Simply Soulless Science

Well.
Hello everyone.
I've been entirely failing at blogging here this semester.

Why?

I've made an interesting discovery: when one studies something that is entirely lacking in subjective thought one tends to stop thinking in a subjective way.

Take that as you will.

When you've been writing so long that you just can't write a serious lab report anymore

"We then became so distraught at our lack of understanding that we all burst into tears and began to sing songs of mourning over our experiment. We also did ritual dancing to the chemistry gods in hopes that they would understand our pain over the failures that we had thus far been cursed with and divine upon us the knowledge that we needed in order to successfully worship their greatness. We told the gods that should they allow for our experiment to work that we would light up the chemistry heavens for them with our short-lived chemiluminesence and that each of them would be able to work with their organic chemistry sets late into the night without invoking the wrath of the physics gods as the they had longed to do for an inordinate amount of time. The chemistry gods were harsh in their reaction to our pleas and they refused to allow for us to have undue advantage over our neighboring groups. Thus, we continued on as though this had not happened, which, in reality, it had not."

- My tentative lab report, paragraph eight

It's not Maybelline

So I've shelved a surprisingly large amount of fashion, hair, and makeup magazines and books these past few weeks and I must say that they are extremely grabbing. I, the one has been decently against spending copious amounts of time on looks, have stopped and flipped through a few of them.

The Publishers do a fantastic job of making you wonder what the "beauty secrets", etc. are within.

But honestly they market off of the idea that people believe that those on the covers of their magazines/books have only become fabulously good-looking because of their advice. In reality the people on the covers were born looking nearly the same as they do on the cover. Makeup is not magic.

Which reminded me of this excessively long, but excessively awesome, quote by Aldous Huxley in Brave New World Revisited:

"'The cosmetic manufacturers,' one of their number has written, 'are not selling lanolin they are selling hope.' For this hope, this fraudulent implication of a promise that they will be transfigured, women will pay ten to twenty times the value of the emulsion which the propagandists have so skillfully related, by means of misleading symbols to a deep-seated and almost universal feminine wish - the wish to be more attractive to members of the opposite sex. The principles underlying this kind of propaganda are extremely simple. Find some common desire, some widespread unconscious fear or anxiety; think out some way to relate this wish or fear to the product you have to sell; then build a bridge of verbal or pictorial symbols over which your customer can pass from fact to compensatory dream, and from the dream to the illusion that your product, when purchased, will make the dream come true."

And another thing that I'm lost as to how people who purchase these magazines don't notice is the fact that every single issue of the magazine makes almost exactly the same claim. So, if you have one you have them all?

But before I finish I must say: the sample sprays and such they put in the pop magazines smell so wonderful.

Don't worry: I'm still alive

So I haven't updated in umm.. a while so I thought that I'd mention that my vital signs are still quite excellent.

And while I'm here I would like to comment on my lack of understanding of the point of slips. I'm pretty sure that everyone knows that I have legs above my knees. Slips just make skirts uncomfortable.

That is all.

Forgotten roots

"I am officially Jewish, but I’m Jewish in the same way the Olive Garden is an Italian restaurant."

- AJ Jacobs

The other day when I was putting away books in the library I ran across a copy of "The Book of Mormon Movie." Having heard the reports on the quality of the movie I thought it'd be worth checking out simply because it sounded like one of those movies that was so bad it's funny (ie - Twilight).

As it turns out I was wrong. Entirely. It was so bad it wasn't funny.
It felt like a ward play that one is forced to go to that's written by a college age business major and all of the parts are played by people who have never acted before.

Ouch.

The worst part, however, was the apparent lack of consideration that the characters in the movie were supposed to be Jewish. Whoops? That's quite the mistake. The background looked nothing like Jerusalem. The dialog was painful. Nothing Jewish.

Within the last week I also was able to see a PBS series on Early Christianity. It was excellent although it didn't include all of the things I wanted in it. The series included a lot indirectly related to my qualm above. Namely: Christianity comes from Judaism, but Judaism is lost in the shuffle.

What a bizarre concept. The Jewish history is varied: angry, calm, murderous, barbaric, beautiful, odd, etc. But most importantly for Christianity: the Jews left a scholarly work. What is it called? The Hebrew Bible or, in Christian terms the Old Testament.

This leads me to a question that I really wonder about. That is: Why, if everything about Christianity is supposed to be started with the Jews, don't Christians study about Judaism?

Learning about the scholars putting together the bible in Seminary would've been far more important, useful, and interesting than the typical instances of the pushing of all the stories being literal, and wonderful tales of people being totally moral. Which they aren't.

I might've actually liked the Bible during that year if the class had been about Jewish traditions and the why, when, and how of it. If it had shown how the Jewish culture was changing, how the ideologies were becoming ones that would allow for many people to claim to be Jewish Messiahs (according to history a lot of men made the claim just before and after Jesus).

