The Shamening! (Not To Be Confused With The Shamaning)

Oh dearie dearie me.

I knew I'd been slack of late but it wasn't until the lovely Erin Palette applied a judicious kick to my saddlery regions with a stylish boot that I realised it had been two months* since I posted anything!

SHAME!

So as a form of penance and blog-self-flagellation I am going to look back through my notes for things I intended to post but didn't and my planner to see what I was doing at the time and I am going to fill in the gaps.

This week.

Possibly today.

Because when you are slightly sleep-deprived, a little bit hung-over and having a hair of the dog it is the perfect time to make grand promises and to write.

So that means... 10 posts! Oh for the love of... I mean, excellent, I relish a challenge!

So here we go.

Operation STOP BEING A LAZY ASS has commenced!



*TWO MONTHS!!!

The Chicken Party

My sister is getting married this year.

This month actually.

This is a thought that I feel should be making my brain boggle but she and brother-in-law-to-be have been together for so long and are so absurdly suited to each other it seems more a formality than anything else.

At this stage all we need to remember to do is turn up in the right dresses and shoes and we will be set.

The one thing we did need to get done and done properly before the big day was her hen's party.

I could give you a run down of what we got up to but a) that'd be a bit anecdotal and 'hey I went to a party that you weren't at' and b) it was a private party for my sister and none of your beeswax so instead I'm going to talk about something else.

There's a lot of build-up around what's supposed to happen at hen's parties since they attracted the hivemind's attention so I've decided to use this post to make one particular point, one that I think isn't made enough.

If it is your hen's party you can do WHATEVER YOU DAMN WELL WANT.

This includes telling people who are trying to tell you what you HAVE to do to take their suggestions and jam them up their jacksies.

If you want to get rowdy and take it to the streets that's fine, if that's how you like to play you'll have a ball.

If you're usually a quiet person, like doing things differently or just don't think it's the business of everyone in the damn town/suburb/city that you're getting married you don't HAVE to go out and do specific things and nobody is allowed to tell you that you should.

If you want to go paintballing - Go!

If you want to go to a day spa - Go!

If you want to have a BBQ, get drunk and play Rock Band - Do!

Karaoke bar!

Burlesque show!

Bowling night!

Movie night!

Costume party!

Bake off!

Beach party!

High tea!

1950s glamour pin-up photoshoot!

There is no limit to what you can do for your party, pick whatever you're happiest with and do that.

It is a party to celebrate your life so far, your friendships with the people you invite and the life you have ahead of you - there is no rule that says it has to be just one thing.

You shouldn't have a particular hen's party because you think it's expected of you any more than you should have a particular wedding because that's what you think is expected of you.

Do what makes you happy.


PS. In case you were wondering, no we didn't get a stripper. Just in case instead of Hugh Jackman...


...we got Har Mar Superstar*....


...who does indeed strip with confidence and alacrity but not to the same reception.



*Or someone I went to school with. I don't know why I'm so convinced lately that someone I went to school with will one day take their clothes off in front of me for money.

Tangled Up In Plaid

Well, not necessarily plaid but hopefully some sort of patterning. Once I get going.

Remember my wild and cray-zay New Year's Resolutions?

Remember the one about learning to crochet?

Well, I'm edging closer!

After having bought a beginners' guide months ago and then forgetting to go back to the store for the yarn* or hooks I have joined Ravelry to get extra inspired with patterns and the like and will soon begin trawling YouTube for lovely little 'how to' videos so I know what all the short-hand in the patterns means.

I also now need to learn how to knit because the internet has patterns for Jayne Cobb's hat...

... and I want one.

Because it's Jayne Cobb's hat and he's the hero of Canton don't cha know!

I want one so badly I can almost taste it!**

I expect my first project will be an almost unbearably sad-lookin' scarf that I'll not want to wear but we've all got to start somewhere and my fumble-fingers will have to learn discipline in cruddy scarf boot camp before they get a shot at crocheting little squiddies or vampires or knitting bad-ass space cowboy beanies.
You have to earn a hat like that and seeing as I was born too early to join the Browncoats in their struggle or have a hand in the liberation of Canton, I'll have to earn it the other way - through arts and crafts!



*well, cotton yarn substitute... stupid allergy to wool.

