Tetris

Move left - left arrow
Move right - right arrow
Move down - down arrow
Rotate - up arrow

Pause - p
Restart - r

Warm thanks to David Kosbie for teaching me this, and for providing JComponents and stuff that are too advanced for me right now.

(If you don't get it to work, try double-clicking inside the applet. If it still doesn't work, switch browser. If it still doesn't work, download the game to your computer (link below). If it still doesn't work, download java and try all this again. If it still doesn't work, buy a Mac)

More:
kosbie.net: Tetris
Play offline: Download Tetris

Beauty and justice

So what is all this talk about beauty? Isn’t it equally important to be just, and doesn’t justice look rough sometimes? Ok, justice may look rough sometimes. And justice may be good and necessary. It makes sense for a good God to exercise justice. But even God, which he himself is fully just, have problems making justice beautiful. You see, justice is hard and painful, and only has losers. (I think this is because justice only is required because of sin and ugliness in the first place.) Hence, justice is good and necessary, but not beautiful.

But justice is straight out ugly if the judge is guilty. We call it hypocrisy, and society righteously despises it.

What has faith got to do with it?

I’ve now submitted my synthesis paper in my class on religion and power. My previous paper in this class was a summary of one of Dawkins’ chapters from The God Delusion, and you can read that in its entirety here on this blog. Sadly, you say, I will not publish my synthesis paper here. Let me explain why.

I am simply not at peace with distributing the synthesis paper as it is right now. It is not so much the style issues I am worried about, nor do I worry about my academic analysis of the positions I am synthesising; it is not the quality of the paper I am concerned with. But frankly, I am not sure if I am being totally honest; I am not sure if I am fair, because I searched for what I wanted to find, I dug, and I found it. I need to feel more solid ground beneath my feet before you can all read it.

Nevertheless, I’ll give you the short version of my thoughts, without all the quotes and different authors and positions and that jazz. It is like the paper without the academic evidence. And only dealing with the Christian case. And more personal. In short, a more sincere heartsong. So, what has faith got to do with it?

But wait! What has faith got to do with what? Well, with religion and power of course. More precisely, what is faith, and how does your answer to that question affect your view on the relationship between the church and political institutions? For instance, a Christian may think it is a good thing for the church to invest much time and money in politics and lobbyism. Another Christian may think that is the worst thing the church could do. What is the difference between the faith of the first one and the second one?

In my personal Christian terminology, the body of all believers is referred to as “the body of Christ,” so in my mind, the church and the body of Christ is equivalent. Therefore, I’ll start off by substituting the word “church” in the hypothetical sentences above:

For instance, a Christian may think it is a good thing for the body of Christ to invest much time and money in politics and lobbyism. Another Christian may think that is the worst thing the body of Christ could do. What is the difference between the faith of the first one and the second one?

I mean, are these two Christians really part of the same body? They may have a somewhat similar vision of the future world, but they are headed in two profoundly different directions to get there. It seems to me as though there are two bodies of Christ, then. (So I’d love to ask, which of these bodies looks the most like Jesus? But I won’t really emphasise that question, it’s slightly off the point.)

This black and white analysis is of course not accurate at all. And neither is my next assumption, namely that faith is either factual doctrines, or hope and confidence. Of course, to most believers, faith is both hope, confidence and doctrines. But for the sake of the argument, bear with me.

Faith is many times depicted as knowing something for certain without really knowing it. For instance, young earth creationists argue that we should teach creationism in schools because that is what Genisis seems to suggest (at least by the literal interpretation these guys pledge to). They are pretty certain this literal interpretation is about what happened back then, so they rule out guided evolution and Big Bang as scientific non-sense. You see, to them, faith is to take the Bible seriously – and by seriously, they mean literally. Faith has become this exercise to believe in something they really have no reason to believe, the Bible aside. The same can be said for moral truths; “If you take the Bible seriously, you understand that homosexuality is sin,” and “If you take the Bible seriously, you understand that abortion is murder” etc. In this version of faith, to take the bible seriously has become to believe in certain historical and moral doctrines.

My guess is that most young Christians today that vote against homosexual marriages do so because it is part of their moral doctrine, not because they are homophobic.

The other version of faith is described as hope and confidence. In this version of faith, doctrines are less important, and having faith is really more about living in the hope and confidence that God will provide. This is the kind of faith we find when people are “taking a step in faith” and do something even when they cannot predict the outcome; sometimes they even have little to fall back on. Such faith can make a believer change his career plans, humble himself to ask for forgiveness in difficult situations, pray for random people on the street or open his house to strangers; this faith is confident that God forgives the past, and is living in hope for a world were God reigns and the lion sleeps with the lamb.

