Pwn those Noobs!

What might have been

Or what better things could be?

A better car, a better house,

Or perhaps a better ‘me’?

Do you toss and turn

Awake at night

Sorting through ‘what ifs’?

Thinking of each turn you took

And what you might have missed?

Is guilt a frequent friend of yours,

Or regret your better half?

Do you live in yesterday;

Married to the past?

Why ponder things unchangeable

Or mull on what is done?

When living in the present

Is where you find the fun!

The paradox that is presented by foreknowledge and free will is one that would seem to be a nice contradiction to the idea of prophecy and free will or an All Knowing God and free will. Determinism vs. free will seems to always take into account that because something CAN be, it SHOULD be. For example, if God said to me that I was going die in a car accident on Tuesday, my human nature would tell me to avoid getting into a car on Tuesday. More than that, I could even take it a step further and opt not to leave the house at all on Tuesday. After all, I could be in a car accident where a car hits me as I am walking down the road right? Yet even if either or other alternatives are good alternatives that may prevent the foretold death, does it mean I should take those routes?

Every logical thinking person would say yes. After all, we don’t want to die, right? But can you say you would have thought of all of the possibilities to avoid the death that is ‘fated’ you? Did you think of the fact that a car could come crashing through your house and kill you? Sure you did, right? So you’ll stay on the 2nd floor all day. But what if someone came into the house and pulled you out by gunpoint? Impossible right? Else God would have told you that part too…right? As improbable as the examples may get to be, they are no more improbable than an All Knowing God.

First let’s stay on the examples of different possible scenarios that could lead to your foretold death. Has no one ever heard of a car crashing through a house? Has no one ever heard of a person being taken by gunpoint from their own home? Why then could these things not happen to you?

In “Oedipus Rex”, the characters are motivated by the oracle’s words on their fates. They attempt to prevent their foretold futures by intentionally changing their ‘paths’. And yet still they end up fulfilling the fates they tried so hard to avoid. Does this mean that free will is an illusion? That determinism in the end is what truly dictates our life? After all, if no matter what we do, we still end up with the same results, how are we truly free?

Yet the true question is not ‘how are we truly free’ more than it is ‘why can’t we free ourselves from our fates?’

Trouble is, we have created this idea of ‘fate’ such that if it is destined or meant to be, it will be ONE WAY OR ANOTHER. There is always more than one path to the same goal/end so for us to believe that we can change our ‘fate’ based on our foreknowledge is putting a lot of stock in our abilities.

But “[we] can do all things through Christ who strengthens [me]“, right? Include “moving mountains”? Well, let’s not jump ahead. We’ll get there.

The whole theory that we could change our path if we truly had free will is first off based on the idea that God would tell us that X,Y, and Z is about to occur in our life. After all, how can we presume to change our ‘fate’ as we call it if we do not know what our ‘first fate’ is? It is also based somewhat on the idea that our foretold fate is foretold based on what MAY happen if we were to continue as we are, but seems to forget to factor in our actions based on the new knowledge of our predestined fate.

Did I lose you there? Stay with me just a little longer:

We have all heard the saying that ‘hindsight is 20/20′ right? But have you have ever played a hand of hold-em poker and folded it only to see your straight flush flop on the board? And you think to yourself ‘damn! I knew it! I should have called!’? Had someone told you with absolute knowledge that you were going to get that straight flush, you most certainly would have called; especially if that someone were God, right? Sure! God knows everything! So had you known, you would have called and won money rather than folded and won nothing, right? Thereby changing your future.

Notice first off that I said your future, not your fate. But before we address that, let’s address God telling you that a straight flush will form on the board. First of all, whether He tells you or not, it’s going to happen. You see that it did even though He didn’t tell you, but if He did and you acted on that knowledge, you would have been just that much richer.

But that is also something up to you to decide: to act on that knowledge. You could trust that you are hearing the God you worship and that He is telling you this and go all in. Or you could second guess God and still fold. One action makes you richer while the other does not. Two different futures, right?

