What Am I Doing Here?

While I am sure no one has noticed, sometimes posts pop up and then disappear on here. This is because I am a scatter brained mess. Sometimes I write something and I just think “nahhh, I don’t really want to post this.” and because I don’t know how to use the app as well as I should I schedule the post for a few months out and forget about it.

I think two of them have popped up this week, lingering only a few minutes until I rescheduled them for next month.

Part of the problem is that I have too much going on in my life and in my mind. As much as I like to think I’m a great multitasker, just ask my wife, she’ll probably tell you I’m not even that good at one thing at a time. Apparently I’m good at something if she’s still around…

Anywho. What have I been up to?

Well, I’ve been reading “Philosophy 101” by Paul Kleinman. It’s a basic overview of Western philosophy from pre-Socrates to the modern day. Sometimes it’s difficult to follow, sometimes it’s easy. The easy ones are probably the ones I agree with, so I have a bias.

Personally, I don’t think Mr. Kleinman is the best writer. I have read some of the philosophers he discusses and I understand the direct subject matter better than his descriptions of them. If your summary is harder to understand than the source material, I don’t know what that says about you.

Despite the difficulty of getting through some of the sections, I have learned much. And what I have learned has been surprisingly helpful.

I used my newfound knowledge to debate with Presuppositionalists on Facebook. No one won.

I also “used” it while watching “The End of the F***ing World” on Netflix. Knowing a little more about Existentialism and Nihilism makes the dark humor go down smoother.

Good show. But I cried hysterically afterwards. I don’t recommend watching it after a long week of losing pets and fighting with loved ones. Maybe save it for a day when you just want to feel a bit of ennui, not when you’re already immersed in full blown anxiety.

When this girl cries, you cry too…

And I mean ugly cry.

In addition to finding new shows I have found new music as well. Go check out “Clueless” by Hensley and pretty much the entire catalog of “Remo Drive“. Good stuff.

I’ve also been enjoying the new Steemit. For those of you who only read this on WordPress, you really ought to go check out Steemit. It’s a slow process but eventually it starts paying off. Perhaps one day the cryptocurrency markets will get back up to what they were back in late 2017 and my Steemit account will be worth loads of cash. Until then I will be content with my measly amount.

There are various and sundry other things happening, not all of them blog-worthy. Some are still processing and may end up as posts which pop up and then disappear, or even posts which stick around forever.

Keep watching!

It’s OK To Be Racist

Okayyyyy

No it really isn’t okay to be a racist. But it did get you to click, didn’t it?

I woke up this morning to an alert about an incident involving Universal Studios and the firing of an employee for inappropriate behavior. My first thought was, is this really a news story? Surely an HR problem at Universal Studios is not alert worthy news. I swiped it aside and forgot about it for five minutes.

Then it struck me, this employee was fired for making the international symbol of “made you look“. Any Millenial who has not been hiding in the dark recesses of his parent’s basement knows this game. Someone says “What’s this?” while looking down. The unknowing victim looks and sees this gesture:

And then the victim goes “Ohhh, got me!” while the trickster chuckles and says “Got eem!” and gets to punch the arm of anyone who looked.

It’s all good fun.

Apparently this gesture is now “racist”.

Hence the “outrage” felt by this interracial family from Colorado who unknowingly fell prey to the game whilst visiting Universal Studios in Orlando.

That kid must be a racist!

Even the USA Today story admits that it’s important to understand that symbols have context. Without knowing the history of this employee how can we know for sure that he made the gesture as a racist prank? Did Universal actually investigate? Did they actually find anything?

For that matter, did they even actually fire him? Seeing as he was in costume, it would be easy for the company to lie and say he was fired as a virtue signal which could then be reported as front page news. How do we even know the employee is a male? Too many questions that the media hasn’t answered.

The first I heard of this gesture being “racist” was when the Anti-Defamation League decided to add it to their “Hate on Display” list. Was it racist in March? Would this employee know that?

Who knew?

I have seen people harassed for nonsense like this before. When I was a kid there was a local high school teacher and coach suspended because the baseball team was using a Klan symbol for a good luck charm. He supposedly knew there were connotations but since the team members were doing it out of tradition (and appeared ignorant of the connection) he didn’t stop them. He was practically drug out on a rail because he was “a racist.”

One of the professors at my university was threatened for handing out exams “differently” to black students on the front row of the classroom. They perceived the act as racist, and therefore it was racist.

I’m sorry, but hand gestures, random symbols, and non-motivated acts are not racist. They are what they are. Unless the person or persons making the gestures, drawing the symbols, or committing the act does so with the intent of displaying some sort of belief in racial superiority it is simply not racism.

I once helped get a real racist fired from my workplace. He was quite vocal about his beliefs that people of color (blacks and Hispanics in particular), Jews, and women were inferior species. He threatened to punch me in the face when I called him out on it. Since we worked with a black woman, several white women, and many Hispanics, we felt he was a liability, especially in the dangerous line of work we were in.

It practically took an act of congress to get him fired. Which is why I am calling BS on this story. This looks more like a “stir the pot” story to me. Note, the offended family has houses in Colorado and Orlando, and they can afford to go to a special event at Universal. Maybe it’s a stretch, but could this just be another case of rich liberal “outrage”?

I’m waiting for the follow up to see how this story turns out.

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Is It Wrong To Want Things?

Sometimes you just have to scrap an entire blog. My original title for this was “Happiness As a Goal”. But I’ve renamed it and rewritten it. And then rewrote it again. And then renamed it again.

So here it is, after a ton of editing:

I have struggled with the concept of wants and needs for a while. God gives us everything we need, so everything we don’t have we don’t need, right? And if God doesn’t give it to us and we don’t need it, it’s sinful to want it, right?

For a long time I felt that contentment meant being completely satisfied with what you have. This means that any desire for something one doesn’t have is discontentment and therefore sinful.

This was my train of thought: It is a sin to be discontent, to be content means you don’t want anything, you are satisfied with what you have. Therefore to want is to be discontent, therefore to want is to sin. Furthermore, God gives us everything we need, if we don’t have it we don’t need it. If we don’t need it we just want it, and wanting anything is a sin.

From the last three paragraphs you can see why my life has become kind of messy. I have shoved down a lot of desires and drives mistaking them for sin. This has made me a bit of a limp noodle. If wants and desires are inherently sinful what’s the point of trying? After all, you’re going to get what you need.

But then I realized that the Bible clearly talks about wants.

“You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” James 4:2b-3

James does not condemn his audience for asking for things.

In 1 John we read this:
“And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.”

One only asks for things if one wants something. Since asking is not condemned, wanting is not condemned. I was wrong to think merely having wants was sinful. God clearly wants us to want things that are in accordance with His will and to ask Him for them. Asking is encouraged, and we are to do it with confidence.

Ultimately I don’t have to feel shame or guilt for wanting things (or experiences, or good feelings). But I do have to ask the question “is this in accordance with God’s will?”

Probably the easiest way to determine this is to ask the questions “Do I want this purely for selfish gain? Does my desire ultimately serve others and/or bring glory to God?” If the answer to the first is no and the answer to the second is yes then I am free to ask and to pursue what I want.

This whole train of thought has further implications, obviously. This is me after all. I can’t keep anything too simple. Keep checking back and I will try to further expound on these thoughts in other posts as I get to them.

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