theidiotdeity

Author: theidiotdeity

  • The Pressure of Life

    As I approach the “official” age of being considered an old man I find myself recalling the events of my life. More and more often, as I move through my daily life a phrase or an action by a young person will trigger a vision in my mind of myself, a much more cocky and immature self, performing or saying the same activity or phrase many years ago. 

    Most often the memory isn’t one that casts a favorable light. I don’t know if that is a sign of the times or just God reminding me of what an idiot I used to be, and still am according to many.

    But these glimpses into my past seem to have a silver lining. They seem to be reminding me of the things I’ve overcome, the challenges I’ve faced and answered, and the rewards that have been bestowed on me by the road that I’ve travelled.

    There is a poem by Robert Frost called, “The Road Not Taken.”

    Most people believe it is an endorsement of individualism and a call to forging your own path in life. That was not the intent of its author.

    The unintentional meaning of his poem is however applicable to my life. I’ve taken the road less travelled at most every turn. I’ve forged new trails and explored most every whim that I’ve had. I’ve felt the loss from a misguided love, chased after dream after dream and failed at most. I’ve won and lost and learned to make the best from both outcomes. 

    I’ve become a pro at believing in God’s providence. He’s taken care of me every time I was in want of a meal or an encouraging word through coincidences beyond coincidence, synchronicities are what Carl Jung called them.

    The road less traveled is not easy, neither is the road well traveled. Life is hard for all of us but in the later years of life, it seems, what was once difficult has become simple and life ups the ante at every triumph to push us into a new adventure, forcing us out of our comfort whether we want it or not.

    Older years present challenges that my younger self never imagined. Friends, parents, siblings, and cultural icons begin to die at closer intervals. Our bodies no longer function with the efficiency and ease that they did before. Children move away and seem to forget about us, though I know they don’t in fact, it still feels like it.

    Challenges, both physical and psychological, become more harsh as life increases its pressure, unforgivingly pushing us closer and closer to death.

    But the capacity to withstand that pressure increases as well. 

    Oddly, the things that I remember most… are not the victories…

    The things that I remember most… are the battles. The battles fought and challenges met, whether won or lost, have prepared me for the new battles that life is giving me. Hardship has forged my will into an instrument that can respond to adversity rather than run from it. 

    I hear the words of young people saying, “It’s too hard” or “I can’t.”

    And my thoughts turn to myself as a young man believing the same things. But the truth is that it doesn’t matter if you can do something or whether it’s too hard because life will arrange itself in a way that will make it necessary for you to fight. There is no “safe place” to hide. Life will find you.

    But the good news is… whether you want to or not… you will become capable of withstanding the pressure… as the world slowly turns you into a diamond… by squeezing all of the weakness out of you… one day at a time.

    But what do I know? I’m just a dummygod.

  • I Can’t Swing the Hammer for You

    I’m a Christian, a follower of Christ. I believe in God and I’m always running into people who ask me to prove that God exists. They call themselves atheists.

    But it isn’t my burden to prove to them that God exists… because that’s impossible. If they want proof that God exists, they must prove it to themselves. Unfortunately, all that most of them are looking for is reassurance that they are right about His absence.

    Recently I was involved in, let’s say, an altercation with an atheist. Her contention was that if I wanted her to believe in God I needed to prove to her that He was real.

    She didn’t like my answer.

    My answer was, “I can’t swing the hammer for you.”

    “What does that mean?” She shot back. 

    I don’t know why atheists are always angry. 

    She didn’t know the story behind the statement but I’m going to let you in on it.

    I like to do a little blacksmithing here and there. Nothing major. Just wall hooks and hinges. Occasionally I’ll do something like a table or an ornamental fire screen or a tangle of vines climbing over a set of kitchen cabinets… you know… little stuff.

    I’ve been blacksmithing, as a hobby, and sporadically for commissions for about 38 years. I’ve swung the hammer many times in that span, bent a lot of steel, and learned how to persuade the metal to move where my imagination wants it to go. The skill has been hard won and I am proud of the prowess that I’ve developed over time.

    Many young men have come by over the years and asked if I could teach them how to do what I do, and my answer has always been yes, but I don’t believe that I have ever actually taught any of them to do what I can do with a hammer. 

    They want to be creators and skilled craftsmen but all of them lack the simplest ingredient. They don’t have the will to be failures first. They expect to be able to watch a video or listen to an explanation and then be able to do it, first try, no failures. They’re looking for shortcuts. 

    They usually come to the forge with a primitive knife or hook that they’ve made in some forge somewhere that looks very similar to the first knives and hooks that I made. 

    I tell them, “That’s great! Now go make a million more.”

    “What?” is the usual reply. “Can’t you teach me?”

    And they never like the answer, “Looks like you already know how to make a knife. Now practice making it better til it looks like the picture you have in your head. It’s as simple as that. You have to swing the hammer.”

