Thanks, alot

Allah (allat) before Islam. Religions are not about truth. Religions are about power. And to wield real power, they need pedestrians - foot soldiers. And, like most pedestrians throughout history, these foot soldiers must believe that they hold some solid truth. It might well be bullshit, but if they believe, then that bullshit becomes a truth in which they believe with all their (diminished) mind..
What the Abrahamic religions hold in common is that their followers are taught (actually brainwashed) to believe that they were given the absolute truth when, in fact, they have been turned into pawns in a power game of the laughing powerful elite. It is somewhat more complex than just a few elite folks running a secret cabal.
प्यादा (m.) Pers. pedestrian, foot soldier, or peon/messenger

No beginning, no end.

It seems that god (or the gods) did not say "let there be light" and there was a time before beginning. So what happened is the god(s) brought two hands together and when the membranes collided, this universe was created. Those membranes or "branes" are undulating x + y dimensional strings which are probably bubbles floating in space like soap bubbles in the air. Here is an intro.

screw the math, here are some soap bubbles:

The evolution of god(s)

is really the evolution of thought processes among tribal groupings throughout the world. Anything (e.g. lightening) that could not be rationally explained was irrationally explained by attributing it (lightening) to a god (Thor). There was a different lightening god (in name only) for different tribal groupings. Norse Thor was Greek Zeus was Roman Jupiter was Semitic YHVH or Allat - all a local thunder (or storm) god.

Now you might suspect that there was a different god for each irrationally explained phenomena. And you would be correct. In the Indian tradition, there are 3,003 gods. In Shinto, who even tries to keep count?

But there are certain symbols (e.g. the moon) and patterns (e.g. a day of judgment) that help cultural anthropologists deconstruct regional mythology.

Well, even among Buddhists, if you die with a heavy heart, you thereafter suffer.

Mistaken for Mr. Baseball...

The movie "Mr. Baseball" was based on a real story. Randy Bass, who once played for the Padres, was sent off to Japan to play for the Hanshin Tigers. The rest is history, sort of. Oh, and there's that electric train.
Well, serendipity dictates that when Randy Bass was "Mr. Baseball" in Japan, I also was in Japan and we looked a lot alike - sometimes, even to me!
Only hard-core fans, and devotees of Japanese baseball, are aware of the Curse of Colonel Sanders. The victims are the Hanshin Tigers, who are the Japanese equivalent of the Cubs and Red Sox — one title in 68 years. That came "in 1985, and in celebration, fans resembling Tigers stars leaped into Osaka's Dotonbori River in celebration. However, no one could be found who resembled the Tigers' burly American star Randy Bass, so resourceful fans went to a nearby Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet, stole a statue of Colonel Sanders, and tossed it in the river.

In subsequent years, the Tigers plummeted back to the basement, and according to legend will not win another championship until the Colonel is found. Numerous efforts to recover the statue have been undertaken, to no avail. source
My dog at the time - named Pepper - was part wolf...
So anyway, occasionally a little kid would run up to me and ask me to autograph a baseball.
This falls into the Easter Bunny & Santa Claus category. There IS an Easter Bunny and a Santa Clause but neither are what you think they are. So I signed. Life is not always about disappointing children. Life is about being a responsible parent if you choose to produce offspring.

California, get real.

Unemployment is 12.5% on the average. Among teens and young adults it is as high as 70% in some demographics. It's time to EXPAND state employment in the parks, public works, and the like. How are "WE" going to fund it?

An immediate 12.5¢ per gallon fuel tax - for cars, trucks, buses, and airplanes AND a progressive state income tax of 12.5% in 0.5% increments. Only those few thousand folks that make more than two million dollars a year would be taxed at 12.5%.

Then we could open many state parks year around (so it's a make work project, so WHAT?), perhaps reforest more than a few hillsides, and put some people back to work.

What a concept, what a dream. The republicant's say "You can't tax your way to prosperity." But it's just something else they are wrong about.