Renaissance Humanism

Another paper for school...

Renaissance Humanism

A mere list of events, people, art, and discoveries that came out of the Renaissance will not be found here. Little attention, at this time, will be given to solid outcomes of the Renaissance, rather, a focus on the causes and root movement of humanism will be found in its place.

Guatemala 2013

For school, I had to do a sort of questionarre about my time in Guatemala this year, so I figured I'd share it here as well.

Reflections on Guatemala 2013

What surprised me the most in this trip?

Being my third time to Guatemala, I was unsure how much I would remember as I returned. I was quite young the first two times that my family traveled to Guatemala, so I was surprised at how many memories came back to me. There were numerous moments where, sitting in the house, I couldn’t remember a place, but as we traveled there, I suddenly remembered it completely, and a bunch of memories that took place there would come flooding back so vividly, I’d have to take a minute and catch my breath.

On the other hand, there were many things that I had forgotten about, or had been oblivious to as a kid. The most prominent was the gun presence. As a kid, I guess that I hadn’t been aware of just how many guards and police were around and how substantial of arms they were carrying.

Truth

The crazy thing about truth is that it always goes both ways.

I can easily agree that being born gifted is nothing to brag about, and that I did nothing to earn it. Taking that the other way, though, I have a harder time with. My aspergers or AD/HD is nothing to be ashamed of, and I didn't bring it on myself. For some reason, I can't get that through my thick skull.

I believe that someone that I debate with should be open minded enough to really hear what I'm saying, and stop thinking about their own argument long enough to hear mine. But wait a minute, that means that I should stop talking long enough to hear their points, and be willing to change my mind if those points are valid.

When it says in Ecclesiastes that everything is meaningless, we take that the way of “why bother with any of it,” but it also goes the other way. We needn't stress about it when we mess up or choose not to do something we know we should.
We know that God's grace is so huge that it can cover all of our sins, but sometime it's harder to accept that it covers the "bigger sins," especially those of others.

An exercise that I've been trying a bit is to analyze truth in this way. Taking a truth that I completely accept, and looking at it's other implications. The hard part is to then act in those harder truths.

Dreams

No one is going to care about your dream like you do. The problem, though, is that some dreams can't, and won't, be accomplished by you on your own. The trick, then, is knowing when to find someone to help, and when to keep jobs to yourself.
I wish that I had some crazy wisdom to drop here, but I'm still figuring it out. And by "still figuring it out" I really mean, I'm running into this problem, and it's messing me up, and I don't know what to do...yet.
One thing that I do know, is the need to remember this balance. No one is going to care about my dreams as much as I do. No one is going to spend as much time thinking about them. No one is going to work as hard towards them. No one is going to invest as much heart, time or money on them.
But that's fine; after all, it's my dream, not yours, and no one's going to get as psyched about them coming to fruition as me.

Oration of the Dignity of Man

"But what is the purpose of all this? That we may understand --- since we have been born into this condition of being what we choose to be --- that we ought to be sure above all else that it may never be said against us that, born to a high position, we failed to appreciate it, but fell instead to the estate of brutes and uncomprehending beasts of burden …

Lies

"You're either good at math or English. It's one or the other. You're either left or right brained, so you'll be analytical or artistic."

That's what they tell you, at least.

I'm Back

Hey guys,
I had full intentions of throwing up a post about me leaving six weeks ago for Guatemala. I had written it all up and even made a new page with blogs that I would recommend to read instead of mine while I went silent for a bit. But, as life always does right before a big trip, it got a little crazy, and I forgot to press "publish." Oh well, I'm pretty sure that most everyone who reads this already knew that I was heading out.

Yah, so that's the story. I haven't been negligent, I've just been away, but I have got some thoughts brewing that have gotten me excited to start writing again. Life's about to get crazy again, though, so we'll see how it all goes.

For today though, I'll throw up the new page that I had written anyways which is just a quick list of blogs that I read and recommend.

Here's an Idea

Here's an idea; what if Christians didn't turn into jerks when someone disagreed with them?

Right now I’m wrestling through the old-earth vs. young-earth debate, and I’ll be honest, it’s so much more difficult to go through than I had expected. I didn’t expect to find an easy answer, so that didn’t catch me off guard me too much, but I’ve been surprised by something else. I expected the debates to be less attacking.

After spending a couple months researching the intelligent design theory vs. materialism I’m pretty familiar with reading papers that sound very angry. People get really upset when you question their foundational beliefs, and if you’re not a Christian, you don’t really have a reason not to get mad and just say degrading things about the “bad guys.”

Priorities

Okay, confession time.

I have a tendency to get my priorities in the wrong order.

This sounds insane, but I all too often put school as too high of a priority. Getting to know God is more important than getting into Stanford, but sometimes I forget that.

Sometimes I mix up the order of Jesus' words in Mark 12. I get myself so focused on loving other people and planning ways to show my love for them that I forget to show my love for God.

I think a big part of my problem is that these aren't inherently bad things. School is good; loving my neighbour is good. They're not what it's all about, though.

How to Infuriate an Atheist

Want to tick off an atheist? Just refer to Natural Selection as random. That one really gets 'em riled up. The problem is, it's starting to bother me too.

When you learn about the theory of natural selection, as told by those who agree with it, not those arguing against it who all too often misrepresent it, you realize that it's not an idea of random processes. Natural selection is more accurately described as an "undirected" process.

Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes is probably my favourite book of the bible. I know that’s not a normal thing to say, that most people find it rather depressing, but I have found quite the opposite.

The other day I decided to read Proverbs since I’ve never read through the whole thing. Well, Solomon is my new favourite bible character. I was already a big fan after hearing about his prayer for wisdom years ago, but Proverbs blew my mind.

Anyway, next thing I know, I’m done. I had somehow read through all of Proverbs in one sitting, but even stranger is that I wasn’t done. I still wanted to read more, so I began reading Ecclesiastes all the while praying that it wouldn’t depress me, but that I would be able to see the beauty behind it. Big surprise, God was faithful.

How I Research

This might make me a bad Christian, but it seems better logic than the alternative, and I have a feeling that God's a fan on logic. When I'm researching something controversial, particularily in science or philosophy, I don't look for evidence to back up a biblical worldview. That sounds bad, but here's the thing, I'm not living my life to prove my beliefs to be true, I'm living to find truth and act on that truth.