Tag: religion

Tuesday’s Theme Music

Mood: ambivasense.

‘Brrr’ cold covers Tuesday morning’s description. It’s February 27, 2024. Feb 31 is just around the corner (not really). Spring is too, in theory, but winter is saying, put me in, coach. 30 F when I slunk out of bed, our temperature eventually chugged up to the mid-forties but it didn’t feel warm. Even comfortably furred floofies said no thank you to the scattered clouds and tepid sunshine owning the morning. Returning to the inside, they situated themselves in comfortable warm places, said good night to daylight, and went to sleep.

My wife and I went running around this morning. A late morning breakfast at the excellent Sweet Beet Station in Talent, Oregon, and then over to Quality Paperbacks, where we picked up another half dozen books, because the waiting to read pile can never be too big. Then to a few stores for a couple items, and here I am, starting my writing day in the mid-afternoon.

The floofs inspired The Neurons’ song choice this morning. As they clamored for their morning meal, I told them to take it easy, I’d be with them in a minute, but some things were needed to be done ahead of time. These things TBDone including mixing up Tucker’s medical slurry. While I was doing that, West and Petty’s electrified guitars lit up the morning mental music stream (Trademark coming in two weeks).

In truth, I think the song was lurking beneath my mind’s covers, waiting for a chance to leap up. After all, Petty sings about an “American girl raised on promises.” This is an era of promise and denial in America IMO. Like, yes, being told that women have equal rights under the Constitution only to have those rights stripped away by a right wing trying to force its religion on the rest of us. I’m talking about abortion, of course and the Dobbs decision overruling women’s right to take care of themselves in favor of something growing inside them. It may be 2024, but the logic of 1984 is gaining strength. Take Texas, for example.

Sorry, politics just keep bubbling up in my thinking. I’ll try to keep it contained.

BTW, “American Girl” was the last song Tom Petty performed in concert before he passed away.

Stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and vote, please. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Mood: it’s a Wordle kind of day

Today is Tuesday, Dec 19, 2023. Just two days till December 21, when winter solstice in the north and summer solstice down below the equator, arrives. Up here we’re counting down to the ‘shortest day of the year’ as so many glibly phrase it. It means we’ll have the shortest period of sun exposure. But solstice is a few days later in Ashlandia; December 21 is an average. Our shortest day lands seven about a week later.

It’s been a really mild winter so far. Today it’s 55 F and rainy. Although indicators say this will continue, weather can change faster than a floof runs to get a treat. But no snow is bad news for the summer, as we depend on our melting mountain snow packs to keep filling our cisterns and reservoirs. So, fingers crossed, snow will come.

Been thinking about inflation. I’m a Paul Krugman fan. Been reading him for decades. But he’s insisting that inflation has gone down but mentions that people like me think it hasn’t because we’re paying more for things than we used to. Paul says the economy is actually good, and President Biden is getting a bad rap over it.

I won’t go into the variations of inflation that exist or how they track it. For me, it comes down to paying much more for car and house insurance than before, higher rates for my water, service fees, home gas and electricity, cat food, and much more for gas for my car. We buy organic and jeez have those prices jumped. Eating out gives me sticker shock almost every time, and beer, wine, and coffee also all cost more, definitely discretionary purchases but, hey, it’s all part of my life style.

Then, housing. Wow. I’ve been considering a move to another part of the nation. Housing is part of the equation to learn where we’ll drop. They’ve always talked about how expensive California housing is, and some parts of Oregon, but looking through New England prices has me reaching for sedatives to calm my nerves. Pennsylvania and Ohio prices are lower than Ashlandia, and more house can be acquired there, but not in New England. There’s also a huge rise in the number of condos and town homes being built. I don’t want to live in either of those because I’ve done it before and I dislike dealing with management over what I can or can’t do with my domicile. There are enough layers or law that I don’t need another layer, especially one that I pay for through things like HOAs. No thanks.

Had to get that off my chest.

Shifting gears to music, I had “Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead” pinging around the morning mental music stream (Trademark unverified) for a while this morning. That’s ‘cuz we saw The Wizard of Oz on Sunday and my wife decided to walk around the house singing about the witch’s death this morning. With less than an eyeblink, The Neurons had it playing over and over and over in my head. I think that kind of thing can drive one insane.

