"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
Galileo Galilei
I've said this many times, I don't give a good God damn what you believe in, I really don't. Just keep it to yourself please. I don't want to hear about the conspiracy of gravity or the inside job on 9/11. And it's not because of the reason you may believe it to be, it's because I can't stomach your absolute inability to allow for the slightest possibility that you are wrong. Your absolutism is what keeps me away from your theories. If only you wanted to truly discuss and debate your ideas along with mine and others, then perhaps we could allow for the idea of 9/11 being something other than what it appeared to be.
But not the earth being flat. Sorry. Look up at the moon pal. During a lunar eclipse the shadow cast upon it is curved, which is due to the fact that the earth is round or spherical. Done. Lewis Black already gave us the rebuttal to Bush Jr - fossils!!! Enough said.
Whether due to a crazy amount of weed smoked in a short span of time, an anomaly of genetics or simple belief that the the YouTube guy must be right because he uses big words, there are a few too many out there that believe these things, regardless of scientific proof and general agreement by the world at large. It's perplexing to me and to others and we simply shake our heads in disbelief but to be honest I don't know what is worse for me, the absurdity of the claim or the complete binary way that people look at life. Ones and zeros may work in computer coding but not in the world at large. The world is grey, not black and white, and while there are absolutes to be sure, we can also be sure that there are far more areas of nuance allowing for a plurality of beliefs and ideas. This simple understanding is how we move forward, the underlying "how" of how we have grown as a society, Drumph and his ilk not withstanding of course.
A few years back I was visiting the Big Smoke and having a drink with an old friend. From time to time he reads this blog of mine and he wanted to ask me about my thoughts on Justin Trudeau. He was a little nervous because he didn't want to offend me but after a little bit of encouragement he let me know that he thought I was dead wrong on Trudeau. So we began a discussion on the merits and faults of our prime minister. Dom and I are at opposite ends of the political world but that has never stopped us from being best of friends for over 35 years now. We can agree and disagree on everything and we can respect each others positions because we allow for the possibility of more than one answer. While I still believe in Justin and generally like where our country is going he did open my eyes to a few things with logic and reason. so by the end of our discussion I had to agree that he was right about a few things. My world did not fall apart and I still have him as a friend. Plurality, it's a thing.
So whether we are coded one way or another I do believe it's important to note that codes can be re-written and adjusted. We can change. People used to believe that the earth was flat, now they don't, save those flat earth society types of course. We used to believe that we could literally scare the sick out of people, thankfully smarter people came along and started using science and reason to come up with better ways of curing illness. I think of my own brush with cancer, radioactive disk sewn on to my eye to kill a tumour or have Bob jump out from behind the door to scare it away? I'll take the disk and punch Bob in the throat thank you very much.
And that is my thing for today.
Ciao
D
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