So it's a holiday week here in the United States, so I'm taking a break from this blog to spend time with my family. Before I go, though, I wanted to leave with one more thought. 

I know Thanksgiving is primarily an American holiday, but the spirit of the holiday is universal. In fact, the spirit is in the name: Giving Thanks. Gratitude is one of the most powerful and most harmonic emotions we have. Being grateful is more than just being happy, but recognizing the source of that happiness. In being thankful we recognize that we cannot do many things by ourselves. I believe we are a race meant to be interconnected with ourselves and with our planet. I also believe that if we can regain this interconnectedness, both with each other and to the planet, we will regain the full connection to God, Source Energy, the Universe, whatever you want to call it.

So while we have holidays to teach thankfulness, never let them be the only time of the year to be thankful. So I hope you have a wonderful week as I celebrate some time with my family. I'll be back next week, and from the bottom of my heart thank you if you've been following this blog. If I knew who you were, I'd give you a hug. May God watch over you all.

Impromtu Short Story: King and Queen

So I challenged myself today to come up with an original story, completely impromptu, and post it for my work this weekend. It took me about two hours of continuous writing, but here it is. Hope you enjoy!

Clarity on Spirit Science

So I wrote earlier about a website called Spirit Science. This is honestly the lasiest post I'll ever write, because instead of me telling you about it, I'll just let it tell you about itself. Enjoy, comment or tweet me a question if you have one, or call or text if you know me.

Yesterday something was brought to my attention about something I wrote last month that I admit was a bit malicious. I look back on the post in question and feel ashamed of myself. Below is a link to the full post.

"Christianity and the Catholic Church"

While I don't remember the mindset I was in when I wrote this, I find this unacceptable of myself and everything I believe in now. It's not so much the words themselves, some of the ideas or observations, but the feeling behind it, and I formally apologize.

But everything is a learning experience, right? Reading my earlier posts shows me how much I've grown just for disagreeing with my past views.

If you clicked that link and read that post and are now coming back to this, I want to specify two things.

The first is that we've all made our share of mistakes, me especially. People throughout history and as part of many religions have killed in the name of a God that is about peace. Wars happen, and some times it seems like there was no choice, but I pray as a species we can grow past the need for violence.

The second is that while we are all wrong in some ways, we're all still people, and that's what's important. Forget religion, forget country and forget oaths, but remember we are all people, brothers and sisters sharing a planet, remember conscience, and remember Love.

11-20-13

This is probably one of the hardest things I'll ever write, but I need to write this today. I may not feel as good about it tomorrow as I do today, but tomorrow doesn't exist yet. 

I also feel like I say this often, but no one reads it, so here it is once again:


I am not trying to undermine anyone's beliefs.

All I can do is interpret the world in the way I can, and that's different than others, I know. I see connections and they make sense to me. I read books and ideas and websites and watch videos and add them to my life. 

 I don't do things traditionally and I don't think traditionally. In fact, I don't believe in tradition, because there have been times in my life when it does nothing for me. If a tradition can be changed for the better, then I'm all for it.

Interestingly, I found this, relating to a conversation I had a few weeks ago. Something the Buddha said, where he does talk about eternal peace it is believed that he actually foretold the coming of Christ. Click here for the article of what the Buddha said.

So I'll end with this. There is so much out there, and its so exciting. We're in such an exciting time in the life of our species as we learn more and more, and I want to be there for as much as I can. And I'm not going to censure myself, I want to share what I learn for all who will hear.

Also, happy birthday to my wonderful mother! Thank you for all the love and support, and I hope you have a wonderful day!!

Dragon Hunt

Around noon, Micah heard a very particular sound. It sounded like distant thunder, but he knew it wasn’t thunder. It was the flapping of gigantic wings, a sound that had bode ill news for a long time now. Micah immediately started hearing the sounds of panicked people outside family’s slum house. The sound of people screaming and running would only draw what was coming closer. A thunder of dragons was on the hunt, and Micah knew that their favorite prey was humans.

Through My Eyes

I sort of have a standing joke about myself that I was born in another dimension and I was switched at birth with the Ethan Becker originally from this world, and that that Ethan is enjoying my life and I'm just waiting for the wormhole to open back up and suck me home. I say this as a joke but I sometimes cannot help but think I think differently from this world. Things I see and hear every day that seem to be integral parts of this world make no sense to me.

The whole concept of currency is something I don't understand. People treat economies like they're natural phenomena of nature, when they're completely man-made institutions.

