Tension can also cause us to grow: if there were no tension we would have little reason to consider other viewpoints—in fact there might not even be other viewpoints if there were no tension.  Perhaps tension is the result of the process of us considering which viewpoint best suits and represents reality.  Unfortunately it seems if there is complete balance this can be problematic because an impasse emerges.

To put this arbitrary skeletal amalgam of thoughts on tension and balance into an animated bodily context, I recently took a test which evaluated brain dominance.  Apparently when I took the test a few weeks ago I was balanced between left and right brain—no big surprise when I consider how ambivalent I frequently am on issues—neither side prevails.  I don't know what percentage of people are in a similar situation of non-dominance; that would be an interesting thing to find out.  It seems for many people one side prevails—left brain or right brain.  So if the brain's left hemisphere houses one viewpoint/methodology and the right hemisphere another, it's kinda strange to think of those two things being in balance because when in conflict they'll often remain unresolved.  Of course this is only my inference; I do not have data to back up this hypothesis.  It just seems to fit the observation of my experience.  Non-brain dominance leads to ambivalence—makes sense to me.  That would certainly explain my own ambivalence on so many issues.

And now for some thoughts on some things that make total anti-sense to me:

Women.  Hmmmm???  Look.  I don't really have crap figured out about women.  I like women; I'm pretty excited about God's male/female design.  I would love to marry a woman who loves Jesus and brings me closer to Him while I bring her closer to Him.  How lovely that would be: mutual growth and respect.  Ahhhhhhh!  How quixotic.  (That's right, I went there.)  But other than my idealistic view, women are a massive mystery to me.  I have my list of failed relationships with women—whatever "failed relationships" means—and it's frustrating.  Hopefully I've learned things from those special relationships which ended not as I'd hoped, but every time I add another lady to that list it becomes more difficult to desire to take the relationship risk again and easier to think I am doomed to perpetual failure.  And I totally know I'm not perfect; I've made plenty of identifiable poor decisions regarding the rib race—like calling women the rib race for example.  Creation allusion aside, I don't expect myself to be perfect, and I don't expect a woman to be perfect either.  I'm just wondering what I'm missing, doing wrong, or need to change in my perspective or actions regarding ladies.  A further problem is I'm actually not really receptive to hearing more philosophies I view as lame from people I view as nearly as clueless as myself (even if they are married).  I would love to really get God's Thoughts on such things or the thoughts of others I respect and trust.  In the mean time I just push on as best I can and muddle my way through.

Apparently according to one ex-girlfriend I am a good boyfriend when it comes to thoughtfulness and loyalty.  I was surprised to hear this since she and I argued a lot, and I'm glad according to her I did pretty well at the thoughtfulness and loyalty side of things.  It's funny to hear this and consider if I was such a good boyfriend then why did she and I break up?  It would be helpful to know what I could improve for next time—sorta like the post-breakup evaluation.  In what ways do I need to consider changing things to better love and serve ladies in my future?  Of course one problem is that every woman is different, so that makes it difficult to apply specifics from one relationship to another other than universals such as love and respect.  However I think I'm learning a lot of times I need to just chill out on issues, be patient, and let certain things just cool off over time rather than trying to fix every problem immediately.  Who knows though?

I think one thing that frustrates me is the precarious dating game, probably because I suck at it—apparently.  For example I heard a woman recently tell me there's a (quasi-flexible) rule that a woman is not to say yes after Wednesday to a man asking her out for the upcoming weekend—because she should make him wait longer.  It seems this mostly applies to first and second dates, but even though on one level this sorta makes sense, it just seems like an added layer of difficulty and challenge to a game at which I'm already not excelling.  I mean if the game is difficult enough on the medium setting then I shouldn't attempt to play the game on the hard or pro settings, right?  Plus if I didn't know about this rule, how many other rules am I ignorant on as well?  

It seems in this game some times one person may expect the other to change, and the second person might change superficially temporarily, but then later s/he reverts and the first person dislikes this, so problems emerge.  Honesty from the start would be nice.  Awesome.  You're not interested.  Great.  You would rather not talk about that.  Fantastic.  Let's just be direct with things.  Feeling rejected always seems to suck.  It's nicer when there is some honesty involved though.

