I liked her better with clothes on.

If I was going to write something to impress a hot chick, this wouldn't be it. But then, I never write to impress anyone, I write for me. And sometimes, I just feel like telling hot girls to wear more clothing. Not because of some high-sounding morality, but because it's actually more attractive.

Hear me out. Here are two pictures of the same actress: (For the record, this has very little to do with Ms. Lawrence, I've never met her, and haven't heard anything bad about her character.)

I find the actress as pictured in the first picture vastly more attractive than I find her in the second picture. There's a single-word explanation, too:

"Drama"

The second picture shows the actress wearing clothes that scream "Drama", while the first shows her wearing clothes that scream "she can handle her own life".

Ladies, guys don't want high-maintenance girlfriends, and we for damn sure don't want a lot of drama in our lives. It's something we'll put up with, if the relationship is worth it, but it's ALWAYS a down-side. Even guys who really enjoy doing lots of nice things for their girlfriends don't want a girlfriend who demands it. That sort of thing sucks all the fun right of the relationship, and pretty soon, we're trying to find a way to break it off, and find a lower-maintenance girl.

The more girls I meet, the more true it seems that the women who spend a lot of time on their image, who wear fashionably sparse clothing, etc, etc, etc, are always the ones who demand a lot from everyone around them, and aren't capable of being there for anyone else.

If you don't believe me, turn on the television, and watch the celebrity news for an hour. You're not going to see people who wear T-shirts and jeans on a daily basis having breakdowns, cheating on each other, and making headlines, it's the folks who wear clothes that scream "look at me! I'm beautiful!"

Girls who wear functional clothing seem to be able to handle their own lives, and that's extremely attractive to guys who have matured past age 14. Functional clothes tend to be worn by people who know that how they look is secondary to what they're doing that day, and that sort of knowledge bodes well for a relationship. It's attractive not because of the raw sexuality of the clothing, but because it speaks of a maturity that would make for a decent relationship.

Just a thought.

(laughter) Then again, nobody in their right mind would try running in the forest in boots that aren't tied, so maybe she's just doing it for the image. Definitely not something people who spend a lot of time in the woods do.

The Philosophical Requirements of an Extant Deity

(For the duration of this post, I consider it irrelevant what specific deities one believes in. God, Allah, Brahma, Shiva, Odin, Quetzalcoatl, whatever, it's not really pertinent.)

I hear a lot of folks talking about whether or not they believe in God. Now, don't get me wrong, that's an extremely important question to ask, but it seems that a lot of people answer that question, then stop there. While the people who decide that no, they don't believe in the existence of God, or a god, or gods, can certainly cease their line of questioning, those folks who decide that yes, God exists can't stop there.

Well, I suppose they could, but that would be a shame, because the real question isn't "Does God exist?", it's "What does it actually mean for God to exist?"

Now, I suppose I ought to define God in a general sense, not a Protestant-Theology sense. God, according to dictionary.com, is: "the sole Supreme Being, eternal, spiritual, and transcendent, who is the Creator and ruler of all and is infinite in all attributes; the object of worship in monotheistic religions."

Heavy stuff. So, if God exists, He is an absolutely powerful being, who has total control over Reality. An absolute ruler, above reproach by the virtue of being all-powerful, regardless of the morality of the situation, or the moral values espoused by God. I'm human. I barely have control over what I do tomorrow, and I can lift about 100 pounds off the floor.

So, what does it really mean that God exists? Well, first and foremost, if God exists, I must know what God is like. If I were to interact with the mayor, the governor, or the president, I would certainly want to know what sort of person I was dealing with. If the president is capricious, I must tread carefully. If the president rewards certain behaviors, or punishes others, I should know this as well. Thus, if God exists, I need to know what sort of Being I am dealing with.

Second, I should do all that I can to conform to the virtues espoused by God. If God rewards loving behavior, I should love everyone. If God rewards trickery, I should be as duplicitous as possible. If God rewards bravery in battle, I should be brave, and seek out battle. If God rewards justice, I should treat everyone fairly, and so on and so forth. This isn't high theology, this is self-preservation. I would certainly want to not only minimize the possibility of my angering God, I would want to be as pleasing as possible.

Third, my devotion would need to be absolute. If God is the all-powerful ruler of all that is, then not being a faithful servant would be an act of rebellion. There's no room for fence-sitting, it's either for or against. The simple fact that God is in total and complete control of everything, regardless of the level of free will involved, would mean that any decision to disobey would be an act of rebellion.