To me, it seems like the two faces of faith have little in common. Can they really be the same thing? Some even argue they are completely distinct. I can only examine myself, and find that I probably have a little of both. But, and this is the main point of the entire blog post, I strive to emphasise hope and confidence, because that is where the beauty in faith is found. What is beautiful about being certain the world was created 6000 years ago? Nothing! What is beautiful about being certain homosexuality is sin? Nothing, nothing, nothing is beautiful about being certain of other people’s sin! Nothing!

Being aware of your own sins, on the other hand, is quite useful. You need to acknowledge your sin if you want to be cleansed and beautified. That is what repentance is all about! But the process of beautification is first and foremost a fight with your own demons. As Jesus so wisely put it, “first take the plank out of your own eye.” This is why I believe there are so many moral guidelines in the Bible; not because being certain of the truth to them is a point in itself, but because we in the process of beautification sometimes need to be remained of what we are up against. And so can we struggle with were we find ourselves.

This focus on hope and confidence - life - of faith, also has another particular merit to it worth of mention: It allows for a much more honest discussion of the Bible, without shaking the foundation of faith. For instance, if someone has difficulties reconciling the creation story of the Bible with their scientific worldview, this can now be discussed without putting their entire faith at stake. If someone struggles with the passages condemning homosexuality, now at least it doesn’t shake their foundation of faith.

Finally, I argue this approach makes one less inclined to fight politically, for two reasons: The first being precisely that moral and historical truths are more ambiguous and open to discussion. To clarify: You may of course still argue this and that politically, but you are more hesitant to attribute these opinions to Jesus and his body of believers. The second reason is this: if faith is to give up life to be fully beautiful in hope and confidence that God provides, then you have all these planks to fight before you would even think of the sawdusts of those other people. You still have a moral and factual platform, sure; but exactly what that looks like is not a question you care too much to answer. “Rather,” you say, “ask what is the most beautiful thing to do right now.”


Read more:
Warrior of Agape: Why Dawkins is so hostile

Skydive

"Do one thing every day that scares you"
- Mary Schmich
Christian is this amazing guy that I don't really hang out with that much, but every now and then he invites me to do crazy stuff. Last semester, I stayed over at his uncle's house in NYC for Thanksgiving (which resulted in this video). Back then he invited me only a few days before break. Late last night he again invited me to impulsive action, this time to go Skydiving. Much fun :-)

I probably won't make a habit out of Skydiving, though, (expensive and environmentally questionable as it is,) but I hope to make a habit out of acting on impulse. I hope to make a habit of trying new things, make a habit of creating stories. Not always the most crazy stories, not necessarily the stories that everyone are talking about - the point of the story is not to be told, but to be lived. It is about staying alive.

By the way, this was an impulse my rationality considered pretty safe, despite my body's hesitance. Let me assure you, I do not think seeking a kick for it's own sake has a higher purpose - that would be stupid. So, yes, I think some skydivers are stupid. They are stupid when they do crazy stuff they can't possibly consider safe. I do not, however, think those many divers who discover beauty in the skies are stupid, as they simply jump to appreciate that. For them, it is not all about the kick anymore - it is about enjoying fresh air, the sun, the clouds, a magnificent view and an extra dimension of movement.

"Only skydivers know why the birds sing"
- Unknown
Read more:
Our host: Skydive PA

A beautiful break

The snow lay heavy as Spring break reached Pittsburgh. Luckily, I and the 14 other students who were travelling with “Carnegie Mellon Alternative Break” had no reason to care: We were going to the north-western Dominican Republic to volunteer for the organization Orphanage Outreach.


Orphanage Outreach (OO) is organizing western volunteers to serve in two different orphanages, local schools and an English institute. Carnegie Mellon, among other groups of voluenteers, was going to stay at the newer of the two orphanages for a week, in Jaibon (a small village along a highway of dirt connecting the major city Santiago and the town of Monte Cristi located at the north coast almost next to the Haitian boarder). “This is it.”

As opposed to countries like Norway and the US, “newer” is not always better, bigger and more shiny. While in the west we tend to complete buildings and facilities before we “open” them to be worn down, Dominicans use what they have even though it is not yet complete. In fact, using is not so much a process of tearing as it is a process of building. It was beautiful to see how OO adapted to this culture, teaching us how to build one block at a time and appreciate small steps of improvement. “Poco a poco.”

I am only one,
But still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.

