Just a few random notes that came to mind today.<\/p>\n
First off, the passing of comedian George Carlin<\/a>. I wasn’t a huge fan of his. A lot of his humor stemmed from the ubiquitous striving among comedians to be the “dirtiest”, the most outrageous, and the most ribald joke teller. But Carlin was one of the wittier ones. He could also work into his routine a delightful, almost innocent weirdness. So it was with some regret on driving to work this morning that I recalled, after some inner confusion about the issue, that I never did see him live. I almost did. He did a show at my college (New Jersey Institute of Tech) back when I was a sophomore, right about this time of year. I wanted to go, but it turned out to have been on the night before a final exam in an important course. So I stayed home and studied. And I don’t regret it. What did upset me was that for a minute or so today, I DID think that I had seen him. It took some effort to break thru the early morning fog in my mind as I was waiting at a traffic light in Newark, listening to “Morning Edition” on NPR. <\/p>\n Second. I found out today that the Roman Catholic priest who baptized me<\/a> had passed away earlier this month. I never knew Father Ed as a child, as he left my home parish while I was still a toddler. But thru some odd coincidences, I got to meet him about 16 years ago. He seemed a bit upset about the fact that I had moved over to the Anglican side of Christianity. Perhaps he would have been even more upset had he known that I would later give up all forms of organized religion. But that never meant that I don’t take seriously the ideas and ideals of theology and faith. And today we found out that at least 1 in 5 atheists also do so! (I.e., the just-released Pew Forum’s Religious Landscape Survey<\/a> indicates that 21% of those who call themselves ‘atheists’ also claim to believe in God).<\/p>\n