But then I began reading the news and something, something, once again, said or done in the name of god and Jesus to justify being cruel or empty headed was read. I don’t know if it was about the hypocritical Zieglers in Florida, or Trump and the Evanges, or Ohio’s Attorney General, or the Pope, or the AG of Texas or some crap out of the Moms of Liberty. They all stay in the news with their twisted logic about God, religion, and our nation and laws.

Out of that morass of misinformation and misogyny, The Neurons came up with Joan Osborne’s hit song of 1992, “One of Us”. This is a song about god being a slob like one of us, living a life like average humans, riding the bus, going home.

An enticing, intriguing idea. What if the crazy dude talking to himself in the corner is god? Or that women behind the counter with all the piercings is god? What if all these people that go around, trying and struggling, or at home, baking for a holiday, or drinking alone in a house at night while watching some rerun are god? No magic or power, no all-knowing, no one any more or less special than a person walking by you? Strong medicine for the mind to contemplate.

Stay pos, be strong, lean forward, and press on. Coffee is being consumed by the cup here. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Overheard

The two women leaned across the small round table and touched hands. The elderly woman said with large eyes deep with concern, “I hope this doesn’t bother you, but may I ask, are you an atheist?”

The younger woman smiled. “No, I’m not an atheist.”

“Oh, good, but you don’t go to church.”

“No, I don’t go to church.”

“But you have been baptized.”

“Yes, I am baptized.”

The elderly woman patted the other’s hand. “Oh, good, that makes my heart feel so much better.”

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Zorofloof

Zorofloof (floofinition) – Pets who are manifestations of a supreme deity that come into being to deliver progressively deeper and more insightful knowledge about reality’s nature to Earth’s inhabitants.

In use: “She couldn’t explain it, but her cat’s presence calmed her while enabling deeper thinking and sharper, clearer memories. When she mentioned this to a friend, he smiled. “Zorofloof.” His expression, tone, and soft volume reflected the introduction to something more enigmatic.”

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Thursday’s Theme Music

After watching some televised testimony in Congress yesterday, I walked away thinking, yeah, but who will save your soul for these lies that you told?

Cue Jewel with “Who Will Save Your Soul”. Although it was released in 1996, the lyrics’ sentiments are timeless and easily apply to our current era.

People livin’ their lives for you on TV
They say they’re better than you and you agree
He says “Hold my calls from behind those cold brick walls”
Says “Come here boys, there ain’t nothing for free”
Another doctor’s bill, a lawyer’s bill, another cute cheap thrill
You know you love him if you put in your will, but

Who will save your souls when it comes to the flowers now?
Who, who will save your souls after those lies that you told, boy?
And who will save your souls if you won’t save your own?
La da de da de da la da da da da

We try to hustle them, try to bustle them, try to cuss them
The cops want someone to bust down on Orleans Avenue
Another day, another dollar, another war
Another tower went up where the homeless had their homes
So we pray to as many different gods as there are flowers
But we call religion our friend
We’re so worried about saving our souls
Afraid that God will take His toll that we forget to begin, but

h/t to genius.com

Another day, another dollar, another war, sometimes it’s civil, sometimes it’s civic, but religions and hate guide our killing.

 

 

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Monday’s Bumper Sticker

A boldly honest statement, perhaps, but it was spotted on a twenty year old red Honda Civic. Perhaps they thought they were being ironic or satirical.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

My wife and I were driving home when John Mellencamp’s “Authority Song” played on the radio. We knew the song and sang along. It’s from his Uh-huh album. It came out in 1983, when he was John Cougar. We saw him perform a few years later, in Germany.

As the song wound toward its end, my wife said, “This song doesn’t have many words to it, does it?” No, but that’s how a lot of pop songs are, to me. I was thinking more about these lines:

“I said, “Growing up leads to growing old and then to dying
“And dying to me don’t sound like all that much fun.”

The idea that death is bad — or not fun — has been weaponized, something to use keep us in check. “You might get hurt if you do that. You might even die.” Yes, as if we’re all living forever on this world, in these bodies.

I thought, Heaven as a concept must have been invented to comfort people who are dying or has lost someone. I always liked that idea of Heaven, that another place is beyond death where we live on. Maybe it’s like living in this sense in that mythical next existence, but suppose it’s not? Yet, we’re coached and socialized to fear death because this is life.

Come on, we’re all going to die. Life might be a spectrum, and this slice of life is just another frequency band. Thank of how wonderful it could be in the next band.

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Assumptions

The other day, I wrote a short post, “End Game.” I’ve been amused by the position that people won’t accept other genders because, God, and the Bible, or some other deity and religious document. I assumed that were it true that a deity created the original one or two sexes, they may now have decided to add more sexes. I assumed they could agree with that.

