The Little Church of the Ravine has a huge flock down here on the sin-saturated South End. The new pastor, Rev. Jeffrey, recently removed from his post in Eastern Washington, preaches on the side of punishment over redemption. His new parishioners figure those wheat farmers must have responded better to prods than to penance. The rest of us know Jeffrey has a rough row to hoe if he thinks South Enders are going to respond to Fear. If abject poverty hasn\u2019t scared us yet, the good Reverend is tilling soil dryer than Eastern Washington\u2019s.<\/p>\n
Faith takes a lot of forms down here and the Little Church of the Ravine is only one of many. We got spiritualists and Ouija Boarders, Tea Leaf Readers and Palmists, Y Ching Tossers and the just plain superstitious. You name it, we probably got one or two back up the holler. Most of em don\u2019t mind admitting to some faith based mysticism, they just want to believe in Something. Mostly we accept each other\u2019s cosmology — even if Rev. Jeff makes it plain where he thinks that leads.<\/p>\n
Jerry the Card Counter lives a half mile up the road and throws in with us boys occasionally at our weekly poker game. Jerry plays the odds mathematically, analyzing probabilities in his engineer\u2019s head. Don\u2019t even ask if he buys lottery tickets. Jerry usually goes home a winner. Partly because he never plays a hunch and partly because he drinks less than the rest of us, a good combination for profit, but not for fun.<\/p>\n
Jerry is a believer in science. Which is fine. But he doesn\u2019t like it when I say, peering over my 4 sequential cards and going for an improbable inside straight, that science itself is unprovable and so it too is essentially faith based. Jerry, nearly apoplectic at such heresy, forgets the odds of his own hand to unleash a spirited defense of Empirical Inquiry, then meets my raise by raising me back. The boyz all fold at the high cost of calling bluffs and embroiling themselves in epistemological exercises. \u201cYou can\u2019t prove anything, Jerry,\u201d I say calmly, looking at the last card Fearless Fred dishes me. I bet 3 bucks, the limit for our games.<\/p>\n
Jerry can\u2019t help himself, meeting my 3 and raising 3 more. \u201cScience is fact-based, Skeeter!\u201d he yells, thumping down a puny 2 pair when I throw my money in the pot, aces over eights, all black, \u2018the dead man\u2019s hand\u2019, what Wild Bill Hickok held when he was shot down.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot true, Jerry. The Uncertainty Principle. The experimenter affects the results on the quantum level. It\u2019s a strange world down there, Buddy. Believe what you want — it might make it come true.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jerry\u2019s watching as I lay down a ten, then the jack and the queen, both lining up with the king next and I hold the final card until he can\u2019t stand it any longer.<\/p>\n
\u201cDammit!\u201d he explodes when I lay down the Ace of Hearts with a gentle slap and big smirk. \u201cWhat a lucky bastard!\u201d<\/p>\n
I smile as I rake in the big fat pot. \u201cSometimes, Jerry, you got to bet the hunch and hope the quarks line up. It\u2019s all about believing. Next game is 7 card stud, gentlemen. Jokers wild. My deal.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The Little Church of the Ravine has a huge flock down here on the sin-saturated South End. The new pastor, Rev. Jeffrey, recently removed from his post in Eastern Washington, preaches on the side of punishment over redemption. His new parishioners figure those wheat farmers must have responded better to prods than to penance. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[2373],"class_list":["post-12540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rantings-and-ravings","tag-poker-for-engineers"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12540"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12541,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12540\/revisions\/12541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}