Proof of God: catchy subtitle about people being silly goes here

I find these days that when I'm looking for an emotional confirmation that God exists--you know, that warm or overwhelming feeling--I usually turn to nature and just absorb its beautiful complexity and simpleness. But of course that's not a viable proof of God's existence because c'mon, that warm feeling in your bosom is what Mormons use as confirmation of their salvation, and I can get that warm feeling from seeing a kitten.

I like kittens.

So let's try this instead. Here we are, as humans, the top of the heap when it comes to intelligent animal life on this planet. (Now, I recognize that some people might want to debate this and talk about gorillas or dolphins or something. Those people are dumb.) We do stuff, lots of stuff, like build things and invent things and understand things. The list goes on. We almost have cool spaceships, for example. And other animals don't do nearly what we do. I mean, has a monkey ever invented a jet engine? No. And don't leave any comments about how funny it would be. Monkeys are overrated. Now, a shark in a race car? We're talking awesome.

Back to task. Humans. Lots of them. For a long time. And all of us, always, have had thoughts about our impending mortality. It's quite the defining moment of our lives. And some things are constant throughout the history of people: we kill each other, we love each other, we make things, we think things. And we have a very hard time accepting that we might be a cosmic accident or that our lives have no meaning. Although it takes many forms, we are really stuck on this idea of otherworld. Other than all the empires and killing and inventions and exploitation and cultural movements (the history-book history, if you will), we are really stuck on the idea that there is a High Power or whatever out there, even if in the end we choose as individuals not to believe in such things.

I guess the point I'm dancing around is that, for as advanced as we are as a people, why hasn't this simple affection for eternal matters been systematically bred out of us by evolution or intellectual/cultural development? For all our greatness, why do we still get stuck on the God issue? It doesn't matter that we don't agree on the interpretation of who/what this eternal nature of the universe is. Dogs don't have gods or religion. Giraffes either.

"So long, and thanks for all the fish."


PS: I believe in Jesus and the God of the Hebrews (and in the bible alone) because of all the ways to interpret this sense of the eternal, I think He makes the best case. And because of that warm feeling in my bosom when I look at the mountains or kittens.

Noitul Over to Border

Today at work I had an actual, working, productive meeting in which I and my coworkers were heard by my bosses and we came to some nice conclusions about our current direction with one particularly lame program we keep trying to reinvent. Then, I spent the rest of the day eating my lunch, checking my email, and learning all about science and scientific things through the incredible BBC program Look Around You. British TV seems to often be better than American TV. Worst part? I can't get the DVDs because they don't make them in US DVD format. Confound it!

Also, at some point now that google owns blogger and youtube, I'm hoping they'll make the two compatible again so I can just post these things on my blog without having to link. Egads!

Time for danishes

They are having a meeting of community big-wigs in the next room, and I am waiting to pilfer their leftover danishes. As they as currently dismissing, I will now pause...

...for raspberry danish consumption. Cheap, but not horrible.

Ah, what to say in this delightfully public forum? Who knows. I am on the cusp of new things. I can feel the horizon nearing. I don't know how to be more clear exactly. I am awakening to my potential as a risk-taker, as an inspiration, as a creator, as a leader.

In the recent past I was worried about money a great deal. This was mainly because I had no other direction to take. Since I was in the doldrums, it made sense to focus on finances as a means to stability because there was no other meaning. While this is still the case, it is less important than it was. But what does all this mean? I hesitate to say, because I don't want to get pegged to anything. I'm not interested in making commitments or declarations about anything specific at this point because the wind is still blowing and I haven't yet gotten my bearings or heading. I am built to be an influencer and creator, and for the longest time I was afraid to explore these things. I am still afraid, but no longer willing to tolerate the paralysis. Don't expect big things. In fact, expect nothing, because that is what I expect. Significance and meaning can be assigned after the fact, and serves little purpose in the present. And besides, if all this collapses then I don't need the added stress of failed expectation. Expectation has been my enemy for so long, perhaps even what has kept me from acting at all.

Perfectionism, you bastard!

League of the Tiger and Tentacle

That's the name of my make-believe corporation. It makes make-believe money, which I use to buy make-believe space ships, which in turn get blown up by make-believe space pirates. Pie Rates.

Here's something very strange. The League of the Tiger and Tentacle (a.k.a, the League, LTT) is becoming exceedingly multinational. Last night, we got a new member - a Russian guy living in Moscow. He owns a paintball field, but the Russian winter has closed it for the time being. My three Australian corpmates (as they are commonly called) live in South Central Australia, more commonly known as the outback. This is the outback a la Paul Hogan as Crocodile Dundee, not Steve Irwin the Crocodile Hunter. It seems very bleak where they live. And they don't have crocodiles or koalas where they live, or even Foster's beer. Which is apparently a bad Australian beer, perhaps comparable to bad American Budweiser. And it's always 13.5 hours ahead of here there, which usually means it's tomorrow for them. And I know very little about my English corpmate because he's the hardest one to meet online, although he is smart and nice. Timezones can be a real pain when you're trying to catch people online in a game.


There are over 30,000 people that play this game at the same time. How is it that I seem to find all the people from other countries, when at least 1/3 (most likely closer to 1/2 to 2/3) of the people playing are Americans? I really don't mind, in fact I enjoy it greatly. Makes for lively and interesting conversations. (Particularly since the Russian is not a native English speaker.) Makes me laugh a little. I try to sucker more of my local friends into playing the game all the time, but instead I make friends in other countries. Also makes me stay up significantly later than most people would consider reasonable, particularly for work nights.

