Hope

Peter tells us we should always be ready to give a reason for the hope that we have. I've come to realize that I can't honestly give any reasons. Overall, I am not convinced of the truth of Christianity. The Bible does not seem to be an internally consistant document, nor is the Deity it describes. The Christian worldview does not provide a perspective on life that is significantly more useful than non-Christian worldviews. Christians do not seem to have anything special about them, nor does Christian community (aside from its tightness, which is something other communities, like the armed forces, can reproduce). I have not seen evidence of God making me better, changing my heart, or causing me to grow. I have matured in a morally neutral sense, but in terms of my own morality I am exactly the same as I was when I was 10. Although I have seen people change when they become a Christian, I have also seen people whose lives changed just as dramatically and just as positively without ever uttering a syllable of prayer.

The ressurrection is hard to ignore or explain away, but by itself it is not enough to be convincing to me.

However, for some reason I can't help believing the Bible is true. I am a Christian. I pray to God; I take communion. I have a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ, who was God's Son and who died and was ressurrected for the sins of God's people, of whom I am one.

I don't know whether God is hanging on to me without my help, or whether I'm just too afraid to leave, but for whatever reason I'm still a Christian and I still believe all this stuff. I don't know why or for how long.

Ad

As soon as I posted that last post, an ad for rock climbing paraphenalia showed up on the side bar. Thank you capitalism and Google.

Sports

I love sports, and I demand excellence of myself when I play them, but I am not very competitive. In team sports I'm usually more concerned with how well I am playing than I am with how well our team is playing. I think one of the things I like about climbing is that there is not direct competition with someone else. It's just the beauty of the line itself that motivates you to climb it.

Smiling

There are so many assholes in the world. Smiling and making eye-contact are so powerful because when you do them it tells people that you are not one. (Regardless of whether you actually are one or not).

Inasmuch

Scripture is constantly telling us to spend time with widows and orphans, the poor and the sick. I wonder whether one of the effects of spending time with people like that, who deal with the daily presence and normalcy of death, might be that death is made more real to us. It's easy for death to be the thing that happens to you when you're 85. Maybe hanging out with widows, orphans, sick people, poor people, dying people makes it more natural for us to dwell on our own death, God's judgement of our souls, and the coming of His kingdom.

"Hey God"

I've seen a dying man too proud to beg spit on his own grave
Was he too gone to save?
Did you even know his name?

-Bon Jovi

Seduce

There is a proliferation of movies with a romantic plot in which one person is seducing the other, but then actually falls in love. When their lover finds out their true original intentions, there is conflict. The conflict is resolved once it becomes clear the feelings of love are genuine. I wonder why this plot is so compelling to us. I'm pretty sure it's not archetypal.

Nitro

I'm watching this Nitro Circus show. It's done by Travis Pastrana and Johnny Knoxville. Basically if this were the sixties it would be art, but right now it's entertainment.

Chameleon

When you're good at hanging out / getting along with a lot of different kinds of people, it's easy to forget who you really are.

Debauchery

I like songs about debauchery. Fast cars, alcohol, sex, etc. I'm not sure why I like them, and a lot of it is probably unhealthy, but it seems like there is something really compelling and true about the unbridled celebration of things in the world that are awesome. And just doing things for fun and no other reason.

Addiction

A friend told me today that he smokes 2.5 packs of cigarettes a day. He's trying to quit but he says it's really hard because he's already quit before and started up again a few times. He said it gets harder to quit the more times you quit and then relapse. That's sobering.

Steve-O from Jackass says he still considers himself a nitrous oxide addict even though he went through therapy and hasn't done it for 3 years. He says he could easily do it tomorrow.

Guide

I am writing a climbing guide to the University of Florida campus. Hopefully it will be completed in a matter of months. Anybody that would be willing to help photograph and/or loan me a camera would be more than welcome. Although, of course, nobody reads this blog...

Rationality

So apparently (according to the study this summer with Dr. Horner) the Bible affirms the work of the mind: rationality, reason, logic, thought, discourse, etc.

But whose mind are we talking about? The past 100 years of thought have taught us a lot about the mind -- its dark corners, dead ends, and contradictory. The limits and fallacies of Western habits of reason (inherited from the Greeks) have never been more fully explored. Does Paul reason the way he does because that's the right way to do it; or is he only thinking that way because he is living in 1st Century Hellenistic culture?

Destruction

It is constantly presented to me that God is a creative Being and that we, as creatures made in His image are also creative. When we produce art we are bearing His image by being, ourselves, creative.

Much 20th-21st Century art, however, is quite destructive. Although some of this art seeks to be "creative" in its destructiveness, I would argue that a substantial amount of art from the past 100 years, at its core, pits itself against anything that would try to create. It destroys --frequently for no reason, or for the simple pleasure of tearing something apart.

Does such art cast off the image of God? Or does it simply bear the image in a different way? Couldn't God also be considered a Destroyer? Genesis tells us He destroyed the world with water once. He scattered the nations by confounding their speech. He obliterated Sodom and Gomorra, commanded the Israelites to wipe their enemies off the face of the earth, nearly eliminated the tribe of Benjamin, and has promised to destroy the world again. But it is striking that God is often called the Creater, and never (to my knowledge) the Destroyer.

MJ

The Michael Jackson memorial concert was on 17 out of a possible 67 channels in my house yesterday.

Crash

I totalled my car today. It's wierd cause I'm really tired, but also still so amped up I can't sleep. I keep vascillating between being angry at God for taking my car, grateful to Him for sparing my life, and feeling apathetic towards the whole thing.

Effected

I'm usually too emotionally effected by really good art to be able to discuss it intelligently. Particularly with movies.

Kids

It is interesting to me how much stuff is marketed to adults that was originally marketed to kids: Transformers, Xmen, Batman, etc. Also that TV show Wipeout (which is basically the same as those obsticle course shows on Nickelodien I remember from my childhood). And these things don't change much from child version to adult version. I suspect that this may be evidence that the sharp division between child and adult in American society may be artificial.

Billy Idol

I'd give my soul
For money to burn with you.
I'd give you all and have none, babe
To have you here by me.

Crumble

When the world comes crashing down around our heads, everyone will head to McDonald's for comfort.