The Blog of Oscar Godson

I thought it would be nice to start my blog off with a bang with this controversial topic. Read the quote and then read my explanations.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

- Epicurus [341–270 B.C.]

What does this quote mean to you? I’ll tell you how I read it. The first sentence is simply asking does God want to stop the evil, but can’t? He says then he is not omnipotent, or all powerful. Which is true. If he really gave you “free will” and is powerless against free will then he really isn’t the all powerful “thing”.

The second is saying can he prevent evil, but doesn’t? Then he is the evil person. If he has the power to stop the evil brought on by free will, but doesn’t then he is evil. He would have no feelings for anyone. If you saw someone getting stabbed to death, and you had some type of power to stop it such as a gun or some magical powers, but instead sat there and said, well, you were walking on this street and you know there are bad people out there, wouldn’t you be considered evil or just crazy?

The third is saying does he have the power to stop evil and wants to stop the evil. He then says, well, how did evil come about. This all depends on what religion you believe in, but since I am referring to Christian beliefs I’ll go off the Adam and Eve fable. If you say Adam and Eve did it and made the evil this contradicts the first part of the quote. He would still be able to stop the evil if he really is the all powerful supernatural creature. But he is not if Adam and Eve somehow bypassed his power. Maybe Adam and Even should be God/Goddess. Then this would mean, if you are Christian, God can not prevent evil even if he wanted. He is omnipotent or malevolent.

The last is the easiest to understand. Is he neither able to stop the evil or want to stop the evil? Then why call him God. God is “the supreme being” based on many dictionary definitions. No matter what God you have if he falls into this category then he isn’t really a God.

I love this quote because it makes you contradict yourself about your God, if you have one. I am an Athiest so this is just what I need when I talk to theist. They will make up some long confusing explanation and somehow be “right”. I would love your input on this quote!

Everywhere you go on the internet these days there are Adobe/Macromedia Flash files everywhere. Ads are almost always flash and somtimes entire sites are Flash, but why? What do you get out of having a Flash based website?

http://www.kinodesign.com for example has a website that is entirely Flash based. Why? I don’t see the plus here. They don’t use any fancy Flash tricks. You can do this all with javascript and even easier, CSS. The top navigation could be done with simple CSS image hovers and the navigation and the portfolio could all be done with CSS. JQuery could do the orange to white effect that happens when you click on portfolio or when things fade in or out.

Yes, if you don’t know coding such as (X)HTML, CSS, or Javascript/JQuery this would take longer then throwing this all together in a Flash file and uploading, but think of all the benefits.

• Indexing on search engines based on content rather then just META tags.
• People with disabilites can still access the site with their special browsers such as text browsers or browsers that speak.
• Pages load on dial up a lot faster. Even high speed users have to wait. Think about dial up users.
• Will load on most mobile devices also. PSPs, Wiis, and Cells run out of memory when faced with tons of Flash files everywhere.

Those are just some of the benefits. With a little extra time you can get everything you wanted in a Flash site in a XHTML and CSS based website. The only time I can see using a Flash file is like the use on YouTube where they use it for their videos. If you notice everything on their site is XHTML and CSS though. Everything, but the videos.

This is why I don’t use Flash ever on any of my sites. It’s useless to a portfolio site or any other site for that matter. Just don’t use it. Learn a small amount of CSS and then a little HTML and your site will be 10x faster and more professional.

Alright here is my first post! I skinned the blog and it looks fab! Thanks to wordpress! They make great blogging software you can skin pretty easily. Took me only a few hours to skin this from the default to look like my main site. The admin panel is awesome also.

My blog is going to have a lot about computers, science, and politics. I’ll be writing mostly about Macs/Apple in computer stuff. Science will mostly be about the afterlife and religion. I am Atheist so beware. I am very liberal so beware also. I love comments though so feel free to post a comment whatever belief you are.

So take a look around!

(post updated: Oct. 4th 2007 after changing theme to a new one)