{"id":964,"date":"2016-10-12T08:00:35","date_gmt":"2016-10-11T22:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/?p=964"},"modified":"2018-01-24T13:32:11","modified_gmt":"2018-01-24T03:32:11","slug":"maybe-its-a-sign-maybe-its-just-an-oddly-specific-facebook-algorithm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/2016\/10\/maybe-its-a-sign-maybe-its-just-an-oddly-specific-facebook-algorithm.html","title":{"rendered":"Maybe it’s a Sign, Maybe it’s Just an Oddly Specific Facebook Algorithm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

A month or so ago I was scrolling down my Facebook newsfeed, as you do when you\u2019re bored.\u00a0 A Hellenic friend had created a Facebook event which was basically divination with Hermes, I came across a thread he had made in that event which happened to be a link to my own blog post on animal sacrifice in Hellenism<\/a>.\u00a0 It\u2019s one of his favourites by me, so his sharing of it wasn\u2019t unusual in the least.\u00a0 In the comments of that thread they were talking about how animal sacrifice shouldn\u2019t include torture or any kind of harm to the animal, beyond its actual death.<\/p>\n

I scrolled on, after all I needn\u2019t have clicked the link itself, knowing the post quite well.\u00a0 Immediately below that post was another friend, who is Pagan, posting about how upset she was that people were sharing a video that showed a mouse being tortured.\u00a0 So, a thread about animals being tortured.\u00a0 Glad I didn\u2019t have to watch that video \u2013 despite my genocidal war against the mousies<\/a>, I have no desire to see them tortured \u2013 I scrolled on.<\/p>\n

Immediately below that post was another friend, not Pagan at all.\u00a0 She had shared one of those \u201cOn this day so many years ago\u201d photo memory posts.\u00a0 It was a photo of a roasted chicken.\u00a0 I say roasted, but actually it was decimated in the depths of hell by the looks of it.\u00a0 Black as blackest night.\u00a0 Another friend commented how it was \u201cA burnt offering\u201d.<\/p>\n

Three posts, by themselves not so unusual at all, coming across any of those posts would have seemed completely normal on any other day.\u00a0 But bunched all together like that, it was noteworthy to say the least.<\/p>\n

I said it to myself, \u201cI wonder if that\u2019s a sign.\u201d Then I laughed to myself and muttered, \u201cOr maybe it\u2019s just an oddly specific Facebook algorithm.\u201d<\/p>\n

I mean, it is noteworthy, but it\u2019s also on Facebook, so it\u2019s not something to take seriously, is it?\u00a0 Then again.\u00a0 The night before all of this, I had a dream that was very unusual for me.\u00a0 A dream about animal torture and death.\u00a0 Kittens to be specific, buckets full of dead kittens, blood all over the place, pools and puddles and streams of kitten blood.\u00a0 But I found one kitten, partially buried by its littermates in a bucket, still alive, crying and mewling.<\/p>\n

To be clear, I was not the kitten killer in the dream, I was quite horrified by it even in dream land.\u00a0 And I don\u2019t recall ever having such a violent sort of dream before, unless you count all the weird fire dreams \u2013 but that had nothing to do with animals.<\/p>\n

\"Maybe
Via Public Domain Pictures<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So was it a sign?\u00a0 A coincidence?\u00a0 What?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the question isn\u2019t it? And that\u2019s always the question.\u00a0 I have to be honest, I think some people take the whole \u201csigns\u201d thing just a bit too far.\u00a0 No, not everything is a bloody sign.\u00a0 And of course that weird series of posts on Facebook that happen to meld with the dream you had the night before really are a coincidence and an oddly specific Facebook algorithm.<\/p>\n

But that doesn\u2019t mean it can\u2019t be a sign as well.<\/p>\n

And that is something that has always confused me when it comes to religion and non\/anti-religion.\u00a0 On the one hand it must of course be a sign, no doubts about it \u2013 it is not a coincidence, it is not an algorithm.\u00a0 On the other hand it is definitely not a sign, there are no signs, it is only a coincidence and an algorithm.<\/p>\n

As in so many things I sit in the middle and I think, why can\u2019t it be both?<\/p>\n

The Gods are powerful, as are many other entities and beings.\u00a0 They have the power to begin a series of events that culminate in a coincidence that is also a deliberate sign.\u00a0 They have the power to bump that algorithm and make it do what They want to give us that sign.\u00a0 They have the power to make the wind blow a certain way so that all those birds act in that natural but slightly unusual way that grabs our attention and makes us go, \u201cIt\u2019s a sign!\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just these unsure signs either, but the more awesome obvious things.\u00a0 Consider John Becketts green glowing bird<\/a>.\u00a0 A rather noticeable thing, and he admits to reaching to find an explanation for what he was seeing, some mundane reason for it.\u00a0 Because that is what we do<\/a> \u2013 even when we believe deeply in the \u201csupernatural\u201d, we still reach for mundane reasons.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s okay, I think.\u00a0 Because even if we do find a mundane reason, that doesn\u2019t take away the possibility of there also being a \u201csupernatural\u201d reason.\u00a0 Let\u2019s take that green glowing bird, what could cause that.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know, I am no scientist \u2013 but let\u2019s pretend it\u2019s some kind of reaction from some chemical exposure and it made the bird glow.\u00a0 We might even be able to track the exposure, when and where the bird was exposed, we can track how the chemical got where it was when the bird found it.\u00a0 We can track it all, right to the beginning, we can even find where the scientist who spilled the chemical was conceived.<\/p>\n

So what?\u00a0 Does that really mean anything? Does it mean a God or other couldn\u2019t have still had a hand in all of it.\u00a0 To push the bird to glance down and see the food that was in the chemical that made the bird glow?\u00a0 Maybe a God was the one who made the scientist blink at just the right time to trip a little and so spill the chemical.<\/p>\n

Maybe it was just a nudge.\u00a0 Because that\u2019s all They needed to do to bring about the events that happened.\u00a0 Just a nudge.\u00a0 That\u2019s all it takes.<\/p>\n

So back to the beginning.\u00a0 Was it a sign? Or just an oddly specific Facebook algorithm?<\/p>\n

The answer is \u2013 we\u2019re\u00a0asking the wrong question.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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