Blog Jones

Michael Damsky, a student at the University of Central Florida, had an ingenius plan to meet girls. He decided to set fire to a couch in the women’s dorms, in hopes of meeting the women as their building was evacuated.

The plan was less successful than you might think: Orange County police arrested the man for arson.

So, here’s a question for you: What is the most interesting way that you’ve encountered for meeting people of the opposite sex?

For example, I had a friend who was one of the two male interior design students, and I’m pretty sure his motivation had more to do with his classmates than his coursework.

How about you? I’m looking forward to reading your comments.

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To celebrate Independence Day, my family went out and to the fireworks display in Cowpens tonight. In addition to seeing folks from church and a friend from high school that I hadn’t seen in at least three years, we also saw some really pretty fireworks:

More photos available from my Flickr page.

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Who are you?

Hey guesswhatguesswhatguesswhat?

I’m graduating from BJU tomorrow morning!

I also get a shiny ribbon to wear on my regalia because I’m graduating Summa Cum Laude.

Yay! It’s finally over!

I’ve just been very, very busy. I’ve had papers and speeches and a week long trip to NYC/Washington, DC with the University Business Association. I’m coming up on finals week now. (3 finals tomorrow. On a Saturday. Starting at 8:15. :-()

So, I should be studying. But I have to tell y’all about this crazy, crazy article from “Netscape News.” In fact, I thought it was parody at first, but it appears to be a real news article. Richard Swinburne, professor at Oxford University, claims to have created a mathematical formula that puts the odds of Jesus Christ’s resurrection at 97%. Take a look at his “proof”:

1. The probably of God’s existence is one in two. That is, God either exists or doesn’t.
2. The probability that God became incarnate, that is embodied in human form, is also one in two.
3. The evidence for God’s existence is an argument for the resurrection.
4. The chance of Christ’s resurrection not being reported by the gospels has a probability of one in 10.
5. Considering all these factors together, there is a one in 1,000 chance that the resurrection is not true.

Look, seriously guys: If you’re going to try to defend Christianity with math, science, or logic (as opposed to personal faith or biblical exposition), then you at least need to learn the basics of the subject you’re using.

For example, take his first point: Although it is true that God either exists or he does not, that does not mean that the odds of God’s existance are 1:2. Consider a parallel: Either an anvil will come hurtling out of the sky and land on my head as I type this post, or it will not. However, the odds of the anvil landing on my head are next to zero; certainly, the odds are less than 1:2. The fact that there are two possible outcomes does not mean that those two outcomes are equally probable.

Second: You can’t start off with 50% odds at the beginning (either God exists or not) and end up with 97% odds at the end (Jesus rose from the dead). That’s not how the math works, and it doesn’t even make sense logically. The very highest odds possible in that case would be 50%, because if God does not exist, he could not raise Jesus from the dead. Then when you take point two–either God came in the flesh or he did not–and put the odds at 50% again, you cut the probability of Christ’s resurrection in half again (1/2 times 1/2 = 1/4). And so on.

When you misuse tools like math and science in this way, you really hurt the testimony of Christ. (See posts about this article with titles like Dear Lord: Why are your minions so stupid? to see what I mean.) You portray Christians as ignorant and unlearned, and thus drive intelligent people who need Christ away from Him.

There’s nothing wrong with using math, science, and logic to argue for the cause of Christ, but you have to make sure that you’re using them correctly. Don’t reinforce the negative stereotype Christians already face in these arenas by making foolish claims like Swinburne’s.

Random Thought: You would not believe how good eight hours of sleep feels.

I fell asleep while doing homework last night at about 8:30; at 4:30AM I woke up, fed the dog, brushed my teeth, and went back to bed for another hour before my usual morning routine.

I can think coherently and focus on things. I was able to stay awake for today’s chapel message. I just feel good.

I need to do that more often.

Since I don’t know what I want to do with my life yet, xckd.com’s latest cartoon struck a chord with me.

My laptop was having problems.

The right hinge on the screen was broken, and so the lid to my laptop would either fall onto my hands while I was typing, or else experience a fainting spell and fall backwards.

It was well-nigh unusable. So, my Dad ordered a replacement case off of eBay, but the repair looked more challenging than we expected, and I had planned to take it to a repair shop.

But then I found out that a guy who lives across the hall from my brother in the dorms repairs laptops. I mentioned my laptop problems to him, and he offered to repair it. So, tonight I took the laptop to his room.