    You can’t become a master without being a novice for a long time and the master will tell you, if you ask him, that he is not a master. He is trying to become the Master. He swings his hammer and listens to what the Master whispers to him. He forges on through trial and error and failure after failure doing his best to become even a fraction as good as the true Master Craftsman, God. He’ll tell you that every new project teaches him something. He must fail over and over again until he finds the secret combination of force and faith that allows the vision in his mind to become something tangible and real. 

    Every day the master becomes a novice again. He knows how to fail gracefully.

    The teacher has swung the hammer and he knows that he must keep swinging it every day until he dies.

    The student has not.

    When my atheist friend challenged me to “prove” the existence of God she thought that she had swung the hammer of faith and learned that there is no God. She doesn’t realize that if she looks for Him and wants Him in her life He will be there… but SHE has to be the one to swing the hammer.

  • I Used to be a God

    Enough about you, let’s talk about me.

    Once upon a time I was a god.

    Don’t believe me?

    Does this sound like something a god could do? 

    The god walks confidently into a room full of wailing and crying people. Grandma has just died and they have no power to change the evil that has just entered their lives. Demons have come and taken someone they love. But their prayers have been answered because the hotline to heaven called 911 has brought them someone with the power to save her.

    As the god enters the house their eyes fill with hope. The god will make it all better. He has the power of life and death at his fingertips. Surely he will bestow life back into Grandma. They reassure each other excitedly, “It’s OK, the paramedics are here!”

    The god moves calmly and purposefully. He doesn’t run or appear distressed. His calm demeanor quiets the tumultuous scene that was here before and the family watches him, hoping, praying, pleading, for a miracle. 

    The god surveys the scene asking quick and pointed questions from the family as he prepares his magical tools and then suddenly he is all action. He removes lightning from the satchel at his hip and rubs his magical paddles together as he intones sacred words, “Get the epinephrine ready.” “Start me a line.” “I need some Lido now!” and his minions scramble to fulfill his desires as quickly as possible.

    The god yells loudly at the demons that have taken Grandma from life, “Clear!”

    Grandma’s body leaps into the air as the god’s lightning strikes and repels the demons within her. 

    The god pauses and looks into the screen on his lightning generator. He doesn’t like what he sees and the god repeats his command more fiercely this time, “Clear!”

    Once again Grandma’s lifeless body springs into the air as death fights to retain control of her but is losing its grip due to the mighty power of the god’s lightning.

    The god, angered by the stubbornness of death, recharges his lightning and his generator whirs with excitement. As the sound of electricity gaining strength reaches a crescendo, the god announces one final time with authority, “Clear!”

    Grandma leaps from the ground once more and the god is pleased as he looks into his monitor and sees life entering her lifeless body. He inserts a tube into her lungs and he breathes for her as she slowly gains strength. 

    The god puts life-giving chemicals into her blood to keep the demons of death at bay until Grandma is strong enough to fight them on her own. He wraps her in sheets and blankets and his minions carry Grandma to his brilliantly lit, shining chariot and they take her to a tower in the sky where special servants called nurses and doctors will ensure that the god’s efforts were not wasted. 

    Life continues. Grandma will live. The god has defeated death… again.

    About Gods

    I’m a former paragod, or as most of you know us, a paramedic.

    Some folks call us ditch doctors, paramagics, shock jockeys, or just ambulance drivers. We make a living rescuing souls from the clutches of death. Saving lives is all in a day’s work for us. I’m sure you’re thinking that we must be some of the happiest and satisfied people on the planet. After all, it must be so good to be able to save people all day long. But the truth is the opposite.

    Sadly, too often the god does not win the battle with death and he must suffer the shame and guilt of failure. He must look into the mirror and play the “what if” game with himself.

    What if I hadn’t fumbled with the paddles, or in today’s world the patches, so much. What if I had taken a different route to the residence. What if I had studied more? Maybe there was something I missed. Could it have been a diabetic problem? Maybe just a little D50 would have brought her back. 

    In short the god puts himself through hell, tortures himself mercilessly, because he failed and he has been taught that he should never fail. In the infamous words of Gene Krantz of Apollo 13 fame, “Failure is not an option.” 

    But we do fail, frequently, and in the end it is all failure because everyone eventually dies. We lie to ourselves and pretend that we save lives when most of the time what we really do is prolong suffering because a lot of the time, more than we’d like to admit, Grandma never returns even though her body is still alive in the hospital. Her mind is somewhere else, irretrievable.

    I wonder often if consciousness chained to a body it no longer has a use for is in a kind of hell when this happens. Does the soul have to wait for its body to die before it can go to its final rest? These are the questions that keep me up at night.

    In reality paramedics, firefighters, cops, soldiers, sailors, and all front line professionals are some of the most psychologically haunted and tortured people on the planet. 

    Statistically Speaking

    You can find statistics from the National Institute of Health, the Center for Disease Control, the American Hospital Association, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and thousands of studies and theses about the prevalence of depression, anxiety, suicide, exhaustion, frustration, burnout, divorce, domestic violence and every other mental health issue known to mankind and how they appear with vigor in the lives of societies protectors.

