Goodbye old church

I decided to not come back to my church back at home again. It was a hard decision to make, considering that it was the church I grew up in.

There are two pastors who work with our youth group at our church. One of them is very logical and intelligent pastor (with a degree from the University of Chicago and devotes his life to theology), the other is charismatic.

The logical pastor recommended I start going to a Reformed Presbyterian church in my college town, and I found it to be a great match for me. I came to meet two very well equipped pastors with degrees from Cornell and Yale. Of course, that's not to say the degrees speak for themselves, but they definitely are bright individuals.

I have learned far more from this church than I ever have in my life and it has brought me to question how much I know about my own religion and beliefs. I realize now, that my old church at home has little to offer for spiritual growth and that I need to find a new church.

But what I'd like to know is how the logical pastor at my hometown church can stay awake, listen, and nod in agreement to what the charismatic pastor preaches every week. Truly a gift of pacifism - one that I really need to start working on. It's definitely a question I will mail to him, because I would really like to know what kind of mentality he has going to church every week.

Anyway, before I get any more off track, the charismatic pastor and his wife serve at our church with a very ungrateful heart. This is not just from my opinion, a respectable teacher that I know at church thinks the same. They make claims about the bible that do not make any sense. I honestly have a hard time believing that they could make a sermon that would make some logical sense even if they tried. And additionally, the claims they do make are not consistent with beliefs that I know to be true. In my opinion, these are some seriously misled individuals who believe they've been "called" to do God's ministry, as they say.

I had a long argument with the pastor's wife the second day of the winter retreat a few days ago and I was not content with the answers she gave me. (I know I am not giving concrete examples of the statements I've been making, I don't want this place to become a place for me to vent my anger. But I feel this part is necessary.)

What I asked had to do with her opinion on the role the Holy Spirit plays in her life. She explained to me, and I told her that you can never know if it's the Holy Spirit or your intuition. She tells me, it's a part of my intuition and the Holy Spirit's help. So I asked, how do you know this? She said, faith. The rest was an argument about how faith is ignorance.

Quick question right? Long ass time to get an answer (She talks on and on, gets off topic, forgets what we're talking about, doesn't answer the question but keeps talking, etc.)

How will I share God's word with logical people that I will be around for a long time in academia who expect logical reasoning, when I cannot justify my own religion and beliefs? I realized that the better question to be asking myself at home was, "How will I be able to learn God's word for myself when every other week at home when I'm hearing a simple minded pastor who believes that are simple answers to complex ideas?"

Luckily for me, the other pastor here is careful enough to give me very thoroughly backed up evidence about some questions I have without making a definite claim, because he's able to acknowledge that there are some questions that just do not have answers.

I considered not going to church altogether, but my mom convinced me this was a rash decision. She reminded me that I would not be where I am right now geographically, mentally, and spiritually if it was not for the grace of God.

This is a wake up call for me. A wake up call for me to stop being an ignorant Christian or maybe for me to change my attitude.

A meaningful contribution?

I'm glad I'm not content with material gains. I don't have any desire to become a dentist or doctor just to earn money. I wouldn't be able to find enough motivation to go through the necessary courses and training because my passion isn't in those fields.

I was discussing some interesting astronomical discoveries with my mom, and she looked beyond just the awe-factor and asked me, "How does that in any way contribute to our society?".

That led me to think about my own career. How will I contribute in a meaningful way with math? My brother and mom think that we all contribute to society in small but meaningful ways. Can't really disagree with that. But then again I can be contributing to society cleaning other people's teeth or just helping myself to a burger. I wanted to contribute with something more significant and substantial.

What defines a meaningful contribution? After some thought, I decided I wasn't content with myself on a matter that I didn't understand myself. Clearly there's a difference between buying a burger and Albert Einstein's contributions to physics. So what defines a meaningful contribution?

HOME!

Man, did it feel good hanging out today. I don't like hanging out. Or do I? I do like hanging out with Alex. Hanging out with people is definitely energy draining for me, and I don't like to get out in the first place. But when I do, it feels great.

I haven't really hung out much in college and even when I do hang out, it feels dull. I haven't found the right group of friends for me yet. My girlfriend asked me something along the lines of, "Well, if you haven't found ANYONE that you consider an ideal friend, what is it exactly you look for in a friend?". And to my surprise (that was sarcasm), I wasn't able to give her an answer.

Well, lets take a look at my best friend, who I've known since 2nd grade. We've been best friends since and I don't think that will ever change. Who is he to me? Someone who knows everything about me, someone who is hilarious, intelligent, insightful, someone who always has something I can learn from. I'm comfortable around him and I got through the whole semester without having talked to him much and I still feel the same connection I did when we left. I don't communicate these connections with him, it's just my intuition. But then again, that's as far as I can get with that kind of information - guys just don't talk about these kinds of things.

