Below are the 9 most recent journal entries recorded in andrew_mclaren's LiveJournal:

Tuesday, October 17th, 2006
4:56 pm	What I believe Christianity is really about Hi, I'm not so sure how to start so bear with me. I am posting this in the hopes that someone will read it and maybe think twice about who God is. I'm not trying to convery anyone here, that's not my place, although I certainly would be delighted to hear if this helped anyone. I guess I'll start by expanding on my previous sentence. It is not my place to convert you to Christianity. That power does not belong to anyone in this world. The choice someone makes to become a Christian is not a factor of people telling you to, it is a personal choice that person makes between themself and God. When they feel that they believe He is true, just like many of us believe that gravity is true, or that the air is true, or that love is true. When I say true I mean that these things exist in reality, they are real. I believe that God wants nothing more than to be your own best friend. I know that is going to sound strange to a lot of you considering that God has so many rules, regulations, and restrictions out there if you want to be his friend. I believe that these restrictions were put in place so that you would not harm yourself or others. It's no wonder that many Christians call God, Father. He's like your dad telling you not to play with that fork in the electrical outlet, and not to do drugs. He gives us these boundaries to protect us from the things that can seriously harm us whether we realize they can (there is much documentation out there on the negative side affects of a lot of illegal drugs, like death, and still people take them because it brings them a temoporary happiness in their life) or not(a two year old playing with a fork by an electrical outlet usually doesn't realize that the socket can harm them if they stick the fork in). That being said, I'm not saying that some parts of Christianity are not about fire and brimstone and hell. I really do believe in that, but that is not all that there is to Christianity. That is only the end result, Christianity is more about the way you live your life now. Now you as a person may be concerned about what happens to all those who don't believe according to what Christianity says. I know I'm scared, I read the book of Revelation the other week, because I thought it would be neat to know how the world is going to end. It scared the ...hell...out of me, literally. You are probably concerned about getting close to a God who literally damns all your friends to hell for simply not believing him. That right there is a big misconception. Because it isn't God that damns your friends, it's Satan. Some of you may be thinking (quite sarcastically) now "oh right, it's Satan, it's always satans fault. Sure." Some of you may be thinking "give the guy a break we all mess up, we all have our sadistic sides to us." Let me let you in on something. Satan doesn't pick sides. Satan is his own side. The very definition of the devil is a being that is pure evil. Just because some of you think you may be like him in your twisted little ways, you may think that since you are similar, you get to rule the afterlife together as one of the select few, or maybe even get a small reprieve, like slave owners used to give to those slaves that sucked up to them. Not happening. He's not that nice. The devil will not just kick you when you're down, he's so much worse than that...simply imagine the absolute worst and most painful things that can be done to a person,TO YOU!! (both physically and mentally, and most especially don't forget deceit and betrayal, those are his specialties)and multiply that thousandfold and you might be scratching the surface of what Satan will do to everyone he can for all eternity. No exceptions. None. Period. End of discussion. And now that I've gone over a little schpiel on the devil's behavior, I think it's time I told you about the God that I believe in and trust my soul to. I apologize if you find it boring if you've heard it before, but I think this is necessary to understand what I am saying. God is two things: God is just (as in upholds justice), and God is love. We'll start with the first point. In the universe there are two forces constantly at war with eachother good, and evil. I know this sounds cliche, but do you know what, Christianity was the originator of that particular plot device, everyone else copied it, that's why it's cliche. Anyway sorry for the tangent, I'm trying not to come off as snobbish and know it all, am I succeeding...I didn't think so either. So what does define good and evil. Why do we have a sense of right and wrong. The answer is God. There is no other reason for us to have these emotions and feelings (for that matter where do emotions come from?). God has defined His existence as good and He upholds that, He lives to stand as the archetype and epitome of rightness (is that even a word??? oh well it's my journal entry so I say it works). He cannot stand evil, He abhors it and wishes to abolish it with all His might. However, now we come to His second trait. Love. He wishes to be with everyone, and for everyone to be with Him. He doesn't want any to fall into the fire and brimstone. He already loves everyone (and I mean everyone), he only wishes for us to love Him back. He would save us all but for His sense of justice and His respect for us. Allow me to explain: remember all of those rules and regulations up at the top I was talking about, there is not one person on this plane of existance, Christian or not, who can stick to those for their whole life. We're only human, we screw up. But there must be a penalty for the wrong done. That is what justice is, it punishes the guilty. Love is what