Reality?

So, how do we determine that what we are experiencing at this very moment is not, itself, a vision? How do we define reality from illusion? It can't be by our senses because a schizophrenic cannot tell the difference from the fiction of his mind and reality. Hallucinations are sensed just as easily as matter.

It can't be experience. How many times have we dreamed in our beds of winning the lottery and only to wake up depressed to see out empty wallets? We believed we had just had the experience of winning the lottery.

We can't even trust our minds. "I think therefore I am." This quote is often thought to be one of the most profound epistemological statements. Perhaps the ability to reason and other cognative processes prove our existence. But don't the imagined people a schizophrenic percieves seen to have the same processes? So how do we know they are not imagined or if we are even imagined?

Perhaps the ability to doubt one's existance proves their existance. Illusions don't doubt their own existance. But that leaves us alone in the world with only philosophers left. What a dull world that would be.

My friend Catherine and I were discussing this very subject yesterday over a Big Mac and a McFlurry. One of the conclusions that we came to was that, in this lifetime, we either accept that though our perception is flawed, we must accept experience and our senses as a tool to obtain truth, or we can not, end up not really sure why we opperate in this world as if we knew truth was really truth (that bus will really kill me if I walk in front of it), or we can accept nihilism and have no real reason to live (walk in front of the bus because no one really knows if it exists). So either we replace our doubts about our perception with faith or we have no real reason to want to keep living because this may not even be living.

My Space

I was thinking the other day, why do people read blogs. It's not like a conversation, you can't even interrupt. I guess you could comment, but you have to click to see them. Like now, you want to interrupt me. You can feel it. You are just ITCHING to cut off my rambling. But you can't. I could start talking about the gum on my shoe and how awesome it is that it looks like Gandhi and there is no way you can change the subject. Heck, you can't even stop reading. Go ahead try. You're still reading. I'm still proving my point.

I think that's how the anti-christ is going to take over the world. All he has to do is become a really popular blogger. It's Genius! So, maybe he's already working on it. He's probably been working on it since kindergarten. What's the most popular website now?

It should be like...a place for...friends...or something.

If I was going to kindergarten with the anti-christ, let's just call him...Tom. Let's say I went to kindergarten with Tom and he was always trying to conquer the sandbox and make the pre-schoolers worship him. And he asks me,
"Josh, How can I for to make world my diaper?"
I would be like,
"Well Tom, first you have to utilize some sort of high tech network of information systems worldwide, like that web over there. Then you would create an environment where friends could come and give you all there personal info, their boyfriends, the favorite cheesy song, and even a picture that they took of themselves through the mirror.
"Make these pawns blab on and on about stupid stuff to distract them. Make it so no one can interrupt them. Oh! And when they join.... become their only friend."

The world would never have a chance.

Speaking Russian

So, tuesday night, Christian Lindbeck taught on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. At the end of the night Christian ended with the question "What Gives?" Why don't we see some of the gifts of the Spirit as prominantly as 2000 years ago? James, from Sinners and Saints, had an encounter with a Russian and wished to be able to speak to him in Russian. (Speak in tongues in the respect that the audience/interpreter hears you in their native language).

At first my reaction is to say that if an individual thinks that way, it belittles the other spiritual gifts that are more prominant (like encouragement or prophecy) and may be more applicable in this postmodern context. But on second glance, I think I was wrong.

There's no denying that the Holy Spirit is active and I see the gifts in action all the time. I have even known at least four people who have witnessed excorcisms (involving people, not cursed toilet seats or things like that). But why couldn't James talk to the Russian dude?

Maybe I won't know until I die ask see my homie Jesus. Or maybe we don't see things like that so that when we do see them happen, we know the second coming is soon. In a similar way, there was a period of 400 years without a prophet or any supernatural event worth recording. But I have come to the belief that we should continue to think about those seemingly weak portions of Christianity, because that's when we notice God's strength. The things that don't make sense in Christianity, are the same things that give it it's power. ("Pray for those who persecute you", "Forgive them for they know not what they do.") Why would this be any different.