So, a couple of days ago some good friends, Nick and Laura stopped by to see the baby. They visited for a while. Nick brought over a couple of cigars (I am very glad that he did not believe that this was a gift reserved for boy babies. Good on ya Nick!) and a 4-pack of Guinness. Laura brought something, I don’t know what it was, I was too focused on the stogies and beer. I know it was pink and I am sure Violet will wear whatever it was at some point. Anyhoo, after oohing and ahing over Violet we went out to lunch together and had some nice conversations. The main subject of one of our conversations was prompted by Laura who asked us if we plan to vaccinate Violet and our overall opinion on the subject. That particular conversation has led me to write this post. However, before I do, I want to talk about something else: Is there anything more of a couple activity than visiting someone’s baby? Seriously, unless you are married, no guy chooses to go see someone else’s baby that they are not related to. And even then you are only going to go if it is very very convenient.
So, it got me thinking: What activities signify that you are in a serious, most likely to get married relationship? Nick and Laura, the first part of this post is dedicated to you.
A la Jeff Foxworthy:
If you are a guy and you attend an event that has anything to do with babies, i.e., new baby, christening, baby shower, bar mitzvah, or bris … You might be in a serious relationship.
If you are at a wedding, and you are with someone and you are NOT wondering which bridesmaid or groomsmen you might be able to get with that night … You might be in a serious relationship.
If you have to set your alarm to get your girlfriend or boyfriend to the airport on time … You might be in a serious relationship.
If the boys or girls say “Let’s hit the town tonight” and your response is “Sure, but let me clear it with my partner first.” … You might be in a serious relationship.
If a HOT guy or girl walks by, and you do NOT notice (more for guys), you sir, are whipped, and … You might be in a serious relationship.
OK, now back to our regularly scheduled program. So, we were talking about vaccinations and how there is a population of people who believe that vaccinations have led to more harm than good in their children. And it got me thinking about the human need to understand the cause of something. We need to know why something happened. We especially need to know why bad things happen. Let me give you a few scenarios to illustrate this point.
If you take your car to the mechanic for an oil change and on your drive home from the mechanic your car breaks down, or you hear a knock, or something is clearly wrong, who are you going to blame?
If you are in perfect health, not a hint of sickness, and you take a trip to the hospital, and within an hour you are as sick as a dog, where did you pick up the bug?
And finally, if you have your child vaccinated, and within 24 hours of the shot your child appears different to you or is later diagnosed with autism what is to blame?
Please do not get me wrong, I have the utmost respect and love for parents raising children that have conditions that are not considered typical or are difficult to manage. My oldest son has seen his fair share of professionals to diagnose and assist us with his development. The point of this post is simple, although we need to know the cause, the cause is not always clear, and the “obvious” cause may only be obvious to us because of coincidence and our strong human desire to know the cause of an unfortunate event in our life.
We all address potential coincidences differently. For example, I believe in prayer. If I pray for someone to get better and they are miraculously healed, I will thank God. However, if you do not believe in God, you will thank modern medicine or call it a coincidence. For even I know that not all my prayers receive miraculous results, so it can be difficult to know coincidence versus Divine Intervention. If the outcome is good, divine intervention, if the outcome is bad, other explanations are needed. One must be careful, because you can not have it both ways.
In general, humans have major problems with randomness and mistakes. We hate randomness because we need to know why things happen and we will go to great lengths to connect A to B. We also hate mistakes, or more specifically, we hate accidents. Why? Because we need to blame someone or something. If it is an accident, than it is no one’s fault, and we hate that. Living in a no-fault culture is detrimental to health and well-being. Everyone and everything makes mistakes.
A while back I went to the ATM to withdrawal 20 bucks. The machine deducted 20 dollars from my account, but money did not come out. This has happened once in my life. Luckily, these machines have cameras, and I wrote a letter to the bank and the 20 dollars was placed back in my account. So you see, even machines make mistakes.
I would hate to be a doctor for this very reason. Doctors are humans, but they are expected to be perfect. How can a doctor be perfect? Yet they are expected to be, especially if it is your child. When something goes wrong during surgery, we need to blame someone. Keep in mind, neglect is different from mistake. If doctor is proven to be negligent, I get that, but I do not understand how someone can lose their job over a mistake. But if it were my kid, God forbid, I would definitely need someone or something to blame. I get it. This is why I understand why so many have blamed vaccines for autism. It also did not help that a now defunked scientific article was written about the time parents were looking for reasons for their child’s autism.
Approximately 10 out of 10,000 babies have autism, a relatively low percentage. What is the likelihood that most if not all of them were caused by vaccinations? But it can give a parent a reason, and that is important.
Let me leave with you one final example. This is an example of how our minds work and our brain will literally create an image with meaning that may not exist. In 1976, the following picture was taken on the surface of Mars.
A shape that is about two miles long near a region of Mars called Cydonia.
There was a huge uproar from the public regarding the meaning of this incredible “finding” and the evidence of life on Mars. To put the situation to rest, NASA took pictures of the exact same site again in 2001. This time with the benefit of better technology.
The picture on the right was taken in 2001. Do you still see a face?
Pictures were taken from http://www.msss.com/
We often see things that are not there. Our brain is excellent at creating reason for everything. I think a great movie to watch is The Invention of Lying (http://the-invention-of-lying.warnerbros.com/). It will give you something to think about regarding beliefs. Keep in mind, I recommend this movie as a believer in God. Nonetheless, we all want to know why things happen, but unfortunately sometimes things just happen. I don’t think everything is random, as matter of fact I think most things are not, but I do believe random plays a part in my life. I know I certainly make mistakes and sometimes accidents occur where there is no one to blame. You may like this post or not, you may agree or not, but one thing is for sure, I wrote it (Cause and Effect).
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Why is hair being disgusting so dependent on its context? It is the same hair isn’t? Fingers through someone’s hair, OK. Finding hair in your soup, not OK. I’m just saying …
Race Credit Karma: Brett's Blog 