On Biblical Fiction

I disagree with the claim that all atheists consider the bible a work of fiction. I am annoyed by that for two reasons. I didn’t like that someone else speaks for me about what I think or believe. Second, in my opinion, even for an atheist to make such a claim is as much folly as declaring all scripture fact.

Is the Bible a book of fiction? If you consider it either fact or fiction, perhaps it is. My dictionary says fiction is “something invented by the imagination or feigned.” Fiction is intentionally so.

Good story tellers of truth or fiction are rare and endangered artists. I humorously refer to the stories I write as lies or fibs (terms literalists might struggle with). Frequently enough, people ask if my story is true. Nothing I write is 100% fact, including this essay. Nor is anything I write total fiction.

It may be my best accurate memory. Factual journalism is challenging even for the best writers. If you’re as hung up on this as I am, try reading Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, by David Shields. Is exaggeration either fact or fiction?

I tell stories with beginnings, middles, and (the most difficult part) ends. My dreams are often related to a reality of my past. They’re not stories because they have only the middle: no backstory or once upon a time concept.

My dreams lack beginnings and transitions. They never end. I wake up or move on to another. There is no natural, spontaneous, or contrived ending. There is no moral lesson. Now, about the bible.

The point of the bible is that God inspired humans to write it. However, I am unconvinced of the biblical cannons being inspired since I believe there is nothing to do the inspiring.

For the sake of agreement, we all pretty much think the books of the bible are real and were written by people. They were also re-written, translated and retranslated, interpreted by and added-to by people other than the original, allegedly divinely inspired, authors. It all continues to happen even to this day. Yet, with all this effort, there is not even one original biblical document to read in any language.

So, which is it? Facts inspired by the divine or a bunch of nonsense and lies. While for many the answer is moot, I have never cared much. Did someone kill others with a jawbone? Did it rain for a long time causing floods? Were there wars and sieges? Did people cut off male foreskins? Were people crucified or decapitated? Was stuff copied from older stuff? Was there nothing and then six days later, everything? Did a bunch of slaves say fuck it and just leave followed by a bunch of morons who drowned? Maybe so. So what? Shit happens.

Even when I was a practicing Christian and teacher of the bible, it’s fact or fiction never mattered to me. I failed as a thumper. For me, the bible has always been a book of books about (and of) religion. But they are far from the only books of religion handed down through history.

So are these: The Seven Valleys and the Four Valleys (Bahá’i); The Tipitaka (Buddhism); The Vedas and the Upanishads (Hinduism); The Quaran and the Hadiths (Islam); The Agamas (Jainism); The Tanakh and the Talmud (Judaism); The Kojiki (Shintoism); The Dao De Jing (Taoism); The Book Of Shadows (Wicca); and The Avesta (Zoroastrianism).

Omar Khayyam wrote, A hair divides what is false and true. People can call it whatever they wish. I speak for myself. For me, along with the Bible, all the above are books of religion. Each carry equal weight but have more meaning to that religious group, fact or fiction.

No god, master, translation, interpretation, inspiration, or conflagration required.

Bill

Who Ya Gunna Call?

I cannot remember the last time I bought a cake for a social event. If I did find myself in the market for a commercially made cake for an LGBTQ+ friendly event, I would probably ask around. Why would I bother with a bakery that I know will refuse my business for any reason, much less a religious one? Litigation is not my gig.

People are going to want to eat this thing. I need someone I can trust. I’m not saying that anyone would poison the cake, but people have been viciously beaten or murdered for being gay or black, atheist, Jewish, trans, or even a friend or ally of such people. Why risk it? I would be responsible.

As I’ve read about litigation over such things, I wondered how religious beliefs would work when more critical things are in question: health care, for example.

I noticed that South Carolina recently passed a law allowing medical personnel to refuse providing healthcare based on their conscience (faith, religion, beliefs, morals). This law amends existing legal code. State and federal laws already provide such protection. No doctor can be forced to do what they don’t agree with, except in an emergency.

Personally, regarding me, I don’t want medical staff doing anything they object to, are not skilled at or familiar with. I don’t want to be their first case—a guinea pig. I prefer no students, interns, or even residents practice on me, based on past experiences. I should have the right to decline treatment by students, but that is another argument.

Over the years, I have been hospitalized several times, I’ve had surgery and procedures where I have been helpless and/or unconscious. On a few of those occasions, I met the doctor and the rest of the surgical/procedure team for the first and last time in the OR/Lab.

