⁸Do not rebuke a mocker or he will hate you;
     rebuke a wise man and he will love you.
⁹Instruct a wise man and he will be wiser still;
     teach a righteous man and he will add to his learning.

— Proverbs 9:8-9

Tags: bible, quote, proverbs, wisdom

Often, the pro-creation or anti-evolution argument looks to the first chapter of Genesis as its basis, that God created all kinds and so nothing evolved from something else. What strikes me as odd is the presumption that this same omnipotent God is bounded by what we perceive as time. Why is it hard to accept that God conceived of–not literally “created”–everything at once but that some would only come to manifest at a certain point in time? This would indeed have all scientific appearances of evolution, of one kind of beast becoming another, but God still having done this magnificent deed during the act of creation.

Even in Genesis, God “evolves” woman from man, taking a part of him and creating something new that did not exist before. This is absolutely testament that evolution happens and that God may indeed be at the center of its happening. Yet, pro-creation arguers insist that evolution doesn’t happen? This is absurd at best.

Similarly, the pro-evolution arguers insisting that such miraculous events could occur purely by random chance seems too optimistic for my tastes. We have very little evidence of “evolution gone horribly wrong” which would inevitably need to happen much more frequently than evolution getting it right to get us to where we are today. Yet, the fossil record is clearly lacking this proof. Apparently, the evolutionary stasis in the observed fossil record is clear.

Scientists have coined the term punctuated equilibrium to describe the short bursts of evolutionary improvement that happens. Why is it so hard to accept that these apparently miraculous core changes to a species wasn’t guided somehow? Believing that these rare and unlikely events, which now seems to not stem from constantly failed random attempts, can happen repeatedly is like winning the lottery every time you buy a ticket, and repeatedly buying tickets and winning every time! Sorry, that kind of luck is … Godlike, to say the least.

Tags: religion, creationism, evolution, punctuated equilibrium

The gospel lesson this past week was on John 4, where Jesus meets the Samaritan woman. Our church uses this lectionary insert which uses the NRSV translation of the Bible. As our pastor read the gospel lesson, I couldn’t help but LOL at verse 11:

¹¹The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?

The first thought my mind produced, was, “Jesus, you has no bukkit.” I couldn’t help it, my mind went into full LOL mode. This was the internal dialogue that went on inside my head:

JESUS: GIMME DRINK.
WOMAN: LOL! WTF?
JESUS: GIMME DRINK, NAO!
WOMAN: O RLY? U HAS NO BUKKIT. HOW U GET WATER?
JESUS: YA RLY! I DRINK UR MILKSHAKE! I DRINK IT RITE UP! WE CAN BE BFF!
WOMAN: NO WAI! GIMME WATER!

JESUS: I BEEN WATCHIN U FAP.
WOMAN: OMG! I SEE WHAT U DID THAR.

Yeah, pray for my immortal soul, or something.

(Before all you bright people point it out, yes, I know about the LOLcat Bible and there’s even a translation for John 4 already.)

Tags: Christianity, Bible, John 4, LOL, meme

I like to describe myself as an igtheist–one who doesn’t care whether God exists or not.

However, I attend a Lutheran church every week, and I play guitar for the children’s choir and sing in the church choir. I do this because I really like the people in the congregation, as well as the opportunity to share my love for performing music and singing with people.

How do you go about choosing a church? Think about it this way: choosing a church is like choosing a supermarket. Some folks go to the nearest one to their house. Some stick with a particular chain because they prefer it for whatever reason. Some go to the one that sells at the lowest prices. Some go to the ones that offer the highest quality product. Some go to the ones that give away free food samples.

Going to church is not so much about believing in God than it is about liking the community of people that attend church at a specific location. Your criteria for choosing a church will likely differ from someone else’s, but in the end if you go to church, go because it provides you with the value you’re looking for, not as a statement about your belief (or lack thereof) in God.

Tags: religion, Lutheran, church, igtheist

My friend Steve and I talk about all sorts of stuff, but a snippet from today’s exchange I really wanted to share with everyone:

Steve: My coworker, who’s an orthodox Jew, believes ideas like CD players came from God because he can’t conceive how ideas like that can come from mere mortals. I tried to explain to him that ideas are a dime a dozen and the important key is actually doing it.

Dossy: Right. Motivation comes from God. :) Because, mere mortals left to their own devices would just sit around naked and masturbate. You know, ’til we got kicked out of the Garden of Eden … and we realized being naked and masturbating was Not Good.

Dossy: That damned forbidden fruit.

Ah, any time you can mash up a world’s creation myth with masturbation, you’ve accomplished a masterwork. I’ve met my quota for the day.

Tags: religion, Christianity, God, heresy, funny

The season 1 finale episode, Parasite, aired recently.  In it, there was an incredibly insightful piece of dialogue between Nathan Petrelli and Mr. Linderman:

Linderman: You see, I think there comes a time when a man has to ask himself whether he wants a life of happiness or a life of meaning.

Nathan: I’d like to have both.

Linderman: Can’t be done. Two very different paths. I mean, to be truly happy, a man must live absolutely in the present and with no thought with what’s gone on before, and no thought of what lies ahead. But a life of meaning, a man is condemned to wallow in the past and obsess about the future. And my guess is that you’ve done quite a bit of obsessing about yours these last few days. (Nathan pulls out a gun) Now you can’t have any of my pot pie.

Linderman is certainly the God-character, holding unique knowledge about the nature of reality which has so puzzled all of the other characters.  As mortals, we’re constantly torn between the two ends of the continuum, seeking out truth and meaning but also trying to find happiness.  It’s very clear that they are indeed on two ends of a continuum and our very struggle is what keeps us in the middle of it.

I guess this quote was especially relevant given my recent state of mind.

Tags: TV, Heroes, philosophy