Infatuation, Kindness, and Love

Preface:

This is likely to either be a wake-up call or something to be ignored altogether. I imagine this is weighed against our sense of pride because a criticism of our human nature tends to be inflammatory to our personal feelings. There is no intention to do harm- only an attempt to bring betterment to your life. This is something that I personally weigh with extreme importance- it is part ethics, part social criticism.

Introduction:

Love (in its most basic form) is a behavior that we both learn and know from instinct. We build attractions and relationships from birth with those who are close based upon a need of security and comfort, similar in the methods witnessed in connections between dogs and their owners (not so much cats and their owners; their relationship is not affected by the security of the cat). Young children are uncomfortable and display stress and anxiety when the parents are not around, as do our security-attached pets. As we grow older, we stray less from this egocentric attachment into genuine affection. We may love our mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, in an uncanny sense that we often cannot replicate with others until we’re able to build bridges of trust. This love can be lost with parents who treat their children poorly or when abuse is brought into the family frame.

As humans mature, they develop and almost as if at the turn of a key, a new part of our personality is unlocked. We begin to desire attachment in a way that is more than simple presence and security. We seek to be united with another individual (or in the stark reality of human nature: multiple individuals). This desire is separate from the camaraderie we feel with our friends, or the sense of ‘home’ and duty we feel with our family. We seek to go out and not only woo over someone, but also to physically connect with them.

Lastly, and because this affection has no specific time at which we develop it (some don’t ‘develop’ it at all), we seek justice, rightness, and goodwill towards others. The selfless and sacrificial love we hold towards the ‘others’ in our society and the ones we hold close. We may even seek to understand the others and ourselves as part of our positive affection to the ones we love.

I’ve presented four different types of affection (familial, brotherly, romantic, and selfless ^A) for which we only have one word: love. Somewhere in the mess of our cultures in the last age (~2,160 years) we lost our ability to philologically discriminate ^B between the two. We love our brothers and friends in a different way, yet we “love” them both. We may love the others around us, but we do not “love” them the same way we love our mates. In English (God knows I don’t know how other languages account for affection) there is only one word, which I’ve used fairly frequently so far.

Yet, as ambiguous as affection is in a lexicographic sense, its perception in our cultures have become horribly damaged. I want to discuss two “corruptions” (for lack of a better word) of Love in our current cultures. The first is when we “love” someone or something but instead of having affection we have only desire. The second is when we “love” someone or something and are careless to its actual state of being, as long as some personal understanding of their state is met. The first form happens most frequently in relationships while the second happens most in the parent-child relationship, or relationships where there is a duty involved. I will not say that one is worse than the other; both do immense damage, especially to the object of the ‘affection’.

Infatuation:

This happens mostly in the romantic relationships and thus it runs rampant and is common enough that I see the concept of mutual infatuation as being acceptable as love itself. Let me very clear: infatuation is not love. In my entire time in ethics and philosophy, I have rarely spoken about identity ethics: the ethics that involves how we view others and ourselves, and the statuses of each, accordingly. This is one of those moments where I will break my silence and maintain this adamantly.

People are not objects. They are not things to be conquered, to be used, to be abused, and to be dehumanized. The weight of a relationship cannot be in sex. It is not acceptable to treat your loved one as an object of pleasure. People are so much more than that. Pornography, treating sex as a goal (and thus your mate as an end to a means), and treating sexuality/attraction as the main component in a relationship is the easiest way to destroy everything good and honest in a relationship. If you love someone, it should not be because you can “profit” off of them. I have seen this happen and it ticks me off. I hate seeing the friends I love mistreat each other and watch them get dehumanized by their partner. ^C It doesn’t matter if you and your mate agree to something. Mutual dehumanization is doubly worse. It is degradation and destruction of human identity and value, and the entire relationship goes down with it.

Kindness:

I must be very clear about this: Kindness is not bad. It truly isn’t. But how kindness is defined is something I must make clear. Here’s a quote from C.S. Lewis:

There is kindness in Love but Love and kindness are not coterminous, and when kindness… …is separated from the other elements of Love, it involves a certain fundamental indifference to its object, and even something like contempt of it. …Kindness, merely as such, cares not whether its object becomes good or bad, provided only that it escapes suffering. ¹

Kindness may be a good trait to those who are unknown to us and persons we’re not invested in. We may seek to make others happy, but carelessness can place happiness far above their well-being. Lewis provides a different understanding in place of love:

It is for people whom we care nothing about that we demand happiness on any terms: with our friends, our lovers, our children, we are exacting and would rather see them suffer than be happy in contemptible and estranging modes. ^{D, 2}

This kindness is one we often overlook in our daily lives. How often do we confuse this kindness to our friends with our general and caring affection for them? Is it possible that we see the others around us in a matter of tolerance and profit? Economists often state that people do things based off of incentives, and those drive human behavior, but I have to disagree. How else would concepts like altruism, selflessness, and love even come around or even begin to be imagined? Are you even prepared to view your “loved ones” through the lens of “love” instead of “kindness”?

Conclusion:

This “kindness” in its above sense is something that I witness as being paired with infatuation. It generates a tolerance in relationships that is balanced with personal gain. Often times, I hear the following dialog in conversations “Well, does he make you happy?” “Yeah, I guess. So it’s not as bad as it could be.” I can easily imagine relationships as being something better and deeper where such dialog doesn’t need to happen. The friendly “kindness” displayed there between the friends shows the unwillingness to get into the grit of the relationship of their friend and their partner.

Love is not passive. Love is an active force that drives one and another to the mutual construction and reparation of one another. It does not cease for ‘what is,’ it longs for what can be.