    No two studies will agree. They all have different percentages and prevalences. But the gist of the data is obvious. Minor gods, like paramedics, are mentally ill and they are suffering.

    Our job is to protect you… and we know we’re failing.

    We can’t save lives.

    We can’t bring the dead back.

    We can’t keep the bad guys from trafficking children.

    We can’t stop the endless tide of viruses, bacteria, stroke, diabetes, cancer, car accidents, alzheimers, heart disease, violence and just plain stupidity that kills humans off like bugs sprayed with Raid. 

    We spend our lives trying to learn and grow, to gain skills that will protect, and save our fellow humans. We delude ourselves into thinking that there is a way to overcome the pain, suffering and evil in the world if we simply study enough, prepare enough, work hard enough or become fast enough.

    We’re fighting against nature and we can’t win.

    As it turns out, the number one cause of death in the world is birth!

    Little “g” Gods

    Every time we feel good about something reality comes back with a vengeance and reminds us of our own impotence. We are little “g” gods. We are not big “G” gods.

    We expect ourselves to perform the miracles of a big “G” God when we are merely idiot deities, incapable, incompetent, impure, impotent images of big “G” God.

    I spent 30 years seeing the best and the worst of society, battling depression, divorce, bankruptcy, guilt, shame, anger, sleep deprivation, fatigue, and more.

    After my divorce I lived alone in a teepee for three winters struggling with… how should I say it? Issues. I got burnt out, tried to make it with a “real” job three times and still went back to hell. I was mad at the world. I almost knocked out my boss, who was also a deputy sheriff, got in fights with my co-workers, alienated just about everyone I thought I loved, tried to drown myself in the job by working two EMS jobs at the same time, sometimes pulling 72 hour shifts which, if you know anything about EMS is the equivalent of never going home, and nearly killing my patients, my partners and my bosses in the process. 

    I had anger issues. I was depressed. I was mentally ill and I still am in comparison with the so-called “normal” people out there. 

    I’m not “normal.”

    But I have a secret.

    I’ve been to hell… and back.

    I’ve got something that “normal” Americans and even most therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists, or even doctors don’t. 

    Don’t get me wrong. Mental health professionals do wonderful things, they can give us clues or insights from talking to others who’ve been to hell, but unless they’ve been to hell they can’t possibly tell us the way out. We, who’ve been there, have to take responsibility for each other and send down a ladder to those trapped in the basement.

    I travelled through hell for 30 years and I’ve made it back again. I know that I’ll never be “normal.” Anyone who has seen and done the things I have for as long as I have can’t ever be “normal” again even if the therapists tell you that you can be. But that’s OK. I have a map to hell that you can’t find on Google maps. You have to have lived it to know it. 

    I heard a story once of an Inuit shaman named Igjugaarjuk. It was the story of how he became a shaman for his village. 

    In an eskimo village the shaman is the therapist, doctor, and advisor all at once. They aren’t “normal” people and that’s why they are valued. He said that the only way to become a shaman, one who knows the things that are hidden, is through suffering. 

    “True wisdom is only to be found far away from people, out in the great solitude, and it is not found in play but only through suffering. Solitude and suffering open the human mind, and therefore a shaman must seek his wisdom there.”

    Everywhere you see immense suffering you will also see intense faith… not in everyone… but there are always those who refuse to capitulate to denying God and their faith seems to increase boundlessly the more they are tortured for it. The Gulags of Soviet Russia come to mind.

    Sorry Gen Z but watching life on videos is different from living life “for real” and not all information is on the internet. 

    Life must be lived to be of value, not simply watched, and suffering is the path to wisdom. 

    Some of us suffer voluntarily and some of us have it forced upon us but we all suffer. Maybe “normal” isn’t so “normal” after all. Maybe our society is missing something important by placing so much emphasis on being “happy” all the time and having “fun” as the ultimate goals in life. Continual happiness is not normal, despite what the advertisers say.

    And if there is one thing in life that I have absolutely no doubts about it’s this… once you’ve lived with death as your co-worker you’ll never be what Americans call “normal” again.

    Fortunately, I don’t have to be “normal” like most people. I only have to be “normal” like people who have seen reality without the rose colored glasses. My fellow first responders are the people who have looked into the abyss, as Nietzsche has said, and have had it look back at them. 

    It doesn’t make sense to compare ourselves to people who have never experienced what we, on the front lines, have experienced. We don’t believe that simply using your correct pronouns is going to stop all the bad in the world from happening and we’re not hiding our heads in the sand hoping it will go away. 

    We look death in the eyes and fight with him. Sometimes we win. Mostly we lose. But we never quit on a patient or a victim or a brother in arms. The only place we quit is on ourselves when we are alone with our thoughts and memories.

    You can’t make an apple an orange. You can’t regain the innocence of childhood after you’re grown. You can’t make a butterfly into a moth again. We’ve risen above that perspective.

    We are the ones who have volunteered to confront the shadows of humanity and we suffer because of it. 

    But we must remember that we volunteered to suffer for our society. We take pride in the fact that the job is difficult, most people can’t do it, and we are mentally stronger than they are. We’re the sheep dogs, they’re the sheep. I hate to say it that way but it’s the best analogy I know of. 

