Music Painting Pictures in my Mind

I'm going to talk about music.

I've listened to this song many a time in the last three-four days. I think it's a good example of that genre of electronic music often called "jungle"--which is either the same thing or very closely related to drum'n'bass. Check out this link and locate the "play now" button right below the description to get a sample. By far not all drum and bass sounds like this, but it's stuff like this that doesn't leave me any wonder as to why the genre is so closely related to something called "jungle." The groove just paints a picture in my mind. I recommend listening either a) in headphones or b) at a decent volume for the full effect of the awesomely fun bassline. You may have to get past the initial wall of sound to understand what I'm talking about but I hope you're willing to make the effort. The sample only goes 2 minutes anyway.

Also, while that song's not one of them, let it be known that I'll be bringing home a good portion of the jungle genre's "disco" subgenre with me this winter break.

(For the record I've been listening to the whole song.)

Enjoy, and God bless.

What the Hetts?! #18: This Person Does not Know Me

Facebook applications have gotten way out of hand. I can deal with all the invitations to become a zombie and bite people, or the invitations to join the Jedi in their fight against the Sith or the ninjas in their battle with the pirates. I definitely do use a few of these applications (not so much the "battling" ones, unless Office trivia qualifies.) But...

Someone just sent me an invitation to some wingman application that showed up on my "home-page" thing as a "freecondoms" invitation.

Granted that the person in question doesn't know me ultra-well (we were in separate graduating classes in high school) I'm still sort of at a loss. Almost everything else I've been invited to I might conceivably join. But this just proves that someone being on your friend list really has no relation to whether they know you at all.

I'm going to file this under "What the Hetts?!"

I Hope You Guys Have Seen This

Stephen Colbert is running for President. Here's hoping his...quite over-the-top social commentary has something awesome to tell us about the state of American politics, or at least something funny.

Also, here's an article about a Facebook group started in response to two previous groups: "Barack Obama: One Million Strong for Barack and "Stop Hilary Clinton '08: One Million Strong AGAINST Hilary". These people started one for Colbert and they're almost to 1,000,000 members as of today (as in, I'm looking at the group page a few seconds ago.) I just checked again--and within the last few minutes the group grew 2,000 members.

Granted that nobody's taking the Colbert group or their membership therein quite as seriously as they would with the Obama or Clinton groups, it's still pretty funny that, well, check this quotation from the Colbert group guy:

It's taken Obama's 1,000,000 Strong Group more than 9 months to get 381,000 [384,272 as of my last check] members, We beat it in less than 5 days! We overtook them at 2:25 PM (EST)

Furthermore, It has taken the "Stop Hillary Clinton: (One Million Strong AGAINST Hillary)" more than 8 months to get over 488,000 [as of my last check, 501,675] members. We beat this within 6 days!

That makes me happy. Maybe it shouldn't, but it does. Your thoughts? For the record, the Colbert group we're talking about hasn't even been up for a whole month yet, so far as I know.

Fun with Theology

I had a fun thought today about one of Thich Nhat Hanh's fourteen precepts of the Order of Interbeing. This happened in my Biblical Spirituality class. I will quote the precept as follows. If you can guess what I did to it, please do. At the end of the post you'll see whether you guessed right! This is from the book Peace is Every Step.

2. Do not think that the knowledge you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth. Avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. Learn and practice non-attachment from views in order to be open to receive others' viewpoints. Truth is found in life and not merely in conceptual knowledge. Be ready to learn throughout your entire life and to observe reality in yourself and in the world at all times.

Now, laying aside the fact that I actually have a fair amount of agreement with the "truth is found in life" part, and I do actually respect the idea of dialog between viewpoints and worldviews (though not necessarily Nhat Hanh's idea of dialog), I felt like being mean today, so I wrote something in my book that I'll share at the end.

I'm also going to complain about ridiculously epic course titles in theology.

"Poets/Prophets/Divas/Divines." Name for a course being taught next semester on, I believe, the prophetic and wisdom traditions in the Old Testament. Compare with the NT course offered, "Jesus' Ministry in Gospels."

