Much Music

Back in the day - right after I graduated high school (I graduated in 1994, no I have not gone to my 10 year reunion) I went to Hawaii to visit my then best friend Justin Guenther. The whole time Justin and I drove around the island listening to music, we would put a tape in (this is 10 years ago) and play a song... but before we'd play the song, we'd dedicated to someone we knew. I started this practice up again yesterday. I think it's a good practice to have. What made me start is that I saw one of my brother's cds and I thought, I should dedicate a song to Adam, so I did. I then went on to dedicate a lot of songs to different friends.

...Maybe I was just bored yesterday, nah, it's a good practice and tradition to continue....

Doctrinal Housekeeping

Alright, at church on Sunday, the pastor was continuing his series on FAQ, and one of the questions asked was "Can you lose your salvation?" (So far, the pastor has answered everything as the typical evangelical would - he answered this question in an evangelical manner, but not the way that I'd expect him to.) He answered "Yes." Now, his explanation was that you can give your faith up in God, there is nothing you can do to lose your salvation, but you can choose to remove your faith from God. This is actually logically consistent. I'll explain -

Most people believe that we have "free will" and what this means is that you choose to put your faith in Christ, however once we put our faith in Christ, God removes our free will and won't let us lose our faith. This pastor said, you can choose to put your faith in God, hence you can choose to remove your faith from God - God doesn't take away your free will once you become a Christian. Now, the response that most people will give to this line of inquiry is that God has bought us with the Holy Spirit (a down payment) Eph. 1:12-15. My response to this is, well so then God takes away your free will once you're saved, right? This is the logical course of discussion, if you have free will to accept Christ, then you have free will to reject Christ once you're saved. Unless one claims that God takes away our free will and the ability to reject God upon our being saved. Then I would ask if God takes away all of our choices or just our choice concerning faith in God. Quite a dilemma huh? THIS IS THE PROBLEM WITH FREE WILL ARGUMENTS!! But, some of you might bite the bullet and say "yes" God takes away our free will with respect to faith upon becoming a Christian.

What's my solution? In the first place sin has so greatly affected our ability to reason that we would never choose to put our faith in God without God giving us the faith to believe in Him (Eph. 2:9-11). So, since God gives us faith, He won't take it away, because He has given it to us, because of His grace. Salvation is nothing that I can do on my own, it is not a choice I make, God gives me the faith, thus I can't choose to not believe in Him. Does God force us to take faith - no. Faith is a higher form of reason, while we are blinded by sin, all of us will reject God. Once God removes the veil from our eyes we would all accept Christ. Does this mean that evangelism is a waste of time - no. We don't know who will listen to the preaching of the gospel, that's why we preach the gospel. In a sense it should be easier to preach the gospel, because one's acceptance of the gospel doesn't rely upon our ability to preach the gospel. We can't convince someone to accept Christ, that's the Holy Spirit's job.

Now, in typical baptist monk fashion, I haven't clearly communicated what I'm trying to say, so when my friend in Poland tells me that she can't understand what I'm saying I'll try to explain it better, but sometimes monks are just supposed to be confusing...

The Life of a Baptist Monk

I was thinking about what it means to be a Baptist Monk and thought that I ought to share a few of my random 'monk' thoughts with my audience...

You know, Roman Catholic monks get up at 2AM to begin their day - not bad. But here's how HARD CORE I am, when Roman Catholic monks get up, I've already been up for 14 HOURS baby!! See, I get up so early, that I get up at noon FOURTEEN HOURS before Roman Catholic monks are even thinking about getting up. That's how dedicated I am to the monastic lifestyle!!

I sacrifice normal conversations with people so that I might converse with the atheists in academic culture (who don't know how to communicate either). I'll use words such as "cognitive faculties," "eschatology," "rationality." Nobody cares or listens to what I've to say, because they don't understand me.

I miss out on the touchy feeliness of other people - and I MISS IT!! But instead I have to talk to people in a dry and boring manner, why? Because I'm a Baptist Monk. See, it's a part of a Baptist Monk's vow that he won't be cool, you have to sacrifice many things - part of this sacrifice for Baptist Monks, is the ability to talk cool and to be coool.

