I am not a person to whom faith comes easily…
I have never been a follower… (so if I follow your blog, you should know that I didn’t reach that decision without a great deal of thought)… And studying history as I do has made me all too aware of how the organized religions have been co opted by the greedy and power hungry for their own gain.
But I am slowly coming to the conclusion that there just might be some sort of guiding force behind the universe, because I have something of an eye for patterns and shapes and forms, due to the fact I am so art-side-of-the-brain oriented.
Allow me to present my case;
1. There is almost always a bully in each and every school classroom.
2. There is almost always one crazy lady living on every street.
3. There is almost always one insane Dictator in every country’s history… (We in America have been lucky and not found ours yet… the second Bush didn’t have the mental wherewithal to become one, and Dick Cheney, well, his heart just wasn’t in it… maybe the new heart will… well, no sense panicking yet)…
So doesn’t it seem that if all of this was just pure random happenstance, that sometimes you would be in class surrounded by bullies, you would go home to your street that was simply overrun with old ladies who each had 63 cats, and you would be living in a country that was run by a conglomeration of Hitlerian psychopaths?
I feel your skepticism, but let me make one last point. I have met the coolest, nicest, most helpful, funny, artistic, creative people while doing this blog. If life was just the roll of giant dice, then doesn’t it seem likely that somewhere there would be a city populated by only people I could actually get along with? And I would be living there. So far, the San Francisco Bay Area is as close as I have come, but there are still a lot of people there who couldn’t think their way out of a moist paper bag, so my theory still holds. And fate has decreed that we, the bloggers, should be spread out throughout the world, so that our gifts would form bright gardens of color, each an oasis in the desert, where the dusty traveler could refresh himself.
I am not quite ready to drop to my knees in prayer, but I am at least willing to discuss the possibility of a higher power now.
I suppose this could be construed as progress.
Pouring My Art Out 
I have two thoughst to share, well maybe two words since thoughts are sparse in my head tonight,
Thise two words are:
1. Fractals,
2. Thr Troikia Incedent. By James Cooke Browne
http://www.amazon.com/Troika-Incident-James-Cooke-Brown/dp/
Happy Habitating..~ BB
If you are looking for answers, you have come to the wrong place. I specialize in clever questions. Sort of.
i be that greater pwer…greatgodpan be i……………..but seriously …ive followed a lot of these god anti god arguments and they all boil down to the same thing…….like a dog chasing its own tail………like this…who created god? ….an in retaliation……oh well how did a big bang occur out of nothing…blah blah blah round and round………there is order otherwize how could life exist ..blah blah….this is fine if you asume that the universe exists to support life…..are you sure that it does?………….what is nothing?……….ok we have this big bang and the universe of matter expanding into space?…………..what is space?……..is it nothing?…………..surley not………..even area devoid of matter is not nothing………….area is something………….so you see humanity actually knows absolutly zero………….and our biggest mistake is that we assume that the universe exists in our image for our enjoyment……….silly…………but …..and this is interesting…….i do not believe that the human mind can create something out of nothing…….it creates out of what it sees and percieves with its senses…..on the shoulders of giants so to speak……….so……….where and how does this universal concept of god or gods come from…..along with many universal religious concepts….blood sacrifice,circumscision,marriage,flood theories,etc etc…..these are not restricted to christianity…….clearly something that humans have perceived and tried to explain………what did they see?………are we still seeing it?……i think so………..religion is an attempt to explain what they saw in the terminology of their day…….a precursor to what we now call science……..the terminology is altered and possibly a little more sophisticatd (which is a relative term) but the essence is the same ………….i know not………………
and 4 thousand years from now the terminology will have altered again and i still doubt they will know the answer….by then we will be refered to as the equivalent of bronze age peasants………….
Ah, the bronze age. Those guys had no clue, right?
the bronze age….of course not…you gotta be dumb to invent bronze hey…………look at the ten commandments….taken as a whole despite certain arguable points its a darn foolproof blue print for an ethical,workable society……..clearly moses (or whoever) had thought about and knew something rather profound……………….
I have always wondered how people went from the ten commandments to the crusades and the Spanish inquisition. But hey, no one expects the Spanish inquisition.
its called politics………..and power.
both of those should be kept safe and small.
just remember that in a theocracy a priest is in fact a politician…..banker…general…..etc……..this applies to the ayathola (however its spelt) still………tell me was oppernheimer a scientist or a politician?……….
That is a deep question.
But the Big Bang Theory is still a good show, right?
ahh for sure …like fireworks…im a pyromanic remember…………..good theory……..but theory non the less………………..
Good bloggers are spread out so we don’t have enough Atlantis on our hands. I bet that’s where they all used to be. Then the big volcano/flood happened and we lost an entire continent. I think the strangest thing with WordPress is I rarely find any bloggers who live any bit close to me. Must be our massive amounts of acid rain which makes everyone ’round here so dopey.
