High Dorkness

Guess what we did tonight?

I don't think you lot have a clear understanding of just how dorky me and the Pirate are. We are exceptionally dorky.

As Pirate has just said to me (while watching what I type over my shoulder), "The word 'pedant' sums up our relationship quite nicely."

Yes, we listen to Radio 4.
Yes, we watch University Challenge and Mastermind.
Yes, we iron our clothes, eat our vegetables, wash between our toes, and go to bed early. But that is just the beginning.

Tonight we settled a long-standing argument. (Mostly so that one of us would have the opportunity to be smug.) We have been arguing for a while about the plural of the Toyota Prius. But tonight we settled it.

We have this argument because my parents have two of the marvelous little hybrid cars, to which we refer as the family Prii. (Pronounced pree-eye).

Pirate insisted the plural of Prius was Priuses. (I know.)

Since Prius isn't a Latin word, we agreed that the closest equivalent was "focus," and tonight, well, tonight we finally went up to my office, pulled out my Latin grammar and looked up the declension of "focus."

For the record, it IS a second declension noun and therefore the plural is "foci" (something I already knew from high school math class, but that argument didn't fly with Pirate). The only way, in Latin, to pluralize a noun ending in -us is with -i.

So I win. Thanks to Kennedy's Revised Latin Grammar, c. 1962 Longman Group Ltd.

Thank you, NRA

Keep up the good work.

Historic

While the last bricks of a long-held, deep-seeded American bigotry were being pulled down in Tuesday's historic election,

a new one

rears

it's ugly, ugly head.

I'm absolutely thrilled that America finally decided a black child can have the same dreams of growing up to be president as a white child. I'm utterly appalled that a lot of those same people think they get a say in who people marry.

Eighteen THOUSAND couples in California who got married this summer, thanks to the acknowledgment of their rights by the CA legislature and supreme court, have just been told that their marriages aren't valid. That despite the licenses, vows, parties, and cakes, they are no longer married, because of a bunch of bigots decided so.

I can't imagine how I would feel if someone came a long and told me that I was no longer married to Pirate. That for some reason the public disapproved, and without my consent, invalidated my marriage.

I think I would kill myself.

What happened today in California is utterly despicable.

Today I'm thrilled for Obama, but I'm still weeping for the state of civil rights in America. Congratulations, African-Americans, you're officially off the bottom rung of the latter. You've been replaced by a deeper loathing of gays.

Wake-up Call

Every now and again a news story comes along that I feel compelled to share.

MORON STUNNED THAT ALLOWING 8-YR-OLD TO PLAY WITH UZI RESULTS IN ACCIDENTAL DEATH

This is my favorite part of the story:

"This accident was truly a mystery to me," he said. "This is a horrible event, a horrible travesty, and I really don't know why it happened."

Um, it happened because you thought it would be cute to let your kid fire an Uzi. Jesus H. Christ in a hula-hoop. Are people really that dumb?? Yes, yes they are.

LC doesn't love me anymore

Apparently I'm too honest and sane to hang out with the Liars and Lunatics.

*sobs*

*blows nose into soppy, used tissue*

*wipes face on sleeve*

It's time to stop taking Islam seriously

I used to be a flaming liberal, always ready to defend the rights, freedoms, and thoughts of anyone. I felt that all cultures were equally valid and no one had the right to criticize anyone else's culture. Our Muslim friends and neighbors have finally convinced me I was wrong. (Oh, the irony.)

I thought the whole Danish cartoon scandal was rediculous, but those sympathetic to the over-reacting Muslims did have one good point: the cartoonists were deliberately poking fun. Now most people can take a joke, and even those of us who can't will usually just sulk for a while. We certainly don't go around calling for the public decapitation of the person who made the unwelcome crack. And yet a bunch of "extremist" Muslims did just that.

