abuse of gifts

Abstract (summary): "if we think of things as gifts, not from ourselves, we won't feel the need to use, own, and abuse them."

God gave us planet earth, all the animals, and all our ingrained pleasures like . Sin is generally thought of as twisted the good things God gave us. Here's and idea of how we twist them: we think that we control the pleasures, so using them is an act of victory, and exercise of power. This makes us want to use these pleasures even when they are no longer beneficial to us. This is why gangs fight over 'turf'. This is the essence of power-mongers, spontaneous bullying, s, etc.

If these pleasures (well, some are pleasures) are gifts, then we don't abuse them. Why? Because we are more confident in our ownership of them. Hm... We don't have to exercise them to own them anymore. We don't have to 'conquer' and use pleasures in order to own them. The gifts are for our pleasure, not our strength, so if they don't give us pleasure anymore, then we don't use them anymore.

I got this idea while eating a blizzard at DQ. If I consider this blizzard to be a treat that I earned then I feel a need to enjoy it, and I'll probably end up not enjoying it as much. If fact, when I eat my way down to a disgusting part, or if I get full, I'll keep going because I earned it and I want to enjoy what's rightfully mine.

However, if it's a gift. (which it was, my Mom took us out for ice cream - I love you mom!) then I don't need to eat all of it. I feel kind of obligated to enjoy it because she gave it, but if I really don't enjoy it, then I'm just a little sad that she wasted some of her money.

Note that this way, as a gift, I don't feel inclined to grab the reward before the proper time. If it is a true gift, then I know that the giver desires my happiness, and the gift will be better enjoyed at the proper time. This has a fairly strong application to .

more on 'sets of two'

A refresher on 'sets of two': there are several pairs of things relating to Christianity which might be arranged thus (take a good long look)

Past Future/ongoing

Justification Sanctification Works of God

Body Blood Communion

By the way, 'Justification' includes things like 'Atonement', 'Salvation', 'justice', 'Guilt'

and 'Sanctification includes 'romance with God', 'purification', 'learning', 'adoption' (maybe)

I will make three modifications to this . 1 add several more pairs. 2 rearrange body and blood 3 discuss another remotely possible pair.

For your reference, this blog was inspired by a sermon on 1st John 5:6-12

1 Pair A: death of Christ, baptism of Christ. Death goes under 'past' and baptism is 'ongoing'.

Both are large-scale events in Jesus's life.

Pair B: ordinances/sacraments of communion and baptism. Communion past, baptism 'ongoing'

These are the two ordinances recognized by a large section of Christendom.

Pair C: the humanity of Christ and the divinity of Christ. humanity is past, divinity is future.

This ing is slightly forced. I believe Jesus always has, is, and will be both human and divine. I just like to think that in heaven, we will be much more godly than now. Granted what we call 'human' will also be a lot more godly, but that's beyond the point. Perhaps I will change the column names.

P.S. the name Jesus Christ indicates his duality. Jesus = man, and Christ = God.

P.P.S for science geeks, have you ever considered particle-wave duality in relation to JC?

2 I will flip the positions of 'body' and 'blood'. Previously I had thought of 'body' as more solid and justice foundational, and the blood as something more fluid and dynamic. But now I see the body as 'our daily bread' and the blood that 'washes us white as snow'.

3 Relating to 1 John 5:6-12, there is another pair D: the blood and water that poured from Jesus's side when he was stabbed while on the cross. I have not yet attached meaning to either, but it would seem fairly obvious that 'blood' would go under 'past' and water would go under 'future/ongoing'.

Here is the new :

Past future/ongoing

blood body communion

death baptism JC events

communion baptism Sacraments

blood water From JC wound

human divine JC duality

Don't you like it when God makes sense? (well, I also like it when he surprises me, but anyway)

3 Sunday pictures

In and around Church today, I had three small ideas and pictures.

1 We sang "Rejoice, the Lord is King" by John Darwell. A picture came into my head of a majestic eagle, steady speed purposeful albatross, protector falcon flying over light green downs fields at maybe 1000 feet, watching over someone. As you go on in life, God is watching over you and willing (as a verb) your purpose in life, much like native Americans would think about it.

