Notes from Afghanistan COMPLETED!

I've mentioned before and even posted an excerpt from the book here, but it's finally done.  I've been working on it for the last few months and it's good to be complete.  I ended up being much more involved in the process than I originally thought I would be.  When Steven first contacted me about this project I was just one of several people he asked to read and comment on his book.  Then, out of my love for good grammar and copyediting, I began copyediting each chapter of the book.  Aften one draft was edited and compiled I reread and edited again a little more critically but it was much easier.  Then, after that draft, with a few minor changes thrown in from the author, I worked on formatting for eBook/iTunes release.  I use Mac and there's a program specifically built for that called iBooks Author, which I used to format the text and pictures into an eReader format.  I'm excited about the book's release on the 9th.  Here's the link to the iTunes book.  However, this link is to the special kickstarter, through which you can support the release of the book and the Wounded Warrior Project.

I hope you are able to support and enjoy this text as much as I enjoyed helping make it possible.

Small sampling of pictures from the book:

Best Wife Ever

I don't commonly talk about my wife, but I'd like to brag.

Do you have money?  Do you ever have trouble managing that money?  My wife doesn't!  She can take the little that I make in the military and save and manage it so well that we pretty much get anything we want or need any time we want.  We regularly give to church and another ministry, and have more than enough to do fun stuff like the mini-vacation that we just finished.  Before we left, seemly on a whim, my wife bought me a Nikon D600.  If you don't know cameras, just know it's a very expensive camera, to the tune of $2,000 just for the body.  Also I got a new lens about $600.  I know I said "seemingly on a whim," but in reality I've been checking out this camera for months.  This actually presents a (slight) problem.  What kind of gifts do you give a woman that has everything she needs, and since we get pretty much whatever we want whenever we want.

I know it's tough, but my wife does very well even without me.  I have to spend months abroad with my job in the military, even so, my wife takes such good care of our two boys even homeschooling them.  She cooks, cleans, teaches, manages money, and takes good care of our family in general.  I love her so much.  I need to do more to help her, and I'm glad to be home because it gives me the chance to do so.  I want to give back to her.

Today I was able to give back to her by giving her a girls' day out.  I need more ideas of ways to give back to her.  We've been talking about doing an anniversary getaway at the resort where we recently spent a couple days.  There's a gorgeous little cabin with a private beach, hopefully we can reserve it for a couple days to celebrate our anniversary in a couple weeks.

So what do I get for the woman who has everything?

Just one of the views from the resort

Christianity vs. Philosophy (Again)

I was reading one of the regular blogs I follow and the headline piqued my interest.  First, some background information.

Between 2000 and 2004 I studied music at Cedarville University; a private, Christian, baptist (even if not in name), liberal arts university in Cedarville Ohio.  I didn't graduate, so I can't technically call it my "alma mater" but I did enjoy my time there, for the most part, and I've always had at least a small desire to return there some day.  My wife attended high school in Cedarville, but that's totally unrelated.

Anyways, it's a small(ish) private Christian college, and when I saw it mentioned on a random philosophy blog, that they were abolishing their philosophy major I looked into it.  What I found was a bit troublesome.  Apparently, after the resignation of the current president, Dr. Brown, and the recent, unexpected resignation of the vice president of student life, Dr Ruby, the university has decided to cancel not only its philosophy major but the physics major as well.  This is terribly saddening to me.  Not because I care about those particular administrators, they were only there for a couple years while I was there and they made little difference in my life as a student, rather because it is apparently stemming from the University "moving back toward conservative fundamentalism."  (That's a complicated quote, quoted from Christianity Today's article, quoting the Fiat Lux blog about this turn of events.)  Don't get me wrong, I'm a conservative, fundamentalist, committed Christian and I often feel that those in my shoes should do more to curb the liberalization of the faith.  The tough part about this issue is that I really don't know why these two prominent administrators resigned and it might have nothing to do with (re)turning to a more conservative fundamentalist stance in the university.

The problem, to me, is that Cedarville Univ and other conservative Christian groups can't seem to find a balance between faith, philosophy, and science.  Is Cedarville abandoning philosophy and physics in an attempt to return to conservative fundamentalism?  I don't think that's really the case, and if that's the goal then they're doomed to fail as an educational institution.  Philosophy is in no way contrary to the Bible, or conservative/fundamentalism.  Perhaps, by the modern media definition of fundamentalist philosophy would present a problem.  The true fundamentalist shouldn't have any issues with seeking out answers to tough questions in light of his/her beliefs.  Being grounded in an unshakeable faith in God's word doesn't mean I can't question it.  My faith is made stronger by my questioning the Bible.  My faith is made stronger by my studying nature, science, and the universe around me.

I'm hoping that the administrative changes at Cedarville work out for the best, and that they bring back majors in Philosophy and Physics.  If they need professors, I'd love to help, but I'm not even remotely qualified ... yet.  Maybe someday.  That would be cool.  Finish my stint in the military/complete various degrees (already have Associates, working on Bachelors), teach overseas for a few years, move back to Ohio, become a professor of philosophy and Asian studies at Cedarville...  The possibilities are endless.

One of the Okuma resort beaches (where we spent two days on a mini vacation)

Skipping Rocks

I've mentioned before and it's probably obvious, that I'm no stranger to technology and geekiness in general.  However, today as we were waiting to go to a friend's apartment for their child's fourth birthday party, we were walking along the beach and I was skipping rocks.  For whatever reason, this particular beach across the street from our friend's apartment had several good skippin' rocks.  It was littered with pieces of shale.  I might have mentioned it before but the typical coral rock found on the many beaches we frequent aren't very good for skipping, though they're flat, they're too light and don't have enough heft to get a good throw.  But today I was in (comparative) rock-skipping heaven.

It made me think, even as I reached into my pocket resisting the impulse to pull out my iPhone and check Facebook or while away the time in some other manner, that I sometimes dislike modern conveniences/technology and would like to go back to the way things used to be.  I'm not a hopeless romantic concerning the past, I don't look through rose-colored glasses at my childhood and want everything to go back to those simpler times.  BUT, there's a lot of therapy in contemplation and rock-skipping.  Fishing is another one, I LOVE wading out into waist-deep frigid water to cast into the weeds in search of angry Pike.  My life, wether fortunately or unfortunately, has taken me far away from those, more simple, times.  I miss them sometimes and I relish the times I do get to relax, stop checking the phone, and simply sit (or in this case walk) and think.  That's definitely one thing philosophers seem to do more often than most, sit and think.

After the party I was talking with my wife, Michelle, about our post-military life plans, and I mentioned that I'd like to come back to this island.  We were talking about that idea, and this is something like how it would go...  I'd retire, hopefully as a Master Sergeant (E7) or above, and move back to Okinawa to teach English.  I know Michelle doesn't want to live overseas forever, so I'd like to do that for just 5 years or so, right after retiring from the AF. I'd use my retirement pay to rent an apartment right on the ocean and the money I'd make as an English teacher would pay for everything else.  There are dozens of military bases on the island so we'd always be near a military hospital and be able to use the commissary and other base amenities including the many military-only resort areas.  It seems like a cool idea to me and Michelle seemed onboard with the idea as well.  We'll just have to wait see.

