Fragments From Floyd

1) I did not write the OGDEN NASH poem about the cold. I only lived the poem. I have the wicker trashcan here by my desk full of spent tissues to prove it. I left a hint at the end to find the author. Had it actually been me, I would have been saying something self-effacing like "Nannynannybooboo, I wrote a POME and it's a winner! Send money!" I've amended that post up front to indicate I take no credit for the poem, only for its inspiration. Posthumously. And is it true that Mr. Nash actually died of a bad cold? NO. I'm kidding again. MUST. STOP. MUST. STOP. MUST...

2) Again, I'm too sneaky, apparently, even though I dated the ARK post the other day as happening in January 2005 and six months later and left the paragraphs at the end indicating, I thought, that the whole thing was created in my weird head after going back and reading the link about the supposed boat on the mountain in my archives. I made the scenario up for the sake of placing a real, verified boat into the modern melieu, wondering what would be made of it by folks on either side of the GOD DIVIDE. The Ark, in particular, might become heavy artillery in the creationist camp where, on the one hand, they poopoo the science that says the earth is very old, but would hold up the science that says "this wood in this boat-like structure is X thousand years old". Or so I thought, among other interesting implications. Hence, the ficticious scenario.

Trish, and perhaps others, took the "Rowers of the Lost Ark" as a bona fide article from some un-named source (there's your first clue). She correctly points to flaws in both this FREDITORIAL and the link referenced and some of the factoids used to create the scenario.

She carries the issue-as-interpreted (assuming the scenario was ostensibly about "real" events) in her LiveJournal to a discussion of a way more weighty and worthwhile thread on the implications of scientific verification (of the Ark or the Shroud or the Holy Grail or any concrete faith-object) vs "belief by faith". Read her post in its entirety. I agree with her concluding statement:

"I submit that if we ask God (and our faith) to pass the test of verifiable, repeatable double-blind scientific method, then we have placed science above God. And, as we know from our Hiroshima experience, dat dog don't hunt."

And that is a whole nuther ball of yarn--one that I have been most interested in as someone with umpteen years of science background and a strong sense of wonder in the world that we can know through our senses and our devices that extend their reach into the physical world. But I am also a Christian who has come back to a renewed faith as an adult (twenty years ago) and can see the Cosmos through both the lens of science and the heart of faith. And yes, they do come from two different kinds of vision. This is a much bigger issue than my early morning news-hack cobbled together the other day. But then, what can you expect. He's paid by the word, you know.