reason

WDP — As I Said Last Year

Fandango3 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Are you superstitious?
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As I said last year when this question was asked, the short answer is no, I’m not superstitious. Now for the longer answer.

Being superstitious means believing in things that are not real or possible (i.e., superstitions). And what are superstitions but an attempt to explain events or phenomena that cannot be explained by science or logic. They are not based on reason or knowledge. They are often widely held but unjustified beliefs in supernatural causation leading to certain consequences of an action or event, or a practice based on such beliefs.

Why am I not superstitious? I think of myself as a logical, rational, and reasonable person. I am not ruled by emotions but by facts, observations, and evidence. My beliefs are based upon reason and knowledge.

But just because I’m not superstitious, I don’t have anything against people who are. Hey, whatever floats your boat, right? Just don’t try to force your superstitions down my throat. And by all means, don’t attempt to legislate your superstitions into law.

Image credit: Leonardo.Ai.

WDP — Superstitious

Fandango5 Comments

Are you superstitious?

The short answer is no. Now for the longer answer.

Being superstitious means believing in things that are not real or possible (i.e., superstitions). And what are superstitions? Superstitions are an attempt to explain events or phenomena that cannot be explained by science or logic. They are not based on reason or knowledge. They are often widely held but unjustified beliefs in supernatural causation leading to certain consequences of an action or event, or a practice based on such beliefs.

Why am I not superstitious? I think of myself as a logical, rational, and reasonable person. I am not ruled by emotions but by facts, observations, and evidence. My beliefs are based upon reason and knowledge.

I don’t have anything against people who are superstitious. Hey, whatever floats your boat, right? Just don’t try to force your superstitions down my throat. And by all means, don’t attempt to legislate your superstitions into law.

WDP — If It Ain’t Broke…

Fandango6 Comments

What could you do differently?

If there is a reason for doing things differently, that’s one thing. But I’m not a proponent of change for the sake of change. As the old saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And I ain’t broke.

If I think about the past, which I don’t often do, I suppose there are many things I could have done differently at the time. But then would I be who, what, and where I am today? Maybe. Maybe not.

But as things stand, I’m content with my life and see no good reason to do things differently just for the sake of doing things differently.

Fandango’s Flashback Friday — September 16th

Fandango19 Comments

Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of your earlier posts that they might never have seen? Or remind your long term followers of posts that they might not remember? Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year.

How about you? Why don’t you reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this very date in a previous year? You can repost your Friday Flashback post on your blog and pingback to this post. Or you can just write a comment below with a link to the post you selected.

If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on this day (the 16th) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.

This was originally posted on September 16, 2017.

Faith Versus Reason

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My blogging buddy, Jim, wrote a fascinating post today entitled “Why is it So Hard to Believe in God.” In addition to being a provocative post, he managed to get in the WordPress one-word prompt, “recreate,” when he wrote, “We cannot recreate the Big Bang, so we may never understand all of this, but we can believe that we do exist.” Well done, Jim.

In response to one of the comments on his post, Jim wrote, “I believe in logic and God makes sense to me….” I found that notion to be particularly interesting. I believe in logic, reason, and rationality, and it’s because of embracing those things that God makes no sense to me.

For purposes of this post, I’m going to consider “logic” and “reason” to be synonymous, although technically they aren’t. Reason is the capacity for consciously making sense of things, applying logic, establishing and verifying facts, and changing or justifying practices, institutions, and beliefs based on new or existing information.

That said, logic (or reason) is the antithesis of faith. It takes tremendous faith to believe that an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, supernatural being created everything that exists.

So the question I have for Jim, or for anyone who cares to weigh in is this. When it comes to belief in God, can logic and reason support that belief, or must one suspend logical and rational thought in favor of pure faith to believe in the existence of God as the creator of all things?

Please feel free to share your thoughts (or beliefs).

Fandango’s Provocative Question #107

Fandango22 Comments

FPQWelcome once again to Fandango’s Provocative Question. Each week I will pose what I think is a provocative question for your consideration.

By provocative, I don’t mean a question that will cause annoyance or anger. Nor do I mean a question intended to arouse sexual desire or interest.

What I do mean is a question that is likely to get you to think, to be creative, and to provoke a response. Hopefully a positive response.

For my provocative question last week I asked about what is more important when blogging: what you say or how you say it. I hope you don’t mind if I post two provocative questions in a row about blogging. Well, even if  you do mind, I’m going to do it anyway.

On Monday, Dr. Tanya, aka Salted Caramel, wrote that she was going to be taken a blogging hiatus from two of her weekly prompts, Blogging Insights and Five Things. She is moving and needs to devote her time and energy to taking care of that.

That got me thinking about the idea of taking a blogging hiatus.I moved last February and, while I didn’t formally take a hiatus from my blog, I cut back my post frequency considerably. It actually took me about six weeks after my move to get back into the swing of things vis-à-vis my blog. However, I took a lengthy — two year — hiatus from blogging between May of 2015 and May of 2017 because I had some pressing personal matters that needed to be addressed.

So my provocative question this week is about blogging hiatuses.

Have you ever taken a hiatus (break) from blogging? If so, how long did your hiatus last and why did you take it? How difficult was it to return to blogging after your hiatus? Did your stats suffer and did you lose readers as a consequence of your absence?

If you choose to participate, write a post with your response to the question. Once you are done, tag your post with #FPQ and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments. But remember to check to confirm that your pingback or your link shows up in the comments.