moderation

I used to always get the largest size or portion when buying a drink or ordering food. A small cup of boba? Nope. A half order of salad at CPK? Never. The way I saw it, by choosing the larger serving you got more bang for your buck. It wasn't just limited to food either. After my last Costco run, I ended up with more toilet paper than I'll probably ever need in my lifetime. I'm slowly learning that buying more also means wasting more. Still trying to shake that habit.

On the plus side, I've begun to appreciate leftovers... a lot. Usually means one less meal to prepare :)

flying

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PmBPMWMHdo&hd=1
If I had the time and money, I'd definitely want to learn how to fly. Probably won't ever be able to fly a plane like that though. The F-35 would be awesome. The helmet mounted display lets you look down and view your surroundings as if the plane weren't there (via cameras looking out from the hull of the plane).

It's crazy how far technology has come in some ways, and how little it has progressed in others. The US Military is still flying the EA-6B and A-10, and NASA can't get a man on the moon for at least another decade even if it wanted to. Self-aware (or seemingly self-aware) robots in our lifetimes? Nope, don't think so. And yes, I've seen Watson and Siri in action.

rolling hills hs

rat race

Steve Jobs. Started an iconic company, 313 patents to his name, and an impressive resume besides. Would I trade places with him? No. Why? Because he's dead.

I feel like a lot of us have created artificial benchmarks by which we validate ourselves. Whether we get a graduate degree from some prestigious school. How many papers we publish. How far we're advancing in our careers. But it's all meaningless. And it's so obviously meaningless. It's so obvious, that it's unbelievable how non-obvious it is. Why are you even doing what you do? Do you realize that when you die, none of this will matter?

sharing the gospel

I think we have a tendency to choose who we want to share the gospel with, and be super persistent about it. We try to show God's love to them in the hopes that they'll eventually see the truth. We might even drop bits of the gospel here and there. We pray for them, and earnestly hope that God will bring them around.

I'm not convinced this is the best way to go about it.

First, we are not called to make the gospel more palatable to those who might hear it. Jesus alienated a lot of his followers by telling them to hate their families to follow him (Luke 14:25-27). More left when he told them that they must eat his flesh (John 6:56-58). When questioned, he responds somewhat cavalierly, asking "Does this offend you?". He tells a man he cannot bury his father, and another that he can't bid his family farewell (Luke 9:59-62). He tells a rich man that he must sell all his positions (Matt 19:21-22), after which the rich man leaves.

Second, there doesn't seem to be any precedent in the bible for being persistent in going after specific people. After sending out his disciples, Jesus tells them that "if anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet" (Matt 10:14). Preach the gospel, but upon rejection, don't stay to argue or do anything else, just leave. I feel like persistence in this case often leads to the stumbling block of self-glorification in the event that God does deign to save the person whom you were persistently pursuing.

If God is so concerned with separating the wheat from the chaff (Matt 3:12), then why are we so concerned with picking up every bit of chaff along with the wheat? "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few" (Luke 10:2), so shouldn't we stop wasting our time with some people (let God do what He will with them), and look for those whose hearts are fertile? There doesn't seem to be a lack of those people, from what I've heard, and to a certain extent, seen.

We should stop asking God how to share the gospel with the few people we choose; and instead ask that He show us with whom we should share the gospel with.

"Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces."
- Matthew 7:6

prayer

I've learned how to pray by listening to others pray, and I've heard people pray in many different ways, but by and large there seems to be a similar vein among all the prayers, a similar structure. I can't help but wonder, though. Is this is how we should pray? Is this how David prayed when he cried out to the Lord? Or how Jesus prayed when he walked the earth?

I've also wondered how appropriate it would be to pray for an event that has already occurred. If God exists outside time, why couldn't He hear my prayers for something that happened last week? Suppose someone has a test at 8am tomorrow. I plan to wake up early to pray for him, but instead I oversleep. Is prayer so rigid a device that any prayer I now pray is no longer effective? Or am I simply punished for my lack of discipline?