But this time, this time there is no excuse, no defense, no justification for the insanity. The cartoonists may have sparked riots, but the fact is they did intend to be insulting (that is the point of a satirical political cartoon.) Mrs. Gibbons plainly had no such intent. Hers was a well-intentioned, if slightly (and only slightly) misinformed act. (I say 'slightly minsinformed' because apparently the ban on using the name isn't universal -- for several months kids took the teddy home before a parent complained. Clearly the parents of all the other kids were as blisfully ignorant of their religion as Mrs. Gibbons.) And now there are riots calling for her execution.

I refuse to resepct any culture/religion/ideology/whatever that suggests death (or even 15 days in prison) is an appropriate punishment for an accidental insult. Mrs. Gibbons harmed no one. She hurt no one. No property was damaged, no lives or reputations unraveled or destroyed. This is out of all proportion, and we are under no obligation to respect it.

I'm sure that the government and some other prominent individuals will be reminding us shortly that this isn't the majority of muslims, it's just a crazy "extremist" minorty. But is it really? Where are the protesters telling the protesters to shut up, chill out, and go home? Where are the MUSLIM voices crying out that this is nuts? They are conspicuous by their absence.

Ben Macintyre of the The Times would like us to believe that the Sudanese government is using Mrs. Gibbons as a pawn in their political games. That's probably true. But if it were only a few corrupt and nasty government officials who were making a scapegoat of Mrs. Gibbons, the incident would be much smaller in scale. The problem is that thousands of people agree with the goverment. The Sudanese people are not crying "Our corrupt goverment is using an innocent woman to maniuplate our support! They are shit and we will oust them!" No, they are crying "Death to the infidel! They are as happy to make Mrs. Gibbons a scapegoat as the government is, and that makes them just as crazy and just as extremist.

And this isn't just a few nutters in Kartoum. There is slilent complicity all over the world. Middle Eastern nations should be condemning this for the insanity it is, repremanding the Sudanese government for making Muslims the world over look bad. Where is the outrage from other Islamic nations?


Now, before you go and delcare a fatwah on me (oh hell, go ahead and delcare it anyway; nothing I say to you will make any difference if you're of the fatwah-issuing mindset), I'm not saying that every Muslim is a crazy extremist. Just the majority of them. Why? Because Islam itelf it inherently irrational. Built into the very fabric of the relgion is intolerance, over-reation, extremism, impatience, suspicioun and contempt. No rational, thinking being would view the reaction to Mrs. Gibbons faux pas as appropriate. End of. The people calling for her death or imprisonment are not rational and they don't think. Furthermore it appears that this is the majority of Muslims.

If you do not behave in a reasonable manner, I am under no cultural obligation to accept you as a reasonable person. And if you follow a philosophy that condemns reason, thought, and rationale, I will dismiss you as unreasonable, thoughtless, and irrational. Political correctness be damned.

Baby winge

I read an article last week in the BBC. I genuinely don't remember what it was about, but one line stuck out in my mind, and has been turning over and over in my brain ever since:

"Many women blame the lack of adequate child care."

What exactly are they blaming on the on the lack of childcare? I don't remember, but it was probably something to do with either why so few women are in full-time employment, or possibly falling birth rates. It doesn't really matter, though. What is amazing about this statement is how blaze' it is. I bet few, if any, other readers of the article even batted an eye when they read it. Of course it's to do with inadequate child care. Duh.

And yet, this is an extraordinary assertion. I find it incredible that anyone, in any situation, should feel entitled to child care of any form. It really is an amazing assumption, completely new in the past couple of decades (which is but a pimple on the butt of the sum total of human history), that we feel entitled to give birth, spend a couple months with baby, and then go back to our careers, leaving someone else to look after the spog until he or she is 18 and old enough to leave home.

Ok, maybe not completely new. Extremely wealthy women throughout history were obligated to produce heirs to inherit their husband's property, but refused to engage in anything so bovine as actually feeding their own children, and after the first loud wail the bairns were handed off to be raised by wet nurses and governesses. But that is by far the exception, and even then it was never viewed as a government's responsibility. It was still a personal choice (either raise them yourself or spend your own money to hire other people). No one used other people's money to hire other people to raise their own children. Such an idea would have been preposterous. And yet, that's exactly what we do today.

