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What Hitch Taught Me
posted on 12/16/2011

Disturbing Things That I Don't Want to Acknowledge
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Minivans, News and More Proof That I Am a Jackass
posted on 10/28/2011

The Danger in Thinking that Everything Happens for a Reason
posted on 10/04/2011

Reactions to News of Twin Sightings
posted on 09/23/2011

The Intersection of Joy and Fear
posted on 09/15/2011

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Nostalgia Kegerator
02/01/2012 by .

Nostalgia Kegerator
01/31/2012 by JimC

The Intersection of Joy and Fear
09/20/2011 by Long Lost Aunt Sandy

The Intersection of Joy and Fear
09/16/2011 by muchgooder

The Intersection of Joy and Fear
09/15/2011 by Bob

Religulous
09/14/2011 by muchgooder

Religulous
09/08/2011 by Bob

Put in My Place

Created on Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Home -> Blog -> 2010 -> June

Finishing has never been my strong suit. I'm the type that likes to think up a way to do things and then even prove concepts. But finishing up the details... well, insert joke about the devil being there (I hear many of you snickering).

A couple of years ago I had a revelation while working out at the gym. I noticed that all of the skinny people were running on the treadmills and that everyone else... well, the skinny people were on the treadmills. So I decided that I would try to be one of those people. Over the course of the next few months I slowly worked on being someone that could run for a half hour and then an hour on the treadmill (I blogged about it here). When the good weather came about I started running outdoors (the latter is MUCH tougher than the former).

On a good day I can run 7 miles at a time (that includes a couple of small breaks). I've found that it is better for me to have one long run once a week and to bike or do the stairmaster on the other days. I'm proud of how far I've come, and that is where the problems come in.

A few of you have inquired about what it took to start running and I know a few of you even have given it a go and been successful doing it. There really isn't a better exercise out there for you (and no, it isn't bad for your knees). Last winter we were talking about running with our friend Amy and she informed us that she was going to go out and buy a new pair of running shoes and that she was going to be a runner even though she had no experience. We thought that was great, of course. We wished her the best as we know how hard it is to start and I would think that most people that start do not get very far.

A couple of months later Amy informed us that she was going to run in a marathon in June. I'm not going to lie - I thought she was on drugs. She wanted to run in a specific marathon for personal reasons that I won't mention (it is for a cause) so I thought she was just aiming high as the "low" was still and outstanding cause. This past Sunday Amy ran a half marathon that was held in Buffalo. Not only did she run the half, she ran 5 miles before the half so that she would get up to her target or 18 miles.

First and foremost, I want to recognize her for her achievement. That really is amazing that she would come so far in just a few months. But at the same time, it reminds me that I got way too comfortable. It isn't that I'm not pushing myself (trust me, I am - I almost puked a couple of weeks ago because I really really wanted to beat a personal time. I can't tell you how good it felt when I did). I'm not taking it as seriously as I could be. Jogging never came easy to me and just doing more than I thought I could seemed to satisfy me.

So with that, congratulations Amy!

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I hadn't planned on writing more in today's blog but two articles just came across facebook and they deserve mention.

Copernicus was recently dug up and and then re-buried by the Catholic Church. Why? It turns out that they wanted to say they were sorry. Copernicus had to spend the latter part of his life in shame even though he was a devout Catholic. His crime? He said that the Earth was not the center of the universe. I hope he was buried face-down so that the first thing they saw was his rotting arse.

It does remind me of another story that I heard recently. Stephen Hawking was being honored at the Vatican and they asked if there was anything that they could do for him. He said...errr... typed "show me the files on Galileo". Needless to say, that didn't happen.

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And finally, I really have been trying to lay off Pope Creepy for a while but this one deserves mention because he is reaching out to me.

The Pope is reaching out to atheists! Well, kind of.

It seems that the current talker-to-God hasn't faired as well as John Paul did when it comes to relating to people that had other beliefs. It only took ten years for the Church to realize that maybe they would be better off correcting that problem. Among the groups that the Catholics now wish to embrace (kind of) are atheists.

Rather, some atheists. Here is what Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, the president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, had to say:

The foundation, he said, would only be interested in "noble atheism or agnosticism, not the polemical kind – so not those atheists such as [Piergiorgio] Odifreddi in Italy, [Michel] Onfray in France, [Christopher] Hitchens and [Richard] Dawkins".

Noble atheism? What the hell is that? There is no such thing as good atheism, bad atheism or indifferent atheism. Atheism just describes a lack of belief in something. I couldn't ask for the noble Santa disbelievers to stepforward, could I?

Such atheists, he added, only view the truth with "irony and sarcasm" and tend to "read religious texts like fundamentalists".

Now I find this paragraph to be EXTREMELY telling. It wasn't that long ago that the Church openly scoffed at science. Science and reason has since pushed many religious beliefs into the gaps of our knowledge, but it was only at that point that they decided to stop reading the Bible as a literal text. But this leads to the very reason that people treat it with "irony and sarcasm": if some of it isn't true, how do you know? Why did you think it was right in the first place? Better yet, once you start going down that slope where do you stop? I think that those are valid questions and I could see why they would want to avoid people that might ask them.

A Glimpse Into Married Life

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