There is another related sense in which God is watching over his people (as a group) on earth. With keen strong purposeful eyes he delights in the being of his nation people.

2 On the wall at church there is a short plaque about prayer and how Jesus went to the mountains to pray. Next to it is a picture of a mountain hill. Bare grey rock rolls in smooth solid fabric lines of bulk like a gigantically dense wave, with shrubble (new word :) ) clinging to it in various places. The mountain hill is so desolate, so dense. To sit upon its top is to be devoid of everything, ripped down to the solid core of Christ the sovereign God in you. It is a scary and awesome place. Here we must pray, because that is the only way we may live. With no food or refuge from the storms, we must cling to God like mad, for none else exists to save us.

3 The third thing is merely an idea I had on the drive home from church. I look out at the passing rows of trees, the edge of a forest that I do not know beyond, and I feel so small. Or to sit upon the mount of Kilimanjaro or Everest or Nanga Parabat (I think), only hard rock drops away around you. (note how this is related to picture 2). Especially in the forest, one feels lost. How can you conquer such a complex and unordered world?

Here is the solution: the feeling of lost comes if we think of being randomly placed in a random environment. We assume the world exists in a certain scientific way just because it happened that way. No, you nincompoop! (I'm talking to myself). The world is a gift! God gave us the environment, the forests and plants, the animals, everything! They're for us. From the view, exploring the world becomes an adventure, nothing scary. We treat the world as our own, and as special because it's from God. We don't necessarily shy away from industry which causes pollution, because God gave the world for us to use. But it's ours as a gift, so we don't want to abuse it. It's for our enjoyment, so we should preserve a lot of it to go camping in! Climb some mountains, run pell-mell through some forests, whatever! It's a gift, and that mindset solves a lot of things.

missionary ppl

We read these books about amazing missionary people: William Carey, David Livingston, Hudson Taylor etc. And we're like "dang! I wish I were that Godly!"

Maybe they didn't start out that way. Hm? Maybe they had this wishy-washy (but God given) idea to go preach somewhere, with or without a passion behind it, and they said "ok God, you gave me this idea, I don't know if you're all-behind it, but I'll try it." and then they jumped into oblivion with little or no super-Christian godliness...

And then God chuckled and took them for the ride of their lives!

Maybe missionaries became amazing people after they jumped, not before.

My advice? Find your interests, listen closely to the holy spirit, and find something to do. Then sit on it for at least a month, pray like crazy, bring in an army of friends to affirm you, then jump.

2 Caveats: (making sure I don't offend people, basically, and clarifying some things)

1 Missionary people can also be called with violent amazing passion right off the bat. Good for them, but I think God might get more glory out of a confused but faithful follower.

2 Missionary people are not the only amazing people. You can be called to be a 'sender' as most often is reffered. I think of it more epically like 'raising the next generation of missionaries' or 'dedicating your life to being eaten alive by Gods fire', or 'putting tools into the hands of Christians so that they can be eaten alive" things like that. Or in war analogies, sender people could be artillery marshals (making literature to send out), or grease monkeys who work on tanks and things (making planes for...whatever that plane-flying mission group is called).

up/down decisions

In my head there is this pyramid of ideas, with the biggest, coolest ones like God at the top, and super tiny ones like brush your teeth at the bottom. People, in their daily lives, can use this fact pyramid to make decisions in one of two ways: top-down processing or bottom-up processing.

I think the first one is infinitely better.

Top-down processing starts from a few big ideas at the top and looks at many common sense actions that come (descend) from those facts. An example of top-down processing: God is amazing - therefore go spread the gospel, seek him in his word, love your spiritual brothers and sisters...etc. This is one of the cool things about God: when we're most satisfied in him, theology kind of fades away and we do things like evangelism and stuff because we want to, not for any logical reasons.

Bottom up processing makes a small number of decisions using a large base of facts. This requires a lot of thought and calculation. Bottom-up processing would be like this: God told us to go preach, and it would be nice to have other Christians around, so even though telling people about Christ feels kind of awkward - therefore I should go and preach.