Context: last fall a friend was trying to set me up with a friend of hers.  This woman told my friend she would be interested in doing a group get together thing to meet me, and I said I'd be open to that too.  After thinking about how this woman and I might feel like we're zoo exhibits in front of everyone else in a group setting, I decided to ask her out for a cup of coffee instead.  Three days later she said thanks for the offer but she didn't think coffee was going to work with her crazy school and work schedule.  Obviously something happened between her wanting to meet me in a group setting to not wanting to meet me at all.  I don't know if it was my Facebook profile was not cool enough, my wording, delivery or timing were somehow wrong in her view when I asked her out for coffee, or something else.  But obviously something changed that I don't know.  And that's the problem: I don't know.  Instead of getting an honest "I'm not really interested at this time" reply I got the unsuccessfully euphemistic "my life's too busy" response.  (Are you sure you're not washing your hair tonight and every night for the rest of this week, month, year, life?)  Clearly she could have had time for a thirty-minute meeting over coffee even with a busy work and school schedule.  She just wasn't interested, for whatever reason.  And that's fine, but I will chalk up the actual answer I got as a lie—straight up.  That's dishonest in my assessment.  Oh well.  Get over it.

I think this dating game is not always genuine, and possibly even a crucial correlative consideration in the divorce rate discussion.  But here is my conclusion on this at this time: people who play games in dating and then complain the other person has changed after the beginning of the relationship are foolish and get everything they've invested through their playing of games.

I was talking to a buddy late last year about the ambiguity of male/female relationships.  Consider this scene: a woman comes across the room and says hi to a guy.  He's seen her many times before, and she's never come out of her way to do anything similar.  So certainly she could just be making a friendly gesture or she could be into the guy.  One option: if the guy's thinking "she might be into me since she came across the room to talk to me" and responds accordingly, the girl could be thinking "how could he think I am into him?!?!—all I did was come across the room and talk to him."  Another option: if the guy is thinking "I shouldn't think she's into me—all she did was walk across the room to talk to me"—and responds accordingly, the girl might be thinking "how can he not know I'm into him—I came across the room to talk to him?!!!?!?"  One event—two totally different interpretations.  And somehow neither option is wrong.  Both can naturally happen from the same impetus.  (Interestingly a teenage girl heard me convey this enigma to some high school guys last month, and she said girls do this to keep guys interested and guessing.)  Ugggh.  My buddy summed it best recently when he said women should give guys a clue when they're on the right track at least.  Let the guy know he's doing something right (or wrong!)  That would be nice rather than all the guessing.  Is she into me or not?  I don't know.  It seems I rarely know.

In romantics the chase/ambiguity/mystery can be kinda fun, but simultaneously it's the games I don't like and apparently suck at: wait this long between getting a number and calling; don't ask out a lady after Wednesday for the weekend; innocuous lies are better than unambiguous truths.  These games just cause a lot of problems and frustrations to me it seems.

And another thing that's difficult regarding women is when one person likes the other and the other person does not reciprocate those feelings.  This is especially hard when I'm the person who does not like the woman who likes me.  In my mind—although this is not how I really feel—it's almost as if I'm saying there is a hierarchy in God's creation of women and she is not good enough.  It stinks thinking that I might be viewing things that way.  I don't understand why I'm attracted to one woman and not another, and it is hard when I am the one who hurts the others' feelings.

So yeah apparently I am not the best at this male/female relationship stuff (whatever that means) and based on not achieving the desired results, I'm aware of it.  But even with my list of regrets regarding women and my doubts in the system I think I need to not be overwhelmed about it.  I am living my life trying to focus on Christ and allow Him to shape me; this is top priority.  Even if no woman ever finds me attractive again (or ever did) then that would not destroy my inherent worth to God or His Work in and through my life.  My fundamental identity and value are in Christ, not a woman.

I remember a friend told me last year I'm probably a lot harder on myself than I am on others, and I probably judge myself much harsher than I judge others.  Without a doubt!  So I should probably let up a bit.  I give others Grace; I should receive Some from God and give It to myself too.  Yeah I've made mistakes, but my past is not irredeemable.  Christ brings Freedom and Forgiveness!!!!  I'm a decent guy because God is doing some pretty awesome Work in Re-Forming me, and there is possibly a woman who will feel blessed to be married to me one day.  So it's all good.  I like who God made me to be and the way He's Forming me; so rock on!

