And it all makes you want to scream

A little something from the late great Michael Jackson - Scream

I've been mapping out my past, a common enough task I think, and I've found there are many benefits. You gain a degree of self-learning, a clarification of your understanding of the past, an improvement of your appreciation of good memories and good poeple, and a great story.

There are dangers though: wallowing in self-pity, obsession on the past, renewed bitterness, over-attachment to this life, etc.

But perhaps the most repeated lesson I've found looking over my past is that things were never as bad as I thought they were, nor are they ever as good.

Looking at the past also helps put the present in perspective. I can say that my current life has been a bit rough at times (though not nearly as rough as the life of others mind you), but looking back I find it's amazing that my life is at least better than this period or that period, and so it's not that bad, and I ought to thank God that I got past those past crises because they were pretty damn bad.

Take for example my crisis of April/May 2008 - where I was almost certain I was going to fail a number of classes and need to take another semester (although in retrospect it may have been a good idea to take another semester and get a CS double-major, although who knows how that would have reshaped who I am today?)

Compared to that crisis, my feelings today are light and fluffy, and while I should not take my feelings to lightly (after all, like speed they can kill), it is a bit comforting that I got over that, it chastises my self-pity a bit, and it reminds me - life can suck sometimes, but it is still worth it. I look at that period and there's no way I can reconcile it with the idea I was secretly happy, no I was miserable, but there was still a beauty in that period of life, because I strove to live and live rightly and serve God in my life. Screw the misery, even the crises are beautiful.

And I got a little Facebook posting from that period to prove my point. As miserable and self-pitying that the posting is, I like to think it's a good piece of writing, and well worth looking back upon, or for those who have not read it, for the first time upon. Especially as the most major of the points are still valid, you can always trust God to get you through the bad times, and even when the thrill of life is gone, you still got to go on (and indeed move along):

So here's the posting which I after the fact labeled "Scream":

Oh yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone

Little bit of Jack and Diane
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT9tpKXFd8A

Of course the best thing that John Cougar Mellencamp has given us is this line from How I Met Your Mother (Aldrin Justice):

Barney: Tonight, just like John Mellencamp, I am going to get rid of the cougar once and for all.

If you don't get it watch the episode.

Anywho, I'd like to thank everyone who gave me birthday messages, it was a nice gesture. If it seems odd to not write this till now, well, my life has been a little bit of a crapstorm this last couple weeks. And now that I come to the end of this semester it seems everything is coming up failure, partial or completely, and even my successes seem to be interspliced with failure. And this has all left me pretty miserable.

If I had some time to relax and move away from that mindset, maybe that wouldn't matter so much, but I have more work to do, I have to clean up the mess I've been dealing with lately, I have to deal with potentially failing one or more classes, and this sucks. So life's not going to be enjoyable for a while now.

But life goes on. And one day, really one day, maybe in a month, maybe in two, someday probably not too far from now, I will be getting out of this crapstorm, or I will learn to deal with it. I have great faith that God will get me through all this, but I'm having trouble finding enjoyment in life anyways, and in worse case senario, and I need to deal with the aftermath of these failures and the reactions of my family to these matters, which will likely be as uncomfortable as the problems themselves, I might be living in a crapstorm till the end of the summer or beyond. But still life goes on, I'll have moments of happiness now and then, and someday life will get better. So life goes on.

Even if for now, the thrill of living is gone.

-- Fin --

So how thrilling is living now?
At times very much so, at times terrible. Are things getting better? Off and on, yes. Do I trust God for the future, I am trying to, and I think for the most part succeeding. And looking back, I can say all and all, things are not so bad, maybe not great, but, to paraphrase Hamlet:

In this sleep of life, what dreams may come?
And then in death too, what dreams might appear?

Anywho, take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.

A meditation on Archimedes to satisfy the needy

Why Archimedes is Awesome

• Started calculus
  
• Made the best estimate of pi up to that time
  
• Was completely in love with math
  

Archimedes has always been a figure who impressed and intrigued me. I got an opportunity in 11th grade to really explore him and that led me to writing an essay on him and the depth of his love of math. His life is a model of beautiful passion, something we are all capable of but which many of us are afraid to explore.

