Is god’s name God?

I know there are other names for the current one true Abrahamic god, and names for thousands of other gods who’ve fallen from popularity but were once worshiped by the masses.

We humans all seem to have a name (Bill) or a title (Dad or Opa) to differentiate us one from the other. We name pets, cars, places, illnesses.

Christians have three gods. The nameless father, the son is called Jesus Christ (but we all know that was not his real name), and the holy ghost/spirit was invented to make an unnecessary and meaningless third. But it’s all one.

Talk to the Hindus. They know how to name gods, for Christ’s sake. The planets have cool god names, except this one unless you want to stretch either Adam or Eve. But there’s Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Pluto (or maybe that was a dog’s name) and others. My daughter’s dog is named Thor.

Some Jewish folk write God as G-d as some form of respect. I would not feel respected if someone wrote B-ll. But I’m not considered a god even by the ones who call me Dad and Opa.

The commandment says we should not take god’s name in vain. Yet, the only time we do that is the JC name. Most of the god damn its and such expressions could be any god since no name is used. When Christians end a prayer with, in Jesus’ name, amen, why is that not a sin? Seems in vain to me.

There is the Jehovah name. If that is that god’s real name, who gave it to him? And if god is her, Jehovah seems so wrong. The Romans and Greeks had wonderful names for goddesses.

If God is god’s name, why the lower case in scripture? Even the devil has been given several proper monikers with which to be addressed. And that Rolling Stones’ song, Sympathy for The Devil ends with this name-game verse.

What’s my name
Tell me, baby, what’s my name
Tell me, sweetie, what’s my name

I’ve always called god by the name God. How un-creative of me! But Hey You, seems downright ungentlemanly.

Bill

The Bible: There is no such thing

The Catholic Mass liturgy includes three Old Testament (OT) readings, a selection from the prophets, and three readings from the New Testament (NT) to include Acts, the Catholic or Pauline Epistles, and the Gospels. During Christmas and Easter, a fourth is added for the evening service.

Growing up Catholic, I never had to read a bible. From Kindergarden through 8th Grade, I attended Catholic School and was taught Bible things including a year studying “Bible History.”

In the three-year liturgical cycle, I heard virtually the whole of Christian scripture read to me. In my eight years of parochial school, I took mandatory Religion and Catechism classes/courses as part the curriculum. I recall taking Bible History one year with a full-length history book to read.

I was taught the myth of Samson slaying the Philistines with the jawbone of an ass (hee-hee, back then) as historical fact. Since it is an OT story in the inerrant word of God, it must have been true.

There was no bible in my home. I doubt if many other Roman Catholics of my generation grew up reading a bible in the sense most adherents of sola scriptura (scripture alone) would understand it. We didn’t have to. A bible was read to us several times over by age 15.

How I became something of an amateur, or layman, bible study teacher (and expert?) forty years later would take too long to explain. But I was the first of such in a large Parish for about ten years. During that time, I acquired several different bibles, concordances, and various other materials that I used for learning and teaching.

The relationship people have with bibles fascinates me to this day. They claim to believe that it is the word of their god. They say it is the most important book ever written. Many have not read one single word of any bible, even if they own one.

Bibles are available for free in book form, electronically, or online. There is no excuse. Read one. Yes, an atheist just suggested that you read a bible.

One guy even used a bible recently as a prop for a political photo op (to evangelical silence, if not bizarre enthusiasm). I bet he never read it, could not say what version he was holding, how many books were in it, or if the religion of the church he stood in front of would approve of the translation.

We say it. We write about it. We talk about it all the time. However, there is no it. There is only them. There are hundreds of versions of the same book(s). I’ve seen the number 450, but I doubt there are so many official versions. It’s not the bible. It’s a bible—one of them.

One reason for this is the many different translations. Another reason is the various canons, or books and scripture, that are (or are not) included as authorized. Some of what may be included is referred to as apocrypha (not really the word of god).

There are no original bible writings that we can point to as the first or even the second copy. While some old scriptures do exist, they are far from first editions.

The Bible? Which one? It’s bibles. It’s them, not it. Confused by holy scripture, version 123.666 and 50 others.

