Rainbows of his Mind
My interest is captivated by this item from Mike Tidmus [source ; his post has the links]:
San Diego’s least meteorologically-inclined Christian, James Hartline, claims an airplane was struck by lightning because it flew through a rainbow — the universal symbol of gay and lesbian rights. That offense, apparently, pissed off Hartline’s god. Tweets San Diego’s Most Oppressed Christian™: “Video captures plane being struck by lightning as it flew through rainbow during catastrophic storm in San Diego. http://bit.ly/ewQxO6.”
It's fascinating because rainbows, while they have an objective physical existence, are not tangible objects. They are optical phenomena created by sunlight refracting through a mist of water droplets and creating the image of a rainbow in the eye of observers located in the right spot to see it. The rainbow is a personal thing, created for everyone who sees it, although it indeed has an objective existence that can be measured by instruments and photographed by cameras. Nevertheless, there is no physical rainbow that one can locate in space, there is no physical rainbow that one can touch, there is no physical rainbow at the end of which one will ever find a pot of gold–but it makes a fine metaphor for the futility of such a financial quest.
In particular, there is no physical rainbow that an airplane can fly through even if it were miraculously ordained by Mr. Hartline's invisible friend. It is of course possible that a video camera might see an airplane appear to fly through a rainbow and be struck by lightning, but it would be a very personal revelation for that videographer since someone standing nearby could watch the airplane fly comfortably past the rainbow.
Still other observers standing elsewhere would be in the wrong place to see the rainbow but they could still observe the airplane, perhaps seeing it struck by lightning as it flew over Mr. Hartline's head. What a revelation a change in perspective can bring!
In: All, Faaabulosity, It's Only Rocket Science
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I welcome comments -- even dissent -- but I will delete without notice irrelevant, rude, psychotic, or incomprehensible comments, particularly those that I deem homophobic, unless they are amusing. The same goes for commercial comments and trackbacks. Sorry, but it's my blog and my decisions are final.
on Friday, 24 December 2010 at 23.30
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Well, I thought there were no further depths of embarrassment that my so-called fellow Christians could pull me down into, but I was wrong.
on Wednesday, 29 December 2010 at 14.59
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". . .there is no physical rainbow at the end of which one will ever find a pot of gold. . ."
Well, shoot. It's this kind of thing that gets you science guys in trouble with the rest of us. It's the same feeling of having cold, sensible water poured all over one's warm, fuzzy, Walter Mitty fantasy about buying a winning lottery ticket. You're right, of course, but still . . .
Re: San Diego’s least meteorologically-inclined Christian, what has he been smoking? Everywhere I've turned the past few days I've seen more reactionary lunacy about gays and lesbians. I await with dread and loathing the next big natural disaster in part because the usual demented suspects will blame the occurrence on gays.
Happy new year. :)