Anthropomorphism

Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, and intentions to non-human entities such as animals or even objects. In most cases, there is nothing wrong with that. For example, Donald Duck is, strictly speaking, a duck; yet it has been dressed like a human, it talks and can do human things like drive a car or cook. It has been given the character of a human and behaves as such for the purpose of the cartoon story in which it, or he, appears.

By the way, have you noticed that normally Donald Duck wears a jacket and hat and nothing on his lower half; yet, when he comes out of the shower or bath he has a towel around his lower half. What's all that about? Certainly not a human characteristic. I certainly don't go around wearing nothing but a jacket!

Anyway, I digress.

As I was saying before I was interrupted by Donald Duck, certain people attribute human characteristics to non-human objects. For example, I was visiting a young couple the other day and as I was leaving them they said they were going to pick up their children from school with Sophie. I thought Sophie was their children's nanny. But they jumped in the car and as they were reversing out of their drive I asked, "Aren't you going to wait for Sophie?"

They laughed and said, "We are in Sophie! Sophie is John's car. My car over there (said the wife) is called Bernard. Our cars have a character of their own. Sophie is more gentle and welcoming!"

I smiled and said nothing.

How can a car be gentle and welcoming? Can it be temperamental and refuse to start on a cold morning because it wants to tease or upset you? Or is it perhaps because the battery is low and it will not start the engine?

I thought nothing of it until a few days ago when the subject arose again. I was in the pub with John, the young husband in this couple of which I speak, nursing a beer when I noticed he looked somewhat forlorn.

By the way, by nursing a beer I meant drinking slowly. I did not mean I was nursing it because it was ill and needed medical attention. It was just a figure of speech and I was in no way anthropomorphising the pint in my hand. I wish you would stop interrupting my train of thought.

I asked John what was the matter and he explained, "For a while now, after I wash up the dishes and dry them, I put them away in the cupboard in a stack on top of each other. If I have four plates in hand, and there are already two in the cupboard, I put the four plates underneath the two so that next time the two at the top would get a chance to be used. I don't want them to feel left out and unloved by not being used. So I raise them to the top of the pile so that they are used next. This also happens with saucers, cereal bowls, and cups. I move the old cups from the back of the shelf to the front, and put the newly cleaned ones at the back."

For a moment or two I said nothing as I caressed my beer glass pensively. Careful now, don't go interrupting me again!

I then asked, "What does your wife think of this?"

"That's the point," he said, "until recently she did not know anything about it. They say couples should not have any secrets from each other, but there I was, after three years of marriage hiding this from her!"

"It's not as if you were having an affair!" I said.

"The principle is the same," he replied, "until recently it was a secret I kept from her. Now she knows. But what is worse, is that apparently she has been doing the same all along. I caught her taking all the plates out of the cupboard and moving the ones at the top of the pile to the bottom. I asked her what she was doing and she confessed. She has been doing the same thing as me all along!"

I smiled inwardly and said nothing.

"Can you imagine?" he continued, "there is probably a poor plate or saucer which feels unloved because it has not been used for ages. I put it on top and she moved it to the bottom of the stack again!"

"But ... but ... it is only a plate," I stammered, "it does not have feelings and it does not think like you and I" (Certainly not like you and your wife; I thought silently).

"And what is worse," he said, "when I saw my wife moving the plates up and down she accidentally dropped one and it smashed into pieces. Dead in the prime of life. We'd only just bought that set."

As delicately as I could, I said, "Look John ... this is some kind of OCD that you both have ... you should discuss it with a doctor."

"OCD?" he asked.

"Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. It's when people do something repeatedly, like over-cleaning or washing!" I explained.

"Tell me about it," he said, "she is so cleaning mad you'll not believe it. The other day we had an argument and in the heat of the moment she threw a cup at me from a distance. She did not want to pick up the broken pieces so she put the cup in a plastic bag first, tied it up, and threw it at me. That way all the pieces were in the bag! Then she cried over the death of a cup."

I was at a loss for words because I did not have my dictionary with me. I bought him another pint and made my way home.

I took a taxi because my shoes were too tired to walk all that way back.

God's Invitation

Someone asked me whether God wants everyone to come to Him.

And, since He knows everything, if anyone refuses to follow God’s Word, then did this man really have a choice, or was it pre-determined that he would not follow God.

Pre-determination and free will have been debated by Christians and non-Christians for years. So I hope I am not adding to the confusion by sharing my views on it.

God's invitation is to everyone - without exception. When He invites us to love Him, He wants us to choose freely - without any pressure on His part to influence our decision. We choose to love Him and come to God through Jesus Christ: "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one goes to the Father except by me.” John 14:6.

Of course, some choose not to accept the invitation. They decide to walk away from God. Not to believe in Him and in Jesus as His only Son. That is their free choice.

God in His infinite wisdom and in His loving kindness allows us to make that decision for ourselves. Of course, He knows our decision before we even make it - but He does not influence it in any way. He allows it to happen. If He were to force us in any way then He would have taken away our free will to decide. He might as well have created a race of robots pre-programmed with His every wish and command. But he didn't. He created us free to choose our own destiny. Our own will.

I believe that God has given each of us a mission in life. Some achieve this mission by being great preachers, church leaders, politicians, and so on. Whilst most of us can achieve our mission by the small things we do in life, our acts of kindness, love and caring for the rest of humanity.