Japan, Italy, and pretty much all of the developed world are facing major birth rate crises. The problem is that couples have been breeding far below the necessary 2.1 kids per couple to sustain the population, and the result is that in a few more years there won't be enough workers paying in to the social benefits scheme to support all the old people retiring and living off it. In both these countries women cite The Lack of Adequate Child Care as a primary reason for having one or no kids. Interestingly, when presented with a choice of raising kids or having a career, most people seem to be choosing the career. Fine. At least it's a choice. They are saying "I can't do both, so I choose one over the other." I can respect that.**

What I can't respect is the sense of entitlement, that the government has some sort of obligation to raise my children so I don't have to sacrifice anything to have them. And that kind of attitude is all too common. It's deeply reminiscint of people who want pets but don't want to do any of the dirty work, like walking the dog and scooping the cat litter. Can you imagine someone writing an article for the BBC, or giving a story on the news, saying "I'm completely entitled to have a dog, but I don't have time to take it out twice a day to walk and poop because I work full time. Clearly the government needs to institute more comprehensive dog-ownership programs to assist working dog-owners with their dog-walking and poop-scooping tasks. These programs need to be made especially accessible to poorer dog owners, who often have the most dogs but the fewest resources to look after them." Man, would I love to see that.

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that a woman's place is in the home making babies. I am saying that you shouldn't even be contemplating having kids (and that's "you" meaning all of you, male and female alike) unless you're prepared give something up to have them (that is the nature of parenting) and are prepared to raise them your bloody self.


What do you think? There are a few moms and dads who hang out here. Do you think you are entitled to child care and after-school programs so you can continue to work? If so, why?

**Interestingly, no one has suggested a mass adoption campaign to move unwanted or orphaned babies from overpopulated countries like India and China to developed countries. If Italy is willing to pay its women cash to make babies, why shouldn't they just spend the cash to import and raise babies that would otherwise languish in a 3rd-world orphanage? It would help balance things out a lot. Everybody wins! I'm serious about this.

Ack!

Bad Idea! Bad Idea! Danger, danger Will Robinson! *waves arms mechanically in air*

This is so backwards I don't know where to begin. (I was going to post this on QE, but I just wrote a new post there, so I'll stick it here instead.)

More faith schools are NOT the answer! This is the government passing off it's responsibility to provide decent education. Fix the bloody schools, you cowards, instead of turning them over to the hands of people who will use them to confuse science and religion in the minds of young people and indoctrinate them into silly ideologies they can use as justifications for killing each other later.

Help me, Obi-Wan Dawkins; you're my only hope!

Suburban, white hypocrisy

Continuing with the theme of racism from over at Q.E., have a look at this article from the BBC website about the sub-prime lending fiasco over in the states that's mucking up the world's finacial markets:

Shrewd Lenders Spark US Mortgage Chaos

Scroll down a bit and you'll find a quote from a journalist at the Milwaukee Sentinal Journal, the city's major newspaper, explaining just how serious the problem has become:

"This is not a poor, black, or Hispanic thing," explains Michelle Derus from the Milwaukee Sentinel Journal, who has been following the growth of sub-prime loans for more than two years. "This is a suburban white problem."

You can almost hear her add "so we know it's gotten really serious."


The thing is, I bet you a million bucks that if you asked this woman she would swear she's not racist. Yet here she is explicitly stating that because a problem has spread from the black and Hispanic communities into the white middle-classes, it is a serious problem. She is using the concept of white people suffering synonymously with significant suffering. Clearly if the problem had remained a black and Hispanic problem she wouldn't be bothered.