I was able to glean some things about these people. Sometimes I knew one, but never all. Of those I knew, I could guess that maybe their native language was not English. I could also guess about gender/sex, but little more. I knew nothing of their religious or moral beliefs. It was a don’t ask, don’t tell situation. No doctor or nurse ever clearly prayed in my presence. That might be bad for business.

In one case, I met with the head of cardiology. As part of the discussion, he asked what I wanted them to do, if the pending procedure went south. I verbally approved extreme measures to keep me alive (unnecessary as it went well). He was not my attending physician/surgeon, but no one else asked me that question. I felt that if I had said, “No extreme measures. Let me die.” He would have made the note and been okay with that. I knew nothing about his moral or spiritual beliefs, nor the policy of the hospital regarding such issues.

Except for interns and residents, I expect medical professionals to know what they are doing. I hope they had good training, and I hope we get along in our provider-patient relationship.

But I wonder how often doctors are forced to perform non-emergency procedures their religion or morality prevents. Why are existing laws insufficient? Is this SC law political grandstanding and a waste of time and money? I don’t know. I live in Texas, so I also don’t care. But I did ponder some things.

I can’t say for other countries because I don’t know. But I’ve noticed that medical facilities/organizations, doctors, other medical professionals, and insurance companies always seem to get their way in the USA. I know there are such things as various patient rights, but what are they and what are the consequences of non-compliance?

I would like to believe that hospitals and doctors are dedicated to keeping everyone alive and healthy. I want to think that at least the doctors, if not the entire medical staff, will apply the best medical science to treatment. If a facility or doctor will place religion before my health and welfare, I want to know up front. Must I ask such questions?

Happy St-Jean-Baptiste Day to all my friends in Quebec,

Bill

If you really want to get into this topic, HERE is a JAMA study on people considering religion in selecting medical care (Guess what? Care quality matters more than religion).

And THIS is a list of traditional religious guidelines regarding healthcare (rabbit hole warning).

Argumentative Essay: Why Fewer Christians?

You may know this. Nan posted about it. The trend is for fewer people to raise their hand when I ask, how many of you are Christians? It’s been going that way for years.

Twelve years ago, I would have reluctantly raised my hand. I preferred to say I was Irish-Catholic rather than Christian, even though there is no such thing. Officially, it’s Roman Catholic, but I am not even a little bit Italian, so says my ancestry spittle.

PEW Research keeps up with this stuff. They take polls and ask, what are you? For more than ten years, fewer people have been saying they are Christians. If that trend continues, folks claiming to be Christian will soon be the overall minority.

That has already happened with the younger crowd. PEW claims no rapid rise in the number of atheists in the USA, although we are growing too, albeit slowly. PEW says it’s now 4% of all, up from 2%. If every atheist was willing to come out, it would be more.

It’s the nones who are kicking ass. In the real world, if you say I’m an atheist, things can go badly for you lickety-split. However, being wishy-washy is a good way to cover your butt. Yet, folks are crossing a line by saying, nope, not a Christian. PEW does not tell us why this is happening.

So, why is it that fewer people claim to be Christians? Are they decamping for reasons, or just getting lazy? Most are not queuing up for atheism. These are mostly nones disowning the label of Christian.

For example, years back I had a bit of an email tiff with a guy from church. I considered him a jerk, but that’s not the point. He wrote, “I do not see how a practicing Catholic can support…” (abortion, I think). He was calling me out for being a liberal Democrat Catholic. I told him that I no longer considered myself Catholic, practicing or otherwise.

I did not say I was agnostic, atheist, or Methodist. It was the first time in my life that I disowned the religion of my birth (which is why I can relate to the struggles of people like Anne Rice). I was thinking and embracing none-hood. I was trying to figure it all out, which is what I think many nones are also doing. They’re searching for answers.

A former Christian (Jew or Muslim) did not wake up on some random sabbath and decide they will no longer be that religion. It’s a process; often a long, difficult, and reluctant one.

So why the Christian exodus to being a none? I would like to propose nine reasons for why it has been happening, and one reason why some stay.

Politics (sort of). Anne Rice went from being raised Catholic, to agnostic, back to Catholic, then bailed to a “faith in God,” then to not Christian (a none), then to secular humanist. Some call what she cites for her reasons as social issues, but I see it as the cognitive dissonance suffered by many progressive believers.

