Of Teacups and Teapots

 Kind of rambly entry today. Chugging my way through Kephart's book, but not blogging it. I did come across a fun little bit today that I want to share.

In his charming book The Forest, Stewart Edward White has spoken of that amusing foible, common to us all, which compels even an experienced woodsman to lug along some pet trifle that he does not need, but which he would be miserable without. The more absurd this trinket is, the more he loves it. [...]

If you have some such thing that you know you can't sleep well without, stow it religiously in your kit. It is your "medicine," your amulet against the spooks and bogies of the woods. It will dispel the koosy-oonek. (If you don't know what that means, ask an Eskimo. He may tell you that it means sorcery, witchcraft—and so, no doubt, it does to the children of nature; but to us children of guile it is the spell of that imp who hides our pipes, steals our last match, and brings rain on the just when they want to go fishing.)

No two men have the same "medicine." Mine is a porcelain teacup, minus the handle. It cost me much trouble to find one that would fit snugly inside the metal cup in which I brew my tea. Many's the time it has all but slipped from my fingers and dropped upon a rock; many's the gibe I have suffered for its dear sake. But I do love it. Hot indeed must be the sun, tangled the trail and weary the miles, before I for- sake thee, O my frail, cool-lipped, but ardent teacup!

 I've always liked the idea of having some kind of little trinket you carried with you. A lucky charm or whatever. Never really found one that clicked with me. I think the closest for me would be a Swiss Army Knife, but I actually use that all the time, so not the same idea.

That got me kind of thinking about Russell's teapot, but I couldn't remember the name of it, so I searched for "Teacup God" and found this story.

Short version, a talking teapot talks about all the ways it was tortured to go from clay to a teacup. It doesn't really align with the Bible verse it's supposed to go with Jeremiah 18, which is about fixing mistakes, but whatever.

I switched to "Space Teapot" and got Russel's Teapot:

I ought to call myself an agnostic; but, for all practical purposes, I am an atheist. I do not think the existence of the Christian God any more probable than the existence of the Gods of Olympus or Valhalla. To take another illustration: nobody can prove that there is not between the Earth and Mars a china teapot revolving in an elliptical orbit, but nobody thinks this sufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice. I think the Christian God just as unlikely.

I personally think the second sentence form of the "teapot argument" is the most interesting. Not only do we have no more or less evidence of (Christian) God than we do of the teapot, but we have no more or less for God than we do Thor, Aphrodite, or Shiva. "Where did the universe come from?" is a big, scary, unknowable question. If somehow I found out tomorrow that it was created by some kind of intelligent, powerful being, I think I'd go, "Huh." A lot of people think that, and it doesn't feel that ridiculous. (You then have to get into the question of who/what made "god" but that's its own issue) On the other hand, finding out that one specific religion (and even one specific sect, denomination, etc.) I'd be pretty flabbergasted.