Bill

Essay: Masked Fear

Years ago, an acquaintance said this to me as a sarcastic joke. “Quitting smoking is hard, but it takes a real man to face cancer.” Poor taste (we did that), but it makes the point.

A few weeks ago, my daughter posted a similar, but less sarcastic, meme on her Facebook page. The graphic had a picture of C. Darwin and a comment invoking evolutionary survival for those who refuse to take precautions to prevent getting or spreading COVID-19. It said, “If you don’t want to quarantine, it’s okay.” Innocuous enough. If you’ve been exposed, tested positive, or diagnosed it is not okay not to quarantine. However, it attracted comment from a troll since she posted it as public.

While the middle aged man from Abilene, TX, said mostly illogical and incoherent things, and he invoked Communism for reasons only he and his ilk might comprehend, his gist was that people are wearing surgical masks and other mouth/nose coverings due to irrational fear. A quick look at his page supported his opinionated hypothesis with memes poking fun at (or insulting) people who mask up. People like me.

For the record, the man currently holding the office of POTUS, two of his predecessors (Bush2 and Clinton1), and I all turn 74 years of age this summer. In my case, I have two manageable, non-life-threatening (in the near term), underlying conditions (as they call them) that would make COVID-19 probably deadly for me. I’ve also had surgery for cancer and am constantly monitored (scanned) for recurrence. Fear? Me? There is more.

I was born into and grew up in a family supported by a subterranean coal miner. Going underground to mine has been a top ten dangerous job for hundreds of years. I attended the funerals of friends and classmate’s fathers who died from coal mine cave-ins, flash floods, and explosions. I do not recall my father worried or fearful of going to work, although unions and others tried to improve working conditions with limited success. He feared flying until he did fly, then he was fine.

I spent years wearing a uniform in foreign countries where I was advised to be unpredictable and to alter my route to and from work for safety. I flew airplanes strapped to ejection seats (upward and downward), wearing an oxygen mask, a helmet, and able to recite from memory and to demonstrate emergency procedures. I never did this out of fear. It was my job. Although I lived through some very scary moments, fear would have negatively affected my performance (the cliché is to choke). It was wisdom, professionalism, and training, not fear, that enabled a young aviator to become this old one.

I have my car inspected (safety inspection) and drive on good tires with good brakes, and I wear my seatbelt because it is a smart thing to do (and the law), but not because I am afraid. Indeed, the driving habits of some people I must share the road with motivate me. It is not fear. I drive carefully and defensively, but not fearfully.

I have ridden a motorcycle for years. I wear a helmet, protective gloves, long pants, good shoes, and cover my face, neck, and arms because I think it is foolish not to. I dress for the crash that will not happen, not for the ride. My first times riding in the rain, riding on interstate highways in highspeed traffic, and other scary situations were tense. I felt fear due to my lack of knowledge, experience, and skill. I no longer fear riding. It’s fun. I also believe that motorcycle riding, like aviation, is inherently dangerous. Fact, not fear.

I drive near legal/recommended speed limits or less. I slow down for corners and sharp curves/turns. I ride sober. I look all around and try to predict the actions of others in cars and trucks. I avoid riding in high wind, rainstorms, ice or snow, darkness, heavy traffic, or busy interstate highways whenever possible. I have done it all and found them dangerous, but often unavoidable. I mitigate risk and avoid unnecessary danger. That is being responsible, not afraid.

I advise friends and loved ones to be careful. Not out of fear, but as wisdom. I am not paranoid, and I enjoy the risk of life as much as anyone. I do not jump out of perfectly good airplanes, but I know how to wear and use a parachute. One of my favorite musical stanzas is from the song, For What It’s Worth,

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you’re always afraid…

COVID-19 is a deadly reality. I wish it on no one. I take precautions with many things in life. I consider it foolish not to wear a protective mask in crowded areas during the current pandemic. I try not to let my politics or opinion cloud my judgment or warp my wisdom.

I will continue to wear a mask and have negative thoughts about those who do not because I believe they are putting my life and that of others unnecessarily at risk. For some, it appears to be about politics rather than health, welfare, and science.