**it tastes fluffy

Crawling Out Of The Comfort Zone

I avoid certain movies like the plague.

War movies because they're always emotionally crushing and visually jarring.

Certain romantic comedies because they always feel so false and oversimplified.

Horror movies of a certain calibre because my brain doesn't need any more help imagining strange things lurking the in shadows thank you so very much.

And that was all well and good and I felt fairly OK with that.

But then I started avoiding a lot of other movies and when I tried to work out why, I was embarrassed to find that the explanation that popped up in my head was that they were 'too much work'.

"How much work can it be to sit on your ass and watch a movie?" a person would be justified in asking.

I didn't mean 'work' work but emotional and mental work.

I'd been rewatching old movies in a half-arsed way that allowed the familiar scenes and dialogue to wash over and past me whilst I tried to do other things (eg. write, draw, email).

The problem was I was doing those things half-arsed as well.

Instead of devoting two hours to really paying attention to a movie or really paying attention to a piece of writing or drawing, I was spending two hours not really paying attention to either and coming away feeling irritated and not at all like I had accomplished anything.

Instead of multi-tasking I was multi-tanking.

So as recorded in my New Year's Resolutions I have banned myself from watching movies I have already seen and am only watching new movies.
This has led to a sharp decrease in amount of movies actually watched but the associated sharp decrease in hours staring goggle-eyed and useless at a square of moving colours has been a welcome side effect.

And the movies I have watched so far have already made the experience worth it.

Not all have them have been quality but they've been fresh, they've got my brain moving again and I'm being less of a movie and cinema wuss about the 'hard work' movies.

My brain needs more hard work, it has been slacking off for years.

Silver Screen Surfer

I don't often have a lot of luck getting out to see movies when they're playing at the cinema.

Either I'll agree to see them with someone and we can never go on the same day or I lose track of time and by the time I get around to it the local cinema has stopped playing the film in question.

This isn't always exclusively down to my poor organisational skills or vague grip on temporal reality, the local cinema can be a bit of a moody bugger when it comes to screening runs.
The Karate Kid (aka The Kung-Fu Kid) has been screening for over a month but Predators ran for a maximum of two weeks before they gave it the boot.

So when a swag of movies I was interested in all came around at once I decided that I was damned if I was being cheated again and I went - to put it quite bluntly - completely nuts*.

~~~

FRIDAY 9:10pm - SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD

Synopsis: Scott Pilgrim is a 20-something slacker who finds himself having to battle 7 evil exes in order to be able to date the girl of his dreams. Scott Pilgrim is accompanied in this quest by a selection of amusing and sometimes unsympathetic friends in a world that blends regular reality and computer game tropes in a way that messes your brain up fun times.

Ricochet's Bonus Blather: I was already going out with friends for a farewell dinner (for one of them) so when they said 'Hey you wanna go see Scott Pilgrim after?' I cursed them out for being the dirty temptresses they are and immediately said yes. This clashed with my Nerdy Senses which were tingling and saying things like 'But you haven't read Volume 6 yet, you fiend!' but I shouted them down, assuming correctly that I would be able to hold the movie separate in my mind from the graphic novels.
I loved the film for it's timing, the use of effects to simulate comic panels and for Kieran Culkin as Wallace Wells - the whole thing was very well cast.
Of course there is no way you can make a feature length film from six graphic novels without having to cut out and compress a lot of the story telling, so if you haven't read the graphic novels you might come away a wee bit confused.
I had avoided reading Scott Pilgrim for ages as the whole premise of a man having to fight a girl's ex-boyfriends in order to date her seemed so... misogynist but on the urgings of a Canadian friend I gave them a go and found it hard to see them as such when reading them. I still think Ramona should have just told them all to go to hell and given them a good frying-panning to the face but the exchanges and actions were so entertaining and the 'computer game reality' so removed from regular life you couldn't take it entirely seriously on that level.

~~~

SATURDAY 9:00pm - INCEPTION

Synopsis: In a near future which has developed the technology to access people's dreams as a means of removing information, a skilled practitioner of this art is given a chance of redemption if he can achieve what is thought impossible - to place an idea within the mind of another.