It seems that over time Christianity has forgotten it's roots. No one mentions the reasons for the Jewish authors of the gospels writing what they did. The influences of the Jewish systems and current events are left out of much of the modern version of Christianity and replaced with a saccharine combination of the gospels that don't really fit together (despite the stickiness of saccharine.)

It's rather odd. I can only see the traces of Judaism through scholarship in one modern religion. That is Catholicism. Catholics are ok with admitting that they were wrong. They can say that the pope merely interprets the bible and can be wrong about social issues. They've apologized for the crusades, etc.

As times have gone on, however, this essential piece of Christianity: the need to understand the history and culture behind the Bible. Has been lost. With each new religion since the early Christians we have lost much of what it really means to be a branch off of Judaism and have replaced Christian heritage with assumptions that Jews today are nothing like those in the past; the ones in the past were just like us. Until we reach today. The day where I sit it takes a TV documentary to remind me of a lost and important part of Christianity: Jewish history.

And then, I realized I was talking to myself

*Before I begin I would like to point out how very aware I am that this is probably close to a Universal complaint. I realize the lack of originality in the post, but I wrote it anyway.*

Sometimes I like to pretend that two people could entirely relate to each other.

Maybe I read too much. You can read whatever you want into books. They always say what you want them to say.
Maybe it's the music. Paul always seems to say things that are relevant to me.

Whatever it is I find myself thinking that someone relates so well to me and I to them. And my mind goes off creating an entirely new life for them. And then the fantasy is shattered when I get to know them.

Ulysses has a commentary on the inability of men to really know each other. Pages upon pages of two men thinking throughout the book of all of the things of their lives the one wanting to get to know the other only to have them run into each other at the end, have a shallow conversation, and go their separate ways.

Perhaps I've been corrupted by what I consider one of the most beautiful lines from one of the most beautiful scenes in literature (which is a slight spoiler for Crime and Punishment by the way and is much better in context, read the book):

"I did not bow down to you, I bowed down to all the suffering of humanity,"

Maybe I just want someone to love that scene and all things like it and relate to them in the same way I do.

That'd probably be enough. But probably not.

Jabbering my way to a biography

So.. I have this unhealthy obsession with getting rid of things. From sentimental junk (for almost all things sentimental are) to to personal notes almost everything in my life gets edited and taken out fairly regularly. (I even edited out a lot of journal entries at one point.)

Except, of late, I haven't been editing my e-mails.

And so I suddenly realized that the only ways that anyone could know much of anything about me is through a progression of e-mail conversations and a couple of blog posts.

Not that posterity will care... but, you know.. it's interesting that I've nearly edited myself out of history.

Maybe I'll get rid of those e-mails.

What time do you think you have?

Time. Consciousness. Existence. Nothing. Perfection. Knowledge. Truth.

Seven of the oddest concepts that I have ever run into.

Time wasn't ever odd to me until I ran into a book titled: "The Calendar" which seems to suggest (I haven't actually read it) that time is entirely a human invention.

What is time?
The only purpose and defining feature of time seems to be that it is a measurement between a past and current event.

So five ideas that have been driving me crazy:

1. Can one reach a point at which time can no longer be divided into smaller units? If so then it would seem as though time does not exist at each one of those moments because there would be nothing to compare it to.

2. If it were entirely possible for something to not change for say, one second, would a measurement of time necessarily skip that one second?

3. Seeing as one is always living in the present moment, never in the past, and never in the future, can we conclude that there are truly such things as the past and the future? Are the past and the future the present?

4. If, as many religions suggest, time will not exist after death doesn't this mean that there can be only the options of a sort of Buddhist-nothingness after death, or an existence for persons which is stuck in one mode so that if one had a body that body could never move, eat, talk, etc. because doing so would allow time back into the game board as a measurement between when the person did and did not act?

5. If time is cylical would the circle of time taken as a whole, meaning the greatest time unit that could be reached, be the measurement at which time does not exist because one time around the circle would be the same as the next time around the circle and so on and would, thus, indicate not a measurement of change, but instead a pattern?

I just had to laugh my brains out

The other day I suddenly realized that I had discussed insanity caused by cannibalistic practices of eating the brain quite a few times but for the life of me I could not remember the exact details of what happened or where I read about it.

I finally found it and I have found where I read it.

It's called Kuru.
It was located in a tribe in New Guinea. (Not Europe as I have claimed.)
And I read about it in a book Titled: Guns, Germs, and Steel.

Goodness. I was starting to think that I'd made it up. (Although, I was quite wrong on quite a few of my memories of it.)

Here is an official site discussing the disease and here is Wikipedia's article on it if you would like to read about it.