I'm also going to take this moment to say something about my buddy Andy Venuto regarding this topic.  I love Andy Venuto; he is an awesome, fantastic, honest, intelligent, reflective, authentic, wonderful, thoughtful, loving man who loves Jesus.  I hope a woman worthy of his splendidocity will soon decide she's unwilling to just sit around while such a brilliant guy goes unappreciated by a special woman.  Just throwing that out there.  Andy Venuto: hit that up—but only if you're totally awesome and worthy of the awesomeocity known as Andy Venuto.

Now for a second topic that does not make total sense to me: atheism.  

I have recently reflected on some of the implications of atheism and different brands of atheism because of a friend's recent turn from Christianity to atheism.  I find it interesting that many of this friend's polemics against theism in general are specifically centered in antagonism against a specific Christian congregation that my friend, some mutual friends of ours, and myself attended years ago.  It is interesting to note that all of our friends (except one to my knowledge), myself, and eventually this friend all left this church independently for similar reasons.  Thus on this specific conclusion my friend and I are actually in agreement mostly—this one church appeals to a very specific type of person who is willing to forfeit independence for the greater cause of this church; it is in this friend's general conclusion—God doesn't exist—I disagree.  Thus after months of processing information, a consideration of atheism follows.

Atheism could possibly be appropriately synonymously labeled nothingism in many cases because foundationally atheism is the belief in nothing.  Initially it is interesting to observe that a group would identify itself through a non-belief.  How persons proceed to build upon this belief in nothing is how different brands of atheism emerge in my opinion.

One brand of atheism, on which I will focus my exploration, concurrently endorses macroevolution and denies the existence of any immeasurable non-physical reality.  The implications of this type of atheism are fascinating to me.  It seems by way of this perspective there is no such thing as autonomy because creatures, being a collection of cells and chemical reactions, are slaves to their strongest chemical reactions and cells: the cells with the best advantages for survival and the most potent chemicals win in the grand picture of decision making.  Accordingly every thought, movement, decision, reaction, and feeling is the result of nothing more than DNA composition and cellular chemical reactions—and given enough time there will be testable scientific explanations and predictors for each.  It seems all actions ranging from leading the civil rights movement to genocide are equally inescapably uncontrollable.  Furthermore it seems to follow in a physically exclusive macroevolutionary atheism, the ideas of beauty, good, evil, and morality do not exist absolutely because they are cultural, relative, fluid, debatable, immeasurable, non-intrinsic, opinioned ideas which only result from changeable DNA compositions and cellular chemical reactions.  The strongest cell or group of cells and chemicals wins.  (By the way: even though I disagree with this belief personally, all of this information is not a judgment; it's merely a catalogue of my assessments and conclusions of the implications of the data.)

Some further observations about atheism:

I think science is a great tool and can help us better understand our existence.  I have no problem allowing science to take part in shaping my Christian worldview.  However, sometimes science is used as fuel for spiritual nothingism because a non-physical reality is immeasurable by known scientific means.  Therefore the conclusion is sometimes there is no reason to believe in anything science cannot measure: science thus is our only trustworthy tool for measurement.  I believe this perspective unfortunately ignorantly gives science more power than it's capable of handling.  Science has limitations in what it can measure, and to deny these limitations is to suggest that science is the only tool we have in our human toolbox.  Similarly a piece of litmus paper is not going to be useful in measuring the density of a star.  Science is a wonderful tool for measuring physical reality; however we would next expect it to be useful in measuring a non-physical reality any more than we would expect a piece of litmus paper to measure a star's density.  To conclude that because science is not a useful tool in understanding a non-physical reality then a non-physical reality must not exist is similar to using a hammer as a nail and,  realizing the futility of this task, concluding that walls—into which nails are properly driven—don't exist.  Like science and theology, hammers and nails are tools that serve different, but complimentary purposes.