A part of me knows these are silly questions. Prayer isn't a device, or a tool, to be used. It isn't something where you have to follow rules about its usage. Prayer is something else entirely. But too often I fall into the habit of praying a wish list in the hopes that God will grant at least a few things on that list.

We should pray for the eternal. When we intercede for someone, we shouldn't ask that they do well at school, or find a job by such and such a date. We should ask for peace that can come only from God, for a genuine change of heart, for humility, for complete surrender. 

We should pray for the present. That God's spirit would guide us in every moment. That it would guard our hearts, and nudge us in the right direction in our day to day activities. The Lord's prayer deals with today, not yesterday, and not tomorrow.

We should pray that His will be done. In His own time. Not on our own sense of schedule.

And in all these cases, the question of whether or not we can pray for something that has already happened ceases to be relevant.

Am I even praying correctly? Does He hear my prayers, and do they please Him?

"...we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words."

- Romans 8:26

if i never knew

I've heard about a few people, recently, who've been having doubts about their faith. I'm only writing this because I've had the same doubts. I've often asked myself, "If I had never grown up in a Christian home, raised to believe in an all-loving and all-powerful God, would I still believe? Would I, left to my own devices without having been influenced from a young age, considering the Christian faith objectively, have arrived at the same set of beliefs to which I currently hold?"

How can anyone figure out what he would have believed given a different course of events? We are, in some sense, the product of our past experiences. And, is this even the best course to take when trying to deduce truth? I admit, past experiences can bias our ways of thinking, but they can illuminate them, too. The conclusions you might have drawn in a sterile environment absent past baggage may not always be the best.

Suppose, for example, that I did not go to school. I did not take math classes. Would I have, on my own, stumbled across the theory of calculus? Okay, maybe you would have. And maybe you're Isaac Newton (but even he was "standing on the shoulder of giants"). But I certainly wouldn't have. Does that make calculus any less true? It'd be foolish to ignore the wisdom of our parents, and of those who came before us.

We are taught. We accept some of the things we are taught, reject others, based on the merit of their ideas. But an idea shouldn't lend itself to doubt simply because it was taught.

I admit. If I weren't raised christian, I might very well not be. This could be a disconcerting thought, but I choose to instead to thank God that He chose to reveal himself through me through my parents. And that is why I think christian parenting is incredibly important.

"Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it."
- Proverbs 22:6

And in case you're wondering. No. I am not planning on having kids any time soon.

prayer

 "And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him."
- Matthew 6:7-8

I fall into the trap, sometimes, of praying for the sake of prayer. The more I say, the better I feel about my prayer. But why pray, if God knows all our needs?

Maybe prayer should be more geared towards worshiping and praising God.

And when we do pray for our needs, and for those of others, maybe we aren't praying so much that God will be made aware of those needs and respond, but that we ourselves would be made aware of those needs and respond. Our prayers for ourselves serve to convict us of our sins, and motivate us towards true repentance and a change of heart. And our prayers for others serve to convict us of their need, to motivate us towards an outpouring of love, and potentially action.

salvation

I've always believed that if someone hasn't heard of Christ, he still might in his own way worship God and be saved by Christ. In much the same way Abraham was. Or even a Muslim in a culture dominated by Islam might be. C.S. Lewis seemed to think so when he wrote of the Arab man in The Last Battle who worshiped Aslan with the name Tash. And Billy Graham mentioned something similar late in his career, for which he received a lot of flak.

I still believe that. Very much so. In fact, I think we need to look in the other direction. It might very well be the case that the Christ we worship and call by name is very different from who Christ really is. I feel like our perception of Him has been tainted so much, by our culture, and by our wants. We want Him to be loving, but in a way that isn't loving. We want Him to save us all, without the discomfort that comes with true sanctification.

Whenever someone in the church dies, I always hear someone thanking God for taking him or her into heaven. And a lot of times, I can't help but wonder. Really? Who are we to know? To judge? To assume? God does as He pleases. When I die, someone will probably say something similar. But how will I be judged?

"Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers."

- Matthew 7:22-23

And how will the church be judged?