Fourth, if God enacts a system of rewards and punishments, then it would mean that I should attempt to persuade everyone to believe in God as well, so they could reap as many rewards as possible. Likewise, and even more important, I need to try to convince everyone to believe in God so as to avoid the punishments. If the system includes a heaven and/or a hell, defined as an eternal reward or eternal punishment, then this would be of paramount importance.

Five, any message from God, written or spoken, should be studied, analyzed, and obeyed to the last letter. These five things, I believe, are a requirement if God exists. They wouldn't really change from one god to the next. It's not a matter of what the holy book of choice would say, but rather a simple requirement of existing in a universe made by a Creator. If God exists, what does that mean for you?

A One-Way Ticket To Mars

You. Will. Die.

This isn't a bad thing, or a good thing. It's a simple fact of life that life ends. Given a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. It's math. It's basic. It's simple, inevitable, and universal. 

At some point, we should stop trying to stay alive forever, because it's simply not going to work. No matter how much raisin bran we eat, no matter how much we exercise, or how safe of a car we drive, or if we don't drive at all, at some point we'll die. A man in perfect physical health, great genetics, and excellent safety habits can still get hit by a crashing plane.

On the other hand,  we shouldn't be idiots. We should make sure we have good engineers to design our buildings, we should wear seatbelts, and we should most definitely wear helmets when we ride bikes. After all, even though death is inevitable, we shouldn't go about hastening it. We should be smart.

Somewhere in the middle is a balance, and we as a society need to find it. Whenever I turn on the TV, I see a society that's absolutely paranoid about getting old and dying, but at the same time, we're taking self-destructive behavior to an entirely new level. Gotta eat right, gotta work out, gotta have that drink and take that drug. It's so unbalanced it's almost indicative of mental illness on a national level.

It's considered socially unacceptable to plan a lunar or martian space mission that doesn't involve the astronauts landing without a return vehicle already built for them. (There are, of course, other examples of this, but this is the one I'm writing about.)

I consider that unacceptable. Send me. I'm not doing much with my life, and I'm an A&P student.

Are we really so afraid to lose anyone that we are unwilling to risk losing people who would volunteer? People who we could tell, honestly, that we'll be sending them out with the very best technology the world has to offer? That we'll be supporting to the best of our abilities? That we'll be training to the very highest standards?

Every frontier has danger, outer space is certianly not an exception to that. We're not going to get back into space if we're unwilling to take a few risks, and those risks by definition involve death. But then, a lot of folks died during the exploration of the Western US, and nobody will look back and say "Man, exploring Colorado was totally not worth those five guys who drowned in a river."

I am going to die. I could do that on Earth, or someone could send an A&P to Mars to help build a permanent Martian base, and I could die there. Heh, I could die halfway there, when the spaceship gets smashed by a meteorite. It really doesn't matter to me, I won't be able to stop any of it.

Safety isn't unimportant, but it's often overrated. In the end, we're all dead. Let's do something with our lives that benefits future generations, shall we? It might not be safe, but nothing is, so let's do the best we can, with what we have, and make the rest up as we go along.

Hookers, Blow, And Christianity

So, it bears mentioning that the only thing I hate worse than being depressed is making the mistake of telling someone why I'm depressed. If I ever make that mistake, one of two things will happen 95% of the time. The first outcome is if I told a non-Christian that I'm depressed, to which the near-inevitable reply is that I ought to take up a vice, such as smoking or drinking, to take the edge off of life.

I don't actually have a moral problem with smoking or drinking, they're just not for me, because of a family history. So it's pretty good advice, I just can't follow it.

If I tell a Christian, though, then I'm nearly guaranteed to get a checklist of reasons that I shouldn't be depressed, which always culminates in "God has a plan, and you should be at peace with it" or something very similar.

I hate dealing with Christians when I'm depressed. Everything problem that happens in life is apparently supposed to be greeted with a smile, every hardship with light-hearted jokes, and failure to do this is the direct result of not being content with God's Plan. Apparently, if I'm Christian enough, then I won't follow Jesus' example and ask God to change The Plan.