It requires a lot less brain work and you're less prone to error when you use top-down decision making. Strike first at the big ideas, figures those out, take them deep into your heart, and many things will follow easily after. "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." Matt 6:33

P.S The ideas at the top of the pyramid, being larger, are also more emotional.

never too much sin

Here is a small argument to encourage anyone who thinks they've sinned too much to be saved.

Jesus Christ took on the sin of the world yes? And then died to pay for it, and through that saving function, rose again. JC was 'the first man through'. He is our leader and went through the salvation process first. He rose to life for the same reasons that we will get resurrected bodies on the last day. Jesus was saved just like us (sort of).

So, how much sin did Jesus have? The whole world. And guess what, that includes yours! So you know that your sin isn't too much because Jesus already got through the system with your sin on his shoulders. Like it? I do!

P.S. BTW I am trying to be cautious. I am touching on extremely core things here. Why did Jesus rise from the dead? Because he had paid for all of his sin, or because God the father had pity on him?

Did Jesus spend an eternity in hell? If hell is outside of time, how did that work out? Is JC still in hell (and simultaneously seated at the right hand of God)? How can JC say "my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" when God doesn't really change, so how can he love JC, put him out of sight for a second, and then bring him back?

Anyway, this is just food for thought. Any comments are welcome.

1 Tim 2:3-6

This is a textual problem I came across.

1 Tim 2:3-6 - "³This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, ⁴who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. ⁵For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, ⁶ who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time."

The troublesome part is "desires all people to be saved". And, obviously not everyone is saved. So how can God want something and not do it?

Here's my explanation. Who desires all people to be saved? Look back just a little: God our Savior. I'm thinking this is JC.

From here we can explain things in one of two ways:

1 Now look at verse 5. Three parties to the contract: God, JC, and men. JC mediates between God and men. Perhaps JC wants all people to be saved, but God says no. This touches a little on my most recent post concerning the trinity.

2 Take verse 6. "ransom for all" JC could want all men to be saved in the sense that his ransom is available to all people. This is a very interesting topic regarding free will and stuff. I have another post I want to make so I won't wander there now.

modifications to trinity dimensions

If my theory about spatial dimensions explaining the trinity is new to you, see "BIG THEORY trinity and tsm" in the week of Jun 6.

This theory leans towards making all three parts into one person. It looks like Jesus Christ, the holy spirit, and God the father are exactly the same, God just does things in different dimensions.

NO

I had several small defenses, but I only remember one at this time:

Our idea of 'person' is limited to a few dimensions. God as a whole is more than just one 'person'. He is big enough that he can have multiple 'persons' that describe him. Perhaps he is so big, that these persons can even have a command hierarchy and different interests. (I will make a note later concerning 1 Tim 2:3-6) We can't understand how that works, but that's because we're created beings, and pretty small at that.

By the way, if you are concerned that I'm labeling God the father as the big multi-person God and disrupting the balance, be at ease. We can label him as the 'justice and holy' God. We will give him the table surface on which the book sits. (see BIG THEORY)

For a better visualization of the open book idea, use a race car maybe. [because a cylinder looks like a rectangle from two axis] Jesus Christ can be the profile, the Holy spirit can be the top or bottom view, and God the father can be back and front view with the engine and the front hood.

In regard to other names of God, here is an example. I came across a psalm recently [20] with "may the name of the God of Jacob protect you." so, the face/name/facet/dimension/view of God we call "God of Jacob", is the promise keeper protector God.

running in heaven

There is this general idea that we will run like crazy in heaven, right? Run up waterfalls, fly, be crazy, etc.

Anyway. Let's revitalize this idea. Imagine that you cannot walk, and you wait all your life to go to heaven and run like a madman. Cool, yes? But the running we will be capable of is far greater than you or I can imagine.

It is quite possible that I have been given a glimpse of such possibilities. With a large athletic background, I can imagine some pretty cool gymnastics.