"I know your deeds; you have a reputation for being alive, but you are dead."

- Revelation 3:1

Stop taking your salvation for granted. Work it out, with fear and trembling. I feel like today's Christians are way too confident. And that confidence rubs off on me.

defensiveness

Somewhat related to my last post. Being surrounded by yay-sayers can really make you super defensive.

When I lived at home, I could always count on my mom to point out all my flaws. And when she didn't, I could count on my sisters to pick up the slack :P But for the past, I don't know, few years (?) I haven't had anyone point out an area where I really need to step it up. In fact, I've been getting a few compliments here and there, too :) Which is nice. No more nagging, less exasperation.

Plausible explanations:

1) I was perfect all along and my family was being too picky.

2) I'm still flawed, I'm just no longer aware of my flaws.

You can probably guess which one is true... Whereas before, it was a constant struggle to take in all of the criticisms, I was struggling. Now, I live pretty comfortably. I identify my own faults, ask for prayer, and that's the extent of my conviction.

But someone recently has been really, truly, confronting me about deficiencies in my life. In an uncomfortable way. And my first reaction was, who are you to be questioning what I do? People who know me better than you think I'm alright, isn't it pretty presumptuous of you to assume that I'm not? You don't know me.

And I still think that my complaints are valid. But here's the kicker. It doesn't matter. Truth is truth even if it comes from the mouth of a donkey. The person speaking truth may be 10x more horrible than you are, but who he is has no bearing on the validity of his statements. And some of the statements I've been hearing recently have really stung, because, I think, deep down I know they're true. My first reaction was to criticize back, but really, criticisms are a gift, and should not be spurned so easily.

I need to be more humble.

depravity

It's been awhile since I've been reminded of this. And that is this: it's easy to be an okay person around people you are not terribly close to. And when you're around people you're not terribly close to, you begin to convince yourself that you are, in fact, an okay person. Until you truly believe that you're an okay person.

For me, it was much easier to be convicted of my sin in high school. Which is ironic, since I attribute a lot of my spiritual growth to my college years. But it was in high school that I faced real conflict. Mostly with my family, and mostly because I lived at home. But once I went to college, I found myself surrounded by people I knew less well. Sure, I would say that I've made some really close friends, but I was never forced into the kind of intimacy that you have with your parents and your siblings. Or the kind of intimacy that you start to have with your significant other.

And it's worse now that I've graduated. I get along with my family just fine (which I appreciate). I get along with my coworkers. I get along with people at church. But it's taken the beginning of a somewhat more intimate relationship to give me a rude awakening to the fact that, hello, I suck. That there's a bunch of garbage inside of me that I completely forgot about. Sure, it takes some prodding to stir it all up to the surface. But it's there. My recent spiritual life has been a reflection of that inner stagnation all along, but sometimes it takes some (and hardly any, really) intimacy to really bring it all out into the open.

No one has any right to talk to anyone about love until they've actually tried to love someone. And not love someone as in, be nice to your neighbor. Love as in, love. Very descriptive, I know. It's hard. And it really isn't that surprising that the divorce rate is so high. We're not worse off than we were before. We're just better at accepting these things.

I'm writing a lot. But really, what I feel right now, is probably just the tip of the iceberg. I have no right to talk about love, either. Me being so experienced and all... 

But in all seriousness. To those people who say "God is either all-powerful or all-loving, but He can't be both because of all the suffering in this world": if you're anything like me at all, you really have no idea what love is. Would it be all-loving to give everyone what they wanted? What I think is good is so not-good sometimes. Especially in my attempts to relate to others. I'm so self-centered that I'm completely blind to my self-centeredness. And that's a cycle that only God can pull me out of. But really, sometimes I'm so convinced that what I'm doing from self-centeredness is actually the loving thing to do. Blah. Random protip: if you're going to send out a serious email, wait at least 24 hours before doing so. Okay, I realize I'm probably not making any sense here, but that's fine.

