Help expand recognition of my divinity

Thanks to my friend Randy, who emailed me these images today, for a while I felt really good. Finally! I was beginning to get a well-deserved recognition of my holiness – as befits someone, namely Me, who has preached so many sermons here at the Church of the Churchless.

Unfortunately, I let reality enter into my fantasy. Not a good idea, if you're entertaining delusions of spiritual grandeur (one of my favorite activities).

I made the mistake of Googling "church of briantology card." And damn it!, up popped a result that led me to a blogger who just had to write about his birthday, and how he got a great card that says on the front "The Church of Briantology," blah, blah, blah.

Well, that explains why the guy on the card doesn't look at all like me. Where's the beard? Where's the distinguished, graying, intelligent, charismatic, literary, sublime expression? Where's the posture of profound humility mixed with undeniable worshipability?

So it looks like I need to toot my own horn, since so far I don't even have a greeting card purely in my honor. It's time for some Church of the Churchless devotee to perform an act of service that, frankly, some visitor to this blog should have thought of on his or her own a long ago.

But it looks like the divine plan is for me to proclaim the obvious from my blogosphere mountaintop: There should be a "Brian Hines" Wikipedia entry.

I would have already written it myself, being eminently qualified to discuss my marvelous accomplishments and qualities, but Wikipedia has a hangup about autobiographical articles.

They are often biased, usually positively. People will write overly positively about themselves, and often present opinions as facts. Wikipedia aims to avoid presenting opinions as facts.

Hey, me too. If someone wants to draft a Wikipedia article about me, I'll be happy to review it and make sure that any unsupported opinions in it are converted to facts.

For example, if the draft said "Some feel that Hines has an inflated opinion of his philosophical and spiritual knowledge," I'd correct the sentence to read "Hines' writings are recognized as exceptional examples of modern scientific spirituality."

One point in my Wikipedia favor, among many, is that lots of information about me and my life is available online. Some of it even hasn't been written by me. Wikipedia says:

One thing which you can do to assist other Wikipedia editors is, if you already maintain a personal website, please ensure that any information that you want in your Wikipedia article is already on your own website. As long as it's not involving grandiose claims like, "I was the first to create this widget," or "My book was the biggest seller that year," a personal website can be used as a reference for general biographical information.

I've scanned the notability criteria (though not too closely, because I've already decided that I'm notable and don't need any inconvenient facts messing up that conclusion). Name recognition is important, and Google testifies to my preeminence among the world's Brian Hines'.

Which reminds me: Eric, another friend, recently passed on a link to The Church of Google. I already spend a lot of time worshipping there, so I'm glad to learn that one of my favorite divinities (other than Me) has been proven to be God, as I've always suspected.

Would-be "Brian Hines" article writers should feel free to email me to discuss how we can best collaborate on relieving the distress of a well-deserving man who is suffering from Wikipedia deprivation.

Fawning sycophants will receive priority attention. But since admirers in this category seem to number in the zeros, I'll consider anyone moderately capable in the English language to be well qualified (openness to editing suggestions is a must).

Comments

[Rakesh Bhasin]

Brian_card_1 and Brian_card_2 are self explanatory. No words are required. Brian has given birth to Briantology he may well be termed as braintologist (who coxes others to use their brain before venturing in to the field of spiritualism)lest they should be betrayed as he has been.

Trust you will be thanked by millions! but what about your own self, there is something missing..........It is this gap which evokes inspirational energy in you to work for others who may testify your thoughts and support you.................
Is "Help expand recognition of my divinity" a call.....?

wishing you best of everything of this world and beyond (if it exists.........ha,ha,ha....).

[william]

The Church of Google.

Interesting take on God. Without realizing it they have made a case for the intelligent design folks, their mortal enemies. Google may not be a god to me but it is the best search engine I have found. They have discovered some sound principles to make theirs the best of the best. Oh the power of learning and growth.

