Proving God

Christian Apologists seem eager to prove the existence of God.  Or have the existence proved, since many of them spend more time and energy trying to prove nonbelievers wrong, than in proving their own claims right.

How could it be done??!  In my humble opinion, it can’t!  There is no way to prove an immaterial, supernatural being, in a naturalistic, material world.  It’s a fools’ game, though there’s no shortage of fools trying.

In the mid/late 1800s, there was a Philosopher – a debater, who never lost a debate.  There was another, lesser debater who he had taken a particular dislike to.  He had challenged him many times, but was never accepted.  Finally, he offered to take a position contrary to his oft-stated belief.

He was tall, handsome, well-dressed, intelligent, well-educated, had a broad vocabulary and a powerful voice.  He emoted.  He projected his voice.  He waved his arms and hands – and he won the debate!  So, philosophy, logic, and debate are useless!  😳

I have seen two different Mathematics Professors, using two different sets of algebraic equations, PROVE that 1 = 2, in clear violation of observed reality.  So, mathematics, that pure, sweet language of the cosmos, is useless.  😳

I once read a paper from two Aeronautical Engineers.  They had studied bees, and found that the bees’ wing surface area, compared to their weight, was not large enough – they could not fly.  The bees of course, continued to do so.

With the advent of high-speed cameras, something called rectilinear flexion was discovered.  Bees don’t just flap their wings.  They cup the air the way that swimmers’ hands cup the water, for extra propulsion and lift.

When the top speed in the quarter-mile drag races was approaching 175 MPH, two Automotive Engineers calculated the top limit.  One pound of weight on the drive wheels, equalled one pound of forward thrust.  No-one could exceed 177 MPH.

When the speeds went to 179 and 180, they blamed technological malfunction – the timing lights were misaligned or the primitive electronic speed calculator malfunctioned.  When speeds approached 185, they finally climbed off their slide-rules and discovered directional friction.

So, education, intelligence and Engineering are useless, unless you can be sure that you have all the relevant information.  😦

As a wordsmith, I have noticed that many of the problems, either accidentally, or intentionally, come from language misusage and misunderstanding.  They make claims that sound like they mean one thing, while their definition and belief is something quite different.

There can be no meaningful discussion until all the terms are coherent, clearly defined, and agreed on.  This is not likely to happen in an endeavor where obfuscation is a growth industry.

So, my beloved English language is so misused as to be useless.  😦

Those who say, Oh, you wouldn’t believe, even if someone presented proof. are being disingenuous.  They are admitting that they don’t have convincing evidence.  I know a secret, but if I told you, I’d have to kill you.  It’s a good excuse to never have to present a verifiable, falsifiable argument.

If the God that so many of them claim to believe in actually exists, He would know exactly what it would take to convince me of His existence.  The fact that He has never done so, either means that He doesn’t exist, or doesn’t care if I believe.  Do unto me, as your God has done unto me.  Go away, leave me and other non-believers alone, take a pill, and dial back the anxiety.  If I’m wrong, it won’t be the reason you don’t go to Heaven.  😦

Twenty-Tooth Fibbing Friday

My tablet chimed with a picture of a courier package delivered to my porch.  At first, I thought it might be the badger taxidermy kit I’d ordered.

Local council has told Pensitivity101 that I can’t be lurking around her little cottage.  I’ve been caught lying so often, that she shipped me another list of questions to be truthfully creative with.

1. What did the couch say to the toilet?

What do you think of the rectum, as a hole??  I feel it is a source of shit, and should be wiped out.

2. What caused the last traffic jam in town?

It was that girl, who moved here from the big city.  The friendly one, with the deep V-neck sweater that don’t stand for virgin any more.  The one with the short-short-shorts that barely cover her assets.  The town’s only got one pay-for-time parking meter – the one she always leans against.

3. What really powers the Internet?

It’s the download of the energy potential between the two poles of cognitive dissonance – Religion vs. Atheism, Flat Earth vs. Globetards, Faith vs. Scientism and Darwinism.  It’s like using geothermal to heat your home.  If you dig down far enough, someone’s always spewing some heat about it.

4. What is really between Trump’s ears?

MSN just published an image of a super-gigantic black hole.  They claimed that it was at the center of the Greater Magellanic Cloud.  The image was a little blurry, but I’m pretty sure I saw that Mac-and-Cheese orange hair above it.