–— Edward Everett Hale

Spring break is volunteer season, so quite high numbers of beautiful people eager to serve was available to OO that week. About 250. In comparison, the Jaibon orphanage was at the time housing 27 kids. It was obvious that numbers were out of proportion – so OO asked the local schools if they’d like some “Americanas” to teach English to the kids. The schools were incredibly enthusiastic, since English educators – as valuable and appreciated as they are – are a rarity in the area. It turned out 250 volunteers wasn’t nearly enough to fill all the requests from the schools. But it was still beautiful how OO served their community not by imposing some outside idea on them, but by assisting the community with competence the community were calling for. “Serve, don’t help.”

OO has the same attitude towards the orphanages – which are not ran and organised by OO, but supported by OO. Beautiful local Dominicans run the orphanages, and OO was careful to respect their ideals and the principles by which they ran them. The application of this attitude included an over average strict dress code and a ban against any non-Christian music. But it was beautiful, precisely because of these sacrifices. “It’s not about you.”

Our group was sent to teach 6th and 8th graders in one of the schools not affiliated with the orphanage. I hoped the kids would know some English to start with, especially since these were pretty high levels. But no. Me knowing no Spanish whatsoever, except “gracias” and “la factura, por favor,” I was going to hang out with kids speaking only Spanish for a week. Luckily, fun is a language of its own, and we could play volleyball, catch, frisbee and something that vaguely reminds us of football (a beautiful sport you play with your feet, in case there was any doubt) without any worries as far as language was concerned. The kids even made me play baseball with them, which must have been pretty entertaining, judging by the laugh I received as I waved seemingly purposeless with the bat (I was actually trying to hit the ball, but I’m not sure how well I managed to communicate that message). “Communicate love.”

But anyhow, our mission was to teach English. With my teaching group of fellow CMU students, we planned out some ideas for how to communicate with the class using body language, games and drawings. And with three of five team members above an intermediate level of Spanish fluency, we all found a useful role to play. Even when we split up into groups and I was alone with the kids, I did fine – the kids indeed got the message, because they really tried to get the message. OO says you do not need to know Spanish to communicate love. I found you neither need to know Spanish to communicate English. It was cool to see how excited many of the kids, especially my group of 8th-graders, were to learn. Students from other classes would even listen in on the teaching from the open windows; it was beautiful to see that we made a difference. “Acknowledge yourself.”


This is just a small fraction of what I experienced. I could have dedicated pages to every one of the ten, I must say beautiful, principles Orphanage Outreach is run by. They were all means by which OO was trying to fulfill its stated goal for the week: “Release the Hero within.” And so they did; OO facilitated heroism in the volunteers, the volunteers inspired heroism in the kids, and we all supported and cherished the heroism of those running the orphanage. And as we were fundraising for the trip, we also released the hero in everyone who chose to support us financially or with food or school supplies. I got many new heroes during this trip.

Now we hope to bring that sunshine from Jaibon to Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon. At the very least, we successfully brought the actual weather with us, because now summer is almost all over the place here in Pittsburgh; little is left of the thick winter coat we left behind. But more importantly, we want to inspire new generations of Alternative Breakers and spread the Alternative Break mindset across campus – ultimately releasing the heroes within many more.




Read more:
OO: Orphanage Outreach
Carnegie Mellon: Alternative Break
YouTube: Happiness in the Jaibon schools (DR)
veoh: Nathan and Liana's video
Our awesome trip leader: Nathan Frank

Why Dawkins is so hostile

This is my summary of Richard Dawkins’ chapter “What is wrong with religion? Why so hostile” from The God Delusion. The summary was my first major assignment in Interp, a writing class which in my case focuses on religion and power. But even before you read the summary, let me tell you what I think of Dawkins' argument: I think some of his reasoning is valid, and worth giving some attention. However, being an insider of faith myself, I completely disagree with his generalized assumptions about the nature of faith, and can not agree with Dawkin's conclusion. I'll limit my critique to that for now.

------------------------

Religious faith makes people dangerous. At least according to Richard Dawkins, a biological theorist most famous for his militant standpoints against religion. His satirical style and unpolished language makes it clear that he has no interest in negotiation; this is war, and the goal is to eliminate. However, Dawkins’ is quick to assure us he is not dangerous, like militant fundamentalists using bombs, beheading, stoning burning or crucifixion. Nonetheless is there reason to be hostile, and armed with a belt of sharp-tipped words, Dawkins explains why.

Religion has consequences. Consequences, as we will see, are important to Dawkins, and it is the consequences that ultimately make religion dangerous. For one thing, religion can suppress bright individuals who are too intelligent not to see the head-on collision between their faith and the real world. But what is worse, religion makes certain people violent and dangerous to others, as their absolutist unquestioning views of moral cause them to take judgement in their own hands and largely ignore laws set forth by society. What happens when such fundamentalists themselves come to political power cause Dawkins even darker nightmares.