Eureka!
An essay for American Literature class

Written 1/1/02

Few men have understood the glory of living. Thorton Wilder calls those few “poets and saints.” While not all poets and not all great men truly understand this glory, some understand and that is what compels them to do great things. They understand that every moment is worthwhile, that the grimmest part of life is still life and is still beautiful. Most will never have that understanding, most understand only after they can look back on their entire life, and that can only happen at death. “It takes life to love Life,” Edgar Lee Masters once wrote. And for most that is true, but for a very few, understanding comes naturally and it makes them glorious. One of these great men was Archimedes¹ of Syracuse. He was an ancient Greek mathematician, considered to be one of the three greatest mathematicians of all time² (Golba, online). He revolutionized math in the ancient world and his contributions directly inspired new discoveries more than a 1000 years after his death. The elegance and beauty of math and pure logic amazed him. He was always contemplating the magnifigance of the universe in his symbols and numbers. He loved truth, understanding, and figuring out things. Math was his passion and he served his passion well (O’Connor and Robertson, online). Archimedes will always be remembered, because he could connect a grain of sand with the universe, and figure the mind of God plus or minus a sin function. Archimedes understood the beauty of life and that made him a very great man.

Archimedes was born around the year 287 BC. His father, Phidias, was a Greek astronomer, and he raised him in a house of math (Bendick 1). His city was Syracuse, a major city on Sicily, and a bustling seaport. He was likely related to the king of Syracuse, King Hiero II (Rorres, online). This suggests that he was moderately wealthy and so it’s not surprising he had enough to travel to Alexandria to study math in all its shapes and forms (Bendick 24). Math as a science was just beginning (Benedick 16). However, it was growing and mathematicians were gathering their information together in Alexandria; thus started for the first time a mathematical community (Bendick 26). Archimedes joined this community and dug in to every field he could. This was the beginning of Archimedes’ long and amazing career in math. He began sending out work to his colleages and gained a reputation for being top-notch. He eventually left Alexandria, leaving behind a considerable legacy including the Archimedes screw, an irrigation device (O’Connor and Robertson, online). He returned to Syracuse, but his math work did not stop. He became an expert engineer, revolutionizing the field of the lever, creating pulleys upon pulleys upon pulleys, and building some of the largest catapults the world had ever seen. He even once created, some say, a reflective mirror that burned enemy ships (Rorres, online). Most of his inventions went straight to the war room where King Hiero and his successors used them in Syracuse’s ongoing wars with Rome, a power just beginning to bloom (Golba, online). Archimedes’ inventions³ saved Syracuse the initially from a powerful seige, but Syracuse was taken by a suprise attack by Rome and was conquered (Rorres, online). Archimedes died when Rome took over Syracuse, killed by a soldier, despite orders that said to spare the mathematician’s life (Bendick 128).

While Archimedes was known for his inventions, that wasn’t his field of choice (Golba, online). His greatest works were in the fields of arithmetic, geometry, and physics. Nine of his works have survived, On plane equilibriums (two books), Quadrature of the parabola, On the sphere and cylinder⁴ (two books), On spirals, On conoids and spheroids, On floating bodies (two books), Measurement of a circle⁵, The Method, and The Sandreckoner. It is known that he did much more; his name is used in many, many works of his contemporaries and his successors. He developed the basis of integral calculus, he examined every geometric shape from the spiral to the circle. And yet Archimedes also treasured the ideas of others, using some of the newest of the time, like the sun-centered universe⁶ (O’Connor and Robertson, online). He loved ideas and the truth. Archimedes went far beyond just proving new math to be true, he wrote his methods down for the ages, and he also invented a new numeral system to express numbers that Greek numerals couldn’t. This number system came in handy when Archimedes calculated the number of sands of grain needed to fill the universe⁷, or at least the concept of the universe at the time (O’Connor and Benedict, online). This was not practical but it was a work of love, for Archimedes truly treasured the order and logic of the universe through math.

Archimedes’ art was math and he loved his art. Yet math is not an art of creation, it is an art of discovery. The laws of math have been true since the beginning of existence and Archimedes reveled in them. He would go without eating, start scribbling while bathing, writing down math as fast as he could. If he could ever find a surface to draw upon, even if it was simply the dirt with a twig he would start drawing figures (Golba, online). In the end these figures led to his death. Accounts of his death⁸ claim that he was scribbling math in the dust during the invasion of Syracuse when he was confronted by a Roman soldier, he told the soldier “don’t disturb my figures” and the enraged soldier killed him (Rorres, online). Archimedes was in such rapture about the joys of discovering new truth that he did not noticed the burning of his city around him. He did love his city and gave it some of his finest inventions, but math was his true love and so he could not waste time fretting over a city when the secrets of the universe were at stake. It was through this love that he loved life. He found that the universe had in it unlimited wonder and was continuously trying to find that wonder through math. His love of math was his love of life, his math was but an expression of life’s logic. Archimedes worked to his last moment, savoring every second, and then died forever a mathematician in love with the order of the universe.