Do not make excuses for this woman. This is a racist statement born of a racist mind, and anyone who fails to observe the blatant racism contained therein is equally racist. The fact that so few Americans will observe this is proof of how far we have to go to overcome racism.

Don't ever let anyone tell you the battle is won.

Save the Planes

This week crowds of people have been protesting at Heathrow Airport against expansions they argue would contibute to global climate change, which is bad.

This may be the first time in my life I have taken a stance against the pro-enviroment protestors. Here's why:


I like planes.


I'm an expat living on a different continent from my family. I fly. Rather a lot.
I also like travelling the world.
And sending gifts to people, especially my family in America.
All this requires flight.

I completely acknowledge that global warming is a catastrophe on a scale that has never before been witnessed in human history. We have it in our power to minimize the damage done to ecosystems the world over (and ultimately to ourselves) by making technological and lifestyle changes. I absolutely believe these changes can and should take place on a national/commercial/industrial scale (more fuel efficient cars, alternative energy sources, etc) as well as a personal scale (turn off your fucking lights, hang the laundry on line, ride a bike to work, etc.).

But please please please please please can we leave the planes alone?

This is what I think: I think we should do everything possible to arrest global warming, and if all that stuff doesn't work, then we can get rid of the planes. But can we leave them as a last resort, pretty please with a cherry on top?


Oh, and while we're on the subject of the environment, I would like to point out this article, which gets my vote for The Most Obvious Headline Of The Year Award.

Listen up, my bearded and veily freinds!

For a little light weekend reading, here's an (unoffical - i typed it myself) transcript of a portion BBC Radio 4's 'Now Show," which first aired last friday, 20 July 2007. It's a commentary by Marcus Brigstock, a scathing and hilarious endictment of organized religion. Prepare to be hugely offended and laugh your arse off:


"I'd like to start this week with a request, and this one goes out to the followers of the three Abrahamic religions: the Muslims, Christians, and Jews. It's just a little thing, really, but do you think that when you've finished smashing up the world and blowing each other to bits and demanding special privledges while you do it, do you think that maybe the rest of us could sort of have our planet back? I wouldn't ask, but I'm starting to think that there must be something written in the special books that each of you so enjoy referring to that it's ok to behave like special, petulent, pugnacious, pricks. Forgive the alliteration, but your persistent, power-mad punch-ups are pissing me off. It's mainly the extremists obviously, but not exlclusively. It's a lot of 'main-streamers' as well. Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about.

Muslims: listen up my bearded and veily friends! Calm down, ok? Stop blowing stuff up. Not everything that said about you is an attack on the prophet Mohammed and Allah that needs to end in the infidel being destroyed. Have a cup of tea, put on a Cat Stevens record, sit down and chill out. I mean seriously, what's wrong with a strongly-worded letter to The Times?

Christians: you and your churches don't get to be millionairs while other people have nothing at all. They're your bloody rules; either stick to them or abandon the faith. And stop persecuting and killing people you judge to be immoral. Oh, and stop pretending you're celibate -- it's a cover-up for being a gay or a nonce. Right, that's two ticked off.

Jews! I know you're god's 'Chosen People' and the rest of us are just whatever, but when Israel behaves like a violent, psychopathic bully and someone mentions it that doesn't make them anitsemitic. And for the record, your troubled history is not a license to act with impunity now.

So, when the letters come (and I'm guessing they will), I can gaurantee that each one of those faiths will be conviced that I've singled them out for special criticism.

[In mock Arabic accent] Why did it have to be us? Islam is a peaceful faith!

[In upper class British accent] I don't see what's wrong with being Christian? We're a peaceful, loving faith.

[In affronted, huffy voice] How dare you after all we've been through! We Jews know how terrible violece can be.

You see, all of them will be convinced that they're the ones being picked on. The Abrahamic faiths are like scousers: they're always conviced they [in scouser accent} have it harder than everyone else.

