Using Logic in Life Decisions

This past semester the project manager of my research project was a senior who was graduating. He was a little lost in what he was supposed to do with life. Since I was a graduate student he had been working closely with—and theoretically respected—he came to me for advice on what he should do. Like any graduating senior he was faced with a choice: do I go out and get a job or do I go to grad school? And to add extra complication for him the grad school question broke down further: do I work in the Center for Space Systems or do I work in the ASDL? (Since he had offers from both). He was feeling quite lost and didn’t know what to do. So he asked me a lot of questions like “why did you chose to go to grad school?” and “why did you pick CSS over another group?”, etc.

So one day we were discussing this as we were walking somewhere (I have no idea where we were coming from or where we were going). I made the comment that for me, staying at Georgia Tech was an extremely hard decision. It went against all my emotions and gut instincts. I had been at Georgia Tech for four and a half years and the nomad in me could not allow for living somewhere that long. This was actually a huge deal for me.

So he asked, “Then why did you decide to stay at Georgia Tech, if you had such a strong feeling to the opposite?” I responded that I had made a pros and cons list and the pros of staying at Georgia Tech far outweighed the cons. The nomadic feeling was honestly my only con. And I recognized that this feeling was my messed up nomad brain trying to freak me out and make me run, when I should stay. The pros were just too great.

The boy looked at me with a completely stunned expression. He said, “You made a life decision using a pros and cons list? Using logic?”

I was baffled by his response and it took a lot of questioning to unwrap what he was actually saying. What was he saying? Well, we were both Christians and we both knew that. In his mind, God CAN NOT possibly speak to a person through logic. God speaks through feelings. So my feeling to run MUST have been from God. And the logical choice clearly wasn’t.

I could not believe I was hearing this from someone, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that many Christians think this is true. People expect conviction to be emotional, that God will bring you to tears. They expect people to be overcome with emotion and close their eyes while singing or dance to the music. They do not expect you to be sitting in your room studying your Bible and instead of being struck by sudden tear bringing conviction, saying “Huh. God seems to indicate in His Word that I shouldn’t do this. I should probably change my ways.”

How did this happen? How did we so disconnect God from logic? I’ll admit that God’s logic is not always our human logic, but God gave us brains for a reason. He gave me the ability reason. He gave me the ability to make decisions. And if I’m not hearing a voice from the heavens or seeing handwriting on the wall, I’m probably going to trust logic over my feelings when it comes to life decisions.

Because that nomad feeling? The feeling that I need to run and find a new place to live? That definitely wasn’t a God feeling. That was my brain. And I’m a logical enough person to realize where that feeling came from. It came from years of never living anywhere longer than four year. It came from frustration of not knowing how to maintain friendships past four years. It came from anger at the person I’d been labeled as—the person people saw me as—instead of the person I saw myself as.

And the logic? It made complete sense. And if I had not chosen to stay at Georgia Tech I would not be in this awesome job that was perfectly made for me. A job that I fit into like a hand in a glove. A job that I’m very certain God wants me to be in.

So please, do not disregard logic because you don’t believe God can use logic as easily as He uses emotions. God is all powerful. He can do anything. He can work through logic or emotion, pros and cons lists or strong feelings.

It’s sort of like being a Jedi (yes, I’m going geek on you here). Remember in the middle of the Empire Strikes Back? When Luke had that overwhelming feeling he should run off and save his friends? And Yoda was the voice of reason saying “Don’t do it!” Sometimes a Jedi is supposed to trust their feelings—just like a Christian—but this was a scenario where Luke should have listened to Yoda’s logic. Where logic would have yielded the response the Force (God in this metaphor) wanted.

So trust your feelings, Padawan. But remember that some emotions lead to the Dark Side.

Harry Potter

(Another late post. Forgive me. I'm not trying to make this a habit. It doesn't help that I live in Mountain Time now either.)

I've written about Harry Potter three times before on this website. Once, I reviewed the sixth movie. Another time I spoke about The Harry Potter Generation--how the books brought my family together and made me friends I never had before. Then I talked about how Harry Potter introduced me to even greater books--how it literally changed my life.

And today is the day it all ends. The end of an era.

