Duff

I absolutely abhor the feeling of throwing up. I had pretty bad experiences with stomach viruses when I was younger, which explains it.

Last time I had a serious stomach ache, I spent the entire morning and afternoon watching Lord of the Rings wrapped completely in a blanket. It kept my mind off how much I felt like I was going to throw up. :P

I've got serious problems if playing Halo in the morning ruins my entire day. D: In other news, I just bought the 12 month Xbox gold membership instead of paying month by month. Hopefully this doesn't turn into the next Runescape for me.

Similarly, I hate it when you see someone and you both say "How's it going" or "How are you", etc. at the same time. And then you both hesitate, waiting for the other to answer.

=D>

Now you get to buy all the cool armor! I can't wait for that. I remember when I first started playing as my friend's guest, and I'd just run straight into all the mess during team objective games. It wasn't until I actually had an account when I realized that the best way to win an objective game is to eliminate the players and then do whatever it is you're supposed to do while they're waiting to spawn. And I guess watching a ton of MLG and objective videos on YouTube helped me understand that, too. :P

Just hoping I don't TA her 204 lab next semester, haha. Cause it'd be nice to get to know her better.

I just can't imagine not feeling obligated to cover it. How people don't instinctively cover their mouth when they sneeze (given the amount of germs in a sneeze) is beyond me. :P

Pet peeve right here. Bleh.

Got my chemistry midterm back. 93% on it, yeah! Class average was 65. He's letting people make corrections to get up to 40% of the points they missed back. So I get to move up to 96%, which will be nice. Feeling good about it. Also got my philosophy midterm back. Did great on that, too. Tonight I'm just going to work on some physics homework for Friday and read my philosophy reading to get it out of the way. Oh, and no computer science class tomorrow cause my professors at a conference. :thumbup:

The album Start Something, by the Lost Prophets. Middle school tunes right there. I like them just as much, though. It's always nice to go back to the older bands and find that you still enjoy them. In this case, it's like listening to them for the first time, because I've forgotten what most of their songs sound like.

No, I'm not planning on dating her while I TA for her; that I felt was a definite no-no. And I don't flirt with her during the lab, so it wouldn't be awkward or weird for the rest of the students. Outside of lab though, I flirt a little bit, and I've visited her with a few other friends during the weekends while we all were tipsy. I mean, I feel like I shouldn't at all. But it's kinda hard not to, especially when she's kinda flirting back.

Is it 'unprofessional' to hit on a girl who is in a class that I TA for? I mean, I do grade their labs (90% of the labs, at least). But if I am not favoring them in any way, is there anything wrong with flirting with her?

Pft, reading The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Gilman. Feminists. Hah. Very much joking...Kinda. :P

"There's a theological explanation for it. It wouldn't hold any weight with atheists if they aren't going to assume much of Catholic doctrine. But I may as well post it here." Giordano asked, and I provided an explanation from the Christian standpoint. I thought that was obvious. We've already discussed the Bible being pure fact or not or in between. You can easily disagree with this; nothing is stopping you. Again, the purpose of my posts was to explain the problem of evil and suffering from a Christian standpoint, which means I was speaking in terms of Christian belief.

