LiveOutLoudAZ's Xanga

A Closer Look at the Statistics

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 10:47:49 GMT

If you've ever been to a Baptist church, you've heard the preacher say something like this:

"A recent poll found that 50% of marriages fail today, and that statistic is slightly higher among Christians. Shame on you guys! We who know divorce is wrong do it more than the pagans. Why aren't you working harder to make your marriages work?"

It took me a while to realize this, but that is not the correct way to interpret that stat.

50% of marriages fail, and, say, 55% of Christian marriages fail. That means that, on the whole, Christians are 5% worse at marriage than unbelievers. Where the pastor goes wrong is by assuming that the reason Christian marriages are failing is because people aren't doing it right, that they aren't following the rules, that they are, in essence, not being Christian in the way they pursue relationships. There is no evidence of that.

When you take two groups and compare them without any further analysis, you have to assume that they are both characteristic of whatever category you have lumped them into. In other words, if you call a group "Christian," you are saying that they act like Christians. Otherwise calling them Christian would be a misnomer, and your statistics would be inaccurate. So if the pastor is just talking about lapsed Christians, he's not really talking about Christians. He's saying that unbelievers and people who act like them fail at keeping their marriages intact.

If he's talking about real Christians, it gets a lot more interesting. Because now he's saying that Christians who follow the rules divorce as much as pagans who don't follow any rules (although "pagan" is overbroad and, in the pastor's eyes, probably means everybody who's not a Christian, from atheists to Muslims). Which means that consistent Christians who marry fail to stay married more often than the rest of the world.

The statistics seem to be saying that the Christian way doesn't guarantee a successful marriage any more than the "worldly" way does. In fact, the worldly way seems to be working a little better.

Just looking at the blind stats, we have no room to brag.

Blockheadedness in Baseball Reporting

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 00:24:19 GMT

During the broadcast of Game 1 of the World Series on FOX, esteemed baseball commentator Joe Buck was heard to remark:

"The Rockies had to beat the Cubs and the Diamondbacks to advance to the World Series. The Cubs were overrated and the Diamondbacks were not a good team."

The effing nerve.

First of all, the Rockies never played the Cubs this postseason. They played the Phillies. Joe Buck, you're a dumbass.

The Diamondbacks, however, did play the Cubs. More specifically, they swept them in three games and outscored them 16-6. Yes, after that the Diamondbacks did in turn get swept by the Rockies. But that was in the NLCS. In other words, by the time somebody shut down the D-backs, they were already one of the top four teams in baseball. Out of thirty.

And shall we talk about the regular season? The one where the Diamondbacks posted the best record in the National League? Where they were led by the 2007 NL Manager of the Year? Where they sent three players to the All-Star Game? Yeah, let's talk. The only difference between the Diamondbacks and the Rockies in 2007 was that the Diamondbacks didn't win 20 of their 90 wins in the months of September and October. They were actually in contention the entire season.

In short, unless FOX intends to be completely laughed outta western civilization, they better get some commentators who know what the F they're talking about.

Joe Buck, go to hell.

Fame and Fortune Await

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 12:55:46 GMT

OK, I get it people. You can't become a featured blog unless you write something about love, romance, dating, happiness, bunnies, and rainbows. We can work with this.

So, in honor of Xanga and its insistence on bringing out the Dr. Phil in everybody, I present, no diagrams, no whaddya-think postmodern lovefests, but 2 cents worth of total BS. It'll never work.

Token Post on Love

by Jeremy Croft

(written, of course, in a manly style. Which is to say, outlined.)

1. I'm a guy. I like girls. They're beautiful, and pretty, and they have nice breath.

2. I want a girl. Sometime. It's not like I'll die if I don't get one now, but I'm enough of a man to admit that a girl would make me happy.

3. This is how I intend to get a girl. I'm going to look around, find one I like, and ask her out. If she says yes, I'm going to treat her like a queen and buy things for her and hold her while we watch sunsets. If she says no, I'm going to give her some time and then ask again and if she still says no, I'm going to find another girl.

4. When I find a girl who I really like and who really likes me, I'm going to marry her and live with her until I die.

Wow. The crazy ideas I come up with.

Why Man Law Sucks

Sun, 01 Jul 2007 22:12:42 GMT

I have come to the conclusion that Man Law sucks. It took me a while to get this, as I used to be a wholehearted proponent of the concept. However, Man Law is illegitimate, a bastard creation of insecure males. In order to prove this, I will go Nietzschean. Bear with me.

