09.18.2011 – What Grinds My Gears: Miracles!

I’m going to start a new series of posts called, completely derivatively: “What Grinds My Gears!”. Since I’m really good a bitching and complaining about various things, I figure I should be fairly good at putting my bitching and complaining down in words too! So, here goes…

The local news stations around here have, over the last several years, really started abusing the word ‘miracle’! Everything is miraculous anymore. “Miraculous car crash survivor“, “Miraculous surgery for conjoined twins“, “Miraculous birth“, etc etc. I find that this is really starting to cheapen the meaning of this word.

The lady in the car crash story above had to be removed from the car and is in the hospital recovering from her injuries. A miracle in this story would have been the truck falling over on the car, and the car staying completely untouched and the woman walking away unharmed.

The miracle surgery for the conjoined twins is nothing more than the amazing medical technology that we have developed as a society. The skill, talents, and knowledge of the surgeons and medical staff. To call it a miracle is to discredit the amazing work of these people. A real miracle in this instance would be the twins being separated after birth with NO intervention from surgeons or doctors at all.

The one that REALLY grinds my gears is all the people who tout the ‘miracle of child-birth”. “Our baby is a miracle”! “Childbirth is such a miracle”! Ugh! There are 7 billion people on the planet right now (not to mention countless billions of healthy births throughout human history). If child-birth is such a miracle, I would think that healthy human birth would have to be a truly rare thing indeed. However, it’s quite obvious that  is not the case at all. Humans are baby making factories. We pop the little packages out at impressive rates. Hardly what I would classify as a ‘miracle’!

To me, a miracle would be something that occurs completely outside of the normal operations of the natural world according to the laws of physics and science. When news, ministers, and average believers start labeling every day occurrences (even if they are surprising occurrences) miracles, I believe that really starts to water down the significance of that word. Granted, I don’t believe that miracles actually occur, but there’s definitely a threshold of occurrence and would give me pause, and NONE of these stories qualifies.

5.09.2008 – Looking for Answers

(** for the first few posts, I’ll be posting information that i’ve written in previous months. Once I catch up, it will be new stuff in real time**)

 

In recent months, I’ve found myself in a place I’ve never been in before. A place that is many things. Sometimes it’s a scary place. Sometimes it’s an enlightening place. Sometimes it’s even a comforting place. More than anything, I find myself in a confusing place.

 

I’m not sure what’s brought this period along in my life. Or why all of a sudden it’s here. Maybe it’s growing older that causes this. Maybe it’s me becoming more satisfied with my place in life and my mind has more time to think about things. I guess when it comes down to it, the ‘whys’ really don’t matter. The fact is, I’ve arrived here, and now I’ve got to figure out where to go from here.

 

I suppose I should explain what ‘this place’ is at this point. I seem to have developed an insatiable thirst for knowledge. More specifically, knowledge or our origins. By my use of the word “Our” I mean, this human race. In the 21^st century. How did we get here? Why do we believe the things we believe about our past? What forces are really at work in the world, universe, and beyond? Why do the various religions of the world believe what they believe? What do they have in common? Who’s right?

 

One thing is for sure…I don’t appreciate people telling me I’m wrong in my beliefs. I’d like to know who they think gives them the authority to say or even think that. I guess that’s my problem with organized religion. It’s either their way, or you’re wrong (even to the point of claiming that your ‘lost’). I guess, though, in their defense, they’d be hypocritical to believe what they believe without thinking that every other viewpoint is wrong. I, personally, want to know what EVERY ‘religion’ believes…and how they arrived at their theories. I think it’s only through that knowledge that we may be able to come to our own conclusions and maybe some REAL truth to what’s really going on.

 

As for MY beliefs? Well, I guess that’s really how I got here. I don’t entirely KNOW what my beliefs are. I have some theories (I’ll probably get into those later), but I’m not totally sold on anything. For a while, I figured I was atheist. It was my logical, scientifically thinking mind that took me there. However, lately, I’m thinking that maybe there is something out there. Though, I don’t believe that there is a single omnipotent force that willed the entire universe into existence and that punishes non-believing souls to an eternity of fire and brimstone. My upbringing would like me to believe those things, but my mature mind tells me how illogical that really is. Never in my life have I seen or experienced ANYTHING that I would consider to be ‘supernatural’. If there was even ONE instance that I could refer to of something that happened and I couldn’t apply a logical explanation to it, then I would have reason to doubt myself. But, no, there’s been nothing.