You can be either on fire for Jesus, or off fire. It’s a binary operation. There is no such thing as partially on fire. However, this is not perhaps the best analogy because by natural law, anything on fire must consume fuel. If you are on fire, what is burning? It logically follows that whosoever today is on fire for Jesus, will tomorrow be a burnt out husk for Jesus.

However! Let us assume the fuel is not a physical thing, but something which humans have in plenty and whose loss will not be missed. Assume this metaphysical fire consumes and thereby destroys its fuel, burns on sin, purifying the soul like a self-cleansing oven.

Hm. At what temperature does sin burn? Do mortal and venial sins have the same ignition point? How many joules of energy are produced? At what spectrum frequency glows the flame? I humbly submit these theological questions to the Lord Our God.

(The Lord Our God says I take analogies too seriously.)

So me and my boyfriend were having an argument...

....about the viability of outlawing "loitering". So I looked it up.

From Chicago v. Morales:

"Chicago’s Gang Congregation Ordinance prohibits 'criminal street gang members' from loitering in public places. Under the ordinance, if a police officer observes a person whom he reasonably believes to be a gang member loitering in a public place with one or more persons, he shall order them to disperse. Anyone who does not promptly obey such an order has violated the ordinance. The police department’s General Order 92—4 purports to limit officers’ enforcement discretion by confining arrest authority to designated officers, establishing detailed criteria for defining street gangs and membership therein, and providing for designated, but publicly undisclosed, enforcement areas. Two trial judges upheld the ordinance’s constitutionality, but eleven others ruled it invalid. The Illinois Appellate Court affirmed the latter cases and reversed the convictions in the former. The State Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the ordinance violates due process in that it is impermissibly vague on its face and an arbitrary restriction on personal liberties."

So apparently I am of the dissenting opinion and Jeremy is of the majority opinion.

/sigh

Now if only all boyfriend/girlfriend disputes could be settled by Supreme Court verdicts....

I saw the most epic thing today, which restored my faith in humanity.

Jesus Painter (actually his partner) was here again. UMBC's drum circle also happened to be practicing in the same place. I think you can see where this is going.

Now, first for a little background. Jesus Painter is a fundamentalist preacher that comes by on campus, often with his associates. He preaches how Muslims and Hindus are going to Hell (often to their faces), preaches about Evil-lution in front of the Biology building, and- well, never mind the gay students. His church brought in little kids one time to proselytize and tell people about Jesus.

Most of the time people get very upset with him. I've seen a woman crying because of him, and Muslim students screaming at him. Atheists get into shouting matches with him. A good number of people will mock and insult him, and usually there's at least one, "Hail Satan" or "Raptor Jesus, Hallelujah!" or something like that. It gets very ugly and sometimes security has to come.

This is not what happened. By the time I got there, incense was burning, two girls were dancing with hula hoops, and the drummers were pounding one hell of a rhythm and making it difficult to hear the preacher. One of the drummers picked up a reggae tune, his voice carrying over the sermon to the crowd around him.

"Preacher mon, why do you say I'm goin' to hell?"

The preacher carries on, trying to keep the attention on him. The crowd takes the cue. It starts clapping to the drums.

"Heaven is where my heart is, and my heart is here." The drummer begins to dance with one of the hula girls, who doesn't seem the least to mind.

The preacher is petrified. It's the first nice day in September, and people are having fun despite him.

The singer gives up his stage for an aspiring freestyle rapper. A middle-aged office worker in a shirt and tie walks out of the admin building, maybe on lunch break, and stands there a while, eying first the preacher, then the revelers, looking confused. Finally, he sits down by a djembe and started tentatively accompanying a punk kid drumming away in a tree. By the time the first singer picks up his song again, joined by a second tenor and an improvised beatboxer, most people have forgotten about hatin'.

I don't care if any of them were philosophy majors or not, it was the most extraordinary theological debate I've ever seen.

The Best Math Problem Ever

(from one of my friends' textbooks):

"Conan the Great has boasted to his hordes of followers that many a notorious villain has fallen to his awe-some sword: his total of 560 villains consists of evil sorcerers, trolls, and orcs. These he has slain with a total of 620 mighty thrusts of his sword; evil socerers and trolls each requiring two thrusts (to the chest) and orcs each requiring one thrust (to the neck). When asked about the number of trolls he has slain, he replies, "I, the mighty Conan, despise trolls five times as much as I despise evil sorcerers. Accordingly, five times as many trolls as evil sorcerers have fallen to my sword!" How many of each type of villain has he slain?"