Ricochet's Bonus Blather: I had decided to see Inception today but hadn't gotten around to it by the time I went out to dinner with my parents, so I decided that not only was I still going to see it, I was going to carjack my parents and take them with me. And I did.
It was astoundingly good.
Astoundingly.
Good.
And honestly if it had just been 2+ hours of Cillian Murphy looking vulnerable and Joseph Gordon-Levitt being tipped off chairs I would have been perfectly happy but it also had a plot!
The depiction of the movement of time and the mouldable reality and how it reacted were very engaging and it didn't hurt that pretty much all the dudes in it were fairly easy on the eyes.
For all the people who were complaining that they found it hard to follow or confusing I'm going to assume you spent the whole movie picking your nose and molding the resultant finds into a miniature statue of the Venus of Willendorf because my mother - who usually has to be reminded who people are part way through murder mysteries - followed it easily**.

~~~

SUNDAY 11:00am - THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO

Synopsis: A disgraced journalist and an antisocial hacker are brought together as the investigation of the 40 year old disappearance of a young girl leads to evidence of crimes more wide-reaching and recent than anyone suspected.

Ricochet's Bonus Blather: The books have divided some people as they couldn't get past the 'Fellowship of the Rings' style character infodump at the start of the first book but I found that those sections helped me get a better idea of the society/culture they take place in and it gave me a context in which to see everything else.
The movie was a fantastic realisation of the book and managed to fit most of the important scenes and themes in without having to alter too much of the story, apart from tweaks to the time-line and some reduction in the roles of some characters.
Having read the books I was able to brace myself for the more confronting scenes but think they would have been equally if not more effective if I hadn't known they were coming.
One of the things I liked best about this screening was that apart from me, the audience was almost exclusively ladies in their 60s (and over) in home-knitted cardies, nodding in appreciation any time Lisbeth smacked anyone or tattooed anything on anyone. As we were walking out I heard one lady remark to her friend "I would have been tattooing it a damn sight lower, I can tell you that!"

~~~

SUNDAY 7:00pm - THE EXPENDABLES

Synopsis: A bunch of mercenaries suddenly get a conscience about one of the messed up countries they're asked to do a job in and go completely banza crazy setting shit right yo!