Let me explain a few things: Depression is like having 150 pounds of sand draped over your shoulders. It's not pain, precisely, it's just a feeling of heaviness about life, and it's hard to keep going. To borrow an old phrase, "Life is heavy, man." It's like I'm struggling not to break under the heaviness of life, and I'm weary, and the journey isn't over yet.

Nine days out of ten, I'm also pretty lonely. I always figured that I'd end up married, and maybe I will, but for now, I'm still alone in life. I have lived in three states in the last 26 months, every time I move, I have to make an entirely new list of friends, because I can't hang out with any of the old ones again. It is depressing, I wish I had just one person that would always be with me, just for consistency.

I keep meeting nice girls, and I'm pretty sure that I would make a half-decent husband, but it never seems to work out, and that's kinda depressing as well. I've wanted to be a family man for as long as I can remember, otherwise I've have probably given up.

OK, so there it is, depression and loneliness. Simple enough, I'm hardly the only man in history to feel this way. But can anyone explain why this is such a bad situation that it automatically means I'm not trusting God's plan? That depression is somehow sinful? Can anyone even pull up some Bible verses to defend that position?

I have this opinion that if I've struggled with depression for the last quarter of a century, but have never once tried to self-medicate with alcohol, drugs, or cigarettes, than I'm doing just fine. Nor have I ever tried to commit suicide, written a suicide note, or even planned out a suicide.

And yeah, while I'm lonely, and pray daily that God will provide a wife, neither am I drowning my sorrows in a different girl every Saturday night at a dance club. I'm not out cruising Tulsa's hooker district, paying for sex, and I'm not spending my days or nights looking up porn.

So, I'm still curious, why is such a bad thing to be lonely and/or depressed? Is it causing me to wallow in sin and depravity? To blow my money on chemicals? To chase temporary highs and disposable thrills?

I've struggled with depression for twenty-five years now, and have been hospitalized once. At some point I realized that as long as I'm functional (and I think my 3.9-something GPA proves that I am), then it's simply an inconvenience. At no point has "happiness" ever been a requirement for proper conduct, and being depressed is not a predication towards being evil. Jesus wept, Paul said that he'd rather die than keep on living, and David was a fountain of depressed poetry, so why is my being depressed bad?

Likewise with my loneliness. Am I such a bad person for wanting to not be alone in life, when the Bible itself says that man wasn't meant to live alone? Am I a bad person for saying "Hmm, I want to be a husband, and a good one at that, so now, before I'm even dating anyone, I'm doing my best to have my life squared-away by the time it happens?"

I have no illusions that my depression will ever cease to bother me, but I simply do not care. I will not allow Life to keep me from doing what I feel I should do, and if I'm not grinning ear-to-ear while I'm alive, that's just too bad. Happiness was never promised to anyone in the Bible, nor in the American Dream, so I'm pretty sure it's not a requirement for this life.

What Must Be Done

I, like many other (probably most or all) philosophers, have coined short phrases that have vast amounts of thought put into them, and have a great deal of meaning, but lose most or all of that meaning when translated. Yet these short phrases are how we express our philosophies, because to us they serve as a way of expressing a philosophical point in a sentence, and to fully explain them would require a book.

The Greeks, for example, would say that "All Is Fire", and there was a lot more to that phrase than a simple statement that everything was made of fire. One of these phrases, for me, is "What must be done, can be done, because it must be done."

On the face of it, it sounds either absurd or like a sport-clothing marketing gig. Oh, sure, because something needs to be done, that makes it possible. It sounds like I'm saying that anything is possible, and that anything can be done by anyone.

Yet, that is rather far from the truth, and thus I need to unpack the phrase.

The first step is to examine the word "must" in the first section. "What must be done..." is a very specific clarifying statement. "Must" is an imperative word, and it is important to understand what the word really means, and also what it doesn't mean. That something "must" be done implies that there is a philosophical imperative that it be done, not simply a causal imperative.

An example of this distinction: For an airplane to fly, there "must" be gas in the fuel tanks. This is a scientifically-proveable statement, and cannot be argued with. However, simply because there "must" be gas in the tanks for the airplane to fly, there may be other reasons for the fuel tanks to be empty, and thus the the causal imperative does not become a philosophical imperative.

A philosophical imperative only comes into being when there is something that transcends simple causality and becomes a philosophical matter. When the explosion aboard Apollo 13 destroyed the oxygen tanks, it became a philosophical imperative that the men on the ground solve the matter of providing a solution to the problem of asphyxiation. The "must" of the situation wasn't simply causal, but philosophical ("We are not going to let them die. We are going to bring them back alive."), and the philosophical nature of the situation demanded a solution be found.

