Paradise Lost, Carnivorousness Gained

[vovat]

The T-Rex ate coconuts! That still doesn't explain what tapeworms did back in the pre-Fall times, though.

One thing I kind of have to wonder is, if you take the Garden of Eden story literally (which I obviously don't), why did animals also suffer after the Fall of Man? It wasn't like THEY ate the forbidden fruit, yet many of them also have painful childbirths, and apparently many of them suddenly became prey for others. So what's the deal? Is it a group punishment, like when the teacher makes EVERYBODY stay after class because one kid did something wrong, or the scene in Full Metal Jacket where R. Lee Ermey makes Vincent D'Onofrio eat the doughnut while everyone else does pushups? So when you hear about a tiger mauling a person, is that its way of saying, "Thanks for ruining that whole Eden thing for everyone, you dumbass species!"?

Also, from what I hear, Rush Limbaugh has said that he thinks John Edwards wants to use his wife's cancer to his advantage in his presidential campaign. Even putting aside the total lack of human decency (which goes without saying for Rush), I had to wonder whether anyone ever voted for a presidential candidate because they felt sorry for him. And then I remembered who the current president was.

Now let's take a survey. Or rather, I'LL take a survey, and you can read my answers.


1. If you were to attend a costume party tonight, what or whom would you go as?
Would I have a chance to assemble a costume, or not? I think I might still have some of the parts of my old pirate costume around, so maybe that.

2. What are your choice of toppings on a hamburger?
Bacon and cheddar cheese. I'll also usually add ketchup.

3. You are chosen to have lunch with the President. The condition is you only get to ask one question. What do you ask?
"Have you ever considered that you actually misheard God when He supposedly told you to run for President?"

4. It's your first day of vacation, what are you doing?
Probably something on the computer

5. What is your concession stand must-have at the movies?
I never get anything from the concession stand.

6. Which do you dislike most: pop-up ads or spam email?
Pop-up ads. Spam is really annoying, but usually easy to recognize and get rid of. Pop-ups can show up so quickly that it's hard to close them right away, and slow down your computer. And they'll sometimes show up in places that makes it too easy to click on them by accident.

7. What do you think Captain Hook's name was before he had a hook for a hand?
Captain Hand? Captain Flesh? No, I agree with unclemilo that it was an ironic coincidence. Such things happen sometimes.

8. Rock, paper, or scissors?
Paper. The pen is mightier than the sword, but pretty much useless without something to write on.

9. Which is worse, being in a place that is too loud, or too quiet?
Too loud, although unusual quietness can sometimes be uncomfortable as well.

10. What is one quality that you really appreciate in a person?
A sense of humor.

11. At the good old general store, what particular kind of candy would you expect to be in the big jar at the counter?
Hmm...penny candy?

12. What is the most distinguishing landmark in your city?
Well, if you consider Philadelphia close enough to be "my city," then probably the statue of William Penn on top of City Hall. Either that or the sign at Geno's telling people to speak English when they order.

13. How many times did it take you to pass your drivers test?
Four

14. If you had to have the same topping on your vanilla ice cream for the rest of your life, what topping would you choose?
Probably blueberry

15. You are offered an envelope that you know contains $50. You are then told that you may either keep it or exchange it for another envelope that may contain $500 or may be empty. Do you keep the first envelope, or do you take your chances with the second?
I'd probably keep the $50. That's a lot of money to be gambling. If it were, say, $10, I might be more willing to take the chance.

16. If you had to choose, which would you give up: cable/tv or dsl/internet?
TV, although then I wouldn't be able to write about the new Simpsons episodes on Sunday nights.

17. What is your highest level of education?
Master's degree

18. How much is a gallon of gas in your city? What was the highest it's been?
It's not in the city, but it's $2.40-something per gallon at the Wawa where I usually refuel. The highest it's been at that particular place is over $3.

19. What kind of lunch box did you have as a kid?
I seem to recall having Ewoks, Voltron, and My Pet Monster ones at various times, despite not actually knowing much about any of these things.