@Meol: "Christianity believes in God's creation of matter and even incarnation in a human body. Bodies are not illusions, not evil, not trivial, not secular, and not outside our essence, our identity. The evil we do is not just spiritual but physical, bodily evil, for our bodies are parts of us. So the evils we do - sins - are also evils others suffer. Each evil is like a stone thrown into a pond, sending consequences rippling outwards to the farthest limits of physical interconnectedness." The Catholic Church (and others, perhaps) believe that all human beings are born with original sin. Thus, all beings are inherently out of order with nature. "Christianity disagrees [with Socrates when he says bad things never happen to good people]. Its answer is that there are among us no "good people," that is, innocent people. We are involved in a physical world with our evil, which is like that stone tossed into the pond. The two great mysteries of solidarity, original sin (solidarity in sin) and vicarious atonement (solidarity in salvation) means that even the "innocents" among us, our small children, are involved in this double drama." And again, God does care. But he cannot take away from us what makes us humans. If we're assuming heaven exists, it's existence shows he does care, for he gives us a new life in Him after this life of challenges; a life that is ultimate, perfect happiness. EDIT: And perhaps something else that may help: "To help understand Creation and the Fall, the image of three iron rings suspended from a magnet is helpful. The magnet symbolizes God; the first ring, the soul; the middle ring, the body; and the bottom ring, nature. As long as the soul stays in touch with God, the magnetic life keeps flowing through the whole chain, from divine life to soul life, body life and nature life. The three rings stay harmonized, united, magnetized. But when the soul freely declares its independence from God, the body is separated from the soul - that is, it dies - and also from nature - that is, it suffers. For the soul's authority over the body is a delegated authority, as is humanity's authority over nature. When God the delegator is rejected, so is the authority he delegated. If you rebel against the king, his ministers will no longer serve you. Thus both suffering and sin are traced to man, not God."

"Connecting Suffering with Sin: The Fall This is not as fanciful as most people think, if we remember the principle of psychosomatic unity. This principle, affirmed by just about every one of the hundreds of schools of psychology, affirms that we are not ghosts in machines, souls imprisoned in bodies, or angels in disguise, but soul-body ("psycho-somatic") unities. Our souls or psyches or personalities are our form and our bodies our matter, much as in a poem the meaning is the form and the sounds or syllables are the matter. Once we grant this principle, it makes sense that if the soul becomes alienated from God by sin, the body will become alienated, too, and experience pain and death as sin's inevitable consequences. These are not external, arbitrary punishments added on. Spiritual death (sin) and physical death go together because our spirits (souls, consciousness) and bodies go together." Dunno if that helps at all. In the argument I posted, natural disasters and diseases are labeled physical evil. So they're covered in that argument. EDIT: I also feel I should clarify. The argument in my previous post mentions the 'end or use for physical evil'. This is not stating evil exists for the said reasons (spiritual discipline and training for our own ultimate perfection and eternal joy, etc.). Those are, rather, it's uses. The reason physical evil exists in the first place is because of spiritual evil (sin). Spiritual evil must exist in order for human beings to exist, because human beings must have free will to be considered human (that is, free will is inherent in a human being).

There's a theological explanation for it. It wouldn't hold any weight with atheists if they aren't going to assume much of Catholic doctrine. But I may as well post it here. I've suggested this previously in this thread, but there is a great, short book that kinda talks about theodicy: Naming the Silences: God, Medicine, and the Problem of Suffering by Stanley Hauerwas. I read it in a day, and found it thought provoking. Anyway, here's a theological explanation for the Problem of Evil. 1. The nature of spiritual evil is sin, separating ourselves from God. 2. The origin of spiritual evil is human free will. 3. The end for which God allows spiritual evil is to preserve human free will, that is, human nature. 4. The nature of our physical evil is suffering. 5. The origin of physical evil is spiritual evil. We suffer because we sin. 6. The end or use of physical evil is spiritual discipline and training for our own ultimate perfection and eternal joy. (It also is just punishment for sin and a deterrence from sin). That's the basis of it. The above theological explanation is hard for people who have experienced extreme harm because it is simply theological. It was not written to comfort. And I guess this is the main point that Hauerwas makes in his book (which is why I suggest reading it). I'd be glad to take private messages concerning this. The questions that may be brought up are likely to have answers I can give you (I have a feeling the above argument's succinctness will result in many questions). I just don't want to write a whole lot here if no one is going to pay attention to it. Plus, I don't have a ton of time to spend in this thread (rather, I've chosen to avoid it now).

Val Jester - The National. Violin is just <3: .

I've done most of all my homework. So today is going to be another easy day. Just a poem to read/comprehend.

Get that young mythic, Zierro! :thumbup:

People who don't flush the toilet.

Avril can look great. :thumbup:

Spent an hour helping a friend on physics. ...She just happens to be a complete babe, too. :thumbup: