Treatise: What Made the Red Planet Red? A Theory of Planetary Colonization and What Could Have Been

I have an idea about the possible explanation for how distant, habitable, yet lifeless planets fit into a Biblically Christian framework of cosmic history. It’s based on the three points I mentioned already—the distance, the habitability, and the lack of any evidence of other sentient life among them. I’ll unpack them. First, why should there be any planets that could be habitable by humans, other than Earth, if humans were only planted on Earth initially? It seems like a simple conclusion that, given enough time, we were expected to live on them as well. Otherwise there would be no point in them being habitable, from a purposeful-universe-by-design perspective. But why should they be so far away? Well, the universe itself is vast, so if there were no habitable planets in distant reaches of the universe, then large parts of it would by definition be uninhabitable. And how then could mankind fulfill its role of exercising dominion over all creation?—assuming, with reason, that the Dominion Mandate would be extended from just the Earth to encompassing all of the universe, at some point. It does appear to be the intention that humanity would have,upon fully developing the Earth, have been given dominion over the stars as well, and told to spread out to distant planets so as to govern the entire universe that God created. But something prevented this from happening.

The reason that other planets don’t have life is very simple. It’s not just that we haven’t found it, or that it’s sparse throughout the universe, but that it isn’t there. There are very good reasons for believing that no intelligent aliens exist, or life of any kind beyond the Earth for that matter. Here are a few:

* Sentient aliens would either have spirits or not. If they did not, they would have no hope of life after death. Why would God create self-reflective beings like humans but make them otherwise just like an animal, denying them eternity? And if they did have a spirit, then are they perfectly sinless or sinful? If they are sinless, then they suffer from the Curse which is over all creation, which is unjust to them—what did they have to do with Adam’s sin? And if they are sinful, then they are also fallen, and according to the developed concept of a kinsman-redeemer, needed God the Son to be born as one of them, live a perfect life on their behalf, and die in their place for their sin. So Jesus would suffer and die an untold amount of times for an untold amount of aliens. But the Bible said He died once for all. Is this reasonable? Alternatively, if the Bible doesn’t only restrict the Atonement to humans, (though none of the language implies this to be true), then how would aliens learn about it so as to believe and be saved? And why should humanity have been the one place where Jesus came to be incarnated, and not one of the multitudes of other alien races? These are all important questions to consider before accepting that alien life can coexist, even as a concept, with orthodox Biblical Christianity.

* The Bible strongly implies that everything that was created is for the benefit of mankind. If there were unknown lifeforms on other planets, what good would these do for Man if he couldn’t even know that they were there, much less utilize them? If this doesn’t sound convincing, then what do you make of the utter lack of any mention of other planets or life forms in the creation account in Genesis? The Earth is the only place described where plant, animal and sentient life were created, and at the end, the record concludes with the declaration that ‘thus was (the heavens and the earth, that is, everything) created, in all its vast arry,’ which means that no other life was created elsewhere afterwards. The circumstantial evidence is strong that there are no aliens anywhere. And it is such a strong implicit case, like the Trinity is also, that a scientific test to prove or disprove Scripture would come down to the question of whether alien life will be found outside of earth. If our faith can’t be disproven, it isn’t meaningful. A faithful Christian can with confidence say that the discovery of sentient alien life, such as that in Star Wars, Halo, Star Trek, etc, would invalidate the Bible. And that same Christian would have no fear because of his confidence that that will never happen, because of the strong Scriptural case against it, and his preeminent trust in the Bible as the word of God.

So what prevented mankind from being given the commandment to spread out among the stars and have dominion over them? It’s the same reason Mars is red. Key to the understanding of the universe as it is today, is the knowledge that “all creation groans and travails in birth pangs together,” and the knowledge that that is happening because of Adam’s sin as recorded in Genesis 3. The entire universe is wearing down and breaking to pieces. There is some aspect in which this has to do with the second law of thermodynamics, since it concerns the increase in entropy, that is, disorder, which means that energy tends from more usable forms to less usable forms over time. Stars become dust. Buildings become rubble. It takes energy to maintain things in a specific condition. It takes no energy at all for things to fall apart. It happens on its own. There is one form for a wineglass when its molecules are all ordered together, but an infinity of ways for those molecules to be arranged if the glass is destroyed. Pure statistical probability, then, guarantees that, given the opportunity, things will randomly break down rather than remain in “high energy conformations.” But please note that the second law of thermodynamics describes things like friction and the release of energy due to food digestion. It would be incorrect to say that the law was not in effect at all in the initial creation that God made. But there appears to be some aspect of the universe now—a general trend of decay—that wouldn’t have been the case before.

What’s my point in saying this? Fairly simple. Mars is red because it is rusted. The whole planet is rusted, which means that the whole planet at some point was covered in water. It is an amusing irony that astronomers are willing to posit a global flood on Mars, a planet with nearly no surface water, and none in liquid form, but unwilling to accept the claim of a global flood on Earth, a planet 75% covered in water, to depths of several miles in places. Mars has almost no atmosphere, and it’s posited that it was blown away by solar winds that were undeterred by the planet’s weak magnetic field. Earth’s field reflects charged particles from the sun all the time, which “keeps the atmosphere safe,” and intact. Water evaporates and becomes part of the atmosphere, given temperatures above freezing point. The Red Planet’s water would then have blown away also, and any water that now remains would be the amount that had not yet evaporated when the temperature permanently plunged below zero degrees Celsius.

What’s the point, you ask again? Simple—Mars is red because its magnetic field decayed and its atmosphere was blown away by the intense radiation given off by the sun. And why should the field have decayed rather than maintained at its primeval initial state? May I suggest that God is the one who ‘holds all things together,’ and that while He keeps everything material in existence to this day, has as one consequence of Adam’s sin chosen to remove, partially, His activity of maintaining the creation in pristine conditions? Mars used to have more water than it does today. How much, we can’t be sure, but the channels on its surface are considered evidence of gouging by large amounts of fast-moving surface water. We could have eventually settled on that planet, but even if we can now, it seems like it’s going to be much more difficult on a frozen rock with nearly no atmosphere.

Because of the Fall, the universe is in decay. Because of the Fall, we no longer have the opportunity to settle the universe this side of eternity. We could try, but the end of history as described in Revelation will come long before we get very far at all. What remains is the evidence of the planets that could have been colonized if we had been obedient to God. What remains is a faded picture of what could have been, and what one day may be the reality yet again, for those who repent of their sin (since sin is, after all, why our universe is so uninhabitable and generally messed up) and put their faith in Christ—they will one day live in a new universe, one that won’t see decay. Maybe we can have fun playing a game of galactic colonization with the other saints. Who knows what God has in store for us. But make sure you don’t miss the boat. The Ark was the ‘door of salvation’ to those who survived Earth’s global flood. Now it is Jesus who says, “I am the door…” and will save you from the second and final time that God destroys the Earth. Mars is red, because we sinned. Who would have thought?