Instead of watching football straight through the weekend, I have to study and read books, along with going to church during the weekend. (Though, I'd probably still go to church on the weekend if I did watch football.)

I'm so HARD CORE I don't even have a tv!! How HARD CORE is that???

If any of you have any questions on the life of a Baptist Monk, feel free to submit your questions to me... but be warned, I won't answer any questions without praying over them and asking God to give me wisdom in my answer. What does this mean and why am I telling you this? I have no clue...

Paper Topics (WOO-HOO)

Ok, random start to my post, I went home Thursday night b/c I was struggling w/ depression. When I got home I noticed that my sister had opened my brother's Christmas present (one that he never came home to open for Christmas 03) and it's Barney (the drunk from the Simpsons) and Homer drinking Duff beer together and every hour they toast their beers - it's really cool. (My brother was a HUGE Simpsons fan.)

Ok, back to the scheduled topic - Papers.
This semester I'll have to write 4 papers that are 10 pages or longer (double-spaced) which is not a problem because in seminary I frequently had to write 25 page papers that were single-spaced.
(1) Paper for metaphysics, (12-15 pp.) I am going to defend an inflationist view of language. Take the sentence: "Santa Claus doesn't exist." An inflationist claims that what this sentence means is that though Santa Claus is not in existence he could be actualized. I suppose that God could every year stop time and allow Santa Claus' sleigh to fly around the world delivering presents. Anyway, it's possible for Santa Claus to exist, he just doesn't. This is the kind of viewpoint that an inflationist will defend. I would also say that it's possible for Sherlock Homes to exist (including Watson). This is also referred to as Meinongianism, look at the reference at the bottom of this page. I suppose you could make fun of me for defending this view, but that's half the fun of philosophy, making a crazy claim and then defending it. (I'll probably end up believing it, because I somewhat believe it now - maybe I really am a bit insane as the girl says.)

(2) Philosophy of Religion papers, (10pp.) the first one I think I'll either critically examine Alvin Plantinga's refutation of the Freud - Marx criticism of Christianity or defend Plantinga's argument against evolutionary naturalism. Freud-Marx claim that religious belief is wish fulfillment and an escapist mentality. Plantinga claims that evolutionary naturalism is self-refuting because if evolution is true, then we are not designed to hold true beliefs; we are designed to hold beliefs that help us to survive. Hence, if evolutionary naturalism were true, we could not believe it to be true, because we would not be designed to hold true beliefs.
My second paper for phil. of religion is (12pp.) going to critique David Hume's criticism of miracles. He claimed that miracles needed extraordinary evidence because they were improbable claims. Yet, he didn't believe induction was reliable because it relied upon circular reasoning. So my claim is that if induction is not reliable then Hume can't assign probability to miracles, and say that miracles are improbable.

(3) Paper for philosophy of mind (15-20pp.) Quine agrees with Franz Brentano that either no physicalistic account of intentionality (and for that matter, meaning and reference) is possible or intentionality (meaning, reference) is a property of an immaterial mind. Since Quine is a physicalist, he rejects Brentano’s second disjunct. Thus, he was committed to the first disjunct. But rather than admitting that the impossibility of a physicalistic theory of intentionality shows that physicalism is false, Quine took it to show instead that intentionality is a spurious property – nothing actually instantiates such a property Notice that if nothing really has intentionality, then there is no need for a physicalist to give an account of intentionality. Is Quine right, then, to go eliminativist about the mind (intentionality)? Is Brentano’s disjunction a false dilemma?

So if anyone has any input or criticisms concerning my paper topic(s)... just post your opinion in my comment section.

