Superstitious Fibbing Friday

It was Friday the 13^th so last week, Pensitivity101’s selection was based on superstitions.

Make up your own reasons for these please:

1. Why were people given middle names?

So that children could know just how pissed Mom was at them this time.
Margaret Elizabeth Robertson, you get in here this minute.

2. Why do we cover our mouths when we yawn?

To keep all the stupid from leaking out.

3. Why do we say ‘Bless You’ when somebody sneezes?

It’s a code phrase, meaning, Keep it down.  I’m trying to quietly enjoy a mint julep here.  One of my cats complains almost every time I sneeze.  It’s a ritual begun by vocally-impaired southern belles.  If a Georgia matriarch smiles, and says Bless you, or Bless your heart, you can translate it as F**k you very much.

4. Why do we wear a wedding ring on the third finger of the left hand?

Because, if we wore it on the middle finger, it would impair our ability to converse with taxi drivers and politicians.

5. What was the original use of wind chimes?

Obviously, to irritate those irritating neighbours.

6. What was the original purpose of bridesmaids?

It was a way to screw over poor Jacob, in the Bible, and get another 7 years of free labor from him, by substituting Rachel for Leah in the marriage-bed, following a drunken spirited wedding celebration.

7. What is the significance of the first butterfly of the year you see being white?

Probably that you live north of the Mason-Dixon Line, and you can thank your cotton-pickin’ lucky stars that you do.

8. What does it mean if your right ear itches?
   

That you’re going to have to listen to another fool, and probably kiss your pension goodbye.

9. Why is Good Friday a good day to cut your hair?

For forty days, you’ve been cut off from good food and drink, and maybe even sex.  Cutting off a little hair is the thing you’ll feel and miss the least.

10. What should you give a friend who gives you a knife as a gift?

A wide berth!  😳

Smitty’s loose Change #18

Live a good life.

If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by.

If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them.

If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.

***

MSN Headline
City in Ontario may be the most miserable in the US.

Can you tell me what’s wrong with that sentence?   😯

THE PIPES, THE PIPES ARE CALLING

They called one company ‘Sider Plumbing.’  Putting siding on homes or buildings occurred long after surnames were assigned.  This is not likely an English name.  Here in ex-Berlin, it seems that it might be German, but research tells me that it (used to be spelled Seider) is Yiddish/Jewish, meaning prayer book.

Less than a week later, they called another, ‘Teahen Plumbing.’  I know what a peahen is.  She is a female peafowl.  Only the males are properly called peacocks.  What is a ‘Teahen?’  It’s a surname that began as Teahan.  Irish (Kerry): reduced Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Téacháin ‘descendant of Téachán’, a personal name probably derived from teitheachán ‘fugitive.’. Many regard plumbers as crooks.  It is not a name for one to brag about.

***

If you want to know why we are here or what your ultimate, divine purpose is, you should accept that the answer is either 1) unknowable or 2) nonexistent. Either way, demanding that your worldview include answers to these types of questions, completely unvetted by reason, is childish and irresponsible. The universe doesn’t owe you answers and is not obligated to make sense to the likes of you. These questions will never be answered (even if an answer actually exists). Stop pretending you’re important enough to deserve an answer, and that you’ve found the answer when you haven’t.

***

Like Father – Like Son

Once upon a time in the dark mists of the past, I published a vignette about how I inconvenienced a gold-crucifix-wearing young woman into removing a shopping cart she’d abandoned in a handicap parking space.  Channeling his Father, the son recently got a chance to duplicate the feat.

Coming home after a long night at work, he stopped at the local supermarket.  Even with a stiff/sore leg from a hard shift, and a Handicap Permit in the car, he didn’t park in any of the reserved spots, nearest the store, instead, pulling into the next one in a row.

As he came out, a man ahead of him pushed a cart with a green, plastic You-Pack bin, and a bag of groceries into the middle of a handicap spot.  Abandoning the cart there, he carried his haul to the next lane, and put them in the trunk.

The son was aghast!  “You ignorant, arrogant, selfish, thoughtless asshole!  He grabbed the cart, bumped it over a curb, placed it broadside in front of the guy’s car, and stood beside it, glaring.  The Asshole came bustling out of his car.
“What the Hell are you doing?”
“I’m abandoning this cart here, just like you abandoned it in a handicap spot!”
“What do you expect me to do about it?”
“Put it away, where it belongs, either in the cart corral, or back in the store!”
“I’m busy.  I have places to go.”
“I’m not.  I just got off work.  I have all day.”

It turned out that Mr. Abandonment Issues wasn’t nearly as busy as he claimed.  The son detests confrontation.  He said, “I was shaking all the time – but it felt so good.”  Not bad for a second-generation Atheist!  😎  I am so proud of him!

***

Church: “Our church is on fire!  Please send help.”
911: “All our engines are busy helping tax-paying customers.  Have you tried praying?

***

When the wife’s OCD spills over into her cooking,  (Less and less these days.  I am making more and more one-pan meals) the exactly correct utensil must be used.  We can’t measure out one cup of milk in a graduated two-cup measuring cup.  We can’t whip up a small amount of sauce in an easily-accessible, large bowl.  And cutting boards…… 😯

I just donated three lightly-used cutting boards to Goodwill.  How many do we have left??!  Is it one?  Three?  Eleven?  Or Oh-My-God??!  That’s a trick question.  The real answer is somewhere between eleven, and Oh-My-God.