So what is it that I look for in a friend? Someone who I can look up to and learn from? Haven't had many encounters with those types of people at Indiana, but I feel like it's more of a friendship that's formed with time. One that's deeper than what can be developed over a short period of time. But then how do I know the people I'm hanging out with will ever become like that to me? Well, I don't and that's what bugs me. And even if someone does become a close friend to me, will I want that to happen?

Even with my best friend, he isn't perfect. There's no doubt he's smarter than me in every aspect imaginable. But we split up with our morals. He isn't a christian and I am. I don't let his actions speak to me, I accept it as a part of him and we get along just fine. He doesn't influence me negatively - he knows my stance on particular topics and doesn't pressure me (nor has he ever).

It's selfish to admit, but I want a friend who is amazing, just like the friend I mentioned above. Amazing to others? Who knows. Amazing to me? Yes. In fact, my standard of success is based off of his progress. He doesn't beat me in everything. Yet, I still think he's better than me. We've had some friendly competition going on ever since middle school with grades and he always beat me. When it came down to what mattered, I scored better than him on the test scores. It didn't matter, he was still better than me.

What is it about him that I should be looking for in a friend? Well, hopefully I will find out soon.

I left his house after watching Fight Club. Turned out the movie was about a person with split personality disorder at the explicit level. But what about the symptomatic meaning of what the movie is trying to get across? I feel like there was a very philosophical message in the movie, whether the author intended it or not. What is the meaning of what we do? At the end of the day, what does it amount to? Why do we do what we do? Does it matter what we do?

Great, another thought to ponder upon.

Freshman Year - Fall 09

I came to college thinking that I would find intellectual satisfaction with majoring in finance. As it turns out, I had the wrong impression of what finance really was. This was when I realized that I wanted something that was more quantitative, something beyond that of high school level math. From this point on, I began to take a more serious look into mathematics, statistics, and physics (the few subjects of interest to me).

Second quarter of this first semester came around and finally meetings with professors and clubs brought me to an interesting career as a quantitative analyst. This occupation required graduate studies in a hard science, which is why I decided that I would have to go into graduate school. Physics was no longer something I wanted to do after multiple “gray-area” debates that I had with my astronomy instructor. This left me with either mathematics or statistics. Unsure of which route to take, I enrolled in calculus, linear algebra, and statistics next semester to make leeway to pursue either major.

As the end of the semester approaches, I realize more and more about how little I know about mathematics. Yet I came into my professor's office, loaded with questions to ask about graduate school. I don’t know exactly what it was about the short meeting we had Tuesday, December 1 but it did not go with me well. And I have been frustrated since. I came back that day asking myself, why is there so much of an emphasis on proofs in honors mathematics? Well, later that same day, I came with the most conviction I’ve had about being so ignorant about anything in my whole life. I realized I couldn’t prove that 0!=1 or that there was an infinite number of prime numbers. In fact, I didn’t even know where to start. These are all concepts that I used to think I was quite familiar with and they were what I took for granted (and without question). So now do I want to get into abstract math and throw out the idea of studying applied math and statistics altogether? Hopefully I’ll know for sure sometime next semester.

From what I’ve said, it’s unlikely that you know who I am and even if you do have an idea, you’re likely to be wrong because I was a completely different person before entering college.
 
High school was a real regret - I was lazy, I procrastinated and didn't do work. I don't even know if procrastination is even the right word to use, because most of the time I just didn't do anything. I don't know what I was thinking or why I did it to this day because I wasn't doing anything of any real significance to me.

I had a mean ass math teacher, who would not leave me the hell alone. She wouldn't let me talk, not pay attention to her, or sleep. She regularly questioned my motives and I even remember one instance where she called me out in class and told me to learn some work ethic. Being the ignorant, unknowing student, I wasn’t even sure what ethics meant and to my surprise no one was able to define it for me either. Anyway, I put up with this teacher - she was the only calculus teacher at our school. And I compromised by getting my share of fun too – I pissed her off and annoyed her every day.

I don't know what it was about me two weeks before the AP exam, but there was a breakthrough (and it wasn’t my mom’s threat about not paying for college because I honestly could not have cared less). All those questions she had been asking me finally meant something to me one day. I thought it was too late to make up for what I had missed in calculus, but I went through with it anyway. I took the test and to my surprise, found that I could answer everything.

Sometime before the last day of class, she asked me, “So, did you learn anything from me this year?” and I replied, “Yes”, out of politeness, although I wasn’t quite sure I meant it. She probably got our class test scores sometime over the summer and thought, “Holy shit, he sure did learn something.”

The answer to her question is still yes and I doubt she understands the extent to which that’s true. Not only did I learn something –my life was turned around. I went from being the worst student in all of her classes into being one of the most ambitious math students my current math teacher claims to have seen.

Looking back now, I know for sure that it was her who brought this ambition inside of me to life. I realize now that she helped me realize it’s such a waste not knowing what I’m capable of doing or letting what I could be doing go to waste. So here I am, indulging myself in every opportunity available to me; obsessively reading and researching, meeting people and attending lectures in pursuit of something I will enjoy and intellectually stimulate me.

Thanks. Keep doing what you do.