Ummmm… that is exactly what I was trying to say… sort of…
Dear pmao,
I don’t know what they think – I have Hermititis & People Phobia so if I could ever get out of the house I wouldn’t be able to speak to the freaks anyway to find out if they think I AM the cat lady without cats. In my opinion the couple next door are the local mentals – they have 3 cats that poo all over my garden. I’m in an ongoing battle with those cats but they seem to know my every move before I’ve even thought of it myself. Psycho Tormenter cats from hell.
Love Dotty xxx
Obviously you are the most sane person on your street.
Dear pmao,
I don’t like cats.
Love Dotty xxx
Cat ladies a a generic crazy lady type that everyone would recognize. I mean this in the nicest way possible, but don’t you think it likely that some of your neighbors consider you to be the official eccentric of your neighborhood? I mean, you know I find you delightful and deliciously quirky, but still…
I am just counting the days til I can be one of the crazy people. There’s one near me, she takes a baby wlaker out each day with two dolls in it and she tells them off. One was left at home recently, I expect she was being naughty.
I am not sure there is anything guiding lifes conicidental randomness. Maybe being a crazy cat lady is just a lifestyle choice like any other.
I don’t think about other people’s beliefs so I am not sure why some have to think about my lack of any and sometimes quite forcibly.
I suppose people look for a point in life, and they see religion as giving them those answers and makes them feel more stable and secure. There’s nothing wrong with that.
I turned out alright following my own thought process and my own decisions and my own morals have kept me in good stead.
I really should start a cult.
I have always had a moral center. There are just things I wont do. I can tell right from wrong. And a person who can’t, well religion isn’t going to make them a better person.
I need to do a post about the crazy lady on my street where I grew up.
I’m with you there, it’s pretty common sense for what is right and wrong, I’ve never had a problem deciding which was which. it wasn’t hard to figure out. But then many organised religions spend more time interfering in other peoples business just ebcause they don’t agree with them.
You need to change the subject or you’ll get trolls. If you do send one over to me.
No the crazy lady I look forward to hearing about, I have a story too, concert pianist turned crazy lady.
I don’t even know what trolls are… sigh…
Not even the fantasy world trolls?
I thought we already were Joe.
I want to hear your crazy lady story.
trolls are the ugly guys (and gals i suppose,dont wanna be sexist now) that live under the bridge
I thought it might be a computer term of some sort.
The creepy ones…
They serve a useful function. Someone has to guard the bridges and ask the tough questions.
That is a good point.
Although I am not thrilled with the way the underside of bridges smell…
She was a concert pianist who went mad and lives in a car now, car is paper mache’d with newspapers. She also wears shoes made of newspapers and screams at coffee shops “I shit in your coffee, i shit in your tea” She hates cyclists on the pavement so I’m with her on that score. Sometimes she stands back to the wall banging her head against it.
That was years ago, the one in Camden now has pippi longstocking hair, striking as she’s black, and she sits on a stool drinking disdinfectant laughting at people.
I wonder what my ‘thing’ will be when I’m old and crazy?
you could be the crazy cat whino. 😉
don’t drink much wine
Me either. I kind of hate it, but it does that job if needed.
Off home, 4 day weekend starts here! Laters Hobbs!
Bye Joe, have a great weekend!
You could draw faces om all your finger nails and have them have conversations with people walking by, and with each other. Draw happy faces, sad faces, mad faces. Just start pretending your fingers are real people. Start telling them to behave themselves.
That is genius!
I couldn’t have thought up a better crazy thing
Thanks… I think… I didn’t have any problem thinking crazy… hmmmm. I am doing a series of posts detailing my love of all things English, just so you know.
your morals are not your own…..morality is societal………you are taught morals…………………………..wether you conscienceiously recognize it or not…………
Haha, awesome post! I also have that crazy lady on my street. Luck has it that she lives right across the street from me. She was my math teacher for middle school and I remember one time (I never figured out if she was joking or not) that she stated that she had mad cow disease. Oh well, hope everything’s well with you!
I missed this one. Sorry. What’s up?
Not the best argument I’ve ever read, but if it works for you. . .
Just trying to shed some light on things from a slightly different angle.
I absolutely do not believe in a power higher than my own. I believe we are energy that doesn’t dissipate but is transformed. That’s enough from me.
I am with you on that. This was a metaphorical exercise. But the energy might flow into unexpected shapes and patterns as it reacts with itself. So maybe the energy is power, and the power can cause itself to take on aspects of a higher power. I am not talking giant man in the clouds with a long beard. And what if it is more like a Dr. Who kind of a thing. Like civilizations so advanced that they have become energy, which like to stick their snouts into thinks to see what happens? There are many possibilities.
We are singing the same song but only one of us can carry a tune. I’m tone deaf.
I know you know this already- you’re interesting because you’re smart, funny is icing on the cake!
Thanks. You can now buy tunes with handles built into them. Makes carrying them a breeze.
WOW. You have definitely proven something here. There is an order to life and an order to things around us whether we realize it or not. I’ve always heard the math argument, usually I try to rely on the Fibonacci sequence to explain order in this place and universe, but you’ve explained order in a way that people haven’t noticed before. Why would there be “x” amount of people with certain traits and “x” amount of people who try to fill the world with random retreats around the world such as the oasis you described? You truly are an artist and have an eye for seeing the world differently, such a wonderful blog! Thank you for inviting us into your oasis. 🙂
What I do not have is an eye for seeing the world in normal ways. But I thank you sincerely for the compliment and your time.
