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Showing posts from November, 2010

Pet Peeve: Faith and Faith

  "Everyone has faith in something. Even if you don't believe in God, you might have faith in humanity." In a handful of conversations now, a coworker at YVC has said this, or something like this. I understand her intent, but I must object to her sentiment. I believe she's committing the fallacy of equivocation. The word faith - like the words spirituality, religion, and even God - has come to encompass a pretty large swath of definitions, and not all definitions are equal. Consider:   A) I have faith that my doctor will take good care of me during surgery. B) I have faith that the scientific method is a good way of discovering truths about the world. C)  I have faith that human goodness can overcome evil actions . C) I have faith that an omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent God watches over the earth and all its creatures. D) I reached that point in my life where I had to make a decision. I decided to take a leap of faith. There are obviously some profound diff

I make friends

Don't knock it til you try it. That's what they always say. And in the case of online friend-finding services, they're right. I am not ashamed to say that I have made most of my acquaintances so far through meetup.com. Let me elaborate a little. Meetup is not so much about finding friends as it is about finding group events. Before I even moved to KC, I joined meetup and started searching the KC area for groups. For example, I searched for "books" and found some book clubs. I joined one. So far, I haven't been interested in reading any of their books, so I haven't attended any of their meetups. Meetup can be the virtual equivalent of hanging around a new group of kids at school just close enough to pick up their basic behavioral patterns, but not so close that you're committed to engage them in meaningful social interactions. You move like this, keeping an appropriate distance, from group to group until you find a good match, and then you plunge