West Bank Story

Sadly enough this will be my last blog post.  To end on a high note, let me talk a little about this awesome musical. 

Israel has been a site of violence as conflict and strife between two opposing people that claim possession over the same land.  Vicious violence on one side leads to retaliation on the other. A brutal cycle of retaliation has kept the nation in turmoil for generations. With a strong Christian demographic (and some slightly misguided theology) the U.S. has shown favor with the Jewish people of the nation. Whenever tension arises we'll exclude the Jewish people from any blame and instead villainize the Palestinians.

 I believe the blame is often on both sides.  This musical goes to show exactly that.  Instead of taking favor with one side the movie makes fun of both sides in congruent proportions.  It shows how quickly both parties are to shift blame the other side, how irrational their hatred is for the other side, and how ridiculous the cycle of revenge can be.

I'm not a fan of musicals.  Typically I find them obnoxious and boring. Not this one.  I believe a witty musical like this is the best (if not the only) medium capable of portraying a message like this.  The setting is comical enough to be disarming to keep the public open-hearted, but at the same time realistic enough to address some of the actual problems at hand.

In the end both sides have to put aside their differences and unite under the same goal: the people need fed. Reminds me of the ending to Don't Mess With The Zohan.  Terrible movie.  Don't watch it unless you're a fan of terrible movies like me.  I thought about attaching a clip from that movie, but I thought I'd preserve as many brain-cells in my readers as I can.  Instead here is a song by Tim Minchin discussing how peace can be acheived if both sides would unite under their similarity.

Call of Duty is Not a Crime

In response to Mason's post (as well as the discussion in class on Tuesday) I would like to provide some balance to this conversation. I'm not going to say that you should only play Call of Duty and avoid all games from Indie developers.  I just want to provide you with the fundamental reason why AAA games are they way they typically and why AAA games are necessary for the video game industry to continue to thrive and grow. I can answer both questions with one word: "money".

Triple-A games invest lots of money into developing, advertising, and publishing a video game.  When this much money is on hand, you have to play it safe to keep investors on board.  This is why all the top notch games appear to have the same story line with different characters. It works and it will continue to work.  Don't demonize these developers as capitalist pigs quite yet, some companies in turn use their funds from their top notch games to produce games with a bit riskier of a set-up.  This isn't always the case, but don't judge a company by their fore-running product.  Would you bet $20 on 1:20 odds? Maybe, if you felt adventurous. Would you bet your entire life's savings on the same odds? Probably not.

Triple-A games are kinda vital to the industry as well. By kinda, I mean there wouldn't be any video games if there were these games.  Triple-A games constitute the majority of video game sales. It is rare, but not impossible, that an indie game will gross near as much as a Triple-A game.  So take away Triple-A games and what do you have? With less money flowing through the industry, small and medium sized companies are going to have a much harder time finding investors to launch their projects.  Less people will be willing to purchase new consoles. Console development will shutdown and pretty much the whole video game industry will stall to a sad plateau.  I know that sounds like a slippery slope fallacy, but its not.  Its just how economics works.

Battlefield 4. Just look at those HD textures. Mmmmmm, right?

In short AAA games are like the fast-food of video games. Are they high quality? Depends on how you define quality. They certainly aren't good for you in the long run but they do certainly taste good and you can get away with having some a couple times a week. Take them away and there's gonna be a lot of people that go hungry for lunch. In fact, there are going to be quite a bit of people that starve to death.

I wouldn't want to live in a world without bacon cheeseburgers, would you?

Virtual Reality

As a kid I was fascinated with the concept of virtual reality.  Perhaps "obsessed" would be a better word.  It all started with this power rangers virtual reality headset.  It may seem lame to you now in comparison to the technology we saw on Thursday, but when I was seven this was the greatest thing ever.

As I grew older I started to realize that our technology would lag behind my imagination, so I lost interest.  Now I'm finding that our technology is starting to catch up.  That's exciting.