20. What would you rather have, a nanny, a housekeeper, a cook, or a chauffeur?
I guess the cook. I need more variety in my diet.

21. Would you rather be trapped in an elevator, or stuck in traffic?
Stuck in traffic.

22. Lets say a brick fell on your foot, and your kid is standing right next to you, what is your 'cleaned up' swear word?
Probably just whatever nonsense syllables come to my mind.

23. Do you still talk to the person you lost your virginity to?
Yeah, I stop by the whorehouse every week.

24. What would you do with 1000 plastic spoons?
Create a model version of the Spoon Brigade of Utensia.

25. What kind of music did you listen to in elementary school?
I didn't listen to that much on my own. I do remember having a Disney tape that I listened to quite frequently, though, and my favorite songs on it were the ones from The Jungle Book ("I Wanna Be Like You" and "The Bear Necessities").

26. What is the best thing about your current job?
The fact that it's close is definitely cool.

27. Do you wish cellphone etiquette was a required class upon purchasing one?
Not really. I think most cell phone etiquette is common sense, and you can't really teach that to people who don't have it.

28. What's the most messed up food combination that you've had that was actually good?
That's a tough one, since I tend to eat most of my food when it's very plain. I will say that pizza with pineapples (which my dad once ordered at Pizza Hut) wasn't as weird as I might have expected.

29. Have you been on a date in the past week?
If you count going out to eat at Applebee's as a date

30. If yes, how did it go?
All right.

31. Where are you going on your next vacation?
Yeah, like I go on vacations.

32. Are most of your friends new or old?
Old, I guess. It takes me a while to make friends with someone.

33. What's one of your most random pet peeves (something that annoys you)?
Yeah, I know what a pet peeve is, Mr. Parenthetical Phrase. What comes to mind is people constantly opening windows when they don't need to be opened, especially during allergy season (although I guess that's not all that random).

34. What do you wish someone would buy you?
Oh, a lot of things.

35. What are you wearing right now?
A t-shirt picturing Mario and Luigi running away from a Bob-omb, green pants, and gray socks.

36. When is the last time you had Mom's home cooking?
A few weeks ago. She brought over part of a quiche, and it was great.

37. Do you like your parents?
Yeah.

38. Where were you born? Where do you live now?
I was born in southeastern Pennsylvania, and now I live in southern New Jersey.

39. Tell us about the last conversation you had.
It was with bethje, and it involved a lot of different things, including putting cats on leashes, the Keithies, and the upcoming Hostel sequel. Unless those count as several different consecutive conversations with the same person.

40. Where do you see yourself in one month?
Probably about the same place I am now.

41. What is your favorite smell?
I've always liked the smell of sawdust.

42. What do people label you as?
A geek, a dork, and a weirdo, probably.

43. Do you consider yourself bipolar?
Isn't that something that has to be officially diagnosed, and not just decided by the individual person? But no, I have mood swings, but I don't usually stay in one phase as long as bipolar people do.

44. What is the outside temperature at the moment?
According to weather.com, 42 degrees Fahrenheit

45. Are you missing anyone right now?
Not really. I just got in a fair amount of socializing, and now I need some time alone.

46. What does your livejournal username mean?
It's derived from the way variables in physics (initial velocity, final velocity, acceleration, and time) were arranged on a piece of paper.

47. Elaborate on your default userpic.
It's Wart, the final boss in Super Mario Bros. 2. What else is there to say?

48. Who introduced livejournal to you?
No one in particular. Back when blogs were still fairly new, I remember reading a few people's LiveJournals, and I really didn't like the service. Once they decided to make it free, though, I made my own.

49. On what date was your first LJ post using this username?
December 29, 2003

50. What's your current problem?
I still haven't started on my taxes.

51. What are you doing right now?
Um, filling out this survey. What do you think?

52. What's one type of person that really bothers you?
People who put on an act

53. What's one type of person that you enjoy being around?
People who...uh, don't put on an act. Well, as long as I LIKE who they really are.

