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William of Occam's 18Volt Electric Shaver

Personally--very personally--I have only one reason to believe in God, and even that reason is not outside the bounds of the test of reason.  Beliefs cannot be allowed to run unchallenged by reason!  Else people would believe in the most outlandish things; things like eternal hellfire, an infallible Pope, men as the head of the household.  Things like that.  Well, anyone can understand that!  Otherwise one could just go up on the mountain during a thunderstorm, and come back with a backpack stuffed with wild assertions. 

Here is my reason for believing in God!  It is a story of doubt and despair and overwhelming jubilation!

Last autumn, I could not find my trusty old cordless Milwaukee 18Volt Hammer Drill Driver.  I have had it for years and had, in fact, just bought two new batteries for it.  Finally, I did a reasonable and logical thing:  I sat myself down upon my hindparts and thought carefully about where I had used it last.  Logic--pure, unassailable logic, and a careful reconstruction of memory--led me to realize that I had used it last at our log house while hanging an electrical cable out to our Electric Outhouse. 

I arranged for another visit to the log house.  No drill!  That led me to conclude that I must have put it on the back bumper while loading tools to take home, and driven off.  The trusty Milwaukee eventually fell off the bumper, and some delighted farmer was probably using it. 

Ah, well! 

I postponed the decision to buy another for months, getting by with a small, inadequate cordless drill, and a horse of a corded drill, able to twist arms off shoulders.  Finally, I bought a cordless Panasonic, although it was not a hammer drill.  One cannot afford everything.  The Panasonic is a fine tool!

Today, while up on the garage roof, cleaning gutters--I have to clean gutters while Mari is at work, else she keeps asking me where I have filed our wills--I looked down, two stories, into the cockpit of our boat, which I took out of storage yesterday--the snow having melted--and there was the trusty old Milwaukee!  It had been in storage, down in Rosemount, all winter.  

I do not know, I cannot understand, but I accept as an act of God that someone found the drill in Pleasant Township, down in Iowa, and brought it up to Rosemount, where the boat was stored, and found a way to get into the building and leave my drill in the boat, right where I would have used it last, had I not used it last at our cabin in Iowa. 

I believe now!  I have come to unshakeable faith!  Nothing short of a test of reason could come between me and my own mounain-top experience.  I am going to sit down with a Heineken, and sharpen my serenity by reading a chapter or two about William of Occam.  He is the guy who said that, given a choice of explanations, one should favor the simplest and most direct explanation.  People call that, "Occam's Razor". 

I need a shave, too.  Later!  After thinking about Occam and William of Heineken.

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