The question was posed in class: How will VR be used? Will it be used for good or bad? I say it depends, but its not up to the CS majors like me its up to the artists like you.  Let me demonstrate with an analogy.  Consider a medical scalpel.  It can be used to perform delicate surgeries to heal people.  It can also be used to stab people to death.  Now in either case it is not up to the engineer that designs the scalpel to decide how it is used. It is up to the intent and skill of the scalpel wielder to determine how its used.  So my hope is that DMA folk will take a hold of VR and use it for some good.

Christ on your Playstation

Christ-like figures show up all the time in novels and movies, so it is only natural that a Christ-like figure might show up occasionally in a video game too. Indeed there are several examples of Messianic figures in video games.  Excluding video games based on movies, comic books, or novels, there are still plenty of examples.  Below are some of the examples from the games I played..  There's gonna be spoilers, so be warned.

Fallout 3: James (aka Dad)

 

 In the second scene in Fallout 3 (that is the scene after you exit your mother's womb :/ ) James, your father figure introduces you to a Bible verse: Revelations 21:6.  The verse is a reference to how Christ is the living water and it foreshadows the events that transpire in the game.  In a harsh world where no one can be trusted to be wholly good, James is the prime moral good.  His behavior is beyond reproach.  He sacrifices his comfortable life in Vault 101 in hopes of restoring the world outside much in the same way Christ came down from Heaven to Earth to redeem the world.  If the character misbehaves (by detonating a nuke inside one of the few remaining settlements in the game), James will confront the player for his/her actions but also expresses his unconditional love for his child.  James' restoration project is to provide clean water to the wasteland but rebuilding a water purifier (see the analogy with living water mentioned earlier?).  Ultimately James' sacrifices himself to the mission and it is left up to the player to bring his work to completion.

Infamous: Cole MacGrath (Good Karma)

 

Infamous provides the player with many black and white options to either act selfishly or selflessly.  Infamous is not the only game that provides the player with options like this, but it is an excellent example.  If the user decides to continuously choose good moral choices, the Cole begins to resemble a Messianic figure more and more.  At first a weird set of events causes the population of the city to be strongly against Cole, similar to the opposition Jesus faced. It is easy for the player to retaliate against the general population because his image is never fully restored.  With his electrical powers, Cole can perform many miraculous feats to help people out, including revive the dead by zapping them with his hands as defibrillators (much like how Jesus healed people by touching them).  As the player performs more and more good acts, Cole acquires a nice glow. If the player follows the good path to the end Cole will make the ultimate sacrifice for his city in order to protect it.

Mass Effect 2: Commander Shepard

 

TBH I have not played all of this game, but I do know the plot points. In Mass Effect series Commander Shepard seeks to save humanity from a malicious enemy. Now the means Shepard takes to eradicate evil may or may not be above reproach depending on how the player plays, but the mission remains the same. Along the way Shepard recruits many to abandon what they were doing and follow him on his quest, much like how Jesus called and cared for his disciples.  Once again we have a character that makes the ultimate sacrifice for his mission, but this time Shepard is actually resurrected from the dead.

There's plenty of other examples, but these are the ones where I found the greatest number of parallels and analogies. If you have other/better examples of a Christ-like figure in a video game, I would love to hear about it.

Math in the Media

Mathematics shows up a surprising amount in movie theaters and on the T.V. screen.  There are obvious examples of movies that revolve around brilliant mathematicians such as: Beautiful Mind, Good Will Hunting, and Imitation Game (all of which are brilliant movies in my opinion) and T.V. series such as Touch and Numb3rs.

Now if film-makers are designing these films to only appeal to math majors these films would surely not perform well at the box office, so it appears as if math has a much more universal appeal to people.  I'm not saying that everyone enjoys mathematics in highschool, in fact I would say the majority are opposed to it.  I put part of the blame on the how math subjects are taught, but little is given to math appreciation.  Students aren't presented with the mystery of math: "how can the phenomenon of the natural world be modeled with elegant equations?".  On the contrary to the classroom, the theater presents a different perspective on math.
   
