Never a dull moment...

Haha, the last few days have been jam packed, where shall I begin...?

Tuesday night I started reading Robert Heinlen's Stranger in a Strange Land. A fantastic book, truly a sci-fi classic, but don't read it if you're a prude, seriously. You'd find the second half terrible. Anyway, I spent the next two days fanatically reading it, trying to put it down, failing, and then fanatically reading it again. I finished it with this thought; there is a big difference between tru sci-fi and books that have aliens and spaceships.

Anyway, just keep in mind that that was always in the background on Wednesday and Thursday.

Wedesday was boring at the begining. Whatever I named the nurse on stool study was off being a witness in her court case, prosecuting a boy who stole from her. So me 'n him got to do the stool study. And the poop collection. Wasn't actually that bad, as very young baby poo doesn't stink THAT bad. But there were no new kids. Two poopers. Nothing to do. Since Leslie was doing defaulter runs I stayed behind and read. We didn't go get drinks as we left late. Eventually we got to Namandanje.

At Namadanje I read for a while but eventually Leslie interupted me and asked if I wanted to go for a walk. So I I did. Nice random talk. Bout an hour walk. We passed a huge gravesite though. It was another instance of a humble thing giving the same feel as a ornate one, as the gravesite, with its many wooden crosses, unnamed graves, and three stick gate gave as much, or even more of a somber feel than the ones we have back home.

Food was good. I didn't eat much though. My appetite is almost dead and I only eat because I need to. Not sure why my appetite is gone.

Then we have Thursday, like usual since stool study isn't present on Thursdays, I helped one of the Med students. Joy (male) this time. Long day, with me standing the whole time. Not much fun. But it really isn;t supposed to be. Depressing thing happened after clinic. There was this mom, with a kid who was not gaining weight, and looked skin and bones. I really can't express to you how bad these kids look, skin and bones isthe closest I can get. We wanted to take the kid to the hospital, but the gogo (grandma) of the mom would not allow it. Joy tried to convince her in the best Chichewa that he could muster that the baby needed to go to the hospital. The grandma would have none of it, and would keep making excuses no matter what Joy said. The mom had started sobbing during this. Eventually she said quietly, but loudly enough for everyone to hear "I'm going." At this Joy, despite misgivings that if he left (he told me afterwards) went to go get defaulters. He did get two, actually. One of which the entire village gathered round, and while watching the baby being fed agreed to keep the chiponde away from the father, who was eating it. However, while Joy was gone, and I was in the market as well, the Gogo asked/told the mom to get food from the market. While she was gone, the gogo said she needed to go to the bathroom, and while noone was looking ran off with the baby. Later, the HSA's told us, You know who's eating the chiponde? Gogo. If you can tell me, after hearing that, that some people aren't better off dead, I'm suprised at your idealism.

Anyway, we got back on Thursday and foud out one of our trucks got stolen from. Victor may or may not have left the door unlocked. I hope he did, because its a bigger problem if someone can pick locks. Anyway, the guards we have presently may or may not be all fired soon. Its unsure, and out of my hands. (The landlord runs things here.)

Friday. Normal stool study day. When I got home I put in 25 data cards. I hope to get 25 more in, though I may burn out. Also, we have a chiponde problem. We have run out of a material used to make the 10% milk formula. We have enough 10% to last two months at least, but we may have to pause enrollments until we get more. *shrugs* You roll with the punches.

Anyhow, heres your responce Aggie, I know its late but I couldn't bear to answer such a question quickly, that would be bastardizing all the time I spent thinking about it over the years.

So here is the question/comment.

Some say that the earth, the universe, everything physical and tangible is but a cosmic accident. So...following that logic...limes, lemons, herb plants, are an accident? Hmmmm. The last 10 times I have sliced a lime and enjoyed the fragrance of it... and used it to enhance the flavor of my food...well, I just can't bring myself to believe that that lime grew by a sheer accident of nature.

Well this is a complex question, and at the risk of being considered a "contemplator" as Liz put it, I'm going to answer it as completely as I am able. Note: This is a much larger, much more public insight into the way my mind works than I have ever expressed before. If you don't want to see that stop reading. Second, my dad has a phrase I love to quote, "No ones faith should be so weak you can't poke it with a stick." I adapt that to No ones faith should be so weak you can't light dynamite underneath it, but for the sake of a completely public audience, I'm toning it down to my dad's. So, if you feel insecure in your faith, or take offence when people question it, don't read what follows. Last thing, what I am going to write is the result of over eight years of constant questioning, pondering, and long philosophical talks in the car, not the result of me being in Africa.

Last Last thing. I am very bad at articulating my most important ideas, so this is not my complete philosophy, and I will probably forget, or leave out, a lot. If you want to debate with me when I get back, I'd be glad to, philosophical debating is one of my favorite pastimes, but few people like to indulge me.