Ricochet's Bonus Blather: I'm sorry, I couldn't write a 'serious' synopsis for this one. Mostly because it doesn't really have one. It was enjoyable as a collection of quips and cliches from people we're used to seeing quip cliches at us but it was so over the top that it was a send-up of its own genre which I assume was the aim. Well, I hope it was.
The banter between the characters was so exaggeratedly familiar it seemed like a polyamorous commune of old married men.
One thing I did like was the fact that the characters spent a bit of time reflecting on how that sort of lifestyle can really mess you up, that you can't just brush it off and that maybe some of their number should get some counselling.
I took along my friend Awesome with whom I watch all the most explodingest movies and we did enjoy it as a complete break from reality with extra violence sauce but I couldn't help but think that part of the reason for that is we've been conditioned to enjoy these sorts of tales.
Of course it is quite possible I am just feeling super pretentious after having seen three very good movies in quick succession just before this one***.

~~~

And somehow, despite the fact I spent almost the entire weekend sitting on my ass, at the end of it all I came away with a sense of productivity****!

Whee!



* That is 'nuts for a person who usually seems a maximum of 3 movies a year at the cinema'.

** Of course, it probably helps that at the cinemas you can't wonder off to put a load of washing on or make a cup of tea and come back after something very important has happened but really all you had to do was watch the screen.

*** But honestly, it is in no way a clever movie. Amusing but no surprises.

**** I guess it did count towards my New Year's Resolution to watch at least 52 new movies this year...

A Den of Ink and Long Island Ice Tea

My memory is terrible.

I can't remember how I heard about Molly Crabapple, her art, her wish to make figure drawing more accessible and enjoyable and less intimidating but I certainly won't be forgetting the first session of Dr Sketchy's that I attended.

Dr Sketchy's is an Anti-Art School. Not anti-art but anti-'art school'.
It poo poos the idea that to be good at art you have to have spent years before the easel man-and-boy or that you should feel anything less than joy when creating at whatever level you can.

Dr Sketchy's is a figure drawing session with a significant difference.

All the models are burlesque and/or circus performers.

And they are fabulous.

All you need to attend Dr Sketchy's is enough in your pocket to cover the modest entry fee, something to draw on and something to draw with.
The music is light and quirky, the costumes are divine, the drinks are plentiful and the mood is fantastic.

It's like attending a party where all the other guests are madly trying to capture their fellow revellers' likenesses because they forgot their cameras and nobody minds a jot.
The performers perform as well as pose, the MC has a wicked tongue and the sheer beauty of the tattoos that I've seen would melt your eyeballs out of your head.
Also quite a lot of feathers, satin and shimmering sequined nipple pasties.

I've never had the guts to attend a 'proper' art class, worried that I'd either be completely bewildered if they started too quickly or bored silly if they started too slow* but each session of Dr Sketchy's that I've made it to has been a breeze.
So breezy in fact that the three hours are over before you know it.

You can search for local branches on the website which I would heartily recommend.
They're a warm, welcoming lot, art nerds.

I might have a way to go with my technical skills but I'm certainly going to enjoy the journey!



*Or that I'd laugh if the life model farted. Or that I would have attended school with the life model...

A Glimpse Of Gorgeousness

I could lie to you and say that I'm going to try and present an accurate and balanced account of the evening.

I could claim that what is to follow will be eloquent and illuminating sharing of my experience but...


I SAW STEPHEN FRY GIVING A TALK AND STEPHEN FRY WAS TALKING AND I WAS THERE AND I HEARD HIM TALKING AND HE WAS SAYING BIG WORDS IN HIS BEAUTIFUL, FLUFFY, PINK AND MOIST AND MELLIFLUOUS BRITISH ACCENTED VOICE, RAKING HIS HAIR OUT OF HIS EYES AND WE WERE IN THE SAME ROOM AND OK IT WAS A BIG ROOM AND HE COULDN'T SEE ME BUT I COULD SEE HIM AND HE WAS STEPHEN FRY AND I WAS ME WATCHING STEPHEN FRY AND...

*GASP*

I saw Stephen Fry.


He told us about his travels and his writing and how he met some of the magnificent people with whom he has collaborated with over the years and he did a Hugh Laurie impression which sent my friends and I (and everybody else in the theatre) into glee raptures and a Patrick Stewart impression that almost killed us and I'm going to be geeking out for the rest of my life that I got to see one of my favourite actors just being charming and random and wandering about a stage going over time and just generally being marvellous.

I now have a list of books and movies to follow up on and want to know much much more about Oscar Wilde.

Because I saw Stephen Fry.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Baldy And The Beast

Whilst I may never have the money or inclination to see all the performances I regularly vow that I'm going to attend I have been seeing steadily more of them in the last few years, mainly by distracting certain parts of my brain with bright colours and sparkling lights until I've already made the bookings and it's too late for them to back out.

It isn't that I don't enjoy live performances and live music - I adore them - but for some reason there's always been a little bit of me that seems to spend all its time checking its watch and wondering when it can get back to doing nothing much or being nowhere in particular.
It is a part of myself that usually makes me quite quite cross and which I am determined not to let rule my life.

