A short thought on magic and science: It doesn't WORK that way

I have a backdraft post hanging around somewhere on the subject of terminology and how it's misuse drives me nuts. I can't remember if I ever posted it or not. Ah well.

Anyway. When confronted with "Well, if magic worked, then why can't you turn me into a toad - get all A's - date the head cheerleader -whatever", my first impulse is always to sputter and try to explain, "It doesn't work like that!" The response is generally some kind of patronizing look. Hey, I never said I was terribly persuasive in argument, especially in person.

In fact, the whole exchange bears remarkable resemblance to one you can see daily on the internet between hardcore Christian fundies and science-minded types. This argument can be summed up best by the inestimable example used by too many people to count:

"If evolution is real, then why aren't we all born as monkey's, huh?"

The sound you just heard was thousands of science-minded types choking on the words "It doesn't WORK like that!" because that's the first reasonable thing that comes to mind.

And it makes the creationists look all skeptical, with a "well then, what is it good for anyway?" sort of vibe.

For me, the question of magic working in a repeatable, laboratory-style fashion is about as relevant as wondering why we don't evolve from monkeys in a single lifetime. The basic premise is wrong. You could probably find several basic premises that are wrong.

At it's heart, magic is contextual. Spells work within the universe happening at that very second, and it is not repeatedable in it's very nature. It's like asking the ocean to repeat a wave, and then saying that since they can't be repeated exactly, they don't count. There's too many factors, and most of all, there's too many factors that we don't know about and really, truly don't understand.

This is the nature of mystery. It can't be explained, or told. It has to be experienced to be understood. Magic is mysterious, science is not. And I love them both, very much - in their separate areas, thank you. :)

Blessed be,
Pennanti

Mini Replies to Inciting An Evil Riot

Finally caught up with my podcasts! I'm in the middle of the most recent Inciting a Riot now.

It occurs to me that Firelyte takes on these giant, overarching scopes, and my first impulse every time is take the precepts and boil them down to personal actions and thoughts. Not neccessarily a bad thing. So on the process of defining hurtful speech -

Isn't intention part of the prosecution system? My single criminal law class is years ago and very fuzzy, but I seem to recall there being multiple parts in deciding how a crime was prosecuted.
         The professor demonstrated it as: If you have a gun, and live in an apartment that the president passes, but no intention of killing the president, they can't prosecute attempted assassination, because you had ability but not intention. If you dance and wave your arms around your yard at midnight, trying to kill the president, they can't prosecute attempted assassination, because you had intention but no method. You've got to have a method, and an intention, for a prosecution of attempted crime.

FireLyte, feel free to correct me on this. I feel like there was a third thing in there too.

Anyway, I'd like to see this standard applied in questions of terminology, honestly. If someone calls you a scalawag, and they're a history major, the argument could be made that they had the intention, but no method. If someone calls you gay, when you prefer queer, (Or fill in whatever), and it was an honest mistake, why can't more people just say, "Hey, I prefer...whatever" because there was no intention?

Now, if you've already stated a preference, and they keep doing it, we run into the right to be offended. I'm also willing to throw in the caveat that if you can't say it on primetime, or at least not without making it clear that this is NOT the network's word, this is a QUOTE from a REPREHENSIBLE ACTION(Midget Palin Facebook, anyone?)then the offender already has fair warning that this is not a good term.

But seriously. I get called a Wiccan all the time, when I'm not, and I just shrug it off. It's not that difficult to tell the difference between "clueless" and "I hate you".

Mini-posts to continue whenever I feel like it.
Blessed Be!
Pennanti

Nanowrimo Ate My Life

It's been a while. I've been writing, just not here. :) Oh well!

I thought I'd pop out of my self-imposed seclusion briefly to mention the Podcast Awards. Oh, how I hate Hate HATE the Podcast Awards.

Here comes an avalanche of blog and pod entreaties to please vote for and nominate . Every podcast will be front-loaded with ten minutes of begging, pleading, and promoting, either themselves or others. My GoogleReader, I will probably just stop checking for a bit. After the commotion has settled down, all the podcasts and blogs will still be front-loaded; This time it will be with gratitude, along the lines of "Thank you SOOO much for participating! And listening! And voting! I love all you guys SOOO much!", which still gets annoying after about ten minutes. The only good part is, I can run down the nominee list and maybe find something new, so it's a little preferable.

Right now my husband is reading, silently agreeing, and also thinking, "Hun, you sound like some kind of misanthrope." I can dig it. Because there's something that bothers me even more than the blitz of self-promotion.

Does it bother anyone besides me that so many people treat this like some kind of referendum on paganism? Seriously, I wish everyone would just stop. Yes, there is a Religion and Spirituality category. Yes, a pagan podcast has never won, which doesn't bother me at all. Why on earth am I being entreated to vote on the idea that we need to be driving the other religions down the list? What does this accomplish?

You know what I do every year when I look at the nominee list? Silently discount the Christian, Jewish, Muslim, whatever, topics as I scan down looking for the ones that I like.

You know what a Christian, Jewish, Muslim, whatever person is going to do if "we" suddenly take the top spot, or the top three, or top ten? Silently discount the ones they aren't interested in as they scan down looking for the ones they like. Because where the 'other' religion podcasts fall on the list means something between jack and squat as far as everyone is concerned.

It's really more like they took several religion top lists and squashed them together. It's a popularity contest, and those always suck. Just sayin'. The whole masturbatory nature of shameless self-promotion just gets to me, you know? That kind of action is supposed to be private! (Unless you're in a club for that kind of thing. But you get my meaning.)

On a lighter note, it is pretty much the only time you're going to see Inciting a Riot and the Wild Hunt agreeing with each other, so that's kind of funny.

It's not that I want the Podcast Awards to stop. I think they're a great idea, and they help people find more of what they're looking for. I just want people to stop pretending that high standings means something more than "hey, people listen to my show!" Take the Wigglian Way, for example. It definitely deserves high standings.

I also, personally, can't stand listening to it. I don't know why. The topics are good, the people are definitely people I'd want to chat with over coffee or a beer. There's just something about it (too professional radio?) that I don't like. Taun-taun likes it, though.

On the flip side, I enjoy listening to PCP, which Taun-taun once described as "I'd rather stab a pencil into my ear drum". So I listen to one, he listens to the other, and we give each other the cliff notes for anything interesting that comes up. And neither of these opinions means squat for the actual quality of the show. Such is the nature of popularity contests.

Back to fiction!
Blessed Be,
Pennanti