I think I will wrap this up with Lewis’ representation of Love, as I think it is a fairly good note to end on and to think about:

…Love, in its own nature, demands the perfecting of the beloved;… …Love may, indeed, love the beloved when her beauty is lost: but not because it is lost. Love may forgive all the infirmities and love still in spite of them: but Love cannot cease to will their removal… ³

^E

Footnotes:

A – Greek: Storge, philia, eros, and agape; respectively. (Spellings vary, I know.)

B – In the words original sense: to tell the difference between things

C – Yes, you are witnessing my anger.

D – I can also say I’d rather suffer than watch the ones I love be happy in “contemptible or estranging modes.” (Watching others do exactly that is a source of depression and sadness for me. It produces suffering of its own kind.)

E – “The problem of reconciling human suffering with the existence of a God, is only insoluble so long as we attach a trivial meaning to the word ‘love’, and look on as if man were the centre of them. Man is not the centre. God does not exist for the sake of man. Man does not exist for his own sake. ‘Thou has created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.’ We were made not primarily that we may love God (though we were made for that too) but that God may love us, that we may become objects in which the Divine love may rest ‘well pleased’. To ask that God’s love should be content with us as we are is to ask that God should cease to be God: because He is what He is, His love must, in the nature of things, be impeded and repelled by certain stains in our present character, and because He already loves us He must labour to make us lovable. We cannot even wish, in our better moments, that He could reconcile Himself to our present impurities – no more than the beggar maid could wish that King Cophetua should be content with her rags and dirt, or a dog, once having learned to love man, could wish that man were such as to tolerate in his house the snapping, verminous, polluting creature of the wild pack. What we would here and now call our ‘happiness’ is not the end God chiefly has in view: but when we are such as He can love without impediment, we shall in fact be happy.” ⁴

Lewis notes, and I must too, that instances where we ask God (or our loved ones) not to intercede to our betterment, we are really asking to be loved less so that we may be ‘happier.’ (Although, in potential, less happy than what could be.)

References:

1 – Lewis, C. S. “Divine Goodness.” The Problem of Pain. 1st ed. New York, NY: HarperOne, 2001. 32. Print.

2 – Ibid., 32-33

3 – Ibid., 38-39

4 –Ibid., 40-41

Identity Dysphoria (1)

Preface

I wanted to start this off by quoting a resource I had recently come across. Once, sometimes twice, during a week I get a free book that is considered a resource for Christians. It is a simple newsletter that lands in my e-mail inbox every Monday/Tuesday and Friday. I generally forget I have the limited opportunity to grab these publications but once upon a time one came into my inbox that grabbed my attention immediately. It was called Glorious Ruin: How suffering sets you free by Tullian Tchividjian. In my experience, books that attempt to explain how our horrible experiences in life are room to grow tend to bury our problems and never give anything tangible about how to pick ourselves up and move on. I have not even finished the Introduction to the book and already I feel I am obligated to quote the book as it addresses the glaring issue I have always come across without fail. It is likely that this essay will not cover all the ground it needs to and it’s likely that I will add to it in the coming months. Identity is no simple matter and I will not wrap it up in a single essay.

Here are the parts, from the Introduction (emphasis original):

Have you ever felt like you couldn’t share the details of a difficult situation without someone immediately offering a solution or a spiritual platitude? Have you ever responded that way yourself? The required cheerfulness that characterizes many of our churches produces a suffocating environment of pat, religious answers to the painful, complex questions that riddle the lives of hurting people. We will look at how this culture of mandatory happiness actually promotes dishonesty and more suffering.

…understanding the root and inevitability of pain is rarely enough to alleviate or reduce it. The Nobel Prize-winning social psychologist Daniel Kahneman has built a storied career proving the limits of self-knowledge when it comes to suffering. Even when we know where the hurt is coming from, we tend to respond in one of two ways: we moralize or we minimize.

Moralists interpret misfortune as the karmic result of misbehavior. This for that. “You failed to obey God, so He gave your child an illness.” Such rule-based economies of punishment and reward may be the default mode of the fallen human heart, but that doesn’t make them any less brutal! This does not mean that sin doesn’t have consequences. If you blow all of your money on booze, you will likely reap poverty, loneliness, and cirrhosis of the liver. Simple cause and effect. But to conclude that suffering people have somehow heaped up trouble for themselves on the Cosmic Registry and that God is doling out the misery in direct proportion would be more than mistaken; it would be cruel.

(…)

The second and equally counterproductive impulse when it comes to suffering is the one that minimizes. Have you ever heard someone try to comfort a grieving friend, saying, “Death is a natural part of life”? The intention may be compassionate, but the recipient seldom experiences that way. For them, you have just minimized their pain, implying that death and devastation are morally neutral, that our perceptions are ultimately what create the problem of pain–that if we were only able to detach from our emotions, we would experience peace in life, no matter the circumstances. And while there is a certain truth to that–Paul does ask, “Death, where is thy sting?” (1 Cor. 15:55 KJV)–in the moment, it can convey immense insensitivity. Moreover, we minimize suffering when we instrumentalize it. That is, when we subordinate suffering to the result it might achieve, or when we reduce it to a glorified means of self-improvement, as certain daytime talk show hosts might be accused of doing. Christians, of course, use spiritual language to minimize suffering constantly, even their own. The need to exonerate God in the midst of tragedy–even to shove Bible verses in a person’s face (regardless of how profound or true they may be)–can be just as harmful as saying something actively discouraging, as if God were small enough to be invalidated by our individual suffering.

