This page was last modified Thursday, 04-Oct-2007 17:33:16 EDT.

A list of all the questions I have. Email me and I may post your replies (without whatever info you tell me to omit...)

Questions

Religion

"They traveled through the Phrygian and Galatian territory because they had been prevented by the Holy Spirit from preaching the message in the province of Asia."
Why? Why were they prevented from preaching there? Does God hate asians? (If so, then perhaps out attacks in WWII were part of a crusade after all.)
If God is a god of forgiveness and mercy (New Testament), and He gave us free will, why does He lash out "in wrath" when we sin (Genesis) and partake in idol worship (Ezekiel)? In Ezekiel, it seems as if they died for what they did, not for God getting angry, though. God says things like, "According to their way I will deal with them; according to their own judgments I will judge them." - Ezekiel 7.27 Perhaps this is how God is fair: He judges you through your judgements, and deals with you according to your way ...
Is circumcision a good idea? (Healthier? Required for Christians?) Do circumcised men really have less sensation than un-? (It makes sense, as you would have constant friction, but I hate to think that I'm gotten the raw end of the deal, so to speak ...) It seems that God wanted it done in the Old Testament, but that Paul and others said to focus on the more important issues.
While reading the book of Genesis in the New American Bible, the footnotes contrast the Elohist account with the Yahwist account. What are those accounts, where did they come from, how do they differ? Are "Elohist" and "Yahwist" just adjectives to describe the narration, like, "this account depends on miracles" vs. "this account depends on historical context and common beliefs at the time"? Or did two different authors write Genesis? For an example to which I am referring, see this footnote in Genesis 31.
What did Jesus write on the ground, and why did he do it? (See John 8:1-11.)
Why does Jesus say this, if it was preordained or not him or the jews but all of us who did it?

Politics

Can we have a politician whose goal is to serve the people, rather than further his own career? Of course there must be both, but it seems today there is too much emphasis on the latter. And now universities call it "Political Science"... How is it a science? There are no experiments, they do not observe the public and make hypotheses in a laboratory environment. It's like they're pretending to be Social Psychologists.
Why do we need to live in manmade structures? Are we incapable of living with nature? (I watched a video in US History 2010 about New York City and the creation of New York Central Park. Creating nature to have a place to relax in the city... Is the city the inevitable result of mass human population?)
Why are so many of my peers uninterested in politics? How do they not care who controls their lives? Why do they not want to have a voice in affairs that affect them?
"This would include, at the very least, an implicit formal recognition of Israel’s right to exist, which Hamas has so far rejected." - From bad to worse, Economist.com.
Why are they unwilling to accept Israel as a state?
Why do our interstates have speed limits? The German Autobahn has speed limitless zones; why don't we? I hope there's a better reason other than "because some Americans do not drive safely."

Science

How do all the millions of radio waves and cell phone radiation affect my body? How do they know I'm not going to get cancer from it? :(
What is the limit to our strength as humans? I've generally regarded us as kind of weak, that our strength lay in our minds, not in eyesight or muscle. Yet I see freerunning videos on Google Earth with people running up and flipping off buildings ...
Why is water wet? I suppose this question is about organic chemistry; what is it in water that gives it a liquid form that both brush off our skin and partially cling to it? Is our skin polar? Does it have to do with Hydrogen bonding?
How does the mind work? I have always thought that it was our souls that thought, and that our souls used our minds to control our bodies. How do we think, then, if our brain is nothing but organic chemical compounds and electric signals?
Why does vistapages.com add gibberish to the top of my SHTML file when I upload it via Filezilla? Do their servers have some problem with SSI, SHTML, or Unicode? What's going on? I don't like failing CSS validation.

Health

Should I shower before bed or in the morning? I currently shower in the morning, to be fresh for the day, then rinse my face before I bed. I suppose I value how I appear to others more than how long I can use my bedsheets. Is it a good idea to shower before class or before sleeping? (I think washing twice a day is too much for me; maybe if I work out, but otherwise not.)
How long can you use the same bedsheets without changing them? When should you change them? How do you know to change them?
What sort of toothpaste should I use? The two major brands are Crest and Colgate, but it seems both are wasteful and detrimental to the environment, and both conduct unnecessary and painful (?) tests on animals. What else is there? And apart from that, what is good for my teeth? The Colgate toothpaste (which is running low) that my mother gave me uses "Sodium flouride [and] Triclosan" while Crest uses "Stannous fluoride" ... well what's the difference? What is so stannous about stannous flouride?!
How long does it take food to completely process through the typical human body? If I have diarrhea before I go to bed, was that what I ate for dinner, lunch, breakfast, or something yesterday?
How much sleep do I need every night? (I currently get around 8.5 hours, which I've read is average for most Americans.)
How much longer will I be growing? (I was born in 1987.)
Where did STDs come from? My Wellness A teacher never could answer the question. Her response was, "from someone else." "And where did they get them?" "From someone else." "No, but how did they originate? The first person to contract the STDs ... was it a genetic mutation?" "I don't know."
Why do I get a headache if I sleep too long? (I assume it's too long, anyway, if it gives me a headache.)
What are the differences between sex? I mean, apart from the norms of American society, are there really any noticeable differences? Women are more emotional and caring, while men are more rational and aggressive? Is the operational word there really "are", instead of "can be"?