~ Rak Chazak

Related reading:

Is the Bible Falsifiable? And Would a Real Live ET do it?
Did God Create Life on Other Planets?
Will We Have Any Work to do in Heaven?
What is a Kinsman-Redeemer? - GotQuestions
The Creation of Planetary Magnetic Fields - CRSQ
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"No Man Is As Polite As You"

Ehm. Not to toot my own horn. I wasn't expecting such a compliment, but that's what made it stand out when I heard it. I'm going to attempt to draw something valuable out of it.

I just began working at a fast-food chain restaurant, and each of the days I was there, there were also two or three Ukranian girls at the fry-station, sandwich area and drive-thru station. I worked the cash register. In the middle of the day, there would tend to be a 'rush,' where there's more than two or three people in line at a time, for an extended period of maybe an hour or more (at our establishment, at least)--this prevented us from being able to talk much initially, not that you should be doing too much of that when you're on the clock, anyway. But over the 5 days we were there at the same time, we had the opportunity to trade some words back and forth. I "impressed" them with showing that I knew the words 'spaziba' and 'dobre utre' (I'm spelling them as they sound to me, not according to any actual standard), which mean 'thank you' and 'good morning.' I learned 'dobre veche' (good evening), 'bon scheuye spaziba' (thank you very much) and was reminded of the word I'd forgotten, 'izviñi,' which means both 'excuse me' and 'I'm sorry.' It' a very utilitarian word, thus. 'Parschallista' means both 'please' and 'you're welcome,' making it very easy to get the words right if you're just learning the language! Specifically, this language is Russian. There is a Ukranian language, but Russian is widely spoken in the country and it's the only thing I heard them speak while they were there.

They were there doing a student work-exchange over the summer. I've run into Russian college students doing that before, when I worked at a summer camp. There was a girl named Vicka who was really motivated to try to experience everything (rock wall, swimming pool, biking) while she was there, and I had the most opportunity to talk to her. Some of the other guy staffers suspected us of being interested in each other, romantically. That wasn't the case. In February, there had been some Thai girls doing a similar exchange at the same restaurant. So it seems that this is a widespread thing, where other countries send students here to work and live for a short amount of time, to have the opportunity to practice their English, interact with actual Americans, and of course see the sights. Always surprised that my small town ever gets the interest of people from far away, I nevertheless enjoy being a part of the impression that these people get of the place when they leave.

Free Use, Wiki Commons

The above graph on the left shows the religious diversity in the Ukraine. White is atheist, and the rest of the colors are mainly sects of the Orthodox Catholic Church. This is typical of European countries of the present time--there tends to be more nontheists than any other individual group in these countries, though there are long histories of the influence of traditional religions, mostly Christian or nominally christian, in those places. I bring this up because while I'm not assuming what the girls I worked with believe, it's nevertheless a reasonable inference to make, that what I was asked was influenced in part by the national spiritual landscape of their home country, irrespective of their personal beliefs.

The "more American" of the girls (spoke better English, not that the others were unable to communicate or anything) spoke up when they were all standing together and we were talking. She said, midst giggles from the other two, that 'no man can be (or is, I forget which she said) as polite as you.' This was after first asking why I was so polite. To me, I was just behaving normally, not putting on an act in order to speak with customers, although maybe putting in more effort to appear cheerful and friendly than usual, but other than that, 'what you see is what you get.' I tried to think of a reason, and gave her that it's just natural to me to be respectful like that, that it's genuine. "No men are as polite as you," she said. And now I come to the twofold impression I gained from the experience:

1. It struck me that this has happened before. It isn't something that contains itself based on geography. I've met many an American girl that treated me with suspicion for no readily explainable reason. Through the grapevine, it's come forth that people sometimes have the impression that I'm putting on a front, not being genuine, that maybe I'm hiding something. They think I'm too nice. Of all the things to have for a problem, right? People think I'm faking my personality because they can't see why I should seem so happy or pleasant to others, particularly strangers. It hurts a little, but I'm more happy that it's because of being too friendly and nice than because I come across as the opposite. I wouldn't be surprised if a great number of potential friendships or romantic relationships were prevented in the past because my demeanor motivated people to be suspicious of me. It's a loss, to be sure, but on the other hand it's inadvertently screened for people who are more confident in themselves and less judgmental of others to be the sort of people that I eventually get closer to. And lest I be remiss, this all is directly tied to my faith--or rather, my regeneration. You can really tell the difference between a saved and unsaved person by whether they have joy or whether they do not. In general, of course. I simply want to affirm that I have the outward personality that I have because I have the inside satisfaction and joy that comes from knowing the answers to the tough questions of life, and having relief in the knowledge that I know where I'm going, I know what my purpose is, and I have a healthy relationship with my heavenly Father. It isn't any more complicated than that. Which brings me to my next point.

2. Shortly after that, the young girl (they were all about 19--at 23, I feel fairly old) asked me if I was religious. For simplicity's sake, I didn't argue about the meaning of the word, and decided to answer 'yes.' I wanted to make myself understood and not confuse her. She responded, "ah, that explains it." A little while after, she asked me if I went to church and I explained that I hadn't had the opportunity to visit during college and currently didn't have a car (see earlier blog post). She said, 'aha, well you're not *really* religious, then,' and this may have been her teasing me and possibly attempting to bring some jocularity into the conversation to draw it away from the serious topic, which people can find uncomfortable, because the other girls laughed at her and implied she was messing with me. I did respond that 'well, if being religious just means you go, sit, and leave, once a week, then yeah, I'm not really religious.' So there you see that I did make a slight attempt to define the term and not imply that I was just your run-of-the-mill lame churchian, or whatever she might have had in the back of her mind because of her prior experience, when she asked.

It was a short but fascinating exchange, to me. My surprise at the declaration by the girl (and the two others emphatically agreed on that point) that I was inhumanly polite can be explained by the fact that there's very few Christians (capital C) around, and consequently most people live the bulk of their lives without really getting to see the fruit of sanctification in another person. So what's the reason why I was so polite and why they were so confounded by my behavior so as to comment on it -- and to declare that no other man on earth was as polite as me, no less? It comes down to Christ and His grace. His gospel. It always comes back to that. He is at the root of it all. 

So that was a little way in which I might have 'witnessed,' recently. Not something extremely remarkable, since I didn't exactly have (take?) the opportunity to share the full Gospel with them, but I'm hoping God will take that memory and use it to bring fruit in their lives when the moment is right in the future.

~ Rak Chazak

Crop Dusting

I caught some pictures of this plane on film camera last year, but when I came back from a morning run one morning this summer, I witnessed this single-engine skimming the tops of the trees directly over our house. I quickly ran inside and grabbed my digital camera and snapped a few shots, but the video was better. Here's what a single pass looked like, from the road:

This is my first video upload anywhere on the internet, (correction: outside of Facebook) so it's going to be interesting to experiment with this and see how it goes.

~ Rak Chazak

Employed!