Both the moralizing and the minimizing approaches are attempts to keep suffering at bay, to play God. It is safe to say that when we our faith (or lack thereof) feels like a fight against the realities of suffering instead of a resource for accepting them, we are on the wrong track. Writer and theologian Robert Farrar Capon has suggested that perhaps we need to “turn the question around–the message is for suffering and conflicted people. Christ on the cross meets us in our suffering and conflicts not in the promise to take them all away. He is simply with us in all our times” (emphasis original). Capon means that our hope is not “Jesus plus an explanation as to why suffering happens,” or “Jesus plus an explanation as to why you have this job, that spouse, or these circumstances or pain.” He is suggesting that God is especially present in suffering.

Tchividjian, Tullian. Glorious Ruin: How Suffering Sets You Free. Colorado Springs, CO: David C Cook, 2012. 2, 3-6. EPUB file.

It does no good to try to redirect the problem and reality of the situations of those around us. It would help no one to minimize or moralize a problem. In reality, it makes things worse. These responses make those who feel abandoned really abandoned. Those who suffer often have to stand alone. This is a problem that I’ve come across so often while seeking help that I actually resolved to stop asking, because every time without fail my situation only got worse. It was as if I was incapable of sharing my burden. I became so used to this treatment that the first time someone actually decided to sit down and force me to talk, I was both in shock and scared. I didn’t know what to do- it was as if the impossible was happening to me. I can say, with much regret, that this kind of support had come from those who were dear to me, not necessarily the other Christians that I was supposed to rely on. This integral body of Christ was divided at the cellular level, such that I was festering with no immune system to turn to.

It is from this kind of personal experience that I am coming from. I never want to subjugate others to this same kind of treatment. The suffering we have to fight through is no small burden despite how much we try to pretend.

Yet, I feel that the focus of this writing is coming from those who have already been defeated. Those who, in their lives, have come across struggles, personal questions, and given minimized or moralized answers that have left us short-changed. In the wake of this, I feel that we have become people who are simply discontent with how things are, and we wish it to be… different. Not every case is the same, and I do not mean to generalize them all or pretend that I will address every possible case. That’s an impossible task, and I only hope that, through this, I can reach the people who are stuck where I used to be in life.

Where we come from…

I had what some might call an overactive imagination. I grew up watching Star Wars and thus I grew up thinking about Star Wars. I wondered what it would be like to be Jedi, or a Rebel, or a Stormtrooper. I had shirts, actions figures, and toys of speeders. I reenacted fights on the bed in my room, creating a false terrain made of pillows, blankets, and a bunk bed. Each character had their own voice, and I decided who the commander was for each force. I even ran little scenarios and pretended that there was a legitimate skirmish where the battle lines moved. I was generally happy with this little setup and it entertained me.

At some point, I think late at night, I wondered why it couldn’t be real. Why did it have to be some kind of figment of my imagination? Real life seemed so dull in comparison to the colorful and spectacular worlds that populated my bedroom floor and the TV screen. This question persisted throughout my life until I became almost obsessed with it. I couldn’t mend the books I was reading with reality and it rent my mind in two: half of me was ticked that reality was so boring while the other half of me just wanted to get away from all the stress and responsibility. There was nothing fun about reality, it seemed, when compared to dragons or spacewars and supervillains and heroes.

I think it goes without saying that I wasn’t happy with who I was as well. I literally envied the housecat because of how easy their lives seemed in comparison- how agile and flexible. They seemed to have the image of perspicacity and wisdom in their faces, while they had a sassy passive-aggressive side that made them at least entertaining to toy with. I didn’t care that they didn’t have opposable thumbs and that they couldn’t build structures with LEGOs, only chew on them. Even the thought of being an alien in Star Wars was entertaining as well. Maybe a Mandalorian Bounty Hunter with an inclination towards the force, who could prowl the undercity of Coruscant chasing criminals.

But I was just a young boy who felt that he was limited by who he was. Just a human. An unnoticeable dot on a slightly larger blue dot in the terrifyingly large scale of the universe. Surely, somewhere, what I wanted to be existed? Why couldn’t I be it? Instead, I’m scrawny white boy with a bowl in his chest that made me dread going to the pool when others were around. I felt, and still feel, handicapped in my identity. I wanted to be something more. I wanted to be attractive, successful, and placed in a world that didn’t seem to be falling apart at every seam.

There’s a comparison trap that we always fall into. It might be the only thing I managed to glean from one of the support books I’ve read. We compare ourselves to other things and grow discontent when we don’t meet the standards. I’m not attractive, I can’t sing well, I have a thing in my chest, I… It goes on for quite a while. I’ve failed society’s standards and I’d failed my own. I fell into depression for a little while as a result.

I picked up escapes, however, to deal with what I felt was a cosmic joke of a life. I read books, and when that didn’t do enough good for me, I started writing. Originally, it was a deviation off of an already existing fictional universe. I took it as an inspiration next and threw away what I already had and started again. And again. And again. I didn’t want to focus on school, which was boring and what felt like a waste of time learning stuff that was far too easy for me.

I had become so discontent with life, and who and what I was, that it was beginning to become damaging.

God

I don’t claim to have all the answers. I never will. I’m only comfortable talking about what I already know, whether I’m actually right or not. I don’t pretend to know all that is to be known in this universe. I try to speak primarily from experience and things learned firsthand, or from the firsthand accounts of others. I needed to say this before I get on to the next part. But I also need to make it abundantly clear that while the above is true, my words are not meant to be dismissed simply because it doesn’t match perfectly the cases that exist out in the world.

I didn’t believe in God for more than half of my life. I attended church with my mom, talked whatever talk, and had some superstitious reasoning that the universe just happened and that God was some mythical thing. But not one of power, if it even existed. Now my world is flip-flopped. Everything has its meaning from God and that is all I want to see. God made this universe and us and He made it Himself. I don’t believe it because it seems cathartic (someone else’s assumption about my beliefs, mind you). I believe it because it has become the only possible explanation that has made sense.