Regardless, one of the main things I'm looking forward to after I'm done with my, relatively short when compared to a civilian job, military career is take more time to skip rocks and go fishing.  I hope that wherever I end up at that stage in my life I live close to a place where I can do just that.

Pretty much as fair as fishing gets!  You have to swim close enough to the fish to spear it with a pole

Guest Writers

I've sent out this invitation before and I've gotten several good responses.  If you'd be at all interested in writing an article for my blog you're welcome to submit articles via email (admin@samuelronicker.com) or via this Google spreadsheet.

It's not that I've run out of ideas or anything, just that I enjoy sharing other's writings along with my own.

Colossians 2

I know it may seem counterintuitive but the pastor at church brought up this passage on Sunday and I thought it interesting given my intentions behind this blog.

Colossians 2 specifically verses 8-23. I won't quote the whole passage but here's verse 8 from the NASB "8 See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ." (emphasis mine)  It seems obvious to me that the passage isn't truly condemning philosophy and those that study it.  God's Word wouldn't really be against the love of learning, it says in Psalms 24 "The earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains, The world, and those who dwell in it."  So, philosophy, logic, and all the tools of learning and science are all God's.  We (as Christians) need to use them as such.

It seems to me that the real point of the Colossians 2 passage is more along the same lines as: 1 Corinthians 3:18-21a "18 Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, he must become foolish, so that he may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. For it is written, '[God] is the one who catches the wise in their craftiness;' 20 and again, 'The Lord knows the reasonings of the wise, that they are useless.' 21 So then let no one boast in men..." The point isn't that the love of learning is wrong or bad, rather that so many forget Proverbs 3:5-8 "5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And do not lean on your own understanding. 6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight. 7 Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the Lord and turn away from evil. 8 It will be healing to your body, And refreshment to your bones."

The warning in Colossians 2 doesn't want us to keep away from learning or loving knowledge; it is teaching us that we must never rely on our own knowledge or learning when it comes to the things of God. He offers forgiveness through Jesus and once we accept that we need to remember "...[whatever] you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." (1 Corinthians 10:31-33 (NASB))

Not my best photography work but some cool bioluminescent coral

My Friend's Experience...

My friend and former coworker, Steven Specht, is embarking on an amazing attempt to ride across the US this year.  I'll be occasionally referencing his experiences here.

I've recently returned from my deployment to Afghanistan and I'm thinking of doing some biking in conjunction with training for triathloning.  One of my goals this year is to complete a half-Ironman and I'd like to start riding my bike to work.  I loaned my bike to a friend while I was gone and he told me that one of the pedals of my bike fell apart and that he had temporarily replaced it with his old pedals.  I've been into minimalist and barefoot running for several years now and my goal is to complete the tri barefoot.  When I talked to my friend (that had borrowed the bike) about jury-rigging the pedals with a barefoot strap, he recommended I try clip-less pedals that I could leave the shoes on the pedals easily enough and just strap my bare feet into the shoes.  I don't really have any experience in this area.  Do any of you?  Any advice?

I've looked into it some and it seems like there are some serious advantages to using the stiff shoed clip-less pedals.  According to what I've read there's a mechanical advantage to having a stiff shoe while riding, but I'm not really worried about being fast or competitive so the mechanical advantage isn't really all that important to me.  I'm also budget conscious and I really don't want to spend hundreds of dollars for fancy pedals.  Regardless of how it ends up, I'm looking forward to reading about my friend Steven's adventures and doing my own training.

Not Exactly My Bike (close) *Credit: Bikesdirect.com

Return Home

I've gotten home, and completed my inprocessing work.  I have two weeks of rest/free leave before I have to return to work.  Unfortunately, I have a lot of work to do editing my friend's book and finding the same time to work on it is harder.  There's lot's of distractions, with the beaches and historical ruins and spending time with family and friends.

Already it's been only four days and I've gotten to do all sorts of fun stuff with my family including visiting a small island up on the northern end of the main island of Okinawa.

Swinging on Kouri Island

Discard the Constitution?

I recently read two different pieces on the New York Times online opinion page, one about the NEED to give up on the Constitution, and then the various responses to that piece.

In all honesty for the first time, in a long time I really have no answer!  "Then why are you writing a blog about it?" you ask.  Well, I don't really know.  I don't like the thought of abolishing the Constitution altogether; I liken it to the foundation of a building.  Especially in an earthquake prone location, foundations are strong but flexible.  It seems that the point of the Constitution was to be a firm foundation but flexible for the times when change is needed.  Was the Constitution written by men (therefore fallible) from a different time period and different issues?  Yes.  Does that mean it doesn't apply today?  No.  They understood that times can change, but in order to have a firm foundation they made it difficult to change.

One of the sections mentioned in the initial piece was Section 7 "All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills."  Funny, that the most important part of flexibility (that Mr. Seidman seems to be neglecting) is mentioned in the selfsame section that he referenced.  Even though the only place revenue measures can originate from is the House, AND the Senate is the only place from which Amendments can originate.  Rather than abolishing our foundation and trying to rebuild from scratch, it would behoove our government to abolish the all the extraneous bills/laws that burden our country.

It's SUPPOSED to be difficult (inefficient) to make laws and change the foundation.  Imagine a government that could make new laws with little to no bureaucracy.  Laws would be passed at the drop of a hat and as knee jerk reactions to everything.  At the first shooting ALL guns would be outlawed.  I'm not saying that would be a bad thing per se, but apply that to car accidents.  At the first negligent speeding accident that kills an innocent bystander, the government would outlaw cars or make the speedlimit 5mph.  Obesity kills, there's no doubt about that.  But, do you want a government that can pass any number of laws regulating what you can and cannot eat.  What about freedom of speech?  Do you want the government to have the ability to litigate what you can and cannot say?

I liked the first response by Lawrence Tribe, while he doesn't use these words I think I agree with his sentiments about the original piece.  Mr. Seidman offers a lot of rhetoric about a broken system and dysfunctional government, but no real solution other than to throw out the foundation of our system of government.  Supposedly, we should all sit around and rationally discuss the future of our nation and stop genuflecting to the desires of the founders, just how does that work Mr. Seidman?  That's what's supposed to happen in Congress, when was the last time that happened?  If it can't happen with rules to govern it, what make you think that it'll happen once the foundational rules have been abolished?

I find myself on the opposite side of the issue, we should abandon most of the extraneous laws that have plagued and made our country's laws so complicated that no one really understand the law.  Consider this book, Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent, about how federal law obscures it's meaning rather than clarify it and this book Go Directly to Jail: The Criminalization of Almost Everything.  We should abolish this bloated system of laws and go back to the basics of the Constitution.  Abolish everything EXCEPT the foundation and rebuild.