But today is also Thursday, so I'm supposed to talk about my faith. But I can get away with talking about Harry Potter today, because Harry Potter has been one of the most controversial Christian topics in recent history. (You know that and gay marriage. Somehow, I feel like Harry Potter should be a more trivial concern, but that's just me).

So how do I as a Christian rationalize reading Harry Potter? Well it's actually really easy.

Harry Potter isn't real. Can I say that again? Do you get that? HE'S NOT REAL. I may have been 11 when I started reading Harry Potter, but I wasn't stupid. Kids aren't stupid. We get it. Harry Potter is not real.

Yet somehow parents, who spend years convincing their children that there is a man in a red suit who sneaks into their house once a year to give them presents, condemn something that everyone accepts as not real.

Some people argue that Harry Potter is a gateway into witchcraft, which is clearly denounced in the Bible. However, I think there is a definition difference here. Witchcraft in the Bible seems to be calling upon spirits and using dark powers to do something. Wizardry (and witchcraft) in Harry Potter is not the same.

Even if at 11, had I thought Harry Potter was real, I would never have "tried to become a witch". Why? Because it's more like being a Jedi. You can't become a wizard. You're born a wizard. I received no letter at the age of 11 asking me to come to a magical school, so obviously I'm not a wizard by the definitions of Harry Potter.

As for Harry Potter not being a "Christian book" in general, if my parents had limited me to only "Christian books", I fear for what my reading level would have been. I love God. I love Jesus. I love my beliefs and my faith. But I do not love Christian literature. Most of it is poorly written and it patronizes the reader--even the adult ones.

So if I'm allowed to read The Sweet Valley Twins and The Boxcar Children, which aren't Christian books--where is the line?

As for the argument that Harry Potter is a bad role model because he disregards the rules and has no respect for teachers--I challenge that someone who makes this argument ever read this book. Harry respects the teachers who deserve his respect. He does not respect Snape because Snape treats him so poorly and unfairly. I would not respect a teacher like that either. Yet despite his disrespect for Snape, he rarely directly challenges him. And in the end, (slight spoiler! Skip to the next paragraph if you haven't read the books or seen the movie) Harry learns that not only was Snape worthy of respect, but he was the bravest man he ever knew.

Also, I would challenge the person making such an argument to find a middle grade fiction book where the protagonists actually obeys his elders. It doesn't exist.

I am 24 years old, and I have read Harry Potter for over half of my life. And I love my God with an undying devotion, and I uphold the teachings of the Bible higher than anything else. Clearly, Harry Potter has not scarred me for life. If anything, I believe Harry Potter has made me a better person and has made me a better Christian.

You have the right to believe whatever you wish, but I believe in God. And I don't think God is upset with me for having read and enjoying Harry Potter. I think He used it as a tool to teach me about friendship, good, evil, snap judgements, and how to socialize with my peers. He could have done it without Harry Potter, but I am grateful that He chose to use Harry Potter to teach me these things.

Faith Thursdays

I know in the past, I never had a scheduled day of the week to discuss my faith, or God, or anything like that. This was for a very good reason. I didn't want to become fake or rote, or feel like I had to write something because of a schedule. It's sort of like when you close your eyes while singing. Sometimes you do it because you really feel it, and sometimes you do it because you want people to think you really feel it. I never want to be that second scenario. It's so easy to become fake, to know the Sunday School answer and so just write about it. Therefore, I never scheduled a day of the week. I only wrote about things when they came to mind.

This summer is different. Why? Well, there are a lot of things on my mind and heart. A lot of issues I'm struggling with. Well, maybe struggling isn't the right word. I feel like that conveys I'm having a hard time believing something. I'm not struggling with my faith. I'm struggling with what I've always been told to believe about issues in my faith. I'm struggling with things that people don't like to talk about. And I struggle with the role of adviser that so many of my friends give me. As someone other people respect, I have a responsibility to know what I'm really talking about, to know it and really believe it.

So this summer I plan to do some research on certain topics, research it and sort of write essays here on what I think. I'm no C.S. Lewis, but I do take the Bible seriously, and I think too often as Christians we let our American culture infect what we think we should believe. So here are a few topics on my heart that I'm going to explore:

--The American Dream: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
--The Responsibility of the Wealthy
--Divorce and Remarriage
--Marriage and the Wife
--Marriage and True Love
--Singleness

You'll notice there seems to be a theme here, and there is. A lot of my friends have gotten/are getting married this year. From February to December of 2011, there are eight weddings. Eight. It's crazy. It really is. And essentially all my best friends now have either gotten married or are getting married. And as I think about marriage, the Bible, and American culture, I have some thoughts and questions.