54. What random things make you happy?
Pretty much anything that makes me laugh.

55. If you could go back and change something, what would it be?
I'd save Lincoln from assassination, and then team up with him, Moses, and Peter the Great to fight crime in Istanbul.

56. If you could be any animal or creature for one day, what would it be?
It's not exactly the most creative answer, but maybe a cat.

57. Ever had a near death experience?
No.

58. Name one obvious quality you have?
Humility. But wait, does saying that's a quality mean I'm NOT humble? That's sort of a paradox, but not really.

59. What's the name of a song that's stuck in your head right now?
Well, I'm listening to "Absolutely Cuckoo," by the Magnetic Fields, and it's really catchy, so it's certainly in my head.

60. Are you happy today?
I'm all right. I've always been a little unsure as to what constitutes "happy," which is a word that gets constantly thrown around by insecure, self-absorbed people. I prefer "content," which is an easier concept to understand and get behind. So am I content? Not totally, but I'm doing pretty well at this particular moment.

61. Do you believe in Heaven?
I find the concept of a personality outliving a person to be rather problematic, and that seems to be a large part of what Heaven is all about.

62. Who will copy and paste and fill this out first?
rockinlibrarian is the one who appropriates the suveys I take most often, but I don't know for sure that she'll take this one, especially if she's busy giving birth. {g} By the way, it's her birthday today, so happy birthday!

Comments

[dragonxbait.livejournal.com]

RE: Painful childbirth, from what I have read about human growth and development that is a uniquely human thing. Basically our pelvis opening is shaped wrong because we walk upright, and the babies heads are too big because of our big brains. Human babies are born much earlier, developmentally than most primates, also, they're only about half done when they come out, because of the size of the heads. That's why human infants are so fragile. It's kind of weird and interesting.

[bethje.livejournal.com]

That design isn't very intelligent.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Neither are tonsils.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

So is that poetic justice on God's part? Humans have such big heads as to think they can gain knowledge of good and evil against God's will, so He gives them literal big heads? :P

I've seen enough TV shows about animals having trouble giving birth to think that painful childbirth isn't a uniquely human thing. Still, my point about humans not being the only ones to suffer from childbirth (which is said to have been one of God's punishments of mankind for their fruit-eating) might not have been as clever as I had hoped. :P Still, my point about animals suffering more from the Fall than humans, when a literal reading of Genesis suggests that (aside from the snake) they didn't actually do anything, still seems valid to me.

[dragonxbait.livejournal.com]

And, on the topic of anti-rationalist groups, I am reading a book about Escuala Moderna (the modern school) in spain in the early 1900s (for school). It was basically a co-educational free school that was anti-government, anti-religion, and anti-military, they believed in science and reason and secular schools. So of course, they were shut down after about 6 years. But there's a hell of a quote about it from a right wing journalist

"These crimes will continue [terrorist activity blamed on the school's founder] as long as Spaniards maintain the freedom to read, to teach, and to think, from which come all these anti-social monsters."

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I am here, and might do the survey this morning, but might not-- it depends how tired I am by the time I'm done reading my friends page, or if my in-laws show up and start driving us crazy. They're coming under the pretext of cleaning the house for me as a birthday present, which is nice, but knowing my MIL I don't think that's going to be QUITE as stress-free as it ought to be...