hopes that we will learn from our mistakes. But God knows, that where He is there is only one punishment (eternal death and damnation) and that everything where He is, is eternal, because He is eternal. In the old days (i.e. BC) people would perform physical sacrifices of life and livelihood (the slaughtering of sheep was a common one, it was a life and it was also their currency back then). They were giving up things that tied them to this world to show that they believed that God would provide for them, and in doing this they were paying off their debt of a lifetime for each sin. In those days God was showing us that He is just. In the year zero AD, He showed us that He loves us. Now because God is God, He can do this, I'm not sure how but He is in fact three people or parts and yet one entity. He sent down one part, the part we Christians call the Son to die. Now He loves the Son, and yes that is saying He loves Himself, but hey to some extent don't we all love ourselves (no matter how much we may deny it, we want to live, that's a form of love). Imagine a father, a dad, sending his only son, into a position where he would most surely die, no exceptions. Most fathers would never do that, they love their sons too much. Nonetheless, He did send His Son. Doing this did two things in my opinion, firstly, by sending the Eternal to become mortal and die, He has eternally paid of our eternal debt for all of our mistakes. Secondly it shows that to Him, we are just as important as He Himself. I'm sure you've all heard that one before, but just stop and think about it for a second and let is really sink in what it means. The same guy who sneezed you into existance with a couple of God sized boogers and a little belly button lint, values you just as much as his own life, rather than valueing you as we do our own boogers and belly button lint. On a side note I am not telling you to love your snot or the fuzzy stuff in your gut, unlike us, it really is inanimate and does not deserve a shrine in your bedroom, the world, or at least your parents and roommates will not thank you for such a mess. Now of course for any of those last paragraphs to mean anything to you you'd have to believe me...certainly not a given. I'm just going to spend these last few sentences explaining why I believe. Note that this is just me saying something for your information. I do not intend for these same reasons to work for anyone else but me. You have to find your own path. Certainly if these work for you fine you can certainly walk this road as well, I can't stop you, what's more I wouldn't want to. I have but to look at nature to see the hand of someone at work, because there is no way that something this complex and intricately woven together, just happened to pop up in just the right order. As for why Christianity out of the whole grab bag of religions-certainly there are many agnostics out there who don't know which to pick or just don't like any of them-Whenever I think about God, my God, I get a sense of peace and love that I can find nowhere else. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, September 24th, 2006
9:28 pm	To my friends and all the world To all my friends out there in the world, and to the world we live in: You are loved - Rebecca St. James - chorus This is what I want to say to you if I had one chance to speak to your heart. You are loved, more than you could ever know. This is what I want to say to you if I had one chance to tell you something. You are loved more than you can imagine...imagine (Comment on this)
Sunday, May 7th, 2006
7:31 pm	My fanfiction Because Andrew Lee requested it I'm posting the link to my fanfiction story here. Actually he requested I just go ahead and post it here but at 24 pages and growing I said no. If your interested it's a crossover between the anime series Zoids and Escaflowne. http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2521520/1/ Here's the synopsis: EscaflwonexZoids Remnant scientists from Dornkirk's regime want power. A new Atlantis machine drains power from Zoid Eve to get it. In response Zoid Eve sends Zi's greatest warriors to stop it. Van Flyheight&Fiona Van Fanel&Hitomi Raven&Reese Fiction Rated: T - English - Romance/Action/Adventure - Chapters: 2 - Words: 13303 - Reviews: 3 - Updated: 4-30-06 - Published: 8-6-05 As you can see I'm a little while between chapters but they will be done. I'm trying to make this a serious fanfiction, not a ridiculous fan-made parody like sooooo many other anime crossovers out there. I'm currently working on the outline for Raven's chapter and I have yet to decide whether or not I'll put the other Zoids characters like Irvine, Moonbay, and the Schubaltz brothers in the story because I'm not 100 percent positive I'll take the story back to Zi at some point. But I'm definitely thinking about it. Heck with all the time dilation stuff that happens between Gaea and Earth I may even be able to pull some Century Zero characters into the mix, but that's for me to know when I get to that point in the story and you to find out when I post it. Any and all input is welcome...except flames. If you flame me the Deathsaurer will resurrect and stomp your cruel, insensitive butt into the ground. So no flames 'kay? Good. (Comment on this)
Sunday, April 30th, 2006