One could of course argue that it is these fundamentalists that are dangerous, and not religion itself. However, Dawkins rejects such a notion, and points to the virtue of faith that is so prominent in religious practice. “Faith is an evil,” he upholds, “because it requires no justification and brooks no argument.” (p. 308) Further, faith is what fundamentalism is built upon; as Dawkins defines it, fundamentalism is to know something is true because it is written in a holy book. Unquestionable. Not a product of reasoning. Faith.

As long as faith is at the core of religion, then, religion itself must be evil.

Consequences
A word for the corresponding unreasonable firmness in one’s moral believes is “absolutism.” An absolutist does not discuss whether something is good or bad. As long as his holy book says something is bad, then bad it is. End of discussion. This is the attitude Dawkins finds among pro-life supporters and those who oppose rights for homosexuals. More specifically, absolutists fail to consider consequences when making moral judgements.

In the case of homosexuality, Dawkins points out how it is an “unmistakable trademark of the faith-based moralizer (...) to care passionately about what other people do (or even think) in private.” (p. 289) To Dawkins, what happens in private has no moral component to it. As long as it does not hurt anyone, who cares? Who is there to care? Absolutists, on the other hand, do not care if anyone gets hurt. In fact, what makes moral and immoral to them has no grounds in their own reasoning at all, but is solely based on what their holy book tells them.

This view is even more evident when it comes to abortion. While Dawkins do recognize that there exist arguments against abortion grounded in reasoning, such arguments tend not to be frequently used by the major pro-life groups (all of which are deeply religious). Rather, their argument usually goes like, ‘since the embryo is a human being, we must not under any circumstances kill it. That would be wrong according to the book.’ Seemingly relevant consequences are not considered – such as how much suffering the intervention or non-intervention would cause.

At least the quasi-consequentialism that is breed by such unbalanced views of worth has caused some disturbing acts of ‘moralism’ – such as the murder of Dr Britton, who worked on an abortion clinic. The murderer, Paul Hill, proudly reported his crime to the police, and smiled as he was preparing for his martyrdom and heavenly reward. Now, most people would call Paul Hill and his equals for psychopaths. But Dawkins views them differently: “They are not psychotic; they are religious idealists who, by their own lights, are rational. They perceive their acts to be good (...) because they have been brought up, from the cradle, to have total and unquestioning faith.” (p. 304) Faith, then, is to blame.

Faith
Dawkins emphasize that faith is powerful. When for instance a suicide bomber decides to pull the trigger and blow himself up – then he actually believes that paradise awaits. When Reverend Jerry Falwell proclaims that AIDS is a punishment from God to a society that tolerates homosexuals, he says so because he actually believes it, or when Paul Hill kills doctors, he actually believe he is doing good. “They actually believe what they say they believe” (p. 304) is the simple explanation of dangerous fundamentalism, yet so difficult to grasp for non-believers.

The London bombings is a prime example. Media tries to explain the attack with bad political leadership and social issues within the communities in which these well educated terrorists circulated, but eloquently avoid discussing their religion. To Dawkins, it is absurd not to blame religion – there is no other reason why one would do what they did. No social benefit to be claimed in this life. A pregnant widow and discredit to their community is what inevitably would be the result, which the terrorists in question must have anticipated if they ever made such considerations. What good is that? “Only religious faith is a strong enough force to motivate such utter madness in otherwise sane and decent people,” (p. 303) Dawkins subsequently declares.

Conclusion
Dawkins does not argue that all morals set forth by religions are bad. He neither explicitly claims that anyone who is seriously religious will turn out like the bad cases of fundamentalism that he describes. In fact, unquestioning faith does not seemingly have any damaging consequences if the moral one happens to believe is correct and good. But bad things quickly start to happen when what one has unquestionable faith in is wicked – it is straight out a problem when belief in some screwed up moral becomes a virtue of faith.

The core problem with religion, then, is not its moral doctrines per se (though they can sometimes be frightening enough) but the notion that these moral doctrines are unquestionable. The problem is religious faith. That is what makes the people dangerous. If religion then harms the human process of developing sane ethics, well, Dawkins concludes it should be fought.


Read more:
RichardDawkins.net: The God Delusion

Pjeff

On behalf of Pjeff and myself, I want to express our most sincere thanks to everyone who embraced us in this new and strange land. We also wants to thank Delirious? for playing "Waiting for the Summer" over and over again.

Pjeff and I also deeply apologize to all who for various reasons didn't make it into this montage. It turns out the camera didn't always do what the I thought it did, and so some of those hugs are only immortalized in Pjeff's memory. But what is worse, not all of you has yet had a chance to hug Pjeff at all. Which really is too bad, because

- we love you.