Post 200

Two hundred posts!
Did you read all of them?
If you did then I hope I've given you a few laughs and a few things to consider and even a point of view of some things a little different to your own. Perhaps together we have explored and learned a few things too. The two hundred marker is a little milestone really and my next target should of course be the three hundred mark but although that maybe in my mind as I type this paragraph just to acknowledge such an insignificant and mediocre achievement, I blog only because it pleases me to do so and as long as it does I shall continue to write.

Since I was at school I have kept a diary and recorded events in my life and my thoughts. It was not a strict dedication so that each night before bed I would sit with pen in hand and start my "Dear Diary!" It was just occasional entries written almost haphazardly at first but as I got older they became more and more regular. Since my coming of age I have at least four entries in every week and a couple of years later saw me improve on that figure to about 300 to 320 per year. I still have all my yearly journals and early diaries in a locked case in the utility room across the way from my apartment. Looking in my very first diary again, I can smile as I read about my horse riding lessons and a couple of the girls that I rode with who I was quite envious of because of their greater experience and therefore of having better skills. I wrote of some of my friends and teachers at my school and I wrote down things my parents said to me when I felt that it was something I needed to know and remember. It seems quite shallow now to my adult eyes today but I can smile because there are one or two entries that have such emotional association that I can actually remember and relive that event in my memory and on a couple more I can actually remember my writing it! This was so important back then but not so much now. It's all relative!

Moving up to blogging was not a natural step for me. It was really just an idle thought created by the actions of others. I used to me a member of a message board or 'forum' called "Access Denied", that was run by Jim Goldbloom, an old American friend of mine, who as part of his constant modifications to his forum software, created an area that was just for blogging and an e-friend and fellow member, Angela, jumped straight in there and wrote off a couple of entries. Unwilling to be viewed as unappreciative of his efforts and be seen as a 'party-popper', I followed her example and began to write my own blogs. Of course these being public meant that I limited myself on certain information. They were then as they still are now, little things that happen in my life and thoughts that cross my mind. These blogs transfered across to a couple more forums and then I felt the need to find my own home for them. Thankfully I found Blogger!

Thought for the day: There are no such things as miracles!
(No matter how much you want to believe in them)

We are an animal that dominates this world and we are alone. We only have each other or our little pets for company and we don't always treat them correctly. This is a world made up of rocks and dust and as we humans have grown through the ages we have observed natural laws. Events that happen as regularities and we have our tried and trusted methods. We know the motions of the stars and we see day following night. We known that if we put our head underwater it becomes difficult to breathe and putting our hands in fire will burn us. Eventually we amass lists of facts about the real world that we live in.

Miracles then are transgressions of the laws of nature and because we don't see them regularly and because we have no explanation for it we dismiss it from contemplation or further study by saying "God did it" and relieve our selves of the burden of thinking. If I could fly through the air like Superman, then this would be considered a miracle and I would be locked up somewhere and studied and the best theories might make good reading. If you or I won the lottery this would not be a miracle it would just be extra-ordinary and unlikely and against the 'odds.' The idea of me flying is actually defying gravity and therefore it would be considered a miracle. Many people 'claim' to have witnessed such miracles and I don't think such testimony should be considered as facts unless of course it is more miraculous that they were lying or somehow deceived. Always have that little touch of cynicism and believe the lesser of the two choices, believe the extra-ordinary rather than the miraculous.

People like to believe such eye witness accounts or miracles because our emotions of amazement and wonder are like drugs which can make us high. These people who claim to have witnessed miracles always get a little extra attention and they can be considered as special or 'chosen' and this will usually elevate their status above that of us ordinary people to somehow make their testimony seem much more credible.
It will be a miraculous day on the day that I either believe one or see one.

No comments about having faith please!
Miracles are not contrary to nature, only contrary to what we know about nature.