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Friday, 28 December 2007

  • Currently Listening
    Aqualung
    By Jethro Tull
    see related

    Poor logic... poor journalism...

    On Thursday's FoxNews.com:

    "16-year-old Javona Peters was a healthy high school junior until she went into the operating room on Oct. 17. Now she is in a permanent vegetative state — blind, deaf, and unable to move, think or eat on her own."

    It's in regards to a girl who's parents will probably try to pull the plug on her life support.  I''m not going to comment on whether or not I think it is moral in this case because there is too much unknown, but I'd like to point out something that I bet most readers won't notice.

    Everybody who reads the article will say, "Oh!  She's in a vegetative state because she can't do all those things."  But is there any way to determine if she is blind, deaf, or able to think on her own?  All of this would require that she be able to move on her own in order to give us feedback.  However, the article says she can't move on her own.  So we really have no reason to believe that she is blind, deaf, and unable to think on her own.

    Thus, Fox is stupid to make such an assumption, just for its website's liberal agenda.  Alas, nobody will think this far, and America becomes more liberal as time goes on...

Saturday, 01 December 2007

  • Thinking is a Lost Art

    People assume today that the world fits into their initial, emotional impressions of how the world should be.  "I can't believe in a God who sends people to hell."  "It's just stupid to say God doesn't like suicide.  He knows how tough life can be sometimes."  "I like this professor because he refers to God as a woman."  Statements like these usually discard rational thought and fit one's beliefs immediately into what is emotionally easy to accept (not always, though!  there's a few people out there who actually think when they say them!).

    However, this is a shallow view of the world.  If we are only willing to believe what is easy for us to accept, shouldn't we question how honest we're being with ourselves?  If we're forcing our minds to conform to what we emotionally like, how honest are we being with God?  What makes us think the world should be so emotionally easy to accept?

    For the vast majority of people their minds are controlled by their hearts.  This is sometimes true for myself, as well.  It is important that we recognize this and try to view the world more rationally.  After all, if one really faces things with the mind, even when it conflicts with what the heart finds acceptable, there will be great benefit.  It is an exercise for both the mind and the heart.  The mind will grow as it wrestles with facing reality as it is.  The heart will grow as it continues to trust God despite what it is forced to accept.  The emotions will in the long run follow the mind and accept what is really true.  In the long run the emotions will more easily accept what is true.  Ultimately, this creates a much fuller and better view of God that makes one a more multidimensional, complex, and useful person for God.

    To deceive the mind in favor of what is emotionally acceptable is easy, yet it is shallow and ultimately disappointing and confusing.  The path toward greater emotional feeling and truer belief in God and the world he made, is in learning to think critically.  Notice the title of this post is "Thinking is a Lost Art."  It is an art.  It is not devoid of emotions.  Instead, one's emotions become much fuller and deeper if one wrestles with life and reality.

    Either one's mind will follow the heart and be deceived, or one's heart will follow the mind and grow.  One way is easy, the other is beneficial.

Saturday, 10 November 2007

  • Currently Listening
    Legend (New Packaging)
    By Bob Marley & The Wailers
    see related

    nature vs. nurture

    Nature versus nurture? That's the debate regarding whether ingrained in us is a nature that defines who we are, or if it is our surrounding environment and "nurture" that makes us who we are.

    Some say that we are mostly shaped by our predefined nature, others say its half and half, and still others say that we are mostly shaped by the nurture we receive. My recent conclusion? It's all nurture. Nature doesn't exist. I've always disliked that theory, but I think I agree with it now.

    There's no need to postulate a nature within us. Some say that it explains the common beliefs people have from culture to culture, such as the rule that you should respect your neighbor (in some manner). I say that it doesn't explain it, because it doesn't account for the variance in beliefs people have from culture to culture.

    Nurture accounts for all of it, and there is no need to postulate nature. Our environment shapes us. The reason that cultures across the world hold similar beliefs is because they all came from common ancestry and therefore have similar backgrounds of nurture, however indirect it may be. It's all nurture. The phrase "human nature" is a mere accident of linguistics and metaphysically refers to nothing. When we refer to human nature, we're really referring to the product of humanity's common nurturing environment.

    Now I have to think about this and see if it makes sense.

Sunday, 31 December 2006

Monday, 18 December 2006

  • A ridiculously important post

    We live in a culture of extreme language, particularly in a way that goes unnoticed. People declare things "phenomenomal" and "awesome" without realizing what it does to their language and to culture. When an icecream cone is awesome, what is God? "Far more awesome than anything else." Our words are becoming diluted of meaning because everybody uses words that are far too extreme for their purpose. Thus, we are forced to use many, many meaningless words to try to convey what a single word would have once conveyed. Moreover our culture is addicted to this, as is noticeable by the countless claims in the news and public protests that Rumsfeld and Bush are Hitler-esque. I won't go into the details of politics, but I think its pretty plain to see that neither is similar to Hitler; there's a vast difference between millions and millions of deaths and several thousand, yet people feel compelled to make this comparison in order to get their point across and heard.

    And here's the cause: Individuals in our culture are desperate to be heard and noticed. People do this by dressing relatively extreme; by acting relatively extreme; or, as in this case, by talking relatively extreme. People are desparate to be heard, to be noticed, to be seen as more meaningful than those around them. However, by the dilution of language people become more and more socially meaningless.

    Furthermore, I'm not just accusing others of ruining our language and our method of relating. I'm guilty of it, too; particularly this past semester. Just see this post as a cultural observation of something gone awry.

ThinsomeStone

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