System Tool 2011

I understand that people can become greedy, money-grubbing beasts who will do whatever it takes to acquire more and more money, but I do not understand the sick, twisted minds of virus-creators. If the Bible had been written in the 21st century, I feel like one of the 7 things the Lord hates (Proverbs 6) would have been "hands that create computer viruses."

Currently I am up at 1:44am the Sunday morning after Christmas because I am desperately trying to rid my laptop of the System Tool 2011 virus. I am both angry beyond measure at the money-greedy jerks that created the virus just to get people to buy their product, and petrified that my laptop is forever ruined. Since Malwarebytes hasn't worked on my laptop since summer, all of the Google advice telling me to use it is completely useless. I tried the safe mode thing and now I'm checking to see how that did...

(1:47am) so far so good, but I'm still nervous enough to pee my (pajama) pants.

(1:50am) I'm now running my virus scan things that'll take an hour or so, so I'll leave it for the night.

In my opinion, people who write and then propagate viruses are scum. I don't care who you are. If, for example, I was to find out a friend of mine wrote viruses and spread them on the internet, I would stop associating with the person. It takes a twisted sort of mind to ruin people's day (week, year, etc) like that. Viruses can even ruin lives, cause people to lose jobs, push a person over the edge into a nervous breakdown (all I can say is good thing this happened right after Christmas instead of during Dead Week or Finals Week at school). It is serious stuff and any person that willingly participates in it should be beyond ashamed of themselves. (1:55am)

[/rant](2:05am) ...took me 10 minutes to transfer this from paper to my blog? That's rather slow.

[for the record, I have no idea how I got the virus. I was just shutting a tab for Youtube when the alert suddenly popped up, and I was like "What the hey? I never downloaded this spyware program before. Where'd it come from?" So then I googled it, and found out it was a virus... meh](2:06am)

*edit* I just realized my blog clock and my computer clock are at odds with each other.

Happy Holidays

I'm working on an actual blog post at the moment, but I have to finish reading a book (nonfiction, so it will take me a few days to read it) before I can complete the post.

In the meantime, I thought I might say Happy Holidays to you all. So, Happy Holidays during this winter season! Eat lots of goodies and smile a bunch.

For the opinionated bit of this blog post, I say "happy holidays" not to be politically correct, but because 1) for me, this holiday season includes everything from Thanksgiving to New Years Day, and 2) my mom has officially renamed "Christmas" to "winter holidays" in this household. She doesn't like confining the celebration of Jesus to one day in the year that is more about materialism, depression, greed, family, etc. I am inclined to agree with her on the matter.

So anyways, Happy Holidays. Enjoy Christmas if you celebrate it (and I'm not bothered if you do celebrate it. I was just explaining why I don't). Enjoy the other festivals/holidays during this season as well if you celebrate those.

Poor Attitude=Poor Service?

So, I've been told stories by people who work at restaurants, and how they will do stuff to customers food when the customers have a poor attitude (read: rude, obnoxious jerks). I've also seen shows on TV about this and read about it online. I also read stories of how maids at Hotels will clean hotel rooms in a lazy manner if the people staying there have a poor attitude.

At first when I heard stories like that, my initial thought was "Good. That's what the people get for having bad attitudes." But then I thought about it, and I realized that is a horrible attitude for employees to have.

I worked at a daycare for two years, and my job was to watch after little children (obviously) ranging from the ages of 1-year-old to 5-years-old. Parents were generally nice people, but there was always that one parent every now and again that would have a bad attitude. Now, according to restaurant and hotel employees, my response should have been to give the patron poor service in return. One has to wonder, how would you give poor service at a daycare? Well, I imagine abuse would be the most obvious way. "You wanna talk bad to me? Well, I'll just slap your baby when you leave." ... Obviously, I never abused the children I watched. That is absolutely abhorrent, and I loved the children too much to ever even think about abusing them. But poor attitude equals poor service, right?

How about when you go in to get your car fixed. Maybe you had a bad day, and so you snap at the man at the counter. When you get your car back, you find out your tires have been slashed. You can't prove the mechanics did it, but you deserved it. Poor attitude= poor service.

Maybe you need to go to the dentist (oh yes, I'm going there. Cringe). You are again having a bad day, and so you snap at the dentist when he comes in to drill that cavity out of your tooth. He "accidentally" drills into your gums. Oh well. Poor attitude=poor service. Deal with it.

Obviously, I am being entirely facetious with these examples just to prove a point. My point is that no person should think they are entitled to give poor service just because the customer has a bad attitude. If a person chooses to take a job where they are working with customers, they need to realize they will encounter people of all walks of life. Nice people, oblivious people, rude people, psychotic people (well, one would hope they don't meet psychotic people, but you never know). Whatever the countenance of the person, as a mature, responsible employee, people are expected to give decent service to everyone (barring any extreme cases, such as psychotics that get out of hand, or angry drunks, or something of the sort).