Try this: plyometric (jumping) off walls. Two legged bulk impact from the side (onto the wall), cartilage and rib structure rippling up and down your back, heels vibrating/oscillating against the wall, ligaments and tendons in your knees, hips and shoulders stretching and singing with tension, slow motion building up of bent potential energy in your legs like a huge bronze yeoman's bow, then explosion away from the wall so fast you could break your own knees. Yes? I like it. Again and again, perhaps three jumps per second, pounding off of walls, ceilings and floors in sickeningly fast forward motion.

Now let's try something else. The new Jerusalem is 1400 miles in length, width, and height. It's a cube. No joke. Base jump from the top. With no air resistance you have 11.3 minutes of free fall and finish at a little under 15,000 miles per hour. With air resistance, the trip will take you about 11.4 hours with an average speed of 123 mph. Talk about a vacation! Wahoo!

Anyway. No matter how much I anticipate heaven, God has made it better than I can imagine.

Go God!

4 principia to encourage action

these are four general-action-executable-behavior principles (I generally just call them principia) that I have used recently. They are to be used as encouragement and added thought when considering an action you might take. They are: comm, jump chess, berserk/kamikaze, and reverse psyche

Comm:

short for communication. Normally I use this shorthand 'comm' for the word itself, not the principle. In this case, it refers to the principle and means "communication is rarely a bad thing"

Many times in various movies I have watched, I have screamed out to the main characters in my mind "Just tell the others what's going on, stupid!" Movies would be resolved so much faster if people just told people about their troubles (and trusted them with discoveries). And thinking about other people talking to me, I have always thought that they could tell me nearly anything, and I would never blow up on them.

So the general principle is that communication is rarely a bad thing. It probably won't hurt you, and even if it does, it's probably still for the best. The communication to avoid is uncalculated communication. If you had a fleeting, random thought, there is no need to tell of it. Or if it is entirely driven by mindless (illogical) emotion, then you should censor yourself too. But basically everything else...(still use your discretion) should be told.

jump chess:

This principia is based on the short time we have on earth, faith, and chess games. You want to apply this if fear or other emotion is holding you back.

Short time: So, you want to make an impact on the world, right? Do you think you can do that by living a normal life and not taking risks? Probably not. It's hard to be extraordinary if you are normal (well...).

Faith: Is the action you are considering in line with cold logical thought? If a movie character were in your position, what would you advise him/her to do? (you are less concerned about their safety and such, so you will be more likely to advise them to 'jump' or 'go for it')

Chess games: let's compare your life to a chess game. (I like chess). on your side, your pieces are worth a total of 37 points. [pawns = 1, knights = 2.4, bishops = 2.6, rooks = 5, queen = 9, king = 0] How many points does your life have? Let's say that you have $37k in expendable assets (if you're a college student, let's drop that to $5k), or 10 closer friends, or 24 hours in your day

Now, you have a fairly major decision on your hands. You want something cool to happen, yes? In a chess game, this would at least amount to moving a pawn, right? A pawn is one point. In your life points, this means 1/37 of your $37k = $1000 ($5k/37 = $135), or 1/37 of your 10 friends = damaging a relationship, or 1/37 or your 24 hours a day = 38.9 minutes. Any way you look at it, it's a decent chunk of investment. Maybe you're trying to get into college, find a permanent job, lost 20 pounds, win over the of your dreams, strengthen your marriage, or find meaning in life. How much is it worth to you? If you want something to happen, move a pawn. Invest $135 or $1000, risk a friendship, or spend 40mn/day on it.

berserk/kamikaze

this one is theological. Philippians 1:21 "To live is Christ, to die is gain." or take Muslim suicide bombers. For them the holy war is worth more than their life. Your life is not your own, risk it for Gods glory. I like to think of it as a super-strong tether cord from your soul to heave or God. if you jump, it will always catch you. Like rappelling from a cliff or tight-roping across the grand canyon, we can be much braver if we know there's a safety harness. So what does it matter if you die? That's a shortcut to heaven! Even Paul the apostle has explained that he longs to just go to heaven, but he must stay with you for a little while and continue God work. We have never looked down on martyrs. The secular world doesn't even scoff very much. And some of the most well-known missionaries, take David Brainerd for example, he only had like 4 years of ministry and died at 29, but he's pretty famous anyway. If your conscience isn't nagging you about an action, be a kamikaze for Christ and go for it.

