2009年1月25日日曜日

2009年1月24日土曜日

Obameter

http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/

Keep track of the man's promises at the link above. 

2009年1月17日土曜日

2009年1月16日金曜日

Video Game Sample

http://www.andrewbushfilms.com/AJB_J-E_Translation/Samples/Samples.html

2009年1月9日金曜日

Childhood

A lot of what I say on this blog is probably just a lot of pent-up stuff that has been in me for a while. 

The only problem I have looking back is that maybe I was spoiled a little bit. Even my father says that he wishes he could have given my brothers and me more hardship. Other than that, everything was pretty much perfect. The only faults were that of mine my own.

Just take into account what you read on this blog and know what it feels like to have ideas and ideology thrown at you that you don't agree with. It is a bit much to have someone urge you to believe in a certain way...all the time.

2009年1月4日日曜日

Addendum to the Previous Post

I know if you're trying to convert someone, you're really thinking in your heart that what you're saying is true. I know the intentions are good. I just wanted to say what I had to say about the subject. Thanks.

Morals are not history. Feeling Christ.

As far as I can tell there are two main appeals to religion.

1. Whatever that religion's view is of the afterlife.

2. The morals and philosophical views of that religion.

I'm gonna focus on the second one right now.

In the case of Christianity, I don't think many people say "Oh, this history is true so I believe in Christ!" It's usually the other way around, "I believe in Christ so this history is true!" When you think about it that way, it sounds almost ridiculous but this happens all the time.

"These morals are true to me so everything else in this book is too."

It's easy for people to get caught in the compassion for humanity that Christ shows in the Bible. People seem to be willing to bend their own reason and not look at history clearly because they see these morals that should have nothing to do with history in the first place.

Thomas Jefferson edited out everthing that was supernatural in the story of Jesus and basically just left his morals behind. He and many of the other forefathers liked to go by this for their moral education. They believed in those morals but not the history.

The bottom line is that morals are not history. People did moral things in history but don't bend your own reasoning just because you like the morals of something.

When people say they don't believe in religion, etc, they're always confronted with others who say "well what do you base your morals on?" What about basing them on REASON. Man in a reasoning animal. Thinking that religion and morals are inseparable is just...dead wrong. There is such a long history of secular morals and ethics in Rome. People could look that up if they want to.

A lot of people say that they "feel Christ." Christ is true because they feel them. They think try to convert you because of this feeling. Isn't this a form of arrogance? That is YOUR feeling. I've seen other people REALLY feeling some Islam. REALLY feeling some Buddhism. This is when people start saying "Well, you can't say all religions are true" or "Well, you can't say there are true parts to all religion." I'm not getting to that. I'm saying that people's feelings are exactly that, just their feelings. Don't try to say it's some dogmatic universal truth just because it's YOUR feeling. Saying that your feelings are somehow connected to the Creator and everything that YOU say about this subjects of God and morals is the truth because it comes from the Creator is a bit fishy to me.

Don't you think?

Women and Belief

"Across the EU, belief was higher among women, increased with age, those with strict upbringing, those with the lowest levels of formal education, those leaning towards right-wing politics, and those reflecting more upon philosophical and ethical issues."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_European_Union 


Across America, even today I've heard of something called a "baby boomer" relationship or church-going relationship...I can't remember what it's called. This is referring to the wife/mother basically being the driving force in the relationship to make sure that everyone goes to church on Sunday. This can also be reflected in Marge on the Simpson's. My questions is "Why is that?" Of course, it's a why question. Japan is not religious at all but I have heard many women on TV and in person searching for something spiritual and I have heard of guys doing a little bit not as much.

I'm really not trying to be sexist here. I just want to point out a difference I've noticed. It also seems at times that women don't understand science in the way that I think a lot of guys can/do. I'm speaking in really general terms here. Basically, I'd like to know if there's some relationship with estrogen or whatever it is in women that allows for them to be more "spiritual" or more "religious" ...more about it than men in general. 

