Well, it’s over, it’s done. I have learned how to row. At least I finished the basic rowing class, so now onto masters rowing (actually, the term ‘masters rowing’ is deceptive since it just refers to anyone over 27 who is able to row, no matter the skill level). It was fun and I met some interesting people who I’ll try to keep in touch with. I’ll sign up for recreational rowing, and later get involved with a more steady crew.
I think I am going to apply for a few jobs this year and see if I get lucky. If I don’t get a particularly good job, then I re-apply next year. I want to stay in grad school for as long as I can because, well, it not too stressful and the longer I stay, the greater the chance of me doing more work that will make being a post-doc easier, and the greater the chance of me getting a better position. In any case, a post-doc is like being in grad school, except you have more teaching responsibilities, and you have to be more productive with research to have a chance of getting a good tenure track position. All in all, a longer stay in grad school should make a post-doc easier.
Now onto some boring stuff. I’ve always been intrigued by the argument which implies that the following assumptions concerning God are inconsistent:
1. God is omniscient (God knows everything)
2. God is omnipotent (God can do anything)
3. God is omnibenevolent (God only does good things)
Now a lot of people believe the above assumptions and even think they should be obvious when speaking of God. However, the problem of evil contradicts the above three statements. From 1, God will certainly know if there is any evil in the world, from 2, God will have the power to prevent any evil in the world, and from 3, God will choose to prevent any evil in the world. These three statements tells us that they are no evils in the world because God would not let it happen. This is obviously not the case; there are evils in the world – no matter how you define evil – and so one of the above statements must be false. Many people who are convinced by this argument assumes that 3 – God is omnibenevolent – is not true. For now, I tend to think that 3 is not even a valid statement. By this I mean that we should not ascribe morality to the actions of God the way we ascribe it to humans. Even though God might do things that are right or wrong from our perspective, they may have not such relevance from God’s point of view.