reverse psyche

this you apply when wondering how other people will react (or if you're afraid of how they will react). It's not reverse psychology in the true meaning of the phrase, I just hijacked the name. Do this: switch places with your audience and consider how you would respond. Humans are different in many surprising ways, but we are also similar in surprising ways. Especially if this person is a relative or spouse or close friend who loves you, chances are they will be more concerned about you and trying to help you, rather than ribbing you out. People will rib you out more often because they are frustrated (as often as not unrelated to you) rather than something you want help with. Unless you're pulling rank or asking impossible favors or something, it should be all right, you have little to fear from people's reactions.

filling the god-shaped hole

We humans have been hardwired with normal tendencies to like the things God has made and done. Unfortunately, we rarely attribute these things to God.

You like poetry? Your life is a poem. Reference "we are Gods workmanship" where in Greek 'workmanship' is 'poema' or poem.

You like romances? We are the bride and JC is the bridegroom - the husband who knows you inside and out, and always remembers your birthday :) !! Seriously, this is the best one of all.

You like epics? The story of history is an epic, with God restoring his people and earth in the last days.

You like adventures? Read "God Smuggler" by brother Andrew or any of many other books. Or just talk to a modern missionary. Following God is nerve wrecking and amazing!

You like war stuff? Revelations 14:20 "...and blood flowed out of the press, rising as high as the horses' bridles for a distance of 1,600 stadia." That's 17 trillion cubit feet of blood. ... But watch yourself on this one. God's has a lot more amazing things for you than rolling heads.

Everything that makes your heart pump with energy and emotion, God made it all. All of it will be fulfilled a thousandfold stronger than we can possibly imagine on earth. God designed us with a yearning for his amazing plans. AHHHHH! If only I could run around the room with this keyboard...!!!!

Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. OK? God of the UNIVERSE! Huge intense mass, yet so personal that his word divides soul from spirit... AHHHH!

"Oh the plans I have for you - declares the Lord." "They will be my people and I will be their God." "I will strengthen you and help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."

Christs love is a burning jealous passion like boiling acid flowing lava silver poison thread murder inferno torching amazingness!

There is a reason we won't see him face to face until we get resurrected bodies. We couldn't handle it otherwise!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Ok.

I should go read Ecclesiastes to calm myself down.

GLD (goal, logic, data): a second TSM

Three more cosmological-type arguments for the existence of God. They're more abstract, more like food-for-thought that iron-logic.

Goal: keep asking the question 'why' of any action, and see where you end up. For instance: why did you eat food today? To stay alive. Why do you want to stay alive? To enjoy myself. Why do you want to enjoy yourself? Because it's enjoyable, duh! Why should you obey that primal urge? Umm...because primal urges keep me alive. (now we're getting circular).

Anyway, the chain could take other courses too. The idea is that you should find a logical end to the chain. This would probably be a fact like, "I should give God glory because he deserves it. (In other words, I'm supposed to.)"

Of course I have not explored every iteration of the chain, but hopefully we are forced to end up with God.

Logic: this is standard cause effect theory. Two posts previous from this one I explained this in a little detail, and I've cut and pasted that below: Now we reach backwards using logic. All things have a cause; there's a mechanical position of the universe that preceded and cuased the current position. (oooh! this bring up so many ideas about intertia!) This method also deals with infinity. We either have an infinite number of mechanical states, or there was some 'first cause' that didn't/doesn't have a cuase, i.e. God. It would make sense that this first cause must be unaffected by/greater than time.

Data: supposing that the world is finite, we could theoretically sum everything about the world. Suppose that we measured the total mass of the universe and found it to be 8E241 kg.

Hm

Why not 7E241?

Of all the possibilities that this universe could have produced, why on earth (or why in the universe haha) did it 'chose' this one?