Year in Review (2012)

I know it's a bit late but I'd like to review my favorite posts and the posts with the most pageviews from 2012, technically my first year of blogging, though I really only (re)started in June.

#1 My favorite topic was well two, Grammar and Language Change
#2 The most read (by far, mainly due to my attempt at sharing it on Blog Carnival) was
Morality of Drone Strikes Response. Second place for most read was Plato's Republic Books 1-3.
#3 I've had several guest posts and responses: Eric Flynn, Will Haas, Steven Specht, Sam Ronicker (my dad), and Charles Philip Smith.  Also, I responded to Steven Specht's entry here.  I also wrote a guest entry on Will Haas' blog.  Overall, I liked the coordination and I'd like to continue the trend in 2013.
#4 Not really about blogging but about notable things that happened in my life in general (not in any particular order): I assisted Steven Specht in editing (attempting publishing early this year) his book Notes from Afghanistan.  I started working on my dad's next work Sermons from a Tiny Pulpit, hopefully we can finish it this year and get it published.  I started blogging in Korean.  I moved from Omaha, NE to Okinawa Japan for work; it's the most beautiful place I've EVER lived and I look forward to spending the next few years *there (*writing this while in Afghanistan).  As I just mentioned I spent a little over 3 1/2 months in Afghanistan, not a pleasant time but not too bad, definitely better than 2011 and 2010 when I spent over 6 months in southwest Asia each year.  One funny note I just realized the other day... I've had a total of 6,356 pageviews, HOWEVER, most of those (probably) were me viewing it for editing purposes, and I just found out I can turn off my views so that it doesn't count when I go to the blog for editing!  So, I hope you (if there's anyone reading this) have enjoyed my last year of entries and I look forward to continuing my writing this next year as well.

Looking ahead I mentioned this at the end of this post, but my goals/plans/resolutions for the new year:

Read through the Bible cover-to-cover and post about it on Facebook
Read 50 books throughout the year
Train for and complete at least a half ironman triathlon

Cocoa the Travel Dog Went with Me Everywhere!

I'm NOT Completely Convinced, but it's Interesting

I'm by no means convinced, as evidenced in the statements I made on my previous entry, that Genesis is a NON-literal description of the creation of the universe. However, I do like what Francis Collins says in the Book Language of God about how accepting Genesis as non-literal does NOT mean that the rest of the Bible is untrue. He uses the term "slippery slope" and I like to combine that with "line in the sand." So, IF he's right and God used evolutionary processes to create life on earth, I'd say to stop the slippery slope of the argument one can draw the line in the sand at the ending Genesis ch 1 as the end of the non-literal story of creation.

Genesis 2, is the details of God making mankind and his first interactions with them. Eden was a real place God setup for mankind to flourish in; the trees mentioned were real things that God setup to keep mankind flourishing and to give him the option to obey. Ch 3, mankind disobeys. All completely literal, story of mankind's first choice to disobey God's one rule. Ch 4, Cain & Abel, again literal story, now the question of "where did Cain get his wife?" comes up. Here's where creation via evolution can give an answer (again, not really saying I believe this, just that it makes sense), Cain married some lower form of humanoid. The, as Collins calls it, "BioLogos" view offers a similar explanation for the 'Nephilim' mentioned in ch 6. They're some other form of humanoid.

From Genesis 2 onward is the more detailed accounting of God's interaction and caring for His very special creation, mankind. One thing I disagree with from Collins is his brushing aside of the central concept that mankind is created in God's image. It is written several times throughout the Bible that mankind is in God's image, perhaps, if BioLogos is true (again I'm not totally convinced), the idea that mankind is created in God's image is that we are the first (and only, at least on earth) creation of God that can think and has a spirit. That's why God made us, to be different, and on a higher level than animals, to think and interact with Him.

IF we draw the line in the sand at Genesis chapter one it still leaves faith and God's special interaction and love for mankind intact. IF we keep going down the slippery slope and say ALL of Genesis is non-literal it makes sin a non-issue, because it's just a story, it didn't really happen. I'm not saying Collins isn't saved or any crazy thing like that. In fact I really like his testimony in the text, it's quite stirring. And, I'm not making the mistake that he mentions that I also DETEST about religions (Christianity included), how *we (*I don't like to call myself religious because of this fact) often ostracize anyone who doesn't believe exactly as we believe. I'm not saying that all roads lead to God/salvation, I'm saying we need to stop the hate and start loving and accepting people as Christ taught.

Francis Collins, the author of Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief

Genesis 1 Fact or Allegory?

I've been reading The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief and I started my reading through the Bible as a New Year's resolution, I'm on page 197, fairly near the end and I like the book in general, but I have a few reservations.

First of all he started with several references from C.S. Lewis, my favorite apologist.  So, right away I really liked what he had to say and pretty much agreed with everything in the first couple chapters.  Then he went into a deep (deeper than my understanding) analysis of genetic coding and how genetics has very strong evidence for Darwinian evolution.  It was interesting to me that he brought up my primary counter to this evidence.  The way my roommate and best friend put it when he and I were discussing it was well put, the evidence wasn't for a common ancestor but rather a common Creator.  The way he puts it in the book is something like, (Young Earth or literal interpretation) creationist/scientists say the reason we have so much in common genetically with other mammals is God reused similar methods to make multiple creatures.  Collins' response to that was that IF God literally created the earth in seven (six not counting the rest day) days then he must have been trying to trick us or play games with scientific study, because in genetics, life obviously resulted from evolution.

After the first couple chapters of offering evidence and logical proofs for God (using Lewis and others' arguments), and setting up how genetics offers strong evidence for evolution, he starts tearing apart other beliefs concerning creation; first, he tears apart atheism (some more) and shows how it's science trumping faith, then Creationism, how it's faith trumping science, then Intelligent Design, when science needs divine help.  The last chapter in this section, which I haven't read yet is BioLogos, faith and science in harmony.  In the chapter about Creationism he brushes aside all the typical objections, microevolution not macroevolution (which he dismisses as a fallacy, that there's no actual difference between micro/macroevolution), he denies that the flood could cause the stratification and fossilization of animals as we find today, and the lack of "missing links."  He claims that several so called "missing links" have been discovered in fossil records in the "past few years."

My disagreements...  I'm not going to try to challenge Collins' knowledge of genetics, that'd be stupid, he's a world-class genetic researcher in charge of the Human Genome Project, of course I can't compete with his knowledge.  Most of my objections are from my study of the scriptures.  First off, on Genesis being an allegorical story about evolution and how Moses perceived evolution and wrote about the different stages and types of evolution.  This doesn't fit with the text at all.  One of the methods of Bible study I've learned about over the years starts out with figuring out if a text is allegorical (parables), factual (genealogies), predictive (prophesies), or some combination thereof.