5. What is in the heart of Africa?

African trypanosomiasis may also cause a myocarditis. The protozoan parasite, Entamoeba histolytica rarely causes a pericarditis while Toxoplasma gondii may cause myocarditis, usually in immunocompromised hosts. The larval forms of the tapeworms Echinococcus and Taenia solium may cause space-occupying lesions of the heart.

All in all, not a very nice place to be.  Like Blackpool on a Saturday night.  It’s small wonder that British colonialists were glad to finally give it back to the natives.

6. What was the last meal eaten in the Garden of Eden?

Apple pan dowdy.

7. Who built the pyramids in the Yucatan?

One of Donald Trump’s earliest real estate development corporations.  They led directly to the first time he went bankrupt.

8. What is the highest form of flattery?

It’s my (possibly soon-to-be-ex) buddy, Bob, when he gets all smoked up, and full of booze, and calls me to come get him at 3 AM, and be the designated driver.  I love you, man!  You are beautiful, did you know that?

9. Speakeasies were not secret bars, what were they?

Open-mic nights at the local Comedy Club.

10. Alcatraz isn’t a prison, what is it really?

It’s the new home of Archon LLC, Sociopath, and Procrastinator clubs.  We held a Sociopath meeting, but nobody showed up.  We haven’t got around to scheduling a Procrastinator Club meeting yet.  We have leased a small wing to the Kardashian Petty Cash and Bling Repository Department.

11. What is in Hamburger?

Wiener schnitzel, sauerkraut, St. Pauli Girl lager, and Linzertorte.

12. What is the real question and answer to number #12?

Why is a mouse, when it spins??  The higher, the fewer!!
A brothel??  If we can’t get ‘em to drink beer, how are we gonna get ‘em to drink broth?

What??!  No applause??  No fan mail??  Well, you asked for it!  There’ll be another post on Monday.  😀

’22 A To Z Challenge – Y

The Beatles sang Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!

But The Rolling Stones sang

GET YOUR YA-YA’S OUT

Originally a Rolling Stones live album, (get yer ya ya’s out) the term usually means “to get your extra energy out” or “to blow off some steam“. One can do this many ways; it really depends on what type of person you are.

To indulge/vent an urge that society does not approve of — this can be fighting, partying, drinking, having sex, smoking pot… whatever. It implies that there are other times when you’re a “respectable citizen” and repress the urge — full-time party-animals are not getting their ya-ya’s out because they always act that way.

For the less adventurous of you, there’s always the 2002 movie, Divine Secrets Of The Ya-Ya Sisterhood.

I’m almost to the end of this alphabet challenge.  Do you think that I’m happy?
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!

Do you think that I’m damn fool enough to start another cycle in a couple of weeks??
You bet your YA-YA’S!

Time Hobbles On

Growing “Older”
How many do you identify with??

As I’ve grown older, I’ve learned that pleasing everyone is impossible, but annoying everyone is a piece of cake.

I’m not saying I’m old and worn out, but I make sure I’m nowhere near the curb on trash day.

As I watch this generation try and rewrite our history, I’m sure of one thing: It will be misspelled and have no punctuation.

Me (sobbing): “I can’t see you anymore — I’m not going to let you hurt me again.”
My physical exercise instructor (exasperated): “But you did only one sit-up.”

I haven’t gotten anything done today. I’ve been in the produce department trying to open this stupid plastic bag.

Turns out that being senior is mostly just Googling how to do stuff.

I’m on two diets. I wasn’t getting enough food on one.

If you find yourself feeling useless, remember it took 20 years, trillions of dollars and four presidents to replace the Taliban with the Taliban.

As I’ve gotten older, people think I’m lazy. The truth is, I’m just being energy efficient.

I put my scale in the bathroom corner and that’s where the little liar will stay until it apologizes.

My tolerance for idiots is extremely low these days. I used to have immunity built up, but obviously there’s a new strain out there.

There is no such thing as a grouchy old person. The truth is, that once you get old you to stop being polite and start being honest.

My mind is like an internet browser. At least 19 open tabs, 3 of them are frozen, and I have no clue where the music is coming from.

