From Portland

 Hi Gang

I arrived yesterday, by Amtrak.   Good ride, uneventful, scenic, $150 round-trip.  I read my Kindle (Economist and NYT), and got a bagel with cream cheese, weird puffs, and a bottle of tea.  I got a Subway sandwich before I left (turkey, bacon, and avocado wrap; provolone, mustard and mayonnaise, all the veggies, except the peppercinis), with a bag of chips.   Babak from Iran in a bmw was my Uber to the Emeryville train station ($10 plus tip).   Pierre picked me up at Union Station (in his Leaf).  Dinner was kebabs, from a restaurant.   Augie likes the frisbee, Hugo is still too small for the Nerf blaster, Sara and Pierre got 3 books (P doesn't know the author Neil Gaiman -yet).   I also gave them handmade soaps and the photocopied list of 10,001 songs from my 1001 Book ("you must hear before you die"), and a print-out of my blog entry on S+P.  I brought Grayling's History of Philosophy to read, myself.  Augie didn't recognize me, when we picked him up at school (I'm fatter, and have a beard, unlike last year).  It's raining here, today. 

Megan is still their sitter.   She's taken courses in philosophy; She likes Foucault and Continental.  I gave her my card, again.  Anyway, Pierre shared a weird link he found online with me, about God.  Apparently, someone tallied all the deaths (by God) in the Bible, and the number comes to 2,821,364.   Thou shalt not kill?  Do as I say, not as I do?  God, the hypocrite.  So it's not that hard, really, to be "better than God."  It's at 

https://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com

specifically,

https://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2010/04/drunk-with-blood-gods-killings-in-bible.html

Pierre said God was evil, and Jesus wasn't all that bad, by comparison.  I'm not sure if he's ever seen my blog.  Sara asked if I was an atheist.   I said, basically yes (because you are probably defining Him as Creator of the Universe, hearer of prayer, etc.).  Sara called Pierre and I Satanists (not sure if she was being serious).  I don't think the biblical murder tally includes Samson's thousand, with the jawbone of an ass.   I also mentioned how the Bible was written by like 40 people, so if the Bible was written by God (a trinity?), you need to add 37 more Gods, you might say.  I also, over dinner, mentioned how my brother Greg likes the Adidam phrase, "Reality is all the God there ever is", which is pantheism, and how that basically makes the concept of God meaningless, because then Evil, which is a part of reality, must therefore be good (or, said differently, there is no evil).  God is also defined as The Source of All Goodness, so if it's good, it's God, by definition, just like all evil from the devil - it's in the words themselves (and maybe God is just a word, "good without an O").  "Lord/God" both end in D, and both have "or" in the middle of them ('Or', in spanish, is o).   Like, say, the devil, or David... and the 41,477 (?) words that begin with D in English.  (8535 (?) English words begin with L).   The book of Numbers is the 4th book of the OT.   I'm not an atheist in that I believe in myself, and I'm not a satanist, either,  because I don't believe I'm evil or believe in a deity called Satan or devil, or Angra Mainyu or Ahriman (or Cthulhu, or whatever).

Lord, life or death, love or depravity, laughter or despair, etc.  God, good orderly direction. etc.

Different strokes for different folks, one man's garbage is another's treasure, to each his own, marching to the beat of different drummers, and you do you, I'll do me.   All-1?