Phone Calls Phone Calls

Well, for those of you who've heard the message on my voice mail, it's obvious that someone keeps calling my apartment at jacked-up hours in the morning. My first experience with this was the first week I moved in, I heard a call at 7AM, I didn't answer the phone the first time, but then they called back. Now, for those of you who know about the events in my life the past year and a half, know that I probably assume that there's really, bad news when someone calls at this time of the day. So, the second time this person calls back I run pick up the phone, and I answer "hello." Someone is speaking in another language at the other end and I don't know what they're saying so I hang up. Right after I hang up they call back, I then pick-up the phone hang it up, and keep the phone off of the hook. This has happened to me several times since then, I don't know why, but it terrifies me when I hear the phone ring between 3AM and 7AM, partly because it brings back tramautic moments in my life. Last night the phone rang again at about 5:38AM and it put me in a cold sweat, and as I was laying in bed I was trying to figure out why this upsets me so much. Immediately after the voice mail picked up, they called back again. So this morning I turned the ringer of my phone on low, and hopefully I'll be able to sleep through the phone ringing during obscene hours at night.

Am I cynical?

Though Bill Burkett is supposed to be an opponent of Bush, it seems as if he's proving many on the right to be correct. (Bill Burkett is the man who forged the documents concerning Bush's service in the Texas National Guard.) The right has always accused the major networks of being biased to the left, especially Dan Rather. Now, how foolish does Dan Rather look? These documents were obviously printed up by a computer and not on a typewriter from the 1970's. It was obvious to people at first inspection that these were forged documents. How could Dan Rather base a report upon such flimsy evidence. It will be interesting to see if this effects CBS's credibility. It may not effect CBS at all. It seems to me that Bill Burkett has done the right a favor, at first I wondered if he was a republican that was attempting to make the supposed left-wing media look bad. I know that he tried to get the Gore campaign these documents, but Gore's campaign was intelligent enough to know that he did not have anything. I don't know for sure, but I still suspect that Burkett might be a right-wing fella who's trying to damage the opponents of Bush. Guess I am cynical.

As the title says...

This time it's more of random statements than thoughtful musings.

Ok, is this a more of a bachelor moment or a college student moment. I worked out on Sunday and again on Monday. Both days I did just cardio, today I was going to do chest and triceps, and I didn't want to get too many t-shirts sweaty, because then I'd have to do laundry more frequently. So, I took the shirt that I wore on Sunday to the gym, noticed that it was still wet with sweat, smelled bad (but not too bad) and wore it to work out in. I never did that while I was in seminary, so I think this is a college student moment.

I weighed myself today, and I've lost 3 lbs since I've moved to Norman. When I first began college at the University of North Texas, I gained 30 lbs in the first year, but that was mainly due to the the amount of alcohol that was consumed and a cloud of smoke that was perpetually nearby along with the munchies. I also think that it helps for me to ride my bike to school everyday instead of driving, though it's only a 3 mile roundtrip. (Parking passes are outrageous at OU, $175.)

There's a lot of smart undergrads here. In my metaphysics class, there's a couple of guys that are dual majors, I think one's a physics and philosophy and the other a mathematics and philosophy. Sometimes I just think, "man, I've got to work harder to keep up w/ the undergrads." I've also noticed that some of the grad students are arrogant, though I would consider the undergrads smarter. Sometimes, the more humble the person, the more they know, because they realize how much they don't know. That's one thing that I've realized, many people who think they know don't know, and the people that do know, are often much slower to speak.

One of the things about philosophy is that it forces you to get thick skin. Part of the nature of the business is to present an argument, allow someone to shoot you down, re-work it, present it again, and get shot down again. I've definitely become much more able to listen to other ideas, probably in the last 3 years, because I realize that it's only listening to other ideas that you can learn more. Not that other ideas sway me, but I listen. I also think in this philosophical process it helps one to recognize weak (or the lack of an argument) or bad arguments presented by people. Most of what passes for an argument today is emotional blabber.

Now for a theological point. Sometimes you just don't know what God is doing with your life, but you just have to trust Him. A lot of days I wonder if I will ever get my PhD but I don't think that's the main reason why God has me here. I really think part of it is about my character, doing something to the best of my ability. I'm not sure if I've ever done my best at something before, and right now, I think that's what God is trying to get me to do. So everyday I pray that I will do the best that I can with the situation that God has placed me in. What's the end result? Let's just say, some days are better than others.

