a wedding and anniversaries
G: HEY! We didn't mention it
yet! We put our
Wild
Weddings clip on youtube! Kevin did the editing and uploading.
Thanks a bunch, Kevin!
On Friday we had a special
party. It was the 10th anniversary of our monthly parties! We've had a
party once a month for 10 years, and we only ever canceled one. You
may now bow down in awe.
I asked people to dress fun or special, but people don't pay attention.
I had a really fun outfit.
Sev dressed up as a fairy - she had big green wings and looked great.
But I didn't get a picture of that. Sorry.
I had recently bought some wigs at a thrift store and I passed them
around and lots of people took turns wearing them and that, to me, for
some reason, is loads of fun.
We also had an awards ceremony for last weeks Greenbelt Trialthalon. It
was very silly and fun. John got a nice prize!
On Saturday night we went over to Bill, Dee, Erin, and Emily's for
Erin's birthday celebration. So we hung out with Coopers and such all
night. I was really surprised to find we hadn't been there in well over
a year. They had a little shitzu that they had had that long who I'd
never met. Time sure flies.
When we left there we went to Plato's in College Park to meet up with a
bunch of people to kick off Izolda's birthday, which would start at
midnight. The group took up two booths and we had a really nice time.
On Sunday Lori and I drove to Richmond, VA for our cousin Julie's
wedding. It was quite a lovely event. Julie looked beautiful. The
ceremony was short (Yay!), and since I forgot my camera, we went and
bought disposables (pics won't be ready for a while) before going to
the reception at the
Jefferson
Hotel. What a place! It was quite fancy.
We got to see our beloved Aunt Nancy (Julie's mom), Uncle Gale (her dad
and our dad's brother), and Michael (our cousin and Julie's brother).
We also saw an ex-husband of Aunt Nancy's (Marty). It was great to
see and hang out with everyone. The groom, Mickey, seemed like a really
nice, smart, fun guy. Cute too! The vegan food I had at the reception
was delicious! The cake was incredible!
We stayed later than we thought we would, and then drove from Richmond
to Clarksburg, MD for Izolda's 40th birthday celebration at Little
Bennet State Park. It was also to celebrate John's 45th and Amethyst's
37th. We got there a little after 11:30 pm, and we were
sorry to have missed a lot of people, but we had a great time. There
was much singing and food, and hanging out around the fire and looking
at the moon through a telescope (incredible) and drawer dropping
(completely innocent). We left around 3am.
With all this activity I haven't had much time to exercise for almost a
week, but I've been back on track for a few days now and feel good.
J: I've been exercisin'! On
Sunday I went for a bike ride with Leo. The Wednesday before that I
went on a Fun Run (2 miles) and this Wednesday I went on a Fun Walk
(6.2 miles, and brisk), both sponsered by NASA GSFC running club. Also
Gina took me for one of her regular runs (2.5ish miles). I actually
finished— and felt great!
god that hurts
Death without pain is like a sundae without sprinkles. - anonymous
But I don't like sprinkles. - me
J: One of the core beliefs in my
philosophy of curmudgeonism is that no belief should be respected to
the point that it is no longer tested or questioned. No belief is
beyond scrutiny, including my own beliefs.
To that end, from time to time I revisit classic questions dealing with
common god beliefs, as an exercise in scrutiny. I've had interesting
conversations with believers lately about their concepts of god, and
our debates often get around to an old time-tested question that is
still bugging me. I haven't really received a satisfactory answer yet;
i.e. the best answer I can come up with is that the question is a
paradox. But I think the real reason this question bugs me is because I
can't remember how I would have answered it many years ago, when I
believed in God.
The general question goes like this:
Why would a god that is both all-powerful and all-loving
allow
millions of innocent children to suffer and die horrible deaths?
Here are some answers I've heard, listed in order of the most agreeable
answers (to me), along with my immediate responses to each answer:
If there is a god, that god cannot be both all-powerful and
all-loving, because such a god would not allow millions of children to
suffer.
This is my favorite answer, because it's sensible enough to
not
stipulate the premise of the question. But not too many people choose
to believe in an all-loving god who is unable to stop the human
tragedy, or an all-powerful god who just doesn't care that much about
the meager souls inhabiting this tiny blue speck in the universe. On to
the rest of the answers.
We cannot reasonably approach questions that deal with infinity from
a
finite perspective, so you might as well give up trying.
Fine, but if I can't question or understand the nature of a
supposed
god's existence, there is no reason for me to listen to any other
authority on the subject, including you, the pope, imams, prophets,
rabbis, bibles, dianetics, etc. All these other resources are just as
human as me. Claims that they are divinely inspired (e.g. "the Bible is
the word of God") won't work in the context of this answer, because
those claims are also human.
The amount of suffering those children go through is nothing
compared
to the infinite joy they experience later.
Even if the pain is infinitely minuscule, an all-powerful
god doesn't
have to let any of it happen.
God's love is alien to our primitive concepts of love,
and this love
involves some pain.
That explains Hell, I guess, and the Inquisition. This kind
of god
cannot be prayed to with any real expectations, because we hardly know
what we're asking for. I mean, if God's concept of love is so different
from ours, everything is up for grabs.
The millions of suffering children are all taking part
in a divine
plan. Everything will be made right in the end.
Again, not good enough. An all-powerful god could easily
adjust the
divine plan to not include pain.
When you're a god, you don't have to have reasons.
Maybe true, but when you're me you need reasons. I
think that's just as important. Should we call it a draw? If a
(proposed) god's actions are deemed inexplicably senseless, then I see
no need to believe in or worship that kind of god.
The millions of suffering children are not really
innocent, and they
deserve to be tortured.
This, unfortunately for the children, turns into a really
good argument
in favor of abortion, if not worse. Besides, if God only allows
demonic children to be tortured and killed, then that god is not
all-loving, because an all-loving god loves demons too.
We do this to ourselves. God is so loving that he gave us free will,
along with the ability to abuse our free will.
That doesn't account for the millions of children who
suffer and die in
floods and fires that are not created by humans. Also, an all-powerful
god could create a universe absent of pain that includes free will. The
two (pain and free will) are not mutually exclusive under the hand of
an
all-powerful god who gets to make up all the rules.
God suffers with us, so it's OK.
This is similar to the "divine plan" argument (i.e. the
"divine pain" argument?), and I'm not
buying it.
Such a god would be perfectly able to change the universe to eliminate
suffering entirely, and such a god could ignore any reasons for
suffering to exist in the first place. That would be an
all-loving
god.
We suffer now because Adam and Eve disobeyed God.
This one really irks me. It seems supremely petty to punish
innocent children for
the transgressions of their most distant ancestors, knowing from even
before the very beginning that said ancestors would bite an apple. Such
a god would at best be all-powerful, not quite all-loving, and mostly
all-maniacal.