Hard to believe I once had a phone attached to a wall, and when it rang I picked it up without knowing who was calling.

So, you’ve been eating hot dogs and McChickens all your life, but you won’t take the COVID vaccine because you don’t know what’s in it. Are you kidding me?  😕

What If, It’s Another Challenge

I am awed and amazed at the number of people who read these personal-reveal posts.  Thanx, and here is yet another one.

21: Something you just can’t seem to get over
23: Something you always think “What if….” About

I’m not much one for navel-gazing.  I feel that I am not entitled, but rather, pragmatic, fatalistic, realistic.  What is – IS!  The past is in the past.  It’s over, and cannot be changed.  Deal with it!  Time and psychic energy expended in worrying about ‘What Might Have Been ‘, is lost and wasted.

There are many people, often with an overcharged ego and an excess of entitlement, who feel that if they work hard and apply themselves, get a good education, and make what they feel are the right decisions, then God, or Karma, will ensure them success in life.

IT DON”T WORK LIKE THAT!  The universe is supremely disinterested in any one person.  It is almost impossible to fare well in life without taking these steps, but doing so is no guarantee of success.  No-one is assured a smooth ride.  Nothing is God-ordained and meant to be.

When most people think about “What If” and something they just can’t get over, they imagine that some small change in the past would improve their life in the present.  It’s just wishful thinking.  I’ve had hardly any free times in my busy life to brood about lost potential opportunities.

A very few times, I’ve wondered, What if I didn’t have learning disabilities?  What if I didn’t have my essential tremor?  What if I didn’t have a sieve where my memory should be?  Would I have achieved a post-secondary diploma?  Would I have got a six- or seven-figure job?  Would I have had a great career-arc, and have lots of money?  Would I have ‘married better’?

Then I hear the little flutter that warns of the butterfly effect, and the heavy tromp of Karma’s boots in the hall.  If things had been different, would I have done any better?  Would I have had to spend so much time and mental energy getting my diploma and continuing study to master a trade – that I didn’t have time to study and appreciate the English language?

Would I have to rely on aides and secretaries to make my reports and directives literate and intelligible?  Would I have failed to learn to read for enjoyment – would I be incapable of composing blog posts, both of which now occupy me in my retirement?

Money can’t buy happiness, although it makes looking for it a lot easier.  Would I have married better, and would I have great amounts of money in savings and retirement funds, or would I have a string of three, successively-younger trophy wives, whose alimonies empty my bank accounts, and I live in a bachelor apartment till I die on the job, because I can’t afford to retire?

They say that you can’t cheat an honest man.  You can, it just takes so much extra time and effort that it’s not usually worth it.  Similarly, no-one wants to bother stealing from a poor man.  If the stock market nosedives, I don’t care.  If I’d been smart enough to make a lot of money, I might have been dumb enough to meet a Bernie Madoff, or a Nigerian prince.

Strive and struggle to make the most of what you can.  Accept the present, and face the future.  Don’t get a sore neck from looking back at what if!  Let sleeping dogs lie, and don’t trip over them.  My readers are my riches.  You can compound your interest by showing up again in a couple of days.  😀

Flash Fiction #233

PHOTO PROMPT © Ted Strutz

LESS IS MORE

In some ways, under-population is the bane of the developed world.  When I was a child, I thought that inheriting this house would be marvelous.  Now that it’s happened, I own a white elephant.

When it was built, 150 years ago, the normal 8-10-12 children were needed to maintain it.  Older sons mended the shingles. Middle teens cut the grass and pruned the trees.  Daughters tended flowers and vegetables.  Young Tom Sawyer-types whitewashed the fence.

Medicine improved, and families shrunk.  Now, I don’t have the time, energy or income to keep it presentable.

***

Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

Witchy Woman

Witchy Woman

Mildred comes home to find her Witchy broommate crying hysterically.
Oh my god Agatha, what’s wrong??
I just got back from the doctor, and she said I CAN’T HAVE KIDS.
Oh Agatha, says Mildred, I am so sorry for you….but a food allergy isn’t the end of the world.

***

Years ago, I took the entrance exam to go to medical school.

One of the many questions asked about human anatomy, was to rearrange the letters “PNEIS”, into the name of ‘an important part of the body, which is most useful when erect.’