Many Christian writers, pastors, and even the Catholic Church point to the right-wing politics of evangelical Christians, conservative Catholics, and other extremely politically conservative religious folk as the reason many Christians are taking a hike.

Freedom from Religion. Let’s say you’re opposed to abortion but support a woman’s right to choose. Let’s say you are politically progressive, liberal, but believe in both God and Climate Change. Let’s say you do not take biblical scripture literally, you are opposed to capital punishment, and you care about the environment.

Religion, especially when it is authoritarian, is burdensome. Sometimes, it limits what many see as their freedom (freedom of thought). I’ve been told, “You don’t have to go to church to be a good Christian.” I get that, but you also don’t have to say you are of any religion to follow the teachings of Christ, Buddha, Mohamed, or Wicca. Freedom from religion is a different kind of freedom of religion, and in my opinion it’s more freeing.

Christian examples. Let’s name some names. While I doubt if many people leave Christianity because of the likes of Falwell, Robertson, or Peter Popoff and his miracle water; or due to the many, MANY scandals, those things people probably do not entice Christian encampment.

Morality of the heart. While this relates back to politics; blocking human rights, equal rights, women’s rights; demeaning the value of science and medicine and environmental protections; combined with the myriad of phobias purported within modern religions of all flavors are seen as immoral, and thus are seen as incongruent with being a good moral human being.

The no true Scotsman fallacy, or we shall bully or cajole you into it. Leverage is being used when people are told that they are not a “true” Christian (or Catholic). If they do not believe or practice as directed, the pressure to cooperate may help drive folks away. While this is far from unique to the Christian religion, it is divisive. I think few people would abandon church because of this, but they certainly will change churches or parishes. It is another reason to step back.

To be fair, this is a pain in the ass for any group, even atheists. Many of us deplore the insulting, overaggressive, know-it-alls who seem to think that behaving like an ass will result in folks seeing the truth.

The rise of doubt. The interesting thing about doubt (in religion of gods) is that it can be free of emotion or bogged down by it. Most believers seem to have minor, early reservations. Later, with more advanced uncertainties, folks may verbalize their concerns. These doubts often lead to action. They may read things like the Bible or spiritual writings; they may listen a little closer. They begin to realize things. These middle doubts have no time limit. Some people may doubt no further.

As doubt and questioning grows, ignorance diminishes. As more skeptics have come forward and the social acceptability of having no religion has grown, more people are willing to tell the truth about it all.

Technology. It’s easy to get data, it’s hard to make sense of it. For example, in my county I’ve read that 60% are nones. Most believers here are Evangelical Protestant, which is something of a denominational, holy-roller hodge-podge. The second largest Christian denomination is Catholic. One source said 40% are religious, thus, 60% are not. That is a lot of nones.

However, the data is there. I like PEW Research as a source. In minutes I have more information than I’ve ever wanted concerning religious demographics. That is my point. Technology allows us all access to tons of information, some true, much of it is not. But it’s all there. The information technology boom probably contributes to knowledge and to people making decisions. In combination with other things, it easily sends anti-religion torpedoes below the religious water lines.

Outspoken nones. Like it or not, we are affected by what other people say, do, and think. Anti-religion and anti-theist sentiment is everywhere—even between denominations. As people become more outspoken about their lack of religious participation, not naming a religion, or withholding any answer; others on the fence will often come down outside of religion. Why not? It’s important to remember that people get tired of the nonsense long before they decide to walk away.

What they miss most is the social aspects of church. While this is not exactly a reason for people to leave, it may be the only reason to stay. They call it fellowship. It is a bonding, it is nice (usually), people enjoy it (their tribe), and when they bail out it is what they usually miss most (I did not). This tells me that often, religious participation is based on issues other than the purported tenants of a religion. Religion often survives because going to church is a social club.

It keeps getting easier to just say no. People do get very involved with their church. Some also with the idea of Christianity, at least as they understand it. For many, it is a heaven or hell thing, but for others that is far from the point of their religion. I don’t know if many of them are among the nones of the past ten years.

What I do know is that social and economic pressures to go to church, to say one is this religion or that, to even be a culturally religious person is reducing each year. If someone wants religion, church, or Christianity (of some flavor), it will always be there for them. But if they would prefer either “no preference” or “none” embossed on their dog tags, it’s easy enough to do.

Obviously, many of the people leaving church and religion are skeptics or closeted atheists. But I’m inclined to think they are mostly just tired of the bull shit.