Archimedes lived a life of math. Being a mathematician was nothing special especially with an astronomer for a father. Yet he is the greatest of all the mathematicians of antiquity, perhaps of all time. He figured out the relationship between the volumes of a sphere and a cylinder, he figured out the workings of water displacement, he understood the secrets of conics and a great deal more (Rorres, online). He was great, but what drove him was a love of math. This love of math was a forever wonder about the mysteries of life, and in this way Archimedes understood life.

1-Archimedes was his full name, most Greeks only had one name (Bendick 1)

2- The other two are Newton and Gauss (Golba online)

3-In addition to the inventions already mentioned Archimedes employed a large metal contraption that would rake ships at sea, he also booby traped the walls of Syracuse (Rorres, online)

4-This work concerned the ratio between the two and Archimedes requested that ratio be engraved on the door of his tomb (Golba, online)

5-In this book he calculated the most accurate pi at the time (Bendick 91)

6-Archimedes used the universe constructed by his father, Eudoxus, and Aristarchus, (O’Connor and Robertson, online). He later made a mechanical model of this universe that lasted 200 yr.s (Benedict 78)

7-the number of grains needed to fill the universe is approximately 8*10^16 (O’Connor and Robertson, online)

8-One account says he was carrying mathematical equiment that looked like gold and that is why he was killed (Rorres, online)

Works Cited

Bendick, Jeanne. Archimedes and the Door of Science. Warsaw, North Dakota: Bethlehem Books. 1995.

O’Connor, J. J., Robertson, E. F. “Archimedes of Syracuse.” January, 1999. University of St.Andrews. Online. Internet. Dec 21, 2001.

Golba, Paula. “Archimedes.” 1994. Interactive Real Analysis, ver. 1.9.3. Online. Internet. Dec 21, 2001.

Rorres, Chris. “Archimedes Home Page.” 1995. Drexel University. Online. Internet. Dec 21, 2001.

Good Archimedes links

Good overview

Lots of info

A Good starter

Archimedes writings

Vacation is not quite what I wanted

Despite my bold decree of understanding my place in life, I find myself questioning my approach to things. Perhaps this is just a temporary befuddlement before my ascension to true fooldom, or perhaps this is just another mutation of my alternating bouts of determination and confusion or perhaps it's all just a lack of confidence. Or perhaps it's all just cowardice.

Anywho, perhaps to sort things out, perhaps just because I'm tired, I've decided to take a kind-of semi-vacation sort-of from myself. As odd as that concept sounds, it is rather concrete in my head, and it centers on a certain absence of worry on many matters and a certain dialing back on my introspection at certain times. All of that may not have helped enlighten you as to what I'm talking about, but the point is this state of things obliges me not to parse it exactly as to be able to explain it. Oh well. Sufficient to say, I've decided to restrict the effort I spend on thinking about how to live to certain areas where my decisions on how to live actually matter, such as family, some of the friends I keep in contact with, writing, and my spiritual life. Though how much this restriction on the other areas will affect the life of the unrestricted areas, I am a bit concerned, but as per this state of less worry, I'm not going to freak out over it.

So far I must say, it is kind of relaxing, kind of calming, and it kind of sucks. I find myself with less worries, and less of the bitter falls of depression, but life's less enjoyable, less hopeful, less moving, so far that is at least. This is despite fairly good conditions of life to be enjoyable/hopeful/moving. I'm also a little scared that this apathetic attitude toward much of my life is moving me away from God, though I'm hoping a strong prayer life will keep that from happening. But I'm still thinking that this experiment is worth continuing, partially because it's different, and I've had a lack of difference in my lifestyle, but more importantly because it's a possibly viable alternative to the way I've lived for the last several months (if not years depending on how one defines styles/philosophies of life broken into periods), and ultimately it allows me to compare and contrast and either re-evaluate my way of life, or approach it with re-newed focus.

At least that's the hope, and at least that's what I'm hoping's behind all of this.

It may just be though that I'm tired. Which is okay, we all get tired, as long as you make sure you're going to get up (to that end, I'm going to put a forced end to this experiment/vacation in about 1 1/2 wks, probably then I'll go back to the fool-hardy (or perhaps fool-hard) life for maybe about 2 wks, and then well, think about things...).

What I'm really worried about though, is that I'm giving up on life. But in the end I still have faith, hope, and love. I'm still working for the man upstairs in the end. Maybe though, I'm just doing a little bit of different work for a little while...

perhaps, perhaps, perhaps...