Those who wrote ‘SPINE’ went on to become doctors.
The rest of us are just posting jokes on social media.

***

A wife texted her husband, “Windows frozen” on a cold winter day.
He texted back, “Pour some lukewarm water over it.”
5 minutes later she texts him again, “Computer is completely messed up now.”

***

1st Hillbilly says: “My wife sure is stupid, she bought an air conditioner.”

2nd Hillbilly says: “Why is that stupid?”

1st Hillbilly says: “We ain’t got no ‘lectricity!”

2nd Hillbilly says: “That’s nothing, my wife is so stupid, she bought one of them new-fangled warshin’ machines!”

1st Hillbilly says: “Why is that so stupid?”

2nd Hillbilly says: “‘Cause we ain’t got no plummin'”

3rd Hillbilly says: “That ain’t nuthin’! My wife is dumber than both yer wives put together! I was going through her purse the other day lookin’ fer some change, and I found 6 condoms in thar.”

1st and 2nd Hillbillies say: “Well, what’s so dumb about that?”
3rd Hillbilly says: “She ain’t got no dick.”

***

A child asked his father, “How were people born?” So his father said, “Adam and Eve made babies, then their babies became adults and made babies, and so on.”

The child then went to his mother, asked her the same question and she told him, “We were monkeys then we evolved to become like we are now.”

The child ran back to his father and said, “You lied to me!”

His father replied, “No, your mom was talking about her side of the family.”

***

Last year, I replaced all the windows in my house with those expensive, double-pane, energy-efficient ones. Today I got a call from the Home Depot that installed them. The caller complained that the work had been completed a year ago, but hadn’t been paid for.

Just because I’m a Senior Citizen, doesn’t mean that I am automatically mentally challenged. I told him just what his fast-talking salesman told me last year, ‘Those windows will pay for themselves in a year.’ ‘It’s been a year, so they’re obviously paid for.’ I told him. There was silence at the other end of the line, so I hung up. He never called back. I bet he felt like an idiot.

***

Eagles fans can click ‘Witchy Woman’, above the graphic to hear what they think about a Witchy Woman.

 

’17 A To Z Challenge – Y

As I bring this year’s A to Z Challenge to a close, I’ve stumbled upon a couple of interesting and new (to me) words. This one is for all the Good Christians, the Creationists, the evolution-deniers, and the Christian Apologetics.  The word is

YLEM  [ahy-luh m]

noun

the original matter from which the basic elements are said to have been formed following the explosion postulated in the big bang theory of cosmology

origin of ylem

1948; adoption, in modern astrophysics, of Middle English ylem (Gower) < Medieval Latin (h)ȳlem, accusative of hȳlē < Greek hȳ́lē matter, wood

For God so loved each and every individual Good Christian, that they rush to prove their special value by disproving The Big Bang, and evolution.  They use such dismissive and demeaning phrases as “particles to people” and “molecules to man,” to show that their existence couldn’t have ‘just happened.’  They ask, “How could everything have come from nothing?”

This word, and the scientific information that it reveals, shows how desperately incorrect they are. Whether God created it, or it ‘just happened’, the singularity point, and the ylem that sprang from it, already contained everything.

It held all the potentials and possibilities of an entire Universe. It contained every possible creative force, in every combination and permutation, controlled by every variation of quantum entanglement.  It produced sub-atomic particles that combined to produce all the atoms, which got married to produce all the possible molecules.

It included the total energy of the entire Universe, in every possible form. If the energy of souls exist, this is where they came from, waiting only for God, or random happenstance, to combine with the molecules which have become Man – the particles which have become people.

The rich primordial stew of YLEM proves creation – the creation of infinite variation, potential, possibility, and evolution.  It just doesn’t prove that any single human being is any more important than they make themself, despite what their faith would have them believe.

Flat Earth – Flat Out Foolish

Recently, a rapper with so much artistic creativity, that he named himself B.o.B., claimed that the Earth is flat, and went head to head with Neil DeGrasse Tyson about it. In a battle of wits, he was soon out of ammo.  It’s like bringing a knife to a – tank battle.

Soon after, I found a post titled ‘Flat Earth – the Truth. Why it doesn’t matter’ at this site.

Click on over if you enjoy incomplete thoughts, rambling construction, mis-spelling and –punctuation, reverse logic, no stated truth, conspiracy theories, or, just see below..