Many a math-fan will argue that math itself is an art.  Unlike many other arts, a mathematician does not create his/her art, but merely discovers it.  The beautiful equations already exist, they were created long ago by the most brilliant Mathematician ever.  Some film-makers tap into the beauty and mystery associated with math and attempt to design films around that encompass this.


via GIPHY

Even if you're not watching a film explicitly about mathematicians, it is very likely that some math is snuck into the plot.  The following website presents short clips of where and how math shows up in many films. http://www.math.harvard.edu/~knill/mathmovies/

Dawn of Justice or Dusk of Everything-Decent-in-Cinema

There's a great discussion of how terrible Batman vs. Superman Dawn of Justice was.  Some people think it was entertaining.  Others believe it was the worst Batman movie (since 1966 at least) and the worst Superman movie ever, could it have really been that bad?  In a short answer, yes.  It was pretty disappointing.  For the sake of a more entertaining blog post I'll play devil's advocate and explain how this film can almost maybe kinda be enjoyed in four simple steps.

First off: know the director and set your expectations accordingly.  I've never heard anyone ever remark, "Wow that Zack Synder film had an immaculate plot-line that made perfect sense and didn't have any holes whatsoever".  Now the screen writers have produced some excellent stories, but this is not one.  If you walk into the film expecting a congruent story where everything is logical, you will be disappointed, you might even get upset or start crying.  There's several events that seem implausible or illogical, but nevertheless occur in order to keep the plot moving. It's best to just shut your brain off as much as possible while watching this film and just enjoy the action in the most primitive way you can.

Speaking of action, I have arrived at my second point: The action scenes won't really make sense and you'll have a hard time actually figuring what's going.  That's just the style of how these scenes are filmed.  It's up to your best imagination to figure out what's going on at any given point.  Along with many other Zack Snyder films there will be plenty of slow-motion sections that will give you enough time to figure out who is punching who, but otherwise you'll be awfully confused during every fight scene. To avoid this frustration, I recommend watching a decent action movie prior to entering the theater then mentally graft those fight scenes into BvS whenever necessary.

Ben Affleck, upon hearing about reviews

Third, you must understand that the writers have the creative freedom to deviate from the comic book as much as they want.  This is a freedom given to them when they announce the production of any superhero movie.  If they need to use this freedom to twist the image of your favorite superheros such that they can fight one another, they can.  You can't stop them if they want to completely defile the name of these heroes. You just have to live with it.  In order to avoid this conflict entirely, I recommend you avoid watching any Batman or Superman movie prior to this one and stay as far away as possible from the comics.  If you already have a good concept of either superhero you might be able to induce amnesia by repeated blunt force trauma to the cranium, otherwise you're out of luck.

My fourth point, is that there is no fourth point this film can't be honestly enjoyed. This movie doesn't even deserve a serious review it was so terrible.  The only accomplishment I can recall, is that they almost made Aqua-man look cool. Almost, not quite.

Le Chapeau

I know this blog post is a while after the classroom discussion on the topic of feminism in film.  I took it up to find this film and watch it.  It took me awhile to find the free time to post about it. 

I was uncertain at first what I could even say about this film.  It was certainly a powerful film, explicitly and artistically addressing a serious issue.  The premise of the film is this: an exotic dancer has flashbacks remember the place where this man that sexually abused her would hang his hat (chapeau is french for hat).  The film alternates quickly the present day where she is dancing and being wooed and the past where she is regretfully being taken advantage of.  If you have sensitive eyes, it's probably best you don't watch this film.

At first you feel great disgust for this woman.  How dare she flaunt her body like that? Then as you see how she was abused as a child you begin to pity this woman more and more.  You see how the events in her past have lowered her self-worth to arrive at where she is now.  You realize how quick we are to judge people without knowing their past.  This film broke my heart for how broken this world is, I imagine it would do the same to any of you.

