I got this from Jeri and it freaked me out pretty bad.

Imagine this. It’s Sunday night and you’re sitting in a movie theater watching The Signal, an independent horror movie about a mysterious transmission which invades every cell phone, radio and TV, turning people into killers. And then suddenly, two men sitting in separate areas of the theater are randomly attacked and stabbed by an unknown man who was watching the movie. This isn’t just a scenario, this actually happened last night at the AMC Theater in Fullerton. Is The Signal real?

I go to this theater rather often. It's gotten progressively shadier since I was in college. The fact that they haven't caught the guy is kind of nuts too. So there's a psycho loose in the area. Hopefully they'll catch him soon. I honestly don't think this has anything to do with the movie itself, but it's pretty weird since it's so close to my home.

One common argument for the existence of God is the moral argument, which says that the best explanation for humanity's shared sense of right and wrong is a god who sets an objective standard. I've discussed with the Morality Argument before, but I'd like to bring up one particular question that comes up for people who subscribe to this argument: The Euthyphro dilemma:

ἆρα τὸ ὅσιον ὅτι ὅσιόν ἐστιν φιλεῖται ὑπὸ τῶν θεῶν, ἢ ὅτι φιλεῖται ὅσιόν ἐστιν

Which translates to "Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?" When dealing with Christianity, the dilemma can be phrased like this: "Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God?"

If God commands things because they're moral, then that means there is some standard of morality above and outside of God and he's only passing it on to us.

If something is moral only because he commands it, then morality is arbitrary. If God wanted to declare that genocide is allowed, then it would no longer be evil. If God is the very definition of good, then saying "God is good" is meaningless. You might as well say that that the book 1984 is Orwellian.

The standard Christian response to the dilemma is to say that goodness flows from God and is one with his very nature. I don't think that really avoids the problems of the dilemma, but I'm not bringing this up in order to settle the issue. I only want to point out that there is a dilemma. It doesn't disprove the existence of God, but it does show that the Moral Argument is not without its problems. I think that there are better explanations for our shared morality than god that are simpler, fit better with the facts and raise fewer questions.

Note: I encountered the Euthyphro Dilemma while reading a review of Reasonable Faith by William Lane Craig. The review was written by Chris Hallquist and I recommend it. And yes, this is all a thinly veiled excuse to add Greek to a post.

So nice

Originally uploaded by brendoman

Here is my photo set of my unboxing pictures for those curious. Look at how small that baby is. I'm really digging it so far.

Sara and I went to the AMC Best Picture Showcase on Saturday. It ran from 11 am to 11 pm, with about a 20 minute break between each film. The $30 ticket included all 5 movies and unlimited popcorn.

12 hours is a long time to be in a theater, but it's still nothing compared to the 24-hour Butt-Numb-a-Thon that Brendan went to in 2003. There were over 400 of us in the theater and it did start to smell by the end of the day.

Sara watched Juno with some friends in December, but other than that, we had not seen any of the movies. I thought they were all good films.

Juno was my favorite, though I wasn't surprised that it didn't win. Daniel Day-Lewis deserved the Best Actor Oscar and Diablo Coty did write the best original script.

HowToTalkGood.com is a site dedicated to exposing and improving business communication. It's produced by my brother, Mike. Mike is a professional writer and he uses knowledge, sarcasm and pitiless scorn to point out the stupid ways that some business people are using the English language.

I don't remember my Friday night all that well. I know Ric and I took it easy and skipped painting for once!

On Saturday, we joined the Hutchinseses for an afternoon with the Kings. We totally thought we were going to lose when it was 5-1 in favor of the Blackhawks, but then in the last period, we tied it up, the final goal being 13 seconds before the period ended. We were all amazed and excited. Unfortunately, we lost in overtime. It was a very fun afternoon. When we got back, I worked on more unpacking for a couple of hours. That evening, Ric and I went to Ric's parents' place to continue painting kitchen cabinet doors. I spent the rest of the night working on that stuff.

Sunday, we went to church with Liz. I got some sudden sharp pains in my stomach, so I spent the morning and afternoon in bed. I watched the Mythbusters MacGuyver episode, which was awesome. That evening I felt better, so I went with Ric back to his parents' place for pizza, Oscars, and painting. We ended the night by watching In the Shadow of the Moon, which I definitely recommend.

Up this week: more paint, of course! We've also got several movie activities planned with friends. Work is super busy. Today I was incredibly productive... right until the server went down. It's bad, and they think that everything we did today will have to be lost, which means all of my productivity was a total waste! I could have been playing Scramble!

The Onion News Network: Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

You, the readers, once again successfully chose the Best Picture winner correctly. Nice job. I thought the Oscars were all right, no big surprises except I think Transformers got robbed on the effects and sound awards, especially poor Kevin O' Connell who has now been nominated 20 times without a win. My favorite moment was probably the performance of "Falling Slowly" and its subsequent win. Nice job, guys. Kudos to the Academy for letting Marketa Irglova come back up to deliver her speech after she got cut off.

I'm having trouble coming up with new poll ideas so feel free to submit yours in the comments or through email if you want it to be top secret. In the meantime, feel free to choose whether you like Hilary or Obama.

I mentioned Micah P. Hinson once briefly after discovering a single song by him on a podcast. Since then I've bought his two solo albums and I'm happy to say that all of his music is excellent. Have a listen.

Diggin a Grave on 103.1 FM

She Don't Own Me on BBC Collective:

It's hard to believe this guy is younger than I am. The first time I heard him I thought he sounded like an old, weathered country/folk singer.

And just because this song is so brilliant, check out the studio recording of She Don't Own Me.