IS GOD DEAD OR IS HE MERELY PLAYING POSSUM?

My doppleganger Frederich Nietzsche proposed in 1882 in his collection of essays The Gay Science (don't get too excited - in 1882 'gay' had a totally different meaning than it has today) that god was dead.

"Ja, das mythical being that Robert believes in is kaputt - ja?"

Poor old Fred got a bit of stick for that but to be fair, this was almost 2000 years after the christians had any sort of inkling that their god(s) were up to anything, and they hadn't been doing much else so it was reasonable to assume that the old guy(s) had popped their clogs by then.

As for me I tend to play the long game. I was educated by Catholic believers - well meaning ones I'm sure and was force-fed instructed in the catechism and other beliefs of the catholic oriented christians.
Without doubt I owe my sense of conscience, ethics and morality to these teachings but, to be fair to other reputable schooling institutions I could also have acquired these elsewhere. There is however some residual itching - not belief- more like the concept of a 'bob each way'. The canny catholics devised a way that you could go through life being a proper arsehole and screw your way (in every context) without any fear as long as you repent on your deathbed. Then you get all the goodies as it were if in fact god(s), heaven and all those other things exist. It's like a pensioners Gold Card that gets you free entry.

I see myself as an atheist in that I don't believe in any of the religions and all of the nonsense that they expound. Don't get me wrong though I'm not a total denier as I do believe that the people behind all the nonsense actually existed (not all of them obviously as I doubt there was a woman with ten arms and another with an elephant head) but the prophets like Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha and the 'saints' and good people walked this earth. A good many of them were probably suffering from various mental illnesses or had ingested hallucinogenic substances but, to them, their experiences were real. The problem is in other people, particularly acolytes taking it all a bit too literally.

If I have the chance though on my deathbed I'll be pledging allegiance to the whole lot of them ...'just in case'.

ANTS OR PLANTS*

* It would help to have an Australian or American accent when reading this Post title.


The other evening after a blazing hot day I noticed that the plants in pots on the deck were looking a bit dry. The saucers that the pots sit in were totally dry so I decided to water them. I like plants and, apart from destroying weeds and trimming hedges and trees I don't like to hurt them.

I started to water them, filling each pot until the soil is properly moistened and water filters through and starts to fill the saucers. On one big pot I noticed as I was watering that some ants were in the saucer. "Get out of there I said to them" but I don't think they understood. They knew that something was going on though as their activity increased. As some trickles of water started to glow into the saucer they got a bit more active and some climbed up out of the saucer ... but not all. Suddenly the water filtering through the pot whooshed out and filled the saucer. From an ants perspective this would have been like a tidal wave. Bye bye ants.

I felt sorry for the ants. I try not to hurt insects except when they are really bugging me (bugging me - did you see what I did there?) like flies, mosquitos and cockroaches. The big question though is - what's more important - the welfare of the plants or the ants?

I'll have to ponder on that for a while.