New Blog?

So I am currently in the process of porting my blog over to my own domain. Blogger ended up being a little to restrictive for me in what I was able to do. I want to explore, create, blossom. Also, there is really no way to back up Blogger. I want to be in control of my information so that if ever blogger dies, my history and transformations don't die with it. I enjoy looking back, and to loose that would be a shame.
So you can reach it via http://www.aaronvanderzwan.com/blog. I am still going to remain on blogger, and xanga, but will mostly post at my other blog. It will be weird posting as Aaron and not some chick (for those of you who do not know the story, the lady in the images on this blog was at the top of a Google image search).

So yes. I will soon have all of the posts that are on here on there. But because of bloggers horrible backup system I actually have to copy and paste each post into the new one.

I haven't even touched the design on it yet (it is just the default look), but I plan on jimmmy-rigging it to look in someway like 'me'. Also, you can subscribe to receive updates for when I post, which is something xanga has, but blogger (even though extremely better than xanga) does not.

El Fin.

continuation... part III?

So i have (in my last few posts) been throwing thoughts together, trying to organize them as i go (which I enjoy doing better), but i understand if i lose people. let me know and i will explain something more thoroughly.

so i just re-read my old post and want to continue, but it is hard because i am having different strains of thought right now. i will do my best.

i just barely touched on heaven in my last post, but have to say, it is a large part of why i think the way i do. heaven makes this place (earth or 'not heaven') 'not fully right'. what i mean by that is, it could have been better, but with a loving, all-powerful god, god didn't want it to be. again, i feel the need to back track. i may not have explained my interpretation of 'all-powerful' enough yet...

(i believe that is how this post might end)

my understanding of all-powerful, is to be in complete control of every aspect of everything. just realy quick, yes that includes sin. all powerful is not a lazy term that i throw around lightly, i believe that if i say that god would be all powerful than god contains this characteristic of being in control of absolutely everything. well (as i touched on in the last post), this seems rather obserd as this free-will B.S. stands in my way of a belief in an all powerful god. i have to say that with this point, i tend to stray rather close to the crc belief (the one i always argued against) of predestination. now, everyone hears the word 'predestination' and thinks they know whats up. i am not, and will not waste time arguing about whether or not god 'sends' people to heaven or to that other place most christians believe in. god being all powerful makes that a non-argument. i could move in a circle here and argue god being just and people going to hell unjust, but i will wait a little longer. the point i am trying to make here is that our faith in god CAN be so strong that we believe god 'is' and was in control of everything. now i should, again, clarify this statement. 'is' is somewhat debatable. i am not stricktly convinced that god right now does stuff/changes events, however my belief in god at one time controlling today makes the 'is' work. yeah i know, that was horribly articulated... please read on.

i move with the deist here and believe that god, being all-powerful, created the world in such a way that i would be sitting here writing this post and you would be (now?) sitting here reading it. i am in the firm belief that the only way god can control today, (since i see god nowhere currently in action or body) is to have spun the world, such that we are here today. this is a tough concept to grab a hold of and i welcome questions for better explaination. i see no reason why an all=powerful god couldn't have accomplished this move. this would explain why god is in control of everything, and why god isn't concerned with showing god's-self to us in any physical voice/being/action/light/etc. god's already in control.

however, this definitely puts god in charge of the sin that was included in god's spin of this world (aka. creation) and it also makes a lot of people feel sour because they don't feel in control of their actions, or that others (hitler, murderers etc) aren't responsible for their actions. for this explaination and reasonaing i jump away from theology and look around me. it seems like i, and everyone that i know, is sitting in the position that they are sitting in based on experiences that they have encountered, somewhere in their life. they have accomplished NOTHING on their own and are only affected by situations/happinstances in their life. for myself... i am a white middle class citizen of the U.S. This alone means that... christian? moral? financial? (well maybe those) those are the direct effects of only 2 situations that i was brought up in. more? i had loving parents that tought me well and treated me like an adult even when i wasn't one. that can easily explain why i can handle myself in social situations, why i do not look for blood to give me an orgasm etc. etc. etc. the people that we look at as the most 'insane' in our modern world are those that had situations that made them the way they were. do they have a choice? well maybe. i guess that depends on the definition of a choice. when eric's parents tell him he can eat from the cookie jar, can eric be blamed for not eating from the cookie jar, just the way many people believe that jihads are a'okay, and why many people thought that black people were inferior to the whites. it has nothing to do with personal thought or belief, simply situations that brought about that belief. even me sitting here writing shit against what i have been taught all my life is because i was taught to question what i was told and to be persistent with debate and understanding.