Futures. Again, first off let’s address that idea. Future vs. fate. You would think they are the same right? I would argue they are somewhat different. Your future can change depending on your decisions, whereas your ‘fate’ is just the result of your decisions. Same difference right? Ever heard the saying ’six of one, half dozen of another’? It implies that you are saying the same thing in two different ways. Yet mull on the ideas for a minute:

1. Future: if you make decision a, you will lead to future b. If you make decision b, you lead to future c.
2. Fate: the result of your decision whether it is a, b, or c. What could be translated as then your future, but doesn’t change like your future can.

So now you are going to want to address a fate that doesn’t change. But hold on just a while longer and we’ll get to that too.

Say God told you that you would get a straight flush. And because of that very knowledge, you go all in and you win a big pot that changes your life. You could go on with the rest of your life arguing that armed with only that information alone, you changed your future. But you are missing one HUGE aspect here: the straight flush. Regardless of whether or not God told you it would be, it occurred. Regardless of whether or not you chose to go all in or fold, it occurred. God’s information to you that a straight flush would form on the board was not altered by your actions or foreknowledge.

So you may say that example is dumb. Well excuse me, but if you are allowed to use logic, why can’t I?

Or you may say that what if God said I would never be rich in the future? To which I would say ‘why would He say that if wasn’t true’? To which you may say ‘but if He did, and I called that straight flush, He’d be wrong’. To which I would say ‘but you wouldn’t call it–you already proved that in your initial scenario when you didn’t call it. Furthermore, would you really go all in before the flop if God told you that you won’t be rich in the future? Wouldn’t that knowledge alone make you want to not lose your chips just so you can stick it to Him?’ No matter what way you look at it, God is right. So you may say ‘well what if God told me a straight flush was going to form and I was going to win big, and I decided to fold?’ Human nature dictates that you in all reality would not do such a thing, but if you want to go to the most extreme of hypothetical situations, I would also have to say a few things to that as well:

1. Maybe He didn’t mean you would win big on that hand.
2. I think God is smart enough not to say something that isn’t true. Just because something CAN be said doesn’t mean it WILL be said. Like I said in the beginning, just because something CAN be, doesn’t mean it WILL be.

Thing is, you want to present a situation where a paradox can be created and God can’t win. That’s what you want so you try your best to develop it. Problem is, your scenarios are more extreme and improbable than mine first of all. But second of all, I think He who has absolute knowledge will always be a step ahead of you.

Now let’s get back to moving mountains and a fate that doesn’t change being in conflict with the idea of a free will:

If we can do all things through Christ and move mountains, we should be able to do that which opposes the nature of God. And we should be able to do nothing and still receive the same fate because, after all, if it is not going to change, nothing we do or do not do will change it, right?

First off, you are still going on the assumption that God will tell you what your ‘fate’ is. But let’s assume He does for your argument’s sake. How realistic is it that you will do absolutely nothing for your whole life just to prove God wrong? Not very realistic at all actually. Is it then not possible that the interactions and day to day on goings that you do have will lead to the fate that God foretold? But let’s say you want to contradict me when I say that God would not say it if it were not true and just totally contradict God’s ‘truth’. God tells you that you will be a wealthy husband of two. You then do everything in your power NOT to make money. NOT to get married. NOT to have kids. You have successfully contradicted God. How logical is that again? I mean, because you would voluntarily give up your happiness here just to prove God wrong? Ok. Just checking…moving on then: God wouldn’t say something like that. Plain and simple.

So you are now mad because I’m saying that God wouldn’t say anything along the lines that may support your whack theory, right? But really, who do you think you are? You want to come at me with pure logic and ’sense’ and expect the same in return, but when it gets down to it, you end up making the least amount of sense!

Yet if God told you that you would be a married, wealthy, father, couldn’t you take more than one path to get there? Couldn’t you get married first, have kids, then win the lottery? Couldn’t you build an empire for yourself, get married, then have kids? Couldn’t you save, and save, and save until you are a millionaire and have a family later? Are there not endless possibilities that lead you to that same fate? And aren’t you free to choose which ones you want to utilize?

But you are saying because the end is still the same, the means carry no weight? Why?