And why is it that all of these faiths claim to be peaceful, when even a most fleeting glance at a history of warfare will tell you otherwise? The relationship between religion and warfare is very similar to the relationship between Ant and Deck: you could have one without the other, but I'm not sure anyone would see the point. I wouldn't actually like it, but it would be refreshing to hear one of them come out and say [in working class London accent] "Our faith's violent as you like. We love a scrap, us lot, we do. Our special book says 'fight fight smash maim murder kill fight fight.' That's why I signed up to be honest. I'm a bit naught, know what I mean?" But yet all of them claim to be peaceful religions. Yeah, peaceful right up to the point where someone takes something they think is theirs, or says the wrong thing or looks at them funny. Then it's fighty smashy kicky punchy all the way. I know this'll upset a lot of people and frankly I don't care. I'm getting so sick of religious people screwing it up for the rest of us.

Please don't kill us, seriously. As far as I'm concerned this is the only chance we get. When we die it's all over -- there's no virgins and pearly gates waiting for us, no big, beardy man saying [in deep, echoing voice and upper class accent] "Right, so how do you think that went, then? Killed a lot of people in my name I see. Not really what I had in mind. Um, tell you what, have another go as a worm."

While we're at it, I'm sick of religious people forcing their children to define themselves by their parents' faith. A four-year-old is no more a Christian than he is a member of the Postal Workers' union. [in child's voice] "We want a fair working wage, decent working conditions, and time allotted to see the new Transformers film."

This week Lydia Playfoot, who took Millay School in Horsham to the high court so she could wear jewelry to prove she's staying a virgin for Jesus, lost her case. Good. I'm glad. I don't care how many times her parents claim it was her idea, rules is rules, and if you want to wear a ring that tells everyone you're not having any sex you can get married like the rest of us. Now, the lawyer for the chaste Miss Playfoot said the question for the judge was 'What are the religious rights of school children in the school context?' Well, I'm no judge (not yet, anyway), but if you want my opinion, none. No rights. No religious rights whatsoever. Schools are for learning. If you want to have a little pray before maths so that Mr. Figures won't set too hard a test, or prevent the P.E. teacher from being a collossal pervert, then go head, fill your boots. If you want to pop on a feathered headdress and chant and dance and mumble and sacrifice something you can do that on your own time. (Or take a drama course, pretend it's art, and get a degree in it. That's what I did.) The lawyer, Mr. Diamond, argued "secular authorities cannot rule on religious truth." Hmm. Well, Mr. Diamond, I'm going to assume you're not related to Neil Diamond, becuase he rocks. Yes, I like Neil Diamond. And Prince. And I'm married -- go figure. But the point is "religious truth" is a foxy one, buecasue religion, by it's very nature, doesn't tend to concern itself with truth. There simply isn't time for truth. By the time all the singing and candle-lighting and toadying and condemning and hiding from science is done truth has given up and gone down to the pub for a pint. Here's the truth: faith is about as interested in truth as I am in hangning out with Anthony Warrel Thompson, ie, not very.

Now, I know that most relgious folk are moderate and reasonable and wear tidy jumpers and eat cheese, like real people. And on hearing this they'll mainly feel pity for me, rather than issue a death sentence. But they have to accept that they are the power base for the nutters. Without their passive support the loonies in charge of these faiths would just be loonies, safely locked away and medicated -- somewhere nice with a view of some trees where they can claim they have a direct channel to god between sessions making tapestry coasters, watching Teletubbies and talking about thier days in the Hitler Youth. The ordinary faithful make these viscious, tyrannical thugs what they are. See, I get angry that show like Celebrity and Big Brother and insert-title-of-wretched-show-here still fill our lives with vapid, pointless emptiness, and I wish the producers' development exectives would crawl back under the rocks they emerged from, but the truth is they sell stuff that people consume. Without the audience to prop it up, Heat magazine and fundamental religious fanatacism goes away. Imagine what humanity might be capable of if we had that much spare time! We could explore space properly, have decent look in the sea, find a cure for James Blunt, anything!

