How Many Gods Does It Take To Screw In A Light Bulb?

Two: one to hold the bulb and the other to rotate the planet.

None: why bother with a light bulb when all you need to do is say, "Let there be light!".

I'm sure there are probably other punch lines (and you are welcome to put any you know in a comment if you feel so inclined), but the real purpose of this post, having got your attention, is to think about the concept of gods.

Over the years, since humans first began to think and talk about gods, the concept has changed considerably. The omnipotent, multi-purpose, all-encompassing gods of today have not always been around, or rather, before I fall foul of an indignant believer, I should say that humans did not think and talk about such gods until fairly recently (on a scale of thousands of years).

I don't know how comprehensive or accurate it is, but I came across this list of gods* a while ago. There are something over 2800 of them. Click in the list to zoom in.

There are many in this list that I've never heard of. Kinyras (the god of metalwork) was a new one on me. A quick scan of the list let's me conclude that it's a safe bet the vast majority of them have fallen into disuse. Some kind of built-in-obsolescence perhaps? Probably not. Built-in-obsolescence is hardly a desirable attribute in a deity, which suggests the obsolescence was not deliberate, but rather something to which they were all prone,

So did these obsolete gods actually exist? Do they still exist but have somehow lost their power? Or were they just figments of imagination, dreamed up to meet a human need?

We live in a world full of the results of human imagination. If I ignore the coconut palms which I can see through my window, everything I can see is human-made; the product of someone's imagination. We just can't avoid using it. Imagination rules our world. Even the coconut palms have 'steps' cut into their trunks.

Human beans are an imaginative lot, and it's not confined to imagining objects which didn't exist beforehand, or even objects that can't physically exist in our world, like the impossible triangle. We use our imagination to come up with all sorts of ideas to explain things we don't understand. Sometimes we get it right first time, but mostly we don't. We have to adjust our imagined answers when we find the errors in them. Or, if we are particularly attached to an idea, and don't want to accept there's anything wrong with it, we have to find ways to pretend the errors don't exist or explain them away. We're quite good at using our imagination to do that too.

So perhaps the real, but boring answer to the question 'how many gods does it take to screw in a light bulb' is this:

'How long have you got? Use your imagination to think up a god who could cause the light bulb to screw itself into the socket - and bingo! You've found the One!'.

How Long by Ace Listen on Posterous

* I think the original list was produced by Luke Muehlhauser but I can't find it at his website.

I googled it and found the rather cool Zoom-in list here.

How Long by Ace available at Amazon

Book recommendation: Small Gods by Terry Pratchett (Sir!)

Posted via email from Jo S Wun on Posterous

Philosophy! Philosophy!

If you've ever had the pleasure of visiting the Philippines, then it's just possible you may have come across the expression "philosophy! philosophy!" - although the pronounciation is often 'fill-oss-oppy'. It's generally used to dismiss what another is saying as being more complicated than necessary, the added implication being that they don't know what they are talking about, either. It reminds me of than idiom of speech (Jewish, I think) in which a word is repeated, but with the initial consonant replaced with 'schm' - as in 'vegan-schmegan', for example - not only because of the repetition but also because of the scornful disdain it carries with it.

Despite the risk of catching a broadside of "philosophy! philosophy!", I'm planning a series of posts which could concievably be tagged philosophy. But bearing in mind that I have no qualifications* in the field, I plan on tagging them filosopy! in recognition of the fact that I probably don't know what I'm talking about! That said, and with the full knowledge that I may well make what might be called 'schoolboy errors' by the professionals, who could chuckle over them as they rip 'em to pieces, I'll add that it's not intended to be a treatise but rather a series of mental observations, Hopefully I'll manage to express myself without over-complicating things.

As a taster, here's a quote from Soren Kierkegaard, someone I previously knew next to nothing about other than that he was a philosopher who, apparently, died at the age of 42 in 1855.

There are many people who reach their conclusions about life like schoolboys; they cheat their master by copying the answer out of a book without having worked out the sum for themselves.

I rather like that, and imagine the people he was talking about might well be the ones who go around disparaging anyone who attempts to do the working out for themselves with a barrage of "philosophy-schmilosophy!!", or something similar. Be that as it may, his words prompted me to find out a bit more about him.

That's him, as sketched by his brother, Niels, in about 1840. It turns out that he was nothing like I'd imagined from reading his quoted words. Wikipedia describes him as "a Danish Christian philosopher, theologian and religious author interested in human psychology" and also as someone who "didn't want to be a philosopher in the traditional or Hegelian sense" or "to preach a Christianity that was an illusion". It seems he and I have something in common, except I'm not Danish, or a Christian philosopher, or a theologian. Neither am I a religious author, nor was I born to an affluent family, and I didn't die at 42. Also, I don't want to preach Christianity because I think it IS an illusion. But more about that later. You can check him out on Wikipedia

In the meantime, here's Van Morrison searching for the Philosopher's Stone. Take it away Van...

* If the 'University Of Life' crossed your mind, go into a dark corner right now and slap yourself severely!

The song Philosopher's Stone comes from the Wonder Boys soundtrack available here

Posted via email from Jo S Wun on Posterous