Bev rides to Sycamore....

While everyone else made the trip up to Birmingham for the Tad Beaton Memorial ride, Bev and I stayed here and did the Sycamore ride. I sent out notice hoping to draw a few folks who would like to come along at our slower pace. No one showed up. But that is ok! The ride was just under 16 miles. This is actually the same length as our ride of 15.6 miles down Oden's Mill Road and up the Old Fayetteville highway. The big difference was the two hills we had to negotiate. With those out of the way, the only limit is her tolerance for the bike seat. Getting used to sitting for long enough to ride a 30 miler will take a little more time. But she is doing very well. She is proud of her progress and she should be. We look forward to many more rides.

Imagine....

I discovered this web site in my musings...

.... http://www.godisimaginary.com/

It raises an interesting difficulty of faith and belief. There isn't a single shred of verifiable evidence for the existence of God or any god! That is pretty much what I had determined a long time ago. There isn't a splinter of the cross, a fingernail or hair of Jesus', or a nail from the ark, or anything else which we can hang our belief on. The bible is written in such a way as to look like a hodge-podge of historical writings drawn up in ancient literary traditions that forego literal translation. Anything to do with the Christ must be taken completely on faith. Otherwise it wouldn't be a belief, it would be knowing. And knowing is what most modern educated people want. We are aware of being duped into countless things which waste our energy and interest. All logic and science would point to there being no reason to believe in God. He either doesn't participate in the world, doesn't exist, or participates in such a way as to remain completely elusive. And with all those morons on televison confidently thumping out what they want their flocks to believe, it isn't any wonder that people would be skeptical. But it isn't skepticism that captures the most of them. Although there are vast number of people professing a belief in God or gods, that belief is blunted. You can see it in their everyday dealings. You couldn't tell if they believed or not from their actions.

So I think the truth is that for the vast majority of people god IS imaginary because they dream up their own version that fits their own everyday lives. It is reminiscent of Jimmy Stewart's character in Harvey. He believes he has these conversations with a giant rabbit and that the rabbit can do all these amazing things. As elusive a god seems to be, that is about the only thing one can do unless he were to reveal himself directly to the world. That wouldn't be very hard to do but he hasn't. So while one group imagines god to be goodness and light another imagines war and intolerance. None seem to be capable of agreeing.