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hr_philosopher
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read my profile
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Name: Hans
Country: United States
State: Oregon
Metro: Hood River
Birthday: 2/16/1987
Gender: Male
Interests: Christianity, Logic, Philosophy, Essay Writing, Musicals, Playing Piano,Singing, Europe, Gymnastics, Patriotism, Growing in my Expertise
Expertise: Learning my own foolishness
Occupation: Student
Industry: Other
Message: message me
Member Since:
11/13/2004
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| Hello all,
So sorry that it's been ridiculously long since I've posted. Anyway, I
am writing a response to Richard Dawkins' article that defends atheism, and
I wanted to give you guys the opportunity to read the article before I
post my response. The response will be posted here, and the original
article can be found here.
If you would do me a favor and read the article, then you'll be able to
participate in the discussion on my other blog. Just remember that the
discussion will have to be civil on both sides of the issue.
Hope to see you there!
~Hans
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| I have a new post on my livejournal, here: http://www.livejournal.com/users/hr_philosopher . Do you all have any comments?
~Hans
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| This poor cat. Yes, this is real:
"Cy, short for Cyclops, a kitten born with only one eye and no nose, is
shown in this photo provided by its owner in Redmond, Oregon, on
Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2005. The kitten, a ragdoll breed, which died after
living for one day, was one of two in the litter. Its sibling was born
normal and healthy."
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Stolen from Kristoff…
- Full
Name: Hans Zachary Decker
2. Who were you named after: Uh, well…my parents probably didn’t know
this, but there are an awful lot of German doctors and lawyers who share
my name. Just try Google. Of course, if you try Google, you will also find
that there were two different Nazi officers who share my name. Let’s just
say I was named after no one in particular.
3. Which finger is your favorite? All ten, thank you. I couldn’t play
piano without them.
4. Have you ever sang into a hairbrush? Uh, I do real microphones, thanks.
5. When did you last cry? Umm…I have a heart of stone.
6. Do you like your handwriting? It’s okay. It got a lot better when I
learned elvish. I’m not kidding.
7. What is your favorite lunch meat? Roast beef?
8. Any bad habits? Is this a question? Give me a break! No duh!
9. What is your most embarrassing CD on the shelf? Why would I be
self-conscious of my CDs? For goodness sake, I listen to them because I
like the music. I don’t care if other people think my music is stupid.
That’s there opinion. It really doesn’t matter. I just won’t listen to
music that bothers people when they are around.
10. If you were another person, would you be friends with you? I am a terribly
boring person, and if I were someone else, I would probably make myself
mad, so I would probably be more likely to kill me than be good friends
with me.
11. Are you a daredevil? Not really.
12. Have you ever told a secret you swore not to tell? No.
13. Do you own any burnt CD's? Yes, that people have given me.
14. Have you ever said a word and it sounded absolutely stupid? Um, yeah,
I suppose so. Some English words sound weird. For that matter, so do some
Greek words. 
15. Do you think there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Yes,
but the gold always melts into a cold soup of false dreams and hopes for
the idiots who go chasing after it.
16. Do fish have feelings? Nervous systems? Yeah. Souls? Give me a break.
17. Do you like school? Do you know how much I am paying for my education?
If I didn’t like school, I would be a huge idiot. I might be a huge idiot
anyway, but I don’t think that it’s for this reason.
18. Do you ever say never? Never.
19. Where is your second home? University of Dallas, Madonna 207
20. Do you trust others easily? I try to pick carefully, I suppose, but
then, yes.
21.What was your favorite toy as a child? Okay, let’s put it this way. My
parents tried for years to get something for my brothers and me besides
Legos. They tried over and over, but it never worked. We always stopped
playing with whatever they got us after a few days and went back to Legos.
So they gave up and just gave us Legos until we grew out of toys.  I
think last year was the first year that I didn’t get any Legos.
22. What class in school do you think is totally useless? It’s school! It’s
all amazing! Ancient Greek is awesome! If anyone tells me otherwise, I
will hunt them down and…give them an introduction that explains what they
think about Greek to Dr. Mauer. I’ll let him eat you.
23. Do you have a journal? Well, technically a blog is a journal of sorts.
24. Do you use sarcasm a lot? That is probably for other people to judge
more than myself, but I don’t think I do a *ton*. I’m sure that I do some.
25. Do you have a crush on a lad or girl at the minute? Some of these
questions…who comes up with this stuff anyway?
26. What do you want in a boy or girl? This isn’t fair either. I have to
come up with my list still. Once I do, I am hardly likely to post it as a
response to a journal survey.
27. Do you get along better with girls or boys? In general, perhaps girls,
though the question is somewhat academic, since I get along extremely well
with my guy friends.