He had one (almost)good idea. He felt we shouldn’t worry about arguing whether the Earth is flat or not, because, “it’s not worth discussing until we sort the important stuff out such as not being ruled by psychopaths and switching to sustainable energy before we all die.”

Sadly though, short of revolution, there’s no way these can be accomplished without involving politicians, and discussing this stuff is how we judge which ones are capable. If the stand-up comedian from Nome female Governor of Alaska intentionally uses the non-word ‘squirmishes’ as a talking point, the word doesn’t matter, but the fact that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about, does.  If not, here, on a small thing, where else, on a large scale, where it counts??

To elect a Flat-Earth believer, would be like electing Joey from ‘Friends’, who regularly said ‘supposably’, instead of ‘supposedly.’ George W. was ‘misunderestimated’ by voters, and elected, and then led around by his WMDs.

The ‘belief’ in a flat Earth is as strong as any religious tenet.  Like any religion, it is fractured into many sects, each one believing some theory more bizarre than the last.  Since they deny that Earth is a sphere, gravity can’t attract toward the center.  Somehow it just pulls ‘down.’

When interviewed, the leader of one group was asked why the Earth then doesn’t fall ‘down.’ He answered that the plate-shaped planet rests on the back of a giant tortoise.  “But then, the tortoise would fall ‘down’ also.”  Nope, he replied, it’s tortoises all the way down.

To explain gravity, another Flat-Earth group claims that the world is constantly rising, like an elevator, pushing things toward the surface. We’ve all felt that pressure as an elevator moves upward, but it doesn’t take long till it and we are moving at the same speed, and the pressure disappears.

For gravity to persist, the planet must not only be ‘rising,’ but constantly accelerating, moving faster and faster. It would take about three days before it reached the unreachable speed-of-light limit.  But if you don’t believe that Earth is ball-shaped, or that gravity exists, then you probably don’t believe in Newton’s, or Einstein’s daydreams either.  They do believe in some strange things though.

Warning – Here Be Dragons   😳

FLAT EARTH – the TRUTH. WHY IT DOESN’T MATTER

First – why I think it’s a psy-op. (but the psy-op is not the truth, that’s just my opinion.) The bottom line, on two angles, is “who does it benefit?” If the Earth really is flat, who did it benefit to lie about it? Nobody as far as I can tell, it’s a pointless lie. But if it’s the flat earth theory that’s a lie, who does it benefit? The government, cos now anyone that says, “I don’t trust the government” sounds like some nutcase who believes the Earth is flat. Next time we say “I think 911 was an inside job” some bell-end is gonna reply, “yeah, you probably think the Earth is flat as well. The other point is, give the theory the benefit of the doubt again – even if the Earth is flat – so what? That would be a massive lie, and have literally astronomical implications (yeah, I’m proud of that!) but it’s still just a harmless lie compared to hiding abusers in government positions and false flag attacks to justify amoral wars to install central banks and steal resources. So forger about it, it’s not worth discussing until we sort the important stuff out such as not being ruled by psychopaths and switching to sustainable energy before we all die.

The truth is – it doesn’t actually matter.

A few like this, and Trump could start looking good. And I didn’t even say a word about the shit that some Christians believe.

Seinfeld Re-Run

Being another collection of unrelated thoughts which carom and rattle around inside my vacant skull.  Think of this as mental spring-cleaning, which it would be, if this were spring.  This is fall.  By the time I post this, I will have overnight become 68 years old, and that fact should be obvious.

I recently, righteously, slagged four female Canadian singers.  I ran out of space and energy before I could include a fifth.  I give you the, famous in her own mind, even when she’s out of it, Nelly Furtado.  Like the others, Nelly is a decent singer and performer.  Unlike Shania Twain, she doesn’t have a long history of verbal malaprops.  She managed to do it all in one TV interview.

This one occurred just as she was breaking out.  She was booked on a meet-the-artist show on MuchMusic, Canada’s we-don’t-need-no-stinkin’-American MTV, alternative.  For a half an hour she unwittingly proved herself to be an up-and-coming Canadian racist.  Everything she bragged about herself, was because she was Portuguese, not Portuguese-Canadian, just Portuguese.