Hmmm…. I’m not sure I buy into the higher power thing just yet. For the most part I think most formal organized religions are full of hypocrites. This is just what I remember from going to church a Baptist church as a child. The hypocrisy was blatant enough that even at a 9 or 10 years old I knew it.
Although I do believe that finding so many smart, funny, and caring people here in the blogosphere is like good karma for the good deeds we’ve done in the past. Which… in retrospect I guess would mean I do believe in some sort of higher power… just not the one I first imagined when I read your post. Again… hmmm. You’ve given me something to contemplate this afternoon. Thanks 🙂
I have no problem with people worshiping a higher power, but I could never respect a higher power that felt the need to BE worshiped. And people who use religion to justify their prejudices and hatreds can kiss my grits.
Do you know what one of the most visible evidences of God’s existence is to me? Pi from math. The Ratio of a circle’s circumference to it’s diameter. I know you’re not a math guy, but the fact that there is this scientifically proven constant in Math and that with all of our computer power we still can’t find a repetition just shows me that this world is too big to be understood by us, and there is too much order in nature to blame it on an accident. Not to mention experiences that have caused me to acknowledge his presence. Plus you can see his touch in nature. I can at least. There is no way that could be random.
I will now astound you by combing math, philosophy, fate and religion, in one sentence;
There is a 50% chance that there is a higher power.
Wonderful assesment. It is something that is much debated, and honestly I see why a lot of people doubt in the existence of God, but I believe in him. Now, religion is something that I don’t believe in. I have very good reasons for both. At least I think I do. 😉
I never thought that people would take my little joke so seriously. Beware the power of the written word. (And this includes religious books as well)…
I know…see all of my apology posts…
That is because you are a rabble rouser.
Something like that. I just talk too much.
At least you have stuff to say. Even WordPress warns new bloggers; ‘You have to have content’… in other words, if you don’t have anything to say, don’t do a blog. Do you know how many posts I have seen that started with the words ‘I don’t really have anything to say but’…
Yeah, I’ve seen a lot too. Do you want to hear a little piece of genius tonight? “You can’t interrupt if you don’t have anything to say”. Yep, brilliant right? It was one of my OAA characters who thought of it. That is the great thing about senility. The things you write can take on lives of their own and start writing themselves. Am I talking too much?
I write stuff all the time without thinking of all the ways people could take it. Like this post. I was just brain farting. There were no profound truths here.
Maybe they are just too profound for you to understand. I’m just messing with you. Sometimes I do think our words can have more meaning than they let us in on. I used to think that I was “a mistress of wordplay” or something like that. Now I think I am their slave.
That is freekin deep, dude.
I’m a dudette. And that is how I like it…deep.
Ironically, a hobbler is one who hobbles, which is another way to say binds or restrains, as in hobbling a horse by tying its legs together with a short piece of rope.
This is how I think of myself if I’m in control. I commented this one time: “I am a mistress of wordplay. I grab them…throw them against the wall, wrestle their arms into submission to the handcuffs that will lock them in a perfect position for me to have my way with them. Sometimes they resist, but I know how to make them obey my every command. They love me. They hate me. They will be mine…
The only thing I pay someone else to do is to clean up the mess…”
I bow before the mistress. That was bleeping incredible. I now consider myself not a word smith, but a blacksmith, pounding out words with the brute force of forge and hammer. No subtlety have I, when compare with thee.
So, I hobble words, to position them exactly how I want them…until they break the cords and mount me. Forcing themselves deep inside. By the time they are finished having their way with me, I feel dirty and used. I’m broken and bleeding and the worst part of it all is that I’m hungry for more.
Whether I’m playing with them, or they’re playing with me, we need eachother. Even when it hurts.
Once again, you are doing the word porn thing on my great great grandchildren’s legacy. That being said, is it hot in here, or is it just you.
Wait… what is OAA?
Don’t worry about OAA yet. You’ll get there, unless you just skip to it. That is what I recommend. The OAA posts are the only category on my blog that should be read in order.
Intriguing.
Dear PMAO great grand kids. I am sorry if I have offended you with my big girl words. I don’t know what PMAO is b****ing about, because one of his posts would make these comments seem as tame as a lap dog…no sexual innuendo implied. I think your great grand father is pretty cool for a guy that will be dead by the time you read this. Have a great day kids!
actually its 49.999999 recuring %
I forgot to carry the One… get it?
I do like your idea, but there is one thing to add to your own analogy. That dice that was mentioned-whatever result is rolled, it always against the odds that you got that number. Put on a larger scale, everything we come across is against huge odds and that is impossible to argue with. Yet interestingly, if you came up with this entirely on your own, it is kind of similar to Aquinas’ Teleological argument for God’s existence. Aquinas being one of the most respected philosophers of religion in history. Good on you there.
I never claimed to not be a philosopher…
this is true…