Either: 


1. Women are seeing/feeling something (that really is there)that men aren't. 


2. Women in general have lower scores in science and therefore, by default, think of things more spiritually. (Men usually have lower scores in Literature, etc....it's the way it goes). 


3. It's a combination of the two above. 


4. It's a combination of the two and something else I haven't touched upon. 


5. I don't know what I'm talking about.

2009年1月1日木曜日

My Experience With the Church, Revised

INTRODUCTION

I always went to the church. My family was staying at a Residence Inn in Birmingham (I think) when I was about five years old for some reason for a couple of days. Taylor was probably just a baby but Jordan and I were exploring the hotel room and probably just causing trouble. We come across the Gideon's Bible. You can always find them at hotels in America. We couldn't even read yet. We asked our father what the title of the book was and he told us that it was the Bible. I very distinctly remember that Jordan started laughing first. He thought it was such an odd name. He started changing the letters, saying "Pible," etc. I laughed mainly because I thought Jordan laughing at it was funny enough. I didn't realize this until many years later but I think shortly after that, my family started going to church regularly. My parents had noticed from this incident of me and my brother making fun of how the word "Bible" sounds, that we needed to start going. My first church was a Methodist church in Tallassee, Alabama. When I was first introduced to the church I kind of liked it for the first week or so because it was kind of new. They then started talking God being able to see everything and do everything. I think I started to fear going to church. Just the atmosphere and the way people acted there was so different and weird to me that I just couldn't take it. I remember crying on my mother's shoulder asking if God was going to kill me. I remember she said, "God doesn't just go around killing people." After that, I was pretty much fine for years. 

PUBERTY

Around the time I was twelve or so and puberty started to kick in, I was really doubting God and  the church then too. I read a few things about evolution and I thought it was interesting but I don't suppose I could have ever commited myself to that at that time. I didn't understand enough. I suppose you could call it a true questioning period, the first of many. I never really cared one way or the other. It's hard to think seriously about science or religion at that age anyway. 

GRACE

We moved to Griffin, GA when I was about 14. My brothers and I had been doing private school for one year to help transition the move. I was going absolutely crazy due to my surroundings at school in Alabama and due to plain old hormones. We started going to this private Christian school called "Grace Academy" in town. It seemed to be mainly Pentecostal but I think officially it was just Christian. I would say "Non-demoninational" but that sadly turned into a denomination of its own as well. Before we moved, the only strain of Christianity I had ever seen was that of Methodism. Pentecostals were different. It was much more energetic and I remember liking that part more. One of the main things was Salvation. Pentecostals believed that if you pray it and mean, you will be saved by Jesus. Maybe my brothers and I had our minds fixed too much on Mortal Kombat to ever really hear anything about it at First Methodist in Eclectic but I never really knew that Christians thought this way until I moved to Griffin. Of course, Methodists believed in Heaven, Hell, and Jesus, etc but this way,...this emphasis was different. At any rate, you could consider my time at Grace and my first year of college my "most Christian days." At the time, it felt like I was just giving it a shot. I gave it a shot.

NOW
I am not against people getting together and helping each other. I am not against any group of people that tries to get people off drug addictions or helps them to get jobs. I am not against any group that gives others hope.

I am against pseudo-science being taught in the schools. I am against wars raging on today that are still going on because of some stupid event that probably never happened 700 years ago (Islam) or 2000 years ago (Christianity). I am against homophobia. I am for women's rights. I am against pseudo-history. I am against people against certain works of art or literature because of that work being sacrireligious.

I am sort of with Bill Maher on this one. We don't know what's going to happen after we die. I would not DEFINITELY call myself an atheist. What people are referring to when they talk about something that allows for existence probably has some sort of correctness to it. I still have to think about it more.

Revised Site

My first version was a little too plain. I updated the translation samples as well. Take a look!

http://www.andrewbushfilms.com/AJB_J-E_Translation/Home.html