It was meant to be, I guess.
Being guided by a higher power, the Soccer God, referred to as the Football God by parts of the world other than the United States who don't recognize that if God wanted everyone to worship her as the patron saint of football, she wouldn't have created the genuine sport of football in my country.
Anyway, I must be viewed with special favor by the Soccer God, since just before turning our television off last night after watching the 11 pm news from Portland, a thought burst unbidden into my mind: "Thou shalt record the World Cup final match between Argentina and France."
Well, actually there was no thou shalt in that thought. But my tale sounds more impressive with those words substituted for "Hey, dude..."
Earlier in the day I'd considered recording the match. But since it was going to start at 7 am Pacific time, and I don't get up anywhere close to that early in my retired life, I figured that by the time I watched the recording, I would have known the outcome.
Plus -- and forgive me, Soccer God, for I have sinned against you -- I've never been all that interested in soccer. I described my viewing approach back in 2010 in "My tips for watching World Cup soccer."
(1) Record the event.
(2) Press "Play."
(3) Then -- this is really important, because life is short and you don't want to waste it on meaningless stuff -- immediately press the fast forward button repeatedly until it is at the fastest speed where the score being shown is still readable.
(4) Wait a while until you see the score has changed. Could be a long while, even at fast forwarding speed.
(5) Press "Play."
(6) Rewind/go back to fifteen seconds or so before the goal was scored.
(7) Watch the goal. Say "Nice, "Cool," "Crappy goalkeeping," or whatever else pops into your head.
(8) Repeat 3 through 7 until the game is over.
(9) Turn the TV off, content that you've watched hockey or soccer in the most efficient and enjoyable fashion if you're part of the 99% of humanity (in the United States, at least) who couldn't care less about the sport but sometimes want to act like they do, sort of.
Today, though, I woke up around 7:30 am to go the bathroom and, as suspected, noted a news alert on my iPhone that Argentina was leading France 2-0. That's like 63-0 in football terms.
So when I woke up again after getting back to sleep and saw that France had scored two goals near the end of regulation and the match was going to extra time, I rushed to turn the television on and, for maybe the first time in my life, watch a soccer match live.
OK, part of a soccer match. But this was a major conversion for me. By no means had I joined the Soccer Religion that so many people in the world worship, but I'd taken a small step toward being baptized into it.
A revered holy man, Argentina's Lionel Messi, was a main reason why. I'd seen highlight videos of some amazing Messi performances in previous World Cup matches, and read laudatory news stories about him.
Messi does seem to have a magical way about him. He makes moving with the ball (assume that isn't called dribbling, but I don't know the correct term) look so smooth and easy. Yet he leaves defenders clutching at where he isn't, not where he is.
Not quite walking on water miracle stuff.
Close enough for me to become a worshipful fan, though, given my almost complete lack of experience with anything involving a soccer ball. I also liked the fact that reportedly Messi walks much of the time during a match, running only when necessary. And that while walking around he's visualizing where the defenders might be at some point, and how he'd respond if they ended up there.
That struck me as pleasingly meditative. Or at least mindful.
Anyway, the end of the Argentina-France match was a delight to watch. Really exciting, with each team scoring a goal in the extra time to keep the match a 3-3 tie. That meant the outcome would be determined by penalty kicks.
I enjoy penalty kicks, though I'm largely clueless about the strategy used by the goalkeeper and the kicker. Each player apparently tries to guess, or surmise, what the other will do.
Which gets complicated when a player thinks things like, "The goalkeeper probably thinks that I'll kick the ball in a different location than I did last time, so I should kick the ball in the same way, except maybe the goalkeeper thinks that I'll think he's thinking that, so I should kick the ball in a different location."
Watching Messi take the first penalty kick for Argentina, he made it look much easier than it must be. But that's the magic of Messi. He's like a Zen master of soccer. You don't really know how he plays so effortlessly with such great results.
You just marvel at his blessed soccer skill. Along with the entire country of Argentina, and countless other fans around the world, since Argentina kicked France's ass in the penalty kicks, to use an American expression, giving Messi his first World Cup title.
Fitting, since I believe this was his last World Cup.
Back to basics: our faithless faith and commenting policies
It never hurts to return to the basics. So in this easy-to-write post I'm going to copy in one of the first posts I wrote after I started this blog in 2004, "Our Creedless Creed," plus this blog's commenting policies.
Regarding the latter, note that comments are supposed to stick to the subject matter of a post. I'm flexible about this, but today two commenters (UM and Nimfa) engaged in an almost entirely irrelevant series of eleven chat comments on a post about the RSSB guru's authoritarianism.
That's unacceptable.
As you can read in the commenting policies, off-topic comment conversations should go in an Open Thread, which I call "free speech for comments." When people read a blog post, a newspaper story, or such, then click on the comments, they expect to find comments about the subject that's been written about.