Of course, some people choose to ignore their mission to "love one another as I have loved you"; and decide to go their own way. Not only to ignore their mission but also not to believe in the very existence of their Creator.

God allows this to happen.

There are times however when God does try to nudge us in the right direction. He encourages us to be aware of our mission and to attempt to achieve it.

Note that I say “encourage” and not force our decision.

Why He does that only in some cases we really don’t know.

A well known example is the way He “encouraged” Paul on the way to Damascus. I suppose Paul could still have walked away and not followed God’s Word; although I doubt many would have done so under the circumstances! God saw the good qualities in Paul and encouraged him to use them to good effect. Paul chose to accept God and the rest, as they say, is history.

Even today God does nudge some of us in the right direction.

How?

Perhaps through chance meetings with someone who might talk to us about God and encourage us to accept His Word and take up His invitation to love Him.

Maybe He allows certain things to happen in our lives which make us turn to Him.

But the fact is that God does talk to us today. He does encourage us to come to Him through Jesus Christ.

Perhaps some of us just aren't listening.

But here’s the important distinction to remember. God tries to encourage us, or nudge us, in the right direction. He invites us all to accept His Word.

But He never forces us.

Desperate Prayer

Saving the Planet - Sorted!

My last post discussed, amongst other things, the question of re-cycling. I would certainly welcome your comments on that subject over there, or indeed about any other topic raised on that post. How about that for re-cycling? I have even given you two links to that previous post. Sorry ... three.

Now the reason for re-cycling is, I am told, to save the planet. What we are saving it from I still do not know. Some say we are saving it from global warming - we are burning too many things which are bad for the planet and cause its temperature to rise, and this is bad because the icebergs will melt and the seas will rise and only the strongest swimmers will survive. Others don't agree with this theory and believe temperatures rise and fall in a cyclical fashion and as in the past we had the ice-age we are only going through a phase and we will survive through it.

Personally, I am not clever enough to understand one argument from another. It's like the argument about the extinction of dinosaurs. Some say they all died because they could not withstand the cold temperatures of the ice-age; others say they died because they were killed by a meteorite, or asteroid which hit the earth. Although why they were all standing in the same place at the time is a mystery to me.

Now about this global warming thing. Many have argued about what exactly causes global warming, but I feel they have missed an obvious reason for the problem which is there staring them in the face.

Candles.

Can you imagine how many candles are lit at any one time in the world? In churches, in restaurants, at romantic dinner tables, in the bathroom - I mean; whoever thought of candles in the bathroom? Very dangerous if you happen to singe your hair. On birthday cakes too? Come on - admit it. How many candles are on your birthday cake each year? You and all these other candles are contributing to global warming.

That and cows breaking wind apparently. Cows break wind more than other creatures because they have two stomachs. It seems that all the gases coming out of cows float up to the sky and make a hole in the sky through which the warmth of the earth escapes and the sun rays get in through the hole in the sky and makes us warm again.

I have mentioned cows because, I understand, they contribute most to the problem. But apparently all kinds of gaseous substances from animals and humans contribute to the problem. So my advice to save the planet is don't break wind near a lit candle.

Another reason for global warming, I am told, is deforestation. This means that we are cutting down too many trees and not planting new ones fast enough.

The other day I was sitting at the library reading about global warming, and a man beside me said, "“Do you realize that all the time you've been sitting here 500 square miles of rain forest have been destroyed?”

So I got up and sat elsewhere. I don't want to be blamed for destroying a forest.

Whilst we are on the subject, yet another reason for global warming is books. Yes books. Books are made of paper which comes from wood from trees which have been cut down to make paper.

Do you realise that there are millions of books being printed in the world each year and most of them go unread? Including mine. Which is a pity because you're missing out on a good read. Just click the link to find out more.

Now if we printed fewer books, or we published them in Kindle or other electronic formats, like mine are, then we would save on a lot of paper and trees being cut down.

Yet another reason for global warming, it seems, is our voracious appetite for electricity. We are using more and more electricity every year.

We all need electricity to make our electric toothbrush work. As you know, the old fashioned way of brushing our teeth with a traditional brush is no longer effective. We all need an electric toothbrush to make sure our teeth are bright and clean and they attract a handsome and/or attractive partner in life.

This is why the consumption of world electricity is constantly increasing.

So another way to save the planet is by finding new ways of making electricity rather than burning fossil fuels to make the turbines which make electricity work. One way of making electricity cheaply, I am told by experts, is to harness the wind power and build wind-turbines. These in effect are big fans which go round and round and make the turbines which create electricity work. It's all very complicated but more effective than burning coal or oil to turn the turbines.

The problem with this method is that some people object to wind turbines because they spoil the natural scenery whether they are built in the countryside on hills and in fields, or out at sea. Also, I understand, the sound of the wind turbines as they go round and round upsets the birds' hearing as they fly by; and they have to cover their ears with their wings thus interrupting their flight causing them to fall to their death.

The answer to this problem is rather simple if only people use their imagination. Engineers should install these big wind turbines in caves or under-water out of harm's way and so as not to spoil the natural scenery. Either that or have them built on wheels and bring them out at night when everyone is asleep.

My main concerns with wind turbines, however, is much more serious. I am worried that if every nation builds more and more of these wind turbines everywhere, sooner or later they will make so much wind that the whole earth will take off like a plane and start flying away to another galaxy. Where would we be then?

In another solar system where they do not speak our language with no one to read my books.

So I think a better solution is to use less electricity by switching all our lights off and using candles instead!