Roseyland

I was in church today, which is weird for me because I’m not the church going type, but that is another story. During the sermon, the pastor mentioned that he had prayed before to experience something divine. Something miraculous that would would prove to him that his faith was real. Of course this divine experience did not happen, and there was more to the sermon after that, but I forgot what it was. If you really want to know, you can listen to the sermon yourself here.

This got me to thinking. I think a lot of the tension between science and religion stems from the fact that many religious people insist on believing in a supernatural God. When it comes to science vs. religion, I’m a science guy. I don’t believe that Jesus literally walked on water, or healed anyone, or even that he was immaculately conceived. In other words, I don’t believe that there was anything supernatural about Jesus. In fact, don’t really believe in anything supernatural at all. That being said, I also don’t believe that life is just a side effect of matter and energy interacting according to randomly set physical laws. I believe that miracles happen, but they don’t happen outside of our reality. They happen within our reality. Our existence itself is a miracle, we shouldn’t feel like we need to look beyond our own universe to experience something divine. This all reminds me of a story I have heard a number of times in a number of different ways. I found the version below here.

The Flood

Once upon a time there was a man of great faith. The man lived in a small town. One day it began to rain. The rain continued until the streets in the town began to flood. The mayor sent police officers through the streets, knocking on doors and shouting through bullhorns for the citizens to evacuate their homes. But the man said, “No, I will not evacuate. God will save me.”

The waters continued to rise until the man was forced to climb the stairs to the second floor of his home. Soon the mayor sent the fire department on rafts through the streets of the town. They called to the man to get into the raft. But the man shouted from his second floor window, “No, I will not get into a raft. God will save me.”

The rain fell heavily and soon the water rose above the second floor. Now the man had to climb to the roof of his house. The mayor sent the rescue squad in a helicopter. They dropped a rope ladder and shouted over the din of the propeller blades for the man to grab onto the ladder. But the man called back, “No, I will not take hold of your ladder. God will save me.”

Soon the flood waters rose even higher and washed the man off his roof, and he drowned in the raging current.

When the man reached heaven, he angrily banged on the gates and demanded to see God. After some negotiation, he was taken to the Throne. The man said, “I am a man of great faith. Why didn’t you save me?’

And God replied, “Well, I sent you police officers … the fire department … the rescue squad …”

– Author Unknown

The man in the story above was so focused looking for a supernatural miracle, that he overlooked the obvious solution right in front of him. Let me switch gears to evolution. I think the biggest problem creationist have with evolution is that they are obsessed with a supernatural God, which is not required by evolution. Evolution is still a miracle though. The fact that the same laws of physics that allow for atoms and molecules, also allow for stars and planets, and also allow for DNA and multicellular organism that can evolve into the diversity of life on this planet, is a miracle. If you really take the time to think about it, evolution if far more miraculous than a supernatural God *poofing* the world into existence. I don’t know for sure what form of God I believe in, but I believe that he (or she, or it) is an integral part of this reality, not something beyond it.

The image in this post is “Miracles Can Happen” by joesflickr and is licensed under creative commons.

Yeah, so all I have been doing lately is posting videos. I had to post one more though, because this is my favorite documentary ever. Well… one of my favorites. This is a documentary that aired on channel 4 in the United Kingdom. In it, the astronomer Sir Martin Rees explores the true nature of reality. This documentary discusses the fine tuned nature of our universe, parallel universes, the intersection of science and religion, and even the possibility that we all live in a computer simulation. I love this documentary because it encompasses the basis of my spirituality.  I spend a lot of time trying to put my spiritual beliefs into words, but I never feel like I get it quite right. This documentary gets it right. I don’t agree with everything in it, but my beliefs are not so much beliefs as they are a set of questions I like to ponder. This documentary stimulates a lot of pondering, and I love pondering. It is 48 minutes long, but you’ll know withing 2 minutes if you want to keep watching. If I watch 10 seconds, I end up watching the whole thing. Incidentally, I’m really annoyed that I can’t buy this documentary on DVD. I do have a bit torrented version of it *gasp*. For the record, I would gladly buy this if it were for sale!!! Okay, here it is, enjoy.