Haters

Sometimes things are worth "hating" (Hitler's reign in Germany, the Packers, black licorice), but other times when people hate on things it is simply annoying and juvenile. In this case, I am referring to the arts. Art is very subjective, and no one is required to like or dislike any particular artist. I'm not a fan of VC Andrews. However, my dislike for VC Andrews does not turn into juvenile hate where I criticize all of her works without ever having read it. I actually have read some of her books, and after a decent sampling I came to the conclusion that she was not my type. Regardless, I do not exert energy logging onto every VC Andrews fan site saying "VC ANDREWS IS GAY!" "VC ANDREWS' WRITINGS SUCK!"

Two very popular examples of artist hate that come to mind that bug me beyond reason are the Stephanie Meyers and Justin Bieber haters. These are two artists who are not hated for any wicked or cruel acts they have done. They have never broken the law (at least, not as far as I know), they do not go around punching puppies in face, they like animals and probably have a certain level of care for the government, they have no aspirations to rule the world and be evil dictators. Their forms of art are not even controversial. They are not writing about abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, George W, Obama, racism. They have never done anything to warrant hate, yet they are hated by vast amounts of people. And for what? For writing music and stories that some people don't like? What's not to like exactly? One writes juvenile love songs for pre-teens and teens, and the other writes juvenile love stories for pre-teens and teens. Thousands of other people do that, yet they are never hated on. So why all the hate?

I have a theory, and my theory is that people just like jumping onto the band wagon of being haters. Before Bieber was famous, he was just a kid on youtube that people enjoyed listening to well enough. Before Meyer became famous, she was just a wife and a mother who had a dream and wrote about that dream (an actual dream. not an "I have a dream" dream). When her books first came out, people were willing to read them before hating them. Before Bieber became famous, people were willing to listen to his youtube videos before expressing dislike.

Nowadays, I run into people who express extreme dislike for Bieber and Meyer, yet these people have never actually taken the time to examine the artwork of the two. Or if they have examined the artwork, they have done so with a biased opinion, looking for every flaw they might be able to find so they can triumphantly exclaim "Aha! Another reason to dislike Bieber/Meyer!" For example, people like to point out Bieber's voice and say "he sings like a girl." Well, so did Michael Jackson and Justin Timberlake, yet vast amounts of people did not seem to think that was a problem. People say "Meyer ruined vampires by making them sparkly!" Well, CS Lewis blended together mythical creatures that were not even from the same era (like JRR Tolkien pointed out), yet no one dislikes CS Lewis for messing with the stereotypes of those mythical creatures. People say "Justin Bieber writes love songs, and he's too young to understand love." Well, tell that to every pre-teen and teen out there that thinks they are in love. Of course adults think juveniles don't understand love, but that does not mean juveniles think that. People say Stephanie Meyer writes like a 12-year-old. She's writing for pre-teens and teens. She is writing like a teen might talk. That is how many teen-oriented books are written, yet people are not criticizing all those books.

So, I say all of that to display how ridiculous it is for people to spend the time to find every little issue with artists they dislike just to join a "Hate Artist X" bandwagon. If you dislike an artist for reasons that are not controversial, there is absolutely no reason to adamantly spread those views around. If you don't like Stephanie Meyer's works all you need say is "I dislike the Twilight Saga/Host." If you dislike Bieber just say "He's not my taste."

I'm not a fan of Bieber. I'm not a fan of most pop music (or R&B, whatever he is). But I recognize the kid is not going to be affected by my personal opinion, so there is no point for me to comment on every indie youtube music video that "It makes no sense that Imogean Heap only has 300,000 views yet gay Justin Bieber has 60 million! People have no taste in music!" Just get over it, and listen to/watch/read what you like. People liking a different artist will not change the fact that you like the artist that you do.

*okay, so people don't actually need to "hate" the Packers... that was my attempt at humor*

Empty Words

In arguments there are certain words that should be avoided, because they add no weight to your argument at all. Just like a grammar teacher would read your paper and utter the horrible phrase “This is fluff; get rid of it” there are certain words you can throw about in an argument that are the Debate equivalent of “fluff.”

Some of the words in question would be Prude, Legalist, Religious, Open-minded and Close-minded. While we all have a general definition of what these words mean, the personal opinion of each person of what amount of a characteristic makes a person such a word is different. For example, I may think a person is a prude if the mention of making babies seems an offensive line of conversation, whereas someone would think me a prude for not wanting to see a naked ballerina dancing around in some weird role as Caliban from The Tempest (yes, this actually happened to me). Which definition is right and which is wrong? The answer is that neither is right nor wrong, and since there can be no right or wrong it seems a pointless word to use in an argument.

The reason to avoid such terms in arguments is because they are generally used to try and give credence to or take credence away from one’s argument, while actually adding no weight to the argument at all. For example, someone might say “Well, Hollie is legalist and close-minded, so just ignore everything she says.” The issue with that statement is that you have not disproved any sort of argument I might have been trying to make. I may be legalist according to John Doe, but what does that have to do with the argument at hand? If the argument is about whether abortion is right or wrong, for example, and I say it is wrong because a baby has a right to life as well, what purpose does calling me legalistic serve? My argument is not about legalism. I presented my point of view, and the logical answer would be to refute that argument with another point of view (perhaps a claim that babies unborn are not human, and thus have no right to choice, but are instead fetuses with no rights of their own?). Upon reading that I am a “legalist and close-minded” people might feel inclined to disregard anything I have to say, though. That serves a major disservice to my arguments, which should not be affected by whether John Doe thinks I’m a close-minded legalist or not. The strength of an argument is not determined by my personal character. It is determined by the logic of my statements, and the persuasiveness of my words.

