out of the blue

Thesis 1: Morality Exists Regardless of God's Existence

If you can answer this question "no", you're saying that regardless of whether God exists or not, you're not going to go around raping people and murdering people. You're saying that it doesn't matter whether God exists or not: this is still going to be wrong.

To say this is to say that God Himself exists only within morality. You may say that this morality is a part of Him, but no matter how you look at it, God is bound by morality. He cannot morally do anything that would be wrong if we did it, were we in His place with all of His knowledge and wisdom. Therefore, we can evaluate God's supposed actions from a moral standpoint and decide whether he was behaving morally or not (always keeping in mind that, of course, we do not possess omniscience or perfect wisdom, things that God is postulated to possess).

This isn't, of course, a watertight argument. You may argue that if God is morality, then the only reason you don't steal rape or murder is because God commanded it. This seems to me to be the strongest counterargument, but I would still find it difficult to accept. To accept this is to say that morality is arbitrary – that God, in His Infinite Wisdom, spoke forth into the Darkness and said "and This is the Way it Shall Be: Man shall not take from his brother that which is not freely given unto him; Neither shall he take from a woman that which she does not freely give unto him", and he could just as likely have said "and This is the Way it Shall Be: Man shall go and do whatever the Hell he wants, for I have created him that if he be strong, he shall rule over the earth and over his fellows to his heart's content."

I, for one, find this distasteful.

Therefore, I subscribe to the Thesis: that Morality exists regardless of God's existence.

I hate those times when you wish something terrible would happen so you feel justified being depressed.

I hate wanting to cry, but being unable to summon tears.

I hate being a footnote.

*shiver*

This will pass shortly. But it is how I feel at this precise moment. Ugh. I think I'm going to go take a shower. Sorry to go so emo on you all….

Aaron just told me a story about his childhood. It's not important what, but it is important that in the end he burned a poem in a jar, closed the lid, and wrote "Broken Dreams" on the top. I say "You're so emo, Aaron."

"Shut up!"

I gesture up and down at his completely black clothing that he earlier described as his Hamlet costume. He tries to think of a way to prove me wrong, so he unzips his pants and shows me that his boxers aren't black. But, oh wait, they are.

"FUCK!"

Three minutes ago, the phone rings. I pick it up. "Hello?"

"This is Cami. Can I speak to the lady of the house?" in a rather ordering tone. (Not, obviously, the usual Cami.)

*brief pause while I think of how to respond*

"Can I speak to the lady of the house!" same tone.

"Well, actually, this is a college residence. We have eight students living here." I didn't mention that only three of them were ladies, and I'd be hard-pressed to say who the "lady of the house" would be. Probably Kenlyn.

"I'm sorry, goodbye." This was a bit contrite, as if she had done something wrong or embarrassing. But no indication of what was going on, no "I'm sorry, I must have dialed the wrong number" or anything like that. I was very confused.

Any ideas what this was? Do you think she was calling her next-door neighbor about some hijinks their kids were up to and dialed the wrong number? I can't think of what sort of salesperson would speak in a commanding, irritated tone….

If any of you still think our country is holding to the high moral ground, you should read this. If you are not physically sick throughout a large portion of the article, there may be something wrong with you. I have a fairly strong ability to suppress revulsion, and it was entirely overcome.

The article is a description of various torture techniques that have been used in interrogations, according to "former and current intelligence officers and supervisors." [ABC News] The techniques have been authorized since March 2002, although a couple of them have now been officially banned.

A practical concern of torture, in addition to all the moral outrage that it invokes, is that you can persuade anyone to admit to anything if you apply these techniques. The most stolid of the prisoners, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, was able to resist under the most horrendous of these tortures for a mere two-and-a-half minutes. It must must be utter hell, to break a well-trained man so quickly. The CIA agents who underwent it themselves withstood it for an average of only 15 seconds.

There is something wrong with our country. There is something wrong with the world. It is up to our generation to stop it, to react against the atrocities of the current age and put an end to them.

Stupid bloodsucking such-and-suches…

So, we were experiencing very slow internet for a while now. We'd get speeds of 10kb/s consistently. I didn't really think about it much, because the internet has always been somewhat up-and-down in that way. But today we all were annoyed at it, so I logged into the wireless base station and looked at the list of connected IP addresses. 13 computers connected. After noting that Aaron Brown has two computers, and that Aaron Moore is connected with both a hardline and wireless, there were still 3 computers left unaccounted for, if everyone in the house had their computers on. So Aaron Brown and I changed the password on the base station (which was still the default), and set up some WEP encryption, and guess what? The internet jumped from 15kb/sec to about 1000kb/sec. I don't know how someone was muscling the rest of us out, but it was pretty atrocious. I am much happier now, because it means that I can work on web design and upload every minute or so without having to wait 20 seconds for each text file.

We should have done something to the leeches computers before we encrypted the signal, but I'm not so much into retribution. Alas.

For my birthday, Cami got me a book of short stories titled sunlight & shadows. I read it on a camping trip shortly after recieving it, and I was struck by a number of stories that made me think of particular people when I read them. Here is one of those stories, which I felt I had to show to Aaron. It may be the most universal of the stories I wanted to show to people, so you should all read it.

( The Gunfighter )

I just updated all my Flickr pictures to add location data. Most of them I was able to get down to the street, but some were definitely guesses. My favorite location is Rock Lake, which took quite a while to find because it's so small and you can't search for geographic landmarks. So, if you go to my Flickr map you can see where I've taken pictures.

Now that I have a pro Flickr account, I may upload a lot more pictures from my old photosets (the ones that survived my computer crash). I think more Rock Lake pictures would be particularly cool, and there are a few other trips/sets that would be nice to be more complete. So I will likely do that.

Mark's comment on my last entry reminded me of a techie poem by Steven Brust that I encountered a few years ago when reading his weblog at dreamcafe.com. I thought I'd bring it up again:

I dreamt that I was windows free
And data flowed in streams
From you to me, my ISP
All flawless in my dreams.

All the work I chose to do
To know was but to ask;
Handshake and smile, and all the while
Ran on each Linux task

I awoke to truth with throaty scream
Of frustrations, pains, and hates;
Once more to earth I soundly cursed
All windows, doors, and Gates.

– Steven Brust (11 October 2001)

This is my new flat-panel 19" monitor. In ancient times, holy places were sometimes judged by the wealth of their idol or altar. If there is something that embodies the form of a computer more than a beautiful monitor, I don't know what it is. I've certainly moved up on the shrine scale.