I've gotten a position in fast food for the time being. My prior experience in the summers of 2009 and 2010 helped me transition in very quickly, and allowed me to be useful. I think I came at a good time, because other people were leaving (more to come in a future entry), and I'm scheduled to work a 36-hour week this week. Hopefully it keeps up.

In the meantime, I'm taking the free moments I have and working on continuing my search on-line for degree-related work.

~ Rak Chazak

Currently in the Works

No promises as to whether I'll actually accomplish the things listed, because some have been on my to-do list for a few months, but then again, I've turned out 3,000-word posts in single days before, so it's possible.

Here's what I'm working on offline, and when I have a stroke of writing inspiration, I finish one off and post it.

* An evaluation of the lyrics to Globus' Europa, to investigate the religio-nationalism of the song.
* A post on whether it's acceptable for Christians to use anonymity or pseudonymity, particularly online.
* Thoughts on dying young/before you expect
* A criticism of how 'honors' programs and societies put stragglers in a Catch-22
* Three poems:
     - Proverbs 31 put to rhyme
     - On preaching the Gospel even if it leads to your death
     - (My favorite so far): A poem exploring whether Christians who care about the souls of their Jewish friends should want to pray for the Second Coming to be soon, or not.

The poems are actually already finished. I'm keeping them on hand to post later in the month. I initially wrote them in snail-mail letters to some friends, and they haven't gotten them yet.

Here's one that I sent a while ago.

The kind of romances that last
Are not the ones we enter fast
But those in which we patiently
Engage the other healthily.
And when we think we've found our love
We must take note, we're not enough!
To satisfy a human heart
We need to bid our God take part.

'til next time!

~ Rak Chazak

"60s Girl Grooves" on PBS

I've admitted before that I only have broadcast television at home. This means that I sometimes get to see interesting things that I didn't know about because I don't have a choice in the matter. If you have the freedom to choose to do whatever you want, you may choose to refuse to do some things on the basis of not knowing that you would actually like to do them. So not having total freedom of choice can be a good thing, sometimes.

In this particular case, I tuned in to PBS and saw that they were advertising a series of music videos and tracks of hit songs by girl bands from the 60s. The title to this post gives the name of the program. I myself am a stalwart 80s person when it comes to the style of music I like (not necessarily the lyrics...you'd be surprised how many of them talk about sex, euphemistically, if you haven't stopped to think about it before). Nevertheless, I recognized quite a few of the songs I heard. But what I was most intrigued by was not the music, but the women themselves. And not in the way you might expect of a guy in his 20s.

I was shocked by how they were dressed. Having not lived through the '60s, I've often heard about how the '60s was the decade of the Sexual Revolution, when modesty was thrown out the window. If you've heard of Hippies, this is the heyday of when they roamed the earth. Anyhoo, what I hadn't realized was that if modesty was lost in the 60s, then it must have been had, initially, in order to be lost. So in the early part of the 60s, you should expect to see evidence of modesty rather than immodesty. This is what I saw in the music videos.

Allow me to emphasize this observation: almost all of the videos shown on the broadcast depicted the performers covered from ankle, to wrist, to neck, with no skin showing in between. Only one had shorts that ended above the knee, and even she had a one-piece getup that covered her arms to the elbows. The "most undressed" of all were the ladies who had their arms uncovered:

Look at that! How scandalous.

Above are the Supremes. One might imagine when hearing the name of their hit, "Heatwave," that one should see bikinis and dancing on a beach. Nope. I couldn't find any still shots on line, but they were dressed ankle-to-wrist in whatever-they-call-those-things. I was stunned. 

Beyond the get-ups, their motions as they performed were extremely restrained by comparison to musical mainstream artists today. Again the 'guilty party' were the Supremes, who moved around the most on stage of all the artists that were featured. Guess what they were doing? Swaying their hips. Oh man. Yes, most of the artists stood still and maybe turned side to side or snapped their fingers with the beat. It was SO WEIRD, coming from a world where I've been able to see the dance moves of pop stars on television and on Youtube, which by and large utilize armies of sex-specific (depending on the performer's sex, that is..it's the opposite in the) backup dancers, elaborate sequences of choreographed steps and typically even a striptease or hip-thrusts that would put Elvis-the-pelvis-Presley to shame...or is that, 'to dignity?'

I ate it up. It was fascinating.

The 60s was only 40 or 50 years ago, depending on which end of it you're counting from. When you see what a difference that period makes in a culture's sense of acceptable attire--and stage performance behavior--it can make you wonder, what will the next 40 years look like? Will things become even more licentious? Or are we going to experience a bounce-back? A rebellion against the rebellion to the old culture, which has become the new culture? One hopes. Call me crazy, but I think I enjoy the type of artistic atmosphere that promotes female talent based on their musical skills and not their willingness to behave in shocking ways in order to "please" a crowd. 

I've always thought t-shirts and shorts looked better than string bikinis, anyway.

~ Rak Chazak

Time to Get Critical: Mandisa’s “Stronger” and “Overcomer”

Abstract

Mandisa is a popular CCM artist but her two most recent songs are poor influences. They encourage listeners to focus on their own abilities and to seek power to overcome difficulties inside themselves, rather than trusting in God for help. The songs make inappropriate guarantees of end to difficulty, and relegate God's role in our suffering to the sidelines, as someone cheering us on rather than leading us through it. For these reasons, I discourage everyone from listening to or promoting those two particular songs. Their melodies are no substitute for their lacking content.

Analysis

                I don’t know this particular artist, I can only judge the subject matter of the songs that are aired constantly on my local Christian radio stations. Their frequency implies that they are very popular, and so I think it’s important for there to be an analysis of them on the Internet somewhere. I’ll do my best to give them a fair treatment here.

                The songs are not blatantly anti-Christian, and in fact have a few references to Biblical doctrines (the latter more so than the former), but these would be easily missed by the Biblically illiterate main stream christian crowd, and especially any nonbelievers who might be listening in. The songs unfortunately fall into the category of CCM (Christian Contemporary Music) that can be summed up as “self-help encouragement.” The problem is not that it attempts to make people feel good, but that the emphasis is far too often on some alleged inherent capacity in the individual to “be great,” rather than on relying on God for blessings.

                Now I’ll look at a sampling of the lyrics. Here is the chorus from “Stronger”:

When the waves are taking you under

Hold on just a little bit longer

He knows that this is gonna make you stronger, stronger

The pain ain’t gonna last forever

In time, it (can/will) only get better

Believe me, this is gonna make you stronger, stronger

As is common when I write the longer blog posts, I’m not online as I write this, and so I can’t remember the entire song’s lyrics (repetitive as they are), but here is an excerpt from the second verse:

Try and do the best you can

Hold on (for as long as you can/and let Him hold your hand)

Go on, fall into the arms of Jesus [**the only reference to Him by name in the entire song]

whoa oh oh

****** (I can’t remember this line)

Even if you cannot feel Him

I promise you that He still cares

(chorus)

                All right. So what’s wrong with that? Let me count the ways: 1) emphasis on what you do, not what God has done for you or will do through you, 2) unBiblical promise that pain will go away (the song does not imply it will end in heaven), 3) unBiblical view of sanctification, 4) distant view of Christ as someone on the sidelines cheering you on.

