The One True Twinkie

No twinkie but Twinkie. The Holy Hostess is the One True Golden Sponge Cake with Creamy Filling.  Blessed are the cake-makers, for their cakes shall be filled. I'm going on a pilgrimage to Schiller Park, Illinois where the Twinkie was born four score and two years ago. Dolly Madison Zingers are not the one true cream-filled cake. They shall be cast out of my snack drawer. Oh! I long to be filled with the cream of the Holy Hostess.

Believolution

Nearly all knowledge is partially an act of faith. When we read something or listen to someone speak, we take their words as truth depending on our set credibility of that person and their sources. But true knowledge is cumulative and self-reinforcing. Known facts and concepts about the world are continually revisited and improved over time.
Generally then, today's picture of our world and the universe we live in is an improved view of what we had fifty years ago. When I was a child, pictures of galaxies and comets were in black and white and without much detail. There were race riots, segregation and bigotry. There was unbridled pollution and exploitation of natural resources - like the supply was endless, and the Earth would take our abuse without consequence. How wrong, or at the very least, how incomplete our knowledge was.
It was generally accepted that most people went to church every Sunday, and that this Christian nation had God on our side; that Jesus is the true Son of God; that He would return someday soon; and that all other religions were sadly in error in their doctrine.
Knowledge in these areas has increased; even in the areas of how we might regard religious belief, superstition, the occult, the supernatural, spirituality. We are now more aware of how the mind creates, reinforces, and distributes conflicting belief systems. The preacher's words are just another voice in the cacophony of information we sift through every day.
We cannot go back to the 1950's. Too much has changed. Too many real answers have been found. Too many more questions have been asked. It is literally a different world than that of my childhood. There's no going back.
I was taught that all languages came about because the Babylonians tried to build a tower up to heaven and God caused the builders to all speak different languages so they couldn't complete the project. Each language-speaking group moved away to their own country so they could all speak their own language together. The Italian-speakers moved to Italy, the Chinese speakers moved all the way to China, etc.(Genesis 11:6-9)
It has taken a long time, but I have begun to replace my childhoon learning with evidence-based knowledge. I have faith that evidence and reason will point the way toward better and truer truths.

Not Being Alive

Not being alive sucks! There's nothing to do; no body to do it with; no brain to think with; nothing. It's very quiet, I'm sure - no consciousness. I'm not really looking forward to being dead, but that outcome is inevitable within the next sixty years or so. Impermanence. Before I was born, I was nothing. For me, time and space didn't exist in a similar way that time itself (for our universe) didn't exist before the Big Bang.

The fact that I WAS born is amazing unto itself. Adding this beautiful planet and surrounding universe is incredible! And the best of all, our species now has the capability of measuring the scope and essence of it all - while still refining our knowledge. The more we learn about how it all works, the less we are inclined to ascribe supernatural explanations to stuff we don't understand yet.

I think I'll take good care of my body from now on, expand my knowledge, and love my family to the utmost. Life is too precious and wonderful to do otherwise.

Headline News

21 dead in gunfire skirmishes along the Washington/Oregon border as Oregonian troops, aided by Iranian allied forces attempted to reclaim Hayden Island from the 'Washers'. Disputes over settlement rights to the island, located near the confluence of the Columbia and Willamette rivers, have been going on for decades while ideological differences between the two states has escalated in recent years, requiring the military aid of middle-eastern countries.
Washington State has a high percentage of Presbyterians while Oregon is primarily Lutheran. Recent fighting between the two denominations has stalled talks of peace and prompted the leader of the Oregon Coalition to make this statement, "Washington has always been more Presbyterian than Oregon, and that's damn close to Episcopalian in my book. The Episcopalian sect, as everyone knows, is as near to being Catholic as you can get without actually being Catholic. And there's the problem. Hayden Island is ours by divine right and we'll use any means necessary to secure our god-given heritage." The mayor of Vancouver had no comment, but Facebook indicates that a military build-up, possibly with the aid of Canadians, may be assembling at an undisclosed location near Chehalis in response to the Oregon threat.

church and state

In ancient times (pre-1980), many so-called leaders utilized the postulations of religion to augment and sometimes supplant political power. Nowadays, in a more PC-aware climate, it is considered low-handed and even unconstitutional to invoke a religious belief as a basis for political law, issue stance or campaign strategy. To do so risks the raising of eyebrows in the thinking community at the least, and political suicide in the extreme. Would that we lived in a climate such as this.

I Believe

I believe it is a sin to want to live forever.
I believe it is a sin to have faith in anything not testable.
I believe it is a sin to apply the unrealistic claims of religion, superstition, myth, occult, mysticism or the supernatural to everyday life.
I believe it is a sin to influence children into believing in an afterlife when there is no evidence supporting that claim.
I believe it is a sin to think that the salvation of the presumed soul is needed or that it can be accomplished simply through the declaration of faith in a particular doctrine.
I believe it is a sin to claim that a god's law is man's law.
I believe it is a sin to waste the greatest gift of life - the human mind - on a life based not on reason and truth, but on lies, hearsay, anecdotes and human interpretations of ancient scripture.
Go thou and sin no more.

In The Midst

We are in the midst
Of a young adult universe
Galaxies have matured
With spiral dust from supernovae
And stellar nurseries

We are in the midst
Of a middle-aged star system
After the lightning birth of the sun
The violent shuffling of planet material is mostly past
Our star system is relatively in balance

We are in the midst
Of a planet well suited
To plants, animals, and human life
The weather patterns have stabilized
For the moment

We are in the midst
Of a great age of discovery
The ancient myths and superstitions
Are being supplanted with scientific knowledge
We are starting to understand ourselves and our place

We are in the midst
Of our short but amazing lives
Our brief encounters with just a few of our kind
The expanding family of global experience
The wealth of a changing community

I am in the midst
Of a life more wonderful
More precious than could be imagined
I exist between two vast stretches of non-existence
A brief opportunity to shine my light