Just thought I'd confirm at least part of what I told probably all of you at one point or another. The rest my brain must have added in.

"A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible. . ."

Throughout the course of the day I was able to check out three different translations of the Bible bringing me to have five different copies of the Bible in my room (Cambridge, Cotemporary English, KJV, Complete JST, and Oxford). It was an adventure.

It's shocking how little I know about the Bible. I'm finding out through "GOD: A Biography" all of the things that I have missed in the past.

I embarrassed to admit that up until a couple of months ago I thought that Franklin's ever-so-famous line: "God helps those who help themselves." was in the Bible. Until tonight I thought the title of this post was in the Bible. And until tonight I thought that Tydale's remark: "I will cause the boy that drives the plow to know more of the scriptures than you!" was in the Bible.

I don't know what I'm talking about. It's time for some serious review of Bible-related books and, of course, the Bible.

I'm just glad no one has tried to Bible bash me. I'm doomed if they do.

Oh! Two Bible related fun facts while I am on the subject:

When Carl Jung was asked if he believed in God he stated that he did not believe, he knew. This makes me wonder if this is the place where the shift took place in English religious discussion because you rarely hear someone say that they "believe" in God, today people tend to use the word "know" instead. It was, apparently, shocking that he would've said such a thing then, but fairly common to say now.



One can call himself or herself a gnostic! I had known that the term "agnostic" was coined by the ever-so-attractive man above T.H. Huxley (Aldous' grandfather), but for some reason it had never occured to me until the other day that Huxley was using the two roots of "a" and "gnostic". I'm really tempted to tell the next person I talk to about religion that I'm a gnostic just to be able to see the reaction I get.

"Agnostic?"
"No, you know, a gnostic."

"It's the end of the World as we know it . . . and I feel fine."

Chandler Scott showed me this website a while back.
It's called: Has the Large Hadron Collider Destroyed the Earth? dot com.
Hope you like it.

That's a bunch of BS.

So. Today I was in the BYU library trying to find a book titled:

"GOD: A Biography"

I typed in the title on the catalog search. And what came up? BS 1192.6

I started laughing and smiled the rest of the time I was at BYU.

It made my day.

Side note: I went home and checked if the man who came up with the Library of Congress Classification System was an atheist. Apparently, he isn't. The labeling of books on the bible under the group and subgroup BS was an accident.

Go figure. :D

(For Spencer: OH! And it's the G-O-D God!)

Too, too solid flesh

"Maybe this world is another planet's hell." - Aldous Huxley

Anybody else think about this more often than is probably healthy?

For a long time I consider Eastern theology to be entirely without a hell.
Then one day I realized that I couldn't think of a hell that could be much worse than Earth. It holds genocide, torture, hate, lust, rampant illness, insanity, poverty, starvation, nihilism, absolutism, saccharine everything, selfishness, brutality, and ignorance.

Eastern theology might just have the worst punishment of all theologies for not getting in touch with the divine.
To do this over and over and over again without some knowledge of what one is ever really doing would be hell beyond imagination.

Reincarnation would be horrible.

All my words come back to me in shades of mediocrity.

Ever make fun of yourself and then have it come back to haunt you? You say something offhandedly about yourself that you don't do well at and then people use it against you ALL the time. Me too.

One thing I love about Paul Simon is that he makes fun of himself in his own songs and can get away with it without losing respect.

Or maybe I'm just too cocky to let it go time after time. That's probably it.

Anywho, I realized that if anyone actually reads this blog my wording can be quite confusing because, well, I don't use words in the same way that other people use them. I use them in the way I think they should be used. So it's definition time (yippee!) This is just for clarification so I don't get in too much trouble. :)

Feminist: one who works for the rights of both men and women (See Mary Wollstonecraft or Florence Nightingale.)

Chauvinist: one who is blatantly advocating special privileges for their own gender while pushing aside the rights of those of the other gender (See the modern Feminist movement.)

Myth: a historical tale for which no evidence can be found to prove the occurrence - not associated with the validity or lack thereof of said tale. (See Oedipus Rex.)

truth: a fact that is applicable and necessary to know for one's own life but not necessarily applicable to the lives of others. (See Friedrich Nietzsche.)

Truth: a fact that is applicable to all and independent of all of human thought; a universal. (see Immanuel Kant.)

God(s):
1. an all-powerful and all-knowing figure that is generally seen as being human-like in general who is in control of all of human affairs and the whole of this World. Does not always have to follow His or Her rules set aside for humans as His or Her plan for existence is above Absolutist theory. (see Western theology and Theistic existialism.)
2. Truth (see Eastern theology esp. Taoism.)
3. The Great mystery(ies) (see certain individuals from one of the following: Roman Catholicism, Paganism, Islam, Episcopalism, etc.)