Bill

Prayer Requests

I noticed this box of cards as I walked past the church down the street. It was a box of 4×8 inch prayer request cards. I took one, just in case. If I want the people at the church to pray for me, I must take a card, fill it out with name, address, phone, what I want them to pray for (or to praise). I must also check either confidential or ok to publish. Publish? Then I must slide the card into the slot to be picked up by the help.

I’m not sure why they do this, but I like it. I once heard a retired preacher of the Calvinist tradition say that prayer is more effective if the person praying has greater faith. They know stuff like that. Maybe when more people pray, it works better. Maybe when people in an interdenominational church pray, it’s better because one of the denominations may be the right one.

I remember when a thousand people filled our Catholic church to pray for a well-liked, dying old lady. She got well. They were taking credit like crazy. Then she died. Oops. But death has never stopped Catholics from praying for the repose of the soul of a deceased. It’s part of the denomination.

What I like about this is if people want to be prayed for, they can ask. Otherwise, no prayers. If I want to be prayed for, or to offer praise in my name, I’ll let them know. Otherwise, they may assume I can do my own praying. Or, assume I do not want or need to be prayed for. Or, assume I’d rather they did something else.

It’s like asking, “Would you like us to pray for you?” Nope. And if I change my mind, I know where I can stick the request card. I feel so enlightened. Amen.

Bill

What is a god? Any god. Who is it?

I Googled ‘God.’ I got about 2.16 billion hits. Wow. The answer must be there. Right?

One was from a Christian religious site. Everything they claimed about God was supported with biblical citation by chapter and verse, of course. But there were two important exceptions.

First, the article claimed it’s obvious: “God’s existence is so conspicuous….” So, everyone should know. Second, it championed God by further claiming that “creation,” or existence, and human consciousness make God manifest. The writer did not answer what, or who is any god. But they continued to try.

The rest of the post made interesting claims. Such as, they said if you don’t get God right, that is idolatry, which is a sin (Pardonne-moi s’il te plaît). “God is spirit, by nature intangible.” No help there. But then they said, “We know certain things to be true of God…” Then they quoted more scripture. Why? Because all we “know” of that God are unsupported, written claims from thousands of years ago.

The piece also identified characteristics of God. Those are loving, truthful, holy, compassionate, merciful, graceful, judgmental, and forgiving. All human traits, yet again based on scripture because that’s all they have. Still not much to help with what or who a god is.

If we return to the it’s conspicuous and human consciousness claims, which make God obvious, there are problems. Nature, a certain creation of God’s, is obviously random and destructive. Additionally, God’s humans are incredibly destructive toward each other and to nature. Enter The Problem of Evil.

There is also the fact that no one is born knowing anything about any god. We are taught about God by others. God must be learned. How is that obvious, intuitive, or rising from human consciousness? And why not? Many less important things such as breathing, swallowing, our beating hearts, and more are there from day one or before.

A God, or higher power, is whatever we say it is or want it to be. We create gods and always have. That need may be a human trait. But so is thinking. A tree, nature, rain, an animal, something living in a volcano or in the sea may be a god because we say so. Personally, I like the Sun as a god. Planets named after gods and goddesses are all ready to step in for us. And what about goddesses? We’ve had Luna, Phoebe, Athena, Aurora, Flora, Freya, Iris, Cora, Selena, Thalia, and hundreds more.

I enjoy H. L. Mencken’s 1922, funeral oration for dead gods, “Memorial Service,” in which he lists names of many gods now gone. He ends with, “You may think I spoof. That I invent the names. I do not. Ask the rector to lend you any good treatise on comparative religion: You will find them all listed. They were gods of the highest standing and dignity – gods of civilized peoples – worshiped and believed in by millions. All were theoretically omnipotent, omniscient, and immortal. And all are dead.”

None of those gods ever actually existed. The author of the referenced Christian article would almost certainly agree with Mencken and me, with one exception. The one God and religion they were luckily born into and taught about. Lucky them.

I see the Sun. I get it. It’s there every day. We need it to survive. It preceded us and probably contributed to human and nature’s existence. Why not retro that old god? It’s nothing new. What is a solar system without a Sun?

Bill

Poem about going to Hell

I posted this on another blog. But it belongs here, as well.

You may need to buy a ticket,
live a normal life, and do
human things, but they say
there is a way to Hell.
Who alive knows for sure? (Many)

To ensure arrival, you’ll have to die.
Before that, good intentions should
provide a smooth ride. You’ll wanna
mean well, tell the truth about what you think,
eat lobster and for God’s sake,
want what the Jones’s have,
or you’ll want one of the Jones’s,
or dislike the Jones’s as in no love.