So take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.

I follow he who has conquered death

Lately most of my weekends have been full, and this rare free one gives me a good chance to write about, well, just about anything. Heck, I can even write in highly cliched sentences like these two.

Ah, but this is not any weekend, this is Easter weekend, the holiest weekend of the year.

(Let me point out one thing right away. A few years ago, I heard on the radio a man mock Christianity by saying, "Jesus was supposed to rise 3 days after he died, but Easter's only two days after Good Friday, duh, I'm an idiot." Now he didn't say that last part, but it was implied. This is a good lesson in the folly of making seemingly obvious criticism without any investigation in a matter well analyzed by others who have differing opinions (ie, this is a good rebuke to many shallow criticisms of religion, I admit there are deeper criticisms, and I have yet to discover a counter-point to all of them (indeed, ultimately I believe there isn't a fool-proof counter-point to all the criticisms, because then I feel we would be forced by iron logic to believe and that would deprive us of the choice that Christ died for (of course I could be wrong on this analysis). Moreover, I feel that a fool-proof explanation of the religious nature of the universe is well past what the human mind can understand in a fool-proof was, because it gives a definitive view of the full nature of the universe, which is far too much for us to truly grasp, least that's how I figure).

But back to the man who declared himself an idiot because he hastily opened his mouth about the distance of time between Good Friday and Easter (look I have atheist friends, and I admit that atheists have full right and often good reason to criticize religion, and often they ought to do it so that it'll prompt the religious to dig deeper into their faith to contradict them, HOWEVER, I am opposed to superficial criticism like this one which could be disproved by a simple internet check).

After all this ranting, let me cut myself off by just explaining why the Bible says Jesus rose 3 days after his death, and why this one weekend between Good Friday and Easter counts as 3 days. Essentially it all comes down to the Roman counting method (explained here in regards to another calendar-related matter (though not in regards to Kalends itself). The Romans counted inclusively, and Jerusalem was firmly in the Roman Empire at this time (well, firmly would be an exaggeration as the Romans found out themselves in 67AD (the Bible is actually a great source at looking at the Roman world around the time of the First Jewish-Roman War, one good example of this is the disciple of Jesus called Simon the Zealot, who may or may not have been actually a follower of the political party of that era called the Zealots (who would be a major factor in the First Jewish-Roman War), but at least had some of their connotations associated with him). Anywho, by the Roman counting method, 3 days after Jesus' death makes perfect sense, Good Friday, when Jesus died, is day 1, Easter Vigil is day 2, and Easter is day 3. Anyways, just wanted to get that all settled out.)

This being Easter weekend (if you are looking at the Calendar and wondering where exactly within Easter weekend this is, it is Easter Vigil, or the Saturday of the Easter weekend. I had actually planned to write most of this on Good Friday, but A. I was in church for 5 hours, most of which was Malayalam (luckily my youth group had arranged the Stations of the Cross to be in English, which prevented pure Malayalam, and fortunately, our guest priest who co-celebrated the occasion was the wise and kind Father Bonaventure (though since he is a Catholic priest of the Malankara rite, maybe I should more rightfully call him, Bonaventure Achen (Malayali pride!), who spent some time between the different segments of the ceremony (it was not exactly a Mass, technically (I think), since there was not Communion)). Now I like to think I am able to draw in and participate in the sacred atmosphere of the Catholic ceremonies even when they're not in English, especially since I've had great experience with ceremonies that are in essence the same, though in the Latin rite and in English (I've also had some experience with Masses in the Latin rite in Latin, which was pretty cool because I got to bust out my 6 years of Latin study), still 5 hours kind of passes the time when I generally reverent and sort of goes into the period when I start to get distracted and think about super-robots, but it is a family thing, so, s'okay.

Actually, I still had quite a bit of time after the Good Friday service when I could have written a post, but it's a little bit difficult on Good Friday. It's a day that always strikes me as something incredibly important but well, as I coined the word before, half-blooded. Or really, just it's a matter of I'm not sure how exactly to feel (which may have been a sign from God that it's okay to be confused as to how to feel, which is a message I sort of needed to hear right now. If that seems rather something flimsy to interpret as a sign from God, well, when you hear something more directly from God, then lecture me about it (heck, even if you don't want to lecture me, I'd be interested in hearing about anyone's experience with God). I truly believe it is often (though not always) the subtle coincidences and the delicate shapes of moments in which God speaks to us, so as to reach out to help, heal, and guide us, while preserving our freedom to choose to follow or reject him (a worldview elaborated on here).