Romantic: relating to an scenario, place, or thing that is desirable aesthetically pleasing, but not necessarily realistic - not related to love. (see "World Peace" ideologies.)

Atheist: one who does not believe in Truth. (See - no one actually, I don't think this is possible.)
"Atheist": one who critizes a Western version of bibically literal God(s) without seeming to understand differences in views from said version of God(s). (See Richard Dawkins.)

Christian: one who follows the Nicene Creed esp. relating to the trinity. (See the Roman Catholic church.)

Liberal: one who wishes for the government to be involved solely with the safety of its individuals and not with every detail of the lives of said individuals. (See modern libertarian movement.)

"Liberal": a modern Democrat who insists upon sticking to party lines and participates in name-calling to prove they are the superior party. (see Chris Matthews.)

Conservative: a person who sticks to the values they believe have been important in the past. (See what many in Utah consider themselves.. sorry can't come up with anything other than that.)

"Conservative": a modern Republican who insists upon sticking to party lines and participates in name-calling to prove they are the superior party. (see Bill O'Reilly.)

There. Those are the words that I use "incorrectly."

I'll probably think of more later.

Oh! And FYI if anyone's actually reading this or the rest of my blog: I'm not going to include quotation marks or cite any quotes from the following if I use them in my status any longer: Cat Stevens, Paul Simon, or Oscar Wilde. It was getting a little redundant.

"Tell us all a story about how it used to be.

Make it up. And then write it down. Just like history." - Paul Simon

So I've just started to read Arabian Nights. So far it's been quite interesting. It's one of those classics that you think you know all about until you actually sit down and read it. My use of wikipedia has increased significantly since I've started it because, frankly, I know next to nothing about Islamic folklore.

The book itself has reminded me of something I've questioned a lot recently: the historical accuracy of everything. I'm a critic. Myth is so often based in some place or thing that actually existed. It seems like it takes a lot of twisting and turning and in the end you come out with a great, but highly unlikely, story.

Oddly, the myth of Ali Baba is likely entwined in another myth: that the story was in the original Arabian Nights. Critics today think that a French translator added the story in later.

The myth of Oedipus the king makes me think twice. Most people hear of the Thebian plays at some point in their lives, but it is little discussed that there are many, many more documents recording the myth prior to Sophocles with many other parts to the story. This leaves me thinking that Oedipus probably did exist and the story has been twisted.

And here's where I shoot myself in the foot. For, as we all know, it's ok to question mythology as long as it's not the mythology of the majority.

The story of Lot's wife has always bothered me.

I caught this loophole a while back:
"But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt." - Genesis 19:26
So.. if Lot's wife is behind him how could he possibly know that she turned into a pillar of salt. Odd.

But what I find really interesting is that there is a place named Mount Sodom where the the story would've taken place that is absolutely covered in salt formations. You can see them here. These flats lead me (and many others) to believe that the flats came first, a traveller found them, and then the story was made up off of an already existing character-Lot- that was in Jewish mythology.













In this picture you can see the landmark that I would guess sprung the specifics of her turning into the salt pillar. It's actually been named "Lot's Wife."

History seems to call for an acceptance of ideas where one cannot find absolute proof (which is impossible with everything I guess) with a little bit of cynicism about everything.

So call me a heretic, but I think it's a good idea to take most of history with a grain of salt. (Not a pillar.)

Welcome to the circus

Ever notice how issues regarding certain groups have become the new circus? A way of entertainment by "throwing the Christians at the lions."
We treat issues as if there are no people really behind them. Whether it be those on social security, illegal immigrants, abortionees, gays, minorities, other countries, politicians, torturers, or torturees.

Does anyone really care about both the woman and the child in abortion issues? Of course not. They are both a source of entertainment for those who need a cause. Does any feel bad for both the tortured and the torturee? Of course not. They likewise are a show for the general public to watch.

"When you see a man beating a dog and you feel as bad for the man as you do for the dog that's when you know you've got it."

I heard this quote at a lecture one time (it was attributed to the Dalai Lama, but I haven't found anything to confirm that) and it's stuck with me since.

How often would we, as humans, be willing to help both sides? To see both sides of the very human issues and try to help anyone who is hurt by the situation, not just one person.

Instead there seems to be two reactions to such issues:

1. One becomes entirely obsessed with defending the rights of one of the above people seeing no problems with the potential results of their quick decisions. The person is made into a circus in that they are not treated as a person, but a cause. The person that "liberal" people will want to have as friends merely because they wish to appear "liberal" but do not actually care about the person. "When everybody loves me I will never be lonely." should very well be the theme of the person from then on. They are purely entertainment for the mass of liberal thought. Not someone who might actually need someone to care.

