Green

my friends and i often talk on my friend andy’s forum normlife–and a post of mine in the If there is a God, would God think? thread got me thinking about the logic involved in religious faith and belief, and i came up with this.  go easy on me, as i haven’t actually had any formal instruction on logic, so this is mostly based on what i’ve gleaned from various discussions with those who have (so any bold statements of fact about logic and the study thereof should not necessarily be taken as such).

first off, i’ll define faith, as that is central to this debate:

From the American Heritage Dictionary
2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. See Synonyms at belief, trust.

and logic:

1. The study of the principles of reasoning, especially of the structure of propositions as distinguished from their content and of method and validity in deductive reasoning.

essentially, logic is the means by which we explain the various phenomenons of the world through deductive reasoning.  sound logic is based off of deductive reasoning and observations (facts).  however, all logic is based on propositions (axioms) that cannot be proven.  for example, we assume that ‘natural laws’ observed here on Earth and as far as we can see into the universe are true throughout the entire universe of existence.

thus, even the soundest logic is based on assumption–on belief without proof or material evidence–on faith.

atheists have looked at the world, and through the use of logic (based on its inherent assumed axioms / faith), and have come to the logical conclusion that there is no god.

so if one were, for whatever reason, to accept the proposition that there is a god, one could use logic to explain the various workings of the universe based on this assumption.

this is why students of religion often call the existence of god a ‘natural law.’  it is one of their axioms at the root of their logic.

is this illogical?  if so, why?

one may say that the scientifically accepted axioms have proof through inductive logic–that is, we have observed phenomenons in the universe, and these accepted propositions hold true for what we have seen, so we can assume that they are true everywhere, and thus laws.  and that the proposition that there is a god cannot be proven in this way.

however, many people believe that there is substantial evidence–such as ‘miracles’, for example.

so the real root of the disagreement is not flawed logic, but…

so i made a couple of kites last week. it was windy and i was bored (not much happening the week before finals). this is the first kite i made–with a black garbage bag and green string. it was alright, but i decided to make another, this time with clear plastic and orange string. it was a muchly improved design, and at the request of one of my friends, i took pictures while i was making it so i could throw together some sort of guide explaining how i made it. so here’s the first part of that.

1. Tools and Materials

materials:

• string
• wooden dowels (i used two 4-foot dowels, a 5/8″ diameter for the vertical stick, and a 1/4″ for the horizontal. you could probably get away with 1/4″ for the vertical and 3/16″ for the horizontal to make it lighter, but that’s getting pretty flimsy).
• plastic (a plastic garbage bag works great, or if you’re feeling snazzy, a clear plastic dropcloth is pretty cool. I used 2 mil, but 1 should be fine. again, gotta balance weight and strength to your own taste).
• glue (i used plastic model glue–that’s probably not the best, but it worked for my purpose, which will be explained later).
• tape (you could use glue instead, but tape is much easier. i used duct tape on the black kite and clear packaging tape on the clear kite).

tools:

• saw
  
• scissors
• ruler / tape measure
• pencil

2. Frame

i chose a 3:4 proportion for the lengths of the horizontal to vertical dowels. this made for a pleasing size and shape, and i would recommend it. for my kite that meant leaving the vertical dowel at it’s original 4 feet and cutting the horizontal piece to 3 feet (use the saw and be sure to make a nice straight cut with a flat edge).

as for the positioning, i think it looks nice with the horizontal piece 1/3 down the length of the vertical (or 16″ from the top). so to line everything up, make a mark 16 inches from the top of the vertical piece, and 18 inches (halfway) in on the horizontal piece.

3. Notches

before you attach the dowels together, you need to cut notches in the ends of both dowels. these will hold the string that will make up the outer frame for the plastic to attach to. i’ve used a thin file to do this in the past, but there are certain advantages to having the very thin notch that the saw makes.

it is very important that the two notches on each dowel have the same orientation. this is a lot harder to do than it sounds. to make it easier to mark, i taped my dowels to a desk so they couldn’t roll around and then drew horizontal lines on each end, and then cut along those lines. they were still a bit off, but good enough. the notch should be about as deep as in the pictures above and below.

4. Lashing the Frame

i don’t really want to go in-depth in how to tie the frame together. i used a square lashing. make sure when you line up the dowels the notches are all in the same plane as the dowels.

start the lashing with a clove hitch:

and finish it off looking snazzy:

at this point i used the model glue and pretty much coated the lashing with glue. just to make sure the ends wouldn’t come out and it to form a bit of a protective layer against moisture or dirt or whatever. i’m not going to mention it again in the guide, but i did this with every knot on the rest of the kite.