I could extrapolate, but I have to run to church.

believing when confused

Being often sleep deprived, I am often quasi-depressed and often confused about God, questioning his existence and stuff. I wonder (now that I am sane again) what is the best thing to cling to in those moments? Straight-up trust in God and his amazingness might be one. Another more practical one might experience. We've had moments like these before, and we've always bounced back like a yo-yo. A third is that evidence for God is all around us. (see 'trusting the obvious') We are living right now and within Gods gifts. re is amazing. God is upholding it constantly (see the material section of 'TSM'). Our life and every breath we take is a gift. That is pretty good evidence for Gods existence I think.

cause-effect vs. infinite time

I would like to make a distinction between the infinite time argument for the existence of God (see 'TSM') and the commonly cited cause-effect argument.

Time: if you reach backwards in the time dimension (as if time were a spatial dimension), time either began or never began, going on backwards for infinity. The dilemma is between an illogical starting point of time and infinite time. How could time start (an event happening using time) before time started?

We could think of a universe without time having some inherently necessary explosion which begins time, but without time to in the original universe, time doesn't seem all that necessary.

Cause effect: now we reach backwards using logic rather than a dimension. All things have a cause; there's a mechanical position of the universe that preceded and caused the current position. (ooooh! this brings up so many ideas about inertia!) This method also deals with infinity. We either have an infinite number of mechanical states, or there was some 'first cause' that didn't/doesn't have a cause, i.e. God. It would make sense that this first cause must be unaffected by/greater than time.

Both theories deal with a dilemma and both bring us back to the start of the universe. However, the reasonings behind the dilemmas seem to be different, and I know with great certainty that the methods of reaching back into time are different.

P.S. both of these arguments also have the potential to reach forward in time. Using the dimension, time must either end sometime (scary) or never end (depressing). Cause-effect logic demands results from each mechanical state, and hence another one after any given state. The chain does not seem to end.

emo picture of conversion process

This second picture is mirroring Gods romance of us fallen humans. We're running complacently off towards a cliff. God runs and tackles us to save us. What is the sequence of emotions? They happen very fast in the case of a cliff, but in real life with big issues like salvation, they come a lot slower.

First: shock, pain, blown bubble

Second: confusion, annoyance,

Third: hate, disgust,

Fourth: realization, conversion,

Fifth: huge thanks

In the real world, what lasts the longest? The first four stages pass by like a flash, but the fifth lasts a long time as you give the person a big hug, etc. So what lasts the longest in real life? JOY!!!!

emo picture of personal pain

So, I had this little emotional movie in my mind. First you see an individual with sorrow and pain running like water through all the pores in their body, just worn down by life. Then you zoom out to a busy train station or something, with tons of people walking slow-mo about their daily lives.

Guys and gals, whatever you're struggling with, chances are a bunch of other people are too. Talk about it, even if it takes guts. Just commit suicide (figuratively) by telling somebody, and see what happens. I just did this with my father about some I like. It helps a lot, especially if you have an awesome father like I do.

BIG THEORY trinity and TSM

Okay, this theory connects many things:

1 dimensions (TSM and string theory stuff)

2 the trinity (a great mystery)

3 JC is man and God (like particle-wave duality!)

4 "All things are spiritual" by Rob Bell (I'll mention it later)

5 spiritual realms as they relate the dimensions

There are human dimensions: time, space, material etc. In the same way, there could be spiritual dimensions that exist roughly parallel to ours. This is where angels dwell. I don't know how easy it is for them to reach us, who knows? Anyway, that's the idea: two sets of dimensions, one physical, the other spiritual.

The best part of this is, God's outside of even the spiritual dimensions. He's amazing, ok! Don't restrict him to any dimension!

Ok, but here's the real part of the theory. God, the big father outside of dimensions, manifests himself in various dimensions. In the spiritual realm, he is called the Holy Spirit (HS). In the physical realm, he's called Jesus Christ, JC.

I liken this to an example which Rob Bell used. I'm going to modify it. We're in a physical two dimension world, and there's another two dimensional spiritual world which is at right angles to ours. Can you imagine this? Two planes at a right angle, like the two sides of an open book sitting on a table.