Let's look at the text. Yes, it uses (Strong's Dictionary # h3117) the Hebrew word "יוֹם" [yom] for the word 'day,' which could also be translated as 'age' 'period,' etc. To be honest, after rereading it (again) and considering that the sun/moon/stars weren't created until day four, which begs the question how long is a day if there isn't any sun/moon, I'm more comfortable with a less literal understanding of the first chapter and that it might not have been exactly a twenty-four hour day as we understand days. However, given that plant life was made on day three before the sun, it's obvious God was providing some kind of light source for plants. IF we assume some allegorical reading of the text, why would he (Moses) write it completely out of order? The point was to record how God showed him the creation of the universe, it'd be important to at least get logical organization correct. That lends to a more literal reading of that particular part.

Then on to chapter 2, is this also allegorical? If it is then there's no reason to have grace, law, forgiveness even the basic foundational idea of sin is described in Genesis 2. So, what Bible do you believe? Jesus quoted from Genesis 2 many other New Testament writers referenced Genesis, including these first few chapters. If they treat this as fact why would we assume otherwise? One of Collins' points to say this is allegorical comes from chapter 2 verse 5 "Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground." (NASB) He says that the fact that chapter 2 seems to regress when chapter 1 has already told us that plants were created, indicates that this is an allegorical story to illustrate God's creative work through evolution. The problem with that idea is that it's not looking deep enough into the text. It's not saying there were no plants, it's saying there was no agriculture, that no man had yet plowed or planted a field. The word field is taken from Hebrew, (Str. Dic. # h7704) "שָׂדֶה" [sadeh] translated as: 'field, land, agricultural etc.'

One other major point this reading of Genesis 1, 2 misses completely, is that one of the ways to determine if a text is allegorical or not is the use of proper names. Look at Jesus' teaching using parables, most of them have no names. However, in the story of Lazarus, He specifically uses his name, and of course it's true, Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. Genesis 2, proper names: Gihon, Cush, Tigris, Assyria, Euphrates, Eden, and of course Adam and Eve. Why/how could Moses write with such specific detail using names that still are used to refer to these places and expect it to be taken any other way but literal?

Last but not least, no matter how one reads Genesis 1, 2, it's obvious that mankind is special.  Genesis 1 mentions that mankind is made on day 6, but then Genesis 2 goes into specific details about how and why man and woman were different than all the other animals.  IF mankind is just a higher evolutionary level of chimp or other primate, why would God, through Moses, put so much effort into detailing our creation and offering us a chance to disobey and then offering grace and salvation when we fail?  We're just higher on the evolutionary chain so there's nothing special about mankind, but God seems to think so, he makes Adam special and separate, and Eve even more so.  She's the only created being that comes from another created being.  Also, chapter 3 gives specific details on the fall and first sin, this doesn't fit with the idea that Mankind had been around for hundreds maybe thousands of years evolving before this very specific story takes place.

I know I already said "last," but I actually have a couple other things to say about this...  Genesis is an extremely important foundation on which the rest of the Bible is built upon, if we can't trust these accounts of creation, then we cannot trust the rest of the Bible.  One who says so, is deceiving his or herself.  Sorry for the non sequitur but Job mentions Leviathan, and it's described as only a dinosaur could be described, how does that fit with an evolution theory/Genesis interpretation?  It seems that Collins is putting his faith in his own understanding rather than God's power.  Do I understand how Genesis fits with scientific observation and testing?  No.  Do I think I, or anyone else, ever will?  Probably not.  Do I trust that God meant it to be written as it is and understood as a mostly literal description of His power in creating the whole universe ex nihilo?  Yes.  If God can do that, he could easily make things appear old or with characteristics that appear consistent with evolutionary theory, that doesn't mean He used the evolutionary process to create life.

Nearing the End

As I approach the end of my time here I wanted to give you an idea of what I've been doing during my time away from home in southwest Asia...

My typical day:

Wake up---getting to work, lately I've been on the night shift so I wake up around 5:00p (all times are local time).  Depending on when my shift starts, either early 7:30p or late 10:30p, I'll go to dinner.  If I'm on the later shift I'll also try to sleep in a little.  If I'm on the earlier shift I'll go to "dinner" which for me is breakfast, and then to work.  It recently snowed about 4 inches so the walk to work is treacherous.  If I'm on the later shift I'll generally forgo dinner and get the midnight meal that is brought to the office.  The food kinda overall sucks here and getting it fresh is not really a priority, so I don't mind getting the slightly-cooled-off delivered food as opposed to the sitting-under-the-hotlamp food in the chow hall.

Work, obviously I can't tell you all about what I do for work (security reasons), but the basic idea is this: I get to the office and after signing in and waiting around about half an hour we brief about what kind of mission we're going to do.  Then, after another 30min-hr (during which time I'm prepping for whatever mission we're going to do) we go out to the plane.  We fly the mission, which can take anywhere between 4-7hrs.  It totally depends on what's going on, the weather, and the type of mission as to how long it takes.  Sometimes, I'm completely bored out of my mind.  Other times, I'm constantly busy and don't have time to eat/drink/pee/whatever.  Then of course there are in-between missions that are neither busy nor boring.  After returning and landing we debrief what happened and how the mission went.  Of course, if the mission was complicated and busy, the debrief could take a while as we talk about all the things that happened.  If it was gouge-my-eyes-out boring, we just meet up, fill out the paperwork, and say, "thanks for flying" or something similar.

At that point, I'm technically done with work.  I can (and sometimes have to) stay later and do work-related stuff.  However, most of the time I'm done, and I spend time (at the unit compound) hanging out with my coworkers.  We play spades, smoke cigars, play video games, and just in general hang out.  If there are lots of people hanging out and playing, I'll stay and be social, if not, I'll generally head back to my room.  I've paid a fairly exorbitant price to get WiFi access in my room so I always have something to keep me busy.  Also, my roommate is one of my best friends that has worked with me almost my entire career.  We agree on so much of life.  It's been a pleasure spending this time together; I'm actually going to miss him when we have to leave (we're leaving the same time though so that'll be fun).  Also, since I moved to Japan (about 8 months ago), and he's planning on getting out of the Air Force, we probably won't be able to see each other again.  We'll keep in touch and we'll always be friends, but it's a bit sad to go through transitions in life where you know things will probably never be the same.  Especially when it comes to friendships, it's hard to think that we might NEVER see each other again.

In my room I've been keeping myself busy with a free class online, editing a friend's new book Notes from Afghanistan by Steven Specht, putting together my dad's next book Sermons from a Tiny Pulpit, reading, praying, and watching movies/TV (of course only downloaded TV shows as I don't have regular TV access in my room).