28.
Would you ever bungee jump? Why? I’ll spend the money on my Rome semester
instead.
29. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off? Not usually, actually,
but who cares?
30. Do you think you're strong? In what sense? But no, not strong.
31. What's your favorite ice cream flavor? Carmel pecan, since you must
ask. This is ridiculous. You have fifty questions to ask a person! Why
does this even come up?! Who cares?! It’s ice cream!
32. What's your favorite color? Oh my. Don’t get me started. This was
seriously like my first philosophical debate with someone. I think that I
was about six years old. Poor Hannah Mason.
33. Are you in love with any one? *falls on sword*
34. How many wisdom teeth do you have? Yay! None! They’re all gone!
35. Are you organized? I am more organized than some, but certainly not
completely neat. My dorm room tends to stay fairly clear of my junk,
though.
36. How many people have a crush on you right now? I’ll let them figure it
out. I have no idea. How am I supposed to make that sort of judgment anyway?
Do you disclose that sort of information to the people you have crushes
on? Yes, I am talking to you! Seriously, do you? Do you just go around
telling them? No? Then do you expect me to be some sort of intuitive
genius and know this by instinct? I only pretend to have an intuition. I
can’t answer this type of question.
37. Who do you miss right now? I’m on spring break, which naturally means
that I miss all my good friends back at UD who are missing out on
Beautiful Oregon.
38. What food do you most want to eat right now? Uh…an almond granola bar.
39. Where do you most want to be right now? Durham Cathedral.
40. Do you ever make up your own words? I just did tonight – randomosity
41. Do you find it easy to forgive? In general, yes. There have been
difficult times, of course, but in general, it isn’t difficult.
42. What was the last thing you ate? A bagel sandwich.
43. How are you today? I am doing well. I have been exonerated from
certain charges relating to things that I said because I slightly changed
my views for the better and managed to better explain what I was talking about.
Hooray for discussions!
44. Favourite alcoholic drink? Teetotaler!!! Woohoo!
45. Siblings and their ages: Sasha, 22, Sonja, 17, Kristoff, 14, Johannes,
11
46. Favorite fast food? Cheap is good. I lived off of McDonald’s in
Europe. That was good.
47. What are three things you love about yourself? Myself in what sense? I
think that I’ll skirt the issue and say my family, my friends, and the
opportunities I have been given.
48. What is one thing that you hate about yourself? My remarkable
stupidity.
49. Favorite time of the year? Mid-December
50. Are you too shy to ask someone out? No.
51. Scary movies or happy endings? Sad endings! Hooray for tragedy! Scary?
Meh… Happy ending? Bah, mundane.
52. Summer or winter? Winter!
53. Hugs or kisses? Hugs are more, er…universally applicable, shall we
say. Hugs are nice, then.
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| Since I know that some of you don't have livejournal, I thought that
I'd post this here. I'm sorry that I don't know how to do any sort of
cut-text, so it's quite long. Sorry if it fills up your subscription
pages.
Any thoughts? For those of you who read the original only, this is the slightly newer version of the story.
The Two Cloaks
Once
upon a time, there was a small boy who lived in a small cottage deep in
the woods. The little boy had no mother or father, but lived with his
ancient grandfather, who was blind in one eye and lame in one leg.
Because his grandfather was unable to move quickly or venture far, the
little boy had to gather firewood each afternoon so that they would
have enough wood to burn for the evening when the winter chill came on.
In order to amuse himself during his task, the cheerful child would
sing happy songs to the trees and dance gaily along the path.
One
day, there was a blizzard that lasted all morning so the child was
unable to leave the house for the wood until the middle of the
afternoon. When the blizzard calmed, the boy put on a scarf, but he had
no coat or cloak because he and his grandfather were too poor. When he
finally went out into the snow, the Sun was shining, and the ground was
covered in a sparkling blanket of snow. All the rocks and stumps
surrounding the cottage were like little bubbles that looked ready to
burst into shining fountains of snow. The child was delighted, and he
sang happily as he skipped lightly through the snow, out of the gate,
and down the path that led away into the woods.
As soon as he
reached the woods he set about gathering firewood, but the snow made it
difficult because it hid most of the wood, and often what was not
hidden was too wet to be used. The child was having more and more
trouble finding any wood that was of use along the path that ran
through the woods. However, as he looked about him, he saw a small
grove of trees that grew a little ways from the path. He struck off
from the path, and ran to the grove. The trees grew close enough there
that little snow had fallen underneath, so the child gathered up an
armful of good firewood to add to his bundle, singing all the while. As
he looked around again, though, he noticed another little grove further
off. Since he wasn’t having much luck looking for firewood along the
path, he decided to keep going and try the next grove too. There again
he found another armful of branches. He continued to wander around from
grove to grove, gathering more branches for his bundle, when suddenly,
he realized that he had lost his way, the Sun was setting, and it was
getting dark.