Basically, if a word used in an argument does not refute a point, but instead tries to qualify or disqualify an arguer by pointing out an aspect of their character, it should be avoided. It is bordering on ad hominem to use such words, and no one wants to partake in that form of arguing, now do they? Of course, this does not mean any word should steadfastly be avoided forever and for always. Simply avoid it when trying to make a sound argument.

Endnotes:
If any words come to mind that you would like to add to my list of “Empty Words,” by all means feel free to share them with me.

This was a rambling written at 12:45 in the morning, so do forgive any part of the text that is confusing. I was so excited by the thoughts pouring into my brain that I simply had to type them out before they disappeared from my sleepy brain. Sure I could have reexamined my text at a later time, but I rather abhor editing. It’s boring, and I do enough of that in school.

Follow your heart?

Here's a short blog for y'all.

I have seen the argument among Christians to “follow your heart” when you are unsure of what to do. This advice is unbiblical, and bound to lead you into trouble.

Jeremiah 17:9 tells us “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” Now, why would you want to follow an organ that is deceitful and wicked? That seems a silly thing to do.

When unsure of what you should do, consult first the Bible and pray to God about it. Quite often when one approaches the Bible without bias one will find answers. After consulting the Bible and praying, one could consult Godly friends/acquaintances and ask their opinion on the matter (key word: opinion. Always be sure to check back with the Bible to see if the advice they gave you matches up with the word of God).

So, when unsure: read bible, pray, consult Godly friends, consult bible again. At no point should you “follow your heart.”

The End. :)

God wants me to be happy

[Note: unless otherwise stated, the translation I used for this blog was KJV. This is important if you wish to look up the scriptures and find the word “happy” in them. Many other translations switch out the word for “blessed,” “faithful” etc.]

Quite often I have noticed people defending their behavior by saying “God wants me to be happy, and doing this makes me happy.” When I see that argument I want to simply respond “God could not care less about your happiness if it means you are sinning” (I might have said that before. I can’t rightly recall), but that really isn’t the best response in the world. So I decided to research the matter.

First, before anything else is said, the question should be asked if God does want us to be happy. So, does God want us to be happy? Yes, He does. Scriptures bear this out in passages such as Ecclesiastes 2:24-25, 3:12-13 and 5:18-19 which tells us that God wants us to be happy on earth as we work hard and enjoy the fruits of our labor.

Now that it is established that God wants you to be happy, a distinction needs to be made on what sort of happiness is of God. Happiness is a fleeting emotion, here today and gone tomorrow. It is, of course, rather silly to try and live a life focused on being forever happy. It isn’t going to happen, because we live in a corrupt world where our happiness will eventually be crushed by some mishap or another, and we will have to deal with those unhappy emotions for a time before we can be happy once more. (As a side note to myself, I do believe I will have to make a thread on the difference between joy and happiness now)

Roget’s II New Thesaurus defines happiness as “A condition of supreme well-being and good spirits: felt great happiness on her wedding day” and gives the following words as synonyms: beatitude, blessedness, cheer, cheerfulness, gladness, joy.

Three words of note are “beatitude,” “blessedness,” and “joy.” In Matthew, during the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives us a list of 9 beatitudes. One should note that none of these beatitudes are tied up in what society traditionally tells us will bring happiness. Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Here we learn that happiness comes from abstract circumstances tied up in the betterment of one’s spiritual life.

Interesting note, when comparing the use of the word “happy” between the KJV and the NIV, the word “happy” is often replaced with “blessed” in the NIV. Just to name a very few, Job 5:17, Psalm 127:5, Psalm 128:2, Proverb 14:21. Here we see, then, that happiness is usually a blessing from God. Psalm 146:5, for example reads “Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help…” in the KVJ, whereas the NIV states “Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob...”

Quite often, it is displayed in the Bible that true happiness comes from a life centered around God by serving God, relying on God, living for God, correction handed down from God, etc (Deut 33:29, Job 5:17, Psalm 127:5, Psalm 128:2, Psalm 144:15, Psalm 146:5, Proverb 3:13, Proverb 14:24, Proverb 16:20, Proverb 28:14, Proverb 19:18, John 13:17, James 5:11, 1 Peter 3:14, 1 Peter 4:14).

In contrast, Genesis 30:13 gives us an example of how selfish motives to try to bring about happiness will fail. Leah named her son “Asher,” meaning “happy.” Leah was happy because she had a 2^nd son and was sure this would make Jacob love her finally. She was looking for happiness in the wrong place, though, because Jacob didn’t love her, and she ended up unhappy once more. Instead of focusing on the fact that God had blessed her with two sons, she was too concerned with something she would be unable to change.

The best way to achieve happiness is to focus on what God has blessed you with, and to focus on pleasing God. Happiness is a choice. As my friend’s mom once said “I choose each morning to be happy.” Whether things go the way you want or not, you can be happy if you want (in general).

Now, after looking at happiness that is in line with God’s will for our life, let us look at forms of happiness that have nothing to do with God’s desire for your well-being (yes, we are finally getting to my opinionated part of the blog). Quite often, Christians will say the rather asinine line “God wants me to be happy, so I can [insert sin here] because it makes me happy.”

As already covered, God allows your happiness when it is in line with His word, and you can achieve Godly happiness by studying God’s word and applying it to your life. God does not care for sin (understatement of the month?), and, more than our happiness, God’s desire is for us to be holy. Holiness is what God wants from His children (just like any good parent, He cares more about your character than about your personal happiness).

It is important to note that God never once states in the Bible anything along the lines of “Be happy always, My children.” In fact, in Leviticus 19:1 God states “…You shall be holy, for I, the ETERNAL your GOD, am holy”(The Margolin Edition Torah). We can also find this command from God backed up in 1 Peter 1:15-16 (among other verses).

God requires many things of us –holiness, obedience, love, etc- but in no passage of the Bible does it say God requires happiness from us. In fact, it would appear that happiness might quite often be in direct contrast to the requirements of a Godly life. We are told by God that we will experience persecution for His name’s sake (Matthew 24:9 NIV); we are told to take up our cross and follow Him (Luke 9:23); we are told to not be conformed to this world (Romans 12:2). Any type of happiness you get from partaking in sin will not line up with these scripture verses. So, any time you do something that contradicts scripture, it is not the type of happiness God wants you to experience.

Frankly, if you have to use the excuse “God wants me to be happy, so [insert sin here] is okay” in order to do something, you should know what you are doing is wrong.

So basically, “To the man who pleases Him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God.” (Ecclesiastes 2:26 NIV)

Anniversaries

An anniversary, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is “the annual recurrence of a date marking a notable event; broadly: a date that follows such an event by a specified period of time measured in units other than years

Today I have been thinking a lot about anniversaries. First it was in disdain and annoyance, because my current home church is celebrating its 25^th anniversary this weekend. Second it was in melancholic remembrance, because I realized a few hours ago that today marks the one month anniversary of my friend’s passing. These completely contradictory responses to anniversaries has me wondering how one common event could elicit so many conflicting emotions, and how have we allowed such a thing as anniversaries to take such hold of our emotions?

I will start first with the annoyed feelings I get when thinking of anniversaries and move on from there.

To explain my feelings in a clearer manner about my church: since the beginning of the year, each Sunday a lady has come to the front of church and read a “historical moment” about the church, leading up to the eventual celebration of the church anniversary tomorrow. The actual anniversary celebration is this whole weekend: yesterday, today, and tomorrow. The church is pretty much obsessing over the anniversary, and I am left wondering what exactly the happiness is about. For the past 25 weeks, God has rarely been mentioned in relation to this anniversary celebration. It’s just all about partying, being happy the church has been around 25 years, etc.

It is because of this that I feel annoyance in relation to anniversaries. It seems that sometimes people get so caught up in the celebration of anniversaries that they forget the original purpose for why they are celebrating at all. Celebrating the anniversary of a happy and good date is not a bad thing, but sometimes people lose sight of what is important. With the example of my church, it seems they have become so caught up in celebrating, that they are forgetting to focus on the important thing: God has blessed the church spiritually and financially to survive for 25 years to spread his gospel to this world.

Happy anniversaries should be something special, focused solely on the event being commemorated, and should not be cheapened by over-indulgence in the moment.

Happy anniversaries should also not be cheapened by bad attitudes because someone may have possibly forgotten the anniversary. We are all humans, and prone to forget things. If an anniversary is important to you, and you wish someone to remember it, make sure to remind them. Just because a person forgets does not mean that the original event that is being commemorated was unimportant to them. They just have a plethora of things to remember. Specific dates from the calendar may get misfiled in their memory-laden brain.

On the other side of things, we find anniversaries for less-than-joyful events. In my case, it would be the passing of a friend. For others it may be the anniversary of a divorce, or the anniversary of being fired, etc. I don’t know. Whatever it is, these anniversaries seem to always effect our emotions adversely. It seems irrational that such anniversaries can completely ruin a good mood. Until I realized it had been a month since my friend has passed, I was having a good day (boring, but good). Now it’s like happy-sad-okay-sad-happy-crap!-meh-okay just because I remembered my friend died a month ago?

It seems like anniversaries for bad things should not be remembered at all, but the dates are not something you can forget. Why should a day bring you down? Why should I let this day make me melancholy? Today is a good day, because I am alive and healthy. Should I not rejoice over that instead of mourn over the loss of a friend?

It is weird how anniversaries can control our emotions so completely. What is it about anniversaries that can cause our moods to shift from bad to good, good to bad? It's just another day in the year, and while it is nice to mark momentous events, should we really allow anniversaries to take control of our emotions the way that we do?