Thank you very much. Letters to the usual address."

You MUST watch this

Pope Ratzinger is at it again. Could he possibly be any more assenine, i ask you?!

Faith, Part II

In my last post I put forth a definition of the word "faith" that amounted to choosing to believe something is absolutely true while you acknowledge that you don't actually have any means of knowing if it's true or not. No one disagreed with that definition, so we'll keep going with that for now. (Feel free to criticize the definition and suggest an alternate one if you like.)

I then asked why that seems to so many people to be a sensible way to approach the world in which we live. Faith, the very concept, regardless of the specifics, is widely held to be a good idea. This confuses me. I got a variety of answers, such as

• It's comforting to believe in a helpful god
• Another definition of faith, the same as the one I put forth, but worded differently
• It's useful for controlling groups of people
• Some suggested reading of books written by atheists
• Because the Bible exists
• A request for more soft porn
• It's a safer bet after you snuff it
• It's a useful tool to exploit ignorant masses
• The human brain cannot function without it
• A rebuttal to the Biblical response
  
• It's easier than not believing
• It is the only source of morality and instills fear, which is a necessary component of a civilised society
• There may be an evolutionary benefit to having faith

but very few actually responded to the question I was asking. I think I need to be more specific. I want to know why people of faith think the concept of faith is a good idea. I don't want to know why faith in your particular diety is a good idea. I want to know why you think the concept is sound.

I doubt that the average religous person would say "It's good that I have faith because it makes me easier to control."

Yes, the notion of God is a comforting one, but that's getting way ahead of me. We're not anywhere near discussing God yet. That's next week. Right now we're just talking about why choosing to believe things you know are unknowable is a sensible philosophy by which to live. Given that, the only answers that are relevant are

• It's a safer bet after you snuff it
• The human brain cannot function without it
• It's easier than not believing
• It is the only source of morality and instills fear, which is a necessary component of a civilised society
• There may be an evolutionary benefit to having faith

I'd like to address these one at a time.

1. from Lorna: "There are significant numbers of scientists who, though they don't rationally believe in any form of god, still quite seriously keep a level of faith and observance because you never know what's going to happen after death."

I did know a RC priest once who told me that he became a priest because he had no way of knowing if there was a god or an afterlife, but he wanted to err on the side of caution. That is, if he lived his life w/o believing in God, and died, and was wrong, he would be screwed. But if he became a priest, and died, and was wrong, it didn't matter. Better safe than sorry, as it were.

I suppose there is a certain amount of pragmatism to this approach, but it baffles me on a couple levels: first, the priest clearly didn't actually believe there was a god. He was agnostic but wouldn't admit it. So this is really more of a lifestyle choice than a faith choice. He wasn't choosing to believe; he was choosing to live his life as though he did. Same with the scientists Lorna mentions. So strike that off the list.

2. from A Random Thinker: "Every computer needs an operating system... to function. Human beings call it faith... They need it to function in the natural world.... You can't avoid faith. The real question is which one is right for you."

I guess the crux of this point hinges on the defintion of the word "function." I am assuming "fuction" to mean "living with the capacity to look after one's self and family group in a modern, complex society, meeting all basic physical needs such as food and shelter, participating in society on some civic level, not being a detriment to those around you, and being mentally and emotionally stable." Would you agree with this definition? Anything you'd like to add?

From this definition, your point about humans needing faith to function is simply incorrect. As evidence I offer myself and tens of thousands of non-believers who manage to function in the world just fine. Simple as. Strike point 2 off the list.

3. Michael said: "It's easier to believe."

Very true. It is easier. That doesn't make it a good idea. It's easier to jump off a bridge and end it all than it is to work three jobs to pay down your debt. It's eaiser to fall off a bike than it is to ride it. It's eaiser to walk past a homeless person than it is to stop and buy them a meal. It's easier to complain about your civic leaders than it is to do something about changing the way government functions. It's always easier to stick your head in the sand and ignore a problem, any problem, than to do something about it. But just because soemthing is easier doesn't make it a good idea. Being easy isn't the same as being virtuous.