The forest was very thick, and the trees were
tall, old, and gnarled, draped in pale lichen and sprinkled with a
light dusting of snow. At first the child was scared, and began to cry,
but then he remembered his bravery, and began to sing once more. He
found a little clearing and stacked up his firewood in the center. Then
he took some matches out of his pocket and lit a fire, careful not to
waste any matches. Within a few minutes he had a bright fire going, and
it was not a moment too soon, for after just a few minutes the
remaining light faded from the sky, and the Stars began to appear
overhead.
Then, still very cold and a little afraid, the child
began to sing again. However, as his grandfather had always told him,
cheerful music was best sung in the bright hours of the day when
sunlight sparkled on the freshly fallen snow, and sorrowful music was
best in the evening when the pale moon needed comfort. So, in order to
calm himself, the cold child began to sing sad lullabies that his
mother used to sing to him before she died. These gave him some
courage, and he began to sing them with more heart.
Suddenly, he
heard a faint flutter above him, and as he turned round and looked up,
he saw something that made him start. For, although he did not know it,
he had ventured into a very special part of the wood. Above him on a
branch sat a small faerie. Soon there was more rustling and faeries
began to appear all around the child. At first the child was
frightened, because these faeries did not look like the kind faeries
that his grandfather had told him of – faeries that danced and sang in
celebration among the flowers. These faeries were dressed in long dark
robes and cloaked in inky black. However, the child’s fear soon left
him when he saw the faces on the faeries, for they were so sorrowful
that he was sure that they could never harm anyone.
After a
moment the child couldn’t contain himself any longer and asked the
nearest faerie what made him so sad, for the expression on the faerie’s
face was enough to break the heart of the child. The faerie replied
that he and his kin were the sons and daughters of a great Star, but
that the Star was dying. Once the Star was dead, the faeries would die,
because they only lived by drinking the silvery light of the Star each
night. The child felt sympathy for the faeries, for he knew the pain of
the loss of a parent. The boy asked if there was anything that might be
done to save the Star. The faerie’s mournful face grew thin, and he
gave a small heartless laugh. There was nothing that could be done but
wait for that Star to die, he said. However, the dark faerie told the
boy, that was not why they came to the boy.
The faerie gave a
soft call, and soon was joined by four other faeries carrying a small
bundle wrapped in dark paper. The four faeries set their parcel at the
child’s feet and fluttered into the trees where their dark cloaks hid
them from the light of the fire. This parcel, as the faerie explained,
contained a gift to the child. The faeries knew that it was for the
child because the Star had given them strict instructions to give it to
the first person to enter their wood singing songs of sorrow. When the
faeries heard the mournful strains of music echoing through the wood,
they knew that the child was calling them, and so they brought the gift.
The
child bent down and untied the parcel, pulling back the dark paper to
reveal a long black Cloak, studded with flecks of diamond that caught
the light of the fire and sent sparks of light dancing into the young
boy’s eyes. The Cloak, as the dark faerie told the child, belonged to
the dying Star, and if the child put it on, his sorrowful music would
be the most beautiful in the world and would ease the suffering of the
dying Star. The child was very cold despite the fire, and so he threw
the Cloak over his shoulders.
Instantly, he felt shivers run up
and down his spine, and a creeping warmth run along his skin so that he
felt better almost at once. Then, feeling warm again, he began to sing.
He knew at once that his song was more beautiful than it had ever been
before, for the very trees seemed to grow still and the fire ceased to
crackle so as to listen more carefully. The Stars above sparkled
brightly as his music swelled. It seemed as if the hearts of the stones
themselves would crack at the sweet sadness of the child’s song.
All
night the child sang, forgetting his sleep. He sang in sorrow, pouring
out the grief of his loss of his parents, and then of his own solitude.
The sky began to fade and the faeries to disperse, but even as the day
came the child sang mournfully on, forgetting to sing cheerfully to
greet the day, because he was caught in his sorrows and the beauty of
his song. Soon the edge of the sky began to turn a deep crimson red,
and then slowly, the Sun itself began to rise.
But the Sun was
not how the child remembered it. It was harsh and glaring. It cut the
edge of dawn like a knife, spilling the ruddy light of dawn like blood
on the snowy wood. The sky was a dull grey, hard like iron instead of
the soft blue that it had been the day before. The child continued to
sing sorrowfully to himself, but he turned away from the Sun and threw
the black hood of the Cloak up over his head to shield himself from the
painful glare.