    We are stuck in a society that perceives us as ill because we “know” the truth. Everything dies. Life exists on the bones of the dead. Time erases all things. Wolves are everywhere. Ultimately our sacrifices are meaningless, the universe collapses and we all die. 

    That’s the scientific version of the truth.

    Morbid and depressing isn’t it?

    But there is more…

    Points of View

    Although the truth is morbid and depressing there’s another side to the story. A side of the story that I know you’ve heard before but you’ve rejected because of the morbidity and depression that you’ve encountered in life. The truth is that evil is everywhere and we will never defeat it… but we can understand it.

    The world is a different place for each one of us. My world is not your world. Your world may overlap mine but your point of view reveals aspects of the world that I can’t see no matter how hard I try and vice versa. 

    If I show you a pinecone you may describe something circular with rough edges and overlapping scales spreading out from a central point. I’ll disagree with you and say the pinecone is oblong with layers of scales in ascending circles and terminating in a point on one end and blunt on the other.

    You’re looking at the base of the pinecone and I’m looking at the side. Who’s right?

    Both of us are correct but if we assume there is only one correct world view we’ll never agree. We can argue about it… or we can understand it. Understanding this other point of view contains the secret that will allow us to persevere in our missions with enthusiasm and fortitude. It will allow us to forgive ourselves for being idiot deities.

    So imagine you are a big “G” God.

    If a child dies from cancer is it a tragedy? They’re coming home to where they can’t suffer again.

    If someone’s Grandmother passes away after years of suffering and chronic pain and illness, is that a bad thing? She’s being given a new body that is pain free and young.

    If you are tortured and beaten and thrown into prison for crimes you did not commit… then hung by nails driven through your hands and feet on a cross until you drowned in your own body fluids… was there no purpose to it?

    You see where I’m going with this. 

    Scroll… if you’re scared. But someday you’ll have to deal with it and this is the ONLY point of view that makes any sense to a logical mind that can still see a trace of the light that shines through the darkness of our world.

    The answer to meaningless suffering and death is that it isn’t meaningless. It has a purpose. Its purpose is to open our minds to wisdom. 

    Igjugaarjuk made a living suffering for his village… isn’t that what we do… and can’t we bring some of the hard-earned wisdom we’ve found back to our villages? Maybe the best thing we can do is to let our village know that it’s OK to not be happy all the time.

    Part of the wisdom I’ve found is that even though He lets us suffer God does care about us. 

    He cares so much that He became man, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, suffered death and was buried, and rose again on the third day, willingly, voluntarily, to save us from ourselves.

    You can believe that or not but before you toss it aside as a meaningless fable created by people who delude themselves I challenge you to find a better reason for why people choose to suffer for each other. 

    Front line professionals are fulfilling His mission by willingly suffering for others. We are emulating in real life the character and compassion of the One who created us. We are striving to become the thing that we were created in the image of.

    That’s what I believe.

    But why believe me? I’m just a dummygod.

  • Richard Henry Dana; Two Years Before the Mast.

    Many years ago there was a man named Richard Henry Dana. Descended from a family of scholars and overachievers he was accepted into the esteemed halls of Harvard. A case of the measles ruined his eyesight and ended his academic pursuits after three years. Medical experts were of no help.

    Young Richard decided upon a rash course of action. In 1934 he signed on to a brig named the Pilgrim, as a sailor for two years. The ship was set to sail from Boston to California. The Panama Canal was not in existence at that time and the journey on a sailing ship with no mechanized power would require the dreaded east to west rounding of Cape Horn.

    Cape Horn, in those days, was synonymous with death and destruction. It is the largest ship graveyard in the world where more than 800 ships and 10,000 sailors lie in the depths below the icy gales of the southern seas. Richard, if he had wanted an adventure, was going to get one.

    Any moment above deck might be your last if a rogue crest swiped your feet from under you or an unanticipated roll of the ship flung you like a doll into the freezing water of the Antarctic. Death was inevitable should you be lost overboard. There was no turning back to retrieve a man. There was no Coast Guard, there were no life jackets, clothing was minimal. The men remaining aboard would simply continue their battle with the ocean and pray for their own salvation. To cease their work would mean their own deaths.

    Rounding the Horn took the ship nine days to accomplish. Nine days of snow, sleet, hail, rain, bitter cold in wet clothing that they could not dry, sleeping in water logged racks while the wind howled and the ship tossed and the frigid sea constantly broke across the decks and washed into every crevice of the ship. Richard, in a spur of the moment action to retrieve the jib in a sudden squall, was nearly washed off the bowsprit, dunked twice to his chin when the ship dove into heavy seas. Upon completion of their task Richard and a second sailor scrambled back to the deck and found all hands below decks to weather the storm apparently not concerned about the two sailors’ fates.

    Life was different then. Safety was a foreign concept to the minds of the men who dared these journeys for the simple act of commerce, bringing shoes to California, or leather to Boston. Death was ever present. Providence, prayer, and ones’ own wits were the only defenses against the grave.