                And the part that bothers me the most is the most subtle: “He knows that this is gonna make you stronger.” The He knows part galls me. Why? Because it says that whatever you’re going through is going to make you a better person somehow, and the only role Jesus has in the whole situation is to know that that’s the case. He apparently DOES nothing, just watches you suffer. At most, the song implies that Jesus tells you that it’s going to get better. But He doesn’t actually help you. The lyrics frame Christ as either unconcerned, sadistic, or impotent. Combine this with the end of the last line of the second verse: when I first heard the song, it sounded as if it would naturally end in, ‘Even if you cannot feel Him, I promise you that He’s still there.’ But according to this song, Jesus isn’t even present with you in your afflictions. He “cares,” but “Stronger’s” Jesus doesn’t ever show it. He’s like the estranged grandparent who lives in the next town over and sends $20 and a generic Hallmark card on birthdays but never visits or calls. I don’t want a God who “cares.” Personally, what has always made most sense to me is to have a God who “knows.” Because since He is omniscient, that means He knows all about my problems, and He knows the best way to answer my prayers. I can trust such a God. But a God whose main emphasis is on emotion divorced from rationality is a scary thought. What good does it do if God, or anyone, “cares” but doesn’t help you? The problem I have with this is that emotions, in the present culture, are viewed as chemical sensations and not as goal-motivators. When I say that God cares, it means that He’s actively being intimately involved in your personal struggles and is guiding you through them for His glory and your good, as the Bible says. When the Culture says “God (or anyone) cares,” it means that He feels bad for you – but that’s the extent of it. In the contemporary view of emotion, God caring about you doesn’t mean anything! It does nothing for you! So how, then, can this possibly be encouraging to someone? I affirm that it can’t. And so the song, though it seems aimed at being encouraging on its face, really plants seeds of discouragement in the listener. Because what happens after a person has been struggling for 30 years, wondering every day when their affliction will end, and all the time people are telling them “hey, God cares.” They’ll despise the gesture. It’s as meaningless as saying “Jesus loves you” because people don’t know what love IS. We need to explain these things, we can’t just throw them out. And sadly, the context of how the words show up in this song confirms that the “encouragement” is empty.

                Do I have a Bible verse to justify this with, so I’m not just throwing out my opinion? You bet. And this is what I challenge the people who say “God cares” frivolously with:

“Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?”

James 2:15-16

Upcoming Blogs

My schedule is variable, as you can tell by the upload dates over the past two months. I'm working on some longer posts that I'll put up later this month, when I've completed them. And I've got two new poems, which I must say at least one of is really good! I promise it'll be good reading.

Meanwhile I'm working on trying to get employed, exercising regularly, and helping out around the house. As things happen in my life, I'll keep this place updated. See my first blog post for an explanation of the purpose of this blog.

Stay tuned!

~ Rak Chazak

A Brief Thought On the Word Glorious

God is glorious, we know that. But the word 'glorious' is often used for such things as a beautiful sunset or other thing that causes us to be amazed. I wondered, linguistically, what the connection is. Because if 'glorious' means 'possessing glory,' it would definitely apply to God, but I'm uncertain that it would be a wise thing to say of material things or human events. On the other hand, if 'glorious' means 'revealing the glory of God,' then it can both apply to God and things. And more than in the former case, the word must necessarily refer to everything, because everything in creation reveals the glory of God (Psalm 19:1-4, Romans 1:18-20). 

I like that. An unbeliever may certainly use the word 'glorious' with different intention, but for me, since everywhere I look I can see God's glory revealed, I can happily declare that the sunrise, the stars, and even "mundane" things like a cold shower or a political victory, are glorious, because they all point back to God, for the one paying attention.

~ Rak Chazak

Follow-up on the Last Blog Post

Elizabeth and I seem to have been thinking the same thing. I wrote a short little comment on how the Spirit accomplishes sanctification and what role material things play in that, and just yesterday she posted an article reflecting on how the Spirit interacts with us in general. 

I'll link it here. It's very good (just 1900 words or so :) ) http://the-end-time.blogspot.com/2013/07/how-are-we-led-by-spirit-and-how-does.html 

If this line of thinking interests you, I highly recommend the fiction book, The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis, for more examples and thought experiments. The book is written as a collection of letters from a 'senior fiend,' or something to that effect, to his subordinate, and it explores the relationship between mind and body, in particular the relationship between spiritual influences (good or evil) and our minds.

~ Rak Chazak

Does Sanctification Come Through Experiences?

The following is based on the article 

Is Christian journaling good or bad? Is it a 'spiritual discipline'? Is it part of 'spiritual formation'?

From the blog, "The End Time."

            In her article, Elizabeth discusses the unbiblical practice of “journaling” as a mysticist endeavor to ‘allow God to speak to you,’ etc etc. She makes repeated (true) statements about sanctification that I wanted to reflect on for myself. She says that sanctification doesn’t come from something you do, or an experience you have, it comes from outside yourself—from God. Definitely true. But I think I need to be more specific and say that, logically speaking, God surely can use material/temporal conditions to effect sanctification. Just as God works through the Christian witness to reach the Lost, God can (meaning two things: He isn’t required, and He is able to) work through our thoughts, actions and life experiences to sanctify us. Thought experiment: if we were to reject that idea in totality, it would imply that our interaction with God is completely divorced from physical reality. But none of us exist in a void. We see, we feel, we experience things and think about them. What do we pray about if not other people, ourselves, and God’s kingdom—all things which are only contemplatable through our personal experiences with external stimuli? How do we experience spiritual personal growth if we do not have a real world to measure our development against? We don’t exist apart from everything else; we are intimately connected with the world we live in and we are definitely both affected by things that happen in it, and can effect things to happen in it. But note, this is distinct from those things being inherently sanctifying themselves. Can God use a tough personal trial to sanctify you? Absolutely. Can a person go through a tough personal experience and experience no sanctification whatsoever? Definitely. So what’s the difference between whether you can be sanctified through a given experience/thing, or not? It is God, and only God. This is consistent with the Biblical truth that God can use evil things for good. The evil things are not good, and they do not benefit you spiritually (sanctify you). GOD, however, can operate sovereignly through evil and accomplish sanctification in spite of it. Thus, my holistic summary of sanctification is that we as individuals are certainly able to be influenced by our environment, and even our own thoughts, but whether these things will produce a positive spiritual result or merely a temporary mental/physical one depends utterly on to what extent the Holy Spirit is involved in them. The conclusion, then, is to always pray that God will use the things that you do, think, and experience every day to grow you spiritually and sanctify your soul. You will always have interactions with the material world in this life. Why allow for the possibility of unsanctifying experiences? Ask God to ensure that the things that happen to you will be 100% for your good, and that He prevent the occurrence of things that are detrimental to your spiritual growth, even if that involves something in your thoughts. Then you can go about your day with confidence, knowing that God is intimately ‘ordering your steps,’ and making every possible opportunity into a learning experience.  