Lie about the Jones’s.
Make a self-portrait.
Say “God damnit” or “Jesus Christ.”
Ya might say God’s name to no purpose (in vain)
Laugh at a George Carlin’s joke, or forget
the day it is when it’s Saturday or Sunday.
Work weekends, since Sabbat is negotiable.

Argue with Mom or Dad.
If ya marry the wrong person, get a divorce,
have an affair, kill them, then you should
find things warming up. Or just
be who or what you were born to be.

Having sex with anyone, especially
if ya likes it; or, if you’re shy,
having sex alone has been known
to get ya where you want to go.

If not, maybe just think about having sex,
or eat bacon (see the relationship there?)
Belong to some other religion.
Piss off the Pope if you can.

In the south, dance with a person
of the opposite sex, or better
dance with the same sex, except for girls,
unless you think of sex with her.

Drink booze or coffee if ya live
near a Salt Lake. Try pot. Try gambling.
Keep all your money (trash tithe)
Finally, you must certainly die,
but fear not, they tell me this is easy.

Look both ways for sarcastic humor.
Mind the gaps unless there are too many.
If so, look for the god of the gaps.
Above all, have fun and enjoy life,
especially if you’re Hell bound anyway.

Couldn’t resist reposting this FFRF meme.

A to Z Challenge 2020 (L = Lucid Dreams/Dreaming)

This is when you are asleep, and your frontal brain lobe makes you aware that you are sleeping and dreaming. I’ve seldom had this experience, but it has happened, and I remembered it. Like dreams themselves, it’s interesting. Also, like dreams, you can spend thousands of US dollars on learning and doing more about it. But, even with personal experience, I must weigh in with a bit of not so fast. The whole dream business is packed with frauds, charlatans, and quacks, and the awareness aspect has been roped in at great profit.

If you need help with lucid dreaming (I cannot do it intentionally) you can purchase books, tapes/CDs or whatever the tech is today, scientific publications, and induction devices such as special lights and speakers. You can spend money and time going to seminars to help you tap into your unconscious mind and get continuing education or college credit (Psyc.).

Perhaps you will fly (in your dreams) with spirits and have an out-of-body experience you enjoy, and that makes you free (again, you’re dreaming) of the restraints of being human and gravity bound to Earth. Maybe you will even feel better. But I doubt it.

There is no special state achievable by paying a fee through which we can find transcendent consciousness any more than we can stop having nightmares because we don’t like them. But, as with so many things, you can pay the price and take your chances. You can also read a lot more about it, if you are so inclined.

I prefer to know when it happens and what the biological cause is. When I wake from my off-base dreams, many of which relate to my life 30 or 40 years in the past, I know immediately that I was dreaming and what facts were twisted in my dreams to create the imaginary scenario.

So, yes, it is a real thing. But I doubt that it is what many seem to think. From reality to woo-woo, and to $$ all the way to the bank once again.

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 (D=Déjà vu)

I recall one day as a child walking with my parents to the park where the county courthouse was (and is) along with a bronze statue of a deer upon which the tradition is to be photographed. I was about seven years old. I told everyone that I had been to this place before. I was certain of it. I don’t recall who told me that I had not been there, and that I was imagining it. But I think it was my father.

It was the only real déjà vu event in my life, that I can recall so vividly. If I went to the town where I grew up, I can stand on the exact spot where I said and felt it.

I’ve never forgotten. Then, one day about 5 years ago I was going through old photo albums and found a picture of me on the courthouse deer with my mother. She had to hold me up, so I was between six months and two years of age. I had been there before.

There were no pictures of my father. I had been there years earlier, probably with my mother and her sisters while Dad was at work. Déjà vu means “already seen” and indeed I had already seen as I thought. My memory was an actual memory within the confines of my actual life.

One of the issues with a woo-woo déjà vu experience is the feeling of strangeness, which is common. It happens often. My skepticism is, in terms of it being a lost memory (that is plausible), past lives (not so plausible), clairvoyance (nope), or other mystical and misguided explanations, there is a real-world explanation.

What we should focus on is the real. The feeling that may be caused by a brain state or things that precede brain temporal lobe epilepsy attacks or hallucinations. This, too, is common.

And I love the trite phrase, it’s déjà vu all over again. What’s your story?

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