    And with all of the safety measures, drills, helmets, goggles, protective clothing, and warnings we have today death still takes its due.

    Fear is real but safety is an illusion. Either get busy livin’… or get busy dyin’. Your choice.

    But what do I know. I’m just a dummygod.

  • Manliness Defined

    If we could create an icon to represent the perfect man, what would it be?

    What would define the ultimate man? Kindness? Intelligence? Boldness? Loyalty? Courtesy? Reverence? Faithfulness? Trustworthiness? Powerful? Forgiving? Truthful? Would it be all of those things, and more?

    Now, before you judge the message and click away… consider something radical for once;

    The Bible is nothing more than a collection of fictional essays.

    Assume the Bible is only a story. Assume that none of it ever happened. Assume that religion is simply a bunch of delusions used by men to control one another. Assume it was written without any inspiration by God. Assume it is nothing more than a collection of fictional essays. What story would you write about a man who was God incarnate? What adventures would you send Him on? What evil would He fight and conquer? 

    Would you end your story with God being tortured and hanging from a cross without ever uttering a word to defend Himself? Would you let the crowds and the multitudes live in doubt about His identity even after His death? Would you have Him speak lessons in cryptic analogies that could be interpreted so many different ways?

    If a man had the power to heal all sickness, bring life back from death and cast out demons with a word, what makes us think He didn’t have the power to destroy, instantly, all of those who were persecuting Him? If I was writing the story Jesus would have revealed Himself as they placed Him on the cross and He would have destroyed all of the nonbelievers, persecutors, the evil ones who refused to believe who He was. I would have turned them all to dust with the snap of a finger like Thanos. Why didn’t He simply turn them to dust and save Himself? Why didn’t He reveal His true nature to the world and show us the awesome power at His command? Why did He mess around with simple magic tricks when He was God incarnate?

    Because… His message was love… not revenge.

    But what do I know… I’m just a dummygod.

  • Gods’ Textbook

    The original bible, Gods’ textbook, may have been this…

    “The Inner Workings of The Quantum Universe and Knowledge of Miracle Performance Within the Confines of a Carbon Based Life Form Limited to Four Measurable Dimensions in the Space-time Continuum and Added Dimensional Assets Controlled and Governed by Quantum Fluctuations of Calabi-Yau Shapes as they Relate to String Theory and the Relevant Spiritual and Psychosocial Issues which are Presented by the Evolution of Lower Forms of Knowledge as they Acquire Higher Intelligence and Awareness of the Infinite”

    -Author: GOD

    I have no idea what that means.

    Do you?

    Didn’t think so.

    What makes us think we know anything?

    Arrogance?

    Probably.

    Consider this: Yesterday… bacon was considered health food. Cigarettes were good for asthma. Unshielded X-ray machines were in shoe stores. Lobotomies were a miracle cure for mental illness. Heroin was prescribed to kids as cough medicine. Kellogg’s Corn Flakes would keep you from masturbating and the list goes on.

    Humans are arrogant. We believe we are smarter than we are.

    We delude ourselves too easily, trust too easily, become arrogant (did you notice that I really like that word) and prideful too easily, and in general do dumb things to make ourselves feel better.

    Multiply by Infinity

    Think about how much you know today that you didn’t know three years ago… Now multiply that by infinity and you’ll see the vast difference between what humans know and what is knowable.

    We are babies.

    We are far from omniscient and definitely not omnipotent but we crave control over something in our lives, even if it is only an illusion, to make us feel better, safer, and not so fragile and vulnerable.

    Maybe that’s why our ancestors created God. 

    Perhaps God was the heroin and methamphetamine for our grandparents and their grandparents. He was the great vending machine in the sky. He was the ultimate protector. He was also useful for politicians and popes to control the behavior of the masses.

    But does the fact that humans have used The Bible for their own selfish desires prove His absence?

    Maybe…

    Maybe not…

    Maybe He just provided us with a book we could understand instead of the textbook cited above. 

    Maybe The Bible is a collection of allegorical stories that contain endless meanings as they are contemplated and integrated into a psyche. Maybe there are warnings and directions that would prevent us from needing to seek out the fentanyl or the alcohol or the tobacco or even simply ideas that coerce and control our own wills when we invite them in. 

    Maybe God knows everything and we don’t.

    Maybe it’s something worth thinking about rather than dismissing… because you already know everything. Right?

    But what do I know… I’m just a dummygod.

  • Free Will and Determinism Existing Simultaneously; An alternative to Robert Sapolsky’s argument for determinism.

    I recently watched a YouTube interview with Robert Sapolsky on Alex O’Connnor’s YouTube channel. Dr. Sapolsky is a brilliant man who is obviously well-versed in many subjects, chiefly biology and neuroscience. He doesn’t believe in “free will,” meaning that everything in life is predetermined, by your hormones, your hunger or state of satiation, the stage of the moon, the direction of the wind… I’m obviously being over dramatic but I’m not sure that Robert would disagree with my analogies. His case is that there are so many intricate factors that go into the act of decision making that we are literally programmed into a response to those factors even though we believe that we are making choices. His thesis is that the choice has been made for us. We are merely responding to influences.

