It's weird to decide to write a day log entry, then read the others, and completely change your mind what to write about.
Anyway, I'll bite.
Note I don't intend to argue with or offend the authors of the other writeups, just that I disagree with them to a very high degree.
A Statement of Disbelief
I think I might be accurately described as "agnostic," but I still want to write about the absence of firm convictions in my mind about how we got here, why we're here, and what happens when we die.
I bet people will think I'm boring, but here's my answers to the Big Questions about life, the universe, and everything:
- How did we get here? No way to know for certain, but looking at everything we've seen so far, it seems more likely than not that we're a miniscule part of an absolutely enormous (theoretically infinite) system called the "universe" that is constantly changing. Part of that change once involved the combination of basic chemical building blocks into various schemes on this planet that subsequently spawned single-celled organisms that eventually evolved over millions of years into the huge variety of plant and animal life that exists on Earth now. On the surface this idea seems as ludicrous as a deity snapping its fingers and bringing it all to life, except we can actually see evolution at work. Completely conclusive? No. Highly probable? Oh yes.
- Why are we here? No way to know for certain, but probably because our parents had sex. I know -- it's a pretty boring answer, isn't it? As for some "higher purpose"? There's no telling. Sure doesn't seem like it though. Surely if a deity wanted us to do something specific, it would have told us by now in a form more reliable than second-hand tales scribed thousands of years ago.
- What happens when we die? No way to know for certain, but it's likely we will stop breathing, consuming sustainance, and thinking. Afterlife? Possible, but unlikely. Seems like it'd be a bit crowded if such a thing did exist, but there's never been one damned shred of evidence whatsoever that there's such a thing.
Heh. We agnostics are a frustrating bunch, I bet. Assuming I'm using the right word. I can talk all day about my non-belief, but really I don't want to because I've got better things to do. I can be accurately summarized (in the religious sense anyway) as "don't give a shit". I'd rather spend time being a reasonably decent person and staying out of other people's way than impressing fellow churchgoers with my ability to suckle at God's teets better than the rest.
I expect, if there is an afterlife in which we are judged, this writeup will be included in the prosecution's case against my entry into the fun zone.
In other news, in our continuing saga in trying to buy our first house, the lender spontaneously decided that they needed to see two months' worth of mortgage payments in reserve in our bank account as a condition of the loan's approval. Fuckers. We explicitly told 'em we had nothing to put down on the house and needed 100% financing, which they then approved. Then they sprang this on us.
Between my unbelievably generous parents who lent us the money to show off to the lender and our credit union's miraculously fast response time to the lender's faxed verification request, we managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. All the conditions for loan approval are now met, and the house is still, in theory, ours. The builder now says they'll know the closing (and walkthrough) date by this week, and hopefully they'll clue me in about it at some point.
Not that they'll ever see this, but thanks, mom & dad!
I think the credit union deserves a letter of thanks, too.