We live in a very duelistic world. Good vs. Evil. God vs. Satan. Republicans vs. Democrats. Capitalism vs. Socialism. Science vs. Religion. New Age vs. Tradition. So much conflict when we're all just People.

I often feel like the outsider looking in, a foreigner in a strange place. I live in the hope that one day I'll return home, in time, when my time comes. Maybe Heaven is home to me, or maybe Heaven is what we make. I'm not sure.

Unnamed Short Story

Four men dashed through the woods after their prey. After tracking it all night, they had finally found the beast’s hiding place and flushed it out. This werewolf had been harassing the nearby village for weeks, but no more.

The four men were Venators, elite warriors who specialize in hunting and eliminating dark magic. In a world full of witches, sorcerers, demons and monsters, the Venators stand sworn to destroy all who use the power of darkness.

The four Venators now chased the werewolf, drawing their Phoenix Rods. The three foot red sticks at first didn’t look like much, but these were blessed weapons, and highly effective against the creatures of the night.

They chased deeper into the woods, but they were falling behind. No matter how hard they trained, human legs could not keep pace with a eight foot tall very powerful werewolf. The Senior Venator called for his men to split up in an attempt to corral the beast in the direction it was already going.

The men spread out, and sure enough the beast had attempted to run around and flank the group. Instead, the beast ran right in the path of one of the Venators, Rod ready to repel this monster. Man and beast ran at each other, their respective weapons drawn.

The man was brave, but his act was foolish. The monster swatted the man aside, where he collided into a tree and was out cold before he landed roughly on the ground. The beast was about to finish him off when the other three men ran up behind it and engaged. The battle was ferocious, but neither man nor beast noticed as a quiet figure appeared from the brush and dragged the injured Venator away.

I'm really in a period where my life is moving forward. New discoveries and new opportunities are opening themselves to me. Change is always both exciting and scary, but change has to happen for growth. Growing isn't easy, and its sometimes painful, but what is on the other side is always amazing.

But the real point of today's post is to share again what I'm learning with Spirit Science. But, instead of me just writing it out, I'll show the video that I first discovered. It's about an hour long, so be warned. It's kind of a wierd cartoon, so again, you've been warned. What the video opens with and what I'll repeat here is this:

Please watch with an open mind. Very little of this is fact, mostly a combination of various theories. I'm not saying this is true, all I'm saying is decide for yourself.

Going to have a finished short story for this weekend if it kills me. In the meantime, here's a little introduction. I hope you enjoy and I hope you stick around for the end.

A Good Story

I'm writing this with the assumtion that the reader knows what Netflix is. If you don't, it's a movie streaming site, look it up.

For those who do know, you know that Netflix suggests movies based on what you've previously watched. So I watch a lot of sci-fi movies, and a movie Netflix suggests is called "the Host" which came out this year. If you haven't seen it, relax, there's no real spoilers here.

I'd never heard of this movie, but I watched it anyway. I get through the movie and I like it. When the end credits roll, I read the words "based on the book by Stephenie Meyer", as in the writer of the Twilight series.

I was taken aback. First, because I had no idea Meyer had written another book. Second, because I actually liked the story of "the Host".

Let me say I actually did read Twilight. I read all four books, and I didn't find them engaging. Everything I found wrong with them could be summed up in that there wasn't a moral question. "The Host" had a moral question the main characters had to decide, Twilight not so much. While it was still very much a romantic story, aimed at young people for sure, the characters had moral delemas, and they grew throughout, at least the main character did. The main girl was an active character, which I liked.

Anyway, great movie. Mrs. Meyer, you have redeemed yourself in my eyes. That probably doesn't matter to you, but I just wanted to say.

11-12-13

I had something prewritten that I was going to put up, but I was moved to write this instead. Today I was in a slump. I just didn't want to do anything, and for the most part I didn't. Nothing just felt important. I tried working on essays and writing, but just couldn't get into anything. 

This evening however, I went to a packing party for Operation Christmas Child. Click the link to go to their site, but essentially, they accept donated shoe boxes filled with candy, small toys, personal hygiene items, and other things, and take them around the world to Children in third world and poor neighborhoods.

I went just for the heck of it, to get out of the dorm, but I got there and I felt God motivating me to participate. I had fun, filling boxes for kids, talking to my friends and just hanging out. It reminded me today what all of this is for: children.

Everything I do is for them, to help create a world that is favorable to them, to teach them how to live, and to be an example to follow. It may sound pretentious, but teaching is what I am in this world for. Everything I ever teach, everything I ever write, God let it teach future generations how to change the world for the better.

