Currently Listening 30 Seconds to Mars By 30 Seconds to Mars Edge of the Earth see related

Found a fun, easy riddle for ya (don't look at the question until you read the whole riddle!):

Okay, you're driving a bus into town:

On the first stop, 3 people in red shirts get on, 4 people in blue shirts get on and 7 people in  green shirts get on.

At the second stop, 2 people in red shirts get off, 3 people in blue shirts get off, and 5 people in green shirts get off.

At the last stop, 6 people in red shirts get on, 2 people in blue shirts get on, 3 people in green shirts get on, and 1 person in a Beatles shirt gets on.

Now for the question: What color are the bus driver's eyes?

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The answer depends on what color eyes you have! Note: "You're driving a bus into town..."

Yeah, I'll bet you feel dumb now don't you. I did.

New song!

As of late, I've been swearing a lot (or at least a good deal more than I used to....). It's not that I mean to, it just sorta...slips out. For example: Last night I had made a bag of chocolate ice cream, and I tossed it into a crate. The top of the bag gets caught in the handle of the crate and bursts off, puking chocolate mix allll over the floor and wall. Immediately I unleashed a tirade of angry, 4 letter words and other colorful phrases....It'll probably end up getting me in trouble one of these days.

After work on Tuesday night, me and 10 other Carl's people went to Denny's at 1am. It was awesome, they're all reallllly funny if a bit foul at times haha.

I started my AP History homework today, due in no small part to me being EXTREMELY BORED. I need to do something productive with my spare time, I'm such a useless waste of space...geez.

Currently Listening The Artist in the Ambulance By Thrice Silhouette see related

I'm not very good at fasting...

I had this grand plan of waking up early and running every morning this summer. So far, I've slept in til 1pm, noon, and 10:30am. My excuse is that I don't have running shoes...

Working at Carls on Tuesday night I got out at midnight exactly, quite an achievement for me and the first sign of improvement there. Maybe I won't be impossibly incompetent after all. Ironically, I close at midnight now, when I can sleep in and have nothing to do the next day, as opposed to getting out at 12:30 during the school year and having to go home, do homework, and get 4 hours of sleep...

I need to start raising money for Dominica....

I have no clue what to do with my life. Two paths: fall in love, get married, and find some sort of career that i enjoy and pays well enough to support a family or join the army and die heroically. I don't want to be single at 50 years old living off welfare and wasting away....

Does anyone know what "....." is called? I know there's a name for it.....

2 hours ago (12:30pm or am? midnight-ish) I went rummaging around the house and found a book on marriage in the living. It was short, took me like 1 1/2 hours to read. Anyways, I'm on my way to being the greatest husband ever. w00t....

I found an emo-ish band i actually like! They're called "Thursday", not as whiny as your typical emo band and they're pretty good.

Background music is listed above, Thrice. Feel free to turn your speakers off, I won't be offended....

Our van broke down today. My parents and brother drove down to Longwood Univ. and on the way back it was leaking oil or gasoline or something and not shifting right and other inconvenient things like that. Needless to say, a broken car doesn't do much in the way of contributing to your transportation needs, so they called a tow truck and the guy hauled them from Richmond all the way up here and dropped them off at a Dodge Dealership where I had to pick them up.

I love my car, despite its few quirks. Manuals are a much more entertaining to drive and I haven't stalled out in a couple days, except today once but that time doesn't count...Regardless, I've got a handle on the whole manual-shifting mechanism and it's a lot of fun.

GOODNIGHT!

Currently Listening Hearts of the Innocent By Kutless see related

Just to clarify, I'm not a heathen. Yes, my faith was at a low point, but it was just a valley. Up and down, it seems to be a cycle, but I'm hoping to break it. What I was doing in my previous post was opening my little head and letting whomever have a chance to see what I was thinking from a spiritual perspective, preferably so they could offer encouragement, answers, help, or whatever else. So don't fret, I'm still a Jesus-loving-kinda-guy.

Anyways, I think I may have found the answer to the dry, dull spiritual life I've been living: I haven't taken time to go into the wilderness. At Mars Hill a guy gave a message about going into the proverbial wilderness to get away from all distractions, all these stimulations of the world. He encouraged us to go on a media-fast, giving up TV, computer, video games, etc. and to spend that time meditating on God's word. We live in a world that bombards us with absolutely unnecessary stuff. Everything is fast and frenetic, and we need to learn to just stop, take a break from it all and just listen to God's voice.

Then David came up and testified about his time in Kansas City where he and his wife where away from pretty much every media source for about a month and at any given moment if they were bored or didn't really have anything to do they would just get out the Bible and start reading and praying about it. He didn't have a super-spiritual, unbelievable single experience but he came out of those 30 days feeling refreshed, alive and on fire for God. I want that. I'm tentatively planning a 7 day media-fast, it could be a little shorter, it could be a lot longer, but I'm waiting and praying for God to meet me in this. So in summation, I want holiness and righteousness. James 5:something says the prayer of a righteous man is both powerful and effective, and I want that; something I'm currently seeking through fasting.

I've started to in-depthly study the Bible, and I'm finding there is so much more to see when you look closer. When I've read the Bible previously, I've done just that: read it. Nothing really more. If you stop to really study it and take it in though, its crazy what you'll find. Just last night I spent 1/2 hour on 10 verses going through and outlining 1 Corinthians. It's kind of exciting...