The people like the man who trolled my daughter’s post will never convince me that I must be an unmasked brave fool who refers to death by COVID-19 as “thinning the herd,” as he did. It has been an awfully long time since I was dared to do something stupid and called a fraidy-cat by another child.

I have no fear of wearing a mask; be it surgical, oxygen, Halloween, neck tube (Buff or gator) pulled up, or CPAP. Fools may never forgive me, but I’m gunna pass on that kind of stupid.

Bill

Essay: Why So Negative?

Reality

I forget what she was talking about, but when I brought up reality, she said I should not be so negative. In her thinking, reality was bad. It was negative, and anyone who talked about it was likewise. In her defense, her life with a non-supportive alcoholic who eventually drank himself to death was certainly a negative reality. We were not discussing any specific topic, but even the term was a turnoff for her.

When I think about what she said, which basically shut me up, I always get philosophical and default to the line from Hamlet: “Why, then, ’tis none to you, for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison. Well, then it isn’t one to you, since nothing is really good or bad in itself—it’s all what a person thinks about it.” I can’t say the line applies in every case. But sometimes it is precisely what we think about some reality that defines it for us.

I agree that reality is relative. And what isn’t? The thin line between one’s perception of reality and imagined non-reality, such as dream-based events, is the conscious choice between what is and what isn’t. But does any of that mean the one is negative and the other not? Is either reality or non-reality truth? Imagination is real. If one hears voices, the voices are really heard in the brain even if the source of a voice is either unknown or assumed.

I also agree with my friend who saw my broaching of reality as negative or dark for her, even if not for me. Much of reality sucks. Her experience was not mine. We make the best of life if we can make anything. But some might say the reality is that we can move on and find another, conceivably better, life.

Time and reality are relative to the individual. While the reality of the passage of time should be the same for each of us, that is seldom the case. Memories of the same event differ between individual witnesses. Experiencing current events is the same. When I walk out of a building and it is raining, I’m usually delighted. Then I hear others complaining about the nasty weather. It’s the same reality: a rainy day.

My response is to ask, what is non-reality? Why do I insist that it is necessary and okay to deal with what is real? Either it is what it is, or it’s not. Depending on the individual, the same real (or even imagined) event may be seen as either good or bad. The truth should be reality, but black or white is too often gray. So then, even truth becomes relative and based on outlook and experience.

If we see reality as negative, does that mean we conversely see non-reality as positive? And what of truth? If truth is negative, is untruth then positive? Maybe some think so.

A to Z Challenge 2020 (M = Metaphysics)

I got through most of my life without knowing the meaning of metaphysics. I didn’t care. I saw it online and had to ask. Then I had to look it up. I still didn’t care very much, but I had a name for what other people seemed to hold in high regard, like a religion.

Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy consisting of ontology (dealing with the nature of being), and cosmology (the science of the origin and development of the universe). It can be deep stuff and fun bar talk after a few rounds. But there is woo-woo. There is always woo-woo.

New Age and nonempirical ideas such as energy (like chi and prana), ideas like being balanced, harmonized, tuned, aligned, unblocked, and mellow. Okay, maybe not mellow. While I don’t believe in that stuff, I don’t sit with my back to the door either.

In one sense, metaphysics is often used with ideas of what is real, the nature of beings, and the theory of mind and mental phenomena such as ideas, perceptions, memory, consciousness, and so forth. That all seems reasonable to me.

But metaphysics also gets rolled into broad theories of reality. These would be like materialism and dualism, the nature of reality, why something and not nothing. I’m not even sure I can mentally grasp the concept of nothingness. Is there free will? Is there always cause? Has the Universe always existed? Are there spiritual beings and life after death?

This stuff is not scientific. I had my time battling it out in conversation with friends who saw things in a different way. I’m sure I enjoyed it at the time. I just didn’t know or care what it was called.

Some of it is nonsense. But some of a lot of interesting things is nonsense. Like the existence of god, most metaphysical stuff cannot be proven nor successfully refuted. But maybe that’s where the fun lives.