Which brings us to the second part of the sentence. "Can be done" should not be taken to imply that the solution is simply possible. If it became a philosophical necessity that I climb Mt. Everest, or get hired as a doctor at Johns Hopkins, that it must be done does not simply make it possible for that to be done tomorrow.

It "can be done" might mean that I spend the next five years training to climb mountains, working out six days a week, and taking every possible measure to ensure a successful outcome. If something becomes a philosophical necessity, then anything that can be done to make it happen should be done. There isn't even a real question of doing otherwise, because of the philosophical imperative nature of doing it demands an extreme level of commitment.

That level of commitment makes things possible that would not be otherwise. People who are totally committed to doing something will find it far easier, in many cases making the impossible possible, than people who are only casual about it. If I casually approach training to climb Mt. Everest, I will find it to be an excruciatingly hard endeavour, and will probably die in a failed attempt. If I am totally committed, then after several years of training, I will be in excellent shape, and will be able to handle the trip.

Which brings us to the final portion of the phrase. "Because it must be done."

Although it is ultimately up to the individual to know why they must do this or that, and I suspect that many people have never bothered to wonder why they do anything, it is the "Why?" that creates a philosophical imperative out of a causal imperative. "Why?" questions are the ones that create the high levels of commitment that make the impossible possible.

Returning to the Apollo 13 example, the "why" the oxygen system needed to be jury-rigged was obvious, and the philosophical necessity of fixing it created an extreme commitment in all of the engineers that approached the problem. Instead of wondering if it could be done, they started with the presupposition that it could be done, and from there worked to find the solution.

Now, it bears mentioning that the "Why?" of a situation is not always known to the individual, and doesn't truly need to be. There have been a great many people who have done great things without knowing why they were so driven to do them. However, the fact remains that because they believed that it must be done, they went out and did it.

To put it all together, what must be done (because there is a philosophical imperative to do it) can be done (because the high level of commitment and effort put towards doing it will make it possible), because it must be done (the philosophical imperative that it must be done requires that high level of commitment).

Freedom

"If you really want to understand freedom, spend a week without wearing a coat in the dead of winter. By the end of the week, you'll understand freedom a lot better."

Of course, that sounds insane. Why would anyone in their right mind choose to not wear a coat when there's snow on the ground?

Well, because they have the freedom to, and they're exercising their freedom. Obviously, there are uncomfortable side effects to exercising one's freedom, and that's the point. They're free to do something, and they did it, accepting the cost of their freedom.

Everyone, everywhere, is free. You *are* free, totally free, to do anything you want, at any point, as long as you have the logistical and physical capabilities to pull it off. Want to climb Mt. Everest? Just do it. Want to rob a bank? Feel free to try. Want to resist a tyrannical government? I wish you the best.

But, you say, "I can't do that! Someone will stop me!"

No, someone will try to stop you. Someone will pressure you, someone may threaten you, but like a man without a coat, you're only capable of being threatened if you care what sorts of discomforts you'll have to deal with. If you don't care if you're cold, does the lack of a coat threaten you?

Being free is simply a matter of not caring what you lose. As the singer said, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." If you're not concerned with creature comforts, you'll never be subservient to the people who control them. The people who are worried about losing their electricity, and their plentiful supply of new clothes, and their bargain-bin junk foods at the local grocery store, those are the people who are slaves.

If you're willing to pay the price for it, you can do anything, absolutely anything, that's within your power to do. Freedom should never have been defined as the level of control someone else has over you, because you're only as controlled as you let yourself be. The men with guns, who "control" other people through the threat of violence only have control because people are afraid of them. If someone stands up to them, and says "Hell, go ahead and kill me, but I'm not going to move unless you do", strange things may happen.

Like a column of tanks stopping for one unarmed man.

He was free. 

The rest of his country isn't.

Freedom is a state of mind, not a political situation.

A few (ANGRY) thoughts on the Eucharist

I was once refused the Eucharist at an Orthodox service I attended with a friend. He's Orthodox, I'm Methodist (mostly), and because I'm not Orthodox, I wasn't allowed to partake of the Eucharist. I've been refused the Eucharist at Catholic services, too, for the record. I don't know the exact reasons they have for excluding me, and personally, I couldn't be made to care.