The boy began to wander away from the clearing in
search of a thick grove of trees where he might hide from the Sun. He
pulled the Cloak tighter about him and began to follow his own shadow,
which was as black as the night and stretched out before him as he fled
the light of the Sun. But the faster he followed his own shadow, the
more quickly it eluded his grasp. The boy wanted only to reach it in
order that he might hide in its darkness and rest his eyes from the
blazing Sun. Then, as the child began to walk more quickly, he noticed
that his heart was growing cold. No matter how fast he walked, the
chill in his heart began to spread. Soon, he began to suspect the Sun
of freezing his heart, and he turned to curse the Sun, but when he had
turned round, the Sun was so harsh and bright that he could not bear to
look at it, and he turned away from the Sun and began to run as fast as
he could to escape the light. But his eyes were still blinded by the
harsh light of the Sun, and as he ran, he tripped over a Stone and fell
sprawling into the snow. However, in his fall, the Cloak, which had
been securely clasped around his neck slipped off over his head and
landed next to him.
Suddenly, the world changed, and the child
found himself sitting beside the cold ashes of the fire in the little
clearing where he had spent the night. He was all alone, and there were
no faeries to be seen, nor any Cloak to be had. The child was very
surprised, but he soon convinced himself that the whole adventure with
the faeries had been a dream. However, the sky was already fading to
grey, and within a few minutes, the Sun rose from the horizon,
sparkling on the soft blanket of snow and filling the sky with a warm,
golden glow. Then the child remembered that it was morning, and that he
must return to his cottage to assure his grandfather that he was well
and that no harm had come to him.
So the child set off back
through the woods, trying to retrace his steps from the evening before
so that he could find his way back to the path. In his joy, the young
boy began to sing happily to greet the new morning as he skipped
through the snow and gathered firewood. However, as he was dancing
through the snow, he looked ahead between the trees and saw a blazing
white light that made even the snow around it seem dim and grey in
comparison. Curious to see what it was, the child began to run towards
it.
However, when he was nearly there, he stumbled over a Rock
and fell to the ground, spilling the firewood in front of him. As he
picked himself up and dusted the snow from his clothes, he saw what it
was that shone so brightly. Lying in the snow a few feet from where he
stood was a great Cloak woven in silver and blazing with diamonds,
which were woven into the shining thread. Happily, the child snatched
up the Cloak and threw it around his shoulders, for he was still cold
from the snow and the fall. Instantly, he felt warmth fill his heart,
and the glow of that warmth began to spread over his whole body, right
down to his cold feet, which were covered with threadbare stockings and
well-worn shoes.
The child laughed. His laugh was so joyful that
the trees themselves shook and snow fell from the branches like shining
curtains of light. The child began to skip and dance, and the sunlight
reflected off the radiating diamonds and the child’s glowing eyes and
began to dance in the shadows cast by the trees. Then the young boy
began to sing, and the Sun itself blazed brighter in joy at the sound.
Suddenly,
the child found himself back on the path from which had started the
previous day. There was no Cloak and no diamonds, but the child was
still joyful. And he began to run down the path towards the cottage
singing with all his might, his bundle of firewood bouncing merrily on
his back.
Within a few moments he had reached the edge of the
clearing where the tiny cottage stood. The child half ran, half slipped
down the icy path, kicking snow and ice into the air as he went. His
grandfather stood on the porch of the cottage, leaning on his cane and
smiling so broadly that the lines on his ancient face stood out like
cracks in marble. The child laughed gaily as he waved to his
grandfather, stumbling as he slid up to the old gate.
That
evening the child told his grandfather what had happed to him the night
before, and his grandfather, who had himself lived in the little
cottage deep in the woods all his life, believed every word. But, as
the old man told his grandson, it was very important to remember what
had happened. The grandfather told the child that both of the Cloaks
were gifts of the heavenly bodies, but they must be used very
carefully. For though it is kind to sing songs of sorrow to comfort the
Stars as they strive against the darkness of night, it is dangerous to
continue to sing those airs after the dawn appears. Had the boy not
stumbled against the Stone and shed the black Cloak, he would have
become like the faeries, always in mourning and unable to bear the
glorious light of day. For once the Stars had faded and light was
victorious over darkness, songs of sorrow brought only grief instead of
comfort. But when the child had sung the songs of joy in the morning
light, he had blessed the Sun itself as it blazed forth warmth on all
the snowy world. And so the next day when the child ventured out as he
did each afternoon to gather firewood, he remembered the words of his
grandfather and sang joyfully to the Sun, who beamed cheerfully back
upon the small child at work in the sparkling snow.
Good night!
~Hans
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