Bill

A to Z Challenge 2020 (K= keraunoscopia or keraunophobia)

Keraunoscopia is a form of divination, which is fortune telling or foretelling the future. My sister once told me that she went to a fortune teller at a show of some kind and was thrown out for laughing. We share that, but I would more likely just mumble bull shit. The forms of this divination crap, which must include reading animal remains or deposits, go on and on. This one is by reading thunder and lightning. Very, very, frightening, right? Well, it is.

Keraunophobia a related funky word that seems to be a condition of every dog I have ever owned. It is an unreasonable fear of thunder and lightning. As many of you know, I am a pluviophile who finds comfort, peace, and pleasure in rainy days, and I will often venture out with the intention of getting very wet. However, I avoid such behavior in extreme cold. I also avoid thunder and lightning. When I lived in the states of California and Washington, thunderstorms were rare.

Here in Texas it is rare to have a nice soft rain without the threat of lightning and telltale thunder. But that is what all the woo-woo diviners look for so that they foresee the future. Like when the current lock-down (or shelter in place if one finds euphemisms comforting) will end. Well so can I. If you go out during a Texas thunderstorm and hold your golf club just right, you may be struck by lightning. I have no idea what to do about dogs freaking out when it thunders and lightning strikes are too close to home, but I don’t blame them.

Bill

A to Z Challenge 2020 (J=Justification)

Justification is a concept I don’t recall being in my metaphysical pandora’s box or my highest theological concept. I still don’t care, but I needed a word for J -day.

In the Jesus brand of theology, justification is god’s removing the guilt and penalty of sin (call it hell). If you spin your English just right, you get to go to a good place instead of the bad one. But you must have faith and believe. To Christians, this makes sense.

Since the Protestant Reformation, and probably before, justification was and area of significant disagreement. It is also an area of significant theological fault that, to this day, divides Roman Catholicism from the Lutheran and Reformed traditions of Protestantism.

Catholics, Methodists, and Orthodox distinguish between initial justification, which occurs at baptism, (ala infant baptism) and final salvation, accomplished after a lifetime of doing what you’re supposed to.

In Lutheranism and Calvinism, righteousness in the eyes of God is viewed as being credited to the sinner’s account through faith alone, without works, which maybe fodder for W-day.

My point here is that all these branches of Christianity, supposedly one religion, have fought over this woo-woo hair-splitting nonsense for reasons none of us probably care much about.

Atheists, agnostics, Muslims, Hindu, and Buddhists need not worry. There is no justification for any of this.

Bill

A to Z Challenge 2020 (I=Ignorance)

Ignorance is lack of knowledge, education, or awareness. When I hear or see the word ignorant, I seem to want to interpret that negatively, as a lack of intelligence, for example. But, it’s not. All people, intelligent or not, are ignorant of some things. Some very intelligent people are ignorant of fundamental cognitive biases hindering their own critical thinking.

I’ve heard the idiom; I don’t know what I don’t know. The fact remains that there is a great deal of knowledge of which I’m ignorant. I know what some of it is. I don’t know, for another example, if I go to a church on Sunday and sit with hundreds of other people for an hour or more if I will become infected with a virus that will end my life in less than a month or two. I do know what happened to the ignorant folks who went to choir practice several weeks back. What they did not know infected many and killed some. What I don’t know can kill or injure me or others.

Willful ignorance is not defined the same way. The adjective changes everything. When people today go to choir practice, or to church, or have gatherings in their homes thinking it is a safe thing to do; or when they rely on a medication they are taking as a preventative measure, unlike the choir members who were infected out of ignorance, the new group is being willfully ignorant. They have been provided the knowledge, education, and awareness needed to be safe and to not endanger others. They are choosing to ignore it. Are they so brain-washed by religion, a minister, or family member that they flaunt their beliefs in the face of death to themselves or others? I think so.

But, like so many atheists (agnostics also), I like to say I don’t know when I don’t. I say it often. It turns out there is much of which I am, and shall remain, ignorant. That does not seem to trouble most others. Yet, some folks demonstrate considerable irritation by my confession, and they suffer even more dissonance when they try to apply the phrase to themselves.

