On an Advertisement

Edited; apparently the quotes from the ad were drawing undue attention to this post.

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One of the websites I visited today had this advertisement (and I quote!): "To meet h-t grls at the beach, you have to know how to break the ice." Now, beyond the fact that this is disgusting and degrading to human dignity, the statement makes five presuppositions, none of which seem reasonable.

1. The viewer is a man; or to be more precise, a young man.
This is obviously only half correct at best. It does not tend to make them agreeable to the 60% or so that are not young men.

2. You will go to the beach.
This again can only be partially correct; it is certainly incorrect for me.

3. You will meet (quote) "h-t grls" at the beach.
"H-t" according to which meaning? If "h-t" meaning temperature, I agree that the weather at the beach will most likely be warm, and therefore anyone met there will be "h-t". If by "h-t" they mean "attractive" (a use peculiarly abhorrent), this supposition can in no way be certain. If by "h-t" they mean--but I shall not continue.

4. You will want to meet them.
I take this as insulting to my character, my sense of morals and virtue, and my judgment.

5. You do not know how to "break the ice".
A direct insult to my knowledge and personal abilities.

To sum it up then, this advertisement seems to do everything in its power to make itself disagreeable. All advertisers everywhere should take note and in the future make their advertisements less disgusting, degrading and insulting.

On the Act of Creation

This is something I wrote over the past two days. I don't think it's finished because I still have some problems with it (which I will explain below).

One of the questions that troubled me most a couple years ago was this: why did God create mankind? If God, all-knowing, knew that the greater part of the souls of men would be condemned to Hell, even by their own acts, then how could He in his perfect goodness create man in the first place? True, in a sense, it is we who condemn ourselves. But knowing that we would, how could a good God choose to create us? For certainly it was a choice: an omnipotent God is not compelled to create.

This does seem very arrogant, acting as if we with our limited knowledge know better than He does what is good. And unless He had decided to create we wouldn't be here to question the decision. But the question inevitably gets asked.

So here is my thought--just one possible explanation of course, and not necessarily the right one. The argument stated above rests on an assumption of equal value between the souls lost and those saved: if 199 people had been created and only 99 were saved, it wasn't worth the loss of the hundred to create the whole. But I don't think this is the case. This assumes that God's love for those 99 is outweighed by the hatred of the 100. But hatred, at the last, is a small, griping thing, a worm hardly worth noticing. That God should forbear creating, forego the possibility of love for those 99 for this--it doesn't add up. Now I know I am treading on delicate ground here, and I don't assume that this is true. But I think that if even one soul had been saved, only one soul of all the people in the world, it might still have been worth it. Not worth it for God as if He only cared for Himself. But God's love for even one soul is so great that it makes it worth creating for the sake of this one love. Love outbalances hate. The equation is satisfied, if you will.

The problem is, I feel like I've conveyed the sense of a just God, but not a merciful God. And there are a couple sentences that don't quite work.

"This assumes that God's love for those 99 is outweighed by the hatred of the 100."
No! Not their hatred, but their suffering.

"But hatred, at the last, is a small, griping thing, a worm hardly worth noticing."
And so it is, but what of the soul it inhabits?

So there you have it. Any comments or criticism would be welcome.

Snow

Yes, you heard me right. Snow. More than a month into spring, and we get snow. And in East Tennessee of all places, where we got less than 6 inches all winter!

But really, it was very pretty this morning. The snow was falling very heavily and the snowflakes were large and fluffy--the best kind. The fields on our way to church looked like someone had given them a light dusting of confectioner's sugar. There was a slight wind, but the trees, because they have leaves now, blocked the snow, creating green "shadows" where the snow didn't fall.

So after getting over the shock, it was quite pleasant to drive to church in a snowstorm. The prettiest one of the winter, in fact.

A Slip of the Tongue

There seemed to be something going round the dinner table tonight. Mistakes in speech abounded. Among the slips made were "potato sauce" (for tomato sauce), "flimsyglass" (for plexiglass), and "clean out the kitchen" (for clean up the kitchen). :D

Living in the Dark

There was once a race of creatures who, by strange circumstance, were compelled to live underground. They lived there for generations, and settled down and settled in, and slowly stopped wishing for the up-lands. Their eyes forgot the brightness of the sun, and their noses forgot the smell of fresh air. Indeed, some even forgot there was an over-land.

But the Overseer of the land above had not forgotten them. He knew that they were made for the up-lands, and was sorry to hear of them crawling about in the dark of the middle-earth. He was making plans to go down and bring them up. But in the meantime, so they would not forget, he sent them pictures of the up-lands.

These, when they were received, caused great stir among the people below, and their desire for the up-lands was reawakened. But some of them said, "See these! They show what our land will one day become." And many believed them, and desired even less to be drawn out.

This was not at all what the Overseer wanted: for how could he teach them the joys of the over-land if they clung stubbornly to their own little land? So he decided to make them discontented with their land, and sent them pains and troubles--hoping that once they were discontented below they would again look above. And some did: but some only grew bitter, hating the pains of their land, yet hating their memory of the Overseer.

And that, I am afraid, is where the story must end. Those people still live in the dark in their little world. Some are bitter and miserable; some are still contented with their condition. But some look ahead expectantly to the day when the Overseer himself will come down, and the ground will be rent beneath his feet and the glorious light of the over-land will pour in.