Animism: 101

  
      Those who know me or who might've heard me mention it from time to time, know that I like reptiles. I usually opt for snakes, and right now I have a Ball Python,  P. regius, which was originally a gift to a former g/f, a gift, BTW, that I was forced to repossess because when the novelty of it wore off, she began to neglect the animal. She wouldn't feed it, give it water, or clean the cage, so I have adopted this little guy(approx. 3.5. feet) and he stays in a 20 gallon aquarium. Living in my spare shower stall, I have a Short Tail Python, Python Breitensteini, which is about 7 feet long and around 40 lbs(pictured)

     Now, here's what I want everyone to know: My snakes have personalities! Not only that, but my snakes read my mind; they know my thoughts!

     You might be asking how I know this, and so, I won't make you wait another second. Here's how I know:  When I enter the spare bathroom with a live feeder rat(usually in a box or brown bag), "Thaddeus"(the short tail) sticks her head out from her hidebox. Note, I don't knock on the door, nor do I call her, whistle for her, or make hissing sounds---none of that. Yet, she knows when I have food! Isn't that amazing?

     If that's not astonishing enough, she also knows when I forget to put the locking screw back in the swinging, plexiglass door, because each and every time I do forget...voila!...she opens the door and gets out! It's really incredible, but truth be told, this ESP goes both ways, as I can telepathically communicate with Thaddeus, too. For instance, she rarely wants to be dominated(aka, touched/picked up), and in no uncertain terms, she tells me so. For instance, if I try to pick her up, I get the warning, "No, not now!", and then she strikes at me. If I reply, "Oh, come on. Just for a minute?", and pick her up anyway, she says, "Okay, have it your way!", and she sinks her teeth into my arm or hand(or one time my thigh).

     One time Thaddeus got out and wanted to play hide 'n seek. I looked for 30 minutes, but there was no sign of her. I told her, "Okay, I give up......come out, come out wherever you are!". Not a minute goes by and I hear...::rattle, rattle, rattle:: At that precise moment, my entertainment center started to wobble, and lo and behold, Thaddeus had gotten behind there and hid from me! "Great hiding place, Thaddeus", I told her. In a sassy tone, she said, "You know where I am, yes, but I'm not coming out!" I said, "What?" She replied, "You heard me, bitch, I'm not coming out until I'm ready! If you think I'm bluffin', come try to get me!". At that point I became enraged! Right then I managed to move the entertainment center away from the wall a few inches, and I grabbed her tail. "Gotcha!", I said. "Well, okay....you got me.", she said.

Now, if you are a sane person with good reasoning skills, you know that the above was a satirical piece; it was told tongue-in-cheek. Notwithstanding, there exist people who really do believe that they can communicate, telepathically, with their pets. Perhaps not snakes or lizards, but other, more appealing pets, such as a nice dog or cat.  There's actually a word for this, one that I discovered today. It's called, "Animism". Wikipedia has this to say about it.....

 Animism encompasses the belief that there is no separation between the spiritual and physical (or material) world, and souls or spirits exist, not only in humans, but also in some other animals, plants, rocks, geographic features such as mountains or rivers, or other entities of the natural environment, including thunder, wind, and shadows.

      So, again, there you have it, folks. Some people believe that (some) animals (as well as humans) have a "soul", aka, "spirit" - or to steer away from nebulous "metaphysical" jargon since proponents offer no coherent definition of either of those "things", or more appropriately, non-things(aka, nothing?) - some people believe that (some) animals have a "mind", intact with a *"personality".

*I am not going to go back 'n forth with anyone who feels compelled to argue that certain animals have behaviors/habits that seem to be unique to them. I already know and concede this. And it should be no wonder why, the more intelligent the animal, the more extroverted the "personality". But again, for another discussion.

 A bit of background:  Snakes have a brain roughly the size of a pea. Seriously, they are dumber than dirt.