Besides the fact that God is outside of time, life is like a movie: No matter how many times you watch it, the scenes never change and the end is always the same. No matter if you would like for there to be a happy ending or not, the movie will always end the same. God has watched our movie over and over; He knows the ending. Just because He does, doesn’t mean we have any less of a role in it. Nor does it mean He has to tell us how it ends!

We keep debating free will and determinism and fate and prophecy based on the idea that some day God is going to tell us what’s up with us–how our movie is going to play out. But He’s not; in the very least not in the way we would like it play out.

Take the betrayal of Simon Peter the day Christ was arrested: even having the foreknowledge that he would deny Christ three times before the rooster crowed, he did nothing to stop himself. He didn’t stay in his room all day until the rooster crowed, and he certainly didn’t NOT deny Christ when he had the chance. Yet you may say that because Christ foretold it, he had some sort of control over the opportunities presented to Peter; that he made way for the betrayals by having the situations present themselves as they did. Yet you cannot accept that perhaps He saw this part of the movie before? And was just telling it like he saw it? May have spoiled the movie a bit for you, but just as anyone else spoils a movie for you, did it not come to pass as they said?

Many think of Oedipus Rex as a clear example of fate being devoid of free will–that they are mutually exclusive (meaning they cannot co-exist), but I contend that there are many paths to the same ending (what we think of as ‘fate’); how you get there is up to you (free will).

No, I’m not saying I have any power over anyone. Other than the power of manipulation. Not manipulation in the ill sense of the word; just in the sense that if I want you to believe my point or in the very least leave thinking I may be right, I can.

I’m scared of my mind. I’m scared of what I am capable of because I’m still young, but my thoughts are progressively scattered. I don’t want to be lost to my mind. I don’t want to have it take me captive. But I fear it will.

I’ve been sick for now over a week and it is as if there are no signs of recovery. I feel like I’m half in this world already. One foot in and the other foot out, but not really like bordering death…just bordering ’something’. I’m not that sick–not like deathly sick–just not all here. I don’t feel here.

When I was a kid, I would have what I used to call a ‘realization of self’ moment every once in a while to where I would feel almost out of body–like I was looking through my body, but it was not really my body. Like I was in this costume that is me. I would look at my hands so intently, tug on this skin that was my cover, and try to convince myself that I’m really here even though I felt like I was not.

I’m having more and more of those types of feelings lately.

And it scares me.

I fear I’m losing my mind. I fear I will not be able to control it. I fear no one can.

I need to write these thoughts out. I need to. I have to make heads or tails of them. Or at least just get them out of my head.

And that’s only the beginning…

I very much believe in God. God. Not the God of any man’s religion, but God the Creator. God the Father. GOD!!! I can’t even put into words how great of a matter this is to me. I believe in God. I believe.

So then I lose my mind. I feel like I’m in battle with evil. That something big and bad is going to happen and I of all people will be in the midst of it. No, not destructive on my part. No attacks or wrongdoings on my end at all actually. Just that I’ll be in the battle.

And sometimes I wonder which side I’ll be on.

I question myself. Not my God.

But I question God in this: why? Why me? Why no answers? Why not show yourself as you did in the Old Testament?

And then I’m reminded that we just cannot bottle up God. We cannot constrain Him to man’s ideas of what ‘is’. His very Word tells us that we should not question Him, but that we just will not be able to understand anyhow.

I know that huge feeling of not being able to understand.

Every time I speak with God, He answers me. It gives me new questions, but He still answers. Call it what you want. Accuse me of wanting to justify a God presence, but it is true. And one thing you can never do is convince me otherwise. God answers.

I pray to God more now, but still not as much as I used to. I pray for protection through the night. I pray for strength against forces I do not know. I pray for Heaven.

My mind can believe the conspiracies it conspires and that scares me. I have to manually tell it that they are not true. I have to manually tell myself that I am no one of any sort of significant influence to where the forces of Good and Evil would need me for either side. Not to say God’s Army is only comprised of significant beings, but just to say, I don’t feel like I’m a real soldier yet. And I’m not sure I will be.

I feel fake. I feel like my faith is not real. Not real enough to bring others in at least.