Quiz #2

Geri's Game but me back into the middle of nostalgia world with many other early Pixar movies like Toy Story and Bug's Life.  There's something special about this short film, but it's not obvious at first.  It's a funny story, sure. The old man competes against himself in a game of chess and fakes his own heart attack in order to flip the board and win.  That's a clever storyboard, but the story in itself is only part of the picture.  The execution of the story is crucial, . In the case of this particular film, Pixar had to pay close attention to the amount of detail they applied to the CG.  Too much detail and the character loses it's charm and takes on more of a creep factor as it enters the uncanny valley.  Too little detail and the character does not have the means to express a wide enough array of emotions to accomplish the story.  I'm sure Pixar had to experiment around with the CG and remember the lessons learned from past films when producing this film.  I believe the final product was a well-managed use of realism in the CG to be effective in the story-telling.

What is Art?

I knew it was only a matter of time before the conversation of "Are Video Games Art?" would be brought up. Samuel and Stan brought up this conversation on Thursday, presenting examples of video games that should be considered art.  I thought I'd quickly present my two cents before the debate became too heated.

I thought I'd start with a definition from Wikipedia. Art is a diverse range of human activities in creating visual, auditory or performing artifacts – artworks, expressing the author's imaginative or technical skill, intended to be appreciated for their beauty or emotional power.  Certainly video games are visual and auditory objects that express the author's abilities.  The more difficult question to answer is whether or not video games are intended to be appreciated for their beauty or emotional power.

There are video games that I believe have some significant emotional power while there are others that have little to no emotional power.  There are video games that can be deemed beautiful, while others are quite plain.  There is no objective way to rate the beauty of emotional power of any video game.  All other forms of art seem to be this way too, there are paintings I find to be beautiful and paintings I find to be dull, songs that I find to be moving emotionally moving and songs that hardly touch any of my feelings. At the same time someone else could have received an opposite reaction, it is all a matter of subjective taste.

Since art is experienced in such a subjective sense, there is no objective way to demarcate art into certain forms of media.  Depending on the viewer first-person shooters could be as much of an art as oil-paintings.

Into The Fog

The Hedgehog in The Fog was a phenomenal film.  Anytime an animator can beautifully execute effects such as fog they deserve some credit.  In this film the fog has a special role.  The fog represents mystery to the hedgehog.  At first the hedgehog is hesitant to explore the fog for what dangers lurk, but also anxious to explore the fog and find answers to his questions.  The hedgehog then decides to venture into the fog, into the mystery, and the adventure begins.

The hedgehog is immediately overwhelmed with the thick fog clouding his vision.  As the hedgehog stumbles around the dense fog there are moments were the fog will become transparent enough for it to receive a glimpse of some animal or object in the distance.  Before the hedgehog can fully recognize the image the fog becomes dense and the hedgehog is left to stumble around in the fog again.

I believe the audience can relate to the hedgehog in a meaningful way.  We are given an option to either stick with what is normal and known to us, or we can explore the unknown mysteries that present themselves to us.  If we choose to pursue the mysteries of this world we are typically overwhelmed with obscurity and can only poke around at the vast mystery.  We leave the fog with more questions than we when we entered.

The Responsibility of Reality in Media

When contrasting two similar shows on Netflix, I was presented with this question: "Who's responsibility is it (for any given genre) to establish a sense of reality?"  Is it the responsibility of the producers, and screenwriters to present a story that seems realistic enough to engage the audience? Is it the responsibility of the viewer to step inside the story and welcome it as reality. Are the two parties expected to meet somewhere in the middle?

Now not all T.V. genres rely off a sense of reality.  Some T.V. series are designed to be much more realistic than others.  Curiously enough one genre that seems to have encountered a surge in realism are super hero T.V. shows and series.  The two shows I want to contrast is Arrow and The Flash.

Both shows are hosted by the same network with some of the same producers and screenwriters.  The shows often overlap as the plot lines are intertwined.  Since these shows share so many similarity, I found it surprising that one TV series is far more realistic.

I started off watching Arrow.  Oliver Queen (aka Arrow) is a rich vigilante that uses the skills he learned while shipwrecked on an island to target corrupt businessmen and criminals in his city.  Think Batman with a bow.  Oliver Queen doesn't have any super powers in the typical sense of the word.  He's obnoxiously rich and has archery skills that are suspiciously high for only five years of training, but there is nothing super about him.  As the series progresses Oliver encounters villains and heroes that also have borderline super powers such as super strength (Slade), superb aim (Deadshot), and super hacking skillz (Felicity), but nothing is completely outside the bounds of reality.

