Models of male instinct

all i got to say is king kong is the man.
along with jack bauer.






















Actually, I picked up on a few similarities between the two:

1) both are in a constant state of perplexed anxiety, just look at those eyebrows
2) that anxiety is usually caused by trying to protect a woman. "she got kidnapped again?!"
3) self-sacrifice
4) both are worshipped (check out http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=51238497
the best is "superman wears jack bauer pajamas")
5) one word, pluralized - guns

sunday school'ed'

ok, school's done. one week till north africa. everything seems to be in order here.

so on to bigger subjects. my pastor spoke this morning edifying our language, something i think i need some serious work on. a couple verses stood out to (convicted) me
"some people make cutting remarks, but the words of the wise bring healing." Prov 12:8
"a word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver" Prov 25:11

so to any soul that reads this blog, please help me keep watch over oft made sarcastic and cynical remarks over the next week.
thanks ppl :)

PS Josh Rob, for this, you ARE my hero

T-Minus 3 hours, 40 minutes

Pretty soon I'll be done my 3rd year of the tortuous York undergrad philosophy program..

but yeh, kinda wondering how i'm gonna manage my time without having a busy schedule to work around.

anyhow, back to the spanish inquisition (for all you monty pythoners)

U2 is hurting my brain

I picked up my first ever U2 cd, "All that you can't leave behind." They got some good lyrics, "grace is the name of a girl, also a thought that can change the world."
"you can only take so much... love isn't going to be easy... walk on"

Nevertheless, since getting their cd i've had a bad headache. not sure if it's the ridiculous bass or bono's "wwwoooohhoohooo oooooooo"'s which happen a couple times per song.

but yeh, i really respect those guys. one of the few bands that seems to have a purpose beyond entertainment. One time he stopped a show a live feed from a war zone. the audience "boo'ed," but i'm sure he had them cheering in a couple of minutes

"wooooo hooo ooo hooooo. "

roar

for anyone who lives in scarborough, you'll likely know how Glendower is pretty crappy governemt housing, lots of guns and gangs and ppl who get overlooked cause we're worried bout what colour bandana the black ppl are wearing.
then pretty much across the street are some of the biggest, dreamiest houses you could want. It's night and day.

It crossed my mind more than once that there's enough money to change Glendower, but there's no vision or belief in a possible difference.

I also noticed that I didn't see anything cool happening on "Castle Street," but the 'Dower had some ball and other fun stuff.

I dunno, life is messed up, and everyone wants to blame someone else.

Bubble tea, cause everyone else is talking bout easter

so i had bubble tea twice this weekend. i'm losing my love for it.. maybe cause i'm always surrounded by people that i have no idea what they're saying.
but yeh, the personal company was nice: Russell the buff man, and the handsomly dress Joe and the etiquettely inclined Lydia.
Joeis the man, nice dresser, fullhawk, loves God.. perfect for York C4C.

oh, and something i'm not losing my love for is chinese parking lots. i don't think i'll ever grow bored of small lots, small parking spaces, confused drivers, and souped up civics (seriously).

anyhow, happy easter everyone.
1 Cor "14And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith."
(you knew i had to do something Christian)

leap of faith/plunge of stupidity

alrighty, through the fire in terms of exam period, just one essay and one exam left.
so, i was thinking about what to blog, and how i should do something non-philosophy/Christiany... but yeh, i had a good conversation today so hear it is.

my buddy "Frank from phil-o-biology," mentioned he couldn't take that "leap of faith" against his current knowledge. that got my brain rolling, and i realized Christians have done a terrible job explaining what a real leap of faith is.

it's Not ignoring intelligent not to believe. as my prof said, "religion is not immune to evidence."
each religion has to prove that what its text claims about the world is true (within reason). For example, the bible says Christ resurrected. well Christians need to show good reasons to believe that. if something can't be proved, it doesn't mean the religion is false, just hard to believe in. but a religion can be proved false if conclusive evidence is given against it. for example, prove the 4 gospels give an untrue portrayal of Christ's life and then Christianity is bogus.

So yeah, after explaining this to Frank said he didn't expect relgious ppl to think like that. and that's fair enough, so many thumpers will sooner quote the bible than an archaeological dig when they make an argument. Frank's a good listener.

anyhow, the convo just made me think that everyone, religious ppl especially, need to either put up or shut up when it comes to evidence for belief (you all know the verse, now learn some apologetics!).

