(no subject)

[which_chick]

Yesterday's news: Yield curve inverts. CNN Money has the story here.

Also, I played The Bible Game last night. It contains distressingly tiny amounts of actual Bible knowledge and is mostly composed of non-Bible challenge activities. The challenges are video-game-ish and I suck at them (example challenge: Outline blocks on Tower of Babel to make them crumble, kind of a tetris effect.) compared to the computer generated characters. The game show format is remarkable for the sole singular feature I found amusing as (forgive me) hell: The Wrath of God. Think Whammy in Wheel of Fortune, only you get a rain of frogs, a swarm of locusts, masses of flies, and so forth. Playing the game show (called "Do Unto Others") is like being a pharoah, almost. You see a lot of The Wrath of God in this game, to the point where I just started to laugh at the rains of frogs. I mean, they're totally random and there's nothing you can do about them. You didn't deserve them. I can understand dying in DDR if I fuck up enough. I can understand dying in, say, Quake II if I fail to account for the snipers. I can understand getting eaten by the ghosts in Pacman. However, my mental concept of video games does not allow for random fucking rains of frogs. It doesn't make narrative sense. Anyway, given the frequency with which this game employs The Wrath of God, it was clearly designed by someone who'd read his Jonathan Edwards.

Comments

How many fingers, Winston?

[teflon-tim.livejournal.com]

Make two plus two equal five.

If memory serves me right, O'Brien did that in 1984 -- or at least he did so as far as Winston Smith was concerned. Richard Burton played O'Brien in the movie. Does that make Richard Burton God?

Seriously, though...

I'm not convinced that there is a God. However, I'm not convinced that there isn't one, either. I hold open the possibility of a higher existence because I'd like to think that there's more to life than just the proverbial moment of light and warmth as the sparrow flies in the window and through the house. But you'll need to do a bit better than asking me to "take it on faith." I need more supporting evidence than someone simply saying "God says so," or "It's written in the Book of so-and-so."

I suppose that makes me an agnostic. Or maybe I don't have Faith 1.0 installed in my OS either. :)

Re: How many fingers, Winston?

[sara-merry99.livejournal.com]

I think I'm a really, really strange sort of theist--because I'm not sure I believe that there's more than this life (though I'd like to believe in reincarnation, I'm not sure I actually on a gut level *do*). We live, we die, we rot (or get eaten--I prefer eaten, personally). Some people try to make that sound insignificant--but really it's not. It's really, actually, quite a lot. Not a little thing at all to live and love and move through the world and appreciate the beauty. I mean there's mystery there and awesomeness, in just one life and then the oblivion of the grave.

But I still believe that there is something Divine in the universe. Like, as Terry Pratchett says, I believe in the postman.

There. Are. Four. Lights! --J.L. Picard (fictitious)

[electroweak.livejournal.com]

But I still believe that there is something Divine in the universe. Like, as Terry Pratchett says, I believe in the postman.

I imagine this is what it's like to be colorblind. I honestly see no evidence of the divine in the Universe. It seems like a great, blind clockwork that's running along at an immense rate of speed across vast, mostly empty distances. While it's awe-inspiring, it's awe-inspiring in the way that the Grand Canyon is. It's huge, and it's beautiful, and it obviously took a lot of time to get there. :)

Re: There. Are. Four. Lights! --J.L. Picard (fictitious)

[sara-merry99.livejournal.com]

It may be a hardwired difference between us. It may also be the way that each of us was brought up. Your family are agnostics. I was taken for walks in the woods when I was small, and, in fact, to see the Grand Canyon, and we talked about the Divine, my mom and I. Hardly ever went to church, but walked in the woods and felt the mystery a lot.

You may be colorblind, and I may be like Arthur Conan Doyle, seeing fairies where there are none. (Only I don't write as well. :) )

Re: There. Are. Four. Lights! --J.L. Picard (fictitious)

[cousin-sue.livejournal.com]

I had a family background with strong faith. So I see the divine in a lot of things. Love for one thing.

And again, since I don't understand God, it makes it that much harder to describe him. My understanding is that the original spirit, what became the Holy Spirit, was female in the original versions of the old testament. Until I learn those languages, I won't know for sure, and even then can't. Nobody can. There are no vowels. So open to misinterpretation.

In any case...the old testament is description of something in terms that the people then would understand. It might not hold meaning for a lot of people today. On the other hand, I've read some fairly wretched translations. so I prefer to read as close to an accurate translation as I can to get some idea of what the history of my system of belief is. Not everyone feels the need to do this.

Which is why the Bibles my church hands out to 3rd graders translates "Eunuchs" as "Government Officials".

Re: There. Are. Four. Lights! --J.L. Picard (fictitious)

[sara-merry99.livejournal.com]

The Jewish Publication Society translation of the Hebrew bible (the Old Testament, only in a different order) is about the best translation that modern scholarship has. You might want to look for that one in the Jewish section of the bookstore.

The problem with the Bible, both testaments, is that they are very culturally conditioned--written by and for people in those times, places, and cultures (more than one of them) and with underpinnings, overt and subtle, that we can't really hope to get.

One of the reasons I am a committed Jew is that being Jewish you're allowed to argue with God, to disagree with the tradition, to argue (politely) with other Jews. It's kind of in the "rules" of being Jewish that as long as you continue to be a Jew you can disagree with the faith as much as you want. :)