And now a word from our sponsors...

Two posts in one day? Craziness!

Actually I consider this a commercial, so it's not *really* a post. Just some quick blurbs.

1) I've been looking for music, and like many searches, I stumbled across other things, without actually achieving my goal. It started when my sister started playing songs by this band, called The Awakening. A little research revealed them to be a South African band that had been around since the mid-nineties, yet there were no...usual methods for acquiring them >.>...And I didn't have enough money to try itunes, which I'm generally against anyway. Pandora didn't know who they were so that was out. Luckily, Facebook saved me. They have an 'ilike' player, that is just like Pandora, but with artists featured on iLike. This meant I was introduced to a host of other bands...none of which exist on Pandora or on...certain sites where I could acquire them. One of the bands I became the very first fan of! Shway.

Anyway, here's hoping they get picked up by more people who feel like hosting them so they become more accessible.
The bands are:
Crimson State
Gates of Winter
ShadowPlay
Ron Dadey

2) This Sesame Street is brought to you by the words...

a) "There is an ancient Greek word, a strange and lovely word rarely used anymore in its earliest sense, which describes the gradual return of a vibrating lyre string to its point of rest and equilibrium after the instrument has ceased to sound. In more modern times, a more sinister meaning has overtaken the original....what is the ancient word with the two-faced meaning? A word connoting aspects of both art and brutality, life and death, beauty and terror, a strange word in its ability to encompass such things simultaneously, a word tragin in the loss of its benign significance in favor of one more searing...this word I gingerly lift and expose from its grave one last time, in the hope that its earlier meaning, that of peaceful resolution of a gently sounding chord, might thereby not be forgotten without at least a wake.
The word is katastrophe."
-"The Ten Thousand", Michael Curtis Ford
Catastrophe, from the Greek word 'katastrophe': To overturn completely, a cataclysm, the final event of a dramatic event, especially a tragedy; a momentous tragic event ranging from extreme misfortune to utter overthrow or ruin.

Seems like there was quite an evolution here to me.

2) As you may have noticed, I changed the submessage of my blog. I did this not because I was wrong, but because I wanted to communicate more effectively. My mother pointed out that what *I* was using the word 'agnostic' for, is different than most people's definitions, and as such, I was confusing them.

So I'm going to explain:
I do not mean Agnostic in the religious sense. Most of you know what my religious bent is, and I feel no need to reinforce that.
The word took on the religious meaning when T.H Huxley was protesting the Gnostic sect of the Church, because like many philosophers, he was skeptical of their methods for determining truth.

Here is my meaning: I completely believe in absolute truths. I do not think that every single thing we can't explain at the moment is unexplainable like Agnostics do. "If we can't explain it through science, it is beyond us." That statement has been proven wrong over and over again.
I DO believe that there ARE things we cannot understand, and I like the term agnostic because it says just because we don't understand doesn't mean the truth ISN'T THERE.
I am EXTREMELY suspicious of people who claim to have all the answers or say that they understand something to the extent that "this is the ONLY way it could be, it couldn't POSSIBLY be explained ANY other way." I knew a lot of people like that growing up, and it makes me mad, because anything can almost always be explained a different way, with a different significance.

To me, being agnostic means that I don't believe I have all the answers, and so I am constantly seeking truth, constantly looking to understand better or more or differently. It doesn't mean I shrug and say 'well that's it, I can't understand'...it means I say 'I will try to understand the best I can but always leave myself open to more learning'.
I think that 90% of the time 'Just one right answer...isn't.'
"Now we see through a glass, darkly..."
If humans understood everything, our heads would explode, we'd go crazy, whatever. I've read Dune, it never ends happy when humans understand too much. We aren't built for it. I'm glad we don't understand all truths or even most truths. It's good for us, reminds us that we need the Power that DOES understand it all.

So don't trip over the 'vaguely agnostic'...it just means I believe I am a pereptual student...as we all should be.

~~Coming Soon:

Dissertation on Despair and its end result.