Today Has Been OK

Emiliana Torrini has a song titled "Today Has Been OK," and lately I feel like that's been my life. Granted before May 26th my life was boring, but it was good. Since May 26th it's been OK. A friend passes away, what do you do? Some days will be good, and then night comes and I'm left in bed thinking... thinking is no good. I mean, I guess it's gotten better. For the first two weeks I would wake up and count the hours until I could go back to sleep. Now at least I don't go through the day waiting for night to come so I can go back to dreamlands where he might be there alive waiting for me. Nighttime is still the worst, though.

I thought it was getting better, but early Friday morning I had a meltdown and just laid in bed crying, and when I stopped crying I had a headache, and then I was angry because I had a headache and couldn't get to sleep, and I cried to God. I still have no answers from Him. Probably because my questions were selfish. On the bright side, today has been ok (of course, it's only 2am, so today hasn't had a chance to go downhill)

I realize I should be all “count it all joy when you fall into various trials” and stuff, and I’m trying, but it’s not exactly easy to be joyful that my friend is freaking dead! And it’s not easy to not talk about it for fear of ruining people’s happy moods. Other than my mom, I don’t really talk to anyone about how I’m feeling because I’m not going to be the one to be like “Yeah, that was a hilarious joke, and by the way I feel like crap because my friend is dead.” And then people can be like “Thanks Hollie, way to be a joy kill.”?

I know usually my blogs have some sort of insulting point to them, but I’m just venting right now, so get over it.

There are just some people in life that are easy for most anyone to befriend and open up to. Those people should never die, especially not young. It’s sad that anyone should die, but people like my friend dying is a tragedy. I’ve thought why not one of my others friends? Why not me? Out of all the billions of people in the world why the heck was the one person who was freaking loved by everyone the one who had to die?! I’m pretty sure it would have been less tragic if I had died, even. I did not touch as many lives as him by a long shot.

No, I don’t want to die, and I don’t want my friends to die. I’m just trying to understand why we are alive and he isn’t. I know people die all the time, too, but this is the first time I’ve ever had a close friend pass away. It’s not really something one learns how to deal with in school. Although now that I think about it, why isn’t there a Grief 101 course? Sure everyone deals with it differently, but it’d still be nice to know what thoughts are normal and which aren’t and stuff. Stupid American schools.

And oy vey with the haywire emotions. The other day my dad said I couldn’t drive him to Wal-Mart, and I had to leave the room before I started crying. I was watching Ernest one day, and I started tearing up while watching the movie. Ernest! Who cries while watching Ernest? Really? It’s kind of funny to think of now, but on the Saturday after May 26^th my little brother ate my bag of Twizzlers my dad had bought me as comfort food, and I pretty much blew up at my brother, and then I went to my room to sit in anger as I tried not to cry. I obviously wasn’t angry about the Twizzlers, but it was a way to let out some emotion. Of course, I try to hide most of my emotional spill-overs, because I don’t want my family being uber-nice to me just because I lost a friend. That would probably be worse. I’d rather they treat me normal. Life isn’t normal though. I don’t know when it will be. Another month from now? 6 months? A year? Why don’t people have timelines for this?

I don’t know. I could go on writing for paragraphs more, so I'll stop. Kudos if you read through that whole ramble. It's really long and rambly.

"...all the same I miss you. Today has been ok. Today has been ok."

Excuse my sin

When you are sinning and your spirit knows it, your flesh will try to find excuses to make the sin seem legitimate and okay. There are many ways the flesh can do this, but one of the trickiest ways is trying to excuse your sin by pointing out the perceived sins of others. There are 2 main ways someone can do this:

1) You can point out the actual sins of others. "X does Y sin, so I can do Z sin."

2)You can point out the Old Testament laws people don't follow, and say because those laws aren't followed then who is to say what you're doing is still a sin? "Well, people eat pork and wear clothes with mixed materials, so it's okay for me to do Z sin."

Both methods of argument are flawed and faulty thinking used by the flesh to keep you sinning.

Dealing with Point 1, your main concern should not be how others are sinning. Your main concern is how you are sinning, and how to fix it. Sins are not like negatives in math to cancel each other out. Just as Jesus says you cannot judge another's sin without first fixing yourself, the inverse works as well: you cannot excuse your sin by pointing out the sins of others. God will judge you based on your life alone. Holy Spirit will only be able to work well in a clean temple, and your temple does not become clean by pointing out the sins in others.

Now on to Point 2. First of all, let me make a few clarifications. Each person is required to live according to the truths revealed to them from the Bible. When a new truth is revealed, the person is then required to living according to that truth. For the point of this discussion there are 2 types of truths revealed to Christians. There is the truth (or belief) revealed to one group of Christians that the OT laws are still in affect today, and then there is the truth revealed to another group of Christians that specific OT laws are no longer in affect today. All else being equal, both groups have these beliefs based on the truths revealed to them. We will not go into whether these groups are right or wrong, because that is beside the point. The point is that both groups have scriptural foundation for their beliefs.