Man Law is the creation of a slave class, just like Christianity according to Nietzsche (which, I contend, is not real Christianity, but that is another question). It was created by those who are slaves to their passions: their desire for drink, sex, violence, and stupidity. In order to triumph over those who have learned to control their passions, who are in subjection to the true law, and who are thus free, successful, and true men, they have invented an artificial law that justifies them, by which they call good evil and evil good. Thus, they have formed a bond that originates from their common love of vice. From the false shelter of this fold, they attempt to dissuade the true men from their responsible and balanced course by means of peer pressure. They try to stop righteous behavior because it reproaches their unrighteous behavior. They are insecure, but there is security in numbers of insecure people.

I marvel that I did not get this sooner, but then again, I am a man. My breaches of common sense and common decency in the name of Man Law are too numerous to count. I have been incredibly stupid.

I no longer pledge allegiance to Man Law. Instead, my convictions and principles rest on Christ and the true law of the natural order, which are his dictates and the realities of what we humans have taken to calling "natural law." Man Law enshrines selfishness as proper behavior, when it actually makes us reprehensible, disgusting creatures that repel women and children, the very people whom God has created with a desire for real men in their lives. If we are failing, insulting, and disgusting the people who need us most, we are nothing but selfish beasts who glory in depravity.

So...

Thu, 17 May 2007 00:07:28 GMT

...who are we really? Are we the people we appear to be when we have accustomed ourselves to the demands of life at Patrick Henry College, walking around with only a tacit nod for everybody we pass because we have priorities and socialization is NOT one of them, being a good kid (at least publicly) so we don't undermine the authority of the administrators (although we fail to understand how they acquired their petty little aura of greatness, as well as why it somehow, maddeningly, gets inside our heads)?

Or are we really the people that come out when the last final ends and, suddenly, we are simply people again? No more brain trust, no more spiritual community, no more need to prop up the system, just friends living their lives. What we do when we truly have a choice: this shows who we really are. We can fall into an operational groove, do what's necessary, but when we settle down and do what we feel like because, for once, we actually can, something happens.

Conversely, how much time in life will actually be spent this way? When will we not have responsibilities, priorities, adjustments to make, tongues to bite for the greater good, etc? Integrating the two is daunting; I had a hell of a time of it all year, and now that it's all over, it seems that the sun has come out again; I am now basking in the light at the end of the tunnel. It's a great feeling, especially since I kept telling myself all year that life would stabilize after PHC and not to freak out or let it get inside my head, even if I felt like I was failing, and now I feel tremendously vindicated cuz it worked. I think; it just has to keep working.

Essentially, life is good right now. Really good.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 09:40:55 GMT

I wake up

and teardrops

they fall down

like rain

I put on

that old song

we danced to and then

I head off

to my job

guess not much

has changed

punch the clock

head for home

check the phone

just in case

go to bed

dream of you

that's what I'm doin' these days

"Hear, O LORD, when I cry with my voice: have mercy also upon me, and answer me."

Psalm 27:7

"How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily?"

Psalm 13:2

Lame Excuses and Other Scandals

Sun, 15 Apr 2007 20:44:17 GMT

Yeah, I'm listening to U2. Get over it.

"It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak."

This is the most misused, abused, mistreated, twisted verse in the entire Bible. Here's how this verse is interpreted at PHC: if anybody sees anybody doing anything that they themselves would not do because they consider it inappropriate, they can ask this person to stop because it "offends" them. Presumably, this person now has a moral obligation to stop because of the above verse.

Result: anybody can force anybody else to embrace their narrow-minded view of the world because it "offends" them when somebody follows their own convictions. So in other words, the person who has the strictest moral code at PHC has a blank check to force the rest of us to comply.

Sure sounds to me like what Jesus would do.

Except that embracing this view of "offense" is one of the most selfish ways possible to live one's life. Do you really want to claim "weaker brother" status for the rest of your life? It is implicit in the verse as well as common sense that it is better to be a stronger brother than a weaker brother. So how does one make the transition from a weaker brother who is unable to understand the nuances of Christian living to a stronger brother who understands that other sincere Christians may differ from him? By avoiding the complusion to claim weaker brother status, opening one's Bible, studying out the issue, listening to the merits of the other person's position, and consciously deciding to afford him the opportunity to practice what he believes, realizing that you are ultimately responsible for your own actions and what he does has no effect on them.

In other words, stop claiming weaker brother status. It is a lazy shortcut meaning that you don't want to learn something from the effort to reconcile this person's behavior with general and special revelation. Stronger brothers should have the wisdom to know weaker brothers when they see them, meaning that claiming weaker brother status is like inviting yourself over. It's something other people do to you; you don't do it for yourself. Everybody should be striving to be a stronger brother, able to discern between truth, error, and preference, and able to treat others unselfishly based on this knowledge. If everybody always panders to your whims, you'll never grow.

