That's not how you wear a shirt.
Wednesday, October 21, 2020
Monday, August 3, 2020
God's an Octopus
My sister Carla is a renowned linguist and widely published researcher. She works for a car dealership megastore based in Portland. She believes that God lives in a tide pool on the Oregon coast, outside a town called Lincoln City.
“Surly atheists always badger Christians about the translations and versions of the Bible. How challenging it is to translate Aramaic and filter these complex concepts through all of history’s languages and cultures,“ she said. “Yet the real issue is that God would never rely on words to convey meaning.“
I asked if God speaks American.
“It’s that mundane!“ she said. “Every author thinks they’re God, but only because they create and destroy at will. Gods or not, authors struggle when they discover that their text has been misinterpreted. Except for the lazy ones- that conflate ambiguity with artistic integrity- authors want to be understood. God wants to be understood.
“Why would a benevolent, all-knowing, all-powerful Creator rely on syntax, grammar, and evolving languages to share its message?
“What holy being would exclude the very young, the illiterate? Or force them to rely on the learned to connect them with the divine?”
I guess that she does not subscribe to the notion of the revealed word of God.
“God is revealed in the armored intricacies of a chiton shell or the malleable beauty of an octopus,” she said. "Not in symbols pounded into the tissue of trees.
”Plus, I can tell God is not an author, because God stopped publishing! Writers can’t help themselves,” she explains. “Once they have an idea, they just write it over and over again. We'd be up to 2000 Bibles by now.”
“Surly atheists always badger Christians about the translations and versions of the Bible. How challenging it is to translate Aramaic and filter these complex concepts through all of history’s languages and cultures,“ she said. “Yet the real issue is that God would never rely on words to convey meaning.“
I asked if God speaks American.
“It’s that mundane!“ she said. “Every author thinks they’re God, but only because they create and destroy at will. Gods or not, authors struggle when they discover that their text has been misinterpreted. Except for the lazy ones- that conflate ambiguity with artistic integrity- authors want to be understood. God wants to be understood.
“Why would a benevolent, all-knowing, all-powerful Creator rely on syntax, grammar, and evolving languages to share its message?
“What holy being would exclude the very young, the illiterate? Or force them to rely on the learned to connect them with the divine?”
I guess that she does not subscribe to the notion of the revealed word of God.
“God is revealed in the armored intricacies of a chiton shell or the malleable beauty of an octopus,” she said. "Not in symbols pounded into the tissue of trees.
”Plus, I can tell God is not an author, because God stopped publishing! Writers can’t help themselves,” she explains. “Once they have an idea, they just write it over and over again. We'd be up to 2000 Bibles by now.”
Monday, July 20, 2020
Pandemic Lessons #33
The supply chain is fucked up. We keep running out of weird shit: quarts of paint, frozen fruit, coins.
When Obama was president we had all kinds of coins. They were falling out of our pockets.
When Obama was president we had all kinds of coins. They were falling out of our pockets.
Sunday, July 19, 2020
Saturday, July 18, 2020
Pandemic Lesson #8
We have short attention spans. When this all started we were all on board. "Batten down the hatches!" But that got old quick.
There's a lot said about our short attention spans; we even have disorders now, for the very distractible. It's a real failing if you can't sit still in a airless classroom while the undead drone on about ideas they've read about.
These short attention spans are a defense mechanism, a gambit to survive the perpetual assault of life. We ridicule the goldfish who forgets the dimensions of his bowl in the course of one aquatic loop around his suffocating kingdom. But imagine his despair if he could recall it all. Forgetfulness is a small mercy.
Our gift for memory might be part of our ongoing emotional pandemic. Anxiety stalks so many humans even as we enjoy the safest existence of all the species and longer lives than any of our forebears. We linger over every slight, any indignation suffered at the hands of an indifferent world. How fucking stressed would we all be if there were lions and tigers on every city corner.
Oh shit. Now I see it.
But still, forget about it and get on with it.
Also, this is the lesson of the animated movie "The Croods" starring Nicholas Cage as a Neanderthal helicopter daddy.
There's a lot said about our short attention spans; we even have disorders now, for the very distractible. It's a real failing if you can't sit still in a airless classroom while the undead drone on about ideas they've read about.
These short attention spans are a defense mechanism, a gambit to survive the perpetual assault of life. We ridicule the goldfish who forgets the dimensions of his bowl in the course of one aquatic loop around his suffocating kingdom. But imagine his despair if he could recall it all. Forgetfulness is a small mercy.
Our gift for memory might be part of our ongoing emotional pandemic. Anxiety stalks so many humans even as we enjoy the safest existence of all the species and longer lives than any of our forebears. We linger over every slight, any indignation suffered at the hands of an indifferent world. How fucking stressed would we all be if there were lions and tigers on every city corner.
Oh shit. Now I see it.
But still, forget about it and get on with it.
Also, this is the lesson of the animated movie "The Croods" starring Nicholas Cage as a Neanderthal helicopter daddy.
Sunday, June 21, 2020
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