God is this more-dimensional (3 dimensional) thing. Say he's a cylinder. He's floating in the air in front of the book. If he enters our physical plane from the side of the cylinder, we call him a rectangle. If he enters the spiritual realm from the end, we call him a circle. Ok? This is JC and HS respectively. A three-dimensional God seen from two different two-dimensional realms. God the cylinder does not rotate because those square and circle aspects of him are him from physical and spiritual angles. His spiritual viewpoint will always be the same. His length and width and other things don't change, they don't rotate.

Feel free to comment if this is confusing and I'll write more.

So HS and JC are really God, we just can't see God all at once because we only have two-dimensional vision. ha!

JC, by the way, had the holy spirit in him (the dove), so he's kind of special. God from two sides at once. Hm...

Depending on how you view God the father, there could be a third plane, (say the table on which the book is sitting) which is some other set of dimensions, (don't ask me what - maybe the logical justice dimensions) and God from that view we call God the father.

Also note that God probably has many more dimensions, many more faces, many more 'names'. HAHAHAHAHA! (I thought of this as I'm writing it). You know God has many, many names, and he boasts about have like 7 thousand names or something? Each name could be another dimension!!!!! JC, HS and God the father are only three of them!

It is impossible to express how much joy this gives me right now! Whoever said that logic was cold and unemotional!!!!

OK, I'll shut up for now. But definitely expect more about this later.

ontological argument for God

this is an idea I had about 5 months ago during a philosophy class.

The ontological argument for the existence of God was presented this way:

The idea of God is bigger than anything that could ever exist. Because reality is bigger than a mere idea, and the idea of God has to be as big as possible, the idea of God is not merely an idea, it necessitates existing in reality.

Most people rejected this. It doesn't make much sense to me either this way.

But here's a different form:

We have this concept of God which includes infinity. We had to get this concept from somewhere. We can't make up things on our own (that's the part people deny). So, it had to come from somewhere, right? That means something in our universe is infinite: God. It's kind of like that 'God shaped hole on our hearts' idea.

Now, a defense of two things: 1 we can't make stuff up, and 2 infinity is not found in the universe.

1 Making stuff up: someone from that class said to me "I can make something up, it's called a hortwibbler." Hmm... 'hort' is a prefix relating to gardening 'horticulture'. 'wibble' is a lot like wobble or wiggle, which are related words anyway, we get the idea from 'wibble', we make up words like 'guesstimate' all the time. The final part 'er' is a common English suffix denoting an agent-actor-catalyst-doer (see, I just made up another word).

If I really wanted to be nit picky, I could point out that his word can be pronounced by English speakers, is written in the English language, can be communicated visually, etc. Not very original.

Anyway, the conclusion is, we can't make anything up.

2 infinity in the universe: the same guy said "I can imagine a soup bowl that never gets empty, or a never ending row of soup bowls." but just recently, a Calculus book spelled it out pretty well (this is a direct quote) "Infinity [bolding not added] is not a number. It is the word used to designate a quantity that increases without bound." A never ending row of soup bowls onlynever ends, it isn't infinite, as in: all of the bowls are there at once and you can see them all at once, they're all collected into one group, one person, God (except God is a lot more than soup bowls).

Saxon Calculus: with trigonometry and analytic geometry" written by John H. Saxon Jr. and Frank Y. H. Wang

noun associative word bubbles

You may have seen me use this in the most previous post: a small array of related nous. The idea is that the hearer averages the meaning of all the nouns and gets a clearer idea of what I'm trying to say. We us this in everyday talk: "go get the metal-club-wrench-thingie". I bet we can also use this in academia to more accurately pinpoint a certain concept, especially if it is a concept that is relatively novel.

Note the title of this entry.

TSM::GLD::will/mind/body

Okay, refresher on TSM. Three dimensions: time, space, and material. Many physical things in the world can be described by the of time/space/material. In terms of information I call these three sections: goal-wisdom, logic, and data. If I don't want to be specific to either physical things or information things, I label these change, orientation, and stuff (yeah, real technical).

change orientation stuff/input

time space material physical/real

goal/wisdom logic data mental/information

soul/will brain body human

So (I must give credit to Katie for triggering this), another set of three fits into this : the three parts of a human. Will-soul-decision-heart-self/mind-brain-cognition-reason-science-theory/body-physical.