Religion

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 21:49:06 GMT

Religion is a bad thing. Some people who have no religion live life a lot better than people who do, because religion gets in the way. That's what it's known for, throughout history, in literature, etc. Candide (gasp!) was right on in its critique of European religion at its time. Religion is an attempt to distort the world we see and claim that it is something else. It is an attempt to artificially suspend rationality and desire in order to be more easily controlled. Religion is simply what we do in order to get to heaven by our own efforts. All religion.

The proper life is not one lived according to some religion; it is life lived in accordance with reality. So many people are afraid of what they perceive to be hard realities; that's why they cluster in sheltered spaces with people who never challenge them--because religion is false. Living in accordance with the real world--a world where God is in charge, He loves you, He wants you to love Him and His children, and He wants you to test Him constantly to prove that He is truly real and loving--is freeing. We can question, search, challenge, and find, because if God is truly real, He cannot be denied. Those who deny Him lie, and they know they lie.

Suppressing desire is religion, and it is bondage. Your deepest desires are created by God to be fulfilled, and when they are fulfilled, they will point to God. Similarly, suppressing rationality is religion, and just as shackling. Reason is a uniquely human and divine characteristic, designed by God to detect error and perceive truth. The fullest exercise of reason, as well as the hard pursuit of what we deeply desire, will not lead us away from God, but to Him.

Christianity is not a religion; it is living life in the best way possible. When you do something with all your heart, you are doing it the way Christ would do it. It is living life in accordance with reality, because God and His character is real. If we really believed this, we would never be afraid to be fully human, because to be fully human is to fully manifest the image of God.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 00:58:47 GMT

I need to write. I've felt I need to write on here but haven't because I've been afraid. I hate fear.

Anyway, I don't know how to get people to realize what the Christian life really boils down to. It's really very simple in Scripture, and real life corresponds. Love God, love your neighbor. I read over a very long debate one of my friends had with somebody on Facebook, one where my friend was trying to simplify things to their core and another guy was being nitpicky, and it galled me to no end. Love God, love your neighbor. Don't think about what you have to do. Stop thinking about that. No really. Stop it. Don't think about it.

Think about what you want.

What do you want? Not what you really feel like doing right now or that a chocolate milk shake would really hit the spot, I mean what do you really really want? What do you want more than anything else? What do you want at such a deep level that it's really something you need? I'm betting it's love. We all need love. We can get by with nothing if we have love, and I'm not trying to be sappy here. Sappy people sing it because it's true.

People, when THE BIBLE SAID that they will know we are Christians by the love we have for one another, that's what it meant. It didn't say we'll be known by the length of our hair, the length of our skirts, the music that we listen to, the hate we have for the democrats, or whatever. It said love. Because love is what people need and want, and Christianity's about giving people what they really really need and want. Why do we love God? Because He first loved us. Why will people love God? Because we love them in God's name.

Yeah, there is a God-shaped hole in every person. But you can't, absolutely can't, just ram God down their throats, even though they need him. That's the beauty of the gospel. It's voluntary. You can't force somebody to accept it, because then they are simply doing the God thing and aren't loving or even knowing that they're being loved. But usually Christians don't accept this completely. They won't force people to accept it right away, but they'll treat every conversation, everything one does, everything one says, as an opportunity to insert God here. Then when Joe Unbeliever gets pissed at them for being pushy and leaves, Faithfuller Christian than you wipes the dust off his feet and concludes that, well, somebody's gotta go to hell. Obviously, we need something more. Or maybe something less.

You don't have to be able to articulate everything. You just have to live what is deeply and most foundationally true--that God loves everyone. And not just everyone, but that person over there. Love them. Don't worry if they accept God or not. It's not your job to get them to accept God. They have to do that for themselves. You must be Christlike to them, and Christ loves.

random musings of a beleaguered sufferer of senioritis

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 01:25:06 GMT

5 papers and a final exam stand between me and graduation. What still stands between me and the man I want to be I have no clue. As I sit here, at 1:19 AM, thinking of all I should be doing, of all I should have been doing all semester, how all my papers could be done by now if I had really wanted them to be, of all the things I shouldn't have said, of how stupid I look when I'm afraid of looking stupid, and of how at least I stopped playing Xbox, I have a strange calm that comes from knowing you have weathered storms before, and a maddening uncertainty that still gets in the way of complete confidence. And I wish I was still in New York.

Update complete. Get me outta here.