Good Friday is only second to Easter in holiness, so it is a bit hard to take anything else to seriously that day. I mean I thought of other things, I admire those who can spend an entire day just meditating on the Passion of Jesus Christ, but I lack that degree of concentration. I'm a little ambivalent in fact about a lot of the heavier prayer rituals (although as mentioned above, I am willing to do the 5-hour Mass when called for), partly because I lack confidence that I could do them correctly (which is the least sensible of the reasons presented here, and if this alone where the case, I imagine I probably would have to push myself toward the heavier prayer rituals), partly because I often have a number of projects on my mind at any given time and it's hard to calm it down to concentrate, but the most legitimate reason I have, and perhaps the only one I really believe, is that the heavier prayer rituals, with the effort that needs to be made to concentrate and avoid distraction, often feed into my self-doubt by convincing myself I'm not doing enough. Maybe I should do more, but I think prayer-wise, I'm doing okay overall, although as a Christian, I think it is always my duty to strive to be more faithful, to strive to overcome sin and grow always closer to God.

But as I was getting toward, I generally don't do too much on Good Friday, treating it as mostly (though admittedly not entirely) as a day of rest and reflection, which is probably the proper way to spend it. And so this post comes today, though my thoughts still rest much on Good Friday.

Now I imagine some people reading this blog (if there are any, ya bums!), may not be Catholic or even Christian and so let me explain a little on Good Friday. Firstly, it is called Good despite commemorating the death on the cross of Jesus Christ, not because we like celebrating suffering for suffering's sake, but because Christ's sacrifice saved the world. Now let me get to two major points (as I think that's all I can add to this post before making it a novella). Well, before that let me note that I am not a theologian, rather I dabble in it, but I know fully that I do not know all the ways of God, nor can I know them, and I am just speculating. So be it then, after all, life's a speculation.

But one thing I do want to make clear, is that I truly and honestly believe Jesus Christ's death saved the world from sin (or I think I believe it, one of the trickiest things about faith for me, is not doubts about God, generally those doubts for me have largely seem artificial rather than real crises of faith, maybe some day there might come a true crisis... but my greater doubts have always been in myself, do I really believe, or do I just believe I believe?). Now for some explanation. While the core of the understanding of Christ's salvation is to understand that much of it is a mystery (in the profound sense of the word), there are parts that we do know via revelation and the tradition of analysis of that revelation, continued, I like to think, in my own ponderings. And here is something that I think is an important aspect of Christ's role in the universe.

God is perfectly good, God is utterly powerful, God is all-knowing, God is all-loving, God is time-less and beyond shape and form in His most abstract aspect. Essentially God is unknowable by man. If you look at the Old Testament, you find many meditations on this fact, especially within the Book of Job, the Book of Jonah, and Ecclesiastes. While God does factor into these Books, He is an essentially mysterious force, and these writers mourn this fact. Other Books of the Gospel note God's interventions in the world, and a sort of mystical way of understanding His presence, but even in the books of the Prophets, there is an indirect nature of God's communication with man. This is not the case, mind you, in Genesis, and even in Exodus and the other books of the Israelites in the desert (Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) you see God as a much more direct, but still essentially alien, force. Deuteronomy gives a good explanation why, in chapter 18 :

This is exactly what you requested of the LORD, your God, at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, 'Let us not again hear the voice of the LORD, our God, nor see this great fire any more, lest we die.'

God's direct presence was too much for most to handle, and indeed directly face God, in our current selves... I'm not really sure what to say about that, but this is something, to directly face God as God in His fullness, it would deprive us of our free will to choose whether or not to follow Him, our choice would be necessarily yes, out of sheer fear and awe if nothing else. I'm not sure if this theological analysis is air-tight, but it gets to the point, that God is by His nature and our nature very distant for us.

And indeed, we make ourselves even more distant by shutting ourselves off from him both through action and thought and feeling, and this is called sin. And we all sin, we all make bad choices and mistakes that alienate us from God. Our choices of arrogance, hate, greed, and make others, even unknowingly, these things drive us away from God. While we can and must resist them, it is our nature, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. (While I take writing on religion especially very seriously, I would not want to put on airs by writing too seriously, so let me recite an old programmer's joke: In the early days of translation machines, one variant was invented that was programmed to translate both Russian and English. To test it, a phrase was put in "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak", and then the result was re-translated back to English, with the idea that translate in and translate out, the same words or at least the same message should be there. The result: "The vodka's good, but the meat is rotten." Ah, but isn't the spirit to man, as vodka is to the potato? No, no it isn't)

What I'm getting at, is in a world with an essentially unknowable God, we are condemned to sin, that is our destiny, and thus we are sin's slaves. However, Jesus resolves this dilemma. Jesus through his nature both as God and man, provides a bridge between us and God. Moreover, he takes upon himself the fullness of sin, he takes into himself all of human nature that drives us from God, and he died with it, suffering the fullness of the human being cut off from God, driven even from the world of God's people, into the utterly loneliness of sin. (I write all of that, but I admit I can't say what all of it means. But then again, I don't think humans necessarily can understand fully everything that they can understand partly, and sometimes you need to just grasp what you can and accept the rest as mystery.)