Now that we've clarified that point, I can move on to actually dissecting Point 2. For the Torah-following Christians, you cannot use the argument of "well, they don't follow those laws, so I can do Z sin" because they do follow the laws. Simple.
For the nonTorah-following Christians, they do not follow Torah based on a very specific understanding of the scripture, and it is the ceremonial laws only they no longer follow. They still follow all the moral laws. As such, their understanding of the truth dictates they are not sinning by not following specific laws. This means that unless the sin you are doing is ceremonial (and as such isn't actually a sin) then you can't compare it to the perceived sins of others.

That's all.

Christian Music

Last night at Bible Study my mom taught on compromise, with a special focus on Christian music. This led me to bring up the point about how a lot of my Christian friends will say they don’t listen to Christian music often, because it gets boring listening to the same thing over and over again. By this they mean it gets boring listening to songs about God over and over again? That always seemed silly to me, since there really isn’t anything else Christian artists can sing about. They’re Christians; they’re going to sing about God. After all, our purpose in life is to praise Him.

Anyways, mom brought up the point that there are 24 elders singing to God in heaven day and night without ceasing(Revelation 4:10-12), and that when we get to heaven all we are going to do is sing praises to God. And then that got me wondering, these friends who find Christian music boring with a constant theme on God, are they going to get bored when in heaven? After all, all the music in heaven is going to be strictly about God; about His holiness, His mercy, His gloriousness, how magnificent He is, etc. If Christian music is boring now, how much more boring will it be in heaven?

Of course, once in heaven we won’t be able to be bored. We will be too overwhelmed by the presence of God to be bored, too wrapped up in the wonder of Him to be bored. So, if we won’t get bored singing songs of praise to God for eternity in heaven, it would stand to reason that a body could suffer the boredom songs about God induce here on earth.

The way mom put it was that if people can train themselves to like pain (which she coupled with a “that’s sick”), then they can train themselves to like music about God. After all, liking music about God is infinitely better than liking pain, and should be an easier task. Singing songs of praise to God shouldn’t be boring to Christians. Ever. If it is boring to Christians, they need to start praying.

I will be the first to admit that a lot of contemporary Christian music is annoying and can get old pretty fast, but that’s because the music is more about humans than it is about God. It’s all about what God does for us and how God will accept Christians just the way they are (which is a horrible attitude, mind you. Once saved, God should not have to keep catering to your sinful lifestyle and “accept you the way you are.” Once saved, you know better) and all that mumbo-jumbo. But songs that actually worship and praise God shouldn’t be boring, in general. While I realize everyone has a personal taste, there are plenty of different Christian artists out there who worship and praise God in different genres. Leeland compared to the Gaither Vocal Band, for example. Both center their worship around worshipping God, but they do so in very different styles.

Personally, I tend to get tired of secular music much faster than I do Godly music. I can only listen to songs about worldly stuff for so long before it gets dull.

National Day of Prayer

Just a note on the pathetic state of my spiritual life:

Today is the US National Day of Prayer, and I did not pray once. Wait... okay yeah, that is a definite no; not even for a meal (my sister prayed during lunch and my dad during dinner). I realize I should pray every day of the year, and there shouldn't be a special day set aside to inspire me to pray, but the fact that even on this day set aside specifically for prayer I didn't pray is just down right pathetic. Of course, is it any less pathetic that millions of "Christians" across the country only pray on this special day?

What kind of Christians have we Americans become that we need a special day to inspire us to pray, and even then it is questionable if we will pray at all? God has told His children before that if only they pray and repent their evil ways He will hear them and heal their land(2 Chronicles 7:14), and 1 Thessalonians 5:17 says to pray without ceasing. My mom gave a bible study on praying 2 Fridays ago, and said that praying without ceasing is akin to how teens can text the whole day through no matter what they are doing. If you can text while in class, you can pray while in class. If you can text while washing the dishes, you can pray while washing the dishes. So on and so forth.

So, in response to my pathetic prayer life I am determined to pray at least once a day starting tonight until the national day of prayer next year(hopefully by then I will be praying way more than once a day, but I have to start somewhere). By then the hope is that praying will have become a regular habit that I enjoy partaking in. I can pray that it'll be so, heh heh.

:)

"Anger always leads to hate" counterexample

In my blog "Vague" I stated “‘Anger always leads to hate.' That is an amazingly vague generalization that numerous people could interpret to mean a plethora of different things. I won’t go into the logic of how that statement is very unsound... I'll leave that for another blog." This is that blog (+1 for stating the obvious?).

So the argument is: Anger always leads to hate
… Or…
If you are angry, then you hate.
…Or…
Premise 1(P1): if you are angry, then you hate
Premise 2(P2): you are angry
Conclusion (C): you hate

Counterexample:
P1: If you are angry at your mom, then you hate your mom
P2: You are angry at your mom
C: You do not hate your mom

(For whatever reason your mom has momentarily angered you, but all else being equal, mentally sound humans do not hate their mothers after being angered by their moms once, thus proving the original argument wrong)

Counterexample:
P1: If you are angry at the table, then you hate your table
P2: You are angry at the table
C: You do not hate the table

(You are angry at the table because you hit your shin on it by accident, which hurt. You do not hate your table for this, though, since it was your fault for being clumsy.)