    If I have muddled Dr. Sapolsky’s theory I apologize but that is the gist of my understanding. 

    Making Two Choices at Once

    My view on the subject is that I both agree and disagree with him, trying to not make a choice, or actually making two choices at once. I agree that much of our environment limits the choices we make but I don’t believe that it is so limiting that a choice is impossible. On the other hand it has also occurred to me that from a religious viewpoint it is possible that both free will and determinism have equal sway in the unfolding of our lives.

    Let me throw out the disclaimer first. I am not an expert in philosophy, physics, neurobiology, or metaphysics. I am simply a human that is curious about these subjects and attempting to sort the information I am exposed to into a semblance of a workable model for life. I think Robert would be happy with that assessment. I do have an undergraduate degree in Biology and Comprehensive Science that gives me enough confidence to be dangerous.

    As I listened to the video several thoughts occurred to me regarding free will or the lack thereof. If all events are predetermined then how can I personally influence the behavior of things like, say, my dog. When he pees on the floor, I respond with a correction that he does not like and he pees on the floor less and less the more times the behavior and the correction are performed. If I made no response then my dog, and I know from experience, would continue to pee on the floor and never learn to “take it outside.” Is this an example of determinism? Where does the decision or lack of a decision take place? 

    Simultaneous Opposites?

    If the decision was made by all of the myriad complexities that make up a universe and the program is simply running then why do I still believe that I have free will. Shouldn’t there be some instinct or intuition that tells me that I am out of control or perhaps more accurately that I am being controlled. Determinism makes no sense to me because everything within me tells me I make my own choices. Unless… unless both free will and determinism are simultaneously taking place. In which case there is a case for God being omniscient, knowing the past, present, and future at once.

    Omniscience has always puzzled me as well. How can the future be known? That is impossible, but then, according to logic and physics the existence of a being that is omnipotent and omniscient is impossible as well. And once more my inner voice tells me that there is a Creator for the universe in contradiction to reason. My inner voice leads me into places that don’t make sense, logically, but that shouldn’t be a surprise because even physics is finding more and more proof that the universe makes absolutely no sense (Referring to the way quantum physics tells us how to make things that work but not how they work. Weird.). 

    The only rationale I can find for my dilemma is to assume that determinism and free will occur simultaneously. Assuming that an entity can exist outside of time then the possibility of determinism is probable. To know all there must be an awareness of the whole of time; past, present, and future, in a single unit. In that case determinism is absolutely correct. 

    However, in the case of the past, present, and future existing on a line which moves constantly in one direction only; towards the future, then free will is the obvious choice, because one can only occupy a specific coordinate on that timeline rather than occupying all coordinates on the timeline in which case there is no timeline there would only be an omniscient singularity. God.

    Let’s really go out there into ridiculousness now. 

    How do we Step Outside of Time?

    If time is constrained to the physical universe; matter, then the only way to be outside of time is to be outside of matter. Matter is the limiting factor that keeps things in place. Matter is what locks things into their position within time so that they can actually be perceived as separate from ourselves. If there was no matter then all energy would be an omniscient singularity. Maybe an omniscient singularity exists regardless of matter and the act of creation was simply the invention by God of the illusion of time bringing into existence the fractals of what already exists outside of the dimension of time.

    I don’t know. This is far from a coherent theory. It’s only the seed of a thought that I’ll have to ruminate upon. But it is fascinating to consider.

    But what do I know? I’m just a dummygod.

  • Emergency Medical Care in 1970’s America; Mom’s were the original paramedics.

    I grew up in the 70’s. If Saturday Night Fever, Charlie’s Angels, vinyl records, Evel Knievel,The Brady Bunch, etc. rings a bell with you then you did too.

    Freedom House paramedics, who first were deployed in the 1960s, provided a crucial service for Pittsburgh residents. The program became a national model for emergency medical transport and care.

    I don’t remember being anxious about much, other than when I was sitting on the top of a hill staring at the ramp below and considering how much it was going to hurt when I crashed my Schwinn Lemon Peeler with a banana seat and sissy bar while jumping it over the neighbor’s wood pile without a helmet, knee pads, or elbow pads. The funny thing was I knew I was going to crash. I knew it was going to hurt and I did it anyway, over and over and over again. I came home with skinned knees, bumps, bruises, lacerations that should have gotten stitches, and a multitude of other injuries that Mom took care of with a wonder drug and some placebo’s. 

    For those of you who lived in these times of danger and excitement then the word Bactine will strike fear into your heart. Bactine wasn’t the same in those days as it is now. No! Bactine was the wonder drug that killed every infection known to mankind, according to Mom, but it was painful. It stung like a cattle prod on a sweaty back or like peeing on an electric fence. Only seventies kids will even understand those references. The placebo’s we were given were designed mostly to keep our blood off of Mom’s furniture rather than actually heal and ease our suffering but they were given in such a way that we believed we were being healed. Mom always took the time to soothe our distressed minds by making a big ritual out of the placebo. Yes, I’m speaking of the magical… Band Aid.