I wanted to argue with God initially. I wanted to pray to God to get an A on a spelling test in the first grade and then not care when I did get an A. God was a tool, if He amounted to anything at all. After a while I just thought about God as something that people talked about, but was just some ghost or something that did nothing. I was wrong, and I realized that when I noticed whatever creative potential there was in the universe, I had. Even LEGOs and K’nex, though just toys, were something that I was able to create something amazing with. That idea got me thinking.

Eventually God stopped being a myth in my mind and a real living thing that was the reason for everything. But I was frustrated by His existence, as it seemed to get in my way. I didn’t like going to church until a couple of years ago. I’m twenty now. I’ve had plenty time to live and develop as a person and I like to think that I’ve moved in the right direction.

It wasn’t until recently that I stumbled across a train of thought that I hadn’t touched in a long time. I was so upset with how shortchanged I felt, that I began to wonder if for some reason I just wasn’t making sense. This God that I speak of made this universe and me. Every single thing is unique. I am something more than handcrafted.

With everything that I hate about myself, this is the way God chose me to be. I may have been born with something that could kill me in the future, but I am this way for a reason. If I try to complain about how shortchanged I am, I’m God’s masterpiece telling Him He could have done better. I’m telling God “You should have made me something else. I don’t like this. I should have been different than this.” It would be arguing vainly at God. It often came to such a strong degree that I rejected Biblical teachings just to match what I had in mind for how things ought to be. I ignored the normative nature of God’s creation in substitution for my own idea. In shortest words, I saw myself as being more than God- that I knew better. I was throwing away my second greatest gift from Him: who I was.

Coming to Terms

It’s not easy. I still complain. I still am uncomfortable with myself. It’s only a recent realization that I still struggle with fully realizing. It’s a work and progress and maybe it will always be. Trying to understand something so complex will take time. I just know that, God made me this way and put me here for a reason. I don’t know what it is yet, or if I’ve already done it or not, but I have a reason to exist, the way I am. I was dysphoric about who I was. I’m not that way anymore, but I still think about it. I wonder what it would be like, to be a dragon, or to be futuristic soldier fighting for good.

But I’m not. I’m not for a reason. If God holds His promises, even in the slightest degree, then I know that whatever I desired will be surpassed and I will be surprised by what God has in store. Until then, I only wish to be the best I can be, as God meant me to.

This has been an abundantly personal exploration, one that I will revisit and add on to later, about the philosophical implications. I’ve only touched once about the relationship between Man and God. Soon, I hope I can bring more Scripture into this instead of speaking about the direct normative interaction.

Heeeey, I’m back!

Anyone miss me? No? That’s fine.

It’s fun to look at my posts because they’ve been so far apart. I’ve taken my writings over the time and kept them private. In the span of two years, my ideologies have flipped, so I’m going to do a little critique of myself. Sound good? Good.

“Science is a religion.”
Correction: Scientism is the religion of science. It is the belief that only science can give truth, a statement that is a contradiction.

“There are no ‘facts’ or ‘absolutes’ in science.”
Correction: There are numerical constants that are absolutes, as they are a property of objective reality. However, the extent of the word ‘fact’ is apparently up for opinion. I say because of how science actually performs.

“the total numbers of deaths by religion is only less than 3% of all atheistic wars combined.”
Correction: All major religious wars (of all the 1,200-1,300 wars religion is involved or the cause of only 7%, rounding up) amount to 13,000,000 deaths in war and democide, rounding up. A single, for the sake of demonstration only one, atheistic regime was responsible for around 43,500,000 deaths in war/democide and expected but not confirmed up to 60,000,000. If anything, anti-religion has killed far more than normal religion. Don’t forget that religion is also the largest philanthropic force in the world. If we cannot fairly look at religion, I have no need nor an intellectual or moral obligation to look at anti-religion fairly.

“As I have experienced in life, there is no such thing as truth”
Correction: That statement is a contradiction. If it were true, there would have to be a thing as truth. So, mea culpa. Oops.

“I consider anything logic and reasoning prove to be a lie because all logic and reasoning is flawed, and since it’s flawed, should not be used (logic is using current known information to deduce a ‘reasonable’ result, and therefore can be proven wrong when further information is given. It would be logical to not use logic since omniscience cannot be achieved by a human.).”
Correction: Kinda a reasonable assumption about reason, but untrue. Logic and reason is true when all things are revealed, but it is still useful when it’s not absolutely perfect.

If anything, though, my snarky and probably annoying voice is back atcha in text form again. I’m likely to talk about absolutism over relativism. Fiction and non-fiction. I’ve changed a lot, and I’ve delved more into philosophy. I like to think that I’ve made progress that is legitimate and real progress.

I also know that since I’m a Christian, an absolutist, a computer scientist, and sarcastic, I’m going to tick some people off real well. But hey, can’t please everyone and I don’t intend to. I like friendly discussion, but people don’t like being told they’re wrong. I don’t mind it. I hear it so much I’m used to it. But at least I have counterarguments.

Expect posts on:
Absolutism and philosophy
Science and the universe
C++, Python, and how much I hate Java
Fiction stories, sci-fi,  and fantasy
Christianity

(Christian) Morality

(This post uses asterisk and superscript footnotes.)

At the center of the Christian Faith is the Heart itself. It is where all the big battles are fought, with the brain in the second place. Christians are what flies in the face of immoral living. We are not of this world, we do not belong to it^A. We belong to God instead, and therefore we should believe in His will for us.