So let me start with my issues with organized religion, as that is usually what people refer to when they try to refute "accidents of nature." To start off with...well damn I don't know where to start. Lets see...I guess anything is as good a starting point as any other. In my mind, religion is man made. In essence, it is very much the way Terry Pratchett describes gods in his novel Small Gods. Gods, and religion being created, and given shape by their constituency. What I mean is that people run around questioning, "Why am I here, How did I get here, "Where am I going?" and they come up with answers based off of their culture. This is supported by the fact that religions have a texture based off the area they were founded in. For example, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, despite their differences, all support the "Same" god, and have many of the same precepts such as worship of said god. The eastern religions are of a completely different flavor however. Taoism and Confucianism, for example, have a much heavier basis on philosophy, and though each has a deity of sorts, I have not yet read in either the Analects or the Tao Te Ching a command to "worship." Native Americans tended to worship nature. Etc. There are cultural tendencies to religions, and if religion is something man-made, that kinda defeats the purpose.

But lets assume for a minute, for the sake of argument, that someone is right, for whatever reason, and there is a god, or gods. Each is mutually exclusive, and most have some way of condemning everyone who doesn't follow their exact set of precepts, and rewarding those that do. A hell if you will. A concept I find particularly repulsive, because it means that your reason for doing good things should be either a fear of punishment, or a desire to get something. Or both. Neither concept sits well with me personally, but I prefer everyone else have it that way, because my faith in the natural good (and evil) of man is nill. But I digress. So how should one choose the "one true" religion? By works of god? Tough nuts. All the miracles conveniently ended before each individual religion's scriptures were written. The faith most religions demand you have? Faith? It seems like an exceedingly ineffiecient system to run a universe on. What about the people who never heard of your religion, are they screwed? Couldn't the one true religion be one crushed over the ravages of time? To quote the book I just read. "Is there any basis for preffering one hypothesis over another? When you understand nothing? No!"

Note that I witheld all judgements on relgions themselves, all I did was question how one is to decide the "right" one.

So anyhow, I have some of my own theories. All of them as valid as any of yours. Couldn't the "big bang" have been god, an unimaginable mass of energy, exploding himself into the universe, so we all are god? What if all the gods were the same, and he was just putting on as many faces as a man may? (Father, son, brother, employee, boss, lover, friend, etc.) What if there are indeed many gods? What does it matter?

Anyway, to answer your intial question, Yes random chance could bring about such an accident of nature. For the simple reason that limes, lemons, herb plants, are good for us. So naturally they grew, and we grew to like them, becuase they were benificial. You might as well ask, "how could weeds grow as a sheer accident of nature, they are so damnable annoying, it couldn't be a coincidence." Or "Mosquitos always seem tobe just out to get me, that couldn't be an accident." It just so happens that lemons and limes nice, and mosquitos and weeds are indisputable irritating, because lemons and limes are good for us and weeds and mosquitos (mosquitos especcialy) are not. I have absolute faith (haha) in natural selection as a way to generate a world as complex as ours.

However, why is there matter anyway? Why are there natural laws such as gravity, magnetism, and physics? Why is any of this here? No matter where you look, you will eventually find a glaring question. "Why?" The answer: I don't know. It's almost inconceivable that anything could exist on its own, as a random chance, that it would randomly generate a world like this. However, should you answer with god, where did he come from? Etc. No matter where you look, or how far you think it out. So let it go, I'll never know. And I'll never have the answer. But here are my possible answers to Why, how, and where are we going.

Why are we here? This question is irrelevent to me. Why am I here? A huge accident? A gigantic complex plan? What does it matter? Do we really need to blow ourselves up by saying we are here for an ineffable purpose? I will live the best I can, doing everything as I think is best, and try to make the most of my life, and that's all I need.

How did we get to be here? Again, why does it matter? We are here now, do we really need to know how? The big bang makes scientific sense in many ways, but it doesn't explain what triggered it. Whup de freaking do. There are so many things you could do while trying to figure out how we got to be here. Like live your life for one.

Where do we go when we die? Ahahaha. I have a very depressing answer for this one. When we die, the collection of amino acids and proteins that make us up decompose, and we are gone. Forever. Poof. Thats it. Oblivion. Except oblivion implies you still have a conciousness. And that is to me, what seems the most likely. What do I hope? Well I hope there is a god, and he has a good sense of humor, and isn't as freaking anal about little details as most officials in every religion seem to think, and he would welcome me to some kind of afterlife. My personal favorite afterlife I've though up is one where everyone goes into categories based on who they are. Rapists, murderers in their ilk go into one, where the can indulge themselves on each other forever. Everyone else who is too uptight and knows whats right, and insists on shoving it down everyone else's throat can go into one place, and indulge themselves on each other. And everyone else can go into one place and be happy. Oversimplified but I find it amusing.

Truth is though that while it makes me laugh, I'll never know the truth, so why dwell on it too much? If god is kind and judges people on who they are, and how tyhey lived, maybe I'll be in luck? If not and hes an anal son of a gun, I'd never be able to stomach worshiping him anyway. If god doesn't exist, or this life is all we have, its a moot point anyway right? So just go out, live, and be happy is my response.

Quite a respose for a small comment right?

TTYL
---He who has been thinking about that for way too long