I think I’ve agreed with Elizabeth’s view as summed up by this statement she makes: “But doing journaling or not doing journaling doesn't hinder or help the Lord's Providential working in our lives.” 

Final thought from the Bible: Philippians 2:12-13: “Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill His good purpose.” 

~ Rak Chazak

I figured I would addend to the bottom, here, a relevant article by John MacArthur that was just recently posted. 
http://www.gty.org/blog/B140702 -- The Apparent Paradox of Sanctification

"The truth is that sanctification is God’s work, but He performs it through the diligent self-discipline and righteous pursuits of His people, not in spite of them. God’s sovereign work does not absolve believers from the need for obedience; it means their obedience is itself a Spirit-empowered work of God."

Treatise: Time Well Wasted

Treatise: Time Well Wasted

       If I told you that I’d wasted my time, after talking to you or spending a lot of time with you etc etc then it wouldn’t necessarily be an insult. A waste of time says nothing about the means by which the time was wasted. Time can either be spent well or spent poorly. This has to do with what you did with your time. And time is either wasted or not wasted. Wasting has to do with what you didn’t do with your time. Your time was wasted if you had something important to do that you didn’t do, because of whatever you did instead. And what you did instead could have been productive just as easily as it could have been unproductive. Therefore, it is quite possible to waste your time well. I have often done this in the past, and so I consider time spent talking to people and building relationships, when I could be studying something or working on an ongoing project, to be time well wasted. 

        Let me tell you how I came to have this opinion. When I was saved/’reignited’ (God knows the difference) in the Spring of 2010, I was drawn into a continual process of “self-learning,” self simply by virtue of the fact that I alone sat at my computer and followed the indications of my curiosity (which, like the conscience, is one way that I believe God’s Holy Spirit works through us to guide us to truth. In my experience, resolving a question has many times led to the discovery of a profound Biblical doctrine, scientific factoid, historical account, or mode of reasoning that has benefited me as a growing believer, and so I try to pray that God will manipulate my subconscious mind to lead me to think His thoughts after Him, so that I can “follow ‘my’ instincts,” knowing that they are His leading). I would spend several hours a day clicking links and reading extensive articles on websites such as Answers in Genesis, Christian-ThinkTank, Tektonics, TrueOrigin, ApologeticsPress, and later GotQuestions, Answering-Islam, and others. I discovered many sites after a time, but these were the key ones in the beginning, by which I learned vast amounts of apologetics and wrestled through the initial phase of wanting to verify to remove the chance of doubt returning. I believe I spent over 100 hours between mid-March and late May, absorbing and processing huge stores of Biblical information. A full half of those were consumed in the mid-period by a thorough analysis of “errors” in the Bible, to be able to consciously confidently accept that the Bible is inerrant. 

       The consequence of spending all this time researching Biblical Christianity was that I wasted the remaining time that I had not already wasted by oversleeping, playing video games, arguing on discussion forums, eating, watching movies online, etc, so that there was very little time to study, and my grades consequently suffered. Time wasted, but was it not well spent? Can time be any better spent than worshiping God, reading His Word, learning about Him and the world that He created, and in turn sharing it with others? I don’t think so. But can you nevertheless spend so much time simply learning about God that the other aspects of a life pleasing to Him, such as communion with other Christians, witnessing to the Lost, and the godly aspects of a life of personal responsibility, involving personal growth and academic, professional and civic success (by God’s standards) – that these aspects atrophy? Of course. And I believe that I began to do that then, and continued it without exercising the self-control I needed until about Summer 2012. 

       I’ve been getting better even since, and am now ‘taking a break’ (comparatively speaking) from all the reading I’ve done online, and am focusing more intensively on my professional development, and with having fellowship with other Christians. But looking back, I conclude that I wouldn’t have gotten to this point of spiritual maturity that I’m at now, if I hadn’t put in the long hours over the past three years to study and learn from those older, wiser, more knowledgeable and experienced than I. So was it time well spent? Absolutely. Therefore I consider it time well wasted. It was only ‘wasted’ in the sense that there were other things I could have been doing at that time, which suffered from neglect. But it was time well spent because I’ve now become highly prepared for future trials of faith and whatever ministry God has planned for my adult life. I feel nothing if not ready…confident. Now I can turn my energies toward things I’d semi-left behind in the meantime, and not worry about there being any loose ends. 

        I think that Satan and his workmen like to use the opposite method of Genesis 50:20 and attempt to use what God has intended for good and pervert it for evil. God can never be fooled this way—but we can, if we’re not careful. Is doing something good a good thing? Self-evidently so, yes. But can a good thing be done in a wrong way? You bet. For me, studying the Word and ‘loving God with my mind,’ as the Greatest Commandment reads in part, was my “good,” and neglecting to exercise self-discipline with respect to prioritizing my time between things with deadlines and things without was my “bad way” in which I did it. The question is, where should the line be drawn between continuing to do a particular good, and stopping it lest you do it to the exclusion of other goods? Everyone must decide for themselves on a case by case basis. If you must waste time, waste it well. But it is better not to waste it at all. 

~ Rak Chazak

Extreme Tedium

Tedium is just a 'smarter sounding' word for 'tediousness.' And I like how it evokes the word 'medium,' as in a 'means, substance or force' through which one travels, as if to figuratively imply that tedium is like a thick soup of boredom that one has to slog through and risks getting stuck in. That's how I feel about job-searching on the internet. 

The internet is a great thing in the sense that it allows us to reach out to an infinitude of bits of information, in this case career listings. But the internet has so much stuff in it that your browser can become glutted by useless information that initially seemed promising but in the end is just a waste of time. I bet there's a brain-chemistry relationship between the impulse hoarders feel and the sensation "normal people" (a mythical creature no one has ever seen) have when we abuse the "open in new tab" function as we search youtube videos or articles that cater to our interests.

In the case of jobs, I'm not terribly addicted to clicking on link after link, so the same mechanic that leads to an enjoyable waste of time now leads to an unenjoyable waste of time. Alas, this is a "necessary evil," in the sense that what is evil is what annoys you. Doing stuff you don't get a thrill from doing (while looking for jobs, incidentally) is a good preparation for working a steady job in the future, when tedium is to be expected. 

I just made myself laugh.

~ Rak Chazak

Has Al Mohler Gone Soft?

Has Al Mohler Gone Soft?

