Reflections From a Murky Pond

The God of the Abrahamic sects has a pretty bad reputation for being a stern and humorless diety.

Yahweh Isn’t Always Stern And Humorless

As you can see though, He will have His little jokes. 😆

I pulled these off of eFitna.com, the Muslim version of the Christian-centric eHarmony.com. Much like normal women, Muslimas are looking for husbands online these days.

Muslimas Looking For Love…And Camels

Of course, given the rampant illiteracy among Muslims and certain proclivities among their males, I’m not sure how well this site or these ads will benefit these females – which is probably for the best as far as the people of the world are concerned. 😆

Riddle me this; how many of each of the more common types of Pagans does it respectively take to change a light bulb?

Q: How many Gardnerians does it take to change a light bulb?
A: (In a low, ominous tone) “Why do you want to know… initiate?”

Q: How many Alexandrines does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Unknown. They will wait to watch how the Gardnerians do it to perform in the same way.

Q: How many British Tradition Wiccans does it take to change a light bulb?
A: 13. One to change the bulb, and 12 to mourn the passing of the old bulb.

Q: How many Thelemites does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None – Thelemites embrace the dark as well as the light.

Q: How many Frost “School of Wicca” Witches does it take to change a light bulb?
A: “Just you! That’s right, YOU! And for only $195 we’ll send you our complete “Witches Magic Power of Light Bulb Changing Course” with real knowledge that you can apply this to ANY light bulb ANYwhere! Listen to the testimony of a young couple from Wisconsin who…”

Q: How many IOT members does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:Sorry, that ritual is copyrighted.

Q: How many Proteans does it take to change a light bulb?
A: I can’t tell you–we never change a light bulb the same way twice!

Q: How many ADF druids does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Six. One to change the bulb, one to write a song about how much better the old bulb was, and four to write conflicting parodies of the second Druid’s song.

Q: How many Shamans does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. They just change shape into a cat or bat, and can see in the dark.

Q: How many Tantrics does it take to change a light bulb?
A: 2, as long as the lamp is by the bed…

Q: How many Ceremonial Magicians does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Only one, but he has to do it on the 3rd Friday of a month when the Moon is in Taurus and it’s the fifth planetary hour…and it’s not funny!

Q: How many Druid’s does it take to change a light bulb?
A: 501. One to change the bulb and 500 to align the new stone.

Q: How many Family Traditionalists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Candle light was good enough for our ancestors, it’s good enough for us!

Q: How many Astrologers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: “Don’t ask me now, Mercury’s retrograde!”

Q: How many Pagans does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Six. One to change it, and five to sit around complaining that light bulbs never burned out before those Christians came along.

Q: How many Witches does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Into what?

Q: How many Asatruar does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None, there is plenty of light coming from the burning monastery

Q: How many Macumba (Brazilian counterpart of Voodoo) practitioners does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Two – one babalorisha (priest) just to yell that the light bulb is burned and a Yawo (novice) to change the bulb

Q: How many Theosophists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. By the time they finish discussing whether the light bulb needs changing, the proper method in which to change the light bulb, how it might have been done historically, and how everybody else changes light bulbs, it’s already daylight.

But let us remember what is important. The light bulbs were changed – or not – and the Gods are well-pleased by their worshipers. 😉

It’s hard for people and societies to become who the God(s) intended us to be. It’s a complex process will little direct feedback. It’s also clouded by the plethora of disparate visions of just what the God(s) intended.

Becoming Who God Intended Is Hard

It seems to me that we need to make it easier for people and society to understand what leading a moral and ethical means. Rather than focusing upon what the God(s) intended us to become, people – and the world as a whole – would be better served by looking to Man’s Best Friend.

Becoming The Person Your Dog Thinks You Are Is Easier

For most people, if they concentrated on being the person that their dog already thinks that they are, almost everything else will fall into place quite naturally. Perhaps that’s even part of Natural Law, a part we’ve chosen to overlook with disturbing consistently over the last 15,000 years.

And let’s face it, there’s a solid chance that the God(s) intended each of us to be the person our dogs already think that we are.

I’ll even go so far as to posit that this may be why we have dogs. The God(s) may have provided them for just this purpose – to make it easier for us to be what we were meant to be. Of course, if this is true, then it’s equally likely that the God(s) provided cats to keep us in our place and from being too prideful. 😛

Every people have their stereotypes – beliefs about them based upon their nature, behaviors, predilections, and cultural norms. While often exagerated and always over-generalized, these stereotypes are almost always based upon a kernel of truth.

The Scots, for example, are known for frugality and miserliness and for a tendency to act the grifter when dealing with non-Scots.

And so we come to the tale of the sinful Scottish painter…

There was a Scottish house painter named Smokey Macgregor who was very interested in making a penny where he could, so he often thinned down his paint to make it go a wee bit further.

As it happened, he got away with this for some time, but eventually the Baptist Church decided to do a big restoration job on the outside of one of their biggest buildings.

Smokey put in a bid, and, because his price was so low, he got the job. So he set about erecting the scaffolding and setting up the planks, and buying the paint and, yes, I am sorry to say, thinning it down with water.

Well, Smokey was up on the scaffolding, painting away, the job nearly completed, when suddenly there was a horrendous clap of thunder, the sky opened, and the rain poured down washing the thinned paint from all over the church and knocking Smokey clear off the scaffold to land on the lawn among the gravestones, surrounded by telltale puddles of the thinned and useless paint.

Smokey was no fool. He knew this was a judgment from the Almighty, so he got down on his knees and cried: “Oh, God, Oh God, forgive me; what should I do?”

And from the thunder, a mighty voice spoke…

“Repaint! Repaint! And thin no more!

Hehe…The Scots may well be hard-headed and stubborn but a bolt from the blue is something that they’d listen to so I’m sure old Smokey lived a good life from that point on. 😆