A Likeness of Differences

On my birthday I heard of a practice, or lack there of, that certain religions, or maybe just a cult of an even larger cult does not celebrate birthdays. I had to ask why. It seemed silly to me that in a world where birthdays are practically universally celebrated a certain group would choose not to do that. I was told because it was a celebration, or acknowledgment, of someone lesser than God. That's fine. As I don't believe in God, I don't really have to worry about such trifle matters. But to those who do believe in God, more specifically those who choose not to acknowledge beings before God, I think those folks are going about that practice in the wrong way.

They have a good start. But if celebrating a birthday is blasphemous because it recognizes someone before God, these people might as well go all the way with that belief. They should be just absolute complete pricks about it. They should not even say "Hello" to people upon seeing them as that is an acknowledgment, or greeting, of a being other than God. They should just pass silently through our "lesser" world, ignore us, go to church and die. It would make my life easier as they wouldn't try to convert me, or even have me be aware of their delusional beliefs.

I was thinking the other day about Dante's "Inferno." If you haven't read it, you should. "The Inferno" is a satire of sorts of modern day politics. It's hard to get a grip on the humor 700 years after the fact, but one of the things Dante writes about is how alchemists are in Hell for various reasons. Part of the reason is they try to turn various metals to gold, which is against nature. I'm not sure if it's alchemists or some other profession of that day, but people who predict the future are in Hell. Their specific punishment is their heads are on backwards in Hell as punishment as always trying to see forward in time. They can only see what's behind them, not in front of them. (you may see where the humor comes in at this point).

I was wondering if modern meteorologists, according to "The Inferno," are destined to Hell for the same reason. You may recall a previous blog of mine about weathermen. If Dante is right, I certainly have no problem with this. My reasoning is that weathermen predict the future. They may not prophesize about major political events to come but they do predict the future. A friend of mine disagreed with me. He said they gather scientific evidence to evaluate the most probable weather pattern. I wondered how that is not a prediction. I asked him how he would define "prediction" and he replied, "not in the way I responded." Naturally I disagreed. It seems to me if someone estimates an outcome that has not yet happened, then that is a prediction. Regardless of how you came about the estimation, or outcome, if it pertains to something possibly happening in the future it is a prediction.

Marriam-Webster defines "Predict" as: "to declare or indicate in advance; especially : foretell on the basis of observation, experience, or scientific reason.

I feel I have made my case to the world. I would enjoy seeing how a response to that would be formulated.