Rosiel

I've been having kind of a bad week and today I was in a jam (self-induced...I should plan my homework better) and was out of paper for my printer. I headed off to the library computer lab to print, but as I passed the lab here in the dorm, I noticed the light was on and the door was unlocked. Normally it wouldn't be open that early, but according to the front desk lady, maintanence had been in there and neglected to lock the door. When I tried to log into the network, my password didn't work (damn) but I found a stack of blank paper next to the printer and just took some back to my room and printed from there. Later on, I stopped to get some M&Ms out of the snack machine and got a free bag when another one fell out.

I guess if I was religious, I'd attribute these little fortunate instances to Jebus or something, but this afternoon I decided that it was just the universe maintaing balance...I had a shitty couple of days at school, so it tossed me some free M&Ms.

edit: woo....typos

[ September 25, 2002: Message edited by: Rosiel ]</p>

MadMordigan

Its puzzling. Both those situations are unlikely, but they both rely on the same variable. There can only be one explaination. It must be human error.

Rosiel

Hm...yes, both fortune and misfortune this week was caused by human error. In the case of the bad, it was my own fault for not planning better, and in the case of the good, it was the maintenence guys and the snack machine stocker that messed up and I just took advantage of them. The person in front of me at the snack machine even made an error, since they could have picked the the one that had 2 bags in one slot if they had noticed it.

Maybe next time something looks like random chance I'll see if I can trace it back to the guy who screwed up.

sakrilege

I used to be religious and I would attribute good things to god. But now I'm not religious and the same good things happen to me anyway.


I think it has more to do with being middle class white in the USA. I fit into general society as I'm a middle of the road kind of mentality. I help support an infrastructure (at least with tax dollars) that in turn supports me.


Of course, this doesn't explain the M&Ms.

Susan

galiel

Same mystical superstitious mumbo jumbo. All you did was replace the anthropomorphic "god" with an equally purposeful but ever-more-hip "universe". As long as one looks for a sentient guiding hand behind everything, one is still an irrational egocentric (in the sense of thinking inanimate things and natural processes revolve around one) theist.

There is no rational reason to believe your "little lucky breaks" were anything other than chance.

Yes, I know the post was quasi-humorous, but too many people do still imagine a new-agey world that responds to their personal wishful thinking, in contradiction to all scientific evidence, and yet they consider themselves rational just because they aren't montheistic.

lisarea

It can be tempting to believe in supernatural explanations for stuff like this. I know. I find myself thinking that way sometimes, too. I'll occasionally find myself feeling vilified or cursed by the fates, depending on circumstances. If I'm playing Solitaire on my PDA, I hate having to quit while I'm losing, lest that 'losing' curse follow me around in the form of some kind of black cartoon cloud.

But if you think about the sheer volume of things that happen to you every single day, it's a little less weird. Kajillions of events every single day. Of course there will be random little instances of order tucked in among the chaos, and the human brain is attracted to order and patterns, so you'll notice that stuff.

It seems relatively harmless on the face of it, but stuff like this can exacerbate obsessive compulsive disorders, pointless magical thinking, and various other limiting behaviors.

Besides, in a supernatural world, I'd have to believe that there was some kind of scaryass bureaucracy god that hated my guts and was smiting me all the time. I prefer the physical world, where it's just a gubmint conspiracy.

Jack the Bodiless

Of course, if the reverse had happened (the machine ate your money and your packet of M&M's got stuck), you would have sought to rectify the situation by shaking the machine or complaining to somebody. But you chose not to rectify the good break.

Therefore, if we have a limited ability to rectify bad luck, good breaks should outweigh bad ones.

Maybe there's some sort of profound atheistic philosophy of life in there. "Surf the wave of good fortune" or something.

MzNeko

No, no, no! You people have it all wrong!

Clearly, "Noshies" and "Munchies", the twin gods of snacking, have smiled upon this fortunate mortal...

MarcoPolo

If it were 'Skittles' it would have been from God. (Don't you see the commercials where Skittles come from heaven?) But since it was just M&M's, it was most likely Zeus.

MarcoPolo

(Serious reply this time)

My brother is one to give credit to god everytime something good happens.

He uses a couple to try and convince me.

One time he was 'praying' (with my other brother) that his daughter would be healed of this seasonal coughing that lasts for weeks each winter or so. She was coughing during the prayer and immediately stopped and hasn't since coughed once her name was uttered.

The other time is when he was on his way to a soccer match and his foot was hurting. He said he bent down and prayed that it stop hurting and it did.

I tried to explain that there was probably a reason for it to stop at that instant. I mean, if it was going to stop hurting at some time, it was just coincidence that it happened then. Same thing with the coughing. What if the coughing was related to her age? Maybe her immune system got stronger and just coincidentally it happened at the time he was praying?

He doesn't accept any other theory though. God did it and that's it.