Who are we to question God? I think Francis Chan said something along the lines of, God has more of a right to question us about the suffering in this world. I agree.

relationships

Sometimes, when I see a flaw in someone else, I feel that if I don't point it out, they will never realize it and therefore never change. So it becomes very necessary for me to catalog these flaws, and point them out in a very reasonable manner. Once per flaw! And not all at once. I just need to get it out there, you know? And then I can rest easy. They might not change right away after hearing about it. They might not change at all. But I am absolved of responsibility. And who knows? Maybe sometime in the future they'll recall what I said. Maybe I don't need to be there when they do. I don't need to belabor the point, just mention it once.

How ridiculous, right? I really need to learn to let God work in people. To pray for people. To trust that God can change people without my direct intervention. To believe that people can be convicted of their sin without having someone point it out to them. But really. I need to figure out this plank in my eye before I worry about the specks in others'.

hubris

There's some saying. That a bottle empty or a bottle full will make no sound when shaken; but a bottle half full is always the loudest.

Your friend who just started working at HP probably knows just as much about HP's decision to spin off its PC division as you do. Everything he knows he got from the media, and maybe a generic company-wide email that has also been leaked to the media. Yet the fact that he works at HP gives him instant credentials on this subject matter. Blegh, right?

But I've been guilty of this myself. I've been polygraphed twice, and I often talk as if I know all about polygraphs. But the statistics I cite (precision, recall) come from what I've read online, and has nothing to do with me having been polygraphed.

You take a course on evolutionary biology, and suddenly you're arguing with some christian who takes the first few chapters of Genesis literally. You read a few news articles that cite some random climate scientists, and all of a sudden you're indignant at anyone who doesn't believe in climate change. I'm guilty of all of the above. Sometimes my ill-founded conclusions turn out to be true, sometimes not.

But what if you really are an expert in something? You've devoted your entire life to studying physics; not only that, it turns out you're one of the best physicists (if not the best physicist) in the world? I would argue that's even more dangerous, because surely no one can deny your right to be proud. And then you go and use your physics credentials to comment on something like the existence of God. Sure, there are some interesting arguments to be made using physics, but an expertise in one area often provides a false conviction in another.

But wait. What if you devote your entire life to the study of philosophy, of religion, of history, of everything and anything pertaining to the question you are trying to answer. Surely your convictions are well-founded then?

It was said that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. But the same might also be said of the wise man. Or the knowledgeable man. For knowledge, and pride, often blind us.

The wise will be shown to be fools, and the fools, wise. It is easy to look down at the christian who blindly believes without questioning. Who blindly serves. Who takes incorrect theology for granted. But who's to say he is the real fool? For maybe he is wise and you are the fool.

Someone said that he'd rather go to hell intentionally, than to stumble into heaven by accident. And really, that notion is appealing. My first reaction was to say, I agree! But wow, such hubris. To assume that the outcome of our lives, even our intellectual contemplations, are dictated by our intentions. And to claim that the child-likeness of someone else's faith is not intentional.

seriously

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html

children

When you have your first child, you think... how can I ever love someone more? But when your second child comes, you realize your love isn't divided between the two of them. With another child comes a greater capacity for love, enough to encompass the both of them.

(paraphrased, obviously :p)

The analogy of God as our Father is apt in this sense, and many more I imagine.

marriage

Getting married is like applying a sticker to a sticker board; and getting divorced is like peeling it off. The sticker clings best the first time. Afterwards, it's never the same, and the sticker is easier to peel off on subsequent tries. Soon, you've given up on love. And by the 3rd or 4th marriage, you're just looking for companionship, really. Not the sort of love you first envisioned. It's never, never, the same. So get it right the first time. Pray, a lot.

(paraphrased)

character

"Being the kind of person your dog thinks you are."

bureaucracy

There's a certain attractiveness to bureaucracy. As in, once you get through it, you feel like you've accomplished something. When really, you've accomplished nothing. The red tape you had to go through makes where you are feel that much more... important?

