Post 38: More on God as Personal and Experiential

In the past six or so months, my life as a Christian has turned in a way I never imagined it would. I ventured into a field of Christian theology known as apologetics. I've learned the knowledge of defenders of the faith like William Lane Craig, Ravi Zacharias, Hugh Ross, and so on. This has coupled with my natural propensity to learn things quickly and has resulted in me gaining a very large mental library of knowledge about rational defense of the Christian faith. I have at least a basic understanding of six philosophical arguments to support the existence of the Biblical God and can probably provide a decent defense the historical accuracy of the Bible. This passion to understand the faith is something I've held for as long as I can remember yet is sadly absent from most of my peers.

However, even with all this knowledge, I still find myself occasionally in doubt. You'd think this is the most bizarre issue that I could have. Like, really? I've ventured into fields of knowledge that most are apathetic toward at best, and I'm still not 100% confident in my faith? It's true. It's no secret that God is, on a day-to-day basis, quite hidden from humanity. Because he's not made of matter or energy, he's not something we can detect with our physical senses. Because he is infinite and eternal, he is not something we can fully comprehend or understand with our human thinking. The Bible says that a person cannot see God and live; if God were to appear in front of me, it would be my death. His pure holiness would destroy my physical body (or something like that). Rather, God is spirit and to perceive him you must be able to perceive spiritually. I do have friends who are more in-tune with things spiritual; I don't quite have that gifting.

It seems that the issue boils down to this: I have trouble encountering God in a personal, experiential manner. Despite Christianity being a "personal relationship," I must concede there are not too many things which have happened over the past four years which I could call personal. On a practical, daily level, it's been more of a matter of obedience than personal interaction. Then there is the experiential aspect. I have experienced things which I attribute to God - healings, hearing from God, warnings, etc. - yet these are unfortunately far and few in between, which makes them difficult to anchor upon.

I want to experience God on a more tangible, real level, outside the lines of ink that make up my Bible or my short nightly prayers. I've ruminated on this in a previous post, and some of the possibilities listed by it still apply here. Some ways I might experience God:

• Miraculous events - I've experienced at least one of my own, as well as seeing/hearing of several others.
• Worship - egad. Pentecostals are (in)famous for this. Speaking in tongues. Being slain in the Spirit. My response to God hasn't been particularly emotional, so I don't really experience anything supernatural in this. I make a really good Baptist in this regard.
• "Hearing" God through thoughts - as I've said before, this has happened to me a couple times.
• Conscience - this is one I don't often consider, and I really should. When your conscience inexplicably (or explicably as the case may be) tells you something, that's the God trying to get your attention via the Holy Spirit.
• "Feeling" God presence - been over two years since I mentioned this, and I still don't know how one does that.
• Observing how God works through the world around you - like how things turn out for fellow believers, etc., etc.

This list isn't very helpful. It's just a list. These are ways that God might appear to me, but it doesn't help with my problem. How might one come to experience God? Or encounter him in a personal way? I'd like for that to happen. Dear God, please reveal yourself to me, because I am a stubborn fool that wants to rely on my own understanding.

Post 37: Rite of Initiation or, What it Mean to be a Man

A couple days ago I was reading an article on the site called The Art of Manliness and it talked about rites of initiation. These are events in a young man's life that marks their transition from being a boy to being a man. It mentioned some things that I found were interesting.

To my surprise, it seems that a lot of adult males don't feel like they are men. Being 20, I consider myself a man. I figured I officially transitioned from boyhood to manhood on my 18th birthday. By that point I had graduated high school and moved over 900 miles to a new state in the country. I would soon have a job and, less than a year later, enter college.

Part of the reason many men don't feel like men, the article seems to say, is because as a society we lack that rite of initiation that more traditional societies have. There is no absolute delimiter. Instead, people use a lot of different major life events to personally mark when they enter manhood. It could be when they get their driver's license (which I've not yet done, but am in the process of doing!), graduate from high school, become the age where you're legally considered an adult, and so on. If the person belongs to a religious organization there could be something like that. In Christianity, there's a tradition of water baptism, where the person identifies with the death and resurrection of Jesus. Jews have the bar mitzvah for young men where at age 13 are considered to be full adults in the Jewish community. Catholic Christians, in addition to water baptism, have the sacrament of Confirmation.