My interpretation of the Garden of Eden story is that humans basically threw themselves out by evolving. Nature was in balance and humans were in balance with it, and it was paradise because no one tried to make it any other way-- I mean the Earth IS paradise, it has everything life forms like us need, it works perfectly! It only stopped being paradise when humans started, well, playing God, which is basically what the story said-- they ate from the Tree of Knowledge (Tree of Life in some translations, but Tree of Knowledge fits better), and the serpent said it would make them like God. SO, the idea is that now humans think they know better than God-- they're not leaving things up to nature anymore, but are trying to control Nature instead, with their technology and agriculture and wearing of clothes and so forth, and basically it's this need to control nature that makes it no longer a paradise-- AND it's this same habit of humans that has slowly started to destroy nature! When you think about it, there's no such thing as a natural disaster-- it's only a disaster because of the choices humans made-- building in a flood plain, for example. Having, uh, learned a bit about childbirth lately, even that part fits-- the more medical intervention there is, the more difficulties or pain is often involved! The pain of natural childbirth is a different sort of pain than other types, and it actually triggers the release of other hormones that cause the birth to happen faster. Of course, I'll let you know how THOSE things work out in practice later.... Anyway, so the main point of the Garden of Eden story as I see it is that God gave humans everything they need as long as humans placed all their trust in God, and when they turn away and think they can do better on their own, that's when they mess things up. Wow, see, all you Creationist-Fundamentalists out there! See how deep and important a lesson that is! Doesn't that lesson affect one's spiritual life much more deeply than if it was really taken as a statement of scientific fact? Because do you really NEED to know exactly how long it took to create the world in order to believe in God? Ah well. Eventually the Christian Left is going to organize and get some Truth back into society's brains.

This is why I love myth and wish it got more respect (ie, "myth" does not = "falsehood"). It's so dang deep if you really look at it!

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm going to try to hide out in here as long as possible while people are cleaning and so forth, so that's a good excuse to do the survey....

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Tree of Life in some translations, but Tree of Knowledge fits better

Most of the translations I've seen seem to regard the Trees of Life and Knowledge as two separate things. I know some Christian writings have argued that Jesus is the personification of the Tree of Life.

I can't say I've ever been a proponent of the "nature always trumps technology" school of thought. I mean, medical technology DID help to increase human lifespans (not that a longer life is necessarily a better life, but it does open up more potential) and cure a lot of diseases, right? Progress in this respect isn't the steady upward climb that some people seem to think; I remember learning in history class that lifespans in some ancient society (it might have been Greece, but I don't remember for sure) were actually pretty long. Some of the less healthy periods of human history have been due to people doing things we now know as dumb, like not bathing, dumping the contents of chamber-pots into busy city streets, and trying to bleed out sickness. And the Bible does encourage bathing. Apparently people in the Dark Ages thought that Jews were somehow responsible for the Black Plague because they didn't get it as often, when the truth is that they were less susceptible to it because they bathed regularly. Still, I'd say the overall quality of life for people today is probably better than that of the hunter-gatherers, but maybe that's just my own bias coming out. {g}

When you think about it, there's no such thing as a natural disaster-- it's only a disaster because of the choices humans made-- building in a flood plain, for example.

The devastating effects of many natural disasters have definitely been exacerbated by human intervention. That's one reason why I'm somewhat puzzled by Christian pressure groups claiming that global warming doesn't exist, because you'd think that idea would fit in so well with Biblical themes of human folly resulting in dire consequences. But then, these are usually the fire-and-brimstone Christians who think the world will be destroyed soon anyway. Getting back to the original topic of this paragraph, though, isn't it pretty much impossible to find a place where weather isn't going to be responsible for a number of deaths? Not as many, perhaps, but I think that a big ice storm would probably be disasterous for humans even if traffic weren't a factor.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

I am VERY puzzled how anyone can be anti-environmental and Christian, though I suppose I'm biased because I grew up in a household that WAS both strongly Christian and environmentally-conscious. I can see being Christian and NOT being an environmentalist just because you feel it's more important to do the Lord's Work with PEOPLE and so you focus all your charitable energy on those sorts of things, but I can't see being ANTI-environmentalist. To do so shows incredible disrespect for Creation! It especially bugs me when they use the argument that God gave humans "dominion over" the rest of Creation-- don't they get that that means we are RESPONSIBLE for the rest of Creation? Being in charge doesn't mean being a fascist! But I suppose these are the same people who DO think that's what being in charge means... and I wonder how they who put so much weight on the words of the Bible can have completely failed to realize in their reading of such that Jesus was a leader COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY UNLIKE THAT.