This was impressive. I’m not used to a politician being so… what’s the word… honest? straight forward? Whatever it is, I like it. He didn’t spin anything. He didn’t downplay anything. He didn’t try to distance himself from anything. He didn’t over simplify anything. He provided an accurate, educated, and honest analysis of the situation and his feelings about it. This is such a refreshing change from the current administration, that I’m stunned. Maybe I’m just caught up in the moment, and maybe I won’t be as awe struck in a few days, but right now, it’s hard to imagine voting for anyone else.

I love personality test. My favorite personality test is the Myers-Briggs test, which has me pegged as an ITNJ. I have taken a lot of other online personality test, but I think most of them are just plain silly. Do I really need to know what superhero I am (Superman), what Simpson’s character I am (Lisa), or what Muppet I am (Scooter)? I came across the Personal DNA personality test on Facebook, and of course I took it. It told me that I was a “Respectful Inventor”. You can read the full report here. I’d say the test is pretty accurate. It isn’t perfect, but it did get a lot of things right. It also creates the cool picture that you can see at the beginning of this post, and there is nothing I love more that graphical representations of information.

This even makes me want to dance, and I don’t dance, at least not when other people can see.

I have been having trouble thinking of things to blog about lately. I guess I have bloggers block. So I took my camera with me today and decided that I would blog everything I did. This is going to be pretty exciting, you should probably sit down while reading this post.

I got out of bed at 11:00AM. I do like to sleep in, but this is pretty late for me. I was out playing Texas Hold’em the night before (came in third!), so I have an excuse. I had a lot of things to buy today. Here is the list:

• Razor Cleaning Fluid Cartridges
• Toothbrushes
• Rubbing Alcohol
• Tea
• Bread
• Cheese
• Pop (Yeah that’s right, “pop”, don’t even get me started on the whole “pop” versus “soda” thing)
• Soymilk
• Pomegranate Juice
• Berries
• Banana Peppers
• Pickles
• Granola Bars
• Nuts
• Yogurt
• Tabasco Sauce
• Lean Cuisine Dinners
• Fruit
• Vegetables
• Corkscrew Like Device
• Stain Removal Pen

I showered, got dressed, and headed out for lunch at about 12:45. Here is a picture of me leaving my neighborhood in Brentwood.

The neighborhood looks better in the summer when there are leaves on the trees. Anyways, I made a short trip to one of my most common lunch spots, San Sai.

I had the salmon bowl with brown rice and the oriental salad. I always think it should be called the asian salad. Isn’t “oriental” politically incorrect? Then again, who cares? It was tasty and then I moved on to Target.

Now you might be wondering why I didn’t go to the Target that is two minutes from condo in Brentwood. Two reasons. One, I wanted to go for a little drive and go somewhere different. Two, this is the coolest Target ever. I call it metro Target because it is close to downtown St. Louis and feels so urban. There is always a good mix of people inside, and they have an escalator for shopping carts. Did you hear me? I said, “an escalator for shopping carts”. I had no idea such technology existed. I am amazed. After Target, I went to the grocery store.

Nothing too exciting here. This is the Dierbergs near my condo. I do about half of my shopping here and half at Whole Foods. I would do all of my grocery shopping at Whole Foods, but there are some things you can only get at the normal grocery store. I was able to find everything on my list except bread and fruit. Well, okay I could have found fruit, but the bread I wanted wasn’t there, so I’ll have to go to Whole Foods tomorrow. Since I’m going to Whole Foods, I’ll get my fruit there. Below is a picture of everything I purchased at Target and Dierbergs. For the record, I don’t put the cat in the pictures, he just likes to be where the action is.

Amazingly, this is almost $200 worth of stuff. How did life get so expensive? I blame gay illegal aliens who are hell bent on destroying marriage and instituting a socialized health care system. Kidding… Kidding… Please don’t throw things. Here is a picture of the cat doing what he does best.

After I got everything put away, I went to dinner with a friend at Rearn Thai in Clayton. Does anybody out there know what “Rearn” means? I’ve always wanted to know. I had the red curry, here is a picture of it.