Cool little quote from David Bradshaw: "Holiness isn't just not doing something, it's doing something better."

Currently Listening Emotive By A Perfect Circle Imagine see related

My faith level is at a very low point right now, and it's affecting every facet of my life, putting me in a mild depression. My mind is full of questions and I have different answers for them, but I dont know which one is the right one. When the Apologetics class I'm taking at school started, I was really excited, but as time went on it just didn't seem to do that good of a job in defending my faith. Most of it was about attacking other faiths and worldviews and pointing out flaws in those rather than explaining some of the attacks on Christianity. I've heard the side from the Christian point of view, but what about the secular point of view? What's their take on Christianity? Someone was telling me that Apologetics has boosted their faith so much, and that's great. But they've heard an incredibly biased view, and I've had the pleasure/displeasure of hearing both sides. I've used arguments I learned in Apologetics against atheists/nonchristians in debates and they've refuted a lot of my arguments. When you hear only one side of a view, you're left with the idea that the "other side" doesn't have a counterpoint, when in fact, you're just not giving them a chance. Example: Creation vs. Evolution. We learned some supposedly irrefutable list of points that disprove evolution. I brought them up in a debate and they pointed out/proved that they were outdated or flat out incorrect. This doesn't mean I'm an evolutionist by any means (I'm still creationist for other reasons).

Another thing, and this pertains more to my personal faith. I've been struggling for the past couple weeks with the way my faith is conducted. Going to Grace Church + Youth group, Mars Hill, etc. I've been inundated with charismatic teachings such as prophecy, tongues, and worship in very weird ways. I've been taught stuff, but I never tried to affirm it myself. I simply took it as truth without any sort of doubt. There's the issue of prophecy which I'm going to research before I say anything that'll make an ass out of myself. Then there's the issue of tongues where they once tried to teach us how to speak in tongues by having some random words/combination of letters flash up on the screen that we would say. Again, I'm gonna study that topic some more before I make a decision about it, but that was incredibly questionable and still sticks out in my mind. Keep in mind I've never spoken in tongues or prophesied. 

*You can skip this part if you want and go straight to the summary below it*

Then there's worship. There are people screaming, crying, laughing, twitching, laying on the ground, jumping up and down, and being absolutely crazy. I never really had a problem (I even used to do some of that) with it until recently. There was this feeling that would come over me when doing these kinds of things, they call it a "spiritual high" or other times it was the presence of God. It was something seemingly tangible, something that proved in my mind that Christianity was true. Then when i recounted this to an atheist in a debate, he said it was just mass hysteria. Basically, its a crowd of people together and their minds play tricks on them by giving them what they want. In other words, it's all in your head. I didn't think anything of it at the time and I was like "Whatever, pathetic cop-out". But recently in Apologetics class we saw a video about the New Age worldview and it showed a New Age convention. In it, there were about 1000 or so people, and they were all worshipping in totally absurd ways. But then it hit me that they don't look all that different in their manner of worship than we do. They rock back and forth, they dance, they scream, they jump up and down, and other very weird forms of worship, except it was for the purpose of freeing their minds and they were definitely getting into it. Then it showed interviews with some of the worshippers afterwards and some were crying, some were giggling, and some simply couldn't speak at all. It was ridiculous to watch, but then again, what do we look like?

[Summary: People worship in other religions worship and they look a lot like we charismatics do. Is what we feel when we worship actually the presence of God or is it simply the result of mass hysteria?]

So my question is this: Why do we believe in God? Is it based on your own experience? I'm a logic/reason type of guy, and experience just doesn't seem a logical reason to be a Christian. I don't have one of those amazing testimonies where God brought me out of my life of drugs, alcohol, and misery and set my life back on course and now I'm a good happy Christian. I was born into a Christian household. I grew up in the church. I almost didn't have a choice to be a Christian, and that worries me. If you were not a Christian, what reason would you have for becoming a Christian?

Please don't take this as my renouncing my faith, I still wholeheartedly believe in God, I'm just sort of restarting it, beginning with the basic tenets of Christianity and trying to get a foundation from which to build up on. This actually might be a good thing for me. I'm actually studying the Bible, using commentaries, and outlining passages. Maybe I'll re-read Mere Christianity. I missed half of what CS Lewis was saying the first time...

This took me 45 minutes to write. I don't have a life...

Currently Listening Gravity By Our Lady Peace Not Enough see related

Quickie post!!!!

In U.S. History, we're doing a mock trial of the Rosenberg Case. For some reason, my teacher picked me to be the lead prosecutor, so I'm in charge of running the entire case of the prosecution. At first I didn't want to be lead prosecutor because I didn't want to have to deal with the organization, leading the group, the pressure, etc. I'm fine with that now. However, it's becoming more and more apparent that this case heavily favors the defense, despite the prosecution winning the case 50 years ago. This thing pisses me off.

Edit:

I hate school. Just finished my geometry project and it's 2am YAY I LOVE STAYING UP LATE AND BEING TIRED THE NEXT DAY!!! MY EYE IS TWITCHING!

I re-discovered Our Lady Peace. Good rock band....