You don't know me

Since I have been in Norman, I have gone to the same church the last two Sundays. (I've been here a total of 5 Sundays.) I am going to join a small group at this church and it's very likely that I will continue going to this church for a while. Now, the church that I am attending is cutting edge, high production value, good use of multi-media, and worship music that is very well done. It's definitely way ahead of your so-called "contemporary" style of church. Most of the people that attend this church are young families and college students. I haven't seen many people over 40 years old in service. What is the main reason that I began attending this church - it starts at 12:30, and because I'm on a jacked-up sleeping schedule, 12:30 is a good time for worship service.

Right now the pastor is going through a series FAQ (yes, it stands for Frequently Asked Questions). Last week questions were such as: Do I need to get baptized again if I've been baptized as an infant? Why do bad things happen to good people? This week (today), some of the questions asked included: Is it ok for a Christian to get plastic surgery? Will Catholics go to heaven? Why am I supposed to tithe? So the questions are pretty basic, and the pastor will then go on to explain the biblical answer to the questions. During the discussion concerning plastic surgery, some interesting points were made by the pastor. First off, the paster said that he received more questions about plastic surgery than anything else, specifically concerning breast implants. He had some biblical reasons to see cases where plastic surgery would be acceptable and other cases where plastic surgery would not be acceptable. Then he said, don't judge people for haveing cosmetic, you don't know where they've been. He then went on to quote a passage from the Bible which discussed motivation. (I really think he meant don't assume that you know someone's motivations.) This topic caused much thought on my part.

What I think the pastor meant was, don't assume that someone who opts for plastic surgery, does so for the wrong reasons. Which if this is what I meant, I'm in complete agreement. But I couldn't help thinking of Joel Osteen and his claim, don't judge me, you don't know me, and you don't know what I've been through. (I will need to dedicate a post later on to this process of judging and the usually incoherent claims that are made by Joel Osteen when he asserts this.) I'll opt for the charitable interpretation of the pastor today, but what if he did mean something like what Joel Osteen said. Does this mean that my friends shouldn't claim that I ought not to have sex before marriage, because then, they judge me? What if I decide that I want to evangelize the porn industry and they only way to do this is to become a porn producer and make porn movies while sharing the gospel with the actors that I hire, should someone tell me that I ought not to do this? No, because they don't know me and they don't know where I came from. Don't judge me for making porn movies - the Bible says "don't judge." I can make porn movies and be a good Christian - as long as I tithe 10% of the profits I make from my movies to God.

Since my brother died, I have become somewhat apathetic towards God and have tended to hold to a theological determinism. Last week I had a friend somewhat chastise me for what I was doing and told me I needed to pray more. What if I told this friend, "don't judge me, you don't know what I've been through" (which is true) this friend has never lost a sibling, but that doesn't mean that my friend can't share Scripture with me, or that my friend is judging me. I am worried that most Christians are asserting when they say don't judge is really a form of relativism, that all truths are equal. Because if we are not to judge, then we cannot tell someone that Jesus is the only way for salvation, because we then are judging this person's theology and that this person's theology is wrong. Now, I don't think that all Christians believe this and what they really mean when they assert "don't judge" is to approach other people with an attitude of love. Yet, this attitude of don't judge, descends quickly into the slipperly slope of relativism if one holds to the same attitude of Joel Osteen. Now, I'll just repeat myself, I don't think the pastor today ought to be equated with Joel Osteen, but he did set off a chain of thoughts in my mind. Which in turn got me to think more about the person and being of God, and isn't that the job of the preacher after everything is said and done?

More on compatibilism - the so-called "wussy" position

Well, I found this link that classifies different philosophical views as either wussy or BAD" " and I have one view that is wussy and two views that are BAD" " Look at the bottom of the page on this link. I am a compatibilist, but I also believe in Modal Realism along with Meinongianism. I will explain Modal Realism and Meinongianism in a later post but for now I will try to describe Compatibilism.

I think St. Augustine might have been the original supporter of Compatibilism. Originally, St. Augustine used compatibilism to reconcile God's foreknowledge with human free-will. How could God know about Adam and Eve's sin in the Garden of Eden and not be responsible for sin in the world? If God knew the original two people in existence would sin, why did He not prevent them from doing so? Augustine goes on to argue that though God knew Adam and Eve would sin, He is not responsible for their sinning. Now, for free will, Augustine believes that sin has corrupted our ability to choose good and evil (for Augustine evil does not have ontological existence but is actually choosing a lesser good), in fact, all we desire to choose are lesser goods (evil). So though we might have free will, our free will will choose the lesser goods - the greatest good is God. So with compatibilism, free will and determinism are compatible.