As my thoughts are still bouncing back and forth from Good Friday, I want to also make the point of how immense Jesus' sacrifice was. In Richard Wright's excellent autobiography Black Boy (a prime example of a book that is amazing, though I don't agree with its worldview), he often talks of his atheistic beliefs, mentioning that he felt that Jesus choosing to die to save everyone was a rather easy choice to make. Well, the easiest counter-point to that would be that the reason why that seems like such a simple choice is partially because we live in a society that is in-part build out of reverence for that sacrifice. But that is only a mild counter-argument.

To truly understand why Jesus' choice was indeed so hard, and his sacrifice was indeed so great, one must take into consideration two aspects of that sacrifice. Firstly, that Jesus is God, with all God's power and might, who became a human being, with all its limitations and curses, to save us, but he didn't have to were it not for his love for us. That in itself is an immense sacrifice, for he who never had to experience pain, or temptation, or any suffering, did so for us. And he could have done otherwise, but the outcome would not have been as blessed as it was, he could have dialed things back to make the sacrifice less, but he didn't he took on the fullness of the human nature, including sin.

This too must also be understood about Jesus' sacrifice, how immense was Jesus' death. It's not just that his death was particularly gruesome (few can match the Romans when they decide to break out the full torture, yet then again, in the vastness of history, some can). Rather, the immensity of the Jesus' death can perhaps be best seen in the fact that he who is one with God, in a mysterious union more profound than we can imagine, was alienated from God, filled as he was with all the sins of the world. Jesus cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Yet he was God. This is not contradiction, if so would some of the greatest analytical minds, including founders in the fields of logic and science, believe in the Gospels? (I'm not saying you can't argue contradiction here, I'm saying that argument is pretty superficial) Rather it is a paradox, a mystery, a matter of divine knowledge admittedly beyond me. But what I can understand, is that it is beyond my reckoning the horror of that... We all have limits beyond which our courage fails, some may have limits which exceed anything they are likely to face, but if we go beyond human reckoning and into the possibilities only understandable by the divine, there are enough horrors to match the limits of everyone, except God.

Jesus did not want this. He accepted it nonetheless for God wanted to save us. He bore his cross, and bore the sins of the world, he died with them, knowing that with a word he could stop of all of it. With just a thought. He was still God. And maybe he could have lessened the load just a little, taking the sins of only some of the people, leaving some of his sheep without a shepherd. But he loved all of humanity, he could leave no one behind. He had to free all of us from sin, so our choice in life would not be how sinful we would be when we died, but rather, our choice would be to trust in God and receive the grace that could overcome our sin, overcome our distance with God and bring us ultimately to him in an experience that no eye has seen, no ear has heard... but for that to happen, God had to bear all the sins of the world...

And overcome all of them... and transcend all of them... and conquer death. While on the surface the miracle of the Resurrection is simple, a man rising from the dead, it is in fact a glorious mystery that goes beyond human understanding (again, just my reckoning, I'm willing to bow to someone who's thought through things better). Jesus was not only God alienated from God, but he is also man united with God. For the sin was conquered, it was overcome, all the sins of the world, in a grace most profound, most glorious...

I can't understand it. I really can't fully, it's just so immense, so wonderful, so utterly perfect, the Resurrection is God's love conquering the limitations of humanity, bringing us back to Him, inviting us to paradise, to His perfect, redeeming love.

My words are inadequate. Perhaps in no other matter, can my words not capture a moment as much as here. I am at a loss, I wish I could better explain even my limited understanding, but it is just too much.

Beyond the greatest greatness of this world, there is the Resurrection, for it conquered this world, and saved its people, all of its people, saints as well as sinners (though saints, like all humans are also sinners). It is just too wonderful... it is God's love, the love that animates the universe, that saves us all.

That is what I believe. Now I admit the exact metaphysical details may not be correct, but I am certain of the general shape of things:

For this is how God loved the world: He gave his unique Son so that everyone who believes in him might not be lost but have eternal life.