Dawn of a New Age

I really believe that the world is changing. I don't mean small changes, though, but a big change in the way we think and live. The internet has become larger than anyone ever predicted, changing how we live, how we learn, even how we communicate and meet. New sciences like Quantum Physics and Neurology and spiritualities are starting to show congruences.

New ways of thinking are arising, and unfortunately I think some people are afraid of this. I've looked through some of these new ideas, and I don't think they are out to specifically contradict anyone. I've found no New Age book that claim what today's largest religions claim. None claim to have "The Way" to eternal happiness, prosperity, or rest. In a sense, these New Age thoughts are perfect for the internet; it's just people who have achieved something in their personal life, and they're sharing what works for them for us to try. If it does, good for you, if not, good luck finding something that does.

I love being Christian, I really do, but the absolutism about it is off-putting. "It's either Jesus or go to Hell". Again, Christianity is great, and I believe in its message, so I'm not going to say it's wrong. What I am going to say is it seems unfair. What about perfectly good people who live their whole lives, never hearing or reading the Bible, never knowing what Jesus did and said? What about people who lived in the America's before Europeans settled? Was there just no hope for them before Christianity came to them?

The energy of Love is the energy of God.

I digress. Anyway, I found this site this weekend that is pretty interesting. It's called The Spirit Science, and it's all about unlocking your personal spirit, growth through meditation, showing interconnectiveness of our world and us to the planet, stuff like that. In the spirit of the internet, decide for yourself.

Also, happy Veteran's Day. Be sure to show some love to those who've served this day, and tomorrow, and the next, so on and so on.

Power Trilogy Book Two: Strike of Sword (Chapter Two)

Warning: this chapter gets a little PG 13 towards the end. Reader discretion advised.

For Chapter One click here.

One week later, Kyle sat at his desk in his room back in Odessa. His algebra homework sat in front of him, but he wasn’t even looking at it. Kyle just couldn’t concentrate on math at the moment. He had tried everything. He shut the window to where the only light in the room came from his Apple laptop as quiet music came out, and his vessels. In the semi-darkness of his room, Kyle just sat there, staring at the impossibly difficult math homework, wondering what he should do next.

 Yup, it's going to be one of those posts. Don't say you weren't warned.

Let me first say I love my friends and my church. These are people I want in my life, else I wouldn't have stayed out here for as long as I have. I do my very best to participate and serve in my church, and I do so faithfully. God is my God and Jesus is my savior, but there are still things that have been said and conversations hardly pertaining to religion that made me just sit back and think "really?"

This is hopefully as political as this blog is going to get. Obama's religious affiliations has been in question ever since he was first elected. I say this here and now and for all time: I do not care about the President's religion. This nation was founded on principles of religious tolerance, and religion plays no part in elections. Until such a time when a law is passed saying religion is a factor, religion will not be my deciding factor next time I vote.

I suppose it was about a year ago I heard that the DC comic book character Green Lantern was gay in the comics. I never really read comic books as a kid, but I saw the Green Lantern movie with Ryan Reynolds, so I sort of understand how Green Lantern works. I guess to make a long rant short, he's a fictional character. (spoiler) my book features a gay individual, but it's just a character in a story in no way based on real life, and the same for Green Lantern.

Well, I suppose that's all for today. Working on something new for this weekend, hopefully I'll have it finished by then.

Dante Alighieri's contribution to Christianity

Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy is considered one of the greatest literary works in the world, and Christianity owes much to his work. Even though it is called a "Comedy", if you read it today it probably wouldn't be that funny, but comedy had a different meaning in the Renaissance. "Tragedy" and "Comedy" had to do with classes; Tragedies were more sophisticated and aimed at the higher classes in society, while Comedies were simpler reads that anyone off the street could enjoy. The Divine Comedy is about a journey through Hell, meeting the Devil and coming out the other side to Purgatory and Paradise. What Christianity owes to this work is that before it, there had never been quite a description of Hell. People would read it, get scared, and run to the Church for protection, because the poem is very graphic.

For more information on Dante and The Divine Comedy, click here.

Schindler's List

Finished watching the movie Schindler's List in my Third Reich course, and I have to say it is one of the most powerful endings I've ever seen. All I've ever heard of this movie were praises, and I agree in every way. Here are my thoughts about the ending, spoiler alert if you haven't seen it yet.

Oskar Schindler announces to his Jewish workers at the end that the war in Germany has ended, and since he is a member of the Nazi Party, he has to run. When he later goes out to his car, the Jews that he saved present him with a gold ring from their teeth fillings and a letter that they all signed, 1,100 in total.