However, I must tell you this is not very close to what katie proposed. She put the brain and the emotions together as two informational inputs to the will-soul, which made the decisions.

Perhaps this is correct. I may be wrong because I am somewhat weird. I really don't obey my emotions...ever. So that part kind of drops out for me.

Even so, if I added emotion, it would be as input, grouping it with body (which is kind of interesting), but that would force emotion to pass through the brain before it gets to the decision-maker. Ha! Take that! The brain is still the victor! (this is regarding emo/dat)

act like you feel (most of the time)

Okay, this theory is based primarily off of a problem that I have (but is being fixed).

Oftentimes when I'm around women, (let's take an example of walking through the store) I have this dilemma between leading (based on theology), and letting her lead, because this is her strength area.

The thing I missed might be the difference between me and Jesus Christ (JC). He's so amazing, he can lead all the time. But leading means doing the best thing for the project in question. And, of course, the women should lead the way through the store. Duh! JC could lead, he knows where the shoe department is better than even women. But I'm just human.

This principle applies to many other situations, in which you can refer to practicality instead of theory.

Imagine that! Theory isn't always the best! (except that you'll be using a theory in order to ignore theory)

people same/different from you

I have this hankering that people react roughly the same to low-priority issues. If we remember this, we can predict peoples reactions to things by thinking about how we would react. Now, high priority issues are a different matter. Not only do people think longer about physical attacks, references to religion, marriage proposals, etc, but when they think, they bring in their beliefs, which differ across people.

This is a very low-intensity idea (hence, a hankering). You'd be surprised how easily high-level values drip down into every little motion we humans make. This may the be explanation for sixth sense phenomenon. It's a good thing too, because through this, people can also see Jesus Christ (by the way, I often refer to him as JC, and to the Holy Spirit as HS) in us.

nice memory conversations about theological stuff

I bet all of us have chatted with friends about movies we've seen recently or remember from a long time ago, "remember when that one guy jump over...", "and he said that really funny thing...".

Why can't we have conversations like that about theology? One person would be like "you know the way we totally don't deserve salvation" and another "I love the part about Gods sovereign election, it makes me feel so secure"

I mean, come on! Wouldn't that be amazing!

a lesson from paul and silas

So paul and silas are in jail, right, and then they start to sing.

On the outside, we say, "wow, those were really strong men of God to sing in prison!"

But really, if you were in prison, even if you were like Billy Graham, would you feel like singing? I mean, when on an average day do you break out in song and dance anyway? (ok, sometimes I do nowadays, but that's beyond the point)

Maybe they started singing not because they were happy, but in order to make themselves happy, or more importantly, to focus themselves back on the reason they were in jail and take strength from those facts.

Hm? Conclusion?

We don't have to sing just when we're happy. Sing to because in point of cold fact, God is real and we need to be reminded of that every now and then.

(You might also sing as a coldly logical proclamation of Gods amazingness, like preaching.)

trusting the obvious

I was thinking over an argument that Atheists might have:

The world all around you is without God, he's not presently active, he's not in your face. Common sense logic would tell you that God doesn't exist. Why do you believe in something you can't see; it's very hard to prove!

But then I tried to extrapolate that idea. What is on the very surface of our perceptions? We don't see atoms, bio-mechanical organisms, Newtonian physics, and a boring scientific world. All around us we see a beautiful, Avatar-like world! We look at fauna and say, "Cool plant!" Common folk like Tennessee mountain people either grudgingly bear ultimate things like life and death, or take these perceptions as evidence of God. Why can't we be common folk? On the surface we humans are emotional, messed up people in need of a savior!

An Atheist might reply that 'we must see beyond our own illusions to the real world' or something like that, pointing to the scientifically describable world. However, all of that is unseen. No one has seen atoms. Apples drop, but we don't see F = Gm1m2/d^2 as they fall. But we can include the unseen, sure. God is unseen! And if they reject that for being 'non-physical', I would then resort to the unseen TSM (if you are unfamiliar with 'TSM', see 'Time, Space, Material, and Infinity' under the 'TSM' label).