20081102

I am angry, sarcastic, embittered and cynical. I hold few beliefs, one of which is that a limited sense of identity is the root of all evil. Likewise, a limited point of view is at the root of controversy. The Christian faith addresses the first point. The second just takes an open mind.

These two factors, combined with what they tell me is are malfunctioning synapses, have resulted in who and what I am now. A Christian who believes in nothing.

"Nothing" is obviously meant as a generality. (We're already talking wildly disparate components of self; I might as well qualify this one.) I believe God exists. I believe humanity is, outside of God, screwed.

My default perspective is neutral. But for every stance that is ever taken, there's an alternative side that is not being heard out properly. To that end, maybe defense is my "calling", so-called. I'll rarely take sides, but if you're passionate about your conviction I'll do everything in my power (until such time as it becomes apparent that this action is futile) to show you the other side as if you were there. I try my hardest to see all sides of everything, inasmuch as that's possible for a human. The side effect is a personal passion that has gone into complete paralysis. You can't choose sides if you can see more than one of them clearly, and - this is important - you have no faith in your own ability to make a valid choice.

This is again a description of the most common situation. There are a couple exceptions.

I don't know why I'm writing this. There was a set of stimuli that put me here, but I don't remember what they were. Free will doesn't exist - there's another point. It's an illusion critical for the function of society, but from a perspective that factors in time as a dimension, free will cannot be seen to exist. It's an argument that has no effect on anything, as freedom of choice is apparent when your perspective is limited to this point in time. But the underlying thought that what happens next is inevitable takes a lot of passion out of life.

Passion, because that's what drives a person to act in such a way that it effects change. I say that at the core, nothing has, will and will ever change. Only the way in which we structure our interpretation has variance.

Until Jesus shows up. And yeah, he's coming. To put the world right. God knows we're not doing it ourselves.

...

You see the difficulty, yes?