5. String Frame Thingy

now it’s time to tie the string that forms the outer frame that the plastic will attach to. this is what it should look like when it’s done:

to actually start it, i started at the top and shoved a piece of string into the notch at the top of the frame. then to make sure it wouldn’t come out, i tied an overhand knot in the short end of the string. this is the advantage to a small notch.

then just wrap the string around the frame of the kite, going through each of the remaining notches.  when you get back to the notch you started at, tie it off and trim off the excess.  make sure the four lengths that make up the outer string have equal tension and the frame is square. you don’t want one section to be super-tight and pulling the frame off square. as for how tight the whole thing should be, i made mine tight enough to be springy without actually compressing the frame at all. so it shouldn’t sag any, and you should be able to pluck the strings.

that’s enough for now. next time will be laying out, cutting, and attaching the plastic. hooray.

It was a cold winter morning, with the rising smoke of hundreds of chimneys clouding the sky with their testament to the weather.  In a narrow empty street a single five-fingered oak leaf blew through the gutter, twisting and folding about its center as it scraped along the pavement.  Just as the unknowing foliage neared it’s definitive end in the entrance of a gaping storm drain to the sea, a dark paw snaked from the curb and batted it out of harm’s way.  And then again, kicking it towards the sky with a crisp crack that rang across the empty street.

The extended paw was exceptionally dirty, with matted fur, and stained with a dark residue just past the wrist.  Looking back along the length of the extended arm gave view to a small, undernourished creature hunched over on the edge of the curb, staring intently at the leaf as it floated back to the ground.  Unblinking, the animal vigilantly watched its slow, wispy descent towards the dark pavement.  Once it landed and was entirely at rest, the figure on the curb relaxed its rigid stance.

Stretching his front paws out into the street, seemingly absentmindedly crushing the leaf that had so strongly held his interest the moment before, Null yawned and felt a small shiver against the cold run down his spine and through his tail–a sharp reminder that he’d been still too long.  He took a moment to wet a paw and try to clean some of the dirt off of his ragged, snarled dark-grey coat.  He got to his right leg and tried again, as he did every morning, to clean off the dark red splotches, again with no luck.  For as long as he could remember, the fur on his right foot-paw and leg had been forever stained in red.  He could muster up no explanation for the cause–but that didn’t bother him now, he’d long given up that pursuit.

Sufficiently satisfied with the marginal effects of his grooming, Null set off down the street once more, in his eternal search for food and warmth.

okay, this is the inaugural post of throwing out capitalization. because strict rules of sentence and proper noun capitalization serves very little purpose. if every sentence you ever write starts with a capital letter, what does the capitalization indicate? if every time you write i or the contraction i’m, it is capitalized, what does that indicate? nothing at all. so a few years ago i decided to throw those rules out. i think it makes for prettier sentences. more balanced, less front-heavy.

i will concede that names should be capitalized. if only because names are not always proper nouns. bill can be a verb, a noun , or a proper noun. so when you’re talking about the guy, sure, make it Bill. that way people know you aren’t talking about your credit card reckoning.

anyways, this fits into a larger topic of grammar. which fits into a much larger topic of law and morality. in a not-so-odd sort of way that i don’t feel like going into right now. suffice it to say, here’s an interesting website for helping your friends learn the importance of homonyms:

http://rheme.net/homonyms

and here’s an interesting Heinlein quote that explains law and morality in a way i find most pleasing:

I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.

So my friends and I have been working on a list of all of those really familiar 90’s songs. The ones that you may not have liked at the time, but still know all the words to, and get really excited and reminiscent-like when they play on the radio. I put the current list here.

I’ve been really excited about it, and it’s been an awesome project and aid in procrastination.  Every new song somebody remembers brings back its own forgotten memories of my old self.

Makes me wonder why I forgot myself.  At least the self I was, for I’m pretty sure I know the self I am now.  But how well will I know the February 28th 2008 Andrew in five years?  In ten?  It’s a bit of a scary thought.  I guess that’s why I started blogging again.  I figure I’ve got some stuff worth saying to my future self.  Most likely I’ll look back and think how dorky and lame that was, but that really doesn’t bother present-Andrew.  So get off your high horse, future-self, and be thankful for a record of your ridiculous self-heritage.

So now I have a blog again. We’ll see how long it lasts. More importantly, how long my proper capitalization lasts. I’ve had a few good ideas about things to post about over the past few months, so I’ll try to recall some of those and put them here in the next few days. Or, failing that, I’ll hopefully come up with some worthy writings in their stead. Until then, here’s something I wrote last night / this morning that I liked enough to save:

clouded moonshadows
cast distinctly hazy beams
yet still i do see