And these thoughts and questions have led me to other thoughts that mainly directly correlate to happiness. I have a lot of questions about happiness and what sort of goal it should be in our lives. Clearly, American culture says its should be pretty high, but lets just say, I'm not so sure.

However, in addition to these topics, I will also write about other things I've promised in the past to write one: namely, I'll finish my evolution series, which I started and never finished due to the chaos that occurred in my life at the end of the last semester. (You know, getting a new job, moving to Albuquerque, etc). But there were be other little topics, but I'll leave those for a surprise.

And just so we're on the same page, the reason I'm doing this is not so I can show off my flashy Christian knowledge. I'm partly doing this because I have friends who ask me questions about these beliefs a lot and so it would be nice to have an essay I could direct them to do. I'm also doing it because these are topics I want to/need to study, and by mandating that I will post my results here, I'm giving myself deadlines and accountability. I really need that sort of thing sometimes. That's what happens when you've been in school all your life. You need someone to say "this is do then". And if no one gives you a deadline, you don't do it.

I also just need to organize my thoughts, and as a writer and engineer, if I don't write my thoughts down they're not organized.

So I hope you'll all bare with me as I stumble through the Bible and try to figure things out. And if you have any topics you would like to suggest, I'm open. I intend to use the topics as a study guide through my Bible study, so extra direction is always appreciated.

Church Hunting

I really hate church hunting. Part of it is because I'm such a weird person. I like pipe organs, hymns, and Sunday School. Finding a church that has any of those three things can be difficult in our postmodern, contemporary age. Another reason why I hate it is because I feel so lost. You know how people talk about having a "church home" or making a church your home? Well, that means if you don't have a church your homeless. So right now I'm homeless.

Now I'm going to awkwardly segue to something that seems different, but stay with me, it relates. I don't get "homesick" or "miss people". That probably seems really strange and makes me seem like an awful person, but I'm a very out of sight, out of mind sort of person. I think I developed this as a reaction to moving so many times. My friends who read this, that doesn't mean I don't love you and don't want to talk to you. But I'm not pining. Which is good. I think.

So, I don't get homesick. And I've been puttering around Albuquerque, trying to find a church. We're all on the same page now.

So this past Sunday, I went to this one church. I won't name it, because that's not fair to them. They were a good church, just not the church for me. Anyway, I went to the 8:30 AM service because they advertised online that it was their "classic worship" service. In my mind that translated to hymns and organs. Perfect for me, right? Wrong.

Let me tell you, if that was their "classic" worship, I don't want to know what their non-classic worship was like. Sure they had a little string group, but we did not sing a single song that was written before the year 2005. (I looked, because churches always the credits on the song powerpoints, if you know where to look. Normally, I wouldn't do such a thing, but I was trying to see if I was crazy and maybe it was just a hymn I didn't recognize. No such luck.)

Anyway, halfway through the worship portion of the service, I just started crying. Not because I was so moved by the music or convicted by God, but because I missed my church.

I missed the organ that was loud enough to drown out my singing.

I missed having a hymnal in my hand and not having to awkwardly try to see over all the people in front of me in order to read the screen they post the words on.

I missed the awesome orchestra and choir that could sing so awesome they gave me goosebumps.

I missed sitting next to people who knew me and my weirdness and liked me anyway.

I missed being recognized and loved.

I missed my church home.

Luckily, no one noticed I was crying because the kept the church dark like a theater, except for the stage. There were also no windows to let in outside light. Come to think of it, it was a very strange sanctuary. Wait...do contemporary churches call them sanctuaries? Whatever. It was the room where the musical worship and preaching happened.

I'm praying that I will find a good church home. It doesn't have to meet my checklist of what I prefer exactly, but it has to be warm, comfortable, a home. This Sunday is pretty much useless from a church searching standpoint, you can't ever judge a church properly by their holiday Sundays, and July 3rd is going to be all about America. But soon, I hope, I'll be able to find one.

Anyone else out there searching for a church? Any crazy stories?