2. One decides that the person is not really a person and that whatever the issue that is brought up regarding this person must lead the person to be "evil." Evil is a tricky word. It effectively dehumanizes those who are given the label disregarding circumstances from society that one might've brought upon the person to be labelled as such, ie - ignoring mental illness, ostracization, abuse and other home situations, etc. This person is treated as a circus in that they are not human. They never will be. Forget all of the background and possible horrors of their lives. They are damned and thus fuel for argument. A circus of what was never allowed enough of a chance.

So be a part of the circus or try to change it. It's not likely to change throughout all of humanity. We've thrown the Christians at the lions, set up our "freak shows", burned down cities, destroyed lives, etc. all for entertainment in the past. Today we simply ruin lives by choosing not to recognize them as such.

And, yes, I know I'm a hypocrite. I've done my fair share of extreme side choosing and creating a circus out of people.

Absolutely disgusting

Ever have one of those days, weeks, or even months when all food seems to be absolutely and ridiculously disgusting?
Blegh.
That's been this week for me. Everything sounds gross.

Sometimes I feel intelligent

and then I go to family parties.

~sigh~

"I am not young enough to know everything."

-Oscar Wilde

The other day I was thinking about a class last year and the ways in which I thought that I could've fixed the class and suddenly the though came to me "Of course I could've. I was in High School. I had the answers for everything."

Anyway, now that I've mocked myself twice, I just wanted to say how amazing Oscar Wilde is.

"Reading an Oscar Wilde play is sort of like life being perfect." - Tosh Berman

If you have not ever seen or read anything by Oscar Wilde I demand that you stop reading right now and go down to the library and check out the text to the play "The Importance of Being Ernest" or "The Picture of Dorian Gray." Don't check out the video - Hollywood's corrupted Wilde plays.

"I can resist everything - except temptation."
"I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying."
"The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame."
"To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness."
"I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies."

You probably are wondering where this rambling came from. Well, I started another Oscar Wilde work today and was, of course, not disappointed. And I found a pleasant surprise the other day - a little book called "De Profundis" a love letter from Wilde to Lord Alfred Douglas when he was in prison and doing hard labor for "gross indecency" (at least he didn't get the hemlock like Socrates).

Goodness. How does one properly express the literary genius that is Oscar Wilde? I am in awe.

Go read.

Take THAT communism!

I learned a secret tonight.
An ultra-important, historically significant secret.
Want to know?

I learned what the cosine button on your calculator actually does. No, I don't mean that I learned that I could press the button and it would give me the answer. I learned how to get the answer (approx.) without a calculator.

It's called a Taylor series:

cos(x) = 1 - x^2/2! + x^4/4! - x^6/6! + x^8/8! - . . . to infinity.
You have to use radians instead of degrees. That took me a while.
It's not possible to calculate any of the degree exactly according to this series, however, because it both uses pi (which has no apparent end or pattern) and the equation is infinite.

If you already knew this equation, don't tell me. I consider finally learning it to be a success against the calculator that was ruling my ruler life and would like to pretend I actually learned something tonight that isn't covered in classes often enough. (It wasn't in my trig. class. As it seems to always be the book simply said to press the button.)

Granted, I did read somewhere that the calculator uses a more effective method, but still!

Huzzah! I have won!

While I'm on this tangent (hahaha) I should probably include my recent love for Pascal's work.. the triangle, the wager, etc. Pascal rocks my socks.

Do you believe in rock & roll?

I have yet to understand people who don't listen to music.

Really.

How can one not fall madly in love with the lyrics of a truly clever song?
And then listen to the song over and over again.

"I have a friend who is a born again. Found his saviour's grace.
And I was born before my father.
And my children before me.
And we are born. And born again. Like the waves of the sea."

"I have squandered my resistance for a pocket full of mumbles.
Such are promises."

"There we all were in one place - the generation lost in space - but no time left to start again."

I tend to find lines in songs that I'd never thought about before and then realize just how incredible they are (or at least they are to me....)

Granted - I generally HATE love songs. They're nearly all the same song with slightly differing chords and words.

When people tell me they don't listen to music it's almost as painful as when people tell me they don't read.

And people who don't read or listen to music? Agh! What's the point of life?!

I just don't want to

Why is it that all I want to do in the morning is sleep and all I want to do at night is procrastinate doing actual work?

Seems silly.

<- So does this.

But silly in a comprehensible way. Which, I suppose is likewise, incomprehensible. But then neither of those two. All at once.

Anywho, I just thought I'd randomly post this cover for "Waiting for Godot" here because it pretty much rocks my socks. As well as because I really want to see "Waiting for Godot" sometime. (Dang you conservative Utah. 'Twill never come here.)

Anyone want to watch the video with me? :D

Book Report

Do I dare?
Really, do I?
I told myself at a few points that it was blog worthy so despite the social whiplash I'm going to get for doing this, I'm doing this.