No, it’s not the Devil at work. Stop you simpletons. It is not as clear as you may want it to be! Stop giving pre believers these damn Sunday school answers! You will not lead people to Christ with those rehearsed lines. Because they are not real. They are not true to you. They have no depth. No meaning. No feeling.

I simply feel fake because while I love God, praise God, and call on God, I still voluntarily sin. And before you OTHER simpletons come at me with the bullshit talk about religion and sin and God and how I shouldn’t feel guilty because that is just “bad religion”, it’s not that either!

Stop the games Christians, Atheists, Agnostics, and Others. Stop just trying to jab at each other and break the other down. Sit down and think. Sit down and mull over just God. Not religion. Not theists or dissenters. Sit down and think about You and God. Contemplate the world. Contemplate creation. Play your word games and manipulation some where else.

I’m tired of Christians spitting recycled lines and of everyone else just trying to get a rise. For what? Do you really have nothing better to do in your life than to poke at something you claim not to care about? If you supposedly do not believe in the Creator, why are you so hell bent on getting someone to convince you otherwise? Don’t give me that you just want to convince the Christian that God does not exist. You are better of spending your time having fun, making money, or sleeping. But you get a rise out of controversy and you just want to laugh at the little baby Christians spit their rehearsed garble at you.

Baby Christian, stop damning the dissenter to hell. We are ALL damned to hell. Just because you are fortunate enough to have a hall pass out, does not mean you have been therefor given the golden key to the city! We are ALL sinners. God loves us ALL. Who are you to say otherwise? I’m so sick of this “I’ll pray for you” or “get behind me Satan” mumbo jumbo. Instead of saying that which you know is just going to give a chuckle to the dissenter or make him even more engaged and mad, why not try and talk with them. Befriend them. You know; be a true Christian and eat with the heathens as Jesus did.

I’m not finished. I have barely even begun. No longer will I hide. No longer will I hold my tongue. I’m tired of concealing myself so that others can feel comfortable. I’m tired of being quiet so that no one will think I’m disturbed. I’m tired of being fake.

I don’t like my mind really. I don’t. Simply because I don’t feel normal. That’s right. I don’t feel normal and I don’t like that feeling. I don’t feel normal because I don’t think about normal stuff…I think.

I think about death, I think about old people, and I think about spiritual warfare, but very little about everything else. Sure bills and work, but apart from that, my mind is cluttered.

I talk to God still. Not as often as before. Not as often as I’d like. I sometimes think this is my punishment: to be trapped by my thoughts.

I don’t want to die. But I’m so young. Why even think like that? I’m scared of being old and feeble. But I’m so young. Why even think like that?

I hate when I walk past an elderly woman and my heart bleeds for her. I hate that I want to know that she has someone taking care of her and bringing her joy. I hate that I want to know that she doesn’t have to work as old as she is. I hate that I care so damn much about people I do not even know.

I hate it because I don’t take care of myself. Not to say I’m dirty and malnourished or anything, but I’m not happy. Not truly happy. I know what I want to be happy even, but I don’t feel like I can have it. I also can’t reach it just yet while I’m taking care of everyone else’s bills. Just means I have to focus my time on other things without doing things I want to do. But I could do. I could. I could have what I want and do what I want and be where I want [almost 100%] if I did not care about people. If I could be greedy and only take care of myself, I’d be sitting pretty.

I hate being in a cloud of confusion all the time. I think I have ADHD [I've been told I do, but I never really accepted that fact] because I get so lost in my thoughts that hours pass and I don’t know where they went. I just can’t focus. I hate that. I want my focus back. Ever since my mother hit me over the head with the coffee pot, I have lost it more and more. My counselor in college said it probably was the blow that caused it, but truly I never blamed my mom or got mad because of it. Truly still I am not, but I’m so sad that I can’t regain my focus anymore.

I can’t read books like I used to. I loved to read. That’s what I want to do most times but I can’t seem to find my focus anymore. I need to see a psychiatrist again, but can’t afford to right now. I used to be so adamently against them and their drugs, but now I so want some drugs. I want help.

