Infallibility and Meaning

I've decided to make a post that is somewhat weightier than my previous posts. I've been reading through a book by R. J. Rushdoony called "Infallibility: An Inescapable Concept" and I'm really enjoying it. I found this excerpt particularly edifying.

"Because God is the absolute creator of all things, and because nothing exists outside of His creating decree, all things have their existence and their meaning from their sovereign creator, God. God, having no unconscious aspect in His being, is totally self-conscious and purposive in all His ways, so that all creation is a universe of total meaning. There is not a meaningless fact or atom in all creation, nor an event, nor any facet or aspect of anything that is not marked by total meaning. The meaning of most things eludes us. We do not understand the meaning of mosquitoes, for example, or the hairs that fall from our head, nor of the often unhappy events of our lives, because we tend to look for their meaning in terms of ourselves. The meaning of all this is theocentric-God-centered, not man-centered--which means that of necessity things are meaningless if we try to read them in terms of man, in terms of ourselves. We do not create them, govern them, nor more than slightly in a limited area and manner, influence them; they are of God's ordination. Attempts to read the meaning of things humanistically are thus erroneous, futile, and blasphemous."

Because I felt like it

I’ve thought about this for about a day now and I decided to create my own “fill-in-the-blank”. I refrain from calling it a survey because a survey usually implies that you’re going to do something with the results that you receive. I have no intention of doing anything with the results (other than maybe laughing at you and honing my campdown writing skills). I don’t want to do it to get to know people better. I think I know people pretty well. I’m just a curious person, not to mention I get to get a few good laughs out of it. I’m also not calling it a survey because there are some people who say they will never fill out a survey and because this is a non-survey, those people can fill it out without any guilt or feel that they’ve broken any record.

Humor me here. It’s one of things that comes to your head while you’re sitting around waiting for the iron to heat up so you can iron your shirt for Sunday and while you’re waiting for the Biore strip on your nose to harden into a mold that feels like a paper-mache mask that someone forgot to remove in time. But alas, I digress.

Here are my ten thoughts from Saturday evening.

1. Favorite word to use this week: impertinent. (kind of how I’m feeling now) =)
2. Least favorite color: that purple that’s not really purple but kind of a nauseating pink tone- especially bad on cars
3. If you could look like a celebrity who would it be: if Julia Roberts and George Clooney had children I would want to be one of them. Maybe a little of myself right now in there- I figure it would either look like a train wreck or turn out good
4. Favorite chore: vacuuming – I also don’t mind doing dishes or folding laundry.
5. Least favorite chore: cleaning the toilets – a grim job that has to be done
6. If you had the choice to be either 2 inches taller or 2 inches shorter would you take it: I still haven’t decided my answer to that one- I feel pretty good about myself
7. What do you think is the smelliest animal: roadkill skunks and chickens I think are pretty nasty too. =)
8. Best movie quote (not necessarily your favorite but what you think is one of the best lines): “I know this Man. He gave me water, and a will to live.” ~ BEN HUR
9. Do you prefer – mail order catalogs/online shopping or actually going to the store: kind of depends on what I’m shopping for and my mood.
10. If you could go back in time and change some invention what would it be: I've noticed that I seem to enjoy trying to re-invent the wheel.

P.S. If you recognize this, that's OK, you're not imagining things.

The New Math

“In this new approach, the goal is to understand what you’re doing rather than get the right answer.”

~Tom Leher from "An Evening Wasted with Tom Leher"