So in my latest bout of 'Shut The Heck Up Stupid Pedestrian Loser Lobe' I bought tickets to take my parents to see Bill Bailey and to take my sister and her fiance to see a theatre production of The King and I.

Bill Bailey - Monday 19th of July
No matter how many times I see Bill Bailey*, he always manages to surprise me. He always has fresh material, he revels in audience participation (even when it goes terribly, terribly wrong) and he is a genuine genius with music. He performed Gary Numan's cars on a series of bike horns, his spiderweb like cape of hair flying along behind him as he honked energetically in a way that required both my parents to take their glasses off to wipe away tears of laughter.
Some comedians you get the feeling that secretly they'd quite like you get piss off and that if you don't laugh at an adequate volume they're wishing cancer upon you.
Not only does Bill Bailey not exude a cancer cursing aura, he enjoys himself, he's honest without giving too much of himself away and he constantly plays with you, letting you see that he's smarter than you suspected before lulling you easily back into a goofy grinning daze.
One of the wonderful things about people with multiple genuine passions is that it gives them a lot of material to work with and they're eager to share things with you, sometimes things you'd wish they'd kept to themselves but which you just can't stay angry with them about.
If you get the chance go see him, he's a joy**.


The King & I - Saturday 24th of July
My sister and I have always loved this movie - and admittedly get a little bit starry eyed about Yul Brenner and his flashy impressive wardrobe*** - so when we found out that there was going to be a performance in Melbourne the tickets almost bought themselves. Brother-in-law-to-be knows that marrying my sister bring with it certain responsibilities and is also a bit of a musical chap himself so he was happy to come along.
The amount they manage to do in the confined space of a stage and with props and sets that can be easily moved between and sometimes during scenes will always excite me about the theatre. It doesn't take away from the illusion, it reinforces the creativity and fun of the thing.
Strangely enough I think the one thing they did stay absolutely true to were the King's outfits for each scene which was a nice touch. You don't want people trying to rigidly impersonate a movie to perfection, if you wanted to see that you'd just watch the movie again.
As usual with stage performances based on films****, there were a few songs added to give some of the minor characters more time on stage and to give a bit of a different interpretation. This all had a couple of old dears sitting near us muttering - not as quietly as they thought - "I don't remember this from the movie!" and "They're just funning around, you know directors,".
I have of course had the songs stuck in head for days now but it was worth it.



*OK, this is only the second time live but DVDs and televised comedy showcases count too...

**I was going to write 'cracker' here (an English/Australian term that means good'un, in the same vein as some older folk would use the description 'cracking good time' but have been reliably informed that in the US this is a racial slur that means 'white people' and whilst that is perfectly accurate it might have been a bit confusing that I was insisting it was a reason to attend his performance.

***And washboard abs.

****And suddenly Disney films, now I come to think of it... Stop messing with a classic Disney! Nobody wants to hear 'Human Again'! There's a reason it was left out of the original cut!

The Nerdiest Thing

I've always known I was kind of lazy.

And I've always known I was kind of nerdy.

But it wasn't until I decided to buy a new bed way back when that my laziness met my nerdiness to form a perfect storm.

I was trying to decide whether I should buy the mattress I'd chosen in the double bed size or go all out and get the queen bed size.

I knew I'd have to work out whether I could fit a queen-sized bed into my bedroom and what I would have to do with the rest of my furniture once it was in there.

I couldn't be bothered actually moving my furniture.

So I measured the room and the furniture.

And did this...






And it all made sense at the time...

And it did work...

But...

There's a level of self-knowledge that you don't necessarily need to achieve...

From which there is no going back...

Will it encourage me to be a more efficient nerd?

Or a lazier person?

A Balanced Diet: In Which Ricochet Overworks A Metaphor And Shouts A Bit

As I was leafing languidly through a recipe book I discovered something startling.
You can put hazelnut oil on salad.
I didn't even know they MADE hazelnut oil.
I wanted to try it.
Right now!
Delicious hazelnut oil infused French salad on my table, on my fork, in my tummy!
So I trotted down to the supermarket and... they didn't have it.
Neither did the other local supermarket.
Apart from being miffed it got me thinking.
If I hadn't read about these recipes and these items I wouldn't have known to look.
Obviously I haven't memorised the contents of the supermarket but gradually there has been a smaller variety of products on offer and then less choice of brands of those products available.
And strange as it may seem all I can think of is the internet and the proposed Australian internet filter.

Yes, I know once again I sound crazy but I'll explain myself. At great length.

If you haven't heard of it you can find an in-depth explanation of the filter here but the basic story is that the Australian government is using 'think of the children!' to propose banning the access to any webpages they find distasteful.
For the whole country.

Considering child pornography is already illegal and not just available to all and sundry who know how to use a search engine, this is a bunch of bull-twang, especially when they start listing other things to ban 'just in case the kiddies see them' including certain types of fetish pornography and pages discussing euthanasia, abortion, rape and video games.
Without context.