    This is how the ritual went. Child comes running into the house with a scrape on their knee, or in extreme instances both knees, elbows, and chin, oozing bodily fluid the color of red Kool-Aid. Mom makes a big deal of telling us how poor and pitiful we look and how overly concerned she is with our health and wellness. She wipes our tears with her shirt sleeve; coos and hugs us as if we have just survived an alien invasion; pats the bodily fluid dry with a dish towel; convinces us that the evil Bactine spray must be used in order for us to live through the dreaded infection that would surely kill anyone who did not succumb to the… (shiver)… Bactine; sits us on the bathroom sink and makes sure we’re ready for the, what in a child’s eyes was the equivalent of a red hot branding iron; and when the child vigorously nodded his head like a bull rider ready to exit the chute, the spray was applied to each and every scratch followed by Mother’s reassurance that we were surely the bravest and strongest children in the world, followed immediately by her softly blowing air on the wound to facilitate drying the horrid stinging fluid as quickly as possible as we screamed and carried on about how intolerable the pain was. Only then, would the placebos, the Band-Aids, be applied with much precision, pomp, and circumstance.

    We loved it. It was a ritual that encouraged us to go out and get beat up, scraped, and injured all over again just to earn more of Mom’s magical placebos. Of course, we all learned quickly that there was a limit to the injuries that could be sustained and healed by the placebo. Broken bones were a little outside the realm of the Band Aid’s power. So we adjusted our activities, modified our behavior, avoided the things that were really dangerous, and learned to roll with the punches.

    Mom made us feel amazing, empowered, and capable of conquering anything… until… Dad got home. 

    When Dad got home from work, in those days Moms stayed home and Dads worked, the stories were told of the bravery and resilience of his children. Mom allowed us to embellish and relay the so-called facts to the best of our ability over a hot meal of mashed potatoes, meatloaf (I love meatloaf, not just the food but the performer as well), and green beans. Dad relished the details and laughed at the appropriate parts while we bathed in the obvious pride that our father displayed at the courageous person that the fruits of his loins had created, which means… he made us feel worthy of his love.

    And then… this is the good part… When he was sure that we knew we had done well we were regaled with stories and anecdotes of his childhood like, “When I was a kid we didn’t have magical placebos and miracle drugs. We had to rub dirt in our wounds and carry each other for miles to the nearest blacksmith who would literally slap hot iron to our wounds to staunch the bleeding.”

    Again… We loved it. 

    Mom made us feel important and loved. Dad made us feel strong and brave and worthy. And we were implanted with a vision of something to aspire to… “Someday I’m gonna be as brave and strong and important as Dad,” in the case of the boys or, “Someday I’m gonna be as kind and wonderful as Mom,” in the case of the girls.

    Growing up in the 70’s was perfect. I wish you could have been there. 

    But what do I know. I’m just a dummygod.

  • Ralph Waldo Emerson – The Over-Soul; Emerson’s amazing insight into the “source” of wisdom and intellect.

    In 1841 Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote an essay that is, at once, oddly insightful and wonderfully honest regarding a topic which has become very nearly anathema, the light and wisdom that is contained within all men and the inability of the frail human mind to create its own wisdom in the absence of this light. He reasons, through the lens of history, that the great thoughts and deeds of human endeavor have come from a source beyond mere intellect and are, rather, discovered through humility and obedience to, what he termed, the Over-Soul by seekers of truth. The poignance of his essay is revelatory of Emerson’s own connection with the Over-Soul and his words ring with truth that is too seldom available to readers in this century of intellectual over-stimulation. We have available every conceivable turn of a phrase or possibility of gods to worship in the multitudes of media literally at our fingertips and yet all of the truth contained in so many words had already been distilled hundreds of years ago for all men to read, words distilled by those men who were allowed insight into their own souls by virtue of their honesty and humility of purpose.

    Those men, who endeavored to find not their own rationality but the reality of those things beyond the corporeal veil, those things which are ineffable yet more real than any object which may be grasped and tooled, are the lamps which reveal the blueprints of the foundation of the infinite realm made flesh which was laid before the creation of the universe. Those men speak true wisdom that resonates within those whose minds and bodies are attuned to the delicate symphony of life celebrating its Maker and all of it is within us waiting to be set free if we would only let go of our own vainglorious prejudice towards the matter we have named reality and instead seek to find the driving force that animates and distills the physical world into an ultimate perfection that is the beneficiary of evolution. Evolution drives everything to the fulfillment of its nature, the nature that is irrevocable, irresistible, and inevitable in the end. Evolution is the hand of God at work within the frivolity of the quantum, leaving the choice of the observer to create its own destiny yet already knowing the final composition that the march of time will produce.

