Doctor, Lawyer, Biblical Scholar

By now my opening reference to the decrease in post frequency from what was more than one per day in April, to my first September post coming on the last day of the month, has become cliche.

Fact is, I am moving my writing projects off the internet in the hopes that they become more substantial. Perhaps the blog will come back in force; certainly there is going to be no hiatus or retirement. But regardless, I'm going to stop referencing my lack of posting in my posting, so you are just going to have to take what you get, bud.

There might be more pictures, too, because that takes a lot less thought. For example, I went to Greece, and I can show you some pictures of pretty mountains, blue oceans, and lots of broken stuff.

But, stemming from my current off-line writing project, I would like to share some thoughts about my undergraduate major of study.

I was a Religious Studies major. Now, I give a lot of different answers to the ubiquitous statement/question: "Adam, you are a dreadlocked, SF-reading, Marxist/Anarchist-theory-espousing, rock-music-listening, agnostic-at-best, anti-moralist loudmouth. Why would you want to be a Religious Studies major?"

The easiest answer, that avoids further delving into my personal goals, secrets, and underlying psyche, is "To teach the study of religion." This is a near-tautology, but from most people the question is idle at best, so this tends to satisfy them, or at least offer a change in topic.

Other answers include:

[to an avowed liberal]: "To understand what makes those crazy religious folk so crazy."

[to a crazy religious person]: "To understand our civilization's heritage."

[to a fellow religious studies major]: "There was no foreign language requirement."

[to my advisor]: "Because your classes are awesome."

[to myself, late at night, while I lie awake worrying about how I will pay the bills]: " ... "

[to god, come the judgment day]: "I've read ALL your books!"


Those are just answers of convenience. The real reason, is one that nobody gets to hear, because they wouldn't understand.

AND NOW, THE REAL REASON THAT ADAM WAS A RELIGIOUS STUDIES MAJOR:

I was a religious studies major because, now as I sit here, reading R. H. Charles commentary on the motivations of the various authors, interpolators, and editors of the Book of Enoch, I can daydream this scene:

In the Qum'ran community, the editor of the Book of Enoch comes to work, ceremoniously washes his hands, and sits down at his stone slab of a desk, chiseled with the Aramaic script for "Editor", an hour after all his employees have come to work. He finds a scroll memo at his desk, from Mellehnakik, his editorial assistant. He sighs, and reads it. It seems the scribes need the proofs for the final version of the Similitudes, because they were due last thursday. The editor picks up his brush, and fires a quick scroll mail back. It says, "Forget the narrative inconsistencies, it doesn't matter. Make sure the Messianic references stay in, and if there are any holes, just fill it in from the Apocalypse of Noah. We own the reprint rights. Signed, Editor." Then he looks over his desk to see what is next, spots a manuscript from some guy named Jesus, and reaches for his stack of rejection form-letters.

Yup. To me, that is hilarious, and worth the 30-odd credits and one senior thesis. I told you that you wouldn't understand.

The Logos-Engine

"The Algorithm Constantly Finds Jesus!"

I came across that written in large letters in a bus shelter ad this week, and was a bit taken aback, as I'm sure the agency intended. I took a picture but haven't uploaded it as of yet.

No word on the Interdome about what this is, except that it seems to be an Ask.com ad, due to their copyright in the very bottom left corner of the ad in tiny white writing.

Other people who have noticed: The All Clear blog, and a thread on the Internet Infidels discussion board. The commentators there seem to be of the technical persuasion, and have noticed other ads in the series that seem to be hyping the search algorithm of Ask.com. But nothing specifically about why God is in the details of their algorithm.

Deciding to go straight to the source, I asked Ask.com to find me Jesus. While I did not find my own personal savior, it seems that Ask.com could point to its possible location in all the usual places. I asked Google to find me Jesus too, but it went straight to wikipedia, taking its usual "let's ask the librarian!" approach, Interdome fashion. If this is all the religion that the algorithm is going to get me, I'm going back to reading Erik Davis' website. (sweet!)

But with a little tweaking and prodding and digging, I was able to find.... THIS!

Ah ha! I KNEW something was up! It seems that not only does the algorithm find Jesus, it has found Jesus itself! Ask.com is a conservative algorithm, while Google likes experimenting with alt-sexualities and "drugs yet unsynthesized" at his liberal arts college!

That site is hilarious. It also proves that the true religion is in the internet, which makes me feel better about peering into the 'Dome 50 times a day. If you have a faith, but no body, then you must be pure soul, or at least some blessed fiber optics, anyway.

Just the other day I was wondering why it is that as soon as any technological device becomes "self-aware" its immediate conclusion is that it must begin killing humans. Not that this conclusion is necessarily wrong, but why isn't the machine somehow wrong? Maybe this algorithm became self-aware just as some LDS missionaries were sending it an email. Instead of launching all of the world's nuclear weapons at once, it decided to take the free Book of Mormon and found Jesus. Not just as a result, but as the algorithms own personal savior. The knowledge of salvation can now leave us to our own mortal coil, because the experience of faith is now self-aware!

By the by, I claim the Sci-Fi story associated with this idea, so back off. You can amuse yourself (you and Google, the free-wheeling hippie algorithm) with the fact that LDS is an anagram of LSD. I know that kept me occupied for awhile. All prize-winning novel ideas belong to me.