The process actually took a couple of hours. To fix the laptop, he essentially had to completely disassemble it, move the motherboard into the new case, and reassemble it. I felt bad, because I know he hadn’t planned to burn his whole evening on this thing.

But now my computer works perfectly. Drew knows what he’s doing with laptops, and I’m very, very happy. I can actually use my computer in class again!

So, that’s my shout-out to Drew. If he ever opens a laptop repair business, I’ll refer you, my loyal readership, to him. For now, he’s got my gratitude.

I feel drunk.

Actually, I feel sleep deprived; I’ve never been drunk, but this is about how I think being drunk would feel.

I can’t think or speak clearly. I had a piece of paper on my desk, and I literally could not comprehend what I had written on it. Fortunately, I was tired enough not to care.

This isn’t good. I have to give a short presentation for my Technical Writing class in a few hours.

::whimper::

Update: The presentation actually went pretty well. I was almost completely unprepared, but I was able to stumble my way through it. It was supposed to be a conference about the major writing project for the class. I’m doing a web-based tutorial on how to install and use FeedDemon, my favorite RSS reader. I got a lot of good feedback, and it was a tremendous relief to have it over with.

I once read a great quote, which I will paraphrase here, because I can’t find the original:

^~It is not the great tragedies of life that drive men insane. Hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes–these can be overcome. No, it’s the aggregate effect of a thousand minor irritations, the buzzing of a fly or the breaking of a pencil, that drive men over the brink into madness.^~

This has been one of those kinds of days.

Exams are over, thank goodness. I did pretty well. Final grades came out last night: 4 A’s, 2 B’s. And one of those B’s really should have been an A. But, no matter. I’m pleased anyway.

Yesterday and today we’ve been having all of the “Commencement Week” activities. I arrived late to the Sermon Contest yesterday morning, because somehow I managed to misplace an hour in getting ready. I woke up at what I thought was my normal time, took a shower, came out, and *gasp* it’s 6:50 instead of 6! I usually leave at 7 to get there in time for my 8 o’clock class. Fortunately, the contest started at 8:30, so I was able to get ready in what should have been enough time.

But naturally, because I was running late, the passage from I-85 to I-385 became horrendously slow for no apparent reason, even coming to a full stop on a couple of occasions.

Needless to say, my attention was less than well-focused on the sermon contest. That, and both of the speakers I heard were talking about the Great Commission, IIRC, and how we should witness to people, and all that. Nothing we hadn’t all heard a million times already.

So, my mind started to wander off into what I would preach about, were I ever to be compelled to preach. I think I’ll eventually make the topic into its own post later, so I won’t spoil it here.

Then there was an hour break for some reason, probably to allow time for the stage crew to set up for the next of the day’s festivities: the Fine Arts Awards Ceremony/Recital. Apparently there are contests going on throughout the semester in music, art, and speech, and the winners get to perform in front of the entire student body. To me, that would be a punishment rather than a reward–I hate getting up in front of people to do anything–but I guess that’s why I’m not a fine arts major. Yeah, I’m a business major, so that means I’ll be doing presentations from time to time, but the bar is set a lot lower than for fine arts folks. All I have to do is get the information across to my audience clearly without putting them to sleep. Fine arts guys aren’t allowed to make mistakes, period.

The recital went well; as seems to be typical for Bob Jones recitals, the music was good, but too long. The speech parts were excellent, especially the “duet acting” presentation. A guy and a girl did a scene from The Taming of the Shrew, which was hilarous.

After the recital, there was a break for lunch–yay for Jack-in-the-Box–followed by the Scholastic Bowl championship. For those of you who don’t know, the Scholastic Bowl is a trivia contest that runs throughout the second semester of every year. The societies each send teams of three representatives who have to answer various obscure questions ranging from music history to science to business to BJU-related trivia. Each correct answer is worth 10 points; if you answer incorrectly, you lose 5 points and the opposing team can answer for a chance at 5 points.

This year was apparently the closest champtionship ever in the 21 years the games have been played: The winning team only scored 5 points more than the losing team. The contest was at least mildly entertaining.

That was it for yesterday: I came home, changed, and bought a DVD burner. It’s very pretty:

I like it.