This response comes closest so far in answering my question, but ultimately it only explains why so many people have faith in things. It does not explain why that faith is useful. Strike three off the list.

4. Michael also pointed out an article in USA Today that brings up the whole morality issue. "What would a world without God look like? Well, for one, morality becomes, if not impossible, exceedingly difficult."

As a non-believer who holds a leadership office in an organized society that promotes debate and discussion between believers, non-believers, and un-sures, this is a question I get a lot. I have 2 responses:

First, morality is not impossible without a belief in god. To suggest otherwise is to say that all atheists and agnostics are immoral. This is as arrogant and insulting as it is untrue. I can give you countless examples of good and moral atheists, and just as many of unethical, immoral believers. Religion would like very much to think it has a monopoly on morality, but this is simply not the case.

Second, it's irrelevant anyway. Even introducing god into the equation at this stage is premature. I don't want to know why faith in god is a good thing; I want to know why faith is a good thing. Let's leave god out of it for the time being. I'm interested in the suppposed virtue of faith as a concept, not the supposed virtue of faith in particular things. That's the next step. If you're having trouble separating faith as a concept from faith in god, try to think of it in terms of faith in other things, such faith in giant invisible bunnies roaming the streets of Bristol, or faith in a teapot circling the sun directly opposite from Earth's orbit.

Strike number 4 off the list.

Finally, 5) Michael, King of Linking, also sent this article from the New York Times about possible evolutionary origins of faith and religious belief. The article is basically a synopsis of the work of evolutionary anthropologist Scott Atran, who has spent his career searching for an evolutionary benefit to belief in the supernatural. It asks "Why does belief in god exist," not "does god exist."

To say that something has (or had at one time) an evolutionary benefit is not the same as saying that it's a good idea in the 21st century, but it could explain why we might think that.

So thanks for that, Michael. I'll definately be reading the whole article after I've fixed myself some lunch and settled in for the long-haul.

In the meantime, if any of you have actually read to the end of this post, well done you. And if you have any more ideas on why it's a good idea to decide to believe in things you know are factually unknowable, do comment. Especially those of you who do have faith in unknowable things. I'm very interested in your thoughts.

BIG QUESTION, and also dogging

First Question: what is faith?
I recently read a definition of "faith" that called it "the unknowable promoted to the irrefrutable."
(9 Chickweed Lane by Brooke McEldowney, April 3 2007)

(Click for bigness)

I've spoken with a lot of Christians about their definition of faith, and this seems to encapsulate it quite nicely. I've been told by several people "faith is something you choose to believe," and they readily acknowledge that you cannot know for certain the thing you believe in, hence the need to believe, rather than know, it.

So, if we accept that definition of faith, my

Second Question is: Why is faith a good thing to have?

In the Gospels there is a bit after the Resurrection where Jesus appears to the apostles who are cowering behind a locked door. Everyone is ther except Thomas. Jesus appears, everyone's amazed and happy, and when Tom gets back they tell him what's happened. He announces that he won't believe it until he sees it for himself. Next week, same deal, except this time ol' Tom is in the room when the Big JC floats in, and he pokes his fingers into Jesus's wounds and delcares "My Lord and God!" And Jesus utters the famous sentence, "You have seen and believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and believed." (John 20: 19-29)

Why??? Why is it good to believe anything without good cause? Why is it a good idea to be utterly convinced of something you openly acknowledge you don't actually know to be true? The concept of faith, espeically in America, is held to be a great virtue. I remember during the 2000 presidential election there was great speculation as to whether Joe Lieberman's (Gore's running mate) religion (Jewish) would be a negative factor for Christian voters. It wound up not being an issue. The vast majority of people polled said they didn't care what he believed in, they were just glad he was a religious man.

