Q&A#5

I love Christmas. I love the sparkling lights, the warmth from the fire place, the comfort of family and giving presents to those who are close to me (and being done exams... let's not forget about that most glorious part).

I'm calling it quits for tonight for studying and as I was packing up my things, I was thinking about things I want to buy for people for Christmas. I like to come up with my own ideas and something that is creative, but it gets so hard sometimes (ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU ARE BUYING FOR GUYS... I have 7 to buy for!)

This leads me to my question (s):

What are you giving for Christmas, what has/have been your favourite present(s) received (in case anyone thinks I'm all materialistic, I'd like to exclude the birth of Jesus... that's just a give in) and what has been your most favourite present you have given someone?

My mom and I have a tradition where we watch Charlie Brown Christmas every year. That being said...

Q&A#4

"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
-Albert Einstein

I believe this is true of Christianity.

Discuss?

Q&A 3

First off, I'll apologize for the long hiatus.

Today it's a bit of a more superficial kind of thing. Of course, knowing how much we all like our music, it'll probably digress into something a lot more than that. My question for everyone is this: What are your favourite albums right now? Not individual songs. Not individual artists. Not three songs by the same artist.

And in an effort to get this going, I'm expecting all of you to post your favourite song from each album onto the Mediafire account. Because sharing is sparing me the effort of finding it myself.

So let's go. Bonus marks for in depth analysis as to why they're your favourites.

In honor of what was one of the best months of music, for me. As well as iTunes releasing The Beatles stuff. Which really was a bigger deal than it should have been. But at the same time is a bigger deal than we made it. Let's face it, the world's going digital.

And finally, all of you should join Twitter. I know, I know, "Twitter is just a whole mess of self-indulgence and idiocy." But it's really not idiotic. And besides, you all wrote/write on blogs for the whole world to see. How much more goddamn self-indulgent can we be? This much!

Q&A #2

In the first few years of university, I've noticed there are a couple of things you feel become challenged quite regularly. Of course, what is education if it doesn't make you second-guess your convictions. But seriously, I do think that it's completely normal and even healthy to revamp your opinions.

So my question to you all is: What feelings, opinions, beliefs have you had challenged since you left high school?

For me, I've definitely had to reevaluate the severity (or lack there of) of what some things mean. At the least, I've had to realize the different spectrum of values, etc, that other people have. This wasn't that big of an adjustment for me, as I've always tried to be aware of the fact, but it's still shocking, sometimes. The level of decency you can expect is pretty unpredictable.

Secondly, there's a lot of things I've studied that, admittedly, have put my faith in a potential bind. The thing I really struggle with, though, is that even when I manage to justify these things to myself, I still encounter a lot of flack over them. The evolution thing is a fun punching bag. Of course, I know that as a whole, the Christian community had all of this coming. We honestly don't deserve a proper hearing, since most of us don't really dole them out too often ourselves.

But I'm almost a little sick of being the punching bag. It's too easy to find the kid who can't prove his beliefs and throw them in his face. To be frank, the Christianity deal has the quandary of being almost entirely reliant on the principle of believing in something in spite of being unable to prove it.

But, regardless, I've noticed that there is a completely justified view of Christians as closed-minded. If something jeopardizes the easy explanation of what we believe, we fight it. Be prepared to face the criticisms, work on them yourself, and accept that your rationalized answer will just be shot down anyway. Because that's the life, and if it was easy, there wouldn't really be an element of free will, would there. If someone offered you one thousand dollars or one dollar, is it really an exercise in free will to pick the thousand dollars? Technically, yes; but functionally, no.

Q&A #1

Just looking for some opinion:

Should individuals with DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) be held criminal responsible for their crimes?

And...go!