With the muddling done by several longtime conservative pastors in recent years, and the seeming loss of Evangelicalism’s ability to draw lines between Church and Culture, it’s encouraging to be able to look toward a few staunch teachers and hope that they continue to remain unshaken. There’s a big temptation for high-profile leaders in the Church to capitulate in the realm of language in order to appear less offensive to whoever’s listening. But as has been abundantly demonstrated by watchdogs such as Answers in Genesis and Wretched, once the door of compromise has been cracked, it isn’t long before it’s pushed open further, and eventually thrown wide. Walking back “offensive language” comes before walking back “offensive convictions.” It may begin with good intentions, but it never ends the same way. Similarly, making non-doctrinal compromises—social, political, etc—precedes compromises on theological doctrines, and that’s what I want to speak about today.

                One of the ‘big guys’ in American Christendom is Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and his blog is located here. He’s one of the pastors of the Church who’s visible on the national level and has a large online presence as well. Most of his writing is powerfully on-point and not theologically wishy-washy in any sense. And as I indicated at the end of the opening paragraph, I didn’t read anything that looked like theological compromise. Nevertheless, a recent article he wrote, commenting on the Zimmerman trial verdict, gave me cause for concern.

“[T]he editors of The Washington Post got it exactly right when they declared that “the central tragedy of this case—the death of a 17-year-old boy who had been on a simple errand to get snacks—remains.” ”

                Something about this bothers me, and it’s not that Dr. Mohler lauds a liberal publication. In fact, he frequently comments on headlines from the New York Times, and I don’t see anything fundamentally wrong with that. I imagine he does so to “keep his finger on the pulse of the culture,” as one might say. You can’t communicate with the world you’re in if you don’t know what the world is saying, and the NYT is one of the more widely-read papers in the US, so I understand that. But I hope that Dr. Mohler doesn’t only get his news from the Washington Post, New York Times, and similar outlets, for the same reason that I understand the purpose in reading them in the first place—they belong to the culture. They can’t be considered reliable sources of information by Biblical Christians, because the entire worldview from which those publications operate is hostile to Christianity and the Bible. Indeed, how to get reliable news in a world like this is a question worth spending more time on, so I anticipate writing a future entry on that subject.

                What bothers me about what Dr. Mohler wrote is that he seemingly unquestioningly goes along with the main-stream media narrative, namely that of the “innocent victim sweet little boy who was mercilessly gunned down for doing nothing wrong,” that I’ve become nauseated by hearing from the broadcast television that I have access to, day in and day out. Now, obviously Dr. Mohler didn’t say that, but the phrase “simple errand to get snacks” implies an agreement with the underlying narrative of Trayvon’s utter innocence. Stop for a minute, and question whether I’m overreacting or reading things into this. I do not believe I have. Consider how thoroughly the abovementioned narrative has permeated the “news” coverage of the trial, and one must realize that if you are saying the same things as the media has been saying, then the only way to demonstrate that you are not agreeing with the implicit unspoken premise is to distance yourself from those statements by making contrary statements, to establish a concrete difference of viewpoint. Otherwise one would reasonably conclude that by the absence of such, Dr. Mohler is agreeing wholeheartedly with whatever opinions have been published in the Post since the story became news a year and a half ago.

                In support of the view that the WP and NYT have not been forthcoming with accurate details about the trial is Dr. Mohler’s paragraph that I have reproduced below.

“I do not want to become one of [the pundits]. This nation needs a deep and intensive conversation about racial profiling, self-defense laws, and a range of issues related to this tragic case. It is dangerous to be a young black male in America. It is true that a young black man is far more likely to be killed by another young black man in this country. Trayvon Martin was killed, however, not by another African-American young male, but by a man who in a 911 call declared Trayvon was suspicious and out of place and then rejected the police dispatcher’s order to stop following him.” [emphasis added]

                Two things: one, Dr. Mohler makes two neutral statements followed by one that brings some perspective, but has not received airtime except by conservative pundits, incidentally. I say this not to criticize Dr. Mohler and suggest that he’s being a pundit—I’m saying it to balance out my concern over whether he’s trying to please a certain audience by going along with the culture current. This statement that black men are “far more likely” (I believe the numbers are 94% or higher) to be killed by other black men than by any other sex or ethnicity, is a politically incorrect statement, and I’m glad Dr. Mohler made it here. It indicates his continued willingness to speak unpopular truths and not be cowed by, in this case, race-hustlers.

                The other thing is this: that statement is essentially the only place in the entire article where one might get a hint of whether Dr. Mohler actually disagrees with the agitators like Al Sharpton, because in the rest of his article, he speaks much the same language as those on Al Sharpton’s side have been speaking in interviews for weeks on television. I’m worried that Dr. Mohler unfortunately underemphasized the “pushback” to the media narrative, and overemphasized an attempt at sympathy, to the point of possibly appearing to completely agree with the race-hustlers, if one of them were to read his article.

                Dr. Mohler states as fact that Zimmerman “rejected the police dispatcher’s order to stop following him.” This is sadly impossible to know for sure, at best, and quite possibly completely false. According to the recorded call Zimmerman made, he was asked if he was following Martin. He replied that he was, at which point the dispatcher said, “okay, we don’t need you to do that.” Zimmerman responded, “okay.” This means that Zimmerman was already out of the car when he was told not to follow Martin, and according to his own testimony, was returning to the car, in compliance with the dispatcher’s statement, when Martin attacked him. NOT that he blatantly disobeyed an order and left the car to pursue, after being told he should not. A further point of note, one is not legally obligated to comply with a 911 dispatcher’s requests, even if this particular operator’s statements could be parsed as an “order.” This is what alarmed me the most, because it seemed to me upon reading this that Dr. Mohler has also, as many of us have been before, become a victim to a deceitful media establishment and failed to be aware of the facts of the case due to their omission in reporting. **

                I want to make a very clear statement, here, and it is that I am not motivated by the idea that I could ‘make a name for myself’ by ‘challenging’ one of the big theological leaders of the day. I know that delusions of glory can drive a person to become a persistent critic who never seeks resolution, only conflict, for the purpose of gaining attention, or a following, for himself. I’ve seen it before, and am well acquainted with being on the “criticized” end of that game. My twofold purpose in writing this post is to express my concern about ‘the way we talk about things,’ in general, hopefully giving readers something beneficial to think about, and secondly to ask Dr. Mohler to be more clear—like he usually is—in how he writes about “hot-button topics,” so that he doesn’t waffle about the issues. In keeping with this purpose, I’ve sent Dr. Mohler a courtesy email to inform him that I’ve written a blog post “critiquing” him, so that he can read it if he wishes. I doubt my little blog would make him feel the need to publish a response, but then again, that’s not my decision to make for him. I just would like for him to hear my voice. I realize that pastors don’t exist in a vacuum, they’re men like the rest of us. I’ve heard a political slogan that goes, “who watches the watchers?” It refers to government without oversight. When there are no checks or balances, the whole system becomes unbalanced. In a similar vein, “who helps the helpers?” Aside from God, there’s no one on a theological level above shepherds of the flock. So the pastors can either get feedback from other pastors, or otherwise “the little guys,” members of their church, denomination or the Body of Christ generally. Therefore, though it may feel insolent—whether it is or not—I believe it’s my responsibility to give feedback to church leaders when I think I have something worth saying, and so I make the attempt to do so. The worst thing that can happen is that I’m not listened to. 1 Timothy 5:1 says, “Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father.” It is my hope that this is what I have accomplished, here. Church leaders need our encouragement and exhortation, too. I hope this rationale doubles to serve as a motivation for others to do likewise, responsibly.