Let me explain what true free will is: free will - not being limited by antecedent conditions. Let me explain what an antecedent is; If A then B. "A" is the antecedent. So, if I say, if I work out enough, then I can bench press 500 lbs. If you believe in complete free will your bench pressing 500 lbs has nothing to do with working out - if you believe in free will without antecedent conditions. If I study enough I will get an A on the test, again complete free will believes that current choices are not limited by prior choices so that studying or not studying does not limit your free will with respect to earning an A on your test.

Determinism claims that everything has already been decided. Jonathan Edwards was a theological determinist and believed that once God knew a fact or situation to be true (since God's knowlege could not be false) that fact or situation would have to occur the way that God knew it would occur. Hence, any kind of human or agent in a situation had no choice, because things were already determined according to the way that God saw them (or knew them) to be, before occurring.

It's been a while...

Well, it's been a while since I've last updated this blog. I did post something on Cool Runnings vs. Rudy, but blogger wasn't working and lost my post... but I'll re-post it later - it's your basic rant.

One of the things that I knew would bother me during this semester and possible the whole year at school is the grieving process. It's difficult to describe, many people lose grandparents and are truly upset about it... I don't mean to diminish those losses because the death of a grandparent is a significant loss. But, I was somewhat physically affected by my dad's death, but my brother's death has had a significant physical impact on me. It's only been recent where I've physically begun to feel "normal." It's strange how the emotions can affect the body (which reminds me of Daniel Dennett's Intentional Stance, where he denies that there are any kind of thoughts that are non-physical, in fact he claims thoughts don't exist, but I'll post on this later) and truly "mess up" your body.

Another thought that I've had is that I've brought some of my brother's stuff with me to Norman that has sentimental value, e.g. guitar, books, backpack, cd's, and I've been reading some of his books and it's somewhat comforting yet painful. One of the books that I'm reading kinda sucks, but it's a good break from reading philosophy, especially since I don't have a tv here. Now, my brother was a Lit major in college and has read all of Shakespeare's works, what he was doing reading some of these books I don't know. However, I kinda wish that I could ask him, "Why did you read this book?" I guess for the same reason I am, I hate to start a book and never finish it.

Now more on God's will: The claim has been put forth that God doesn't do X, I have a choice. My response is: "Fair enough." However there are a couple of caveats, in order for complete - which is often called libertarian free will - free will, God cannot be soverign. If God is soverign, things only happen because He allows them to happen. I think all orthodox theists will agree with me on this. Here is where it gets tricky, God is omniscient, so if He allows something to happen He knows that He is allowing it to happen, therefore, by way of refraining from acting, God wills for an action to happen. Think of it like this God is soverign all the time, an analogy would be similar to that of the shield in Star Wars that protected the Death Star, in order for ships to get in or out of the Death Star, the shield had to be lowered. With God's will it's similar, in order for God to allow things to happen, He must, consciously allow them to happen by refraining from action.
So what does all of this mean... I don't know - I'm still kinda like Job, just gotta trust God because He knows more than I do... What more can I say...

Rudy v. Cool Runnings

I was watching some of the guys playing flag football outside of my apartment the other day, and noticed that they were running unopposed plays, e.g. guys were in motion, making pitches, qb options, but nobody was playing defense. So it got me to thinking about people like that who would love nothing more than to play football for OU which is ranked #2 in the nation right now. However, these guys reminded me of the character Rudy, from the movie "Rudy." For those of you who don't know Rudy's life-long ambition was to play football for Notre Dame - this is back in the days when Notre Dame was still a national power in college football. So Rudy, who had a lot of heart but not much talent, tried out for the Notre Dame football team as a walk-on. He made the practice squad but the movie portrayed him as an absolute terrible worthless football player, but he had a lot of heart and never gave up. So because of his dedication, the last game of his senior year the coach allowed him to be one of the active members on the Notre Dame football team. Rudy didn't get to play in the game when it was close but only after the game was a blow out in ND's favor and in the last play of the game, the only time Rudy ever got to play, he got a sack. The movie portrays him as a hero but in reality, the sack was meaningless and the fact that he played on the scout team was meaningless for Rudy also, because he didn't get to contribute much to ND's success - maybe he contributed as much as an athletic trainer would have.