This past week I read a book titled "Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion." The book was about a woman, Sara Miles, in California converting to Christianity. Not that radical right? Well..
Sara Miles was raised an atheist.
Sara Miles was living in San Francisco at the time of her conversion.
Sara Miles was living with a man in third world country during a revolution and got pregnant and had a baby out of wedlock. She was taking care of this child without a man in her life at the time of her conversion.
Sara Miles is homosexual and living with another woman.

The interesting thing about the book was that she was a real person and a real Christian. Two things don't mix as often as they should.
The impressive part of her writing was that she was able to get to the core of Christianity instead of simply following rules and then calling herself a Christian.
Sara Miles started a food pantry that would sell food for next to nothing to the poor. This food pantry allowed anyone to come and buy food. The process wasn't regulated. It didn't matter if the people were obviously on drugs, were schizophrenic, weren't legal, or if they appeared to be rich. All were welcome.
The food pantry serves over seven hundred people a week.

"These things need to be regulated! This is just promoting laziness!" is the reaction that I think this project would've gotten here in Utah.

But wait! Miles has a point.
The first thing that Miles points to is that Christ ate with sinners and prostitutes. He condemned those who put regulations on every last detail. Remember these weird scriptures:

"For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?
And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?"

Honestly, I've given this book no justice. It was quite the book. As far as recommending the book goes: I loved the parts that were about Miles' radically different life and her views on Jesus that were not mystical, but not the mystical stuff (which is the stuff that almost everyone who would read this blog would like more) I really didn't care for as usual.

It would seem as though throughout my life I've never really been exposed to this idea of "liberal Christianity" and now that I keep running into it I've got to say that it has quite a few very valid points. To say something extremely out-of-line in Utah: Jesus teaches mostly liberal ideas.

Overall, Miles makes one really consider Christianity in a different light.

Faking or Refusing

I've spent the night writing a paper on "how [my] previous living environment has affected me."
hahahhah.
That's pretty much ridiculous.
I wasn't required to do so. Why did I do it then?
I can save one hundred plus dollars a month for having written that paper. It was for a housing scholarship with the honors program.

The best part about it is that I know someone who was refusing to write it because it is utterly pointless. She doesn't care as much about the money as her own dignity.
And she's right: it's a bunch of crap that really doesn't mean anything. All of those scholarship and college application essays were. I'm feeling like I'm in High School where I felt this way about nearly all of my essays.

I imagine, however, that it's all my fault because I could've protested against writing a pointless essay and the program chair probably would've let me do something else... but it's due tomorrow and I didn't start it until nine tonight. Next time I'm going to have to stand my own and refuse to waste my time. I'm excited to do so.

Not an element

Uranium, element 92, was named after the planet Uranus. Neptunium, element 93, was discovered later and named after Neptune (as Neptune follows Uranus in the planetary line.) Then scientists discovered element 94 which they named Plutonium likewise because of the planets.

But if Pluto's not a planet, is Plutonium an element?
I demand that we rename it. :)

Self-Proclaimed Evolutionary

So, in case you haven't noticed, I really don't like creationism or intelligent design. (I'm in favor of theistic evolution until evidence for any other theory makes any sense to me.)
These pictures come from a deist facebook page. I like them. :)

Brainwashed

Have you ever been in one of those classes where the professor/teacher states what they think about a subject before a debate and then you come to realize later that the discussion was a little tainted because of their personal preference? A class where you suddenly realize everyone sounds like they've been brainwashed by the professor/teacher...

That's a little how I feel right now. I feel as though I've taken the easy way out.
The funny thing about the argument is that I agreed for the most part with what I was saying. At the time it didn't feel like I was being twisted into saying something and I still don't know why it feels that way now.

On a related note - do other people find themselves stating things that they really do believe and then not too long after asking themselves: do I really believe that? It always seems absurd looking at whatever I've stated the second time.

Anyway, I'm feeling a little tricked (like I commonly would after College Writing last year.) I can still see my professor picking out and praising one person in the class and another person in the class looking at my professor a little like she had been "enlightened."

Simplicity in the Torah

This is one of my favorite religious stories (for the moment). It may sound familiar as the bible has a similar passage. Hillel was a Rabbi who was born one hundred and ten years before Christ. Shammai was another Jewish leader who was born fifty years before Christ. Here's the story:

Once there was a gentile who came before Shammai, and said to him:
"Convert me on the condition that you teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot."
Shammai pushed him aside with the measuring stick he was holding.
The same fellow came before Hillel, and Hillel converted him, saying:
"That which is despicable to you, do not do to your fellow, this is the whole Torah, and the rest is commentary, go and learn it."

It's all ____'s fault.

Because surely "we didn't start the fire."

