Very Nice Morning

Yes, it will be quite hot well into next week, but I felt a hint of seasonal change this morning. That's encouraging. 

 

A Dead Loss

 Many years ago I wrote off humanity as a dead loss. As time has passed I've seen how very sound and prescient my judgement has been. My very first day in school I found myself surrounded by hopeless dumbasses. That was disillusioning from the start. I've managed to make all sorts of adjustments and I've blended in well enough, and I've met my share of people I'd consider peers, and I've had rewarding friendships and relationships, but now the easiest course is the path of withdrawal and isolation. That seems to work well for me at this time in my life. After the election of 2016 I realized that there are far too many toxic dumbshits running around for me to have any hope for the future of this country, much less the future of humanity. It's all a dead loss. There is nothing worth salvaging. But who knows? Maybe I'll be in a better mood tomorrow. 

I got some work done this morning, while the temps were still relatively comfortable. Triple digits again. Bake the apes. 

Still Hot Not Unbearable

 Good riddance to July. With August some hope of change, at least. 

I'm reading in my old journal from 1988 and I noted, in May of that year, that the human population had reached 5.1 billion. Today it is 8.1 billion. Yes indeed, the human race commits suicide by baby. That kind of population increase is non-sustainable and self-destructive. It's good to be old and out of the hunt. At some point, gigadeath will be a thing. And it won't be in the distant future. 

It's A Fine Morning

 Yes, and it's a rather fine morning, 72F and that's not bad, although it might be hot later, but that's about normal for this time of year, in late July. I am always ready to say good riddance to July. After all this time we still honor Caesar Augustus, and I like that just fine. Wednesday is for Wotan, and so on. We still honor the old gods. It's interesting that there are still Messianic Jews running around. They should know better. I recently got a little book on the Gospel of Mary. Interesting. I've been reading a lot of Bart Ehrman and James Tabor and Elaine Pagels and so on. That's true and authentic scholarship. No bullshit there. No huckstering, nothing tendentious, and no mindless propaganda. There is no substitute for honest and intelligent scholarship. 

There is too much mindless recitation of creeds that fall apart under the critical and discerning eye. 

Mnesis Gnosis Praxis

 Those are three things worth considering. And belief might well be the enemy of knowledge. Faith, you can stuff in a dumpster and forget about. Faith is the ruin of many a poor boy (or girl). Most of the time the stuff offered as "evidence" for some belief is worthless. Faith, of course, is pulled out of thin air-- a whim. A dream. A vision. And almost always very toxic. One should avoid everything that is labeled "faith-based".  But hope and charity are still virtues. But faith is the poison that brings crusades and jihads and book-burning, and holy war. There is no such thing as a holy war. Never. Ever. 

To summarize: faith is shit.