SQOTD

I was wiggling my fingers at him when he said:

"That's like a piano with one key".

Things that make me go hmmmmm

I am sure that most have seen THIS article on how atheists and agnostics have knowledge about religion.

It did not surprise me...


BUT


I don't think this will last long. At least among those declaring themselves atheists.


I think this is because the athiest proselytizers will create an equally unknowledgeable set of followers who listen to their leaders rather than learn what they are supposedly "against". I don't see a mass group conversion attempt amongst the agnostics, though that may be wrong.

RILM

Things like THIS, make me happy!

Heresy

Apparently, referring to Jesus Christ as "very important" when speaking to a Christian borders on heresy.

I guess my heretical nature is once again confirmed. Of course, I also do not see heresy as something that is always a bad thing.

Of course I am accepting of all the applicable definitions for heretic when I declare myself so.

Heretic:

3.anyone who does not conform to an established attitude, doctrine, or principle.(dictionary.com)

2. a person who holds unorthodox opinions in any field (Collins English Dictionary)

Oh, and for a bit more background:

early 14c., from Fr. hérétique  (14c.), from Church L. hereticus , from Gk. hairetikos  "able to choose," the verbal adj. of hairein  (Online Etymology Dictionary).

One who challenges the doctrines of an established church.(The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy)


As an agnostic, I fall into those categories by default. I am also OK with it.

RILM

I wonder what it means that when I am feeling stress or somewhat down that I read about quantum physics.

I also find it interesting to note that the higher the stress or the feeling down-ness the more complicated (to me anyway) an idea I tend to read.

Recently I found out someone I know, someone who I bear no ill will for and was close to once upon a time.. well, they violently loathe me.

So, rather than dwell on my personal failures at keeping people I have met to have, at least, non violent reactions about me I dig into physics...

Today, I went to this!

Seems fitting somehow... to contemplate the notion of scattering...

Thankfully, it also makes life so much more interesting than just thinking about how people hate you.

RILM

So, I was looking at pictures about the mine in Chile and they had one photo that was a composite of all those who were trapped.

I had much the same reaction when I look at pictures of those who have died over in the middle east fighting what some would call a war, others would call something else...  and in the end it is completely irrelevant because people are dying of things that are out side normal parameters. Granted they did sign up.. as did these miners.

But the faces, when you can see the faces of who is living in a certain situation or the faces of those who have passed away it is just so much more personal.

I think in our day in age... we need to collectively decide on whether we see faces or not, collectively. We (and I should really say I, as I am making a huge assumption) can be put into sensory overload with information that I think in some cases it just doesn't hit home until you see the faces.... by the same token, would I have heard and seen this news this quickly 1000 years ago? Oh, hell no! Is it vital to my country and life... not on a strictly basic level, no...

But when I saw their faces, it became much more personal to me.

And yes, I am in a more than normal emotional state today so maybe this just comes from that... which would be a whole 'nother piece of random minutae from my life.

oh, sigh.

Perhaps it is even about thinking how my husband is far away from me and i won't get to see him for a whole 11 days total and then there are these men who are stuck in the earth who may not get to see their loved ones for months....

Yeah, like I said.. I am emotional.

I better stop now.

I tend to babble.

and babble more so when emotional.



....




hug or kiss the people you love tonight, OK?!?!

SQOTD

Squink: "You know, babies don't know where the potty is".

Which called to mind that Squink "found" the potty in a café in Baden bei Wien which is ironic if you know what baden means.

RILM

I think it may be entirely possible that these random bits of minutiae that I come across may end up all being science related.. but who knows.

I suppose, in the whole scheme of things they really can't be called minutiae as these things really are grander than the word minutiae seems to imply.

Today, it is a NASA picture of the day.. again.

This one struck me because it looked like an eye in a peephole, and not quite what they had called it "A Chameleon Sky".. though, being NASA, I am sure that any religious reference to something like the Eye of God would be a cause for alarm from those who adhere to the teachings of Madalyn Murray O'Hair (the prophet to the pomo atheists is how I think of her) and advocate for no religious references in any government agency... I think I would advocate for a comprehensive mandate where everything has to have a reference to a religion, and follow a list much like the way hurricanes are named (but I like to provoke controversy that way). I love reading older books that have references to the Greek and Roman Goods and they mythology, to the teachings of the "ancient" philosophers, much like the way Umberto Eco or Mark Leyner write [and I am sorta horrified that I actually put those two in a class]).. and I have always lamented that there seemed to be this limit to "dead white guys" and not a more global reference, really.. some fascinating stuff comes out of all parts of the world and I think it should become a part of our universal vernacular.

But, I digress...

Here is the URL

And I have no problem, even as an agnostic thinking of this as a higher power peeking in on the universe we live in (granted, I am a theistic agnostic) because I love myths... and this image created a whole cosmology tale in my head.