Recently I watched Cool Runnings (peace be the journey). At first I wondered how the Jamaican bobsled team was any different from Rudy, because in the first olympics they participated in, the Jamaican bobsled team was considered a joke, and finished dead last. However, they had talent and what they lacked was money, and in the olympic games in Nagano, Japan finished 14 overall. So just like Rudy, the Jamaican bobsled team was a complete underdog and considered a joke, but unlike Rudy they accomplished something. The Jamaican bobsled team traditionall has the fastest start of any of the bobsled teams, their problem is that they lack funding and often have a lesser sled than the other teams that they compete with.

So my question is, why do we think that Rudy accomplished something? Sure he got to play in a game and got a sack, but the sack had no outcome upon the game. Whenever someone plays for the scout team that person is a live tackling dummy that the coach could care less about. Rudy is a motivational speaker now, but I don't know what he could motivate me to do, because all he did was not quit, yet nothing was accomplished. If Rudy never played football at Notre Dame, Notre Dame has the same record. Now one of the original team members on the Jamaican bobsled team is a motivational speaker, but he has something to say, because they did accomplish something. When they finished in 14 place, the Jamaicans beat the Russians, the French, the Canadians, and one of the United States' teams. If Jamaica did not race then all of those teams finish higher, thus Jamaica impacted the event. Whereas Rudy had no impact.

I realize it's not a good thing to quit and heart is a good thing to have, but it's also a good thing to be realistic. Success is not measured by not giving up, it's measured by what one accomplishes, if the best thing that you can say that you accomplished is that you never gave up, then that's not saying much.

Aristotle Seminar

For the Spring 05 I have been considering what courses I will take. So far, for certian, I will take an epistemology survey course and an Aristotle survey course. Hopefully I will be able to take a phil. of language seminar class.

However...
I will be able to (if the prof allows me) to write my paper on Aristotelian Libertarianism. Which is something that I think about from time to time. Is this a contradiction? An Aristotelian believes that government (politics as Aristotle would say) is that which makes excellent citizens. In order to have an excellent citizen one must first be virtuous. For one to be virtuous one must practice the virtues. So the government is then in the business of legislating what is virtuous, or to put it in contemporary language, the govt is legislating morality.
The contradiction is that a libertarian believes in a "night-watchman state." A state that does notthing except enforce contracts, protect its citizens from outside force, and protects its citzens from each other (protect individual rights). So, it encourages commerce, has an army, along with providing a police presence. A libertarian does not believe that there should be any form, sort, or fashion of legislating morality. (Though one can make a libertarian argument against abortion if one concedes that life begins at conception, because then, by definition, abortion is murder and murder infringes upon one's personal rights.)

To me, Aristotelian and Libertarianism are the two most attractive options for government... I just don't know how to reconcile the two......

Father of modern liberal democrats

John Rawls was perhaps the greatest politcal philosophers of the 20th century. Here is the transcript of the show about him on PBS.

The new president of the SCP

My professor, the reason why I came to the University of Oklahoma, Linda Zagzebski has just been elected the president for the Society of Christian Philosophers.

Divine Hiddeness

Here's the problem, as an orthodox Christian I believe God to be the greatest possible being. This includes God as omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent (or all-loving). I believe God to be a spiritual being, who is incorporeal, and is certainly not less than a person, if He isn't a person. So why is it so difficult to prove that God exists? Why does evil exist? Why doesn't God answer all our prayers? Why doesn't God just come to us and say, "I exist?" This is the problem of divine hiddeness.

