Presents are pretty cool. This year, I don’t really want much. My dad got me an iPod Shuffle. I really like it. It’s pretty slick… very small. I just got to my mom’s house and we got to open our mail from her family last night. I have plenty of money now to back myself up if I don’t get what I need for senior project. Last night I learned a TON of stuff about microphone technique and different recording technique and just a lot about how I can better utilize my preamp I got this summer.

I don’t ever get many presents for people… anything that I ever do, I just feel like it’s not nearly sufficient enough to give to a person. If I get a present or have plans for getting someone a present, it’s usually a really good one. I was supposed to have Lauren’s present ready yesterday. I didn’t get enough privacy to finish it, though. She already knows what she’s getting because she asked for it. I’m going to rerecord a few songs for her. After Christmas, I think I’m going have a lot of better equipment, and I can’t wait to finish it all. I’m really excited about it.

Pretty much, everything is going really well. School next semester should be good. Last one. Eeeeeee. I still don’t really know how I feel about that.

Today I read a bit about Christianity online. Jesus’ name was originally (most likely) Yeshua or Yehoshua. They mean salvation and yaweh delivers salvation, respectively. Greeks strarted calling him Lesus as Christianity started to spread and then Germans spelled it Jesus and that’s where the English language gets it today. I thought that was pretty neat.

It hit me at lunch the other day when Drew said to me, “you have one more semester… and then you’re done.” We laughed about it and what not. It’s pretty insane to think about. All of what I know that life is about looks like it’s getting ready to turn. It sucks that I can’t help, but to take it for granted. I think that I appreciate school, and I get a lot of out of it that most people don’t, but the fact that it makes me happy, I think I take for granted. One more semester. That’s it. This one went by so fast, and I know this next one is only going to go by faster. The ascent out of winter always goes by so quickly for me. The spring is always amazing for me. It sucks that it’s probably only going to hit me during finals second semester.

Last spring was so amazing. Summer of 2005 to spring of 2006 was the most fun, authentic, no worries year of my life. It was so incredible. I was always spun by things that will never get to me again. What I want to do is when I go to college, I don’t want to lose touch with the underclassmen, and I don’t want to lose touch with the teachers. I’d actually love is there was some way I could stay involved with Greenwood High. Also, I don’t want to just drop out of my social life, and I want to keep my motivation for learning burning. I hope that I never “get old” in those terms.

In spring, I want to be a kid. I want to get a band started with McClain and Evan McNeff. Next summer, I would like to get the/a band going. I’d like to do a lot of recording. I’d like to make some money, but not get a “real” job. In fact, my goal is to never have a “real” job. I think I can pull it off. As long as I’m doing something where the value of¬†the “doing” always towers over the “earning”, I think I’ll be able to reach my goal.

One problem that I’ve been looking into lately is the “separation of church and state” idea.

On the conservative side, nothing violates the first amendment about having “one nation under God” in our national anthem, or “so help me God” being said when people swear into office, or swearing on the Bible in court. These actions do not (to put it how the Constitution does) respect any law that establishes a religion or prohibits the free exercise thereof.

The letter that contained the phrase “wall of separation between Church and State” was used in defense¬†against the discarding of the Danbury Baptist Church by the United States¬†government. I would love to see the reaction of Thomas Jefferson if he saw how misinterpreted and twisted the phrase is today.

I believe there is a law that says judges are allowed to judge whether a person’s oath in court is valuable or not. He can even say to someone who swears on the Bible that he doesn’t think he will tell the truth regardless of the oath he is swearing. This power, to me, isn’t unconstitutional… because it is not prohibiting one’s religious beliefs or establishing them. The oath is also only taken in God’s name to signify that if there were a creator of this universe, which the listener and the sayer are free to believe or disbelieve, that they are swearing they will tell the truth to them, and to all of that creator’s creation. It is an infinte swear.

Also, no matter what you say, the morals of this country were founded on morals that are found in Christianity and Deism. There is no establishment of it… but every single man that signed/wrote the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution of the United States was some kind of Christian or another and most of them had degrees in theology. You cannot deny that mentally, America was indeed founded on the¬†fundamental¬†ideas of their religion. If you compare the basic freedoms of our country, you will see how similar they are to the ten commandments. If our freedoms are not Biblically based… then what are they? And what’s to stop them from shifting into something else? Why is it wrong to kill another man? Does anyone have a good explainable reason? Why is it just understood that we just don’t kill other people?

On the¬†liberal side, the main point, to me, is more questionable, and it is that the presence of religious symbols, or words… is mentally oppressive and focused towards one religion, therefore breaking our freedom. My dad’s arguement against it is that we have the freedom of religion… not freedom from religion. And everyone has religious beliefs… not believing that there is a creator is a religious belief.

I have read some great and convincing articles¬†on the liberal side of this arguement, but I can’t help but to float back to the¬†conservative and I’ve read more into the former. To me, it has much more grounding.

If you want proof to see that I’m not one-sided, I’ll discuss the gay marriage issue.

In this one I agree with the key points of both sides. I do not support gay marriage personally, but I hate the thought of a law restricting it. Marriage was indeed an idea created by religion between a man and a woman.* If it is indeed religious, then atheists and agnostics should not get married.

This issue is a product of our own sin: taking for granted the gift of marriage from God.** We, the body of Christ, have not taken marriage seriously enough, and our culture has been¬†lead to believe¬†that marriage is not religious, but just a custom of normal secular culture. If there is a law against gay marriage, then there should be a law against atheists and agnostics getting married… and any sinner for that matter!

In opposition, as a Christian, I should be accepting of everyone! So, why would I prohibit by law that homosexuals cannot marry each other? Is it right to take away that freedom from them, but leave it for everyone else? All I know is, I’m not gay… so, I don’t have to personally worry about this issue. As for any homosexual readers, don’t be scared off by people not accepting you¬†in the¬†body of Christ¬†or any religion for that matter. On behalf of Christ,¬†I personally¬†invite you into the church to hear about him. I want you to know who Christ is and why¬†I follow his philosophy! In the end, no matter what you do,¬†you are a sinner, just like me… and I’ll respect you and accept you anytime!

*I need some Bible verses to back both of those statements up, so throw them at me if you can!

**I need verses to back up that it’s a gift… I’m not sure of it… but that’s how I feel about marriage.