two things i know

 Two things I know:

1. The good opinion of a fool is not worth having.
2. It is an honor to have certain people as enemies. 

uh... rapture?

 So today's September 25, after the Rapture was supposed to happen on the 23^rd or 24^th.

 It looks like everybody's still here, at least in this neighborhood.

The only possible explanation is that it happened, but none of my fellow-citizens qualified to be taken up. 

thinking about COVID-19

 In an earlier post, I wrote that I had been stricken with COVID, days before Thanksgiving; The Excellent Wife (TEW) has as well. I found it a weird concurrence to be infected weeks after Trump, who so mismanaged the pandemic in 2020, was re-elected.

The truth is that I've sought out and received every COVID vaccine that's been offered since they were first available (in fact, it was a requirement of my last job at Rutgers/UMDNJ that I do so for the first three or four). And in 2024, COVID is far less threatening or frightening than it was four years ago. (Trump, if anything, is even more frightening than he was.) Both my wife and I have started a course of Paxlovid (we are blessed with one of the best medical insurance offerings in the state of New Jersey), and, while she (as many do) is having some gastric distress as a side effect of the medication cocktail, we are finding the Paxlovid safe and effective. I had one bad day and two bad nights, and am now tired but generally improved (I am, however, producing urine such that I'm comparing myself to Moses striking the rock at Meribah in Exodus 17, producing water where there was none).

I'm in a high-risk group: men over 65 with hypertension. The high-risk-group thing appears to be far less of a concern than it once was, and there is no longer talk of "long-COVID" in these cases, or the permanent loss of taste; the doctor at the doc-in-the-box compared my case to being like flu or bronchitis (and, indeed, I've had cases of both of the latter, with much worse effects than what I'm suffering now with the COVID). Still, we're medicating, quarantining, and masking when we do have to go out, because while we have comparatively mild cases, it's not clear that people we might infect would have the same experience, especially if they either did not have access to the vaccine, or refused to take it.

(We'll not get started on the shared responsibility for the severity of illness for people who refused the vaccine.)

So my concern when I saw the deep red line on my COVID test indicating my positive result was, perhaps, unfounded. Despite it being Thanksgiving Day, I'm not ready to say I'm grateful about any of this (an omnipotent, benevolent god might have ensured that COVID never developed in the first place). But I'll admit it could have been worse, and I'm glad for my privileged position, my excellent wife, my few healthy habits.

awestruck, maybe

 I'm away at the United Bicycle Institute's Professional Repair and Shop Operation two-week class (there will be other posts about that). The Excellent Wife (TEW) accompanied me for the first week, and I don't post about being away while the house is empty, but she's back, and I'm alone here now. For the middle weekend of the class, I decided to take a drive to Jedediah Smith National & State Park to see the giant redwoods. TEW had gone by herself earlier in the week, and told me what to expect for the trip. 

But I don't think anything could have prepared me for the experience. It's a day later, and I still don't have words for it. I'll post some pictures, but they don't do justice for what being there was for me.

I make jokes about everything. I talk all the time. 

I have no words for this.

thoughts on god

I know that there are few people looking at this blog yet, but I think I want to be able to refer back to this some day. 

===

First: I have no idea whether there was a creator or not, and it makes no difference to me. The big bang story is a better representation of the way the universe works than the Genesis story: the big bang story leads to technology and inventions, as the other does not.

Whether there was a creator for the big bang doesn't make a damn bit of difference. If there was a creator, there is not a shred of evidence that the creator answers prayers.

The gods of pre-Christianity, and generally the gods outside of the Abrahamic religions, were and are powerful and arbitrary. When I look at forces in the world, I find them powerful and arbitrary; I think the old gods describe the world better than Abrahamic god does. (In the real world, much of what Christians call "blessings" don't sound like blessings to me. Your cancer was cured? Who gave it to you in the first place? And why was yours cured when somebody else's wasn't? You think you deserved it? Really? It sounds like power and caprice to me.)

Just because there may (or may not) have been a creator, what makes us think that it is a father?

What about justice and mercy? Well, I see no evidence that the universe is interested in either. The universe appears to be interested in powewr (and maybe beauty), but not justice or mercy (or safety or comfort, either). We're interested in justice and mercy; those are human things. They are important, and argue for something common to humanity, but they don't provide evidence of any god*. 

I consider myself a "post-monotheist". Because of the argument above, I can't believe that there's one god who answers prayers and whatnot. But there are undoubtedly things that people find sacred. The Quakers are right that no one place is necessarily any more sacred than any other place. But it is the particular that we find sacred. If everything contains mystery, then nothing does. Mystery is in the specific. If you love everyone equally, then how do you distinguish the love for your particular partner or particular friends? Love and mystery must be in the specific.

The best metaphor I can come up with for myself is believing in the sacredness, and thus the god, of every particular place, person, thing, experience. Now, I don't really believe that there is a god, for example, of Amwell Road, with whom I actually have a dispute. But talking like that helps me to focus on the specific, the here-and-now. I doubt that most sensible Romans really believed that the god of some particular place or condition was going to reward or punish them; they were, I'm sure, able to separate their nuts-and-bolts, getting-the-job-done knowledge from the poetic language of sacred experience, poetry, and wonder. (Everything I read about Hinduism suggests that the multiplicity of their gods is a way of understanding and ordering experience, but they don't believe that literally, either; the term "henothism" gets used for the "one god" behind Hindu belief. I think it's like that.)

===

Now: how about a couple of bible quotes?

Matthew 21:

19   And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away.

20   And when the disciples saw it, they marvelled, saying, How soon is the fig tree withered away!

21   Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.

22   And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.

Mark 11:

12   And on the morrow, when they were come from Bethany, he was hungry:

13   And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet.

14   And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it....

20   And in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots.

21   And Peter calling to remembrance saith unto him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away.

22   And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.

23   For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.

24   Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.

 

"What things soever ye desire... ye shall have them". There's not a Christian high-school student in the country who hasn't disproven that statement, after praying for, and believing, something all night, to be disappointed in the morning.

 

I don't give a damn if you think there's a creator or not. But don't come to me with your balderdash about anybody answering prayers. 

 

*Y'know what else isn't evidence for any god? Symmetry. When I look at the world, I see balance, and sometimes it works out as almost symmetry... but it's not; it's always flawed. It takes humans to make large structures with perfect symmetry.