5:24 pm	Box Turtle We have a box turtle living in our front yard. How do I know? I darn near ran over the poor thing with the lawn mower yesterday. I couldn't have been more than a few inches from the little guy when I noticed him under the tree I was mowing around. Fortunately when I picked him up I didn't see any score marks on him so I must not have actually hit him (or her, I don't know how to tell the difference when a box turtle has closed itself in). But anyway, we have a box turtle living in our front yard!! ^__^ In case you couldn't tell I'm a huge reptile fanatic. I love most things scaly and cold blooded. I do have a respect for the poisonous ones though, so Lee, don't go getting me a cobra or black mamba or anything like that (heaven forbid the one with two inch fangs you told me about) okay? Besides any pets have to be okayed by my parents anyway. Alright enough poking fun at Lee. I mainly posted this because I felt like it, it's my darn journal. Turtles! ^__^ (and snakes, and lizards, and dinos, and etc...) (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 14th, 2006
2:23 am	Snnff. My lizard died this weekend. Falcon was a leopard gecko, low maintenance, and fun to watch. I'll probably bury him tomorrow (today technically). I'll miss him. Falcon -March 11, 2006 (I'll fill in the birth date when I find that info.) (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, January 26th, 2006
3:21 pm	Guildpact prerelease tournament and school Yeah I went to the Guildpact prerelease tournament last saturday and had loads of fun. I got some really sweet cards and almost won one of the prizes, on the low end mind you, but I decided to push my luck a little too far. I was in the position to walk away with three extra packs for having a 2wins-1draw-1loss record when I entered the fourth round I had a 2-0-1 and so did my opponent, he offered a mutual draw so we would both get three packs, but I wanted to play. He handed my rear to me in the first game and barely beat me in the second game so he won. Oh, well, that's what I get. It's alright, I still came home with the cards I got to build my deck and some of them are pretty scary/awesome to boot. Also Lee gave me his Autochthon Wurm(10gggww for a 9/14 with trample and convoke(tap a creature to reduce the casting cost of this creature by 1 or one mana of one of the tapped creature's colors) b/c he couldn't use it in the decks he plays. My favorite way to bring it out is to ditch it into the graveyard, usually with someone's dredge ability and then revive it straight to play with vigor mortis (2bb). Anyway fun times with Magic cards, now I'm back in school as of yesterday, I'm taking thermodynamics, linear algebra, differential equations, physics 3, and an aerospace course that's half CAD and half professional prep. Joy. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 17th, 2006
2:06 pm	Christmas!!!! Ok, so I'm a little behind, but whatever, I don't really care what you people think. I got a bunch of really cool stuff for Christmas this year. I don't know what I like best, but I really really really like my blade liger model I got, it's so cool!!!!! And one of the coolest parts about it are the teeth and claws on this guy are not plastic, they're molded and painted metal!!!! For those of you who don't know I already have a Liger Zero with all three transformation armors so the Blade Liger already has a friend XD. Oh, and a really fun thing my sister and I did: My older sister Steph has been collecting the 1/144 scale gundam wing models, and each model shares many of the same molds with the others so when she got Shenlong and Altron she got two beam gliaves (the one for Shenlong). Anyway, both of my Liger models have motorized walking capabilities, so we took the Shenlong and Altron models and sat them on the backs of the ligers and then positioned the beam gliaves like lances, and thus was born the sport of LIGER JOUSTING!!!! (Yes we know we have no lives. XP) In case you were wondering the liger models are 1/72 scale so the gundam models are only half scale what they should be compared to the ligers, but even the 1/100 scale gunam models are ridiculously expensive and I'm not sure they even make 1/72 scale gundam models, those things would be a foot and a half tall roughly. It doesn't matter, Liger jousting was loads of ridiculous fun. One further not on the Blade Liger, Iv'e been on the look out for the cp-12 attack booster customize part, but every place I've looked that actually stocks it is sold out... I'll probably look again today. I also got the first three Zoids: Chaotic Century dvds and with some of my gift certificates (one to Robert's Anime Corner Store and one to Amazon) and some Christmas cash I bought the other eight dvds as well and I've already watched them all ^________^ !!!!!!! At 67 episodes and 22 minutes a piece per episode that's over 24 hours and 30 minutes of pure fun! (ahehehehehe XP) Sadly, no I did not watch them all in one stretch. I also got dot hack: Outbreak, the third in the series of four games, but I haven't started it yet because the last time I played dot hack: Mutation on what I believe to be the final boss of that game I got my rear end handed to me on a silver platter. So I got a little training to do before I get into Outbreak. I also got the game boy advance game Gunstar Super Heroes. That little game is loads of fun. It's really short once you get the hang of it, I can beat easy mode in a little over a half an hour (with Red), however I have yet to get to hard mode. For those of you who don't know in Gunstar Super Heroes you get a choice between two characters: Red and Blue. Personally I like Red better, her gun is better than Blue's is, but Blue's storyline is funnier, he's a smart mouth. What makes me still want to play the game is that you get more information when you play the harder levels and slightly different information depending on the character (we have Blue's mouth to thank for that). So I have beaten easy mode with both Red and Blue, though just barely with Blue, and I've beaten normal mode with Red. I'm having trouble with Blue on the last level of normal mode though. Let's see... what else did I get... I have two books that I haven't started yet, one of them is called Icarus Hunt, by Timothy Zahn, and the other