The other day I got to triple dip by going to a lecture called "I don't believe in Atheists." Which when I first found out about I was left thinking: "Religious studies credit for three classes? My life is complete."
Before you start accusing me of being atheist-intolerant let me get to my point:

Hedges' talk was about the New Atheist (think "The God Delusion", etc.) movement and the Christian Right.
He made some valid points as to why these groups are hurting America and the World. Three of my favorite were:

1. They both treat groups of people as the enemy. With the New Atheists it's those who are religious as can be seen be the major work to take religion out of everything these days. With the Christian Right it's the "sinners" - today this can easily be seen in the homophobic to the point of denial of the existence of homosexuality attitude of many in Christian Right states.

2. Because of this belief the two of them tend to claim that if the "problem" of the people's attitude (sinners saved or religious people becoming existentialist, etc.) were solved that we could miraculously reach a utopia and people would be wonderful.

3. The reason why this Utopia cannot exist is that the problem lies neither within religion or within a specific group (like the gay community) rather the problem lies within the inherint ability of men to do wrong.

I'm not saying that I think that he was totally correct, but he made some dang good points.
(As well as one really flawed one that they debated about during the Q&A section - at which points someone got so mad they asked him "Do you have trouble with English?!")

This all seems to fit well with the "Doctrine of the Mean" by Aristotle which I've recently discovered and really liked.

Anyway, just thought I'd talk about it.
It's interesting to me particularly because I've been trying to find a good piece of atheist literature, but all of the Atheists on Goodreads hate the four New Atheists and call them out on their poorly formed arguments.

On a side note: I really do like the song "We Didn't Start the Fire" and sometime soon I want to go through and read up on all of the events in the song because while I do know about some of the events/people (Cola wars, Ben Hurr, Eichmann) the number of ones I don't is kind of pathetic (children of thalidomide, Nasser aand Prokofiev, Edsel is a no-go.) It should be quite the learning experience... all of the things I should know. Plus - I'll finally get down to reading "Catcher in the Rye."

Quite the Wise Decision

So I find this fascinating -

Technetium, element 43, was discovered in 1937. To produce it scientists are required to bombard Molybdenum-96 with an additional neutron causing it to become Molybdenum-97 which then loses a negative beta particle and becomes Technetium.
(96Mo(n, γ)99Mo → 99Tc + β -)

Because it can only be produced synthetically and was the first element to have that qualification there was a huge controversy over whether or not it should be included in the Periodic Table of Elements (even though there was a predicted spot for it.) The decision to allow it and all of the following synthetic elements in wasn't made for ten more years and that was only after the scientists could study fallout from atomic research.

There are twenty-four elements that have been produced that absolutely cannot be found in nature (as it turns out, traces of Technetium can be.) There are over fifty more that some say that we could possibly produce.

Wow.

Can you imagine how quickly it could've thrown science off to refuse to include synthetic elements in the Periodic Table?

It's mind boggling and makes me wonder if we've done anything as incredibly stupid (or at least what seems incredibly stupid to the little Freshman) as this that has set science years behind. We probably have. It'll be really interesting to see what the things that we don't quite understand now ending up being discovered as scientific errors in the future.

Why Honors?

Honors Program sounds like something that you'd be forced into by some parent because "it'll look good on a resumé."
Honors is, however, a wonderful thing.

Why? (I'll tell you why!)

Without Honors I don't think I would've fully embraced the ideas of education for the self (in contrast to education for a career.)
Sure, I would've read a bit, but there's more to it than that. College is not about classes.

College is about having the opportunities to do expensive things for less or for free. (BB King, Wicked, Shakespeare Festival, Madame Butterfly, etc.)
College is about having someone help you to find the best professors with the smallest agenda.
College is about telling your teachers what you want out of class and what you want to do in their class.
College is about taking trips random places outside of the classroom that you may learn more from and getting credit for going.
College is about going to lectures on topics you never had heard of and, sometimes, not understanding them, and other times finding a new passion.
College is about getting a few teachers that scare you because they're a little too "out there" to be as sane as they seem to be.
College is about going to a few events that don't spark your interest because you need to get so many points for a class. Then, afterwards, finding out you really don't hate all of them. (But.. ugh.. the Opera.. blegh.)
College is about getting way too much reading, insisting upon reading nearly all of it, and then going to class feeling prepared and being overwhelmed by the brilliance of your teacher and fellow students - suddenly realizing just how little you know.

The Honors Program is all about every one of those things and more.
These are the things you really can't get from College without putting major effort into searching for each one. In honors they fall in your lap without you saying a word and sometimes you forget just how lucky you are.

That's why.