i digress. anyways, as you can see i could write for a long time on what seems very little. either way, it seems, even if the argument may be that people have natural brain malfunctions or whatever, that people are not entirel culpable for the actions that they do, or commit. i don't think that this is where i intended to end up tonight, but i did. one more step. the experiences that people have, to make them they way that they are (i see this to be plausible) happen only because other people act a certain way (caused by their situations). so african-american's today being sour against the white culture can be explained by little johnnie in the 50's acting how he was taught to act by his father, etc. (one of many many many reasons) and johnnie's father by his father etc etc etc. the father teaching the son how to treat another race is only part of the 'situation' johnny had to deal with, there were millions of them, school, bus rides, restaurants, street discussions, etc. all of which i believe god set up in the beginning and therefore, controls.

i hope i am making some sense and am not ranting, saying the same things over and over. i will quit now and maybe outline my next post. please let me know if you have questions or problems with what i have stated so far. i will do what i can to explain better.

Digging in to the CRC

I have to start with my belief in God according to sin/evil/pain/suffering. Again, I feel this is important because of how pulled i have been to it. this has been the largest reason for my questioning religion as i knew it. This is nothing new. This problem of evil has gone down throughout history as a reason for many conversions to atheism, agnosticism etc. I am unwilling to give up. As I said in the previous post. I have chosen my belief in God, and that is where i begin. The problem of evil is not one that compells me to lose belief in a God simply strive to understand that this god is not what i have always been taught.

The CRC's belief, as well as I know it is: God created the world (God is all powerful). God created the world sinless and good (God is holy and loving), God is in control of everything (God is sovereign). The fall occured only because God allowed it. The CRC seems to use this idea to make God blameless of sin being in this world. This is the heart of the problem. How can God be all powerful but not be the sole reason for sin being in this world?

The added problem with saying that God allowed/enabled/created sin, is to accept the idea that God wants little susie to get raped every night from her drunk violent father until one night he kills her. We cannot accept this because God is a Loving God, a Just God or at least that is what we want God to be. Here we come to another place where I had to make a decision. My decision was one that aspires hope for this world and for little susie's death. My choice is for God to be loving AND all powerful.

my struggle was... why is there 'sin'? Why does little susie have that constant pain and suffering? Couldn't this loving God that is all powerful come up with a better way for us to live? A thought is... yeah, a world that has no sin. Often, people respond to a world that has no sin as a bad place to live because we don't have the choice to choose God. First, I have trouble believing that God would put susie in that situation so that her father could have the choice of God or his little daughter. Second. "Free-will is something that is good; a gift from God. Without it we would all be robots." Bull Shit. what do we call heaven than? Somehow this connection gets lost when people think about free-will being what makes our relationship with the creator real. The all powerful creator, could have... and potentially did... create a world with no free-will that is good. Heaven.

This realization did not push me into belief of heaven, but just for our creator to have the ability to create a place i had always heard was 'robot-like'. This is not an acceptable reason for sin to be a good thing; "so we can value God more". I believe if heaven exists, we will value the creator very much there.

Damn it. this is getting too long. I will pause here. re-read. re-think. re-organize.

Base premises (or whatever the plural for premise is)

Okay, so it has been four score and hella time since i have posted on this thing but here is the story. someone recently got me interested in blogspot again, and so i found my old blog and began reading through some of my old posts. How awesome this tool is for recording our transitions and movements through this world. With that said i explain my gameplan for returning to posting. I intend to respond to where i left off. before my most recent trivial post, i posed some serious questions about this world, primarily pertaining to religion. Well, in my head, i have come to some conclusions for these posts. My intent here is to explain my worldview, how i came to it and why i have gotten here.