Overall, I felt I've kept myself productive enough, though I'm looking forward to returning home to Japan and being with my family.  Some of my plans for when I get home...  First off, I'm going to eat real, homemade, good food!  The food here isn't bad (as I've said), but it's certainly not good either.  We're going to open some late Christmas presents (this is the first time I've completely missed Christmas with my family), and have a mini, late Christmas party.  I also can't wait to go to the beach!  Living in a sub-tropical paradise certainly has its perks.  Those are the big things I'm excited about, some of the little things include: sleeping in a regular sized bed, NOT having to wear a uniform all the time, NOT having to wear flip-flops to the bathroom, NOT having to wait 4 days for laundry, NOT having to walk a mile or so to work regardless of the weather, and NOT having to walk past a sleeping roommate to go to the bathroom or leave the room among other things.  All those minor inconviences add up after a while and I'll be glad to be rid of them.

A couple other plans for the new year and returning home...  I want to read through the whole Bible cover-to-cover (I plan on writing about it on Facebook but I'll probably discuss my reading here also).  I also plan on reading 50 books over the course of the next year; I don't have any particular preference on what books, but the first one is The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by Francis S. Collins.  One last plan, I want to start training for a triathlon. My goal, right now, is to train for a half ironman (1.2-mile [1.9 km] swim, 56-mile [90 km] bike ride, and 13.1-mile [21.1 km] run, also known as 70.3 because it's a total of 70.3 miles).  I'll discuss my training plans in a later post.

Sorry this was so long, I've been thinking about a lot of stuff lately.  I'm going to separate what I originally wrote into two separate entries and I'll definitely be writing more soon.

Long Time no Write

Well, I'm sorry... Again...  Obviously my time deployed has not been spent sharing with you in this blog!  I've been thinking about canceling my blog altogether but I've enjoyed it before so I think I just need to get back into it.  I think one of the biggest hindrances was my attempts at translating my blog into Korean.  Every time I thought about writing something, I thought about how I would translate it, and many times I was at a loss.  My skills in Korean are just not high enough to express what I'm thinking on a variety of topics.

Therefore, I've decided NOT to cancel my blog, however, I will NOT be translating every single entry.  I just don't have the time.  I know, I'd get faster over time if I continued practicing but just to put it into perspective for you; I spend anywhere from 30min-1hour on each English entry (sometimes more of course, but that's probably my average).  Then to take that and translate it, even using Google translate to help with spelling, it takes me about DOUBLE the time to translate as it took for the original post.  So, what would have taken me an hour now takes three!  I've considered waiting a day to write the translated piece, but that doesn't really relieve the problem.  It's still going to turn a 1hr project into 3hrs, just not all on the same day.  I'm not canceling my Korean blog just going to minimize it and only translate stuff that I really want to or stuff that'll be easily transferred.

Meditation Education

I recently read an interesting article in the magazine, Scientific American Mind called "The Education of Character" by Ingrid Wikelgren, and the concepts intrigued me because it reminded me of the book I read entitled, Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength.  Since I cannot find the article online (without a paid subscription, though there is a related blog here), I'll summarize some of what it says.

There are several places, and it was apparently it started by a variety of people, including some actors, where an interesting concept has been used alongside traditional education.  Students in these programs practice a variety of meditation-like breathing exercises and other concentration and "mindfulness" practices.  These practices, along with emotional self-regulation are growing among elementary educators.  According to the article the MindUP program and the similar program PATHS (Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies) have both been producing great results throughout the students' lives.  Though the article concludes with a couple notes about how tweaking children's thinking can be difficult to understand in general and sometimes has mixed results.

It was quite interesting to me that I found this article after reading the book about Willpower because the article (and the following article about increasing brain power) confirmed quite a bit of the book.  Now, I'm not the type of person that reads a single article and totally believes every word, but with this well researched article and that book confirming each other, I'm pretty convinced that one of the most important thing a person can learn, especially at a young age, is patience and self-control.  I'm excited about working on some of these patience-teaching techniques with my boys when I get home, and maybe working on some of it myself.  I'm fairly sure that everyone agrees they could use more self-control.

When I was young, I distinctly remember not being permitted to learn martial art because of the link to east Asian mysticism/religion and meditation.  Now, while I don't regret my parent's decision, I think they did what they felt was right in shielding me from negative influences, I think meditation would be good for me.  The difference between what my parents were afraid of and what I would like to practice is the reason for meditating.  Meditation for the purpose of reaching some mystical higher plane of existence and some out-of-body religious experience would be contrary to what I believe.  However, meditation to focus on self-control or breath control would be healthy.  Also, part of meditation is concentration, it'd be good for my mind to spend some time each day meditating on God.  I guess you could just say "prayer," but I kind of see it as slightly different.  Basically, I only want to concentrate on one aspect of God during meditation.  Though sometimes I'd also like to try to just concentrate on nothing.  Though, technically thinking about nothing doesn't really seem possible to me--we'll see.

Gosh I miss home

Election Day 2012 선거일

Or as my Korean friends would say "erection day."  I don't really want an answer to this, and I've already made my preference clear (Third Party), but who or what are you going to vote for?  I'm sad to say that I officially missed the deadline and my vote won't count, but YOUR'S can!  So, rather than pushing one party or ideal, I'd just like to take this chance to encourage you to voice your opinion.  God has blessed (those of my readers that are US citizens) us with the chance to choose the type of governance and lawmakers we want.  Also, we have decided, as a country, to have a popular vote for the position of President/Vice President (though more on that here), sort of.  Either way, and no matter how you feel about the electoral college, go out and vote today.

On a totally different subject, in order to practice writing in Korean, and to appeal to my (possible) Korean readers, I'm going to start writing a blog in Korean.  It may be full of grammatical and spelling errors, but I'm going to try.  I'm also going to try to make it parallel this blog.  Not necessarily a direct translation of this on but at least the same topic.

Our political system

Intellectual Property Rights

This is an interesting topic I once discussed with a cigar buddy at the Havana Garage in Omaha.  I had sent out an invitation to my church to meet up for cigars and scotch at a cigar bar, unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, only one person was able to attend.  We held an interesting conversation for hours about intelectual property and copyright law (he's a copyright lawyer for a firm there in downtown Omaha).  One of the more interesting tidbits I learned is that one does NOT have to have a copyright to sue for intellectual property rights (in the US).  If you write a poem, song, business plan, or anything that requires (virtually) any amount of creative effort on a napkin at a restaurant and someone overhears you talking about it and steals your idea, EVEN if they have a copyright, and you can PROVE that it's your idea that that person stole, you can win in a copyright case.  Though granted it's much easier to prove something is one's intellectual property with a copyright, but it's not necessary.  That's what copyrights are supposed to do, protect or give legitimacy to the claim to one's intellectual property.  A copyright in and of itself is not proof, just good evidence.

Anyways, another thing I talked about at that time was how I thought it kind of silly that large companies sometimes sue little mom-and-pop businesses that make a small amount of money off selling copyrighted material.  (My lawyer friend replied that large companies often overlook small organizations so long as they don't make too much money, because it's not worth the cost of a lawsuit to pursue every single copyright infringement.)  If you look on Etsy.com there are any number of copyright questionable sellers that run the risk of drawing the attention of some big company that decides to crack down on these small-time sellers.  To me, for some reason the 'big guy' picking on these tiny establishments is completely unfair.