(And by the way, if I might for a moment dip into more murky waters for a moment, I believe that when it comes to believing in Jesus...

Jesus is more than just a figure, conceptually, he is God, he is Love most profound, and I think that even those most schooled in Catholicism can only understand the most basic truths of God, but if anyone, I admit to a degree of uncertainty about this, but perhaps no more than my uncertainty about my own beliefs, truly believes in the most basic truth of God, that is Love, in its most perfect sense, an admittedly unprovable and unknowable concept (except through that lovely little thing called grace), even without knowledge of the technicalities, which are incredibly useful spiritually and practically (lest you imagine I'm saying that the Church (whose tradition and revelations are our best source for that knowledge and whose practices deepen us in our knowledge) is unimportant or that I don't wish that everyone was a Christian and even more particularly a Catholic (though I admit that the Church isn't perfect, although there is a greater sense... (this session is getting looooong))...

If you truly believe in Love, well, then someday, even after death, the Hope and Faith will follow, and you can be saved.)

What more can I say? Infinitely more without scratching the surface of the greatness and glory of God. For it is so immense and so diverse and so present in us all... I like to believe everything I write, even when not mentioning religion is ultimately about God. For I like to think that my life, including my writing, is an effort to know God and to do His will, and hopefully that imbues my self with a sense of God's glory and then through the personal-ness of my writing, it too is imbued with a sense of God's glory, or perhaps a sense of the search for God's glory, though perhaps not directly, perhaps only in the most quiet of ways, but in a way I hope does help show God's glory at least in some aspect to others, so they too might dream the inconceivable dream... of God's ever-lasting and perfect love.

God Bless!

A peaceful world without a trace of care

One of the greatest contraversies between Libertarians and well, almost everyone else, is Libertarians think (or most of the hard-core Libertarians think) that people would generally behave good without any government, while a lot of, if not most other political philosophies believe there would be unrestrained terror and chaos. My own position is in between but leaning towards the more hard-core Libertarian idea. I think without government people would be generally good but there would be a number of people who would behave badly, and while it would be a generally good world there would be an element of chaos that would make things a bit unperdictable with a slight chance of things going really bad.

Now imagining such a hypothetical world does at times seem pointless since it is highly unlikely that an area with no government will arise any time soon (even areas like Somalia where government had disinigrated for a period of time (the situation has changed recently in a complicated way), there were large clan-based armed groups that essentially were governments of any region they could get a hold of)), but it does allow us to ask whether our overall level of government should be greater or lesser. However, even if imagining how things would be like without a government might be useful it is very difficult.

Like any hypothetical world model, to figure out what a world without government would be like requires an understanding of that most un-understandable creature, the human. We are strange beasts, with all our mysterious cogs and gears which are most likely impossible to completely understand. So we must make guesses and conjectures to figure out how people would behave in this situation or that. The most common guess for situations like the no government one is that humans would act in narrow self-interest. This means they would do what is best for themselves.

The pessimist might than suppose everyone would be inclined to rob, steal, rape and kill as much as he could just so he could get ahead. This I think ignores the fact that in general if people cooperate and respect each other they can get a lot more done. Also, people realize that if they treat people badly they are more likely to be treated badly. Overall, cooperation protects them, it also builds up institutions like community response to cime, that protects them long term. Most people, if just interested in their own well-being will go with that, especially since if everyone robs, steals, rapes, and kills, even if you're the criminal, the damage to society will be so great you're almost certainly going to get screwed over as well. (In someways this resembles a prisoner's dilemma type problem, I'm not sure of all the implications of that assertion, but I think it backs up my point that people are pretty likely to cooperate)

Me presenting this arguement might suggest that I believe full-heartedly in the hard-core Libertarian position that in no-government situation everyone would behave great, but I'm not completely sure of that. The big point I question with the model I just painted is that people behave solely on narrow self-interest. But people don't simply act that way. People act irrationally sometimes, based on deep subconscious reasons that make no sense given their conscious desires, but in more reasonable times they still might not act self-interestedly, they may act instead out of love of their children or out of love of an idea or out of the principle of love in general, or maybe they could act out of hate. This means that ultimately people's actions are based on what they believe.

Let's add that to our model of the world without government. Most people believe that not doing bad things is good, but most people also can be convinced to do bad things if there's a sufficiently good ultimate reason. So how bad or good the total situation is depends on how many people have been convinced to do bad things. So therefore it depends. It varies based on which beliefs are popular and what those beliefs mean to the current situation. Without a government things could be very very good, or they could be very very bad.