Case in point. To get a government-issued ID card, you need to fill out a bunch of paperwork, undergo a background check, get your fingerprints and other biometric information taken and stored on the card, etc., etc. This process can take a long time. But once you get it, the card seems that much more valuable. When all it does is... um, identify you. Like any other card would. But if anyone could just step up to a camera, get a card printed in 30 seconds, and be done with it, the card would feel so much less valuable. Even if that card did the exact same thing.

There's no red tape separating me and Christ. No bureaucracy at all. It's freely given. Anyone can get it. There's no sense of exclusivity. And for some reason, that makes me value it less. It's really perverse if you think about it.

We're attracted to exclusivity. And in many cases, we create it ourselves. In a religious context, this might take the form of cults, secret rituals, etc?

prayer

Some time ago, I realized that I've developed this bad habit of keeping my eyes half open when I pray. And for awhile I thought nothing of it. But recently, I tried closing them. Completely. It helps. A lot.

scientology

The contempt with which many Christians (and really, most people) reference Scientology is eerily similar to that with which many atheists reference Christianity.

Don't get me wrong, I still think the idea of Xenu, etc., etc., is incredulous. In much the same way that most atheists view the resurrection with incredulity. I believe the term "zombie jesus" is tossed around a lot.

The only difference is, they're wrong! No really, they are. They as in the atheists. And Scientologists. And you know, if I stopped writing now, the above might be taken as a satire of the typical narrow-minded Christian. And it still might be taken as such. An inadvertant satire, if you will.

But I guess what I want to say is... you should never reject an idea out of hand? No matter how ridiculous it may seem at first glance; serious consideration at some point doesn't hurt. Because many great truths aren't iottmco (aha I just had to use this acronym).

** There are now Scientology commercials on Hulu :O

easy work

A lot of government jobs are on some sort of 9/40 schedule. You work 9 hours from Mon-Thurs, and 8 hours every other Friday. This still averages to 40 hours/week, but in reality, very few people work the full 9 hours Mon-Thurs. In fact, most people work fewer than 8. Where I work, a lot of people (especially the HR types) come in at 8am, have an hour lunch, and leave before 4pm.

So, every other weekend is a 3-day weekend; and this isn't counting government holidays, of which there are 10. Plus, you get your standard starting 2-3 weeks vacation time, and 2-3 weeks sick leave. This leaves very little time to actually work. And you wonder where your tax dollars are going...

Still, there are other jobs that have it better (in terms of time off). Community college teachers! No research, summers off, often < 8 hours of work per day, and a one year sabbatical every 7 years if you're tenured. Not bad...

fantasy novels

You read a novel. Say Game of Thrones. You're totally engrossed. You know dragons and prophesies are real, but the maestors (learned scholars) refuse to believe it. They gently counsel otherwise while ignoring all the obvious signs. You want to shake them and say, "you fools!"

Or, an example that more might appreciate. Harry Potter. Here, you mostly pity the muggles who don't know what's going on around them. But you let them do their thing.

We so easily accept these scenarios in books. In fact, I'd say most of us are captivated and drawn to them. But when it comes to real life, a lot of us are adamant in our unbelief. Why? Do we naturally long for fantastical plots that we know deep down cannot be true? Or are we just hypocrites?

democrat

In every election for the next four years, if I'm on the fence about a candidate, I'm defaulting to voting democrat. Simply because of what the republicans are doing right now.

grad school*

What's the point of going to school and taking classes if you end up forgetting the details of most of what you learn?

I think the answer isn't so much that:

learning these things, while not useful in and of itself, proves to a future employer that you are intelligent, hard-working, and capable

as much as:

learning these things gives you an idea of what's possible, so that when you come across future problems, you won't try to reinvent an inferior wheel; i.e. it gives you a catalogue of the state-of-the-art, which you can then reference for future googling purposes.

There are a bunch of examples of instances where:

1) a problem seems too complicated to have an elegant solution, but an elegant solution actually exists! (e.g. Kalman filtering) or

2) a problem seems so simple that a simple solution is implemented without much thought, when a more complex but much better solution exists. (e.g. string searching)

And so I find that what I've learned in grad school has thus far been incredibly useful, insomuch that I now know what to google, whereas before I might not have even bothered.