He has given us very clear and concise instructions on how to live. Many people quote the Bible and cherry pick, which is a big mistake. There should be an obvious reason why Christians don’t go around stoning people for Leviticus. It is because that moral system has been fulfilled and now we live by the other moral guides in the NT which are often repeats of other codes found in the OT.

Now, the objective in Christian morality is not to become a legalist and not to become lawless. Legalism is the over-enforcement of either Christian laws or abuse of authority under the Christian name. We MUST ACCEPT beforehand that obeying God is meaningless if there is no love for God (and consequently, other humans) or faith.

The line has been drawn clearly for us Christians: We must love God with all of ourselves^B, and in doing so, we offer ourselves up to become clay—to be transformed by God into something He can use. And this transformation process is permanent unto the day we die and beyond. No one gets into Heaven by simply believing and making zero effort to gain Divine Perspective (to think like Christ) or to change your ways. No one gets into Heaven by being a do-gooder and not believing. It is both and that action is verily summed in one word:

Repentance. (Such a dangerous sounding word. Trust me, it’s nowhere near as bad as it seems. It’s rather remarkable!)

Repentance is the turning away from sin, it is acknowledgement that you have done wrong, and it is the understanding that since you have done wrong, you must right it. God doesn’t want just part of you^B; not on Sundays, not every night when you commit a ritualistic prayer (that God “won’t hear” if you don’t mean it), not whenever you get a five-minute revelation (which is also false revelation), He wants ALL of you. This means control over everything. God cannot be compartmentalized.

Repentance is the combination of faith and works, when considered as a whole. It is utterly important^C.

If you have the Divine Perspective, you will not ever be the same again. Your life will turn around for the better. You will not have to hold yourself to God’s Law, you will find you already obey it. This means in every aspect of life.

God has given us clear instructions on how to be better through our actions– He has given us His instructions on how to live in order that we may come closer to the Divine Perspective. Without the Divine Perspective it is utterly futile and meaningless to contend for any kind of liberty.

But all this morality stuff… It’s not all… is it? What’s it do for us?

It changes us, but not cosmetically. It changes us from the inside out. It molds so deeply it transforms all. The beauty of the world becomes evident. The worth of every being becomes evident. Every foolish thing we hold onto because of greed and gluttony… it all fades away. Hatred is swept away. Patience, love, virtue, it all becomes a part of us. Vanity switches with humility. It is a miracle of God’s Work that occurs within us all when we attain Divine Perspective!

Instead of seeing the dark around us, we begin to see the light that’s within everything. That is what we are going for: the good in it all. The love we all seek whether we know it or not. Once we attain the Divine Perspective the concepts of good and wrong aren’t just rules anymore— they describe to us the nature of God*.

Yet, this cannot be done if God has not given us the moral system to get there. There’s no condemnation here. God made it very clear that everyone can be saved. It is up to us to head down the harder road that teaches us all the valuable lessons to be learned.

* – We cannot have the Good God where Good and Evil are not permanently defined or true. In the same breath we can say that sin is a crime against the Good God and humanity. Without sin, there is no concept of Good and Evil, and without a clear cut Good and Evil morality becomes an opinion and this subverts God on every level.

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Footnotes:
A: John 15:19, 17:13-16; Romans 12:2; 1 John 2:15-17 (Not of this world)
B: Mark 12:30
C: Luke 13:3; Ezekiel 18:21-23; 2 Chronicles 7:14; 1 John 1:9; Acts 3:19, 8:22; Mark 1:15; many more…

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Resources:
The Divine Perspective, as discussed by Mattie Montgomery in his spoken word song “Vision” (very quick, worth a listen): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cQbjygL0QM

Bible Verses to look at (there are more that I am neglecting to put due to it being 2:44 AM; but, in a snarky manner, I suggest reading the entire Bible, along with the apocrypha for good reads):
1 Corinthians 10:24
John 14:15, 15:19, 17:13-16
The entire book of Romans
1 Thessalonians 4:3
1 John 2:3-4 (very important), 2:15-17 (very important)
Matthew 5:17-22 (very important), 15:3
Colossians 3:23

Writing

Recently, I have no idea what had come upon me, but I have been filled with the intense desire to write. Specifically, the sci-fi story I’m working on. Now, that story is over 150,000 words and I’m not even sure how to end it. I mean, I have a very clear idea on how to end the story (save for some of the minor details), but to end the work I’ve been having to do.

There’s a process to writing:
Write
Rewrite
Edit
Rewrite
Rewrite
Rewrite
Go Agent Hunting (harder than actual hunting, I assure you)
Get published.

See, simple, easy. Well, it’s literally the opposite. After I write these last three chapters, it’s going to be the hardest part of my writing career: editing. Most authors hate their writing by the time they finish the first draft. I hadn’t Part One as I was writing it. That’s a little different. Summaries, beginnings, and editing are the hardest parts to me. It’s going to be difficult. But, for some reason, it’s a labor I love. Similar to taking scalding hot showers and peeling skin off with a cheese grater.

Eh, you know, at this point, there’s so much pseudo-blood-sweat-and-tears in this that I don’t even care if it criticized badly. All that matters is that I get a book published and get to continue on with the next. My main goal was to get published and printed in the first place. As much of a low-set goal that is, it’s entirely true. All that matters is that someone pays money for it and reads it.

If I were to become famous, so be it. I’ll have plenty of fans to talk to.

But otherwise, just getting published is enough. If I self-publish (I have the capability to), then I would have to self-advertise and try to get B&N to sell and all that garbage. And there’s nothing I hate more than liberal-democracy and capitalism (as irrelevant politics are here, aggressive people annoy me, especially people that have no qualms judging me before they even know my name).

So my goal: get published. Anything above that is being an overachiever.

