Your Mileage May Vary

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Keep reading. I have a point after I get done with the opening story.

This weekend the drain lines at Ma's house refused to work, which resulted in backed up toilets, filling up bath tubs, etc.

Better than an image of a stopped up commode, eh?

Ma, without blaming anyone, managed to blame everyone for the problem. She pointed to a nearly empty roll of toilet paper as proof that SOMEONE was using too much.

Uhhhh, Nine people in her house for two days. One roll of hockey tickets ain't gonna make it through that time.

Not that she'd agree.

So we called Lamar Robinson to come pump the septic tank again. Yes, again.

He arrived and pumped. Then he and his worker pulled a Rastafarian out of the two drain lines. One going into the tank from the house and one leaving the tank into the drain lines.

I am not kidding. The mass of roots, as big around as the pipe, would have made any Jamaican consternated. (Aside, it gives me great joy to stump the automatic spell checker in this program as I just did.)

Not quite this bad, but close.

I hauled Ma out of the house. Had Lamar show her the dreadlocks of roots. Had him explain this was the problem. Had him explain to her what I needed to do to keep this from happening again. (BTW I need a chain saw for this. Must remove a tree. Anyone got a chain saw I can borrow?)

Was Ma convinced? Not totally. But she did back off the over-use of the library cards.

Empirical evidence. As I have said time & time again, you can argue with empirical evidence, but all you are doing us just proving that you are ever more delusional.

In the debate that being framed in my mind, the most enlightened on both sides of the issue admit to a paucity of empirical evidence. One said says they are running on faith and the other says they are running on theory.

Standing and looking at this from the outside, I gotta tell you I see little semantic difference between faith and theory.

Christians say this life we know is a result of creationism.

Atheists say it is a result of an accident and evolution.

Christians say it is faith. Atheists say it is theory.

Standing outside and looking in, I see little semantic difference between 'em.

Neither side has absolute proof that would stand up under a court of serious inquiry.

The more intelligent on both sides also admits to this.

The minor exception is evolution is factual. We do have proof that entities can evolve - adapt if you prefer that term. SuperBugs have evolved to beat modern antibiotics. Bedbugs have evolved to beat the sprays we use on 'em. Got proof of that. Scientists got ahold of some bedbugs captured around the time of the Vietnam war and kept isolated in a lab (do not ask me why, I'm just reporting the facts here). Some of these bedbugs were taken out, sprayed and keeled right over while modern bedbugs rolled over for a coating on their belly.

Some species of rat have evolved a tolerance for warfarin so they can eat it and it won't harm them.

Hard to beat that kind of evidence which can be seen, analyzed, computed and presented definatively. Even Christians will admit to that.

The evolution of Man.

But that's also something which can be measured, tested and repeated under controlled circumstances. That turns it from a theory into a fact.

That's also modern stuff. That man descended from ape-like creatures is a theory. (See above discussion on faith and theory).

That man descended from one woman and one man was long held to be a matter of faith until scientists suddenly found mitochondrial DNA which indicates we all descended from one woman. National Geographic had another article in which scientist say we are also all descended from one man.

It's still a matter of faith and theory, which is the same thing as far as I'm concerned. It's a matter of belief.

Until someone either files a report to us from whatever comes after this existence or builds a time machine so we can go back and check on things, we just do not know and cannot know.

As for myself, I have my belief based on the Bible. At the same time, I try to be intelligent and open enough to realize everything I believe may not be right. There's certainly ample evidence that "Christians" can't agree on what the Bible means.

Can you tell me what Jesus' only unanswered prayer was?