    This final picture, the masterpiece of creation is revealed to itself gradually through the mechanism of time. Being outside of time allows our Creator the vantage point of omniscience and the miracle of revelation is simply the gradual unveiling of the Magnum Opus to the hearts and minds of all and especially to the men who endeavor to glimpse beyond the next fold. Being unable to contain their own enthusiasm, this enthusiasm, to the masses, appears as insanity in many cases. It becomes a fervor and zeal that blinds the witness to all encumbrances, driving them forth into the turmoil and fray created by the force of their vision of the next turning of life into spirit, the next evolution of mankind. Mankind must submit to its own evolution. It has no choice; although it will resist or challenge the torrential current that draws it to an inevitable conclusion out of ignorance or fear, the destination is set and the painting complete. The only task left to the world is to learn to distinguish the resistance from the revelation and Emerson has a few words of advice to allow that distinction to be made:

    “The great distinction between teachers sacred or literary; between poets like Herbert, and poets like Pope; between philosophers like Spinoza, Kant, and Coleridge, – and philosophers like Locke, Paley, Mackintosh and Stewart; between men of the world who are reckoned accomplished talkers, and here and there a fervent mystic, prophesying half-insane under the infinitude of his thought, is that one class speak from within, or from experience, as parties and possessors of the fact; and the other class from without, as spectators merely, or perhaps as acquainted with the fact on the evidence of third persons. It is of no use to preach to me from without. I can do that too easily myself. Jesus speaks always from within, and in a degree that transcends all others. In that is the miracle. That includes the miracle. My soul believes beforehand that it ought so to be. All men stand continually in the expectation of the appearance of such a teacher. But if a man do not speak from within the veil, where the word is one with that it tells of, let him lowly confess it.”

    Ralph Waldo Emerson

    It bears repeating, “…where the word is one with that it tells of…” 

    The word, truth, must be one with truth; otherwise words are the mere utterances of simpletons casting self-aggrandizing spells into the aether, in other words sin. And though lies can only lead those who have freely chosen to be separate from the truth further into the darkness the lie is still a blemish on the perfection that is the magnum opus and it must be stricken from perfection else it is not perfection; and those who have chosen to seek to be closer and closer to the light grow stronger in their vision and conviction with each step and speak into the world the honesty that unfolds perfection and light even to death because they have seen the opus magnum and its sheer beauty must not and cannot be soiled. 

    Read “The Over-Soul” by Ralph Waldo Emerson. It will be a step towards the light and divine nature of the universe that will lead you upon a journey of unfathomable rewards and if you find a splinter of the light it contains that you can hold then let it be so, for the light is not capable of being hidden and it will shine from you as a beacon to those who seek it.

    But what do I know? I’m just a dummygod.

  • James Russell Lowell – Abraham Lincoln; A testimony to his uncommon clarity of thought during confusing times.

    After the assassination of Abraham Lincoln on April 15th, 1865 James Russell Lowell, a political critic, poet, and scholar, reflected upon the man who led America out of the turmoil, division, and angst that had boiled over into the Civil War. His observations of the President and his lengthy prosaic descriptions of, not only the man but the circumstances of his presidency, are remarkable for their clarity of thought and notable for their honest nonpartisan assessment of the political environment of the time, an assessment that is eerily accurate even today.

    Not only did this man see the truth behind the disparate events of the time but he also somehow could discern the spiritual forces that had congealed and conspired for and against the great political experiment that was, and still is, the United States of America. 

    His essay on Abraham Lincoln is one of the most insightful and accurate analyses of the complex environment and delicate sentiments of the years leading up to the Civil War, and of the miraculous events which, no single man could plan or devise, culminated in the preservation of the union of states that we still know as America. Abraham Lincoln seemed to be the manifestation of the perfect blend of honor, humility, sagacity, and sheer will, into a single, personality that could bear the responsibility of a nation divided, heal its brokenness, and simultaneously preserve its greatest treasures, the Constitution, individual freedom, and liberty for all men devoted to the principles of a republic where individuals have meaning enough that an overarching entity which governs them does not enslave them.

    Lowell’s clarity even extends to the numinous, as exemplified by the following quote from his essay relating a seed to the miracle that it contains, showing that Lowell knows that the truly amazing lies outside of the physical representation of a thing but that its real beauty is in the potentials and forces that align to allow it to fulfill its destiny:

    “To contrast the size of the oak with that of the parent acorn, as if the poor seed had paid all costs from its slender strongbox, may serve for a child’s wonder; but the real miracle lies in that divine league which bound all the forces of nature to the service of the tiny germ in fulfilling its destiny.”

    James Russell Lowell

    And in my estimation all the forces of nature had been bound, during our country’s great crisis, to the service of the tiny idea of a republic for good and righteousness and Abraham Lincoln served as the conduit for those forces. The blood of our ancestors of all races and colors have paid the reparations for the freedom of all men in our republic. Let us not shame them by petty arguments and accusations regarding past injustices. Men are imperfect but ideals, when aligned with the ultimate will of the numinous, cannot help but surmount every obstacle and breach every impasse.

    James Russell Lowell… uncommon clarity.

    But what do I know? I’m just a dummygod.