I know it's a double standard but it bothers me just as much that there's a person on Etsy that has copyrighted a silly simple technique for making a fabric baby toy called a taggy, and that person is (or was, I see multiple taggy makers now) constantly hunting down fellow makers and forcing them to remove their goods from Etsy based on copyright infringement.  Then I came across this from a English language teaching program I'm interested in getting involved in:

This is about the future of creativity and innovation, a David v Goliath flashpoint that we hope to rally your support around.
We are a tiny company called Languages Out There (LOT) and publish the world's first social media English course called English Out There (EOT).

EOT works with Facebook and Skype and can transform the English speaking ability of long-term frustrated learners. It is inexpensive for the students but can help teachers to start their own businesses.

We have developed our content over 11 years and have only made a tiny profit in the last two years. It has not been at all easy.

Over ALMOST THREE YEARS we provided privileged and confidential information about our unique content to Oxford University Press (OUP) because they said they were interested in our content.

In March of this year they wrote to us,

"we do not feel that LOT offers the type of materials that we could bring within our catalogue, whether in relation to the current offering or our future plans."

JUST FIVE MONTHS LATER they launched a new five level English course book series with the words,

"Network is the first course to use social networking to help students succeed in English."

The first three English teachers we sent the OUP product link (just the link, nothing else), said this:

Link here.

This is even worse!  I can understand the "little guy" making a tiny bit of money off innovating or recreating a copyrighted item but when a large corporation steals copyrighted material from a tiny company that's just despicable.  As I said, I know it's a double standard and no one should get away with stealing someone else's hard work, but hopefully English Out There can win this one and stop Oxford University Press from stealing their material.

EnglishOutThere.com

Questioning the consistency of the Bible

Recently I (kind of) got suckered into a discussion of the consistency of the Bible.  Namely, someone said that the Bible has two different dates for when Jesus was born and one of them couldn't have happened because it would have been before he was born.  References given were Matt 2:1 and Luke 2:2.  I found an interesting response to this idea here.  To save you the time of reading that (rather lengthy and well formed) response, I'll sum it up: No one knows exactly when Jesus was born and the dating system is based on tradition and conjecture and is subject to men's opinion.

I responded to the person that pointed out this inconsistency and his response remained that those two events (mentioned in those verses) were not at the same time.  Though he did point out that at the most they are only different by about 10 years which is pretty close given the extreme length of time that has passed since.

Well, all this discussion, by the way my counterpart in this discussion has challenged me to find an extra-biblical account of Jesus even existing, led me to do some research into what people perceive as biblical contradictions.  I found a rather lengthy list and started going through them.  Now, to be fair the introduction to the list does state that some of the "contradictions" listed are explainable by a variety of translations.  So, I started going through the list reading as much of each example given as I could.  It was an interesting exposition of the Bible and led me to reading quite a bit.  I didn't make it through the whole list, but of all the supposed contradictions I did read through only one or two made me scratch my head and didn't have an immediate and obvious explanation.  I didn't notate which ones... but I'll be going through the list in more detail in the future.  What I would like to mention about that list is that all but a couple were so easily explained.  It was like the person who compiled the list didn't really read what was written in the verses listed as "contradictory."

Prime example:

Gen 7:7 Noah and his clan enter the Ark.  (KJV)

7 And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.

Gen 7:13 They enter the Ark (again?) (KJV)

13 In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark;

No one claims the the historical accounts in the Bible are in exact chronological order every time.  Obviously verse thirteen is NOT saying they went into the ark AGAIN after they had already entered.  It's simply a restatement about their activities during that time when they were entering the ark, also, who says they didn't go in and out of the window on the deck or some other explanation.  It's not a contradiction at all.  Many of the contradictions listed on that site follow a very similar pattern to this example.  Many mis-translate the word day to an exact 24-hour period of time when often times it's obviously used as just a 'period of time' or similar meaning.

Anyways, all this to say none of this is making me question my faith, but (ironically) it is making me get into the Word more and study a variety of Biblical passages that I may not have studied before.  I wonder if this (obviously anti-Christian) site ever expected that kind of reaction to their post?

Gosh I miss home

Vacation Plans

I don't know much about my readers, but I'm always curious who reads my blog.  I sometimes review my viewership stats and the vast majority of my readers are out of the U.S. (which makes sense), but unfortunately, whenever I look through my blog to edit it, that also counts as a view so my stats are artificially larger because of my views.  But that's all beside the point...

I'm trying to make some vacation plans for when I get home from this deployment.  I have ample vacation time saved up and I'd like to go someplace fun and interesting.  Unfortunately Michelle (my wife) thinks we should postpone any such plans.  However, we've been talking and making plans to possibly have more children.  I'd like to have a little girl.  Michelle wants either no more or two more to make a round 4 total.  I'm content with 2-3.  My issue is that if we don't take this time to travel there won't be a better time.  Traveling with young children is tough, but if we're traveling with a baby it will be much more difficult.  What I'm wondering, is do you have children?  And if so, do you go on vacation?  Or maybe mini-vacations where you don't really go anywhere?  I don't remember much from my childhood but I do seem to remember going on vacation even when I was very young and my brother much younger.  There was a big difference though, my family NEVER flew anywhere for vacation.  Even when we went to Colorado, we drove all the way!

My options are open for vacation.  It is much more expensive, but we could try to go home to Ohio.  Honestly, I don't think that's worth the expense.  It would be nice to see family again but it would be over $1000/person for plane tickets.  I'd like to take my family to visit Korea.  Since I speak Korean I could be their personal guide.  There's tons of great places to ski and it would be fun to teach the boys skiing.  And of course I'd get to practice all the Korean I wanted.  Then of course we could go pretty much ANYWHERE in the S Pacific.  The options are endless, we even discussed going to New Zealand  or Australia.  It's a bit tough choosing to leave the island because we live in a vacation paradise and every weekend is like a mini-vacation.  But, I'd like to go out and explore the world around the tiny island and I think it'd be a great experience for our family.

The boys enjoying dinner on the beach

Third Party?!

Let me first (again) apologize for my long silence, I've mentioned before that I'm deployed and while I most often find myself with plenty of time on my hands I seldom spend it the way I was prior to being deployed.  Prime example, as part of our morale area in our unit we have a couple couches around a card table and I find myself spending an inordinate amount of time sitting around that table playing spades and smoking.  I don't regularly smoke but (only) while deployed I often smoke as I'm sitting around playing cards with my coworkers.  Secondly, let me apologize for a change in topics, especially into a realm I'm not very well versed in, politics.

So, many of my facebook friends, at least many of the vocal political ones, are supporters of the Libertarian party, specifically Ron Paul.  Now, I know he ran originally as a Republican and didn't get the nomination (I'm told because of that fact he won't appear on many states' ballots this November).  But, I've been raised a republican and I've always (more or less) agreed with Republican candidates and voted for Republicans in elections.  In fact, when I wasn't sure of what candidate to vote for in a certain election, I would invariably vote for whichever Republican candidate was on the ballot. However, I've been more and more leaning towards the Libertarian party. I recently read this blog that basically echoes the way I feel about many of the issues.

