I have decided to start a blog. I have noticed that I very much enjoy some of the postings I do on the Community Forum and, if I am honest about it, I’m enamored of the sound of my voice on the page. It strokes my ego to show how clearly I can express my opinion. I think it is very valuable to be able to do that, and I am often frustrated by the posts of people who don’t clearly say what they mean. Still, I think it is better that I limit my public posting to things that contribute to the discussion, and try for a friendlier, more colloquial tone there. My blog will be where I can say what I want, as I want, and people won’t have to wade through it as part of the thread they’re interested in. If people are interested in what I think about and what I have to say, (and I am certain that few will be) they can follow my blog. The primary reason to have this blog at all is that I think my ruminations are worth writing down, and it plays to my hope that there are others who will think so as well. I know my ego is wrapped up in this, too, but certainly members don’t achieve several thousand posts in a spirit of selfless contribution.
I woke up today with a wonderful sense of a new beginning. I can’t explain it except that I finished two long-standing projects this weekend and today is the first day of a new week and a new month and I have the whole day to fill up any way I choose. There are still lots of half-done things that need to get finished, but there is no pressure today. It is a good day to start a new venture.
Today I ran across the term “non-theist”, which I had never seen before, or at least never paid attention to, but I think it describes me. I tried to look it up in Webster’s Second International Dictionary, but it is not there. There is an entry for “non-“ which says it is a standard prefix to a word and negates the meaning of the root word. It goes on to point out that it is quite neutral in its effect, whereas “un-“ or “in-“ or “a-“ are more emphatic, carrying the force of opposing the meaning of the root word. It is followed by a couple of pages of words employing non- whose meaning needs no clarifying separate entry. This list has stuff you’d expect, like “nonrebellious” and “noncrucial” and “nonactive” and a few tantalizing items like “non-Paninean” and “nontautomerizeable”. The list does have “nontheistic” but no other form.
I shook off the temptation to go wandering and went to “theist” and found that a theist is a believer in theism, the preceding entry. “Theism” is a long entry, with lots of attractive red herrings also. The reader is directed to related words: APOTHEOSIS, BEAST, DEER, DUSIO, ENTHUSIASM, FERALIA, FUME, PANTHEON, REINDEER, and THEOLOGY. Again I fight off temptation. Basically, theism is the belief in the existence of a god or gods. There follows a list of senses, but with two interesting notes. “In all senses, theism is opposed to atheism… Unlike historic deism, it does not deny revelation.”
The result of all this is finding that non-theism seems to mean the absence of a belief in a god or gods. It is not atheism, which actively denies the existence of a god, but contains a bit of agnosticism, which (and I had to look it up to make sure) says that we don’t know and, for that matter, we can’t know. I guess where I end up is that I’m certain that our puny little brains, while probably the best in the solar system, but woefully subject to emotional sway, are not capable of knowing the universe nor the reason for its being. In other words, I don’t believe in a god and I’m not losing any sleep over it.
Now admit it; wasn’t that more interesting than listening to somebody list their pet peeves?
I woke up today with a wonderful sense of a new beginning. I can’t explain it except that I finished two long-standing projects this weekend and today is the first day of a new week and a new month and I have the whole day to fill up any way I choose. There are still lots of half-done things that need to get finished, but there is no pressure today. It is a good day to start a new venture.
Today I ran across the term “non-theist”, which I had never seen before, or at least never paid attention to, but I think it describes me. I tried to look it up in Webster’s Second International Dictionary, but it is not there. There is an entry for “non-“ which says it is a standard prefix to a word and negates the meaning of the root word. It goes on to point out that it is quite neutral in its effect, whereas “un-“ or “in-“ or “a-“ are more emphatic, carrying the force of opposing the meaning of the root word. It is followed by a couple of pages of words employing non- whose meaning needs no clarifying separate entry. This list has stuff you’d expect, like “nonrebellious” and “noncrucial” and “nonactive” and a few tantalizing items like “non-Paninean” and “nontautomerizeable”. The list does have “nontheistic” but no other form.
I shook off the temptation to go wandering and went to “theist” and found that a theist is a believer in theism, the preceding entry. “Theism” is a long entry, with lots of attractive red herrings also. The reader is directed to related words: APOTHEOSIS, BEAST, DEER, DUSIO, ENTHUSIASM, FERALIA, FUME, PANTHEON, REINDEER, and THEOLOGY. Again I fight off temptation. Basically, theism is the belief in the existence of a god or gods. There follows a list of senses, but with two interesting notes. “In all senses, theism is opposed to atheism… Unlike historic deism, it does not deny revelation.”
The result of all this is finding that non-theism seems to mean the absence of a belief in a god or gods. It is not atheism, which actively denies the existence of a god, but contains a bit of agnosticism, which (and I had to look it up to make sure) says that we don’t know and, for that matter, we can’t know. I guess where I end up is that I’m certain that our puny little brains, while probably the best in the solar system, but woefully subject to emotional sway, are not capable of knowing the universe nor the reason for its being. In other words, I don’t believe in a god and I’m not losing any sleep over it.
Now admit it; wasn’t that more interesting than listening to somebody list their pet peeves?