Within a small span of time, I've had many experiences which could be considered rites of initiation to manhood: water baptism at my Protestant Christian church; a few days later, graduating from high school; two days later, arriving in Kansas after a long trip half way across the nation; turning 18; getting my first real job; and registering to vote.

However, I feel that if I were personally to have a "rite of initiation" into manhood, it wouldn't be any of those things. With the exception of the long move, these are pretty generic. When I think of being a man, there's some words that come to my mind: leader, self-reliant, wise, intelligent, strong, crafty, mild-tempered, resilient, and so on. In the comments section of the page there were some good ideas for what a personalized rite of initiation would be like. I suppose my own rite of initiation would involve three main fields: my spirituality, physical strength, and practical skills.

Now, I don't really care for the idea of having children currently, but it's possible that someday I will have a son. I have a speculation about what I might do for a rite of initiation. Should I ever have children I do intend to raise them in a strongly Christian home and we would retain the tradition of water baptism. That wouldn't be the "rite of initiation," though. That's meant to be done when a person makes a decision to openly associate with Jesus's death and resurrection. My idea is this:

Perhaps a weekend or two after graduation or his turning 18, whichever occurs last, there would be a trip taken to the woods. Perhaps it would be a camping expedition. The only people attending would be me, the son, and a couple friends of mine who I know to be wise and godly. Over the course of the weekend we would teach him how to do things like starting fires (not to burn down the forest of course!), fishing, and other skills that would make him handy around the house and in daily life. We'd also do some running to build up the physique, although myself and my friends may run out of energy long before he did. The most important part, I think, would be when we're sitting around the campfire. Myself and my friends would discuss life with him. I'm sure that at 18 he would still have lots of questions about God, women, life, and so on. We'd hear and answer his questions, and dispense valuable bits of wisdom to him. The outcome of this, hopefully, would be a young man equipped to grow as a wise and capable individual that knows the proper way to face life and reach his fullest potential in whatever goals he may set.

Post 36: An Alternative Lifestyle

The other day, I was thinking to myself. I don't want to settle for the 9 to 5 job life. For the longest time I felt like I wanted to get into freelancing, since it offers much more flexibility. I can work when I want on what I wish to work on. Hopefully I would be able to make a good income off of this. Then I thought, I really wouldn't mind just being a part-timer. That is, if the job wasn't something I was really passionate about. 


I'd like to think of myself as not much of a materialistic person. There isn't very much that I actually need. I don't own very much stuff, and (excluding furniture) what I do have could probably fit in a car trunk - clothes included. I wouldn't mind getting a cheap apartment that has cable, telephone and quality Internet access, along with running water and air conditioning. I'd spend most of my free time on the computer, anyway. If even a part time job could provide enough money that I could pay off the necessities and still be able to live comfortably, I'd be all set. I just really don't like the idea of giving years of my life to a job that I don't even have passion for and leaves me so tired when I'm done that I don't have the energy to follow my dreams. I see this way too often and I'm somewhat determined to stay out of that rut.


I'm also a morning person. I don't mind the idea of getting up at like 7 or 8 in the morning. I have a friend who lives on a farm and he does all sorts of errands. I would guess he usually starts his work around 8 or 9 and goes on until maybe 2 or so in the afternoon. I rather admire that work ethic he has and would do well to adopt it myself. A sustaining part time job that would be over at about noon or 1 PM would, then, be almost ideal for me. 


So what would I do with the free time, then? Probably take the chance to pursue my dreams, the thing I really want to do. Perhaps do freelancing. Write a book, try to make money via the Internet. Do more with my ministry. I wouldn't want to waste all this time though, by doing pointless ventures. Perhaps unfortunately, I'm thinking in terms of dollar signs. I do wish to monetize my skills and if the job I have doesn't use them, then I would probably look for other ways to do so. I would try to have fun, of course. Another advantage of being done early in the afternoon is that I could socialize with friends, who have similar work schedules. 