In that blog the only thing that I sort of disagree with isthis, "My views are not dictated by ONE ISSUE or POLICY, but by the over all character of a candidates CAREER." Specifically the part about one issue/policy kind of bothers me. I believe all life is sacred, and that life beginsin the womb particularly at conception. So, I'm not going to vote (if I know the person's policy) for someone that will legalize or loosen the current legislation on abortion. Other than that, I'm not much of a one-issue-voter.

I've been reading the Libertarian party's platform points and I gotta say I haven't seen much I disagree with.  I think the reason I've never really looked into the LP before is when I was in high school someone described the LP as anarchists, that believed the government should be completely overthrown.  I've since seen that is not true and after thinking about it for a while I think I might vote for a third party for the first time ever.

On voting however, I'm actually not going to be able to vote in this election.  I'm deployed and I don't think I got in my absentee ballot paperwork in before the cutoff.  One thing I am actually looking forward to over the next couple years of being stationed overseas is, absentee voting.  One of my issues in the past has been that I'm not ever really sure who's going to be on the ballot until I actually walk into the booth.  Now, as an absentee voter, I'll get my ballot in the mail and be able to search online for each politician's views on a variety of policies and voting history (if he or she has been in office previously).

DISCLAIMER:  I am NEVER speaking on behalf of the US Air Force or DoD in any of my political opinion posts.  These are just the inane ramblings of a private person in no way associated with the official position of the Air Force or DoD (my employer).

Guest Post: Charles Philip Smith

My friend Steven Specht posted an article on http://www.oneletter.org/ that I'd like to share here. I'm working on a post about third-party politics (I know not one of my usual topics), but I'd like to share this first.

Two Sides of the Same Worn Out Coin

Our system of election is broken.

How many times have Americans been so disgusted with both major candidates that they vote for what they believe is “the lesser of two evils” or not vote at all, yet they will refuse to vote for a third party?

I truly believe that if they looked into the policies of third party candidates, (there are 10 on the 2012 Florida ballot) they would find at least one that they believed in more than the standard two.

Here is the part that doesn’t make sense to me. Americans will complain on end about how either the Democrats or Republicans are ruining their country; often they will not even agree with their own party. Yet, I have heard all my life how voting for a third party candidate is equivalent to throwing your vote away or even how “it will takes votes from candidate X when we really need to beat candidate Y’.

I am not trying to push a candidate or party. (At this time I believe I know who I will vote for. It is not one of the two major candidates, but this is a personal choice and not the purpose of why I am writing this.) It is my hope that sometime in the future we will start voting as a nation for the person and not the party. My belief is that this begins with third parties and being well informed on the issues important to us.

However, I have not seen any indication that Americans could now or ever do this in the climate we have created. There is such an undercurrent of division, especially in the media, that actively polarizes Americans into the two major political parties. The implication being that it is ‘us’ against ‘them’. Most people don’t realize that there are shades of grey to their beliefs and very few absolutes in this world. I could almost guarantee that most average Americans believe in elements of the major two parties, but not in everything that they stand for.

What I am proposing is that we as a nation do our research. If you do not have enthusiasm for a candidate, there is no reason you should not find someone you can believe in. We live in a free country but have been systematically convinced that there is no other options to us when it comes to one of the most fundamental tenets of what it is to be an American—the right to vote–the right to vote for someone we do believe in.

This requires effort on the individual. It is the only option we have to us to start balancing the rampant partisan corruption on both sides that seems to be determined to bring America to ruin for the sake of reelection and not the betterment of the citizens.

Don’t fool yourself into thinking you are voting for change when you vote for one of the two major parties. The only recourse you have is to change your vote to a third party. The only way to have honest politicians is for them to have enough competition for them to be fearful of not being elected on their own merits. Without this our country will never find balance and it will be stuck with either side of a worn out coin.

-Charles Philip Smith

This is Not a Deployment Blog

I don't want to change the tone of my blog to a chronicle of my time deployed, however I did write a bit of a journal entry on the flight over here and I have some stuff to share from my first week here.

After my training near Sacramento, CA, I traveled to Baltimore to catch a flight to the middle east (it's called the "rotator").  My short time in Baltimore was fairly pleasant.  I went to the same irish pub I alway go to when I pass through Baltimore.  My previous experiences at that pub were quite interesting, this time however, I was alone and I just sat quietly drinking my one beer then went back to my hotel to sleep.  The next morning I went to the free hotel breakfast (which was pretty disappointing) then, since I didn't have to be at the airport till the afternoon I took a nap.  Around noon I went to the Baltimore Washington International airport and got in line.  The line for passengers on the rotator was at least 200 yards long!  It's a familiar sight for anyone who has deployed before because the flight is almost always packed full.  Fortunately, after checking in for the flight I ran into some friends (one of whom I have deployed with before), and we shared some beers and dinner before boarding.

Fortunately I got a decent seat on this flight, an aisle where there was only one seat beside me.  This plane is amazingly old and crappy.  The inflight entertainment is a VHS tape player!  I didn't think they even made those anymore.  There's no such thing as 'first class' on this plane; we're all packed in like sardines.  The inflight movie was "We Bought a Zoo" which was a good movie, though the sound system on the plane sucked and it was a tiny screen far from my seat.  They also played "John Carter of Mars."  I've heard that it's supposedly a movie version of the first installment of C.S. Lewis' space trilogy, Out of the Silent Planet.  Now, it has been a while since I read the book so I've forgotten some of the details but I definitely remember that it's quite different from this movie!  Oh well, poetic license I guess.  One of the passengers had some medical issues so we had to divert to Ireland.  I didn't see much of the place, we didn't even get off the plane, but what I did see definitely makes me want to go back some day.

Finally, we arrived at the deployment processing center.  Not really a bad place compared to sitting in a plane.  It's not much (a hundred or so bunk beds in a tent), but at least it's a place to lay down and sleep and NON-airplane food.  Also, regular access to wifi is nice, first real chance to call home.  Oh, and one can drink two beers a day there which is nice.  I didn't really care to drink and after only one day in this limbo I moved on to my deployment location.

I've been here a week and so far it's been quite a bit like my previous deployments.  It's nice to have indoor plumbing though.  Last year the place I stayed didn't.  The morale is pretty high in the unit here and one of my best friends from my previous deployments, Jon, is here; which has made for a decent time so far.  The best part about this trip though is the hope that it's only supposed to be three months as opposed to my previous trips which were all six months.  I'll take some pictures and attach them to my next few blogs, which I don't plan on chronicling my deployment, but I might mention it; depending on how it's going.

I have gained way too much weight!  Starting excersize/diet program now!

Consistency and Completeness

To all my regular readers (ha, as if I have regular readers!) sorry I haven't written in such a long time.  I've been busy going overseas to a combat zone.