We have them in pine, fir, maple, ash, poplar and bamboo.  We have soft plastic, rigid nylon, glass, and Plexiglas.  We have them with holes, and hang-up handles, but nowhere to hang them.  We have them with rubber feet, so that they don’t slip on a counter.  We have them from a tiny, pâté or soft cheese server, barely larger than my palm, up to one that covers the double kitchen sink and lets us carve a 25 lb. Christmas turkey.

Reality Is Weird

A Christian Apologist shut his mouth, and in doing so, (almost) shut mine.  I found him under the above title, making claims like

Either (1) an infinite and eternal consciousness called God chose to create our universe with a purpose… OR! (2) Our universe randomly appeared out of an infinite and eternal nothingness by itself for absolutely no reason at all. These are the only two reasonable options.

I left him a response that he apparently did not like.  He posed another question, but I could see that he wouldn’t like the answer to it either, and it would cease being a comment, and become a blog-post of its own.  I went back in my ‘notifications’ to pick up the beginning, but he had disappeared.  I accessed his post, and found that he had disabled all comments.  I did not realize that him doing that erased all existing comments on my site.  The following first bit is from fading memory.

Neither of your options is reasonable, and you limit your argument by claiming that there can only be two.  A little thought and research would show that there are more then that.  (1) You have not proved that “God” created the Universe, or that there is/was a purpose. (2) Your random appearance from nothing, for no reason claim is so highly unlikely that no reputable astrophysicist would espouse it.

Can you provide any other scenarios?  Either there is purpose, or there isn’t.

This is what he missed.

Imagine a race of spaceless, timeless beings.  One of them, the equivalent of an eight-year-old boy, possesses the singularity which will become our Universe.  Perhaps it is a function of the non-space where he exists, that it occasionally spits out singularities.  Perhaps he found and kept it, like a fossil – or perhaps it’s a toy that his kindly uncle made for him.  He’s been told to keep it safe on a shelf, but accidentally knocks it off, and it falls to the floor and opens up into our known Universe.

Forget about those possibilities, and let our little extra-dimensional kid grow up a bit.

Now he needs a project, like a volcano, for science class.  He decides to build a little mathematical model to demonstrate the laws of physics within material matter.  As he is winding it up, he gets a little goo from a non-material pseudopod on it, and one of the perfect orbs develops life on its surface, like mold.

In the first scenario, the entity which caused our Universe to exist, was not the Creator.  There was no ‘Choice.’  There was no purpose!  In fact, it was an unintentional accident.  The Instigator can hardly be regarded as “God.”

In the second scenario, the Creator, and the Instigator, are the same Astral Squid – which still doesn’t qualify as “God.”  The act of creation, and the resulting Universe, are both intentional, but the creation of life – Us – has no purpose.  In fact, if the Nebulous Nerd knew that his science project was contaminated, he/she/it/they might want to polish the planet clean…. Oh, wait, that Noah flood wasn’t rain; it was Poly-dimensional Purell.

Well, now, the question should be: out of these two equally-weird explanations, which one is best supported by evidence, logic, and reason? Which one is more Possible, Plausible, and Probable? Which one is most believable?

Actually, the question is: which of these two equally-weird pairs of explanations is best supported by evidence, logic, and reason? Which one is more Possible, Plausible, and Probable? Which one is most believable?

I know that most Apologetics would dismiss my hypotheses as childish, but they both are as probable – likely more so – than either of his restrictive offerings.  If a rank amateur like me can easily come up with two alternatives, surely intelligent, educated scientists can come up with more, and better.

The Need For Myths

Myths are stories of our search through the ages for truth, for meaning, for significance. We all need to tell our story and to understand our story. We all need to understand death and to cope with death, and we all need help in our passages from birth to life and then to death.

It may really not be possible to do away with myths. The myth is as much a part of the human need as the allure of it. Even when one does not want to, there will come a time when a person feels the need for a story. This inner need expresses itself as a search, or as a desire. It may come early in life or it may come late. Nevertheless, a person who thinks, is bound to realize a sense of emptiness. Nothing but a story could fill it. All a person would want or hope for is to find a good story, and then, live it.

Finding one’s myth

This is where one person differs from another. It’s easy to understand. What isn’t easy to understand is always, why one person chooses one story to understand his reality, while someone else chooses another. It is to be understood that: Till the time a person finds the story – the myth – that satisfyingly explains his existence and gives purpose to his mind, his soul, the power within is still not released. It is looking for its expression. The myth provides the expression. Only then, when one goes deep into his personal myth, is it no longer just a story, but life itself. Myths are clues to the spiritual potentialities of the human life.

Every culture ought to provide a satisfying myth to the people it holds – one might say – captive. Yes, cultures hold at least some persons captive, while the vast majority are simply organized by it. This is what we understand to be a society. Is that not true? The exceptional individuals of society – the artists, the searchers, the thinkers, and the visionaries – if they succeed in finding their creativity-unlocking-myth, will then become the heroes and the leaders. They may even one day become legends that others recall with some fondness and some fear.