Now, it’s all down to refining the story and characters.

Simple Awe

I walk around school, observing the people I see. I don’t listen to their words, I don’t do anything else but keep my eyes head-level when moving through the hallways. It’s usually packed with students, kids wearing “SWAG” shirts or other things I find to be completely ridiculous. Often, couples holding hands form roadblocks and reduce the pace to a painful crawl. I think about these organisms around me, and then I think about the organism I am.

We’re the same. All of us. All men are created equal right? …right? It would be comforting to believe that such an idea is true, but I have seen some staggering arguments against that. But, then, I differ from those points.

We’re different in that we all have different flaws. But for worth, we’re all the same. Every last one of us tormented souls. Each and every one of us entropy-defying organisms.

But, you know, it’s not hard to see the design in everything. The universe screams for this existence. I mean, it’s strange that everything in this universe has a purpose. Everything, no matter how blown up the idea is. I mean, quantum particles each have their own qualities and they set the stage for atoms, then molecules, then structures, then massive-structures like planets. It’s all a little too convenient to have a simple cop-out explanation.

I like the idea that there’s more than just the physical world, almost that ideas exist on a completely separate plane of existence. Technically, seeing how the mind generates things on what is seen and what is perceived, there must be a lot more to this existence than just what we normally think as we go through our daily lives.

I’ve mentioned before about my curiosity, and recently it has exploded in a simple adoration for God and this world that we’re given. It manifests as a desire to learn how everything works. So… as a result I started reading my textbooks at school in my free time (if I’m not too drowsy, that is). I started listening to more music and dragging apart the notes and examining the measures and pitches. I started taking apart mathematical formulas, generating proofs, and messing around with the ways numbers work. And above all, my desire to create things has overtaken me.

I don’t have any regular readers, of that I’m sure, but however, it still needs noting that it was a while since I had last written. And if you think that’s bad, you should see how my stories are going along. They’re halted. But, I still have that fire that burns inside and consumes every doubt and every roadblock there is.

I have restored my desire to build and create. It’s a great feeling, and ironically, there’s no one to share that with (long story, and I wouldn’t put that here anyways). But anyways, I envelope myself with the mysteries and the answers of this world, seeking to understand it all. Hopefully, I draw the proper lines to connect the right dots, and unlock the secrets to every bit of information there is.

Have a good life!

Curiosity

I had become bitter. I had blamed a lot of things in the past for my troubles of existence. Now, I realized that I have been wrong before and I have been wrong again recently.

First off, please know, that although my blog seems really anti-science, all I’m trying to do is preserve the original philosophy of science and keep that pure. Science in its original form doesn’t assume, it doesn’t guess, and it doesn’t claim fact. It is only a mechanism for understanding logic and design of the systems of this universe.

So I brought back my curiosity and restarted my pro-science pro-fide viewpoint on knowledge, hoping that somehow this helps bring back legitimacy to the knowledge that I can have in this world.

Ironically, my fascination has come from mathematics and other people. I’m not sure why, but whenever an idea about derivatives in my mind just clicks as I’m eating a PB&J, it feels rewarding. The strange looks I get from other students about my spontaneous spacing aren’t that good, but its worth it.

So my previous objective was that I should help people attain intellectual freedom from one specific field of thought. Previously, it was academic systems, and, realizing how futile that is, I decided to not bother with it too much. So I’m turning this blog back into it’s philosophical origins and try to fuel curiosity through literature, science, and probably psychology again.

My secondary objective is try to return some of my Faith back to the human race. Some of them have earned it, especially one of the people I’ve met recently. So that means some struggles here and there, but I think it will be worth it. I’m quite sure that I speaking to no one, and I’m very sure that my own voice is no good, but I don’t mind spewing words randomly into the empty space.

If you got this far, thanks, and have a good life.

Understanding What I Do / Faith (Final Part)

Normally, there’s a picture, there’s a quote, and then I spew logical nonsense. Sometimes it is theological, sometimes scientific, sometimes it’s about philosophy and life. But is there a reason? The “Why I Write” page gives some sort of idea of what, exactly, I’m doing. All it is, is a place to drop thoughts where people can see them. Hopefully, these thoughts are enough to get people to form their own thoughts. You wouldn’t believe how syndicated people’s beliefs are.

Especially with the other teenagers I know.

I’m no longer in college. I had to leave the program I was in because of a mixture of grades that weren’t so good and the fact that tuition increased a terribly large amount. So now, I have to go back to high school and finish my diploma. It could be worse; I mean, I get to keep that one year of credits.

Now to actually talking philosophy:

Recently, I had a discussion with some friends with about what science is according to philosophy and according to scientists. They didn’t know exactly what it was and I had to describe how those things weren’t what they were.

1) If you didn’t know this already, be ashamed. Science is a religion. It is a belief system that is as personal as you want it to be, it’s deity is a panentheological existence (meaning God is the existence of the universe and the laws that apply) OR that if God is not a panentheological belief, that you yourself are your own god. I mean, think about it: There’s a bunch of people claiming that existence came from nowhere, with no logical explanation, and that the universe had almost an infinity of perfect accidents that lead to something that is against random assortment, all the while bearing little or no evidence. Explain it.

I am a scientific person. I always have been. I’ve been reading about the creation of the universe by big bang, and reading about biology, psychology and chemistry since I was little. I picked up textbooks and started to read them. Actually, last week I started reading my literature textbook. Although that’s not a science-oriented book, it gives an idea what I do. Alright, most of the arguments I make are from science textbooks. Some people don’t realize that.