I'd say the only super hero (in the classical sense of the word) that Oliver encounters is Barry Allen (aka The Flash).  An powerful explosion from a supercollider gives Barry Allen super speed.  Barry quickly acquires the nickname as The Flash because he runs fast enough to produce nothing but a flash.  Surely enough Barry's ability is beyond what is realistic for any human being.  Tyson Gay can't sprint up the side of a building.  Similar to Barry, many other people in the city received super powers that are beyond the bounds of reality from the same blast. While the series remains internal consistent, there are many super powers and gadgets that seem to blatantly defy some of the most simple laws of physics.  For example Cisco, a scientist that aids Barry, designs a gun that freezes anything to absolute zero. I'll spare you the lecture in thermodynamics, but inform you that such a weapon is impossible to produce.  Even to freeze someone to a temperature anywhere near absolute zero in an environment that is not isolated would require such an enormous amount of energy that it would be utterly impractical to design.

So my question to you is which approach is more appropriate for this genre?  Should the media be designed such that it appears reasonably realistic to the audience? Or should the audience step into the reality presented in the media? 

I believe this responsibility should be shared in varying proportions.  Sometimes it is nice to be challenged to accept the fantasy of a series of fact despite my analytical side and sometimes it nice for my analytical side to have nothing to complain about.

The Gospel of John...The Movie

Browsing through Netflix over J-term I came across this movie, The Gospel of John. The title caught my eye for two reasons. First, John is my favorite out of the gospels. There is a strong relationship between Jesus and John ("the disciple whom Jesus loved") and John is often capable of providing more detail as to why Jesus did some of the things he did.  Furthermore most Bible narrations seem to prefer the other three gospels for their content, so a narration of the Gospel of John is quite a special gem.

Second, Jesus is no longer whitewashed nor are any of the characters. The actor that plays Jesus, Selva Rasalingam (pictured to the right), is clearly arabic. Such a movie confronts the notion that Jesus was white head on. 

Jesus from The Walking Dead

Such whitewashing of Jesus seems absurd. We clearly know that with his descent, Jesus could not have the pale complexion and blue eyes we so often attribute to him.  I like to believe this Caucasian image of Jesus speaks to two things: 1. How ignorant most people are. 2. How art is often taken literarly.  To demonstrate that our culture has truly whitewashed the image of Jesus, I'll provide you with an example from pop-culture: The Walking Dead.  With the mid-season startup of season 6 a new character is introduced.  This character refers to himself as Jesus.  The show quickly eludes to how Jesus acts like the Biblical Jesus, by performing "miracles" (such as quickly escaping from his bindings) and seeking peace among the other characters. It is obvious how Jesus earned his name because he has long brown hair and a trimmed thick beard.

Now back to the movie. The movie narrates the entire book of John (NIV), so it is a little less than three hours long.  That may seem like a bore, but I would recommend watching it on a lazy Sunday nevertheless.  The narration is the only words spoken in English.  In order to make the scenes in the movie more authentic all the characters speak Aramaic.  Thus the director was able to provide the audience with a raw and realistic image of the stories in the gospel with Arabs speaking in Aramaic. Now this may not be the only Biblical narration that tried to accurately portray the setting of the Bible, but it is the best narration that I have watched thus far.

Now the text of the movie is a simple, but awesome idea: just read from the Bible and don't leave anything out.  The problem is there is some sneaky subtext hidden into the scenes. Perhaps I am being a bit nit-picky or am looking into the details too much, but I noticed there are two characters in the entire movie that have a dental plan: John the Baptist and Jesus. In fact not only do these characters have remarkably white and straight teeth for anyone in the first century, but they also have quite a charming image to them. I can most certainly argue John did not have pearly white teeth because his diet consisted of wild honey and locust, but perhaps Jesus did.  Nevertheless it disappointed me that the movie didn't portray Jesus with broken or missing teeth like all the other characters.