Now, i should also say that this is not set in stone. i guess my first premise in my "worldview" is that we are always learning/growing, and strengthening our "position" (if you will). I don't expect many to read these, but i ask that if you have questions or struggles with anything that i post, that you comment. I am in no way stuck to my beliefs and in all honesty I am not entirely happy with how it all works out in my head. i welcome someone to prove me wrong and show me a way to a happier (or just different) point of view. I will try my best to comprehend (as my developing brain can handle) and add to my thoughts what you comment.

One last thing. I will try to keep these posts relatively short. I don't want anyone intimidated or frustrated with the time necessary to dedicate to reading these.

Okay here is where I begin. 88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

I will begin with the beginning. (seems like a good place to start). There are a few things I have "chosen" to believe. These things I believe are not provable and debate on them just leads to circles, frustration, and eventually 'thought defeat'.

I believe in a God, a Creator of all things, the all powerful. - this goes into more of my childhood and up-bringing. it is much more comfortable for me to accept the idea of something/someone being at the beginning than the opposite, which seems at a glimpse so desolate and scary. Also, looking through history it seems that many cultures have set foundational priciples on this belief. Whether it be for proof, political reasons, or just plain moral, I really don't care. I feel, at least, that my hope for this world is greater when this belief is accepted.

This Creator did not/has not changed. - This is a widely accepted belief of the CRC, which made me question it. However, it would be quite pointless to discuss a God that would change all of the time. Think about it, that is true.

I believe that Creator to be good. - Not all "good" as the CRC tends to shove. The Creator was willing to create wrong/evil/pain for the strength of a "greater good" (this is not what you are thinking and I will explain it more later). These are huge ideas and I will probably warrant much of many posts explaining what these mean. Long story short, I chose to believe that this Creator choses for the world to be as shitty as it is (if you question my struggles with this world's shittiness and haven't read my previous posts, i urge you to read, to gain an empathy for my position on this world being insanely shitty).

Well that is all you get for this post. 1. this post has to be a reasonable length, 2. i want to develope my thoughts into words better 3. hopefully this leaves you with some questions, and myself as well, which will keep you, the reader, interested as well as myself, the writer. 4. tomorrow morning at 8:30 work begins again and that is in 7 hours from now, so only 6 for sleeping.

Again, give me support, rip me down, ask me a question, just let this be a discussion. I want to learn from this, hopefully you can help me do that and maybe learn a little yourself. :)

night

Ehzee's Blog Update

Hello.

The list in the nav area of this blog is actually a list of the top tracks that I have listened to.  It changes whenever the amount I play these songs change.  For example, Stars - Elevator Love Letter is in the lead with 11 plays in the last 2 weeks.  Spice Coyote is second and third with 11 and 8 plays.  I do have to update the player though.  There will most likely be an update on the player when Spice Coyote records this next song we are working on.  It is our favorite so far, in that it surpasses "A Post-Feminist Critique" in fun and pointlessness.  It is almost perfect.  Anywho... with my most recent Dashboard widget I can post to blogger straight from my desktop, so you will be seeing a few more postings here.  More Info on Blogger Widget

Delicious

So I am sitting here today, reading more Dostoevsky. What can I say, I'm enthralled. Right now, Ivan is explaining to his brother, Alyosha, his struggle with Jesus. A quote, talking to Jesus from Ivan's perspective of the church, is as follows, "You promised them bread from heaven, but, I repeat again, can it compare with earthly bread in the eyes of the weak, always vicious and always ignoble race of man? And if for the sake of the bread from heaven thousands and tens of thousands will follow you, what is to become of the millions and scores of thousands of millions of creatures who will not have the strength to give up the earthly bread for the bread of heaven? Or are only the scores of thousands of the great and strong dear to you, and are the remaining millions, numerous as the sand of the sea, who are weak but who love you, to serve only as the material for the great and the strong?" - The Brothers Karamazov

Now, I actually write this article not so much in response to the real meaning of this book and chapter, even though that interests the point that I have thought about recently. The point is as follows, our world, the world that we know it, is not going to last. Eschatological study will soon be proven right or wrong. As it is going, and as history has shown us, living conditions will eventually only exponentially get worse, we continuously devour every good physical essence that this earth has been granted us to have. I feel like one day, one of our future generation will hold her stomach in the corner of her rubbled house, trying to shield her unclothed body from the wind and rain that is ripping shreds of skin off of her body. She will think about the books that she read about our generations, how nice we had it, how beautiful the sun had been, how clean the air had been, how we could go to a store and buy any kind of food we wanted.

