Just Today's Thoughts

So, I was at work today, and I was walking with a co-worker to take care of an issue. As we were making the walk from Plaster to Legget-Platt we were engaging in small talk about classes and finals. My partner brought up the subject of his final in a philosophy class, and how it was writing intensive. Without much prompting from me he said that, basically, the subject of the final will be a two thousand word argument proving or disproving the existence of God. I was kind of shocked that he even mentioned this to me because I assumed that he knew of my belief in Christ, but perhaps he did not. Anyway, I used the opportunity to see what his perspective was on the matter. Apparently, he is a deist, at least that is what he claimed at the time. He said that he believed there was a god, but not the “Christian God.” Basically, he said god does not interact with creation, but instead god is like a watchmaker who made everything and then sat back to watch everything unfold. Also, he said the only reason he thought a god existed was to justify everything human knowledge has not understood thus far. Honestly, I do not know if he was trying to convince me of anything, or just simply stating his opinion. Personally, I have an interest in hearing what people think about God and existence. Philosophy is a topic I find very interesting indeed. However, it seems that most of the time people are trying to convince me that their perspective is the correct one when it comes to such topics. I feel that this is not exactly the right way to go about such conversations. I mean, if someone has an opinion I am willing to listen, but that doesn’t automatically insinuate that I will concur. I believe for the most part I just listen without much input, and this is mistaken a lot for agreement. I like to examine what people say, and see if I can understand where they are coming from on the issue. Usually, I will give a reply on the subject if I have a disagreement, but I did not today. This makes me wonder, how much do people think I try to force my views upon them? This is kind of an interesting situation because it begs the question, “why is it that whenever a Christian expresses their views they are, as some would say, ‘shoving religion in people’s faces’?” Personally, I do not think I can really talk about the deep issues of life without talking about God, because that is who I am. I mean, if someone believes a certain way everything they do and say reflects that belief. I believe it is completely possible for two people to have completely different views, and respect each other even though they disagree. Perhaps, this is wrong though. The Bible does present the idea that darkness and light have no communion together. I guess, it goes back to spiritual warfare. All I know is that when such topics come up I want to seek after the truth, and not simply try and convince someone I am right. I have said before that I do not believe anyone knows everything, but I still think that there is an absolute truth that gives foundation to everything. My hope and faith is that the foundation is Christ.

Today

Well, today was a pretty laid back day. I did not really do too much, or at least it feels that way. I mean, I went to class and work, but even though both classes had lectures it seemed like everything went by quickly. After, class I went out to the Oval to find that they were finally doing the free food I had been anticipating since I saw the tent propped up earlier this week. There was potato chips, pulled pork sandwiches, pasta salad, and barbeque chicken. A pretty nice lunch, especially since I was just planning on getting a muffin with some juice to eat. Though, I only had the chicken and pasta salad because I choose not to eat pork, and the potato chips were not all that appealing for me today. Anyway, to my surprise I met up with some friends that I never see on campus except at work or bible study. It was a good time of relaxing, though at that time it was cloudy and windy causing it to be slightly chilly outside. Another perk to the little outing was that there was a Frisbee decorating booth as well as someone making balloon animals. I definitely took advantage of the Frisbee creation opportunity, and found it pretty enjoyable. Apparently, there was tie-dye t-shirt making at the last Oval gathering at the beginning of the school year, but I missed that because I did not know about it at the time. Anyway, after the free food I had to go to work, but fortunately there were not many tasks that needed to be done, and the tasks that I did do went by quickly.

So, the finish of the last full week of classes has come, and I still have a decent amount of work to do for my other classes. However, I am confident that next week will not be all that bad as long as I get through my tests alright. Really, what I want to do is just take a break from school this weekend, but I know that would be a really bad idea. Thus, the nose must go to the grindstone. At least after finals I will have some more free time, and not have to worry about deadlines until summer classes begin. Also, I will be working more, so I will earn more cash to put back for fall semester. Even though I will be working I look forward to the intersession because I would rather work more, and not have the pressure of doing assignments. Not to mention I will be able to finish playing final fantasy, since because of the increased workload in my math classes I have not been able to play more than an hour a week. To be honest, I really want to finish it this weekend, but I must resist the temptation and be diligent to accomplish my responsibilities that I happen to be paying to have. Who knows, maybe I will get a chance to wield my controller for at least a couple of hours this weekend.

Dark Matters (PS)

Once again I went in search for a subject I find interesting to blog about this week, and what I came up with was dark matter. The first article I came across was about a research project being done in Italy that is seeking to produce results of the exotic particles that are claimed to be the majority of the substance of the universe. As of yet there has not been anything that confirms the existence of these particles, but the article explained why there was some hope of getting positive results. After, reading through the piece I was compelled to look for more information on dark matter. What I found was pretty interesting. Apparently, in the realm of the universe as we know it there exist phenomena that are unexplained by what we have observed. Specifically, the speed at which stars in galaxies rotate around the galaxy is greater than should be possible for the amount of mass that is measured in the galaxy. In physics, the mass of an object exerts a force called gravity on the objects around it. This force becomes less as the distance between the two objects increases. Therefore, stars at the edge of a galaxy have less gravity acting on them than inner stars. Well, according to measured speeds of these stars’ orbits they should not be able to stay within the gravitational pull of the galaxy. That is, there is not enough mass in the galaxy to create a gravitational force strong enough to hold them at the speeds at which these stars travel. Thus, scientists believe there is a component that has not been accounted for called dark matter that surrounds the galaxies. What exactly is dark matter? Yeah, no body knows what it is. There are two main ideas which boil down into the acronyms MACHO and WIMP. I gleaned this information off of a fairly easy-to-read article. Basically, a MACHO can be considered something like a black whole or a brown dwarf, which is a ball of hydrogen gas that did not have enough mass to cause the nuclear reaction to become a star (i.e. the planet Jupiter). One cannot really see either of these if they are outside a galaxy, but they can be detected using some fancy observations and calculations using Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which proposed that light bends around super massive objects. In fact, I watched an hour long video about a guy discussing this possibility of dark matter. Ultimately, the observations of MACHOs has concluded that there are simply not enough of them to make up the entire mass needed to justify the observations of the “missing mass.” Thus, scientists are now looking for WIMPs as the remaining ingredient. Basically, a WIMP is a particle that does not react with matter very often, but according to the theory they are everywhere moving through everything. Because they only occasionally interact with known matter they are very hard to measure, and impossible to see. Basically, the research in the first article and particle smashing are the types of experiments being used to discover what exactly these dark matter particles are. I found a nice article that simplifies a lot of this information, and it is kind of funny as well. Personally, I am just waiting for someone to come along with an accidental experiment that blows all of the observations out of the water, and everybody scratches their heads saying, “huh?”