I'm quite inspired by various people I've discovered through gaming, who either don't have full time jobs or don't actually have a job proper. Etho, who is currently my favorite Minecraft gamer, admitted today he's a horticulturist, a seasonal job. Most of his income comes from his videos. Kurtjmac quit a job he disliked many months ago and has devoted most of his time to YouTube  videos. He's saved up quite a bit of money to support himself and there's a "tip jar" where people can make personal donations to him. Then there's the Yogscast, who presumably make tons of money and don't seem to have actual jobs. I see these people follow their video and gaming passions and are able to monetize those. I'm good at writing, programming, and ministry (though I certainly don't intend to make money off of that), and could also possibly work in some teaching role. Maybe, just maybe, I can escape the rat race and do stuff a bit more meaningful and satisfying than the normal 40 hours a week life.

Post 35: The Trouble with Trig (And Other Fields of Math)

(In case you haven't noticed, the title is a reference to "The Trouble with Tribbles," an episode from the original Star Trek series.)

So it looks like I will be taking a calculus course again. For the third time. In high school I was in advanced placement classes and one of them was calculus. I sort of considered the word "calculus" a swear word. Not because I didn't like the class. I didn't like the material. I'll get into this in a moment. The advanced placement courses had exams you could take at the end of the year. If you passed, you would get college credit and not need to take the courses in college. I didn't bother with the exam. First of all, I didn't think we could afford yet another $86 exam. Secondly, I had exactly no confidence in my calculus skills even though I didn't do half bad in the class.

In my sophomore year of community college I took the course again. I did well, but the way it was done wasn't very good for me. It was a month-long summer course and class was five days a week. Well at the times the class was being held, I was working. I'd get about one day a week off of work to get to the class. I would ride my bike three miles in 100-degree weather to make it to the last hour of the class. It was pretty rushed. My high school class made things a little easier for me, and I had an advantage over my three classmates.

Kansas State University has a requirement for incoming transfer students where you have to take free online placement exams for algebra and calculus. I did the algebra exam and had trouble with that, but not major issues. Today I'm taking my second stab at the calculus exam and ohmigoodness. Actually it's both trigonometry and calculus. No doubt I'm scoring higher than average but still the material is insanely difficult for me.

Despite being somebody who has historically been more interested in math and science than anything else, math itself has always seemed to be my weak point. Here in the United States we take what are called the Standardized Aptitude Tests, or SATs, in our 11th year of schooling (junior year of high school). The score is out of 2400 and the average grade is something like 1500. I got an 1810 on it, which is pretty good. My lowest score was in math with a 530. Oddly enough, writing and reading were 660 and 640 respectively. Maybe I should focus on my writing more?

Calculus frustrates me. It does a good job of ruining my mood for the rest of the day. I know that I need to answer the stuff correctly to get a good score, and being unable to do that really upsets me. I've actually done Google searches in frustration asking "Why is calculus so hard?" and it's interesting to see what kind of results I've gotten. Calculus is not a new field of math in the sense that it's unrelated to things like geometry and algebra. In fact, it's a culmination of all of them. It's also much more abstract and relies on theory more than any other field of math I've encountered.

It's also the start of a new field of math, not the ultimate end of it. There's new stuff to be learned, which feels like it comes straight from left field. I've noticed it relies heavily on the slope of a line, but does the weirdest and disturbing things with it. In times of frustration I've humorously referred to it as a sin to do calculus. Exponents are put in places they should never go. If I were a number and somebody tried to perform calculus on me, I'd be offended.

Now honestly some things were easy and remain simple. I can do derivatives and integrals without much fuss. I've kept my notes from high school so I can look back when I need help. Implicit differentiation is kinda fun to do. But some of the more bizarre stuff makes me want to derive myself off a cliff. (If you get that joke, you probably need to get outdoors more.) Originally when I found the name of the guy who made this field of math was Leibniz, I realized who it was that I didn't like. Ironically, he came up with an argument for the existence of God, which redeems him somewhat.

The other pain in the butt is trigonometry. The main problem with trig is that it takes you away from numbers and instead relies on words: sine, cosine, tangent, and so on. When it comes to math, I want to think in terms of numbers and algorithms. Pythagorean Theorem, Law of Cosines, and so on. With trig, we don't get algorithms. We get these magical words. I was never taught the inner workings of these words. Instead I just punched a number into them and out came another number. I couldn't imagine in my brain how they produced their output. Then I was supposed to treat these words as numbers and algorithms themselves. But I didn't know what I was working with. That made it hard for me to mentally capture what I was doing.

So that's my rant. Advanced mathematics is my bane. I've never been exceptionally good at it (which admittedly is by my own unnecessarily high standard). Yet somehow I need to know this to get anywhere in my intended field of employment. Unless I become a better writer.

