Taste in music Oct 8, 2005
Whenever people ask me what music I like, it's always difficult to give a simple answer.  If I says I like rock, people say, "Oh, like Dashboard Confessional and Franz Ferdinand."  No.  If I say I like Phish, they say, "Oh, like Dave Matthews and stuff like that."  No.  Hard rock.  "Metallica."  No.  Forget it. 

So to quantify my taste in music, I'll identify bands I hate and bands I like. 

Bands I Hate (with explanatory phrases)
Bob Dylan - Should've been a poet instead of a singer, whiny, sloppy
Bruce Springsteen - Big ugly songs, annoying
George Thorogood - Blatant alcoholic, depressing, all songs sound the same
Grateful Dead - Weak, sloppy
Rod Stewart - Unworthy sex symbol, annoying, bad hair, old
Rolling Stones - Sloppy, unworthy sex symbols, some good songs
Stevie Nicks and/or Fleetwood Mac - Girly, annoying
Tom Petty - See Bob Dylan, some good songs

Bands I Like (with descriptive words)
AC/DC - Simple powerful rock
Black Crowes - Soul groove
Blues Traveler - Songwriting together harmony
Jet - Simple powerful rock
moe. - Jam improv energy
Phish - Jam improv climax jazz complicated talented intricate
RAQ - Complicated talented organized together
ulu - Jazz funk improv
Umphrey's McGee - Smart complicated talented jam hard rock
Weezer - Simple powerful together #music
Judgment Oct 8, 2005
A lot of people question why God allows certain things to happen.  Why does God allow little kids to die when they're infected with some sort of disease or birth defect?  Why did God allow Hurricane Katrina to kill a bunch of people and cause so much damage?  For the former, some people think it has something to do with God punishing the parents.  For the latter, a lot of Christians point to the evil and corruption that was rampant in the city of New Orleans. 

I hope God doesn't work like this.  In fact, I'm pretty sure he doesn't.  If he did, we'd all be in trouble.  How many of us can claim that we've never sinned?  The answer is none of us (except Jesus Christ [1]).  If God immediately and/or directly punished people for the sins they committed, we would all be undergoing punishment.  But we're not.  Evil people are successful and healthy.  Holy people are poor and tortured.  If God made things work in a 1-to-1 relationship, this would be the opposite. 

So the answer to the question of why this stuff happens isn't quite satisfying.  The answer is:  For a reason.  It sounds like a typical Christian cop-out answer.  "You just have to trust God."  "It all comes down to faith."  These are weak answers because they don't give us anything to work with.  We want something concrete, something we can quantify.  Oh well.  That's the answer God gives.  Everything happens for a reason.  We might not ever know that reason.  But instead of trying to blame God for it, maybe we should try to figure it out.  I've thought about this in the past and come up with a few conclusions (1, 2, 3). 

[1] Hebrews 4:15 says that Jesus was without sin.  A lot of people think that's impossible, and some people point to the episode where Jesus overturns the tables of the money changers in the temple (Mark 11:15-17).  They say he did this in anger.  Anger in itself is not a sin.  Misplaced anger is a sin.  Ephesians 4:26 says to not sin when you're angry.  Other translations put it more clearly:  "Be angry, and yet do not sin" (NASB).  In other words, anger is ok if it's righteous anger, or anger for a reason and directed at the right thing.  That's exactly what Jesus did.  People were making an unfair profit by selling things and exchanging money inside the temple.  It would be similar to selling CDs and DVDs in the church for $25 when they're really only worth about $5.  And this was happening inside the temple.  Jesus knew the temple wasn't meant to be a marketplace, so he told everyone to get out of there. #religion