* this applies mostly to engineering, probably not so much to the liberal arts (but maybe?)

oh my

Upon reading the sign "Benz & Beemers Auto Repair", Jocelyn Tang, Princeton Class of 2014, exclaims "What does that even mean? It fixes itself?"

And a little while later, in an attempt to quote Nicki Minaj's Super Bass, she blurts "f is me."

lottery

Imagine if Bill Gates won the lottery. You know, some tens of millions of dollars. There would be a riot.

robin hood

Cuz he was robbin' from the rich and giving to the hood.

foolishness

"For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom..."
- 1 Corinthians 1:25

I have a tendency to be very adamant in my theological and political beliefs. But Thomas Aquinas himself refused to complete his last work, saying "I cannot, for everything I have written seems like straw."

information

1. If a tree falls in the middle of the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

2. If the holocaust happens and no one remembers it, and no evidence of it remains, did it happen?

In the first case, no person is around to interpret the information. In the second, the mutual information between the past event and the present becomes negligible.

Random thoughts on the second. From an information theoretic perspective, you can show that if something happens far enough into the past, it will have only a negligible effect on the present. The past eventually becomes unresolvable. Given the present state, the "true" past becomes indistinguishable from any number of possible past states (if you go back far enough). And in the end, the distant past, having no discernible influence on the present, ceases to matter. You can also apply this to the future. Go far enough into the future and it becomes unresolvable given the present.

This is simply a restatement of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Entropy increases over time, and the amount of "useful" energy decreases over time.

If you believe only in the physical universe, eventually, it won't matter that the holocaust happened; just like it doesn't matter that some caveman you've never heard of suffered and died thousands of years ago. For all intents and purposes, the holocaust will not have happened. So why worry?

Another thought. True revelation is an entropy-decreasing event. It violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics, just as Creation violates the First.

lennox

"Choosing between God and science is like choosing between the internal combustion engine and Henry Ford."

- John Lennox

It's ludicrous to think that just because we know how a car engine works, that the car engine was not invented. So shouldn't it be similarly foolish to think that just because lightning and other physical phenomena can be explained by science, that the universe has no creator?

And how is it that coming up with an explanation for the compilation of biblical texts - replete with commentary on the motives of the authors - impinge, at all, on the validity of the texts themselves?

source code 2 (spoiler alert)

Lots of confusion as Captain Colter Stevens struggles to figure out who all of Sean Fentress' family and friends are; never mind how he finds his way back to his car.

What happens to Sean anyway?

dreams

I've noticed that whenever I dream, God is absent. I do things, but I don't pray, I don't consider things in His context. I do not go to Him as I might in real life. I feel the reason for this is that prayer and worship are not yet a fundamental part of my being. If they were, I would grasp on to them even in the confusion that are my dreams. And because they aren't, feelings of stress and terror that I rarely feel in life can reach me in my dreams. I'm always running slowly towards some thing, not recognizing that what I'm running after is unimportant. I'm always running from something, not recognizing that I have nothing of value that I can lose.

My Goal: Have God permeate my life so deeply that he is present even in my dreams.

And yes, I think this is my third post on dreams :O

perspective

Awhile ago, I attended a lecture that I thought was, well, horrible. The lecturer assumed I knew things I didn't, covered the material too fast (I felt), and was confusing in general. In short, I got little to nothing from what he said.

A year later, I re-attended the same lecture. Same lecturer, same topic, same slides. But this time, I thought it was one of the best lectures I'd ever heard. But nothing really changed, it's just that, I finally understood what he was saying!

I'm sure some professors are bad teachers, no way around it. But there might be some lectures that really are phenomenal, but seem otherwise because they fall on deaf ears (or maybe I'm just being overly optimistic)?

Random thoughts:

1) Part of the art of giving a good lecture comes from knowing your audience?
2) The audience carries some responsibility for a good lecture?

3) God's word might be an example of this, i.e. something that is hard to fully appreciate because of our lack of (spiritual) maturity?