tell me about yourself

What is one question you hate to be asked? Explain.

Have you gone to an interview, they have your CV in front of them, your application letter where you have invoked the gods and the ancestors and told all these colourful stories of how you were the greatest sweeper in your younger days. How you have managed big teams and delivered great products for your previous employer and are ready to take them to the next level of their growth if they can quickly finish the interview process and employ.

I don’t hate to be asked this question. No. I just wish they asked something else more interesting, something that among other things will break ice. You know, like how was my last hike or bike ride? Then I will have something to tell them about it and as a discerning HR specialist, they can begin to unravel my work ethic from how seriously i take hiking or cycling or running. I forgot about running.

In my village, I don’t know about yours, and especially during funerals when relatives are gathered waiting to be served food or something like that, someone sees you passing and beckons you to them and proceed to take you through an interview process of do you know me and other related questions. I would have no problem with these interviews if in the last year or so we have had commerce with the fellow grilling me but, get this, this is a person you last saw, if we can call it seeing, as a toddler. The greatest offense one ever commits is to admit ignorance. You would think it would be appreciated, but not so in my village of villages. Naaah. You will be told how you don’t know your relatives and other things I am not too keen on narrating.

I honestly have no question that I hate. There are questions I don’t like being asked. There are questions I find boring. And finally those I think are annoying or asked just to piss one off. But that’s just me.

Happy week with less questions friends.

I like questions

And I haven’t answered these type in such a long time so maybe I will give it a go. My response is italicized.

1. Would you say that you are (or, were) an atheist based primarily on intellectual study or based on experience? Or did you never believe in God at all? I was brought up a catholic and stayed there too long. My atheism is borne of study and experience.

2. Would you say that even as an atheist, you still have a sense of purpose and destiny in your life, a feeling that you were put here for a reason and that you have a mission to accomplish? No. I don’t have that sense or feeling. The psalmist says all is meaningless, a chasing after the wind, and that’s where I am.

3. Would you say that you are 100% sure there is no such being as God? By “God” I mean an eternal, all-powerful, all-knowing being? Certainty is impossible in this life. Having said that, I think such a being doesn’t exist.

4. Do you believe that science can provide answers for many of the remaining mysteries of the universe, including how the universe began (including where matter came from and where the Big Bang derived its energy); the origin of life; and DNA coding? No. I believe science, construed broadly, gives us the best or most reasonable way to understand the cosmos and our place in it.

5. Have you had any experiences in life that caused you to question your atheism? Has something happened to you that seemed genuinely supernatural or otherworldly? No.

6. Are you completely materialistic in your mindset, meaning, human beings are entirely physical, human consciousness is an illusion, and there is no spiritual realm of any kind? I don’t think human consciousness is an illusion. I think it is just a complex subject. I am not superstitious. We are just matter. Our experiences result from interaction with matter.

7. If you were convinced that God truly existed – meaning the God of the Bible, who is perfect in every way, full of justice and mercy, our Creator and our Redeemer – would that be good news or bad news? And would you be willing to follow Him and honor Him if He were truly God? This question is loaded and ascribes to god of the Bible attributes that it doesn’t possess or at least the Bible doesn’t claim it has. The god of the Bible is not full of mercy and justice, nor is it shown to be perfect in every way. Why should we follow a god just because one has shown to exist, if that were possible anyway?

What are your thoughts?

Some questions

It’s a long weekend this side of the ocean. Yesterday we had state funeral for the ex president, monday will be May Day celebrations and Tuesday Idd. If you ask me, work weeks should be this short. I get to run, ride, walk, read and just be lazy. But these are not the questions.

First question: should we judge the moral flaws of the past with the standards of today? Many a person have been cancelled for the thoughts or opinion held when that was current in their time? Or should we expect our icons to have held the correct views through the ages?

Question 2: how will the war in Ukraine end? NATO is arming Ukraine but not doing any actual fighting. What, to Russians was reported as police action (if the media is to be believed) has now been going on for 2 months with loss of lives on both sides and destruction of property in Ukraine. The effects of this absurdity are being felt all over & acutely in my neck of woods. Is there a way for Putin to save face, end this war?

Question 3: are you aware the war in Syria has been raging for more than 6 years? That there is a war in Ethiopia? Or Yemenis are dying in conflict not of their own making?

Bonus question: to cremate or to bury the dead.

Questions

Generally, the more one reads, the more you learn you know so little. I don’t know if you all feel this way, but it happens to me all the time. I am more interested in why things are the way they are. And now, the question(s)

What does it mean one can relate? What does it mean one can have a relationship with someone?

Does it mean we have a similar outlook on the world so we can agree with each other? Does it mean our way of perceiving reality is compatible? Does it mean we see similarities in the other matching our characteristics? To be able to relate requires a broad array of subtle nuances in human behaviour traits, and of most of them, we are not even aware.

https://nakedthoughtdotblog.wordpress.com/2020/10/06/naked-thoughts-26/

10 (new) questions for atheists

The link to the questions is here. I don’t think the questions are new but I will treat them as such.

• What is your religious background? Did you grow up in a religious home?

Catholic. Yes. In Kenya every stone you throw is likely to land on a religious person. And in some places, it may land on a church/mosque or an open crusade.

• Was there a time when you were open to Christianity or another religion?

Yes, the whole time I was religious.

• Did you have an unfavourable experience with Christians or people of another religion that turned you off?

Not that I recall. I just became clever. That’s all.

• Which religion do you take most offense to and why?

Christianity. Convinced my forefathers that what they were doing was the wrong way and left them confused.

• What is your primary objection to the Christian faith?

Evidence haiko.

• Have you ever had a supernatural experience?

Not supernatural but I was once so high I thought my bed was floating at an angle.

• If there is no afterlife and we cease to exist after death, do you believe your life has purpose and meaning beyond the survival of the human species? In what way?

Before we were born, we didn’t exist and it wasn’t a bother, same with death. Life becomes more meaningful when you realize that all the shit you need to do can only be done here and now. Does it mean those who don’t have children or who have died sooner have not led meaningful lives because without an afterlife, it is all about the survival of the species?

• How would you describe your worldview?

Dynamic

• Do you believe in right and wrong? What determines the ethics you live by?

I prefer right and left. I prefer to do the things my non existent cat approves of.

• Do you consider yourself a good person? Why or why not?

Sometimes. Especially when I make a bbq of Methodist babies.

 

An interesting question

Do you think that anyone fighting for or against a cause today, who tomorrow by some miracle were to become the all-powerful ruler of the world, would instantly do what he had been clamouring for all his life?

Is it the case

As Romain Rolland in Clerambault wants us to believe, that the defeated have no history?

Random question

Generally no one takes offence when they are called tall. A few short people, and here I am not talking about Inspired1, but those with short tempers( you see what I did there), seem to take offence at being reminded of their vertical challenges.

Why do some people find it offensive to say someone is horizontally endowed? Or is facing horizontal challenges? That is, polite speak for fat.

But while we are here, what’s the threshold for fat? Do we use the medical descriptors of obese and overweight?

I have a question

Do we see things as they are or as we are?

To a jaundiced fellow, everything is yellow.

To a colour blind person, everything looks bland

When I have a cold, most things are tasteless.

You can come up with many other examples

 

A simple question or open thread

Between consciousness and unconsciousness, which is the more abundant?