Today was more of the same; an awards ceremony, which recognized a bunch of students who performed well academically throughout the year, as well as teachers who had reached various milestones in their teaching careers. I was amazed to learn that there are a few teachers who have taught at BJU for 50 years. I can’t imagine staying in one place that long, no matter where.

I also saw a production of Hamlet, which was very good. I’d never seen Hamlet before. My favorite part: Hamlet has just killed Polonius, the long-winded and annoying, yet decent, nobleman who is the father of Hamlet’s one-time love interest Ophelia. (In fairness to Hamlet, Polonius did take him by surprise, hiding behind a curtain in the Queen’s bedroom.) Soon after enters Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle who has killed the rightful king, Hamlet’s father, and who has taken his kingdom and his queen, and who (combined with the ghostly apparation of Hamlet’s father) driven Hamlet to madness.

KING CLAUDIUS: Where is Polonius?

HAMLET: In heaven; send hither to see: if your messenger find him not there, seek him i’ the other place yourself.

At this point much of the audience made a noise like “OOoooooo!” as if to say “Touché!”

There’s also some concert thing tonight, but I don’t have to go. Why? I’m a town student living 30 miles away. BJU has graciously relaxed the rules for people in my situation: I only have to attend two artist series performances and two vespers in per semester, while the dorm students have to attend all of them. (Of course, dorm students also have a 45-minute shorter commute than I do, so it all evens out.)

The last of the commencement week activities is commencement proper, which I’ll be attending tomorrow. I normally wouldn’t attend, but I think that I ought to come to at least one commencement before actually participating in one. I expect it to be at least a little interesting: Dr. Bob is handing over the reins of BJU to his son, Dr. Steven Jones tomorrow.

And now you know why I try to avoid the “here’s what I did today!” kind of posts–they’re long and boring. I’ll have to say something of substance in the near future. Until then, good night.

Unlike some unfortunate souls, I appear to not be allergic to any of the varieties of trees, flowers, and grass that are spraying their reproductive material into the atmosphere right now.

It really is getting ridiculous. This nasty yellow dust covers everything outside. Sometimes, especially if it hasn’t rained in a while, you can actually see the dust being swirled around by the air.

Worse, the bugs are coming back. I hate bugs, especially ones that can hurt me. Bees we can keep, because they produce honey. Hornets and yellow-jackets serve no useful function besides causing pain, and they must die.

Then there are the bugs that carry diseases. Flies immediately come to mind, feasting on the filth of waste and death, then coming and landing on your sandwich. They must die.

Some are just annoying. Gnats are tiny and make irritating noises right next to your ears while you attempt to do some sort of strenous activity outside. Most varieties of ants are painless, but irritating.

But, by far, the worst insect of all is the mosquito. It falls into all three groups–it hurts you by causing painful, itchy bumps on your skin. It’s annoying, making a high-pitched noise right next to your ear. And it’s dangerous: Mosquitos are the number one disease vector in the world, carrying diseases like malaria to millions. (According to this guy, children are the number two disease vector.)

And you wonder why I prefer to stay indoors? No bugs, no pollen, and air conditioning, which is another one of the things I’m thankful for. Seriously, if it weren’t for air conditioning, I would have moved someplace more temperate a long time ago.

Wow, it must be getting late; I’m starting to ramble. I’ll see y’all later.

In a recent post, I linked to a blog called Libertarian Girl, mainly to quote a commenter named austroblogger. I don’t plan on linking to her much more, because I found out via InstaPundit that she is a he.

That ticks me off. A lot. I hate liars.

I mean, imagine if one day I revealed that I was a 60-year-old Russian that had never even been to America, much less the BJU campus? Pseudonyms are one thing, but to lie about your identity is another.

He’s re-titled his blog as “Libertarian Loser Guy.”

Yeah, that’s about the politest term I can think of for you.

::right click:: ::unsubscribe::

They say that first impressions are everything; scientists even tell us that students’ impressions of a teacher after “five seconds of soundless videotape… matched those given by his own students after a full semester of classes.”

So, today, my first day of classes, could conceivably set the tone for the whole semester. If that’s the case, this semester will be pretty good.

The rest of this post contains my initial thoughts about this semester.

I’ve had to use a script to close all the comments on my Movable Type blogs. I just got sick of getting comment spammed. The downside is that legitimate comments can no longer be left on those entries either.

I hate spammers.

This entry is designed to hold any future comments from the “All About Me!” link in the sidebar.