The problem I see is there is evidence for a non-physical reality (notice I did not say proof for non-physical reality.)  So it would be silly to just deny this evidence simply because science cannot measure it.  Similarly it would be strange to conclude that when my eyes (nor the eyes of any other) do not gaze upon objects such as the things behind me or items in another room then those things cease to exist when there is evidence (notice I did not say proof) to believe they still exist when I do not see them.  I certainly cannot prove their existence or non-existence when I (nor anyone else) do not gaze on them.  Recognizably this is similar to the when a tree falls in the woods and no one's there to hear it does it make a sound? puzzle.  It seems to me the atheist standpoint is similar to one that says when the tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it then the woods must not exist because they cannot be measured.  Fair enough: this analogy is a little less complicated than reality because of the non-physical realm consideration, but it's still a useful starting point.  Accordingly I see atheism as a faith, and in frequent situations even a religion.  But without a doubt atheism absolutely cannot be proved or disproved any more or less than God can.  Therefore our faith should derive from the best evidence.

Now as I've just exemplified analogies are fun and often useful tools, and it should also be remembered in my use of analogies and my consideration of them that analogies inevitably always have deficiencies even if they help us better picture and comprehend an idea; thus my analogies can be torn down as can others.  Fair enough.  Even so I will now aim to dissect two analogies: one used for atheism and one used against.

There is an interesting analogy atheism touts to lampoon theism: the Flying Spaghetti Monster.  Although this idea is quite funny conceptually and even polemically to a degree (and I will give it that—the FSM is a very funny, creative concept and argument), the FSM certainly does not equally translate when considering theistic reality—specifically that of Jesus Christ.  The analogy of the FSM is that people just made up God one day and started believing in Him superstitiously even though they knew He was false and there was no evidence to believe; that's why belief in God is equivalent to just making up a FSM and believing in it for no good reason.

In the case of the Bible, particularly the New Testament, it seems fair to say the authors actually believed the stuff they were writing—enough to allow themselves to be killed for it in many cases; this martyrdom would be quite strange if the martyrs knew what they write was a lie.  Furthermore the Bible wasn't just the conspiracy of one or two persons willing to die for their lie; the Bible involves various collaborative, corroborating witnesses and authors including one major contributor who started off as an antagonist to the cause.  So in the case of a relatively detailed and specific Jesus who is introduced not only in the writings of those who touted His Divinity but also by those who disagreed with His purported Messianic qualities, it seems incongruous to suggest believing Jesus to be God is analogous to believing in an undocumented, non-evidenced, non-historical purely fabricated Flying Spaghetti Monster.

I've observed one way the FSM analogy has attempted to level Jesus with the FSM analogy is to bring the earthly existence of Jesus into disrepute: Jesus was the most successful and deceptive conspiratorial invention of all time.  One tactic of the Jesus conspiracy cause is trying to cast doubt of a physical Jesus through evidence of syncretism in Christianity.  One example is claiming all the similarities between the ancient cult of mithras and the beliefs of Christians indicate Christians borrowed from the cult of mithras since Christianity came later in history.  This is clever, but it may not consider all the information.  Whereas the cult of mithras certainly did exist before Christ, it is not entirely clear what its beliefs and practices were before Christ or even when its beliefs developed.  In fact one interesting consideration is that the cult of mithras practiced syncretism with Christian beliefs because the growth of Christianity in the first three centuries threatened the cult.  So the cult of mithras possibly attempted self-preservation by altering its beliefs to look more like Christianity's.  This is just one example of attempts to cast doubt on a historical Jesus, but admittedly if Jesus did not exist then the similarity of the FSM analogy would be stronger since Jesus would clearly have been a known fabrication at one time among its progenitors.  Once again though I will logically appeal to the accounts of those who died for their beliefs that Jesus was the Human Manifestation of God, Resurrected in 1st century A.D.; those persons would have necessarily had the information and witness to know whether or not this was factual and worth the sacrifice of earthly standing and even martyrdom.  In contrast there are no people (to my knowledge) who have died for their belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Now another analogy heard in the evolution polemics discussion is that evolution is the equivalent to having monkeys sit at typewriters and eventually end up with Hamlet.  Honestly I don't believe this analogy is quite fair, and I just wanted to throw this out there for consideration, even if it might seemingly strengthen the atheistic evolution position—with which I clearly disagree.  Let's start with the monkeys at typewriters.  Even though they're seemingly randomly hammering on keys every once in a while they'll type out an actual English word, right?  Of course.  So evolution says every time an actual word appears in the collection of gibberish the monkeys are typing it somehow has an advantage over the other non-words.  Therefore that actual word is more likely to appear over time among the non-words.  As the actual word appears more frequently it's more likely that words that are similar will also appear more frequently.  So over time more and more words eventually are typed out and have an advantage over non-words.  As actual words accumulate then sentences and paragraphs can follow in a similar fashion.  To me this seems like a more accurate portrayal of evolution as an analogy of monkeys at typewriters.  In fact honestly just throw out the monkeys altogether because that just clutters the analogy with intelligence behind the writing.  Just have typewriters going by themselves randomly.  So some words will emerge by pure statistics.  As those words have an advantage over non-words then more words, sentences, and paragraphs will form.  Now even with this being said—that I don't think the monkeys at typewriters analogy against evolution is entirely parallel to what evolution actually claims—I honestly do agree with the conclusion that achieving Hamlet randomly is a bit too much—even given lots of time.  I could see perhaps a children's book being the product of such random natural selection of advantageous words over non-words.  So if in the evolution analogy humans are equivalent to Hamlet then perhaps a snail would equate to Green Eggs and Ham.  I'm actually willing to buy into Green Eggs and Ham given monkeys at typewriters for 4 billion years, but as I read more about the complexities of genetics I think Hamlet is a stretch for a random progression.  This is just my opinion on this matter.