                Now to finish up. I have to quote this next part as a section, because it wasn’t any individual word that was out of place, simply that the thing as a whole makes me think after reading it, “what was that about?”

“The central tragedy remains. A smiling 17-year-old boy who had gone to a convenience store to buy a soft drink and a snack was shot to death, and we will never know exactly how or why. We just know that it is an unspeakable tragedy. It is a moral tragedy that even the best system of justice cannot remedy, much less restore. It is a political tragedy, a cultural tragedy, and a legal mess. But far more than these, it is the tragedy of a boy now dead, of parents and loved ones grieving, and of a nation further wounded, confused, and tormented by the color line.
I think of the young black men on the campus I am honored to lead. I think of the faithful black parents whose families I so know, love, admire. I think of what they have to worry about that I never have to think about. I think of the conversations that must come for our nation and for our churches.But most of all I am thinking of those parents who have to have that talk I never had to have with my son. I pray and yearn for that day when those conversations will not be necessary. May God watch over every single one of them, for they, starting with Trayvon Martin, belong to all of us.”

                It just seems…airy. A lot of feeling words that don’t seem to be making a coherent point – which wouldn’t be a problem, if it weren’t for the fact that the article implies that it’s intended to make some sort of point… I’m so used to seeing this sort of vacuousness in heretical writings like “A New Kind of Christianity” and Rob Bell’s ‘I have no idea what I’m doing, so follow me’ mental vomit, and it bothers me that the writing style of the above paragraph mimics theirs—moving around and hard to nail down as being “for” something concrete. I’m super thankful that this isn’t about theology and doctrine, but it’s about a sensitive cultural issue that could sure use clarity rather than…whatever this is.

  

                I should also mention that I thought a similar way when I listened to Dr. Mohler’s radio interview with Jimmy Carter, within the last year. Despite Carter having very unorthodox views, Dr. Mohler didn’t challenge him on any of his beliefs, and they appeared to be chumming it up over how Carter’s been teaching Sunday School in his particular congregation. I can’t help but wonder if Dr. Mohler was a bit wary of questioning Carter’s inconsistencies – remember, this was an interview! – simply because he carried the label of Baptist. This is in the back of my mind as I’ve been writing about this recent article.

                What would have been better? Instead of being an antagonist, I’ll offer an alternative so that my criticism is constructive: I think it would have been good if the article had included something to the tune of saying that yes, there is a real sensitivity about race among many people in this country, but drawing a distinction and saying that the focus should be taken off the Zimmerman trial totally, so that we can focus on the real issues that contribute to this problem in the culture. There is an obvious attempt by many to use Zimmerman as a scapegoat, as a target for the release of rage over race, and as if by destroying him, the problem can be fixed. It can not. It would have been great if Dr. Mohler would have said something to this effect, though with the much better tact that he has. He did say that the legal issue of guilt was distinct from the moral issue of race, but I would have hoped that he’d gone farther, and said that the moral meta-conflict of racism in this country is distinct from the side question of whether Zimmerman or Martin (ironically, no one in the popular media seems to be questioning the latter) were racially biased in any of their actions that night. The bottom line is that the Zimmerman trial has been a media side-show from the very beginning, intended by political and media elites to as a diversionary enterprise to distract minority blacks in America from questioning what the real source of their difficulties are. I don’t expect Dr. Mohler to necessarily agree with my political view on this issue, but he seems to at least understand where I’m coming from when he implies that the problems for the ‘black community’ are mostly internal (that most black murder victims are victims of other black males). However, I would hope that he wouldn’t, in the future, allow racially-motivated grievance-mongers (sorry, I couldn’t think of an unoffensive way to say that) to interpret his statements as indicating that he’s “on their side.” As a final reiteration, Dr. Mohler’s article is far from being even close to a “bad” article, but in case his emphasis on sympathy and lack of emphasis on drawing clear lines to define the discussion are indicative of hesitance on his part to confront the culture in one arena, I wanted to write this to make clear whether or not that is or will be the case. “Set the story straight.” “Nip it in the bud.” I hope I haven’t come across as rude or insolent, but deeply desire for any readers to consider how they use words to communicate with the gamut of people in the potential internet audience.

Thank you.

~ Rak Chazak

**Any inaccurate information is solely the result of a personal failure to recall correctly, or fact-check the details before publishing, and is not an attempt to sway public opinion by being deceitful or misleading. I welcome corrections to the summary I gave, if a reader is willing to leave a link to an authoritative source of information in a comment on this post.

Personal Life Updates

Different people who read blogs read for different reasons. So I figured I'd make a short post telling about some things that have gone on with me this summer (not extremely personal, but then, we all have different standards for that, don't we?).

I had my first ever "conference call," when I called up my insurance company to see if it was they or the provider that had goofed up the insurance information. There were three of us all on the line simultaneously. So cool! I want to know if it's possible to do the same with a standard phone, because that was really useful. Or could be, for a variety of purposes.

I helped my mom move in a new couch. My brother got the older one, and whoever moves out first, says mom, gets to take it with them. That may be a trick, considering that upon moving out, it's unlikely one would have a big place, and so they may not have room for the couch!

My county fair out in Nowheresville, Nothingburg had some "KJV-only" guys there handing out material (including jolly ranchers, yum!). I butted heads with them a little and it didn't look like I was listened to at all, but I managed to express to them that I wanted them to be encouraged, but I "in love, must tell you that I disagree," with their emphasis on the KJV being the only acceptable English translation. The KJV is a fine translation, but it misses things that the others (like the ESV, NASB, etc) cover, and vice versa. However, of all the things to disagree with someone over, I'm glad it's a preference like this (they told me they did not think that you were unsaved if you disagreed with them), and not an essential doctrine of salvation. The Gospel run-through that they gave me was on target, so I came away relieved. Naturally, I thought of several great 'stumper' questions I could've asked, long afterward.

Also at the county fair, there was a "Right to Life" booth, and I discovered that Planned Parenthood actually has a shop in my town! Totally unmarked from the street, of course. I've driven by where its address is several times and never seen such a sign. You know why that is? They instinctively know it's a shameful thing they're doing, and want to hide it.

I finished the first paperback book (leisure reading) of the summer. It was about dinosaurs being discovered on an unexplored planet in the far future. Mildly interesting in the middle but tedious in the beginning and underwhelming in its 100-page post-climax conclusion. It was the first book I'd read, other than 1984, since going to college--that wasn't assigned reading.