2) The first thing that I learned about science is that it is “a perceptive understanding of our reality.” After talking to some professors during my stay at college I learned what that meant. This is the basic rule that applies to all science (and anything perceptive too): “That which cannot be verified at any given moment, at any place and any time is that which is taken on faith.” Take a minute and think about that. Yeah… interesting right?

Of course, that renders about all arguments null and void, and leads me to tell what the next thing about science is.

3) There is no “fact” or “absolutes” in science except the simple things like “I woke up today” or “my dog died of spontaneous combustion yesterday after drinking six gallons of gin.” In consequence of the previous understanding, nothing is forever the way it is. One day, for all we know, gravity could invert and we start being ripped apart by our particles because of the repulsive force. Also, this means that since there is no “fact” there is a basic understanding of how severe the disinformation in the scientific community is. To see just how drastic it is, replace “fact” with “faith” next time you listen to a debate or a seminar.

I find this ironic, really. I was so disappointed whenever I heard that, because it lead me to my next point.

4) Science is immodest. I mean, my heart was crushed when I heard about this. I know of scientists who go into the field because it pays, and nothing else (I also know scientists that are to the contrary, and I support them fully). Also, the meaning of science changed over time too. It went from “a logical understanding of the perspective/perceptive reality” to the “search for truth” (Which is a glorification and only serves cosmetic purposes. It doesn’t work as truth when anything assumed by science is literally assumed.) By default, there is no truth except for the occurrence of events. And that means that you only understand what your senses have recorded.

Barely no one understands that science is a philosophy. And the science of God(s) is theology. With science being a philosophy, it means that it is a personal decision to accept it. And if you don’t, society renders you either stupid or retarded. Trust me, I’ve been on that end before, even after that person lost that debate.

5) Any argument that can be made against any normal religion can be made against science. Religion is used selectively as a weapon. Science kinda sorta has lead to the discovery and use of stronger weapons through history all the way from better swords, projectile weapons, to anthrax, neutron, and atom bombs. Also, using religion as an excuse to say it has started wars… yeah, it happened. But the total numbers of deaths by religion is only less than 3% of all atheistic wars combined.

Religion makes people do stupid things. Eh, I haven’t found any stupid things except for the Islamic marriage of a full grown adult to a nine year old. If science had it’s run of the mill, then people would be the test subjects. I mean, science is amoral. It works best when testing shampoos on humans when it would burn the hair of a rat. It would probably take the hair and skin off a human head too.

There’s ‘truth’ out there. But we aren’t going to get it from the media or from the people who over-glorify themselves. I have yet to find a conflict between true science and God.

Have a good life.

Relative Normality

A philosophy post on writing.

In every piece of fiction, there is some understanding of basic fact, an acknowledgement of logic, and then the stretching of whatever ideals the writer chose to put to the test. In non-fiction, everything is “normal,” in the fact that it is a record of real life events. Fiction, to some extent, is a falsity in nature, but can be a fact in the very fiber of all the philosophical and emotional engagements.

When we enter the universe of a story, we’re not looking to correct it or berate it for flaws; we’re there simply to explore and listen. If a reader were to try to redefine the story it’s no longer a story but a work of that specific mind making its form of a story. In other words, in order for a story to be fully used to its extent it must be recreated in the mind with as little individual editing by the psyche as possible. That means no fantasies or delusions while reading. The story has to be taken in as it is given.

With this forming the very basic of a story and idea, this is where the term [I made] “Relative Normality” comes in. This philosophy would show that each individual story has its own truths as defined by the non-real universe that it is in. Relative Normality applies to all fiction, but I’m only going to focus on written stories and literature as it is the easiest to explain, one that I can easily relate to, and it’s a broad spectrum I can pull my own examples from.

With a story’s integrity intact, the universe should form in the imagination where the subconscious and conscious minds seem to collide. The story will form itself there and it will grow with its ideas spread mainly into the conscious part of the mind. The subconscious (not being able to tell what is reality and what is not) will more than likely render the world, people, and some ideals for the conscious mind to readily intake. In short, the subconscious generates the world and its ideals and gives it to the conscious mind, which is what “we” experience.

This is where the idea that each fictional universe has a sense of normality to it that is different from the real and understood world that we live in. Each world will have a sense of what is perfectly fine and understandable. It will have an abstract form of logic to it, which readily defines what is “normal” in the story’s set of predetermined ideals.

In other words, each universe, completely independent of reality, has a sense of what is real that is entirely independent of real life and the “reality” we experience. Understandably, GXC: Starlight (a work of mine that’s nearing the end of early draft stages) works mainly upon the scientific logic of our reality, but it differs in the sense that the events that conspire, the people and things that exist there, do not exist in real life. Those inconsistencies with real life is what “Relative Normality” is. Relative simply meaning that the scope and scale of the entire situation is dependent on how much information is prepared and given to a reader. The Normality means that what exists in that fictional [non-real] reality is normal because it exists there.

The Relative Normality of our real lives would simply be Reality; what we experience through our multiple senses. The Relative Normality of my project Warriors of Chrysaal is that there’s Magick, the use of Magick, new cultures, new races, and new creatures.

What happens with Relative Normality is that in order for there to be the Normality, there has to be the existence of logical order of reality brought in. This means that it is completely impossible for us to develop a story or an idea of nothing but Relative Normality. Our brains are not capable of generating something completely out of bounds of the reality we have experienced, meaning that there has to be at least one iota of reality in there somewhere.