I know what I think. I think I like staying home.

Bill

A to Z Challenge 2020 (E=Energy)

In physical science, energy is a measurable with ergs, joules, electron-volts, calories, or foot-pounds as the capacity to do work. It is also defined as a usually positive spiritual force, such as an energy flowing through people. There is a lot of different energy in people.

New Age advocates see energy in the second sense, as a power force producing spiritual energy. It’s about enhancing energy by tapping into the power of the universe or another person by manipulating that force so that you can be healthy, happy, fulfilled, and successful. This makes life meaningful, significant, and endless. These are admirable goals for the defined type of energy, and indeed a considerable amount of time, effort, and expense (and someone’s profit) go into the pursuit of such energy.

Despite a long existence of things like chi, reiki, and prana, the second definition remains unmeasurable, although it is said to be the source of life and health. It is measured by feeling it.

Healers with special powers are often required. Masters, if you will; to help with unblocking, harmonizing, unifying, tuning, aligning, balancing, or channeling (see day 3). The key issue for all of this, to me, has always been that if I do not believe it works, it will not (sort of reverse placebo). The same argument is made for belief in any god or religion.

Yes. There is an energy to life. It takes a life to make a life, as far as I know. I don’t know how everything works, why, or when. I know that many quacks are out there in the world of bacteria and viruses, of gods and spirits, of true believers and skeptics.

If I take a drug that makes me feel good or bad, if I undergo a medical treatment, or if I have a helpful conversation with someone, including myself, I may feel better (or worse, for the other side of the value scale). I usually know why. In most cases the experience can be replicated.

The New Age way of looking at energy has never worked for me. Maybe because I am a natural skeptic. Even when I wanted it to work, and I sought it out, it did not have the claimed/desired effect. In every case, the failure was attributed to my skepticism. I was never told (even by people like chiropractors or massage “therapists”) that it was their fault, or the issue was fake. In one case, the practitioner claimed failure due to their personal lack of experience.

I have no scientific evidence that anyone’s life energy continues after death or that anyone was another person in a previous and separate life. When people like me try to be open to such things, does that give “energy” to fake practitioners? I don’t know.

I remain open to proof and evidence that is more than how another person was made to feel. But for now, I’ll stick to the first definition of energy.

Bill

A to Z Challenge 2020 (C=Channeling)

My son was referring to a selfie photo I posted when he asked if I was channeling Hunter S. Thompson. I was not channeling anyone. I am not a channeler.

No spirit entity has ever invaded me for any reason, certainly not to communicate with me or anyone else. This ability and such events have never been confessed to me by anyone I know, although some folks do claim things similar (but I’m not sure how serious they are).

However, apparently a lot of people believe that spiritual channeling happens where real spirits of past living persons (including Jesus) invade or take over the person known to have the gift of channeling – to be a channeler.

Famous people involved with channeling include Jane Roberts of Seth Speaks, and Shirley MacLaine. I’m not sure MacLaine considers herself a professional channeler, but she admits to believing in it and uses channelers to communicate with people like Frank Sinatra.

My issue with this is not so much that it is obviously not true. My issue is that people like MacLaine and others not only believe it to be true (and I accept that they are sincere), they see in nonbelievers of channeling something wrong. We have a block or wall (since we doubt) that prevents us from seeing the truth. As do all believers of weird stuff, it is the fault of the nonbeliever for not believing in something that not only has no evidence; even they admit that it is neither provable nor disprovable.

As I sit here writing this, a poster hangs five feet in front of me with the pictures or photos of about 80 famous writers from Dante to JK Rowling. If I could, or if anyone could, who would I want to channel?

(Stands and walks to the poster for a close look.) I’d pick Mark Twain. Most of the others scare me, and several are still living.

When people tell me the reason that I do not believe something is because I require proof, and it is therefore my own fault that I don’t get it, it all sounds familiar. I just stare at them. Yet, they have no problem believing the weirdest shit, for which there is, at best, no evidence, or there is clear proof to the contrary. Go figure.

Bill