The reason I don't care is that if we really get down to what Jesus was saying, and who He was saying, there isn't a single person who has the moral authority to refuse to serve the Eucharist to anyone. This is Biblical. Disagree with me? Please refer to Matthew 26:25-29, Mark 14:22-25, and Luke 22:14-23.

Let's take a real close look at who was at that table, shall we? Eleven trusted disciples, and one guy that Jesus knew in advance would betray him. Eleven believers, one traitor. Judas. Neither Matthew, nor Mark, nor Luke depict Judas leaving before the Eucharist was given. So we can say, for certain, that nothing says Jesus refused to serve Judas the Eucharist.

So where, exactly, does anyone in the church get the balls to refuse a believer from a different denomination the Eucharist? Jesus served someone who sold him out for a bunch of coins, but the man with the funny clothes won't serve someone who goes to a church in a converted ice skating rink building?

For that matter, where does anyone even get the balls to refuse to serve a non-believer? Tell me, learned one, if Jesus served Judas, what right do you have to refuse to serve the guy that just walked in off the street? Do you know something Jesus didn't? Do you have more authority than Jesus to choose who can partake of what Jesus called HIS body and HIS blood?

Alright, so they don't have the authority, after all, but a better might be, why do they even want to exclude anyone in the first place?

I mean, if we really think about it, what possible reasons could we have for not wanting a sinner or *GASP* one of those heretical (other denomination inserted here)-types taking communion?

"...this is my blood of the covenant, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."

Just think of all the people we could exclude from being forgiven for their sins! We don't want God saving any of those dirty hippies, and certainly none of those commies, either. That guy with long hair definitely shouldn't be forgiven. That girl wearing clothes that are too revealing obviously needs to be excluded. If we start extending Christ's forgiveness to just anyone, what will happen to our church?

(Father in Heaven, please forgive the previous paragraph. I don't mean it.)

One of my best friends is a stripper. We've been friends for years, and yeah, I've told her on more than one occasion about what I believe, and what Jesus can do for her. Trust me, there is no one in the entire world I want to come to a knowledge of Christ more than her.

I desperately want her at that table. 

Or would they exclude her, because it's wrong to want her seated at Christ's table if she hasn't already been saved?

Do I think that just because she might take the Eucharist, she'd automatically be forgiven? No, of course not. It's not a magic ritual, nor a metaphysical equation. On the other hand, she might just spend the next hour pondering what exactly Jesus meant when He said that it was his blood, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins, and what that meant for her. 

God has worked in stranger ways.

Then again, maybe the long-haired guy and the stripper may just be waiting for a chance to be disrespectful. They'll eat too many cross-stamped communion wafers, they'll take TWO of those single-ounce clear plastic cups we serve the non-alcoholic grape juice in, and then they'll go back home and fornicate without being married in a church, by a preacher. They'd offend God! They'd disrespect our precious traditions!

Which, of course, everyone reading this has done. We've all offended God.

Or maybe they forgot what the Eucharist was really about? It was Jesus explaining to his disciples what He was about to do on the cross. He was pouring His blood out to make a new covenant for us, and He wants us ALL to be a part of it. (1 Tim 2:3-6)

All of us. Not just people in my denomination, but everyone.

Orthodox. Catholics. Calvinists. Methodists. Jews. Gentiles. Pharisees. Pagans. Atheists. Drug users. Homosexuals. Porn addicts. Alcoholics. Strippers. Metalheads. Assholes. Bitches. Jerks. Retards. You. Me.

Everyone. 

My church calls it Communion. Come on in. Grab a cup, and let's partake of the meal Christ has offered us. No matter what you've done, He's willing to forgive you of all of it. It's not really complicated, you just need to humbly ask for forgiveness. It's not easy, I know, but I've been there, and trust me, I'll be there again. I'm not better than you, and if I look down on you, please remind me of what Christ did for me.

None of us are perfect here, but you're more than willing to join us. We'll eat tasteless wafers that we've stamped a cross on, and we'll drink grape juice out of comically small cups. We'll remember that it's got nothing to do with bread or wine, and that it's got a whole lot more to do with us being sinners, and Jesus dying for us.

And when we see someone walk in the door that doesn't look like they belong in a church, we'll know that they're definitely right where they belong, and we'll make sure to offer to share our feast with them.

After all, it happened to us once.