 

Discussing the Relative Normality of GXC: Starlight:

The main approach to Starlight that was taken was that the story was designed to be strongly scientific in its approach to everything: all the way from psychology, to social sciences, to space travel, and down to theoretical physics and abstract logics. Every single thing in there has a form of logic attached to it. For example: the biology behind most of the genetic monstrosities that are used by the main antagonist is identical to what we would experience in everyday life; there’s the DNA, the anatomy, the bodily functions… all the things like that. The way they are handled (viewed objectively, all evidence is falsifiable but there’s physical evidence pointing towards it) follows strictly what the scientific model is. But, the Relative Normality is defined as the new qualities that we humans haven’t seen before, the fact that the stuff is entirely fictional, and the fact that it is all bound within the imagination of the reader.

To sum that up we have this:

1) Relative Normality/Reality Overlap (just “Overlap” for short): The combined efforts of both the reality and the fictional one. This is the story. In the example, it would be the creatures and their qualities.

2) Reality: This is part that is from the real world that is brought into the story. In the example, this would be the scientific method and the course of logic used to create and finalize the qualities of the creature.

3) Exact Relative Normality:  Literally all fictional parts. Everything that does not exist physically in the real world as is, falls into this category. In the provided example it’s the creatures themselves; their existence.

I acknowledge that this does not address the “What is reality?” question. It would not be worth the time and effort to include it.

Random Chance

A mere example of what chance could look like with numbers and colors.

“The only thing that breaks down a mind from its own roots,
is the axe of someone else’s reasoning.”

I look around at the world and observe all the glory it has and all the beauty and extreme attention to detail. I see the blue sky, and the complex clouds compiled from millions of millions of molecules. Eventually that massive multitude of molecules would either condense or fall apart. Below them is the grass, the buildings (the constructs of creatures called humans), the trees, the vast unending oceans… This diverse biosphere called a planet is by far very advanced viewed from space. Closer up, we have the mountains, the clouds, the oceans, forests, plains. Even closer we have animals. Each of those is composed of cells, and the rest is known.

Each representative particle has its own qualities. The planet is in a solar system, at the third ring, within a certain range that’s capable of hosting the specific types of life as we know it. Meaning, the life that we know is only capable of living naturally on Earth. Closer in, the human element is capable of both logical and completely irrational (or completely justified by logic, with the same action and consequences), capable of terror and hospitality, and can control their own future. They have their literal and non-literal concepts, both of which are intertwined in the same basis of thought.

So, is this random chance or the hand of God? As per my understanding, it’s both. I see no conflict between the two. If I was a god (not God Himself), I would design certain qualities and see what would happen on its own. Example: the creation of the Universe from simple particles like atom and all of the subatomic particles smaller than those. That would explain the existence of the Universe, yes? Then, I would develop even more qualities about how these particles interact. And then, given enough time, the known Universe would begin to coalesce. And as things begin to take form, I interrupt everything and make my own imprint on something. My own image. A signature, of sorts. Not to say that this is all my creation, but rather to show that something irregular can exist in a world of regularity.

Humans are genetically the most estranged beasts on the world. Not because evolution put us this way. But because the genetic events that would surround the existence of the humans on a genetic level are statistically impossible to the point it would be ignored as possible. But that’s nonsense, right? Statistics are lies, so let’s move on to the next step. Humans are one of the most complex things, if not the most complex things, on the planet. They are constructs of biological mechanisms of remarkable resiliency. They have developed the rarity of conscious thought, which led them to question their existence.

Stop the music! What? They question their existence? What kind of Darwinistic trait would that be good for? None! Philosophical thought means nothing to nature. In fact it acts as a distraction, but it’s also a tool. But what makes conscious thought? A brain.

A neuron is a very ingenious thing. On its own, it can’t really do much. With other neurons, it forms an intelligence, of sorts. A brain that’s undeveloped, say, in the mind of a feral animal would be one that coordinates the body to make sure the basic survival needs are met. After that it’s the social needs within its population that must be met (not social as in the way it is defined to us humans). And that’s about as far as that goes but it’s different for humans. Humans demand more for their existence. They need a reason to live.

Heh, life is tricky, ain’t it? So, what the next theory that came up next was Social Darwinism. I have no use in explaining that, but I’ll move on to tell you that all the theory did was distract people from questioning the reason of their existence to closing their minds to an institutionalized thought. I said last post that science is only a way of thinking that uses logic and reasoning to define things in a way that make sense to our current ways of understanding when they could very well be completely obscenely different. Well? The population is extremely divided on this way of thinking. Both sides have their extremities that say the other is incorrect, both have middle grounds that don’t care, and each have their respective intellects that see both sides as capable of cooperating. Now, what Darwinistic trait would lead to both sides (that are still the same) to the point where people are exiled and driven to violence to prove that one way of thinking is better. No reasoning there or logic there that would develop genetics the way nature should.

Well, what are humans? Are we slaves to instinctive thought like normal animals, free thought, or are we… slaves to other human thoughts? That last one sounds perfect, and as far as I understand, completely true. Very few humans nowadays will you meet that do not come to specific archetype defined by society. We are trained to see things in black and white when our eyes are fully capable of seeing color. What have we done? Enslaved ourselves in the name of conscious thought, while someone else stands behind a glass window with a remote control. The entire purpose of my writing is to get people to think on their own without any particular way of thinking taking them over. In other words, I want them to be free in themselves without being enslaved by their desires, their basic needs, or by the hands and ideologies of others. And yet here’s my contradiction: If I want people to be free thinking, why am I telling what to think. I like to believe that what I’m saying is pushing people to think all on their own and that puts me in a paradoxical thought loop. Lovely spaces, these loops.

Per my understanding of God, He gave us Free Will. This means I can do what I want and all that jazz, but there are still consequences. Consequences are a part of life and physics, until something else arises. Well? I don’t know. Come to your own conclusions. I think that a conscious mind has Free Will. There’s a meeting point of the two ideologies.

As for the future? That’s unknown to everyone.

Have a good future then.