Additionally evolution seems contrary to the concept of entropy to me; so I would just be interested in hearing more about how entropy ties into evolution.  I mean technically entropy is about energy in a system being decreased over time without intervention, but apparently other types of entropy exist (informational and topological for example.)  If an organism is a system, then it doesn't make sense without the addition of some outside energy that it would consistently randomly move from less complex to more complex even with random advantageous mutations.  Accordingly I really don't have a problem with Intelligent Design macroevolution, but since technically macroevolution to my understanding dictates that advantageous mutations occur by random chance and selection, ID and macroevolution are actually mutually exclusive beliefs.

And moving on:

An interesting polemic exists against theism which posits the inquiry: Why doesn't God heal amputees?  Interestingly this argument against generic theism really is just an attack of Christianity since it bases its major premise on debunking Mark 11:24 (Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.)  The logic is this as far as I can tell: if God is real and the Bible is true and I pray for something then I must believe it since I've prayed it.  So I'm going to pray for God to heal every amputee on the earth, and just because I prayed it must mean I believed it.  It didn't happen.  Therefore God must not exist, and to believe in God is delusion.  (I'm just boiling it down as I see it.)  Also it's interesting to note that the preceding verse of this chapter provides additional necessary context which is omitted in this argument: this person does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen.  So when you prayed for every amputee in the world to be healed did you doubt in your heart?  I'm a Believer, and I have to admit in my own weakness I would likely have doubt in my heart if I were to pray this prayer.  Just throwing that out there.  Now I will admit I do not know of anyone who has regenerated a limb, and honestly this doesn't cause a Faith crisis for me.  I have heard stories of healing and inexplicable things from people I trust.  Two quick examples: I have a friend who, after years of extreme neck pain and surgery, was prayed over and experienced a warm physical sensation and received healing in her neck within a few hours.  I've also heard of a woman who was praying in Asia and began to speak fluently in the native tongue of the people she was serving even though she did not know the language at all.  Of course this is not a healing story, but believing the testimonies of these two women I deem trustworthy, I have no explanation of this or the healing other than through intervention of something beyond a physical reality.  These two stories certainly fit into my understanding of reality within the context of Christ.  Science can only dismiss such events skeptically.  That just is not satisfactory for me.  In my perspective this is like a student who does not have the tools/knowledge to figure out the last two hard questions on the exam so s/he just omits and ignores them.  So yeah, why doesn't God heal amputees?  It's a fair question.  I really don't know.  I don't doubt that He could though.  Let me not invalidate the question, but to cite it as a refutation of all theological premise is as crass as trying to debunk evolution with the question: Why doesn't evolution heal amputees?  As noted in the argument against Christianity/theology there are other creatures who practice regeneration of limbs, so why hasn't evolution impacted humans in this way?  Oh because evolution must not exist?!?!  This just seems sloppy and childish to me.  So Why doesn't God heal amputees? is not a faith burdening question for myself when I consider the context of that Scripture and my personal experience.