"Revelation, Reason, Reform: 800-1600." Name for a course going right now about the reformation. For the record I've taken two classes from this professor already, and he's awesome--but his class titles have all contained at least one colon.

"Sages, Singers and Songwriters."
"The Life and Work of Augustine of Hippo." Same guy as R,R,R. I don't remember what but there was more in this title.
"The Drama of Modern Christianity." There was more in this title too.
"Biblical Spirituality: Saints and Sinners on a Journey with God."

Anyway, I'm not putting down any of these professors as professors. They're all what I like to call "smart people." Their class titles are just so epic.

Anyway, here's what I did to poor Mr. Nhat Hanh. I should probably feel bad about this, but I don't.

2. Do not think that the knowledge you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth. [Except math.] Avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. Learn and practice non-attachment from views in order to be open to receive others' viewpoints. Truth is found in life and not merely in conceptual knowledge. Be ready to learn throughout your entire life and to observe reality in yourself and in the world at all times.

Now I'm going to do some more.

2. Do not think that the knowledge you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth. [Except math.] Avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. [Except when your present view is that you shouldn't be bound to your present view.] Learn and practice non-attachment from views in order to be open to receive others' viewpoints. [Unless those others' viewpoints are that you should be attached.] Truth is found in life and not merely in conceptual knowledge. [As said before, I like this. I agree with this.] Be ready to learn throughout your entire life and to observe reality in yourself and in the world at all times.[I agree with this too. Maybe not quite the way it's meant, but I do agree.]

This is me getting out the stuff that I hold inside, for the most part, during class. Also, since when did nonviolence in all circumstances actually become a realistic moral goal?

The Rundown

Here's all the stuff (at least, all the stuff currently in my eyesight) that I ought to get done in order to be academically "on track" for part two of the semester.

Readings:

* The Ball and the Cross (latter half of the book)
* The Power and the Glory (whole of the book)
* Stories of God (getting a start, at least)

Doings:

* Library.doc (computer science assignment)
* Modern Algebra? (The Nord said there'd be an assignment but has yet to post it)
* Research for Dempsey Midterm (due I think November 5th, but I ought to get a start on it.)

And of course I have plenty planned socially, as if plenty hasn't already happened. I also should get to a church sometime this week, because I missed on Sunday morning. That or I just let it go and move on, and make sure to go next Sunday morning.

Two Midterms Down

One to go! Computer Science is tomorrow; I'll be doing a bit of studying and making a "cheat sheet" (we're allowed one side of an 8x11 paper!)

Then comes Fall Break--there's not even a Biblical Spirituality class tomorrow, which means my break starts when the CS midterm ends. Over break I've got a fair amount of work to do, and I plan to hang out with some people.

Theological Pet Peeves; also, a Rejection of my Earlier Thinking

First, a little bit of personal stuff from me, about the softening of one of my pet peeves (and thus its rephrasing on the list, to exclude the item I'm about to discuss. In all honesty this began with my annoyance of the notion of something being treated as a very specifically interpretable mandate when in fact it seemed to me a more general principle. I speak of the interpretation of the phrase "no unwholesome talk" as meaning "never ever ever cuss or swear," with which I take serious issue based on the fact that words are unwholesome dependent only on context. And, if you look at the verse as a whole it seems to point more to the notion of how we treat each other rather than the notion of what words we're using.

Partly using my reinterpretation of this verse (which, by the way, I do not take as a "license to cuss all the time" so much as the thought that we are allowed to in some circumstances and in others should not.) But essentially I took it way too far; now I ought to bring it back. I violated one of the Big Ten, and if you're following this story you know exactly which one I mean.

This is not a concession to those viewpoints which take that verse as a mandate never to use a word that has been defined as "bad" by society. This is however a concession that, perhaps, that has more to do with things than I would like to believe--and that based on my experience I ought to rethink exactly what ethical implications such a verse has for our lives.

So I'm making a list of theological pet peeves. Here's the two big ones:

* A piece of moral code being treated as if it were a Scriptural mandate when in fact it is in truth derived from tradition and not from Scripture.
* The notion that, if good doctrine isn't absolute necessity for Salvation, we ought not to really care all that much about it.

What are your religious/theological pet peeves?

Whoohoo. Time to go do some math.