Old Mexlish Sheepuaua
Happy now, Jazz Pickles! (Happy later, too, but that comes later.) As usual of late, the following paragraphs have nothing to do with these cartoons but everything to do with the cartoonist.
I’m learning to always live in the present moment and at this present moment, I’m still learning to live without my big, fancy drawing tablet computer screen gizmo. It’s called a Cintiq22 and it’s made by a company called Wacom. It’s been ordered, packaged, addressed, and is waiting in the truck, honking the horn impatiently, I’m told. But last week’s frozen-water-from-the-sky event across half the country has delayed shipping. So I wait.
Regular readers of my blog posts may recall that recently, after 25 years of being a pretty hardcore science-based atheist, I’ve suddenly found myself on a spiritual quest. Not long ago, I gave myself permission to believe in non-scientific things—things that cannot be proved or disproved by scientific methods—and it’s been a slippery slope since then. As a result of my readings and a few (really weird) personal experiences, I no longer call myself an atheist. But, perhaps strangely, I came by this paradigm shift scientifically.
This change started in motion a few years ago when someone pointed out to me that when you limit yourself to belief only in things you can logically perceive, you’re missing most of the things on this planet and the rest of the universe. It is a hardcore scientific fact that the majority of things that are known to exist cannot be seen, felt, heard, smelled, or tasted by the naked human. Don’t believe me?
For the overwhelming majority of human existence, we had no idea the microscopic world existed, even though its creatures actually rule the planet in a way we could only dream of. The same is true of our historical ignorance of over 99% of the light spectrum because we can’t see it with the naked eye. Examples like this go on and on. If scientists had stopped looking for things they could not detect with their five senses, we’d be stuck back before Newton somewhere. (Maybe not such a bad thing but that’s a topic for another essay.)
So what logical sense does it make to outright discount anything that you can’t experience with your five (known) senses or that science has yet to discover or invent a way of measuring? If you think science has already discovered everything important and all that remains are some nerdy details, casually work that into a conversation with some actual scientists and see what kinds of faces they make.
So I decided it was more logical that anything could be true than that nothing unobservable could be true. With a more open mind, alternative ideas seem less preposterous and worth some thought. Those thoughts lead to realizations, connections, and intuitions. Those realizations beg new questions to be pondered. And so on.
One of those questions always has to be, “where did everything come from?” You might be tempted to blurt out, “the Big Bang,” but that’s not the answer. Where’d the thing that blew up come from?
Along the same lines, I ask if spontaneous generation is a logical theory for the origin of life on Earth. I used to accept that theory since smarter people than I said it was probably true. And it might still be for all I know, but I can no longer say it’s logical. We know of no life that erupts spontaneously from combining elements, as has been the predominant theory about life on earth for quite a while. Where else have we seen this happen? Nowhere. Because I think it’s not scientifically possible and if you’re talking about something that supposedly happened scientifically, it has to be scientifically possible, right?
So if it didn’t just happen, that means that something already in existence must have gotten it all started. But where did that thing come from? Crap! This can go on forever. And that’s why it’s simpler to believe in spontaneous generation.
But I still think that the idea that a force unknown to us put the universe in motion in a way that we are incapable of understanding with our mammal brains is a lot more logical than the idea that some elements on this planet, necessarily playing by the rules of science, did something that breaks the rules of science, is not known to have ever been done anywhere else, and cannot be replicated in a lab. You can’t get life from not-life is kind of an unbreakable rule of science. Yet here this planet is in all its unfathomable complexity.
Once you start having this conversation with yourself, you can’t call yourself an atheist anymore. But do you see how I got there more-or-less scientifically? I’m one of those who believe that science and spiritualism are not opposites, only different subjects with different concerns. And, in my humble opinion, both are necessary elements of a complete and meaningful human experience.
I’m enjoying learning so if you have a favorite spiritual/philosophical book or person that you’d like to recommend, I’d appreciate hearing about it in the comments. (If you want to keep it private, ask me not to post the comment and I’ll delete it after reading.)
Now let’s turn to the more serious topic of humor in graphic form. Here are this week’s Bizarro cartoons from Wayno…
It’s always good to have an extra terrestrial in case you lose one.
I’m pretty excited by that alien tank guy!
The Pickle Hub features open mic improvisational jazz every Tuesday night so be sure to stay out of the area. A much better musical hangout is Wayno’s weekly cartoon blog post in which he always features an unusual slice of pop music weirdness from the past.
I am suddenly reminded that the Bizarro Shop offers fun koozies for all your beverage needs. We also have other stuff for some of your other types of needs.
And also the harpoons you keep throwing at me.
That’s this week’s load of freshly laundered gags, Jazz Pickles. Thanks for sticking around to help us fold them. If you like what we do and that we don’t slap you in the kaschnotza every second with ads and paywalls, maybe say thanks for the chuckles via one of the links below. We’ll honk with joy.
Till next time, keep your pickle jazzy.
BIZARRO SHOP We have new stuff in the shop that’s fun and cheap!
…Signed, numbered, limited edition prints and original Bizarro panels
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