Anyways, I've been reading Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid and the author brings up an interesting concept.  Can one actually conceive of a universe that doesn't follow logical rules?  In that regard one might use the copout argument that just writing or saying the words means that one can conceive of it.  But that's a silly argument, and doesn't really count.  That's like being able to read Korean script but having no knowledge of what's being said.  Just being able to say the words doesn't mean that it's actually conceivable.

But, it is conceivable?  Think about sci-fi movies and such... or a world that doesn't have mathematical consistency.  Could, even in a movie, there be a world where 1 + 1 = 3?  I'm not talking about the words 'one,' 'plus,' 'equals,' and 'three.'  Even in this world there are a variety of ways to express the number '1' but could there exist a world where having two of something couldn't exist?  In the movies it is easy (or is it?) to blur the lines between conceivable and inconceivable.

The book often references "zen" and that zen readily accepts contradictions.  It seems like cheating to me... like saying 1+1=2 and 1+1=3, and just accepting both as being completely correct.  It's like throwing out Aristotle's laws of non-contradiction.  The same thing, at the same time cannot be two opposite things!  According to Aristotle without these distinctions we cannot know anything, to which zen would probably responds "yes, we cannot know anything."  Accepting contradiction is not a way of dealing with it, it's a way of ignoring it.  I would guess that zen would eventually draw a line somewhere and stick to some standard.  Maybe not, but even if one ignores a fact or a non-fact does that make it any more of a fact or non-fact?

Nothing quite like seeing an airshow from above the planes

Thomas Aquinas

If you've never heard of him Thomas Aquinas was an apologetics master.  As I've mentioned before, I've been listening to the learnoutloud.com philosophy podcast and the most recent episode was about Aquinas's proofs for God.  He used the unmoved mover, uncaused cause and other arguments to show that the concept of God is perfectly logical.  I need to read more from this brilliant man!  That being said, this made me think of another reason to believe in God (caveat this is by no means a good reason to believe).

Before I go into that reason, let's discuss "human progress."  The only thing that has really progressed for humanity is hubris and pride.  Okay, when I say only I'm not saying that there haven't been lots of technological advances over the years.  In just my short 30 years (almost 31) there has been huge progress in the power of computing.  That's not what I'm talking about, technological advanced are not true progress, it's just more complicated ways to put together different things in different ways.

Let's look at human progress in the realm of morality or at fixing social ills.  In the past few thousand years, how has humanity progressed at eradicating any of these things that plague humanity?  Hunger?  Poverty?  Disease?  Homicide?  War?  How well have we done in getting rid of these things?

Going back to the topic of great philosophers, hearing some of the writings of Thomas Aquinas made me pause and think about another reason to believe in God, aside from all the great apologists' arguments.  There are dozens upon dozens of brilliant people that have proved time and again that the concept of God is rational.  So, when someone stands up on his or her little soap box and states unequivocally that "God is dead" or "man is God," that person is stating that he or she has more knowledge, wisdom, insight, and logic than many of the greatest thinkers.  Of the history of philosophy podcast that I've been listening to, basically all of the philosophers so far, have believed in some form of god/gods, that includes Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle.  Then there are the other great thinkers like C.S. Lewis, Ravi Zacharias, Thomas Aquinas, and many many more.  I'm not saying there aren't smart people on the other side of the argument.  I'm saying that humanity needs to take a break and remember from where we've come.

Like my last post about believing in God just because without such belief one has no hope, TRILLIONS upon TRILLIONS of people for centuries have believed that there's Something out there that created everything.  Who are you to rail against human history and claim that man is all there is!?

Beautiful view of the Golden Gate bridge from the south side

Existence is Futile

All of human existence is simply a pointless cycle of boredom - desire - satiety - boredom.  Eating is the most basic example, you're hungry - you eat - then you're full; for a time then it starts all over again.  The past is empty/nothingness, the future is vain unattainable hope.  People try to pass themselves on via procreation and leaving a will, but the person is now gone no matter what they try to leave behind.  In the grand scheme of the universe, time, space and eternity no one makes any difference.  There is nothing worth living for; hoping for the future is in vain and nothing can be gained.  All that one gains in life is lost in death.  Even if one passes on a large amount of possessions/money to one's offspring that person still dies, and becomes nothing.

Interesting though in the  made a point against Epicureanism: One shouldn't dwell on the past; it's gone/a dream, nothing can be done about it.  One mustn't dwell on the future; it's unknowable and always unpredictable.  Lastly, one shouldn't live for the present either; it's fleeting, only here for just a moment then lost to the past, which is a dream.

Where is this coming from, you ask...  I've been listening to this podcast here, and it's based on a translation of Author Schopenhauer's work, The Emptiness of Existence.  I can't believe that there aren't more people that commit suicide based on this work.  If all of life is a short tumble down the hill of existence into non-existence, why go on living?

Along the same lines, a friend and I were talking about the concept of being able to transfer one's consciousness into a machine.  He kept calling that technological advance, "the singularity."  I'm assuming he was referencing this book The Singularity is Near by Raymond Kurzweil.  My friend kept saying that being able to do that would render a person (virtually) immortal.  Total hogwash!  Thinking like this is such a small view of eternity/infinity.  Computers break down over time; data corrupts over time.  On an even larger scale energy sources will eventually run out.  Even the sun will eventually run out.  Infinity is so much farther into the future than computers or electricity or the sun.

Keep in mind that one must caveat that first paragraph with... "without God..."  With God, nothing is futile, everything and everyone has meaning and purpose.  I don't agree with Pascal's wager: that one should believe because it doesn't hurt and in the end if it turns out you're wrong then it doesn't matter. However, this is something similar... if life has no meaning without God, then you should believe, so that your life has meaning.

Love the beautiful central California coast

Fear of Looking Stupid

I drove (about 3 1/2 hours) down to Monterey California yesterday to hang out and eat at some of the places I used to enjoy when I was attending the Defense Language Institute there.  It was a great trip, I went for a hike/run at one of my favorite parks, Garrapata State park.  Then took a swim in HUGE waves at Carmel Beach.  Then, after lunch and hanging out on the coast I stopped for gas.  While I was filling up my tank I overheard the conversation that started me thinking about this topic.  I heard a woman walking along, talking to a Chinese man.  He asked a question about what the different prices were on the gas sign.  To which the woman responded that the lowest price was "unleaded" and the higher prices were more leaded.  The highest price has the "most lead."

Now, first I want to say, there's NOTHING WRONG with not knowing everything.  No one knows everything!  What I'm worried about, is why she didn't just answer honestly with "I don't know."  Why do we, in general, fear that tiny little phrase!?  There's nothing wrong with that woman not knowing what the difference is between the different octanes.  Where she went wrong is where she made something up an told someone who honestly didn't know something that's not even close to the actual fact, apparently just to save face from having to say "I don't know."

I love this town, hope to move back there some day