See you in space.

cat pee

So, Ellen was over this weekend, and she brought her dogs. Evidently this was too much for Atticus to handle, and he hid in our bedroom much of the time. And peed on my clean laundry at some point. Now, I should know to put away my clean laundry rather than leave it in the basket, but I hate folding laundry and I'm just going to wear those clothes again anyway. I suspect that his peeing was actually a stress/retaliation peeing, but who can say. This is the main trouble with having skittish cats, particularly quasi-ferals. Dagnabbit.

What else to say? I've been discouraging my fellow employees with the information I recieved at the conference. I also noticed that my agency should have been represented in the survey, or at least they would have been sent one. Which begs the questions: Did anyone fill out the survey? and Was that person deliberately sketchy in reporting or just quite significantly out of touch with the day to day of this place? Either option is feasible here. Sigh.

In other news, EVE is going well. My corporation (and Kevin's) is developing, and I now have four corp members in other countries: 3 in South Australia and 1 in England. And they are all nice people that I would allow to stay at my house if they came to visit. And also, the kitchen floor is very near to completion. I just need to install the threshold transitions, which requires some cutting and finagling of some carpet pieces...and of a door. But the kitchen looks much improved, thanks to the initiative of my wife.

This is a title

I hate my job. It is loathsome and disdainful to me. So desperately do I want to quit, particularly on days like today, when I had a failed early morning program (2 attendees) and then I get to sit here all ever-lovin' day until I do a late night program too. The only good news is that I don't have to be here until 1pm tomorrow. I want to bitch about how much it sucks, but I really just want to scream, and probably cry, except that I'm male, so emotion rarely comes out as crying. Anger and frustration. Anger that this job is so unsupportive and misguided. Frustration that I see no clearer future ahead of me. Both that I make so little money and feel devalued.

We get paid $4000 less than the lowest amount made by other people doing this job in Ohio. I learned that at a conference. And, administrators try to hide that from us by leaving out (or whiting out, in days past) how much money we are supposed to be paid according to the grants we work under. They only give us the grant info that has the outcome numbers in it, none of the budget stuff. So I should say something, right? Maybe if they actually cared or would listen. And people have been doing do for years anyway, from what I hear. And all it gets them is on the Black List.

I hope Aaron is enjoying his day off today.

I have a headache, and I want to go to sleep. I was tempted to lie and call in sick today. And I was tempted to just quit today without notice. But O yeah, I don't have the money to buy groceries until Friday, so I probably shouldn't quit.

My titles are purple

I am a jerk, I think, though unintentionally and somewhat unapologetically so. I am sometimes arrogant, or is it confident? They blend too easily. The purpose of this post is to start thinking and unwinding why it is that I am not a gentle person. I desire to be a gentle person. You don't hear many people talking about gentleness, but it's one of the vaunted Fruits O' the Spirit, and that's not even close to the only time gentleness is advised, recommended, or suggested in ye olde Bible. It's kind of like how we never talk about gossip and greed often being listed among the naughty sexy sins we'd rather talk about, like adultery and homosexuality and drunkenness. Gossip? Yep.

Read that last chapter of Galatians to see what I mean. You'll see gentleness tucked right in there with love, joy, peace and the other quintessential Christian traits. And I think I used to be gentle, at some point. Or was that naivity? It's too hard to separate. What I know is that over time I have become more confident in what I know and understand about the world and about myself, and less tolerant of "falsehood," be it in culture or another person.

Anyway, I want to know more about gentleness, and I want to stop blaming my culture for who and what I am. But I most likely won't. I want God to change me so I can't take credit for doing it myself. Because I will take credit for doing it myself, and that will probably mean that I haven't actually achieved the goal of change. It'll be some reasonably mistakable facsimile of change instead.

And here's another separate issue: Just when I get content that God is distant and does not control every aspect of earthly life, then someone starts talking about how personal God is and how He lives with us and is active among us. And then I get bitter again and have to start all over because I want to believe those things, but I have not found them to be true or satisfying.

i hate titles

I disapprove of my job, but I find myself now in a dilemma. Do I sit here and protest either passively or actively, or do I play the good employee and toe the party line? The agency that I work for is hung up on money, and most of our administrators have forgotten, seemingly, what it is to be broken. This is my assessment, and it is not a fair one. Anyway, I'm torn. I want to do a good job here and be liked, but I'm not inclined to buy anyone's rhetoric either. I don't know how to be the good guy.

In this slippery place, I feel I'm losing my footing. Not knowing which direction to pursue, I am headed toward a least common denominator - my attitude and quality of work are slipping. Well, not the quality of the services that I provide, but my dedication to doing the paperwork and reporting (now in triplicate in some cases) is crumbling. I fear that if I don't get out of here soon, I'll leave knowing in my own head that I did good and quality work, but I might not have the good reference to back it up. This is the sort of agency that prizes the facade of paperwork and vague reports over the sterner measure of whether the work actually had an impact. As long as we look good to the funders.

I am frustrated. I've also spent 11 of my last 16 hours of work sitting at my desk doing nothing. Well, not doing nothing. You Tube has vastly improved in content since my last perusal. I was today able to watch several episodes of "Look Around You" and several Monty Python's Flying Circus sketches, including the Cheese Shop and How Not to be Seen. You must watch these videos. I assign this task to you as a comedic mandate. By reading these words, you have accepted the charge.

The end is nigh?

I've entirely lost focus for this weblog. I don't feel the impulse to maintain it that I used to, and I have a really hard time coming up with regular content. ('When did you feel this impulse?' you ask? A long time ago.) I just don't know what to write about here. So, now it's tour turn. Post some comments and tell me what sorts of things you want this weblog to be about. Do it now or else.