If anyone else has watched this movie I would love to hear your thoughts. If you have not (and have three hours to invest into Netflix) I recommend this movie over any other Biblical narration.

Plugged Into What?

As Christians we are called to dwell on what is pure and holy (Phillipians 4:8).  In desire to dwell on what is pure and holy we seek to eliminate thoughts that are opposed to purity and holiness. Often we avoid these thoughts by avoiding media that contains such content. On a surface level this seems to be a good thing to do, but I don't believe this is quite what we are called to do.

Some of you may be aware of this Christian media review site known as PluggedIn.  PluggedIn is one of several such Christian media review sites, but it is perhaps the most popular and my personal favorite.  A review is written for each new popular movie, tv show, song, or video game.  The review provides an in-depth, but objective view on the spiritual, sexual content, profanity, drugs/alcohol, and violent content.  The media is then given a PluggedIn rating between 0 stars and 5 stars. Often times I have refused to watch a certain movie because it received a low rating.



When we limit ourselves to only "family-friendly" content, we encounter a serious problem.  The world is not full of "family-friendly" content.  It is full of sex, violence, profanity, drugs, and alcohol.  The problem with only watching these "family-friendly" films is that we are denying and perhaps even forgetting how the world actually works.  With such denial how can we be expected to take away a meaningful message?  Quite often sometimes the most powerful and practical messages are contained with a R rated movie.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't be cautious of movies that contain such worldly content, I just believe we should give them a fair chance and rate them based on the underlying message and not the number of f-words used.

Engaging The Gospel as a Fairy Tale

Upon reading the final chapter title, The Gospel as a Fairy Tale, I was a bit concerned.  I could view the Gospel as a tragedy and as a comedy just fine, but as a fairy tale?  Surely Buechner did not intend to compare Moses to the Easter Bunny or Jesus to a unicorn.

My fears were quickly dissolved as Buechner did not imply the Gospel was a fairy tale in the sense that it is primarily fictitious, but that the Gospel should be approached and engaged as if it was a fairy tale.  Fairy tales are designed to inspire wonder, awe, and joy.

There is a great battle between the magical forces of good and evil. A lion commands an army against a white witch, a valiant knight seeks to slay an evil dragon, a battalion of elves and men fend off a horde of orcs. There is pain and grief, but we know that the good always wins at the end.  Buechner states that it is this ultimate victory is what we seek in fairy tales and what provides us with a glimpse of joy in our lives.

There is also a sense of awe provided by fairy tales.  In a typical fairy tale the extraordinary becomes ordinary. Animals talk, swords have magical properties, and mystical creatures roam about.  This is another aspect of a fairy tale, the story is bound to create a sense of awe or wonder. It is this awe that inspires us to hope for something beyond our day to day lives.

It is in this manner that we are supposed to approach the Gospel.  It is a story designed to cause awe and wonder.  We are provided with countless miracles from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelations.  Furthermore we are supposed to take great joy and hope in the end of the story, because it is also our story.  Darkness is defeated and the light triumphs.

Erased but not Gone

There is something particular of the charcoal animations of William Kentridge, he erases.  Where most animators would have simply drawn a new picture from scratch, Kentridge erases and modifies the previous picture. 

At first this was very frustrating to me.  Why was he so cheap and so lazy not to simply purchase a new canvas and start again.  You can clearly see the a faded remnant of the erased image.  Then I realized this was what made his artwork so significant.  I believe he was trying to portray something significant by his erasing.

I believe Kentridge intended to make the process behind his animations reflect how life operates.  Instead of having discrete, localized moments each day, we have moments that build on one another.  We move forward in time, but it's impossible to completely leave the past behind.  A blurry and faded image of the past lingers at all times providing a contrast with the clear image we have in the present.

The animation that represents this best was tower falling.  Even after the tower is completely leveled to the ground, a faded image persists.  This represents how the memory and significance of the tower remains even if the tower itself doesn't.

Comedy: Good or Bad?