As Dawkins in his ignorance made the case for intelligent design with his own personally designed software to simulate natural selection and random mutation. Unless of course he wants to claim that it was not his intelligence, but random mutation that designed his software and computer hardware. Wonder if Dawkins has found a way to make those computer symbols aware of their own reality? Oh the power of beliefs.

These “enlightened” folks like Dawkins don’t spend much time talking about awareness and consciousness. hmmm wonder why. Always follow the money; how many of like mind would buy their books if they tried to explain away awareness’ and consciousness.

In Hitchens new book The God Delusion I can’t remember him even mentioning consciousness. Second thought I think he mentioned it once.

Too hard of problem I guess for these intellectual giants. But being anti religious does sell books to those intellectuals of like mind. Being duped as a child or adult can make one very hostile towards those that we feel deceived us.

It appears that like attracts like even on earth.

[william]

hey I prayed to google last night and it worked. did not get one nitpicken comment from my above post from tao or tucson.

maybe google is god??????????

tonight it is for a lottery win. go google god.

[Todd Chambers]

Well Brian,

Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia founder) was my buddy throughout high school (no shit, really), and we used to have discussions similar to those on this 'blog, and I still don't have a bio on Wikipedia. I'd like to put in a good word for you, but it's been a few years since Jimmy and I have emailed, and now he doesn't reply anymore.

[Tucson]

Not so fast, William. Check out comments under "Some Darn Good Advice".

[Brian]

Well, Todd, it isn't a matter of a "good word." It's a matter of someone writing my Widipedia article for me, because it's a no-no for me to do it myself.

Hey, I'll write yours if you'll write mine. My minor (or not so minor) problem is that I don't know the Wikipedia coding techniques, but they give you a "sandbox" to learn how to code headings, links, boldfaces, and such.

I'm only halfway serious about my desire to have to a Wikipedia "Brian Hines" article. But halfway is 50% there. I've done some notable things in my life prior to wasting my time blogging, so I really do think I qualify for Wikipedia exposure.

Brian, you're such a tease! I know your avid readers (and potential wiki-biographers), myself included, would love for you to reveal those "notable things" from your past life which make you qualify for immortality a la Wikipedia. Do tell!

(Posted anonymously for fear of being misconstrued as a fawning sycophant. Is it a mere coincidence that Monthy Python chose to name their messiah Brian?!)

[Todd Chambers]

Well, that's an interesting idea, Brian. I've never posted on Wikipedia, but there's a first time for everything, right?

Maybe you could send me some info. to get it started??

[Brian]

Anonymous (and Todd), my main pre-writing claim to fame was my participation in Oregon Health Decisions, which morphed into an American Health Decisions.

There's a good synopsis of all this here:
http://www.cpn.org/topics/health/commoregon3.html

And here's a portion of an article I wrote about American Health Decisions:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0093-0334%28198604%2916%3A2%3C5%3AHPOTTM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-M&size=LARGE&origin=JSTOR-enlargePage

I was executive director of Oregon Health Decisions and helped get similar movements in other states underway.

Our focus was twofold: (1) death with dignity and (2) allocating health care resources more wisely.

On the second front, our efforts were instrumental in getting the Oregon Health Plan started, which has been a big success.

Hundreds of thousands of Oregonians have gotten health care coverage under an innovative expansion of the Medicaid program.

Then, of course, I've written three books. But that's another story.

[Brian]

P.S. to Todd, I'd be happy to send you some Wikipedia'ish information about me, if you could send me your email address. Mine is in the email link at the top of the left sidebar. Thanks.

P.P.S. I seem to have found it in my Outlook inbox. But if you could confirm it in another email, that'd reassure me that I'm not bothering another Todd C. with my personal info.

[Todd Chambers]

Well, I now have a Wikipedia account (as well as my own 'blog), so I guess I'm ready to get started!

[Todd Chambers]

Hey Brian, I made a few improvements to your Wikipedia article (added some categories, linked from other articles so it would no longer be an "orphan" page). So, now, the pages for David Lane and Shahid Kapoor now link to your's.