The unarguable truth is this, we are going to die, you the reader is going to one day die, your children will die, their children will die and eventually whether we kill ourselves or not, the resources on this earth will be so used up, everyone will be dead. Now the passage by Dostoevsky has, yes made me very mellow dramatic, but also shown that we as a whole generation should not focus on the differences and warrant them into being something important, but instead should look at the enormous amount of freedom that is waiting for us at the doorstep everyday; a gift showering us continuously. I am very grateful for being born into one of the easiest cultures and generations ever, a culture which shows me so little of the pain and death that other cultures and our undoubted future holds. However, I am also distressed at how the circle of life must take its course. We do not understand the importance of work in this happiness, we utterly take it for granted and therefore spew shit at others who we think, “just don’t work hard enough.”

What can I do with my situation? Well as I see it, I have two choices. One, I can look at myself in the mirror every morning and thank God for God's graciousness in not presenting me with any serious difficulties, and go on being thankful throughout my meaningless monotonous life, figuring that no matter what I would do it would result in pain and death in the end anyways; or I could try to do something with my almost perfect (big picture) life. So cliché. So Bull Shit. However, when the game is over, when the king is knocked down and we all have to go to sleep to wake up on the other side, I want to bank on the fact that there is more. So what do I live for? Not this world. This world is going to be dead in a couple thousand years, “second coming” or not. (well I suppose with the “second coming” the idea that this world would be dead is debatable) Either way, it will hit the fan. Life will not be the same. All the religious stuff will either turn out true, or very, very false.

No, for me to struggle to redeem this world is a pointless cause. I simply struggle after what I am told to struggle after. I do the “right” things, the “correct”, righteous things in response to this evil pain ridden world. I take on the losing, pointless goal of promoting the happiness and the painlessness of others. I am not convinced of how righteous these actions are, however, I have nothing else to base my righteousness on. I believe there is more to this world, I believe that death is only falling asleep, and I do believe that we wake up in the next life “only gaining a yesterday”. This is something that I have to use as my crutch, the crutch of hope that works me through the mindless actions of today; the "faith", if you will, of something beyond this world.

Quotes - Dostoevsky

"The most direct and spontaneous historic pastime we have is the infliction of pain by beating. Nekrassov has a poem about a peasant who flogs a horse about its eyes, "its gentle eyes"... He describes how a feeble nag, which has been pulling too heavy a load, sticks in the mud with its cart and cannot move. The peasant beats it, beats it savagely and, in the end, without realizing why he is doing it and intoxicated by the very act of beating, goes on showering heavy blows upon it. "Weak as you are, pull you must! I don't care if you die so long as you go on pulling!" The nag pulls hard but without avail, and he begins lashing the poor defenceless creature across its weeping, "gentle eyes". Beside itself with pain, it gives one tremendous pull, pulls out the cart, and off it goes, trembling all over and gasping for breath, moving sideways, with a curious sort of skipping motion, unnaturally and shamefully... But it's only a horse and God has given us horses to be flogged.

And there you have an educated and well-brought-up gentleman and his wife who birch their own little deaughter, a child of seven- I have a full account of it. Daddy is glad that the twigs have knots, for, as he says, "it will sting more" and so be begins "stinging" his own daughter. I know for a fact that there are people who get so excited that they derive a sensual pleasure from every blow, literally a sensual pleasure, which grows progressively with every subsequent blow. They beat for a minute, five minutes, ten minutes. The more it goes on the more "stinging" do the blows become. The child screams, at last it can scream no more, it is gasping for breath. 'Daddy, Daddy, dear Daddy!'"
- Brothers Karamazov