I find it strange that as a society we think that believing things we know are unknowable is a good way to go about life. It just doesn't make sense me. If I were to say to you "I believe there are giant, invisible bunnies hopping around the streets of Bristol. There is no evidence for this idea, but it cannot be disproven, and so I choose to believe it," you would think I was nuts. You would say there's no logic in it, and just because I want to believe something that doesn't make it true. And you would be absolutely right.

So why is the very concept of faith held to be so virtuous? Why do we think it's a good, noble, reasonable thing to believe in things we cannot know?

I'm not trying to be arguementative here. I'm genuinely curious to know what you think about this. I'm really struggling with this idea.


Lastly, continuing along the theme of things that baffle me, while I was out with my mate yesterday for a couple drinks and a flick, we went into the ladies' loo at the Arnolfini and discovered, much to our amusement, that there was a couple in one of the stalls having sex. Very loud sex, complete with heaving breathing, moaning, grunting, the periodic and cliche'd holy exclaimation, and of course the ever-popular skin slapping. I admit it: I giggled. It was pretty funny.

One or more of you lot was involved in that encounter (Spinny??), give a shout out!

The last shall be first

Inexplicably, I watched all 2 1/2 hours of the uninterrupted coverage of the women't marathon last night. Sitting alone in my living room, I scoffed out loud at the BBC's Olympic pundits who claimed that the heat would be just as trying for the Kenyan and Ethiopian athletes as the Brits .(Gimme a break. The Kenyans and Ethiopians were standing around muttering "you call this heat? You don't know from heat.") I rolled my eyes to the ceiling when the same blithering idiots swore that there would be lots of drama to come as the the medal contenders would change places numerous times on the downhill stretch to Athens, despite the significant distances separating the first four runners. And my heart broke with the rest of the UK when I saw Paula come grinding to a painful halt after just 36K. I sat there, pleading with the TV, begging her to get up and walk across the finish line for the sake of her own sanity. Finishing last is always better than quitting.

I know she was exhausted, I know she was in pain--they all were. But it wasn't pain and exhaustion that brought Paula to a halt... it was a broken heart. It's not a cooincidence that she gave up when the fourth place runner pushed past her and she lost the possiblity of even a bronze medal. Without a medal waiting, she saw no point in continuing.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not unsympathetic. I feel terrible for Paula, but I feel a lot worse for the 15 other women who couldn't finish. Women for whom there was never a realistic hope of a medal, but who showed up anyway, eclipsed by the glory of world-record holders, and gave it their best. I don't know who these women are. There was barely a mention of them in the papers. Unlike Paula, who decided after 36 kilometers that if she couldn't win she didn't want to play at all, these 15 women came armed with only a vague hope of a medal, but a more determined desire to just finish, and were ultimately defeated by the road.

I salute all the athletes who try their best. I especially bow to the last-place finishers, those for whom the temptation to quit is the strongest, and who keep going anyway. Though the offical Athens2004 website names the winner, Mizuki Noguchi of Japan, as the athlete of the day, I would like to take a moment to draw everyone's attention to Luvsanlkhundeg Otgonbayar of Mongolia, the last woman into the Panathinaiko Stadium, who crossed the finish line with a time of 3:48:42, an hour and 22 minutes after the gold had been decided.

I don't know what this woman looks like--she received no television coverage. But I imagine she was plugging along at the tail end of the pack, followed only by slow-moving police vehicles, the drivers of whom were irritated that they had to creep along behind this slowest of runners, possibly even mumbling to themselves that she might as well give up so they could go home and eat dinner. It was dark when Otgonbayar entered the stadium. She was exhaused, she was lonely (I suspect very few of the evening's road-side spectators bothered to hang around that long), and she had no hope of a medal. The temptation to quit and go home must have been overwhelming, knowing, when she was still miles away from the stadium, that the ribbon on the line was already broken. But damnit, she crossed the line under her own power. That, ladies and gentleman, is a champion.