Rearn Thai makes their curries mild, medium, hot, Thai hot, or extra Thai hot. I chose hot. I don’t know who the people are that choose Thai hot or extra Thai hot, but we must find them, capture them, and study them. They obviously have superhuman abilities. After dinner I came home, made iced tea, and started to write this post. After this, I’ll probably watch TV or a movie and go to bed. Thanks for joining me on my day. I hope you had as much fun as I did.

I came across this video while witting my last post, and now I can’t stop watching it.

This one is good too.

A couple years ago I was playing with iTunes and I stumbled across a best of college a cappella album. I downloaded one song and I liked it so much I downloaded the whole album. Since then I have collected 112 college a cappella songs in my iTunes library. I’m not sure what it is I like so much, but I keep looking for more a cappella music in iTunes. There are no instruments, so the performance is more raw and the emotions come through better. The voices aren’t perfect, but somehow that imperfection makes it more real. It’s also cool to hear unique versions of popular songs.

After much deliberation, I have come up with my top 15 college a cappella songs. It was amazingly hard to narrow this list down to 15, and even harder to put the final 15 in order. I have provided links to these songs in iTunes and on Amazon.com. I tried to get links directly to the song, but sometimes I could only link to the album. For the record, I do not get any money if you buy these songs. I just wanted to provide a way to hear a preview of these songs, because just reading about songs is dumb. Here they are:

15. “My Happy Ending” by the University Of North Carolina Loreleis - This version sounds so much like the original I think Avril Lavigne must be a member of the group. (Amazon|iTunes)

14. “Write Me A Song” by The Pitchforks Of Duke University - This song is a little sappy, but I still like it. (Amazon|iTunes)

13. “Best I Ever Had” by Stanford Mixed Company - I’m not sure why I like this song, but I find myself listening to it a lot. (Amazon|iTunes)

12. “Rainbow Connection” by Utah State That One - “Rainbow Connection” is my spiritual theme song, and I love this version. (Amazon|iTunes)

11. “Breathe (2 AM)” by Stanford University Counterpoint - The song has a subtle intensity to it that I really like. (Amazon|iTunes)

10. “Good Enough” by Stanford University Counterpoint - Wow, two in a row from Stanford Counterpoint, I didn’t even realize that until just now. They must be good. (Amazon|iTunes)

9. “Tonight And The Rest Of My Life” by the University of Michigan Dicks & Janes - This song has mystical quality to it that keeps drawing me in. (Amazon|iTunes)

8. “Cry” by the USC Sirens - This is a pretty girly song, but if you have read this post, you know that I might be marrying the original artist, so I figured I better include one of her songs. (Amazon|iTunes)

7. “Something Like That” by the University Of Oregon On The Rocks - This is one of the few country songs that doesn’t suck. (Amazon|iTunes)

6. “Breathe” by the Bostonians Of Boston College I think the Bostonians are my favorite college a cappella group. Partly this is because it is fun to say “Bostonians”. (Amazon|iTunes)

5. “Girl From The Gutter” by the USC Sirens - I’m neither a girl or from a gutter, but that won’t stop me from liking this song. (Amazon|iTunes)

4. “She Will Be Loved” by Duke Out Of The Blue - This is a good example of how the emotion comes through better in an a cappella song. (Amazon|iTunes)

3. “Yeah” by the University of Oregon Divisi - A bunch of college girls singing an Usher song is just cool. (Amazon|iTunes)

2. “Hallelujah” by Clemson University’s TakeNote - I had never heard this song before, but now I love it. It’s like a gospel song written by somebody who has become disillusioned with religion. Interesting. (Amazon|iTunes)

1. “Over My Head” by Brandeis VoiceMale - I’m not sure why I picked this song as #1. I really like the original version, so I guess it’s only natural that I like this version too. (Amazon|iTunes)

In the process of witting this blog post, I came across even more college a cappella songs I like. If I made this list again, it would probably be completely different. For example, I really wish I could buy this song, but it is only available by snail mail as a physical CD. What is this, the dark ages? Here is a YouTube video of the Bostonians of Boston college, enjoy.

The image in this post is “A Cappella Sampler” by indoloony and is licensed under creative commons.