is Midshipman's Hope, by David Feintuch, both look to be Sci-Fi novels, nothing wrong with that, i just haven't gotten to them yet. What I have done is swipe and read my dad's new fantasy book the 1258 page Chronicles of Amber... Okay so it's technically ten books in one so shoot me. Oh yeah, I also got an inuyasha cd: The Best of Inuyasha 2. I've listened to it a couple of times and there's about an hour of songs on it and I haven't really picked out a favorite yet. I got two more cd's too, one of them is a Mark Schultz cd and the other is Mercy Me, both are Christian cd's so if you haven't heard of them don't worry about it, but they are both pretty good. Ooh, I almost forgot, one of, if not the most random stocking stuffer I have ever gotten is a tiny orange highliter that smells like mango. Further into stocking stuffers, I got a wooden boomerang, two candy sticks (I think one was apple and the other was watermelon, I can't be sure though I ate them fairly promptly, like within three or four days, and I wouldn't trust my memory on the subject), and a couple of the christmas tree shaped reese's peanut butter cups. If there was anything else in my stocking I can't remember it. Almost forgot I actually got some clothes this winter too, actually it was just one shirt, but it's a nice golf shirt so now I have two. I know, my professional wear wardrobe is pretty pathetic, but ah whatever. No real category for this one but I did get a 2006 wall calendar that has a bunch of cool cars in it: the McLaren F1, a '98 Callaway C-12 Corvette, a '99 Plymouth Prowler, a '96 Hennessey Viper Venom, a '95 Lambo Diablo VT, a '98 Lambo Diablo SV, a '65 Ferrari 250, a '96 Detomaso Guara (never heard of that one before), a '94 Bugatti EB 110, a Cadillac EvoQ Convertible (concept car), a '94 Porsche Strosek, and a Ferrari F-50 GT1 S/N 001. Like I mentioned earlier I got some gift certificates, all three $25, one to Robert's Anime Corner Store (animecornerstore.com), one to Amazon (if you don't know this url, get out from under the rock you've been hiding under for the past 10 years or so), and one to Barnes and Noble which I have used to further my Love Hina manga collection so that now I am only missing volume 14. I got cash too, one of my uncle's on my mom's side was really generous this year and gave myself and my two sisters $60 each. He also gave each of the three of us a personalized pen and pencil set. I think that's finally everything (can't think of anything else). If this sounds like a lot of stuff to you that's because I'm a spoiled boy. I get three Christmas's: One at my own home with just my family, and one at both of my grandparents' places with extended family on their respective sides. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 13th, 2005
12:50 pm	My current anime music song fix This one's from the short anime movie called Voices of a Distant Star. Ignore whatever they say about the anime on the site, I loved it and I love this remix too. One of these days I'll get around to getting the full real track. Just copy the url into the bar up top to get to it and download it there. http://www.animeremix.org/Remix.php?REMIXID=63 (Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 7th, 2005
9:49 pm	Pain, the world, life, and love I can't watch the news. It makes me sick. I don't understand this cruel depraved world I live in, it makes me hurt inside to think of all the things that go wrong in this world. My heart can't take it and so I retreat into the oblivious world of my mind and live in my own way, a way which strives to right the injust, and heal the broken. I want so hard for hatred and petty cruelty to end, but I can't stop it. So I retreat into the world of my mind. It is a fantastic place where my imagination roams free, but it is not real, I know that. I don't understand war, I see the reasons behind it and the conflicts within, but when I step back and look at what it truly is, I cry inside, I break inside. It is an attempted justification of the phrase "might makes right". That's all it truly is. And in the process we seem to forget that the "enemy" is human too. When we fight, we become, to those people the very same "murderers" and "terrorists" that we may have accused them of being. It doesn't matter who starts the fight or who finishes, because, in the end, people are dead. Their lives are gone. "Innocent bystanders," or "soldiers," it doesn't make a difference, they were still human. The only way to make a difference is to break the cycle. The absolute greatest tool there is to stop this is to simply love. No matter where I look to in this world when I am brave enough to step outside of my mind, I never find one thing that is truly pure. So I look outside of this world, for something true, and pure, and light, and loving. In the end, the one thing, just the one thing that I have found that embodies everything I have searched for is Christ. He is real, I can feel Him. These days when I look around, not only do I see the pain and suffering, that will always be there, I also see something pushing it back. One thing that keeps this world, this universe from crumbling down to it's knees in despair. It's not a part of it, and yet it permeates all of it. It's this feeling of peace, love, joy, and contentment that is able to keep us sane. And, I realize, it is what has given me my sanctuary. Because the only way to understand and interpret these supernatural things is with our minds, I realize that when I retreat there, to get away from the world, what I experience is a pure dose of heaven. The only reason left to live is to spread this feeling. To ease the pain. I can't do this alone. Of that I am certain. So I will do what I can and put my faith in Him, because that is all that I can do. (3 Comments |Comment on this)