Basically I think there are some crucial questions to humanity such as: How did the universe/life begin?  If there is a beginning to time what came before the beginning?  Why is there evil/suffering if God is good?  Why doesn't God just fix everything right now if He has the power to do so?  What is life's meaning/purpose?  These are great questions, and honestly I don't believe atheism or Christianity answer all of these questions completely to the satisfaction of all.  There's some give and take between the camps, and humans are expected to choose which collection of answers best suit the evidence and our human experience.  For example atheism may point to the big bang and lightning-animated amino acids as answers to the origin of universe/life question while Christianity would point to the Triune God.  Although each camp has different answers, either of these groups of answers can be satisfactorily believable to the How did the universe/life begin? question for each camp's members.  However in other significant questions there is not such balance between atheism and Christianity.  Whereas Christianity's answer to What came before the beginning? would once again clearly be the Triune God, I don't know that atheism has an explanation or consideration at all.  However atheism does not have a problem handling the Why is there evil/suffering if God is good? question because it's so easily dismissed: God doesn't even exist (and in some brands of atheism evil doesn't either).  But Christianity has a much more difficult time answering the suffering question satisfactorily.  Sure we know God will use all experiences for the good of those who follow Him; we know God uses suffering for His Glory.  However when we're down in the muck it is much more difficult to grasp why He allows it in the first place.  The same approach is similar for the Why doesn't God just fix everything right now if He has the power to do so? question.  Atheism can quickly dismiss it; Christianity has a more difficult time answering it—even though we believe Jesus'll return when the time is right.  Regarding what is probably the fundamental question of humanity: What is life's meaning/purpose?, some brands of atheism simply say life really is meaningless other than survival of the fittest—which is beyond our control.  At best life's purpose is technology/advancement.  I think we as people know this is fundamentally unsatisfying for humanity's ultimate purpose though: achieve and develop as much as we can—that's it?  (He who dies with the most toys wins?)  Thus the atheistic answer comes from disqualifying or unsatisfactorily answering the question, which is interesting since this question seems to be such an inherent and universal human inquiry.  Christianity provides a very different satisfactory answer to the question of purpose.  We are meant for Reconciliation, Restoration, Relationship, Redemption, Love, Eternity, and New Life as part of God's Story.  Thus atheism and Christianity handle the fundamental questions very differently, and we are expected to place faith in the one which makes most sense—to make a conclusion based on the data.

Now this is neither proof nor disproof of theism, but merely personal testimony: considering all of the atheistic arguments I have processed over the past six months especially, I have a stronger belief in God than I did before that time; from my analysis of the information I have seen and processed regarding atheism, Christianity makes the most sense of the data of life.

Now for a final surge of thought segments:

Grad school is inching along.  I've finished 6 out of 90 hours, and my third class should be done by the end of next month.  (So that'll make 10% completion in 1.5 years!)  Nice.  I'm pretty excited about going there after talking to some Regent grads about it last weekend.  Sweet.

This Christmas was enjoyable.  It was quite wonderful hanging out with friends and having very little stress; I did not see my family for Christmas; I saw all of them over Thanksgiving.  I think in a sense though I cheated the Christmas season this year by not seeing my family.  It seems part of the authentic Christmas experience involves engaging the family and encountering the awkwardness and diversity every family has.  My disengagement and elimination of this personal familial dynamic from the holiday took away some of its completeness, as if to only experience it superficially.  So I enjoyed it, even if on a superficial level.

Recent frustrations:

One of the reasons I did not visit my family is because my truck is having electrical problems such that the windshield wipers malfunction; I need to get that rectified.

