Madness In My Method

I was wondering...

If the concept of having a child "out of wedlock" only applies (in the minds of the folks who actually care about this stuff) to the moment the mother gives birth to the child, essentially giving the couple upwards to 9 months to make amends and prevent their child from being called a bastard, then why isn't that same lax in standards applied to abortions?

Of course, this is completely rhetorical. I already know that the answer is that nothing about the thoughts in the minds of the folks who actually care about this stuff is ever remotely consistent, unless you count being consistently inconsistent - a description I've used for decades now to describe my bowling style.

If God is a placebo
and the placebo effect works,
Then God works.

But only if you believe.

After all, both God and the placebo effect require unquestionable belief in order to be effective.

On the other hand, if you KNOW that that pill is a placebo, then it doesn't have an effect. The same also holds true for God. If you believe that God is a placebo, then there is no true belief in The Power Of God (the magical cure-all pill), and therefore God has no affect.

The most interesting part about this is that we have a choice to truly believe or not believe.

Ponder that one for a moment.

There's that "but" again...

I saw this on PostSecret today, and the first thought through my head was, "Then you're not an atheist."

The second thought through my mind was, "Whenever you say, 'Blah, Blah, Blah, BUT...' then you completely negate anything that came before the 'BUT'." We've had this conversation before.

The two thoughts complement each other.

I've been watching Earth2 while doing my elliptical workout. Last night I watched episode 7, which introduced that universe's idea of marriage contracts, a result of the briefly mentioned religious wars.

In this universe, however, I get the feeling that marriage contracts will be yet another spark towards our own religious wars.

On a church billboard while driving to work:

"Things that are seen are temporary"


I do not discount the wisdom of this, but I do have to add the [proper] corollary:

"Things that are unseen are imaginary."

I still don't like the word agnostic. It's too fancy. I'm simply not a believer. But, as simple as this notion is, it confuses some people. Someone wrote a Wikipedia entry about me, identifying me as an atheist because I'd said in a book I wrote that I wasn't a believer. I guess in a world uncomfortable with uncertainty, an unbeliever must be an atheist, and possibly an infidel. This gets us back to that most pressing of human questions: why do people worry so much about other people's holding beliefs other than their own?

- Alan Alda

EDIT: It's ironic that I found this while reading his Wiki page.

I liked these lines:
Instead, she said, they can only be interpreted personally.
"Wiccans don't think of things as being good or evil — they just are. Our experience of them makes them positive or negative for us."


It's not just Wiccans that think like that.

Yesterday while coming home from work for lunch, I saw a large dust devil (not to be confused with dirt devil) crossing the street I was on. It was about 20+ft tall, just slightly taller than the buildings right there which are 2-story warehouse types.

I woke up this morning think about that dust devil. Of course, we only call them dust devils because it's the dust that gets caught up in the vortex that allows us to see the swirling air. This morning I was picturing a person just standing around while a more or less dust-free cyclone came swirling by. The person would be hit by a lot of wind with hair flowing around everywhere. I figure it would look a little like Drew Barrymore's character in Firestarter as she's walking away from the flames behind her and she's looking all powerful.

So, we need to learn how to predict these things, especially the clear cyclones, and then have a mob of people listen and watch as some scapegoat person professes to be a messiah just as they get hit by a cyclone.

"Can you feeeeeel eet? I can feel it! See my hair flopping in the wind and yours is not? That's the GOOD LORD telling you I'm the one! I am come! - Voodoo Majik!"

Here is a comment someone left on a website regarding a free match-3 type game:
Sorry but I am not one to support games that support halloween - thanks anyway


Heh - I took stock in my own practices of support and discovered that I don't support games that support the Bible. Coincidence?