Δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς

God-like (or splendid)  Achilles

As flies

“As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.”

Shakespeare had it right.

Theodicy

My aunt-in-law had a hard life.  She was brought up by a very strict Calvinist family, and it left her unable to have loving sex with her husband, leading to an unhappy marriage and ultimately divorce   She studied to be a radiographer, and worked hard all her life.  She was always mounting charity drives or cake sales or knitting bees to help those less well off than herself.

She suffered terribly from ill health towards the end, and in the last two weeks of her life was completely senile, abusing her helpers and throwing shit at them: this prim, restrained, polite woman.

My father died in agony from cancer.

My adorable little dog went through hell in the last day or two, and his pain was ended only when we took him down to the vet and had him painlessly killed.

Millions of people spend huge parts of their lives alone and lonely, even though humans are social animals and need other humans to make life worth living.  And then they go through a long decline, in pain and suffering until they die.

Now theodicy is strictly speaking the "explanation" of why God permits evil.  But I'd extend it:  why is there so much suffering?  Don't tell me it's for our own good.  That's feeble.

There is no explanation in my view.  Life just is filled with pain and suffering and evilness.  It's not God's fault, because there is no God.  It's up to us to try and reduce the suffering and evil we see around us.  Heaven and Hell are right here on Earth.  And it's up to us, each one of us, which of those two it is.  And even then, we can't fend off Death or Pain or Suffering.  All we can do is care and comfort.  And love.


[And note how learned these 17th and 18th century intellectuals were:  Leibniz wrote his book in French, though his home language was German.  He could read and write Latin.  How many modern intellectuals could write a thesis in their second language?  And what lovely, kind, intelligent eyes he has!]

Saturday night thoughts

On my second glass of Grant Burge champagne.  Not as nice as Charles Heidsieck, but a third of the price.

Thinking about theodicy.   Thinking about a woman we know.  All she wanted all her life was to be loved by her father.  But he never loved her. She never came up to scratch.  His "love" for her was always conditional. So she found someone to love her (a bloke who smokes a lot of dope, is currently in jail for a parole violation) and is now pregnant by said boyfriend.  What can we do to help her?  All we can do is show her we love her and we care, no matter how much we mistrust her new boyfriend.  But she will never fill the black hole inside, and no matter how badly her father treats her, she always goes back to him.

God is good.

[Cartoon from this website]

Happy New Year

It's 10 pm on 31st December 2010.  So not quite new year, yet.  But these times are quite arbitrary really.  In New Zealand it is new year, and being d'un certain age, I prefer to celebrate early.  And anyway, it's summer (daylight saving) time.  If we didn't change the clock between winter and summer, it wouldn't be new year even in Noz.

It's been a day every bit as hot as they said it would be:  nearer sea level the temperature did reach 40 C (104 F) and the cool change promised for 9 pm has yet to arrive.

But I watched the light drain out of the evening sky: cobalt high up, a pale turquoise in the middle and a pearly opalescent sheen at the horizon, bracketed by drifting cumulus tinged rose on their western edges.  In the distance the Wombat State Forest loomed a sooty-hued olive, the sky happily clear of bushfire smoke.  Nearer, the elms and oaks planted by homesick Englishmen one hundred and fifty years ago were ink against the pearly shine.  A distant rhythmic thump from a party (when last did we go to a party we enjoyed?)  My lady and I sip the champagne she gave me for Christmas and wish each other Happy New Year (NZ time)

I contemplate the last three years of hell, and wish -- hope -- that this year might be different.  But I know that Providence is neither to be relied up, nor suborned or persuaded.  Que sera, sera.  All the same, defying these tedious realities, I wish you all  'n gelukkige en voorspoedige nuwe jaar:  a happy and prosperous new year.  Perhaps this year Providence will be persuaded to let up.  Next year in Jerusalem.  Or whatever your Jerusalem is.







But perhaps you prefer this more light-hearted look at Fate, from the thirties when they knew horrors and had to strenuously pretend they didn't exist.




Singing Auld Lang Syne is impossible: I remember too many dearly beloveds who have died, who will not be here this evening with me. Adieu mes chers, adieu.

Kilts are Sinful

So saith this bloke.

Wreath-laying on a windy Anzac Day

This drongo has obviously never worn a kilt.  Or met Scotsmen.  Soft?  Pull the other one, it's got bells on.  Kilts are very hairy, made of a thick and oily wool so that men can stride through wet heather without getting the bottom half of their clothes wet.  (Socks can be dried in front of the fire).  Traditionally worn without underpants, they also rub in uncomfortable places.  Believe me, they are not 'soft'. 

Let's set that aside for a moment.  What if men had worn 'kilts' and women trousers in Biblical times?  Would the great and good of the Bible have instructed us that this was the natural order:  obviously men wore kilts and obviously women wore trousers?  It has always been so , and so obviously the Lord wanted it that way, and if you deviate from His word, Holy Macaroons, you are so going to hell.  Hell, if I go to Hell, you may depend on it: it will not be because of my attire.

Doubly Sinful

And why is a robe not a skirt?  What am I missing?  And is it OK for women to wear underpants, since they are pants not a skirt?  The Abbé de Somewhere-or-Other thought not, when  women's bloomers were first introduced.  He thought them immoral and a vile perversion.  So it always is:  the way we do things now (or in some mythical past) is the best way.

Roman and Greek men wore "skirts".  But then we all know that they were effete and immoral, unlike those manly Teutons and Celts, whose men wore trousers but also (like the Greeks, Romans, Persians, Indians, and everybody except the Jews -- oh, but wait, there was Jonathan and King David) slept with men.  An Irish wife could divorce her husband if he spent too much time with his (male) lover. The Teutonic tribal chiefs drove their chariots into battle with their young man beside them.

It's ningies like this who make religion look ludicrous.  Does anybody intelligent for one minute think that the Being who made the Universe cares about whether your nether garment has a dividing piece of cloth in it or not?  Somewhere between 100 and 200 billion stars in our own galaxy.  Billion.  Repeat after me:  our star is one of around 150 BILLION stars in this galaxy alone*. And as far as the Hubble telescope can see, for billions of light years in all directions, there are countless, literally countless, galaxies.  Each with billions of stars.  In the Amazon basin, there are, we are told, ten thousand species of beetle.  Why do these literal Christianists think God is so small?  He is Grand, Awesome, All-Powerful, Terrible, if He is anything at all.  He is Everywhere and in Everything, out in every direction, across limitless space.  He doesn't give a flying rat's clacker about kilts.  He's too busy contemplating the ineffable beauty of His creation.

Real men wear kilts.  With nothing on underneath.


[*Correction and update:  My tally of stars in our galaxy was from memory.  In fact there are at least 200 billion stars, and there may be as many as 400 billion.  Our close galactic neighbour, the Andromeda galaxy, has one trillion stars.  And you can be sure, on every star system in both galaxies, God is having conniptions about men who wear skirts]

Changes

Life changes. We welcome some and hate others. So I'm glad Oz's old PM Johnny was booted out. I feel proud to be Ozzie again. And I've finally gotten my website up and running, using NVU rather than HTML, though I did use some (hey, it's not so hard -- reminds me of PL1)

Those are good changes.

But others aren't so good. A very dear friend has a terminal illness, and I shall miss him more than I can say. I keep on hoping, but . . . .

You love someone and then good old god takes them away.