One of my crappy banks stole $6 from me on Christmas Eve because I had not used my account for 180 days.  Ridiculous.  So essentially they stole $6 (on Christmas Eve???!?!?!!!!!) from a youth minister because I caused absolutely no work for them.  Now they had my $25 which I had entrusted to them which they could lend out to anyone, but because I decreased the workload for them without touching the $25 they stole $6 from me!  That is pure greed folks.  If they were more interested in me as a person than me as a dollar sign (or a dollar sign followed by a 6) then they clearly would have notified me at 150 days or so to say hey David if you don't do anything with your account for 30 more days then we're going to steal $6 from you.  Just wanted to make sure you knew that before the theft rather than after.  RIDICULOUS!  I mean an NSF fee is one thing—that's almost justifiable—they gave you money you didn't technically have.  (What is not justifiable about an NSF fee is when you overdraw numerous times and they charge you for each of those withdrawals after they intentionally did not tell you about them would they could have easily done so.)  But an inactive fee instantaneously takes 24% of all my money because I have not done anything with it is wrong, and I will be impressed if you can convince me otherwise.  I will not meditate on this any longer because it pisses me off, but basically just do unto others and don't mess with people's money!

A Soup Named Stew's most recent T-shirts were misprinted in December, and although we will make some money off the error, the company which messed it up truly underestimates how much their error will cost us even with their compensation.  They're acting like they're doing us a favor giving us some compensation for their mistake, but I truly believe they do not understand how serious the mistake was for us financially.  We basically are sitting on 100 shirts, and I'll be surprised if we sell 50 of them in the next year.  Furthermore we have to sell 51 shirts just to break even on this error.  Even so I am not willing to fight over it because it's only T-shirts and money, and theoretically given enough time, we'll make out ok…maybe.  Thankfully though the company has treated me mostly respectfully, although they have not been excellent by any means.  

That concludes recent frustrations.  I will now bring things home and complete the remains of this thought surge.

I'm thinking about recording a new solo record this year.  Also it will be awesome if Stand Up Citizens would reunite in 2008.  I'm working on that a bit too.

A Soup Named Stew is awesome.  I quite enjoy playing in that band.  We are under consideration to play at a library in Florida for their summer reading kick off.  In the past two months we've played some sweet shows!  I'm so happy I get to play with those guys.  

The show I played on Jan. 11 was great.  I did a solo set after ASNS played a rocking good set.  The whole evening was pretty sweet, including the opening band.  I only hope I did not break my foot at that show—if it still hurts in a few days I will probably go to the doctor to have it checked out.

These shortcuts are awesome and highly useful in web browsers/word processing programs: ctrl f; ctrl shift c; ctrl shift v; ctrl z

InvisibleChildren.com, Kiva.org, and Postsecret.com are sweet sites.

U2, Potshot, and The Hanks are great bands.

The opposite of Love is indifference as much as it is hate.

The shooting at my former YWAM base in Denver is shocking and makes me wonder if and how we are to turn people away in their need when their need doesn't fit our skill set or resources.

I was moved to tears while connecting with God during the music at a conference in Atlanta in November.  It has been a long time since I have experienced such a physical response during music in a Church context, and I am so thankful God Blessed me in that way to experience that.  I was much less excited when I was drawn away from that stupendous Blessing when the person playing the music decided distractingly to do a tribute to the 1980's in the middle of that same song.  That was weird, but I was so thankful I got to connect so intimately with my Maker even for a few moments.

I have tried to stop biting my nails numerous times over the past ten or so years without lasting success.  Two weeks ago I looked down and noticed my nails were looking mighty fine—I could see the whites on all of them (which is uncommon for me), and I had made no conscious effort to cease biting them.  Later I remembered in December I was driving to work one day and I prayed to God to help me stop biting my nails if He would be so Gracious.  Interesting.  Just wanted to share that.

What I identify as post-modern humor (such as the Gi Joe overdub cartoons) is often really funny to me.  I think po-mo humor is often distinguishable from other types of humor because the reason why it's funny is much more difficult to identify or explain.

Also I frequently enjoy jokes only a few people in a crowd get.  There's something really funny about that to me.

Substitute teaching is full of fun stories including apology letters from students!  Also it's some of the best ministry work I've done in my job as a youth minister.

My roommate is a nice guy.

Well that'll do me for today—I finished writing this around 3:30 in the morning.  (If you read all 8000+ of these words please contact me so I can give you a free CD or something.)

May the Love of Christ Embrace you and Compel you!

Peace be with you,

davidloti=davidloti