Modern comedians have encountered an ever increasing demand to be lewd and crude.  In order for stand-up comedians to make a living they are expected to degrade the decent moral people and glorify an immoral way of life.  Sure there may be some comedians that try to work against the flow, but that industry seems to be overrun with immoralities of all kinds.  This may lead many Christians to believe that comedy is bad. That it is flaunt with sinful thinking, but is it?

The films we watched in class on Tuesday brought us back to a generation where comedy was much more innocent.  Charlie Chaplin was able to humor his audience in a mild-mannered way.  Instead of endorsing an immoral lifestyle the Tex Avery cartoon, satirically criticized the overwhelming lust with the wolf's heart.

We can take this one step farther and examine The Gospel as a Comedy. Frederick Buechner raises the concern that we overlook the joyful humor in the Bible. God uses a donkey to talk to Balaam, God uses an old barren woman to generate a nation, God uses a dirty stable to be the birthplace of our Saviour. These stories show that God has a sense of humor.  More importantly, God created humor. He is the greatest comedian there is.

December 25th, the Birth of our Saviour

Warning: This blog post may contain some science.

In class we talked about the significance of the Christmas story, a story about a new born, happening during the middle of winter.  Why do we assume Jesus was born during the winter?  There in fact are no clear references to what season He was born.  So why does most of the world celebrate Christmas (or the equivalent holiday) on December 25th?

It is believed that this decision was made by the early Christian church in the 3rd or 4th century. It is easy to assume that the exact date of the birth of Christ would have been recorded and known by the church leaders at this point.  Lately many Biblical scholars have debating when Christ was actually born ( http://www.ucg.org/the-good-news/biblical-evidence-shows-jesus-christ-wasnt-born-on-dec-25 ). Most scholars agree that it is far more likely that Christ was born during the Spring or Summer than in the Winter.  So we're left with the question: Why the Dec. 25th?

It is a known fact that many Christian traditions (especially concerning Christmas, e.g. The Christmas Tree) were adopted from pagan traditions.  One of the suggested reasons behind the 25th of December is the Roman holiday of Dies Natalis Solis Invicti. During this holiday, Romans would celebrate the birth of the sun god. This holiday took place on the 21st of December on a date known to astronomers as the Winter Solstice.  During the Winter Solstice is the date where the Northern hemisphere experiences the shortest day because the northern axis of the Earth is pointed directly away from the Sun.

This seems logical, but why the 25th and not the 21st?  The position of the Sun and Moon were closely observed by cultures back then, they would have known that the Winter Solstice took place on the 21st and not the 25th.  Perhaps the reason is even more complex.  Examine what happens to the position of the mid-day Sun each day. On December 21st the height of the Sun is at a yearly low.  During the next three days (December 22-24), the Sun appears to remain at this yearly low.  Then on December 25th, the Sun begins to rise again.  Hmmm, this seems familiar...  It is exactly the story of Easter (with maybe an extra day thrown in if you really want to nit-pick).  I can't assert that early church leaders were trying to foreshadow Christ's death and resurrection during his birth, but it is awfully curious.

Hey There!

Hello, my name is Michael Bowman.  Michael not Mike, Mike just doesn't sound quite right. I rarely go by Michael actually, it's too common of a name.  When I was born it was the most popular boys name, so naturally there are a lot of people around my age with the same name.  You can call me Bowman.  Bowman is also a very common surname, so I'm just doomed to answer to people who did not intend to call my name.

I'm a mathematics, computer science, and chemistry triple-major.  I try to hide my nerdyness, but it often comes to the surface.  My favorite show is Breaking Bad, primarily for the chemistry involved.  I run track and cross country here at HU.  Between the heavy science and running most people consider me a masochist and that's probably true.

I like wearing flannel.  It is the fabric of my life.  During the month of October I wore flannel every single day.  Each day I took a picture to document my attire and provide my friends with proof.  Here is one such picture.

I'm weird. As a science guy I'm a different kind of weird than the weird associated with DMA folk, making me appear extra weird to artsy people.  Hopefully our conflicting weirdness doesn't clash too much.