 That said, let's apply a nice dose of reason and logic to the above satire:

• The more likely explanation for when/if I enter the bathroom and Thaddeus seemingly knows I have a rat, is that, while snakes do not have external ears, they feel vibrations and have an extremely good sense of smell, using their tongue. IOW, when I enter the bathroom, the snake feels the vibrations and knows I've entered. However, the snake, because it is reclusive, has no reason to come out of the hide box just because I enter the bathroom. So, how does the snake seemingly know when I've entered with food? Here's how: she SMELLS it. 

•  The more likely explanation for how Thaddeus seemingly knows when I've left the locking screw off, it that, she doesn't know any such thing. She slithers around the cage at night, and being 40 lbs, if she presses against the door and it's not locked, it opens and she escapes. This could happen the very same night I forget the screw, or it could be a week later. Now that I've provided that information, the notion that the snake "knew" each time I left the screw out and subsequently got out each time, disappears. IOW, I withheld details to make my story look more believable.

•  The more likely explanation for how I know that Thaddeus doesn't want to be dominated(held, touched, picked up), is my experience with snakes and knowing when they "posture". Their pupils dilate, they raise up the 1st third of their body, and they "freeze". This indicates(IOW, the snake is "communicating", but not with ESP) that if I mess with the snake, I WILL get tagged. A natural response; nothing "supernatural".

• The more likely explanation for Thaddeus playing "hide 'n seek" is that I forgot the locking screw, she rubbed up against the door, opening it, thus, escaping and slithering around the house and winding up behind the entertainment center. In fact, she likes to hide in dark places. It is a snake's nature to hide when not feeding.

 So, it's easy to see how we can trick ourselves into thinking that animal behavior, much of it based on habits and patterns, is more than what it actually is. Much of what contributes to this mindset, is, confirmation bias, patterns and pattern-seeking, and last but not least, group-think bullshit.

Thaddeus says, "Tanks for reading!.....Ssssssssss!"

Faith: Under the Microscope Again

          More and more I become disappointed with some of the things I see on a popular networking site. A good, long-time friend was recently talking about how her young daughter was to have a minor surgery to have some lymphoid tissue, aka, "tonsils", removed from the throat. While I don't know the specifics..e.g..why the tonsils needed to come out, I can make an educated guess that, since said tissue is prone to infection/inflammation, aka, "tonsillitis", surgical removal was recommended.  I had my tonsils successfully removed at age 3 or 4. So much for the "perfect human body" that the "Perfect Creator" created, eh? But that's for another discussion. For now, I want to focus on a paragraph-long written "prayer", but not because this person wrote the prayer, but because of what was not mentioned in the prayer. But first, it is perfectly natural for parents to do whatever it takes to give them comfort when it comes to their kids. If one is raised in a religious household, chances are, one will pray for whichever "God" they believe in to watch over their kids. Fine; no problem. The part that kind of sticks in my craw is when the doctors are not mentioned. There's "God (this)"; "Lord (that)", but the people who go to school for 8 years or more to learn how to treat and many times save these people's children's lives? These people don't even get considered in part of the equation, and if they do, it's "God" working through them. Well, no, actually it's not. If "God" was working through people to save other people, then we could yank a third grader out of class, dress them in scrubs, march them into an open heart surgery in progress, say a "prayer", and the child could save the patient by "God" working through them. But that - a true "miracle", by the way - will never happen and there's a good reason that this will never happen.

While "faith" can be good for providing comfort to people, it has its draw-backs, too, and one of those is that the people who are actually, physically present and doing the work, are overlooked. In extreme cases, people put their "faith" in "faith healers" and other quack-science alternatives. In even more extreme cases, people put their "faith" in "God", exclusively. IOW, they opt out of any other medical treatment, taking the position, "If God doesn't heal my son/daughter, then it wasn't meant to be and I accept God's Will". The latter example of "faith" is appalling and it amounts to homicide in cases where the subject dies. And IMO, the parent(s) should be charged accordingly.

Time and time again when people are healed, the proven(key) common denominator is hands-on, physical treatments often times in conjunction with proven(again, key) modern medicine. There is not one scrap of objective evidence that unseen forces are at work.