Post 34: Blog Network!

As you may or may not have noticed, I've built up something of a network of blogs. Since I'm not very creative sometimes, I'm using what I use for my main website: Shawn's Site. The blogs are rather diverse. From now on, I think I'm going to use this blog as sort of the headquarters for the group, where network-wide updates and messages are made. In case you're curious about what exactly the blogs are, I shall describe them below.

Shawn's Online Journal, this blog, is my personal blog where I talk about stuff that's on my mind. I don't seem to say much on here these days, as I am busy elsewhere.

Youssarian's Minecraft Adventures is probably my most active blog. This is my Minecraft blog, where I talk about and show what I'm doing in the game. It's another one I've had for a long time, and it approaching 100 posts.

After Adults is for my story "After Adults." It's about a small group of teens in a post-apocalyptic world where adults have died off. They seek peaceful land to live in and encounter all sorts of people with hugs plans of their own.

Dext3r Ministries is my ministry blog. I feel God has called me to be involved with writing messages and sermons to edify others, as well as get into evangelization and apologetics (the defense of the faith using reason). Here I am starting that as best as I can, and so far it's somewhat active.

Star Nations: Orion Galaxy Dev Blog is my least active blog, with only a few posts on it. This documents the planning and writing of my dream game, "Star Nations: Orion Galaxy."

Feel free to check them out and comment!

Post 33: Political Affiliation Uncertainty

In my atheist years I was basically liberal. I felt that everyone should do as they wished, respecting authority when necessary. I also felt that it was good for the government to help those who needed it. At times that included my own family, since we never really were all that rich.

Conversion to Christianity resulted in a change in political affiliation. Since I had begun to believe there were in fact concrete morals, I went from social liberal to social conservative. This means that I felt the government should help support traditional (i.e., Christian) values and morals. I remained economically liberal, thinking the government should help the needy as appropriate. This sort of separates me from the high-profile Christians, who are strongly conservative through-and-through.

I didn't think that there was an actual term for my political affiliation. I called myself a centrist because I was fairly evenly divided between Republican and Democratic ideologies. Then during a government class in college I realized that my orientation was called "populist," apparently more common historically in the northwestern, mountain states. Its polar opposite is libertarian. So for the past few years I have been a strong populist. I believed that people should honor Christian values, and the government should help in giving economic assistance to those who need it. I sort of support the Occupy movement in that people making tons of money don't really need all that cash, especially since they will never use a lot of it and thus it could be better used elsewhere.

Recently while browsing on my preferred Christian forum, someone asked for people to explain their political views. Surprisingly, a lot of Christians are not conservative. I cited Acts 2 and 4, where the early church is shown to be very communal. In modern parlance, socialistic. Indeed, in my high school years I had socialistic leanings in my political beliefs, and to this day I still do.

However, in that same thread, a few others said things that got my brain churning. The next person to respond was a libertarian - my polar opposite! His argument was essentially this: We are made with free will, so we have the right to choose what we do. Jesus did not force anyone to follow him. Instead he let them decide for themselves. Therefore trying to force a society that is not godly to follow God's standard is not the example Jesus set for us and indeed, it's futile.

Another person, who has since that time become the chief administrator of the forum, pointed out another flaw in my thinking. The early church that I base my political belief upon is drastically different from American society in a crucial way. The early church was very oriented to God. The Holy Spirit was working strongly in them, making it natural for them to share with each other and be communal. American society, on the other hand, is anything but that. Capitalism has created a culture that says "Mine! Mine!" and it certainly lacks the Spirit's power.

While contemplating these things, I realized something about myself. As I said before, I have now begun to believe there is a concrete moral system that exists. And I have generally felt that everyone should follow this moral system. But guess what? Trying to get non-Christians to follow the Christian moral system is next to impossible to do!

So now I see that wanting a communal society, as nice as it may be, is day dreaming at best. Indeed, social conservatism seems like something that doesn't work to well. It's trying to force a set of values on a group of people who are unwilling to accept it.