Yesterday I claimed that the default position for theistic belief is agnostic, which would be religious skepticism, not knowing whether a deity exists. Agnostics don't need arguments for their beliefs; atheists do need arguments for their beliefs. Just want to classify the distinction between the two. I think that Romans 1 would present a case for theism being a default position, but I will concede ground and claim that for sake of argument agnosticism is a default position. So here is the case of a garden as told by Anthony Flew which illustrates the problem of divine hiddeness:

Two mountain hikers were hiking through the wilderness and came to a garden. There were plants organized neatly and orderly and looked like they were well maintained, but along with the plants some weeds were also mixed in. One of the hikers said to the other that there was a gardener who took care of this garden and that it was obvious because of the design in the garden. The other hiker claimed that it was chance that had brought this garden about and that there was not a gardener because the weeds were too numerous. So they both sat and waited for weeks waiting to see if the gardener came. The one who believed that there was a gardener claimed that the gardener must be invisible and that's why we never see him....

Well this illustration continues on, but you get my point. It is difficult for us to know what God is doing. I suppose this allows us to trust in God more fully, but maybe not. If more people would believe in God if He revealed Himself to every generation would that change things. Obviously Jesus Christ, God Incarnate, the Word became Flesh, is God on earth and people even then refused to believe in Him. As God tells the rich man who is in hell and thristy (in the parable about Lazarus) if they didn't listen to Moses or the prophets, why will they believe you?

Maybe that's the problem, God has given us signs but we just don't read or believe them correctly.

Back on campus

So it's been five years since I've been on a public university campus. Some random musings are to follow.

First thing that I've noticed, everybody has a laptop. When I was at University of North Texas, laptops were very rare and maybe one person out of 100 brought a laptop to class.

Second thing, girls don't wear clothes anymore. I've seen some skirts that must disappear when the wearer of the skirt sits down.

Third thing, everybody has cellphones. When I was at UNT cell phones were just beginning to become popular and it was before minute plans. Now, I can't count how many times I thought two individuals were having a conversation with each other and they were actually both talking on the respective cell phones. In between classes people are walking around everywhere talking on their cell phones. ... I am glad that I don't have a cell phone.

Fourth and the main point of this post. OU is in a Southern Baptist State, everyone knows what Baptists think because, supposedly, everyone is a baptist. So there is an incredible religious presence at OU. The first day I went to class I saw people standing on the corner passing out tracts. Then this previous Monday I saw someone preaching to a crowd of people while he was standing on a chair. There is a big presence of the Atheists & Agnostics (a student organization) also.

Now, first with the preacher I saw standing on a chair. Before school started I was warned about lunatics who would harass you and preach how everyone is going to hell. (Which reminds me of two extremes in Christianity, relativism, and legalism - but I'll post more on this later.) The guy I saw was singing a song about how Sooners (the mascot for OU, or the Oklahoma Sooners) were going to go to hell for eternity. Now, I realize that Jesus spend more time preaching on hell and judgment than He did on heaven. It's important for people to realize that God is just. But when I later returned by this preacher I noticed he was sitting on a chair and having dialogue with these students. The posture that this preacher had was of enjoyment and self-righteousness. He appeared to enjoy being the center of the students who were somewhat mocking him. He was basically making a spectacle of himself. I did not understand what he was trying to accomplish. There were preachers like this at UNT and they were always trying to cause problems. This fella - at OU - just seemed to be like he was out for the attention and notoriety. None of the students cared what he had to say - they were spectators at a train wreck. Just like many people slow down to look at automobile accidents, these students were here to mock Christianity. It was sad, it's important to go to where people are at to preach the gospel, but sometimes people preach the gospel to become self-righteous, but I must remember what Paul said - at least the gospel (hopefully) was being preached.

Now, about the atheists and agnostics, what do they have in common? An atheist doesn't believe in any type of supernatural deity. Whereas agnostics claim that they don't know if one exists or not. So the two are completely different categories, just as different as a polytheist and a monotheist. An agnostic may be the only belief in which an argument is not required to be one, for an agnostic can always claim "I don't know." As an agnostic once told me it's a "chicken" position, you don't claim anything one way or another. The atheist claims that there is no deity, so regardless of whether one worships one or not, the atheist must present arguments as to why God does not exist. I think that the agnostic position is the default position, yet if the atheist's arguments are correct, then the agnostic ought to convert to atheism. So it seems as if these two positions are not in harmony after all... unless they are united in their rejection of Christianity.