Hijacking comments for purely personal purposes is a form of spam. Again, I'm fine with an occasional off-topic comment, and admit that I haven't been consistent in enforcing this rule, but don't be surprised if your comment is deleted if it doesn't pertain to the topic of a blog post.
Here's Our Creedless Creed. It's in the category of "Basics of our faithless faith." I'm impressed that after 18 years of blogging, during which I've become steadily more atheistic, there's nothing that I would change in the creedless creed other than the last item. Currently I don't think it is likely that death provides any final answers.
If you think that any of these statements are inaccurate, make your case in a comment on this post. That will be totally on-topic! I'll add numbers to the items to make it easier to comment on them.
UPDATE: I decided to add "any possible" before "immaterial reality" to make clear that currently there is no evidence of an immaterial reality separate from our universe. And I added "may" in the final item of the creed to make clear that if consciousness ends with death, as is very likely, getting any answer after death is low probability but still possible.
Our Creedless Creed
Note: to make this Creed more readable, some qualifiers have been omitted. So "God" signifies God/ultimate reality/final truth, not just a personal divinity. And "religion" signifies religion/spiritual path/philosophy, not just a mainstream theology.
(1) There is no objective proof that any religion knows the truth about God. If there were such proof, most people on Earth would have converted to that faith long ago and all scientists would be believers.
(2) Spirituality thus is an individual affair. Proof of any metaphysical realities that exist will be subjective, not demonstrable to others.
(3) Every person has the right to pursue their own spiritual quest without interference, so long as he or she doesn't interfere with the rights of others.
(4) Since the veracity of each and every religion is unprovable, equally unprovable are the moral and ethical tenets derived from any and all religious teachings.
(5) Thus morality also is an individual affair. There are no absolute laws of right and wrong as there are absolute laws of physics. Subjectivity rules in ethics.
(6) Individual ethical decisions may be formed into a collective codification of societal norms, or laws. These are purely human, not divine.
(7) Science is the surest means of finding truth. Theory, experiment, analysis of data: such are the tools of science, whether directed toward knowing material or any possible immaterial reality.
(8) Religious teachings are hypotheses to be confirmed through individual research. As such, they must not be taken as gospel truth by adherents of a particular faith.
(9) Religious doubters, skeptics, and heretics should be honored for their efforts to assure that unproven assertions about God are not put forward as solid truth.
(10) Every adherent of a particular religion should say to himself or herself, "I could be wrong." If he or she won't do this, other people can say it for them: "You could be wrong."
(11) This creedless creed of the Church of the Churchless also could be wrong. It needs to be reexamined and revised regularly.
(12) Death may provide the final answers (if only momentarily). The spiritual quest is to get answers ahead of time. But the big question is, "What are the questions?"
And here's this blog's commenting policies.
You're welcome -- even more, encouraged -- to leave comments on Church of the Churchless posts. Some of the most interesting writing on this blog comes from other people, not me, Brian the Blogger.
All I ask is that comments be in accord with the following policies. Otherwise a comment probably will be deleted or edited.
(1) No personal attacks on me or other commenters. Challenge the message, not the messenger. Best: You're wrong, because... Semi-OK: You're a fool, because... Not-OK: You're a fool.
(2) No extreme obscenity. Write as if you were in a congenial coffeehouse discussion group, not a high school locker room after your team lost the game in the final seconds. Mild swear words are fine. But goddamn it, don't go over the top.
(3) No rants about the uselessness of this blog. If you're a religious believer, I can understand why this blog could make you angry. Solution: don't read it. If you need to vent, leave a comment on my "I Hate Church of the Churchless" anti-site, not here.
(4) No commercial or religious spam. Advertising, in a comment or a URL, obviously isn't acceptable. Neither are lengthy quotations from a religious scripture, or preachiness. See #5 below.
(5) No irrelevant comments. Please stick to the subject matter of a post in your comment. If you want to talk about something else, leave your comment in an Open Thread, email me with a blog post suggestion, or use the Google search box in the right sidebar to find a previous post on this blog concerning your "something else." (Note: Open Thread comments also should adhere to the policies above.)
(6) No trolling. On the Internet a "troll" is someone who tries to disrupt normal discussions through various annoying behaviors. Here's some ways to recognize a troll. Best response to them: no response. Their sad lives thrive on attention, so ignore them.
(7) No false "facts" about critical issues. As the saying goes, everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts. This applies to this blog, especially about COVID-19 and other critical issues. Blatantly false comments won't be published if they're about life and death or other critical topics such as global warming.
Lastly, one of my pet peeves is how uncourteously many people behave on the Internet. "Flame wars" aren't productive, so try to keep your cool if you disagree with what somebody has said.
I agree with Wikipedia's take on Flaming:
Posted at 09:17 PM in Comments, Miscellaneous | Permalink | Comments (8)