She was born in British Columbia.  Her first big song, I’m Like a Bird, contains the line, “I’m like a bird.  I don’t know where my home is.”  I think it fitting that, the only bird which doesn’t know where its home is, is a cuckoo.  The same pair of robins flew back from Florida, and nested in my porch for five or six years. Apparently, she also doesn’t know where the National Geographic Channel is.

She claimed to be a great song-writer because she was Portuguese.  I don’t know what that says about Leonard Cohen, Gordon Lightfoot or Buffy Saint-Marie, who have Jewish, English and Cree heritage, respectively.  She lauded herself about her high morals because she was Portuguese, and I almost choked.  I’ve watched Portuguese girls coming home from Catholic school on the bus.  The only thing sluttier, might be some Romanian girls.  The only thing they don’t show is restraint.

I’d even forgive the Portuguese references if her parents had been born there, but they weren’t.  They come from the Azores Islands, which are to Portugal, what Newfoundland is to Canada, only more so.  Further out in the ocean, more isolated, more ignored, poorer, less literate, if it weren’t for the fact that several airlines use the big island for trans-Atlantic fuelling, they’d be eating jelly-fish and smoking seaweed.

There was another blogger, whose site was also called Archons Den.  He was a Filipino who posted on BlogSpot.  He was big into electronics, posting about Smartphones, iPods, expensive car stereos and big-screen TVs.  He may have gone bankrupt.  I haven’t seen a new post in almost a year.  Archon is also the name given to a yearly science-fiction conference in Kansas City.  I believe this year is number 37.

Booksellers like Chapters have a current book for sale, titled “Archon.”  It’s sort of an H E Ellis’, Reapers With Issues, crossed with 50 Shades of Grey.  A book titled, “The Archon”, is a children’s story about a trek to seek peace with the Rain Queen.  I’m honored, in a vague way, but I think I’ll skip them both.

The niece who ate Ex-Lax, but only drank Javex once, went with her parents and siblings for a weekend visit with her other grandparents on their farm.  Out of her clothes and into a nightgown, the six-year-old wanted to know what was in the coffee-pot protruding over the edge of the stove.  She pulled it down on her left shoulder, and the boiling coffee was held like a sponge by the flannelette nightie.  By the time the adults pulled it off the screaming child, she had been burned so badly that she developed a quarter-inch thick mass of scar tissue from the base of her neck to her vaccination mark.

Mr. Automotive Q&A published another duh-mb letter this week.  The writer wanted him to help, because he had bought a used car from a dealer.  He gave the salesman a cheque, which had been cashed.  The day he bought the car, he needed to do some running around, so he got them to let him take the car out.  He was to return it, and they were to do a safety on it.  When he brought it back, the dealership refused to safety his car, and he wanted the columnist to pressure them into it.  That’s his story, and it sounds straightforward.

Mr. Q&A did some phoning, and quickly found out that:  He left the dealer’s lot at about noon on a Friday.  He was supposed to return the car before end of workday.  Closing time came, no car.  Monday came and went, no car!  Tuesday came and went, no car!!  On Wednesday, the dealer plate and its holder were hanging on the dealer’s front door when they opened for business.  That was early in April!  Now, early in September, he wants them to do all the work necessary to pass a government test, and of course, they demurred.

In Q&A’s response, he told the guy that the dealer was willing to do the rear brakes, which should have been fixed five months ago, along with several other minor repairs.  They would not replace the windshield which was not cracked when he took possession, nor the right headlight, which was working when he left.  Since he drove 3800 kilometers after he left, they would also not replace the alternator or the windshield wipers.  They would do the emission testing, but he would have to pay for any parts needed to get the car to pass.

The dealer admitted that they should never have let him off the lot, and should have notified the Ontario Transport Ministry when the car did not return.  Mr Q&A, and the rest of us, assume he was driving for five months with illegal licence plates, not registered to the car.  Also, since the vehicle was not in his name, he drove for the five months without the legally required insurance.  Q&A gave him one week from the date of the column printing to get all this stuff done, because, as a licensed mechanic, he is legally bound to inform the ministry, if he has knowledge of non-compliance.

This all happened in Southwestern Ontario, but I’ll bet you drove past a car today, driven by a yahoo like this.  Scary as hell, isn’t it?