Chasing chimeras

A video about the universe and it's place in (or out of) religion.



"Religions tells children they might go to hell and must believe, while science tells children they came from the stars and presents reasoning they can believe."

Except I sort of want to quote every single part of this video because the way it talks about the beauty of the universe is overwhelming. Because the beauty of the universe is overwhelming, and I understand so much that feeling of staring up at the night sky and just feeling amazed that I am a part of this infinite, beautiful, eternal thing that is our vast universe it all its glory. (The night sky makes me feel all poetic, forgive me. Our universe just makes me all gooey inside with happiness.)

The stars are the closest thing I have to a religion these days. I spent my first couple of teenage years considering myself Christian before realising I'd made a wrong turn somewhere and that I couldn't hold myself close to a religion that hated so many things that I embraced. I spent more years trying to escape the guilt and fear that my short time as a Christian had instilled in me than I spent actually being part of the religion in the first place. That terror of hell remained with me for a long time even after I denied it.

After that I considered myself Pagan for almost a decade, embracing that completely and feeling comfortable in a way the church had never quite made me feel. And after I lost that faith I missed it for a long time. It made me really sad to have moved away from what felt so important.

But I don't feel like anything is missing anymore. I don't believe in Gods above or Devils below. I don't believe in divine punishments for sins or supernatural rewards for jobs well done. I don't worship the earth as the god-like being, but respect it instead for what an amazing thing it is, for how it formed, for all its natural intricacies.

This post turned into a personal sort of thing instead of just a video, so I leave you with a quote from the great Carl Sagan:

Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar", every "supreme leader", every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

Holy crap, Alison bought the cutest tiny kitten in the world. His name is officially Helios (after much throwing of names and threatening to call him 'Shitnuts' if she didn't name him before she left) but last night I somehow started calling him Barry. So he'll be both in my mind now. (Misfits references for the win!)

He's an adorable tiny tiny ginger thing who is currently lying in the skirt between my knees like it's a hammock, vibrating like a freaking chainsaw. Helios loves laps and hugs, unlike Ariadne who still rarely will sit in my lap happily. (Ariadne is pissed off that we seem to have invited some little golden bastard to live in her house and she was hissing at him all night. She seems a little more mellow now. I think she's ignoring him.)

Alison has gone to Palmerston North to work for a week so we shall babysit her little boy until she returns. Hopefully by then the cats will be adorable together.

Two cats, you guys! We're turning into the best lesbians ever! :D (I need to kick that pesky 'sleeping with men' habit of mine though, because it's really putting a dent in our house statistics.)

I am making zee pumpkin soup! (That was me speaking in German. Notice the 'zee'?) I do this by putting in pumpkins and some other things. That is my family recipe, handed down for generations and generations. (Meaning: Dad, this one time I went to visit and he was throwing stuff in a pot. I don't cook.)

Today is cold and I blame the southern hemisphere and the movements of the earth. It sucks.

What doesn't suck is Styx, who I've been listening to a lot recently. (And, admittedly, bopping around a wee bit to Renegade late at night.)

So I just found the wiki page for Tablero (which is the seriously awesome drinking game we love to play at medieval things) and down the bottom it has a note that says: Tablado (appropriately pronounced 'Tah-blotto') is a form of Tablero in which hard alcohol is used. This form of the game is not recommended because pulling a line could cause the player to drink a minimum of 3 shots of alcohol in a very short time span. The chances of a player suffering alcohol poisoning as a result of this are extremely high, with a significant risk of death. ... does this mean we should stop playing tablero with tequila and vodka? (It's best with spiced wine anyway, especially since we've always got lots of that.)

On a slightly less alcoholic note: On the 23rd of May I'm going to Melbourne! Just for a few days but it is going to be DOUBLE MUMMIES ACROSS THE SKY! Because it's going to be my mummy and me in a hotel and having fun times and general loveliness and King Tut's mummy as we're going to this and can I even begin to tell you how excited I am about that? No, I can't. Because, holy shit, Egypt. Egypt Egypt Egypt. Expect tears of excitement and love. (My poor mother is going to have to deal with me while this is happening: spare a thought for the poor woman.)

Billie Holiday ♥ This song never fails to make me want to cry and she sings it with such pain.

An excited person on my friendslist just wrote about something and ended it with 'I literally died.' *twitch* *twitch* Please stop misusing that word? Please? You didn't literally die, because you clicked post afterward. You're literally alive.

And now after my small language annoyance of the day, to the shop to collect the important things for life.

So about two weeks ago I posted to LJ about how geeks were awesome and how I needed a certain Wonder Woman shirt. Said post received an anon comment which is almost always one of my parents. (Except the insulting ones. For my own well being I go ahead and assume anon comments bitching out at my are not either of my parents.) I assumed this was joking around until today when Alison comes in with a package as says 'your Wonder Woman shirt arrived.' Insert my confusion and swearing on all things holy that I DID NOT purchase it because, dear lord, like my credit card needs more abuse.

I have a super hot WW shirt, and that is all you need to know. Thanks dad! (Unless it was mum being confusing and not signing as she usually does, in which case 'thanks mum!') My surprise shirt is bringing me joy and it's perfect :D

The water boiled up in our big pot today tastes like icky and this makes me sad. Tomorrow I'll have to boil in the three smaller ones again. I am excited for the day when we can once again drink water from the tap. It's going to be glorious! (Although apparently very chlorinated? Boo, sadness. Christchurch has always had yummy water.)

On a more deep and philosophical level: The Romulans are far superior to the Vulcans. Discuss.

I came back!

Jesus, the sheer number of school kids down at Barrington was incredible. Where did they all come from? Well, okay, Cashmere High School is the answer, because they were all in the maroon jumpers, but that's not my point. It's one pm, shouldn't they be in school? I don't understand kids these days.

Another not understand young people these days (and by young people I'm guessing early twenties which still makes them younger than me): I saw these two guys who looked like they'd stepped directly out of what Hollywood thought nerds looked like in the eighties. Like walking onto a movie set looking at them, but these aren't the uncool kids. Because it's cool now to look like movie nerds. I think. I can't keep up.

(Movie Nerds are, of course, very different to Real Life Nerds. I know plenty of the second type and not one of them resembles in any way the cast of Big Bang Theory/etc. Also, girls. I'm not quite sure why the media still continues with the No Nerdy/Geeky Girls/Hot Chicks Don't Like Geeky Things. Some of the hottest chicks I've ever met were only made hotter by their comic book knowledge.)

Speaking of geekiness, I need this shirt. That's only one of my favourite WW pictures, you guys. I need her against my body, please. (And along that vein: Super Heroes Who Need To Be On More T-Shirts Because I Would So Wear Them: She-Hulk, Domino, Scarlet Witch (even better if she's getting snuggly with Quicksilver), Mystique, Deadpool.)

Oh crap, now I've been distracted googling pictures of Deadpool for the last ten minutes. Damn you, Wade Wilson. Why must I love you so much?

EDIT: Holy crap, NO ONE LET ME UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES BUY WONDER WOMAN BOOTS.