Both of these arguments prove that "anger always leads to hate" is false. As shown by the two arguments, anger does not always lead to hate.

Time for logical symbols and whatnot:

M= I am angry at mom
H= I hate mom
If/then = ⊃
Not = ~

P1: If I am angry at mom, then I hate mom.
P2: I am angry at mom
C: I do not hate mom

P1: M ⊃ H
P2: M
C: ~H

Table:

2---------C------1
M-- H---~H---M ⊃ H

T---T-----F------T-----counterexample
T---F-----T------F
F---T-----F------T
F---F-----T------T

And with a counterexample we prove that
"P1: M ⊃ H
P2: M
C: ~H"
is an invalid argument.

***

confusing explanation of the tables:

M--H

T---T
T---F
F---T
F---F

T = true
F = False.

There are four scenarios that can occur: M and H can both be true, M could be true and H could be false, M could be false and F could be true, or both could be false.

Adding on “~H”:

M-- H-- ~H

T---T-----F
T---F-----T
F---T-----F
F---F-----T

~H is the opposite of H, so you switch around the Ts and Fs. In English, “I hate you” is the opposite of “I do not hate you,” so if “I hate you” is true then “I do not hate you” must be false, and vice versa.

Adding on “M ⊃ H”:

M--H---~H---M ⊃ H

T---T-----F------T
T---F-----T------F
F---T-----F------T
F---F-----T------T

This would take too much to explain (at least for me it would, since brevity is not my forte). Take a logic class if you wanna figure it out.

Last we have the final table:

2---------C------1
M-- H---~H---M ⊃ H

T---T-----F------T-----counterexample
T---F-----T------F
F---T-----F------T
F---F-----T------T

The 2 represents P2 and is placed over the M, because M was our second premise. The C represents conclusion, and is over the ~H, because ~H was our conclusion. The 1 represents P1 and is over the M ⊃ H, because M ⊃ H represents our second premise.

The first line is a counter example because we have all true premises and a false conclusion. A counterexample means the argument is not valid. Thus the argument that anger toward your mom leads to hate is invalid.

***

There you have it folks: anger does not always lead to hate. You have an example right there proving that anger toward your mom will not lead you to hate. If you are thoroughly confused, just take my word for it. I tell no lies (that was a lie).

Vague

The human spoken language (in any tongue) is amazingly vague, and can often lead to a great deal of confusion. There is, however, acceptable times to speak vaguely. Other times it is a nuisance. By this I mean to say there is a fine line between acceptable vagueness and unacceptable vagueness.

For example, it would be acceptable for me to tell a friend "Meet me at my house at 3pm" if said friend knows where my house is. The vague instruction of meeting me at my house would be unacceptable for a friend who knows not where I live, though. I would need to give more specific directions for the latter friend.

In the more frustrating case, there are sometimes vague statements that can be interpreted in numerous ways (making them not only vague, but ambiguous) that are labeled as "generalizations." In general, generalizations are definite line-crossers into the unacceptable vague category (I realize the contradiction of making a generalization about generalizations). A sample sentence: "Anger always lead to hate." That is an amazingly vague generalization that numerous people could interpret to mean a plethora of different things. I won't go into the logic of how that statement is very unsound (let me count the ways). Oh goodness, now my brain is hurting from thinking of all the different ways I could prove that sentence wrong... I'll leave if for another blog. Focus, Hollie!

Anyways, instead of saying "anger always leads to hate," the author of such a statement should clarify the type of anger and hate he is speaking of. The author could say "anger directed toward a specific person over a perceived wrong that is not eventually dealt with through the act of forgiveness can lead to a gradual hardening of the emotional state of a person in the form of hate." While that is still minimally vague and very long-winded, it leaves much less to be misunderstood or mis-deduced. "Anger always leads to hate" may sound more fortune-cookie-ish and wins on the side of brevity, but the vagueness of the statement ruins any benefits to be gained from brevity and wise-person-soundingness (yes, made up word).

Of course, I say all this as a barely disguised rant over people always giving brief, vague statements that can be responded to any which way only to be told that my interpretation of said statement is not what the author meant. If people have a point they are trying to make they should just state it instead of masking it in the brief veils of vagueness. If Johnny is a jerk just say so instead of typing "all men are cads." If Betty hurt your feelings, don't say "People will always let you down." If a friend is disappointed in you, don't say "Expectations only lead to disappointment."

jumpsuits

(http://bellemel.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/forever21jumpsuit.jpg)

Okay, really with the shorts jumpsuits fashion? Who on earth decided that would look fashionable or good on anyone? It is completely unflattering to the female body with its odd proportions with the waist belted in and then the bottom turning into shorts that cut the legs off in an odd way. It's an odd design where the shorts chop the body into ugly blobs, exaggerating one's flat bottom or large bottom, making them look either bulbously big or boyishly flat.