I have been through hard times where I thought the only choice I had was to take my life and I tried. I did. I did not succeed, but the peculiar thing about it was the doctors said there were no meds in my system. Despite the completely empty bottle and my very lethargic state, the doctors could not find any trace of the meds in my system. It was from then on that I thought for sure that God wanted better for me.

But I know the state of mind. I know how it feels to look everywhere around and see nothing but “signs” from the universe telling you that you do need to end it all. In my states, I did not think about the “better place” or any good, but just that life was just not worth living.

Yet I was driving in my car today and thinking about a commercial that came over the radio about depression. I thought about why others might have the same thoughts as I did and want to take their life. I thought about the alternative to life: death. What is so great about death? What is on the other side that these people would think death is better than life?

And then I thought about Heaven. What a great place that is made out to be. I am constantly at battle with myself as to what I specifically believe, but I do want to believe in Heaven and it’s eternal pleasures. But with talks of Heaven and a better place, why wouldn’t someone in a rut turn to death? I mean think about it: live a life of lonely solace, or die happy and arrive in paradise? Which would you choose?

I know there is so much more to the person’s state of mind and surroundings, but I was just wondering if maybe the suicide rate would be reduced if they knew they only had one chance at life. I wonder if they would think twice if there were no Paradise.

That sucks.

I’m in the process of changing the blog around though and giving it a more clear direction.

Stay tuned.

People are so excited about the new year that they are more motivated to fulfill their resolutions this year more than any other. I say bring on the new year! Here’s to a great ‘08, but a better ‘09!

First off the noob left no real information on who they are. I love that the most about posers. They do not have the real balls to stand up to anyone and do the anonymous route. It does not bother me in the least, but rather makes me laugh more. Truly. I mean, obviously I must have done something good to make them hide from me. Secondly, they attempted (at least I think, it really is hard to comprehend what the moron was saying) to say that I don’t actually write my posts. Let’s examine that idiotic statement for a second: 1. if I didn’t write my posts, why wouldn’t I keep this blog updated with this supposed ghost writer’s posts? I mean, that would make the most sense in terms of keeping traffic and my readers happy, right? 2. Most of the posts have the tone, and the ones that do not, have their own tone for the specific purpose of the post. But as the idiot probably cannot read, they probably do not know what a tone is. I about laughed my ass off at that remark.

Morons. Got to love them. Now what sparked this weird comment on my blog? I can honestly say that I do not know! Because the person was so ambiguous with their qualms, and made no sense in their accusations, I could not make heads or tails on what they were trying to say. From what I could gather, apparently I said something ill towards them or a friend of theirs, and now they are attempting to act all big on my blog. LOL. Love it!

Yet, the idiot only made themselves sound as weak as they are. They provided no proof on their accusations because they know they are not true. I have not spoken ill of anyone on a website other than my own. Any other website I have spoken my mind on has been related to sound reasoning, logic, and well thought out replies. Unlike the noob who attempted to beat me down. I mean, all their comment was about was something about I suck and shit– I don’t know; that’s just how much I cared about it, lol. I mean, if you cannot cut me down with actual logic and real life events, then obviously I am doing something right. If you are only left with name-calling and hiding your noob ass, obviously I am doing something right. If you cannot do anything more than try to bash me, not answer my logic, and look like the fool that you are, then obviously I WAS right if even I did cut you down. You deserve to be put in your place (it’s obvious that you probably made it easy for me to do elsewhere if what you say is truth). You obviously could not refute what I had to say there, so you had to come here. So obviously, I was right. You are wrong. Sucks to be you. The noob.

Addendum: I looked over the comment again, and it seems I missed a key factor to it! They had the audacity to say that first this is a Christian blog (oh how the moron shows how well they can read and comprehend), and secondly that because it has Christian ethics, I should not be talking ill of people (my words, not theirs at all). But yet Christian ethics say to love my neighbor. They say nothing of me being able to point out a wrong in anyone, and using logic to do so. Any time I have presented an issue to anyone, it has always been with logic and proof to back it up. To speak ill of someone without proof would not be kosher.

So carry on moron– I hope to see more idiotic comments like that in my approval section. It sparks me to write on a blog that I have put on the back burner for a good minute. :-*