2013 — 15 November: Friday
It's a brisk +2C out there this sun-still-not-quite-above-the-horizon morning1 and, if the car slept outside, it would need a bit of window scraping, I strongly suspect. However, I have no need (and no current plans) to use the car yet today. Not that I make plans. Much. Though I may yet go digging around in the garage for a spare roof tile as I suspect there may still be a couple growing gently older in there (much like me) in a quiet backwater.
It's been a while...
... since I hosted a quote from Jerry Coyne. That was a lovely piece on parasites, comparing the tapeworm ("an absorptive bag of gonads") to his evolutionary biology students. But I'll choose his rigorous rationalism over morning prayers any day of the week, no matter what gods they are named after:
"I have faith that, because I accept Jesus as my personal savior, I will join my friends and family in Heaven."
"My faith tells me that the Messiah has not yet come, but will someday."
"I have strep throat, but I have faith that this penicillin will clear it up."
"I have faith that when I martyr myself for Allah, I will receive 72 virgins in Paradise."
All of these use the word faith, but one uses it differently. The three religious claims (Christian, Jewish, and Muslim, respectively) represent faith as defined by philosopher Walter
Kaufmann: "intense, usually confident, belief that is not based on evidence sufficient to command assent from every reasonable person." Indeed, there is no evidence beyond
revelation, authority, and scripture to support the religious claims above, and most of the world's believers would reject at least one of them. To state it bluntly, such faith
involves pretending to know things you don't.
(My emphasis.) 'Twas ever thus. The last time I pretended to know things I didn't, it was in the service of all those examinations so beloved of the educational system, and just look where that got me. These days, I'm completely relaxed as I gain ever greater understanding of just how little I really know :-)
Humour...
... in public can be toe-curlingly embarrassing. (Proof.)
And funny, of course!
Today's delivery of...
... the Morgan Spurlock collection I mentioned two weeks ago has caused me to (try to) re-watch a fascinating 43-minute conversation between Mark Lawson and Stephen King. Why? Simple: when I recorded the original broadcast (on "More 4") of the Season #2 Spurlock programme on Outsourcing I cut it to the same DVD-R as the Lawson interview. Why "try to"? Well, when a seven year old DVD-R meets BlackBeast the result isn't always a happy2 one. Still, at least it's prompted me to take a look at the King book ("Lisey's story") that was under discussion. Fair to say many of King's millions of fans weren't over-impressed by what sounds like a fairly autobiographical book that I may well enjoy.
I avoided it at the time because of the subject matter. Now that I'm that much further along Life's bumpy little highway I think I may get more out of it. We shall see.
Could do better!
I was curious, and thus browsed some of the (hollow laughter) "KnowledgeBase" articles associated with the latest dollop of gorp that I've trustingly allowed on to my Win8.1 Pro PC. I hafta say, a "Give Feedback" (sic) section that asks...
How much effort did you personally put forth to use this article?
really doesn't encourage me to co-operate. Not even close :-)