That might be a wrong assumption.

After posting that, I read an article about conservative American thinking in Salon. I infer from the article that Conservatives have a difficult time accepting change. So if God created two sexes and stopped, that’s it; the end. That chokes the life out of my position. They were taught one thing, so they believe one thing, and they can’t change their thinking to believe anything else. It’s a fascinating conclusion, because it’s not about politics or religious beliefs, but about brain structure and how our brains develop and work.

That leads to another assumption, embraced by so many, that we are all the same. An intriguing dichotomy arises: if you have a hard-wired conservative brain and were taught that everyone is the same, then you can’t change your mind, and yet you’re the very evidence that we’re not all the same. That explains why so many conservatives will drop back and point to differences in gender and sexual orientation as either choices or sicknesses. They can’t conceive of the third choice, that either their God has more in mind for the sexes and variations for humans, or that humans continue to develop and evolve. Like generals fighting the last war, their thinking is predicated on the past situation. To think that gender changes might be required for humanity’s survival is unthinkable, and unimaginable.

Now we’re entering X-Men territory. Yet, medical science can point to evolutionary changes and mutations beyond genders and sexual orientations that indicate, yes, human beings are dynamic and evolving. Changes have emerged, and will continue to emerge. Unfortunately, my recent reading about conservative thinking is that they have a hard time with science, too.

The way we learn has an impact, as well. We’ve learned that what we first learn often stays with us; it’s difficult to overcome what we initially learn, even when new information is later added that shows that we initially learned was wrong. Part of this also has to do with with our brains, memory, and wiring.

I wish I was more intelligent and better educated so I could understand and explain it all with more clarity and nuance. Sadly, I ponder if humans might end up destroying humanity trying to stay the same as were were when they believe they were created.

I hope that I’m just assuming the worst.

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End Game

Lot of people are upset out there. They’re upset about this whole gay, lesbian, bi-, trans-, binary gender neutral thinking. They expostulate that it’s this simple: if you’re human, you’re either a man or a woman. If you’re a man, you have sex with a woman. If you’re a woman, you have sex with a man. Everything else is wrong; everything else is an abomination.

I laugh at that. They’re so absolute in their knowledge and beliefs. Many fall back to the idea that God (or Allah, or someone) created the two sexes, and it was written in the Bible or some other religious tome, or inscribed in rocks, or were whispered into ears, so, The End. There’s nothing to discuss. Two sexes make sense, because it’s all about procreation. Go forth and multiple.

Which is, you know, amusing. Did God finish, and say, “Okay, that’s that. What else can I do? I’ve got a lot of time on my hands. Where’d I put my list?”

You figure, if God, or some force behind creative intelligence, is out there, they’re probably trying new ideas. Maybe they have the big picture, and said, “Okay, I got to plan this carefully. Start with baby steps. Start small. First the foundation, universe, planet, and so on. You know, the heavens and Earth. Right. Now add people and animals. Start with two sexes, just to keep it simple. Then go from there, once there’s enough people. It’ll take a while, if I’m going to create one or two, and then have them multiply a couple at a time. I don’t know why I just don’t create the numbers needed now and be done with it – I am the creator, you know – but, whatever, I got the time. No hurry. We’ll have them procreate for thousands of years, get the numbers up, spread out across the planet, and then I’ll add more sexes later, along with new skin colors, like blue, and purple. That’ll be cool. Those other sexes and skin colors will be needed to finish the big picture. Okay, Miller time.”

I don’t know the big picture. I’m not God, or a God, or a prophet. I’m agnostic about having deities out there putting everything in place, pulling strings, and giving mysterious directions. I don’t know, though. You’d think that if you believed there’s some all-powerful being out there behind our existence, you’d trust them enough to believe that they’ll keep on creating, and that they have an end game in mind. You think you’d keep an open mind about it, because, you know, if you pass on, and come face to face with God, he – or she – might ask you, “Why didn’t you accept the other sexual orientations? Who do you think you are? Don’t you know how you messed up the big picture? You guys messed it up so badly, rejecting the others, that I might have to scrub it all, and start over.”

If whatever God is out there and does scrub it all and starts over, I hope he or she re-thinks those whole war, violence, and abuse angles. Other sexual orientations and identification doesn’t bother me nearly as much as all that pain and killing. That seems pretty senseless.

But then, I don’t know the end game.

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