"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all." - Oscar Wilde

I was looking at a book by Harold Bloom the other day (yes, I'll admit it, I was looking because I'm becoming more and more of a book snob) that was called "How to Read and Why", which sounds a little like the type of book a parent would get to convince their kid to pick up something, anything. Which it isn't, I'm assuming, since it is Bloom. (Who, I've never actually read, by the way.) :)

Anyway, this book made me remember a weird thing about myself.. ready?

I don't read because I have some sort of intrinsic love for reading.

Don't get me wrong, I like to read, but I don't read because reading is an end in and of itself. I'll read because I like having read. Because I like knowing different things and being annoying by being able to say things like "Well Huxley thought.. actually, if you look at what he talks about in Black Like Me.. etc."

Actually, for years I read next to nothing. Why? Because most of what I had read up until that point could easily be labelled "junk food" literature - the fast paced page turners that you finish and realize you just wasted two hours of your life. Blegh. It wasn't until I discovered that there could actually be a point to reading that I really started doing so.
It was funny the day my Senior year that I realized that the most intelligent people weren't always, or even usually, the ones who got the highest grades. Rather, they were those who read quite a bit. Alas, such is our education system that I wasted eleven years of school before I figured this out and started picking up some books.

The reason why this is a big deal to me? It's because people always seem to assume that when I tell them how many pages I have left in a book or something along those lines that I don't like the book and I'm not reading it by choice, which is, generally, not true.

I read because I like having read things. I read to be able to know about the World. And because, maybe, every so often, reading gives me more of a chance of being smart enough to use that knowledge to tap into something, anything, more hopeful or useful than merely unconciously existing. Moving beyond Absurdism.

The deepest post

"Brevity is the soul of wit."
- Polonius (Hamlet)
(But it's Polonius, so what does he know?!)

My posts are getting more and more outrageously long. So this one is short.

Fin.

Kick out the devil's sin; pick up a good book now.

Two thousand eleven pages later where am I?

This is, in fact, a bragging post. Not because I think that this is an "amazing" feat for most.. but one for me.
You see: I told myself that I was going to read at least two thousand pages during the break. Not only did I tell myself this, but I actually did it. Weird, right?
I tend to tell myself I'm going to do lots of things that I end up not really doing.
Here's the thing.. I may have read all of those pages, but unless I try to make some sense of all that I read there's no reason why I should've read them. And so these are a few of the things that I learned over the break; book by book.

The Picture of Dorian Gray: The self is more terrifying than anything than any other subject. The most frightening part of the self: apathy towards the honor of the self and towards the universal golden rule.

Three Cups of Tea: Ok. This book really isn't as "revolutionary" as it is proclaimed by book snobs as being. I was reminded of the fact that not only can there be non-violent forms of intervention, but that non-violent intervention is usually more effective.

Mormon Scientist: I'm not the only one who thinks that evolution is not contrary to Mormon Doctrine (for me - a special emphasis on "Theistic evolution" in opposition to "Intelligent Design" which is really not evolution.. but I'll write something else on that later). Mormons, even prominent ones, can argue opinion with Prophets on such controversial topics as Evolution and not be considered "apostate" as many label Orson Scott Card for having written books that aren't just fluff. :)

Slumming: This is a radical book for me to have liked because it has two of the features that I usually avoid when it comes to selecting a novel: A) It's Young Adult and B) it's written by an LDS author. Perhaps the most interesting thing I learned from this one is that if you write an LDS YA and it has too many "depressing" parts to it no one will buy it (Que the people at the library telling me "That's not uplifting"). 'Twas very hard to find.

Nonviolence: I have yet to find an intensely convincing argument for either side of this debate. The most interesting thing in this book? There is no word for nonviolence in any language. I actually could not tell you the difference between pacifism and nonviolence before I read this though, so it gets some points.

A Short History of Nearly Everything: Bill Bryson likes geology. Blah. Beyond that I learned that Scientists are radicals and if they're right, then they'll most likely get mocked while they're alive and they'll be made into Saints latter on. A lot of the well-known scientists throughout the years have hung out together. The fact that Yellow Stone is one huge volcano took years to figure out. Don't run around Yellow Stone at night even if you are a park ranger. Umm.. dang, you think I'd remember more from this book. Shoot.

Roots: This book is well-researched historical fiction, not nonfiction. Take it out of the 920s. This was the best book on slavery I have read. The history of all places, not just Europe (dang you Europeans! myself included), should be taught as a way of showing the Roots of America for even though we like to pretend that Western thought is "civilized" thought, it generally is further away from being "civilized" than other cultures.. whoops. The book also reminded me of Kite Runner because it was SO popular when it came out among those who "wanted to understand other cultures."

I'm hoping that because most of these books made do the outrageous thing - think of life in different terms than I did before I read them - that I can use them in shaping my opinions, myself, and, of course, as a means of making a point in debate. :)

Read. More. Books.