Of course, the colors of the jumpsuit tend to be bland grays, blacks, greens, etc. Perhaps this is to keep them from being confused with traditional jumpsuits in red and orange hues? Make them orange or red and people may be inclined to think that the girls wearing the odd jumpsuits are escaped convicts who decided to try and turn their jumpsuits into something fashionable (failing miserably, of course).

It seems like the jumpsuits are a failed attempt at trying to make over-alls fashionable (Personally, I'd slip on an overall any day before I tried on the odd jumpsuits).

The moral of this rant: fashion is a silly world, and it's better to just wear what you like, because odds are you look better in whatever you have on than you ever would in these currently-popular jumpsuits.

Racial Discrimination

The Supreme Court: it speaks my language. It’s rather refreshing to read Supreme Court cases in which a view I have held for quite some time is slightly affirmed(of course, the opinions expressed that I agree with are found in the dissenting and majority concurring opinions, and not the majority opinion itself). The cases in question are Richmond v. Croson Company (1989), Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena (1995), and Grutter v. Bollinger (2003).

Richmond v. Croson Company
Justice Scalia states in his opinion that, “…those who believe that racial preferences can help to ‘even the score’ display, and reinforce, a manner of thinking by race that was the source of the injustice and that will, if it endures within our society, be the source of more injustice still.”

Justice Stevens states in his opinion that, “Imposing a common burden on such a disparate class merely because each member of the class is of the same race stems from reliance on a stereotype rather than fact or reason.” (the burden in question being that the assumption is made that all white men at one point in time practiced unlawful discrimination against minorities)

Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena
Justice Thomas states in his opinion that, “So-called ‘benign’ discrimination teaches many that because of chronic and apparently immutable handicaps, minorities cannot compete with them without their patronizing indulgence. Inevitably, such programs engender attitudes of superiority or, alternatively, provoke resentment among those who believe they have been wronged by the government’s use of race. These programs stamp minorities with a badge of inferiority and may cause them to develop dependencies or to adopt an attitude that they are ‘entitled’ to preferences…”

Grutter v. Bollinger
Justice O’Connor states in her majority opinion that racial balancing "is patently unconstitutional.”

Justice Scalia states in his opinion that, “the nonminority individuals who are deprived of a legal education, a civil service job, or any job at all by reason of their skin color will surely understand.” (sarcasm in the Supreme Court is even more amusing than sarcasm amongst us mere mortals)

Justice Thomas (quoting Frederick Douglas) states in opinion that, “ ‘…And if the negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! … Your interference is doing him positive injury!’ Like Frederick Douglass, I believe blacks can achieve in every avenue of American life without the meddling of university administrators.”
Justice Thomas further states, “When blacks take position in the highest places of government, industry, or academia, it is an open question today whether their skin color played a part in their advancement. The question itself is the stigma- because either racial discrimination did play a role, in which case the person may be deemed ‘otherwise unqualified,’ or it did not, in which case asking the question itself unfairly marks those blacks who would succeed without discrimination.”

*** *** ***
I quote all of that to say this: I do not approve of racial discrimination. Whether the discrimination is used to help a minority (such as in Grutter v. Bollinger, where discrimination is used to guarantee a certain amount of racial minorities a spot in Michigan Law School), or it is used to harm a minority, I don’t approve of it.

“Helpful” racial discrimination at this point in time is more harmful than it is beneficial. We are at a time in history where “helpful” racial discrimination is no longer needed. The longer the government allows companies, schools, etc to say minorities can be given preference over nonminorities, the longer the belief will be perpetrated that minorities need help in order to be successful. It is time for the government to leave us racial minorities alone, and let us strike out into the big, bad, predominately white society all on our lonesome. Let us fail on our own. Let us succeed on our own. We are not children in need of Mummy’s protection anymore. We are adult citizens, and we can do things without the government’s help.

I love you, Uncle Sam, but I don’t want your help.

Well, don't I sound smart?

Have you ever noticed that there are thousands of quaint little quotes out there that sound smart on the surface, but once you take the time to really dissect them they are full of holes? And I'm not talking Chinese fortune cookies quotes(although, those are fun to read), but popular quotes that everyone knows and likes to share with their friends. And then friends are so quick to agree with the quote because it sounds so smart, even though it is rather flawed.

People are like "Well, don't I sound smart for quoting this ridiculous quote?" No. Not really. You don't sound smart. You sound like a parrot spewing out every fancy quote you hear without stopping to think about what you are saying.

My least favorite of such quotes is "Don't tell me the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon." First of all "The sky's the limit" is supposed to be an encouraging quote. Why would someone need to try and improve on "the sky's the limit" when "the sky's the limit" is already telling you that you can do anything? So, "the sky is the limit" means "you have endless possibilities" and "there are footprints on the moon" means "you can do anything." What is being said then is "don't tell me I have endless possibilities, when I know that I can do anything." That makes no sense! And people actually like that quote?

Next time you want to sound smart by quoting a quotable quote (heh heh) maybe you should think about what the quote you are quoting (ahaha) actually means.

:)