Today on the way to Best Buy, Xkot coined a new phrase which nearly made me piss myself.
Driving though the parking lot looking for a space, he said, "Look at all the people meandering. You know what I call them? Meanderthals."
I laughed so hard I got dizzy.
Had lunch with my pal Randall today. He is, incidentally, a Catholic. We have the rare kind of friendship that allow us to talk religion or politics without coming to blows. Today, we were discussing the origins of religion, the hiearchy of need, and the obvious and sometimes painful conflict between religion and science.
I've become an agnostic, and as such, believe anything can be explained through the scientific method, given enough time. Randall, although generally logical and extremely bright, still holds onto his faith in the Church and the book written by said church.
He helped me foment my view on religion in an overall way today. I'd never been able to put into words exactly what I thought religion was. Today, while discussing the threads common to practically all mythos, religion, and fable, it struck me. God didn't create man, man created god.
What I mean is this:
Along with your basic needs; food, shelter, love, etc. we have a need to believe in something. A higher purpose or whatever. I don't know why it's true, but human beings don't seem to be happy with what they have, they have to look forward to something. And since we are largely communal animals, we decided that we look forward to something together. Thus was born the first religion, probably thanking the mammoth god for supplying mammoths or something, and looking forward to the day when we'd have all the mammoths we could eat without having to hunt for them. (In fact, heaven would be paved with mammoth hides, and we'd have these huge tents.) I digress.
So as time passes, and science, technology, and knowledge increase and change, so do our religions. We create and modify our religions because we need them.
Well, I don't really want to spend the time I have here worrying about what comes next. I figure if there is something next, great. If not, I've wasted the only time I had pretending this life is a dress rehersal. If there is something after this, I do not fear that it will be eternal damnation, because nothing you do could be bad enough to warrant that kind of punishment.
So that's it in a nutshell. We didn't discover religion, we created it. Then other people changed it as what they knew to be true changed. Other men use it for power or money. Just like 100 years ago, when people got sick because of sin, and other people charged them money to absolve them, times they are a changing, and the superstition we live with today is not going to exist in 500 years.
One Of My Turns
(Roger Waters)
Day after day, love turns gray
Like the skin on a dying man.
Night after night, we pretend it's all right
But I have grown older and
You have grown colder and
Nothing is very much fun any more.
And I can feel one of my turns coming on.
I feel cold as a razor blade,
Tight as a tourniquet,
Dry as a funeral drum.
Run to the bedroom,
In the suitcase on the left
You'll find my favorite ax.
Don't look so frightened
This is just a passing phase,
One of my bad days.
Would you like to watch TV?
Or get between the sheets?
Or contemplate the silent freeway?
Would you like something to eat?
Would you like to learn to fly?
Would 'ya?
Would you like to see me try?
Would you like to call the cops?
Do you think it's time I stopped?
Why are you running away?
Tonight we went to the Suns game. They are a farm team for the Dodgers.
We had a blast. Jason and Nikki, Dan and Audry, Jamie and Beth, Myself, Liam and Stephenie were there. It was dollar beer night. I had about 3 cups of boiled p-nuts, a bunch of hotdogs, and some cotton candy, too.
There are pictures, if you are interested. They are here.
The Suns beat the Carolina Mudcats 3 to 0, I think. By the bottom of the 9th inning, I wasn't in a position to remember much. I got some good pictures, though.