A few hours in May

2008-06-23T09:17:00.000-07:00

The first post on a blog is normally an introductory post. A how are ya, how you doin kind of hand shake that announces your arrival on the blogospheric intertubalar information superhighway world wide web. You talk about your likes, your dislikes, your family, your Alma mater, how you got your start. I'm guessing that the two of you that have found this blog know exactly what I'm talking about. I'm going to start off by talking about atheism, religion, philosophy, and Baseball.

One of the things I've tried to do with my life is to inform people. Its a noble, pointless occupation, something akin to tilting at windmills. People who are improperly informed and don't wish to be are usually quite capable of informing themselves through other more reputable sources than I. People who are happy with mis-information have no actual interest in becoming informed at all. Its kind of like a war on the weather patterns, you can fight the tornado season on the Great Plains as much as you want, but the only ways to win are to live with it or move.

One of the more annoying arguments I have with people is about whether or not Atheism is a religion. They state arguments about proving the non-existence of god and what not, but that actually is arguing around the point. Here's the definition of religion, courtesy of the American Heritage Dictionary:
1. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as
creator and governor of the universe.
2. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
The key being worship. One cannot worship the lack of something. You can worship nothing, but that's something else. Therefore atheism is not a religion. Its a belief of sorts, if disbelief can be a belief (I don't believe is Santa Claus. Does that mean I have a belief in the lack of a Santa Claus, or that I have no belief at all? I really don't have an answer for that.)

I myself am an apathetic agnostic. I care deeply about religion, because people keep trying to hit me with it, but don't care much about whether or not there's a god (or God, or gods, or, you get the picture). My brother-in-law is what I call an undecided Christian. Not that he's undecided about Christianity, he's a believer, but not one to pick a denomination, and to that I say "good for him". He's a staunch conservative and I'm a staunch, both sides are crazy, can't we all just get along, we aren't that far apart, insane person. Believe in free trade, lightly regulated markets, and the government leaving me alone, things like that. He has tried to convince me of atheism's religiosity (is that a word? is it used properly?), and I've tried to convince him that baseball is the one true belief.

All of this leads up to the whole purpose of this blog, very few people care about atheism, religion, or philosophy unless you make them care about. Unless you push them, force them to have or give an opinion, the average person will give those things very little thought, and that's a good thing. People care about more important things, like Baseball.

Baseball is a philosophy I can live by. Hit the ball, catch the ball, throw the ball. If you can't do all three, do at least one of them as well as anyone has ever done it before. The game of baseball itself is pure (though the entities that encompass are not). Its fun, its joyful.

I took my brother-in-law to his first baseball game about a month ago. He's a resident alien from Canada by way of refugee status from the now non-existent country of Yugoslavia. He doesn't watch baseball on television, and probably had never given the game a single thought. When we walked into the new park they've opened up in DC, his top priority was to sample almost every single kind of ball park food there is (and he did). We sat amongst some of the rudest fans I've ever met, and watch a bunch of might-Be's, could-Be's, and won't-Be's take the field for the home team. The player I wanted to see most (from the city I currently call my home), didn't play that day, but I could tell that my brother-in-law was enjoying himself.

The game was well played, but unspectacular. No balls left the park in the field of play. No spectacular plays or errors. The home team pitched a shut-out, but the visitors didn't get clobbered either. Fundamental baseball at its finest, but not a game that you'd expect to convert the non-believer.

Had we'd been watching it on TV, I don't think it would register as a blip on the radar. But the ball game in person, man that's something. Its the contrast of it all, the leather glove, the wood bat, the spun ball, the dirt, the grass, all encapsulated, enclosed, and encrusted by a bowl of concrete and steel, occupied by 18,000 people whose beliefs are as divided as fair and foul. These people are mixed together by the whirlwind of fandom and divied out among a new line of beliefs that care nothing for Islam, Christianity, or Hinduism. Phillie's, Nationals, Home, Away, all terms that carry a certain power who rise up to prominence the moment one steps inside the stadium.

Its in this that Baseball represents America. Even in division, we stand united, (Americans, baseball fans), but within that single grouping, we are still divided (Democrats/Republicans, Phillie's/Nationals). There is no homogeneity. Its us and them and the definition of us and them depends on the scale.

After the game, we got crammed in with a mass of people on a subway train underneath the nation's capital. My brother-in-law regaled me with stories of a bus even more crammed full with people going through the streets of Belgrade. Despite stories of a home he left quite some time ago, he wants to become a citizen of this country more than anything. I think, that for a few hours on a spring day toward the end of May, he was.

LIFE ver 1.0 Compliant

A few hours in May