Now the question may arise. Do I have the right to force my opinions on others? I certainly have the right to state my opinions. That's a fundamental of freedom. This results in an interesting dichotomy. Some of you will say, "No, you don't have the right to force your opinion on me." But is that not what you're attempting to do with me? Forcing your liberalism on me? Clearly, I would say, trying to get others to believe as you do is right. We do it all the time. But should we? As I said before, Jesus did not force people to come to him. He let them choose. What does this mean in the arena of politics? Surprisingly enough, let them do what they will. In the social sphere today, things like gay marriage and abortion are causing tons of conflict between non-Christian and Christian. Believers are attempting to cram Christian values down the throats of those who do not wish to accept those morals. Fine. They want these things? Let them have what they want. For me, it feels wrong to vote yes on a law that would permit abortion. Those are lives that are being killed, and I'm not doing anything to stop it. But as I've shown, trying to prevent it does no good. In ancient times, and even the days of Rome, it wasn't unheard of to get rid of babies. Did the church rally against it? No. Why should we now?

As much as I may be socially conservative myself, it's impractical to be that way in terms of law. So it almost seems logically superior to be liberal in this regard.

Now, for the economic side of things. I still contend that the government should help those who need it. But with a condition: people who can work should seek it. If you don't work, you don't eat. That's still economically liberal. I think it's practical. So all of this leaves me thinking that instead of being an ideological populist, it may indeed be more practical and even akin to what Jesus's life was like to be a liberal, even libertarian!

Post 32: Progress Report

I have a strange ability. Often when people set out to do things, to chase their dreams, they give up along the way. I'm not doing well on my New Years' Resolutions but with the things I mentioned in the previous post I'm actually doing really well! Here's a little update for you.

There's still about six months until I head off to university. I have decided that I'm going to Kansas State University. For good reason too: not only is it cheaper, I have something like over $6,000 in scholarships coming my way for my high grades and Phi Theta Kappa membership. A few days ago I spent the better part of my waking hours working on scholarships online, and hopefully I'll win one or two. In high school I applied for something like seven of them but didn't win any. Despite having insanely high grades and strong writing skills. Oh well. Still need to look into student loans. I figure I will go with the Sallie Mae company. Four of my five semesters in community college had 4.0 GPAs with an overall of 3.945.

A couple weeks after graduating I got my degree in the mail. I was so proud of it, I was telling everyone I got in contact with. It has a nice leather cover and the degree is laminated inside. Fifteen years of schooling have culminated in receiving that degree, and dangit I want to utilize it! I could contact the local employment agency to see what jobs, if any, are open around here. I'm hesitant to do that however, because I already have a job. Picking up two jobs, even if both are part time, would curtail a lot of my free time. Instead, I'm improving my Web design skills via volunteer work. I play a game called NationStates and lately I've been building the Web site for the group I am a member of. One of my weak points is graphic design but that's being improved with time.

Related to that, I'm still learning how to program in Java. I've finished reading the textbook I bought so now I'm just looking around and trying projects to improve my skills.

One of the things I was really concerned about the last time I posted was driving. I took the permit test and failed the first time. It's a series of 25 or so questions and you can get no more than 5 wrong otherwise you fail. I had 9 wrong the first time. A couple of them were kind of dumb mistakes but a couple others were questions worded very trickily. My second time, a week later, I passed having made only three mistakes. My official permit came in the mail a week or so later.

After that I had to find people to teach me to drive! I need 40 hours of daytime driving and 10 hours of nighttime driving. At first nobody was really willing to help. Then a month later I received like 3 or 4 offers. My first time driving was a Saturday after work. I discovered that driving isn't nearly as difficult as it may appear, but the mechanics are also slightly different from what I always assumed. I'm naturally a fast learner and this was no exception. At first I was nervous to get up to 20 mph but now I consider that slow! I've spent a lot of time on gravel roads and am itching to get on suburban streets and highways. Definitely looking forward to future driving. I want to put more work into turning, parking, and stopping.

In the field of faith, I have discovered Dr. William Lane Craig's Web site Reasonable Faith. It is a site devoted to Christian apologetics and rational arguments for the existence of God and Jesus. Not only have I learned a lot from it, I've also had my faith strengthened. To be honest, I do often get nervous when I approach areas where the arguments are strongly debated and put through the rigors, however in time I will muster the courage to read through those and understand both sides of the argument. My favorite and most convincing argument, to me, is the teleological argument, also known as the watchmaker theory, fine-tuning, or Intelligent Design. I hope to someday share what I've learned.