If people believed in nothing, if they just acted in self-interest the world would likely be much more peaceful place, but the soul would suffer from a lack of love. We would be truly simply animals and be empty of worth. But in the end we believe in many things which adds an element of chaos to the equation, making things perhaps good and perhaps bad, but full of beautiful passion, which means that even when things are bad, people and life is still beautiful. So I'll take the chaotic world of beauty to the peaceful world of empty souls.

Least that's how I think (and how you should think, because I am awesome). So anyways, take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

On Passion: Love, Fury, Ambition, Fanaticism, Devotion and all the rest

Greetings to all those in internet land. I think every once and a while I should start out with a greeting instead of launching right into my main point. What is my main point today you might ask? (You might ask that although knowing you bums you probably won't.) My main point is a defense of religion that segways into a more general discussion of passion. Passion is a pretty essential part of the human condition and a while ago I wrote an essay on it. I actually have quite an archive of old writings and so I thought I'd pull this out and place it here. Now since it is old it lacks the polish of my recent gains in writing ability, on the other hand since it is an essay it is more polished than my average blog. Maybe I'll re-write this sometime and re-post it, but anyways without much further ado (or adoo-doo) let me give you my essay On Passion (with essays I like to go with On this or that because that's how all Cicero's stuff is titled in my old textbooks and well, Cicero rocks).

On Passion

Any student of history and human nature can read off examples of times where religion led to bloodshed or worse. Every religion has its share of madmen, but every religion also has its fair share of saints. The difference between the madmen and the saints is difficult to tell at times, and controversial as well. Some would call all religion a mass hysteria and thus anyone who follows it, no matter how saintly his behavior must then be, at least partially, insane. Their proof is the Crusades, the Jihads, and many other examples of religion gone wrong. Yet it should be noted that atheism has not a spotless record, the countless dead of the USSR and Communist China are the most prominent examples of this. Underneath all the slaughters mentioned is a common root. The Crusades were caused by religious passion, the Communist purges were caused by ideological passion, passion is the link. Passion is a powerful emotion, it can prompt a man to disregard his life and the lives of others, it can give people superhuman strength of will, and in certain people and in certain times, passion is massively contagious. And if all that powerful passion is misled, tragedy occurs. Ideologies, philosophies, religions, and all other forms of belief are based on a degree of passion, for all appeal to that very passionate center of the human soul, the search for the truth. Every belief-system offers the truth. The truth is the fundamental bedrock of a person?s existence, their view on the world, the way they act, these are simply ways of carrying out the truth. Accepting something as that important and that central to a person's life requires passion. And passion is powerful, immensely powerful, and so it can lead to some spectacular monstrosities.

Some believe that therefore all passion should be abandoned. Nothing should become centrally important, and nothing should be accepted as the truth. This belief has a certain appeal, a believer in this idea will never kill for the truth, nor will he die for the truth, nor will he feel the agonizing pain of losing what he thought was the truth. I can understand the appeal, but I cannot believe in this idea. Passion can cause horrors but it can also cause miracles. Passion is what drives people to great acts, and these acts can be both horrible and beautiful. Passion drove Mother Theresa to care for the poorest of the poor. Passion drove Patrick Henry to offer his life for liberty. Passion drove Mohandas Gandhi to demand that every man be treated with respect. Passion drove Horatio Nelson to die to save his country from Napoleon. Passion drove Shakespeare to craft his magnificent plays. Without passion no one can see anything as truly great or beautiful, for that requires a full-hearted, unconditional belief in the truth of beauty and greatness.

Greatness and monstrosity both hail from passion. The dual-nature of passion mirrors the dual-nature of the human soul. Human beings have the potential to acquire power and use it to do great deeds, human beings also have the potential to use power to destroy, corrupt, and annihilate. That is the nature of humanity. Thus while passion can be seen as the root of great evil it must not be abandoned or abolished. For to destroy passion would be to lose our capability for living a beautiful life, and when mankind loses that, we lose our humanity.

This discussion started with religion, and so before it ends we should return to that topic. Religion is an object of great passion, and this alone can explain what evil has been done in its name. Yet passion also explains the great good that has been accomplished by those driven by religion. It would be unfair to say that all good deeds are committed by religious people, but it would be just as unfair to say that religion has never driven anyone to do a good deed. Great deeds of virtue require a person to overcome their fears, their personal problems, and the problems of society, to overcome this a person needs passion, and religion can provide this for some. To the faithful religion has many other benefits, but at the very least it inspires. What religion inspires can be good or evil, but it can inspire the truest sort of greatness. -Rand