2 weeks: 3 exams, 2 essays

ok, truth is this isn't nearly as busy as I usually am.. but the birds are singing, i'm leaving for another continent soon, having parties, friends want to go out, so i'm having a little trouble buckling down. boo hao.
i'm sure someone out there has more stuff to do than me.. which should motivate me to... feel sorry for them?

rule britainnia. why? cause that's the way it is foo

poolosophy

i had thought of something cool, but i forgot it, so i'll tackle a nice ivory tower question that plagued me my first year of university. it goes like this:
“Are 1)morally good acts willed by God because they are morally good, or are they 2)morally good because they are willed by God?”
this is a dilemma, it leaves two undesirable options for one who gets their morality from God.
1)good exists apart from God, meaning God is not the ultimate 'Good'
2)acts are good not because of their intrinsic quality, but simply because God wants them to

to answer this problem by saying, 'but God is good,' is on the right track, but it leaves a problem. what good are you appealing to? are you thinking of a quality outside God? well then you hit the first option.
we need to demonstrate that God really is good, without appealing to outside criteria (1st prob), nor making up some arbitrary criteria (2nd prob)... whew... ok, so.. here goes:

the answer is 2.

ha, yeh since God is the Creator God, it means God created morality, meaning it is completely arbitrary, but not. why not? because the only criteria God could've looked at when creating morality is God's self, nothing else existed, including a conception of "good," and if it did, it was created by God..

So yes, things are good because God wills them, but it's not the same as things being good because WE will them. That's different, because we were created under the authority of this God's morality, and thus have several moralities to choose from.

Finally, this may breed a distrust of God. What if God really is just out to create suffering and call that "good." We don't like that good. Here's how I solve that,
"But Christ demonstrates his love for us in this, while we were sinners, Christ died for us."
it isn't perfect philosophy (yet), but who's got anything better? (seriously, anyone got anything better for or against this solution?)

just wanted a pic to put in my profile.
i hoped that fence one night.

Josh robinson is the man

long last day at school

So here's how my last day of classes went.
started off with a visit to my prof's office. she said that Christian ethics were bad because they're too servile or humble, cause Christians take insults and beating without fighting back. We discussed it for a while, and came to the conclusion that it could be pragmatic, but the text doesn't suggest that. What it suggests that we should be imitators of God, who suffered unjustly for people to reconcile them to God, Christians should seek the same. BUT it got real interesting cause she asked me if i believed Christians should seek to convince others of their faith, and I was like "Yes."
so i spent 20 minutes responding to some good challenges about what justifies a rational belief in Christianity.. she said she respected that I believed religion is "not immune to evidence," but that my belief was irrational. i really respect that prof, and i think that convo was one of the most valuable all year..

Anyways, that's the first hour, then came 1 1/2 of class, then another class, where i found out that i had an essay due THAT CLASS. heh. so i got someone to send me the notes and jetted. handed it in a day late, hoping for a B+.

THEN talked with another dude bout the faith for a while, he said he didn't feel like he had sinned big enough to need forgiveness from God. "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" didn't phase him. Hopefully I'll see him again sometime.

FINALLY, i had a 2 1/2 hr exam on material i had spent a total of 2 hrs studying for. i'm hoping for a B.
couldn't sleep on the way home cause two guys were attempting to be friends behind me..

then i hit the hay by 11ish. i think that may have been the only night of the school year i was in bed by 11.. i think i could've handled more though..

"so, do you like... stuff' (Ralph Wiggens)

Starting a blog is tough. it's like starting a relationship. It only matters if you put time into it, yo need to be thoughtful constantly, other ppl judge it, and you never know if you're gonna run into unexpected "technical" difficulties.

but yeh, here goes my first date.

I think the english language lacks two words, "poolosophy" and "essaying." The latter is pretty straight forward, instead of saying "I'm working on my essay," you can say "I'm essaying."

The second, is more complicated, so here's the official definition from McKenzie's on-hand dicitonary
Poo-los-so-phy: 1)the study of, and the pooing on, of crappy philosophy. 2) love of pooology. 3) (in the context of this blog)thoughts from a 3rd yr York Philosophy Spc.

I'm really just doing it to look interesting.. that's a pic of me climbing.. aren't I adventurous? :P