Hipstamatic Evening view

You know it’s pool night for yours truly. We are at Pressure Billiards tonight at around 6300 N Clark for all of you playing at home.

… And also with you

Apparently today is Star Wars day. May the fourth be with you.

Let’s go to the amusement park

Sign says, “You must be as tall as my balls to ride this attraction.”

I’m not sure he has the right to be that particular.

Via I have seen the whole of the internet

The cleverest catraption you’ll see all day

This video is a great watch. Entertaining. Funny. Useful. It satisfies a range of needs in one place. It’s a little long, but hardly disappointing.

It’s an Aussie (I think) named  Craig Turner explaining how to rid your life of pesky cats peeing on your car.

Via

It’s Wednesdog!

“World meet Licorice. Licorice meet world.”

This week’s Wednesdog is brought to you by regular-reader and second-time contributor Jude.

About this sweet, sweet doggie-ma-doo, Jude says:

She actually belongs to my dad, but I get to look after her whenever he’s out of town. Luckily, she gets along great with Sam and Anna. She’s also hyper-intelligent – which doesn’t mean she’s hyper-obedient. The very first time she came over, she figured out at once how to operate the screen door, and showed Sam and Anna how to do it as well. Arrgh.

Collect your doggie doting selves and take a gander at Licorice.

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I’m in need of Wednesdog and Caturday submissions. So get ‘em in or you’ll have to stare at Talulah and Zoe. And I know you hate that.

And, yes, SAW, Xina, Bill W., whoever you are, get them pictures to my email box!

I trumped you with the F word

Image via Wikipedia

This noggin of mine has been mulling over the F word lately.

The F word comes up in debates. It’s come up in conversations. And it’s high time I addressed it directly.

Of course I’m talking about “Faith.” You know what I’m talking about. People with faith tell people who don’t claim to have faith that they have faith.

If you said to me, “Jeremy, you have faith in Tina. You have faith in technology and in airplanes.”

I would say to you, “Yes! You’re right. I have faith that Tina will not go out and run sexually rampant with random men (or women). I have faith that the plane I’m riding in will not fall from the sky. And I have faith that Apple computer manufactured a damn good computer that won’t crash every day and lose all my work.”

If that’s “faith,” include me among the very faithful.

Faith pertains to experience. It might not always be tangible. I’m 35 years old. I have 35 years of being emotionally hurt by people. I have 35 years of emotionally hurting other people. I have 35 years of riding in planes.  I have 35 years of riding in cars. And 35 years of using technology. I have 35 years of living in America.

For 35 years, no one has killed me. But I’ve seen or heard of zillions of people getting killed.

I have 35 years of knowledge that no matter what I do, I cannot control anyone or anything else. I have no good reason to believe the floor will not give out except for the fact that it didn’t do it yesterday.

I have faith that Tina is going to do what she can not to hurt me. But no matter what, she might, and that’s okay. That’s life experience. The same goes for strangers and family. That doesn’t mean a car isn’t going to cross the median and ram head on into mine. That doesn’t mean that the floor beneath my feet isn’t going drop out beneath my office chair.

In that regard, I have strong faith. Some might say I’m more faithful than others.

So what about faith in the deity or deities? 

Why then do I not have faith in God? There are great things that appear supernatural all around me, then why don’t I have Christian-branded faith? 

I don’t have faith in god, because there is no indication to me that god exists. And the reasons that a believer uses to establish faith are not solid reasonings to accept. Nature is natural, and while it’s AMAZING, the Christian rationale for nature’s existence is completely unimpressive nor plausible compared to the scientific explanations.

There are several people on my facebook wall that say, “God will always be there for me. He will never leave me or forsake me.”

As a Christian, I was taught  god was always there and he would never leave me. But apart from my imagination, he wasn’t anywhere to be found? Sure, I tried and tried to convince myself that, say, Jesus was hugging me when I was scared. I was taught that other people prayed for Jesus to hold them, and they were convinced he did that if asked.

I remember going to high school and telling other people, “Yeah, last night I prayed Jesus would hold me last night, and he did.” I had faith that he had, but full knowledge that he had not. And after a while, you get the feeling that other people were in on the secret.

It’s as if faith in God is only a metaphor that all believers are aware of, but won’t admit. When I read the bible as an outsider, I arrive at the same conclusion. It’s a club of people who know that Jesus will never really hold you when you’re frightened, but everyone perpetuates the idea that he does to comfort those who might think they need it in the future.

The idea of heaven and hell is farfetched, but without it, the club can’t exist properly.

You should have faith, too

Why do you think the “faith” card gets pulled in debates? What is your faith experience? Would you agree that the term is faith or do you think we should trifle over semantics? I want to know.

From the comments

Luis V. delivered my favorite response yesterday to the post about The Ten Commandments. 

He wrote:

It’s amazing for example, how something like the narratives of the birth of Christ are TOTALLY different in all 4 gospels, same with the death and resurrection narratives. Yet my school was all too happy to do what most Xtianity does, combine all 4 gospels into one super narrative, tell you it’s all in the Bible and not tell you jack about the fact that none of the gospels agree on the details. Combine that with laziness on my part for not really digging and analyzing the texts and voila, instant believer!

Thanks, Luis!

A reporter who will live the life … just not as a reporter

The wheels on the bus go … at all?

Via 

Losing your wallet = losing your mind

Tuesday afternoon, I managed to lose my wallet. I use the term “lose” loosely.

At first it was fine. I looked around the house, and I couldn’t find it. No big deal.

As time passed, I became more and more desperate.

You see, I wanted to go to the store to buy some wine for dinner. And the more I searched for el wallet-o, the more I became frustrated.

The more I became frustrated, the bigger my hair became. I tend to run my fingers through my hair in frustration.

Finally, Tina said she would go to the store and leave me to wallet searching.

Mind you, I looked EVERYWHERE. I cleared out my entire chest of drawers. My entire closet was on the floor in a heap. I went through closets and kitchen drawers.  I went through every possible scenario.

I walked back out to the grass where I threw the ball with Talulah. I retraced my steps. I walked down to the mailboxes again to see if I dropped it in the front hall. Intermittently, I checked my bank accounts online to see if there was activity on my debit cards in the event someone found the wallet and was already buying groceries on me.

I reached my hands in the pockets of the jeans I wore today 400 times (no exaggeration). The 401st time I looked, I prayed, “Jesus God and Hindu Moses, where the fuck is my goddamn Mohammed Ali Wallet!?!”

See! There are no foxes in atheist holes!

When I began to cry and scream out to the heavens, I sat down in my office chair, I buried my head in my hands and I said, “Christopher Hitchens … where is my wallet?”

I looked up and looked underneath my CD labeler, and there it was.

After changing my diaper and apologizing to Tina … a thousand times … I made dinner. Turkey burgers and green beans.

Nothing like Turkey burgers with a side of chaos.

And nothing like knowing Chris Hitchens is the deity in charge of wallets.