A test run of the filter, as it is now, resulted in the blanket banning of all sites that mentioned rape or child molestation including those which offered support and legal advice to victims.
All this is being offered instead of expecting parents to take responsibility for their children and said children's net use.
As the banned sites are to exist on a secret blacklist that isn't to be disclosed to the public it leaves the option open for the government to block pretty much whatever they like, including blogs or sites that post political protest material or criticism just in case this promotes riots, dissent or a change in government which is clearly not good for the kiddies.

So with that brief summary before you, let us return to my crazy-ass theory.

You go to the supermarket, you pick up all your corporation-approved and provided essentials and every now and then you'll spot something you haven't tried before or something you've not heard of, you have a look at the suggestions on the label and you think 'yes, I'll give this a go'.
Now imagine this supermarket is a metaphor for the internet.
They've decided that, oh I don't know, peanut oil should not be offered for sale because some people are allergic to peanuts and might accidentally be offered something cooked in peanut oil by some irresponsible or ignorant member of the public.
So they type 'no nut oil' into their ordering system and in one fell swoop knock half a dozen oils off the selection including macadamia nut oil and other such products.
People who used to buy this oil now can't find it and the supermarket uses the fact that these people are now forced to purchase other alternatives and aren't protesting this lack or requesting it en masse as a rationale to keep the discontinued products off the shelves.
People who have never heard of peanut or macadamia or hazelnut oil never get the chance to try them or even consider trying them.

Now let's imagine the person in charge of fruit and veg ordering is a weirdo prude who decides that any long, cylindrical vegetables may be too phallic to be offered to minors or unsuspecting virgin diners by lecherous chefs or dinner party enthusiasts who might be secretly getting off on it.
So all these fruits and vegetables are knocked off the system in favour of less arousing tubers and so on.

Seeing as many people these days use the supermarket (internet) as their only source of produce (information) and might not have the inclination, opportunity or awareness to visit farmers' markets (read books/newspapers or listen to radio stations) or are worried that produce (inforrrrrrmation!) from specialist stores might be out-of-date or dangerous to their health (if it isn't on the internet it might be behind the times or *gasp* biased!) the consumer is - to summarise - screwed.

I'll drop the metaphor to conclude lest I write any more torturously long sentences but my point is this:

No, of course I'm not advocating the availability of child pornography or pornographic material that is composed of the real-life assault of unwilling participants. That material infringes human rights and is rightly illegal.

But on the other hand, whilst I'm not personally interested in many varieties of legally produced pornography performed by consenting adults that cater to people with specific tastes that doesn't mean that I think it should be made inaccessible to the adults who do find it arousing if it is used in private with other consenting adults.

I do not think the government should be allowed to block access to websites discussing the ethics of euthanasia or even instructions and advice on how to help administer or self-administer euthanasia just because it isn't legal in this country and/or the legislators find the concept personally reprehensible.

I do not think a government should be able to have a secret list of banned material, or that the only criterion offered for a site being added to this list is that the material is 'distasteful'.
Who gets to decide?
What do they think will happen if the general public has access to this material?

The internet is a vast and sprawling cluster-hug* of data, some of which I never EVER want to see, but I do not under any circumstances want the government to tell me that I'm not ALLOWED to see it.
If the material is illegal or criminal then they have ability to prosecute, to contact the ISPs concerned and have the websites shut down.
Anything else is censorship which implies that people aren't intelligent enough to be capable of distinguishing reality from recreational fantasy or to make their own judgements on the validity of information presented to them or their own decisions concerning how to live their lives or whether/when to end them and enforces a narrow band of morality that is decided for the many by a select few.

If you're worried about the children, hold the government accountable to provide a good education system, adequate funding for hospitals and GP training and actually spend some time with the new people you saw fit to bring into the world.
Make some personal effort to make sure the world you're leaving them is a better place than when you entered it.
Don't expect the government to do it for you and for the love of all that is, don't give them an open mandate to do whatever they want under the claim that they're doing just that.


PS. I still want my goddamn hazelnut oil salad, dammit!



*Yeah, I'm still not swearing on my blog for funsies. You can now start replaying Grandpa Simpson's anecdote about tickling fluffy bunnies into their cuddle-bunkers if you so desire.

Evolution Revolution

I've never quite been able to wrap my head around why some religious folks are so dead-set against the concept of evolution.
Every time it pops up in the news cycle, causes controversy in regards to schooling or is cited as a source of conflict between community members or different communities, I get all scrunchy face-level baffled.
Why can't science and spirituality be considered together?
As if it isn't possible to believe in both the slow unfolding of the cosmos and all that follows AND a supreme being?