Schindler starts breaking down, looking at his car and his gold Nazi pin, guilty that he could've saved more, even if just a handful more people. His accountant tries to console him that he already did so much, and some of the Jewish women come up to embrace him.

The final scene is in the present day. Some of the descendants of the Schindler Jews pay respects at his grave. The descendants of these Jews are over 6,000. After he died, Schindler was buried outside the walls of Jerusalem.

These words will never replace the power that this last scene had. When the movie ended, I was moved to pray, not only for those who lost their lives, but for those who survived, and their children live on. I guess to me it showed that God still claims the Jews as his people, and he will always be with them.

It may be a lot to ask, but I would like to ask that if you read this, that you take a moment of silence to yourself, or if you wish, to say a quick prayer. I know for most of us this may be ancient history, but this is truly one of the chapters of history that should never be forgotten. So pray that we never forget, and that a tragedy like this never happens again.

Transhumanism

Reading Dan Brown's Inferno is absolutely amazing. I love Brown's books for his ability to make his characters make a moral stance, especially in Inferno. This is a little bit of a spoiler, so if you were planning on reading the book and haven't, you were warned. If you weren't planning to read it, I'd highly recommend you changing your mind, because it is excellent.

The main antagonist is a person who is a "Transhumanist". I'd never heard of the term before, so I looked it up. In as few words as possible, transhumanists believe that we should use all available technology to enhance the human race. This is mostly genetic alterations that they propose. By playing around with our genetic makeup, transhumanists believe that we can make ourselves stronger, smarter, and increase our natural restorative or regenerative abilities. Essentially, it's boosting human evolution through unnatural means.

Right off the hand, this sounds like playing God. At the risk of attracting more flack to myself, I do think evolution is a natural process, but it takes many generations to see relatively small change. In the Middle Ages the average height for an adult human was about 5'4", whereas today the average height is 5'10". What Transhumanists want to do is speed up the process to where we could see significant changes in the next generation.

What everyone's favorite Harvard Symbologist Robert Langdon brings up when this is explained to him is the Socio-Cultural affect this type of tampering would have, and I have to say I agree with this. No matter what this genetic altering would imply, there would always be those who wouldn't be able to afford it. The rich would certainly be able to afford it, and upper-middle and middle classes would have to work a little harder to afford it, but there would always be the lower classes who would never afford it. These new enhanced individuals, whom Transhumanists call "Posthumans", would not only retain their economic advantage over the lower classes, they are now genetically "better". Differences and tensions that already exist would only be strengthened, and if human history teaches us anything, its that people don't exactly deal with those deemed inferior in a humane manner.

http://www.nickbostrom.com/ethics/values.html

Above is a link to more information on Transhumanism if you wish to form your own opinion. You've heard mine, but think what you will.

I feel that since I posted my short story earlier this week, I should wait to post another original till next weekend, so this'll be a "regular" post this weekend.

This week's been interesting, to say the least. This blog has gotten a bit of talk recently, both good and bad. Plenty of praise for my originals, and it's all very appreciated. On the flipside, my more controversial posts are getting people talking, too, apparently. Mixed feelings about that, honestly.

My position is to give any thought, idea, belief, or theory an equal chance. I was raised to be reverent and respectful of others' beliefs. We all think differently, we all believe differently, and we all have the right to do so. That's why I'm probably not cut out for missionary work, because at the end of the day, I'd be like "but make your own choice".

I'm not infallable. I'm 21 years old; my brain isn't even done developing. I don't know much about the world, I admit it, but that's why I study the world and it's beliefs, because all of it is part of our ultimate history, and we wouldn't be where we are without every piece. So, I implore you that if you have a question or an issue with something I say, TELL ME! Leave a comment. Give me the chance to explain myself. I'm reasonable enough to hear critisms and beliefs. We're all sentient beings here; I'm willing to discussion and hopefully we can reconcile our differences.

Halloween always feels like the beginning of the end for me. Halloween, being the last day of October, is therefore the doorway to November, which means Thanksgiving, which means the holidays.

Also, it always feels as if Thanksgiving gets forgotten. I was at Walmart today, November 1st, and watched two workers put up a Christmas banner. Everyone's already thinking about Christmas, while Thanksgiving is a neglected holiday. Who doesn't love Thanksgiving? It's a holiday that has become about football and food!

But Thanksgiving already feels only around the corner. I had it pointed out to me today that there are only 25 actual days of classes left. Take out finals' week, it's only 20. 20 days! What happened to 2013?!

It'll be a new year before you know it, folks. 2013 is rounding the fourth corner, so make your peace with it while you can. Let's finish the year strong, ladies and gentlemen.