I tried to explain what 'fainting' is to an 8-year-old, and I think he understood. Hard to tell. I saw fireworks both on July 3rd and July 4th, which is the only time I've done that if you don't count the private fireworks a few years ago in the West Virginia Panhandle. One of those hit the side of a house and exploded on the ground. FUN.

I found out that I'm the picture of perfect health except that I'm "unbelievably allergic," according to the professional allergist. Details in previous blog post.

I painted the front porch and primed the walls in my bathroom (mom painted them). Things are getting rather spiffy around the house. The garage looks like an actual workshop and not a parts-dump, now. And our Jack Russel Terrier is getting white hairs on previously all-black parts of his head and ears. He's 11 years old. You should see his leg muscles. It's ridiculous. His muscles ripple beneath the fur. They're a "big dog in a small dog's body." Tons of energy. All that running after tennis balls (and frogs--I think he likes to bite anything that bounces) is probably why he's so fit. 

Til later!

~ Rak Chazak

Aw Shucks!

Good news can bum you out!

Today I got the results of several tests I've been doing at an allergist. According to him, I am "off-the-charts" allergic to some trees and especially grasses. But I have no asthma, or exercise-induced breathing difficulty--in fact, the exercise test showed breathing improvement after 10 minutes of jogging at about 5 miles an hour. So that's something to rejoice over! But the theory is that exercise during allergy season can cause issues, because of how allergic I am to the seasonal stuff.

So the conclusion is that I'm healthy! Which means there's nothing I really have to do to get treated, except as a matter of preference. I don't know how much it'll cost for allergy shots, but I suppose I will eventually have the procedure done to make me immune to the allergens (you can actually do that!!). For now it's just a waiting game until next season, when I'll see how much of a difference Allegra makes (Claritin was useless for me), and then decide if shots are the way to go.

It feels good to have a clean bill of health. And I can't help but chuckle at the idea that my level of reaction to grass pollen either surprised or impressed the allergist. I have a "get-out-of-cutting-the-lawn-free-card" that I can use whenever I want, now. xD

~ Rak Chazak

Journal Entry: Thoughts About Being Bad At Keeping Track of Time and Numbers

I keep a typed Journal on my computer, and I've been keeping track of a few countdowns and "countups," such as the number of days since my birthday, and one of these countdowns is until a particularly unusual astronomical phenomenon, which I'll address in a future post (take note, if you google it, I am not of the opinion that it's a date that predicts the Rapture or Second Coming--the latter would be impossible, anyway, because we would be in the midst of the Tribulation, and that's patently not the case). Here's what I wrestled with one day.

Monday, July 8

Countdown 2 is numbering the days remaining until September 23^rd, 2014. But I’ve been notoriously bad at keeping countdowns before, or countups for that matter, if you look at my [previous Journal] entries where I was trying to keep track of how many of the 180 days in the school year had passed. I was off by double digits by the end. So these counts I have are partly an experiment to see if I can keep track of time accurately and consistently.  I’m going to attempt to lay out my reasoning below so that it’ll be possible to check my process at some point in the future.

Okay, here’s my check on Countdown 2: Apparently I’ve been counting down to September 13. Here’s what I did. I counted the rest of the days in July, not including the 8^th, and all the days in August. Then I counted 22 days in September, thus not including the 23^rd. That gives me 23, 31 and 22, respectively, which add up to 76. The days from July 9^th through next July 8^th, inclusive, are 365 days, and so for the next year (2016 is the next leap year). The total of all this comes to 806. Subtracting 10 days gives 796 days until September 13, not inclusive. So even with meticulous attention, I can still have an error of one or two days after only a little more than a half year, as you can see. This irks me. I should note that the counts on the back inside folder page of (Volume 10) were done prior to the recount I’m doing right now. This way, anyone reading after can adjust for my errors. It would make so much more sense to me if the number I had was higher than the one I just got, because then I could justify it by saying that I was counting inclusively with either today’s date or the final date. But alas, the error is the opposite, and so I can’t find any other conclusion than that I have made a counting error at some point when I wasn’t going day-by-day. How frustrating! For a guy who isn’t stupid, to be this poor with numbers, it’s immensely irritating to consistently make mistakes of the simplest sort – forgetting a number here or there, or a minus sign, or misplacing a decimal. This is the ironic reason why I was bad at calculus. Not because the logic was difficult, but because I would make minute numerical errors that would completely throw off the answer, and it would be impossible to find out where the mistake was without a monumental waste of time that wasn’t guaranteed to even be fruitful. Logic isn’t hard for me to keep track off, it’s the quantifying of things that aren’t distinguishable (one ‘3’ is the same as any other ‘3’). I’m not the sort of person who can discover a new mathematical equation, or program a computer. I have a certain level of respect for those who can and do, although I’m reserved, because I recognize that they’re not fundamentally more intelligent than me (some are, quite a few, however, are not), just as I am not fundamentally more intelligent than someone whose expertise lies in law or economics whereas mine is in the life sciences – the thing to be aware of is that our brains work differently, and our minds think differently. Some people’s ‘way’ of thinking is simply better suited for highly numerical things, like accounting, cyber security, or teaching hyper-advanced Calculus to PhD candidates. Then there are those who are good with people, not numbers, and still others whose mindset (meant here in the same way as the word “skill-set”) makes them better able to be self-sufficient than others. There is a certain level of intelligence possessed by those who can build their own house, repair their own cars, farm their own land and hunt their own food, that is far too often overlooked by those who have been blessed by those who do these things for us, allowing our minds to think about things beyond what’s necessary to secure our immediate survival. My exasperating failure to keep track of numbers without an aid is a small blessing to me that reminds me to be humble in how I view myself, and to be appreciative and respectful of others who do the things that I can’t. My understanding of how intelligence works, moreover, prevents me from being overmuch impressed with someone’s performance to the point of being blinded to their fallibility as a human being. Just because someone’s an accountant, doesn’t mean he knows how to best improve the economy. Just because someone’s a psychiatrist, doesn’t mean they know how to talk to people. Just because someone’s a neuroseurgon, doesn’t mean he can tell you whether mind is all brain or if there’s a soul. Just because someone’s a biologist, doesn’t mean he can tell you how life begins. Just because someone’s smart, in other words, doesn’t mean that their knowledge is real knowledge, or that they can apply what they know wisely. Even smart people can make dumb decisions. So my wisdom to you is to be wary. No one can require you to listen to them as if they have a handle on the truth themselves, because no matter how much they know or think they know, there is ALWAYS someone better than them. Someone who knows more, and who can think about the same things without making mistakes. My voyage of thought has taught me this much.  

After posting this, now that I'm connected to the internet, I checked with a google search and found that my original end-date of September 13 was in fact the partial solar eclipse I was thinking of. I confused it with the final total lunar eclipse of that year, which is the 23rd. Alas, this serves to demonstrate why I lose track of dates so easily. But at least now I have the time remaining until both, accurate to the day. :P

~ Rak Chazak