The spontaneous creation of a universe and a world with a fully functioning ecosystem would be an impressive display of power and has formed an important part of the Judaeo-Christian story (amongst others) but there are so many ways to look at it.

The religious texts say that God created the world in six days and the orthodox faithful refuse to accept any alternatives but consider this usage of a time-frame.
In the beginning there was no time, no temporal units in the dense new matter, who is to say how long the 'days' mentioned actually lasted? They could have each spanned millennia, hundreds of millennia, after all 'a day' is a human concept based on how long it takes one particular planet to make a full revolution as it makes its slow way around one particular star.

Some argue that insisting that life evolved from the most basic common components into gradually more complex and diverse organisms as a reaction to their environment, food stuffs and predators/competitors disrespects or denies the involvement of a deity but that doesn't have to be the case.
Why wouldn't a being of infinite wisdom and compassion also be a being of infinite curiosity?
If you've got nothing but time and a whole universe to yourself why wouldn't you nudge things and wait to see what happens next?
Why wouldn't the slow playing out of consequences be as fascinating and satisfying to a divine being as to anyone who has ever taken a chance and made something new under their own power, from artisan to scientist to chef?

At its most essential, the idea that God created the universe in order to create the Earth purely to put human beings on it seems very self-centred and egotistical on behalf of humanity, and seems to glorify humans more than their creator.
If you allow yourself to contemplate the possibility that human beings were not the intended end product of creation it doesn't automatically follow that there is no power outside ourselves and that it might not care for us.
Just because a parent doesn't know how their child will turn out, can't anticipate their exact physical characteristics or personality or future actions doesn't mean they can't rejoice at their birth and revel in their accomplishments.
Just because everything might not have sprung fully formed into being doesn't mean that its existence is not a point of wonder - consider the scope of the whole.

I'm not saying that atheists or agnostics have to believe that there is a God or a pantheon of gods.
I'm not saying religiously observant people have to accept everything that science has to offer or believe that we'll ever be able to explain everything that makes up our reality.
Just to all have a think about it and accept that whether you are looking at the universe through an analytical or spiritual lens, it is a miraculous construct.

We've come a long way as a species in the centuries since the current dominant religious dialogues were founded, we're now able to understand much more complex ideas and maybe that includes being able to grasp a more intricate explanation of existence no matter how you're framing it.

To the religious: Give God credit for possibly being a more inquisitive and creative being and for the creation story we began with maybe being the most complicated explanation fallible human beings were capable of dealing with at the time.

To the scientific: Seeing as even our best guesses concerning the beginning of the universe essentially boil down to 'there was nothing and then it blew up' try not to discount or dismiss other people's beliefs out of hand even if you don't share them.

To everyone: The fact that we exist at all is pretty freaking amazing, enjoy it and if you hold your beliefs dear then you shouldn't worry or feel threatened when other people don't share them as long as nobody tries to force you to accept their view against your will. Allow everyone the chance to make up their own minds on the matter.

For myself, well, as Nick Cave says, "I don't believe in an interventionist God, but I know darlin' that [some of] you do..."
Doesn't mean we can't all get along and acknowledge that no matter how it came into being, the universe is a mind-boggling and marvellous thing.

The discovery that the sun revolves around the Earth instead of vice versa didn't cause the Earth to be rent asunder, scientific discovery need not be seen as a reductive or destructive force.
With everything new we learn, it increases not decreases our ability to appreciate and marvel at the intricacy of our wider environment and of our own physical beings.
That has to count for something.



Disclaimer time: I was raised in an Irish-Italian family which, whilst fairly laid back about observing religion and very tolerant of all religious and non-religious views, allowed me a front seat view on Catholic dogma and communities.
I tell you this so that if you read this and feel that my soul might need saving or think that I would benefit from a deeper knowledge of Christianity you can rest easy that I am fairly familiar with the material. Please do not try to convert or convince me as I'll not be changing my views for any reasons that are not my own.
I also tell you this so that if you read this and you are non-religious or follow a religion not encompassed by this post you don't feel that I am trying to convert you, disrespect your beliefs or lecture you. My own beliefs are a composite of many strains of both scientific and spiritual discussion and I won't be turning this blog into any form of evangelical podium.
I am at heart a bit of a hippie who believes that as long as you do no harm to others as far as this is possible and do what you can to lead a fulfilling life and live up to your full potential that whatever you believe is your own business.
Sorry for the big rambling explanation but seeing as I don't usually cover topics quite so contentious here I thought I should make sure I made myself clear.
In the event any insulting or close-minded comments appear rest assured they'll disappear shortly after.