"Tea Time by ToDryFor An exclusive design by Gemma Correll What in the world could possibly be more amazing than a cat sitting in a polka dot tea pot? And the winner of the cutest tea towel design award goes to...Gemma Correll! (If you are going to put a cat in your tea pot, we'd advise cleaning it out a bit before you put the kettle on; ooo and don't forget to remove the cat). We have commissioned the lovely Gemma Correll for our fourth tea towel in the ToDryFor range. Unfortunately our cat Mr Maurice is slightly too large to fit in anything...boo. Why not have a nose at Gemma's artist biog..."
- edythe
from Bookmarklet
"Facing a new attack with an international audience playing close attention, religions have as little rational argument in their favour as ever. There was a time when they could deal with dissent through more draconian measures: the kind that can still be practiced in, say, Saudi Arabia. Having lost the power of the gun in the West, apologists of religion have a new weapon: being offended. Rather than confronting (say) Dawkins' arguments with counter-arguments, people like Craven, and many others like him, instead cry out: why are you picking on us? All we want is for you to respect our beliefs. And so, the crybaby theists hide behind the demand for respect, which sounds reasonable enough. The more shameless – and their ranks are represented in many religions, such as Muslims, Christians and Jews – complain that when someone criticises their religious faith, the people who belong to that religion are being subjected to abuse. The bottom line is that such special pleading is a way for...
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- Neal Jansons
from Bookmarklet
ppl can shit-talk my religious beliefs all they like, it's no skin off my sack.
- Joe Silence is not dead
If only everyone saw it that way. The radical Muslim member-nations of the UN are trying to define criticizing things like honor killings, the misogyny of Sharia law, and so on as a form of abuse.
- Neal Jansons
this pic reminds me of Angel on Nash Bridges
- VAL D.
"New Theism" is a nice word. I bet they'll hate it as much as I hate the "new atheism" label :)
- Eivind
I like people and things that challenge my beliefs and perceptions. Mutual respect is always a necessary ingredient to have a constructive dialogue.
- Eric Logan
I actually dislike the entire narrative. It is completely framed in a western, monotheistic, and fundamentally Christian manner. The real metaphysical and epistemological questions of reductive materialism, rationalism, idealism, empiricism, phenomenology, and so on all get swallowed up in a single, purposely framed statement: "do you believe in God?", by which is meant "do you believe...
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- Neal Jansons
Me too, Neal. If someone asks whether I believe in god, I can only answer "define god." There's no way to answer it without that happening first. But it tends to come across as being intentionally difficult.
- Friday Lo is Friday!
Lo, when people ask that question it is generally about an omniscient, omnipotent, interfering god (so I would take it as you being intentionally difficult :-P). For me "no" is a good answer to that question. I see no reason to use poetic language about the forces of nature or the minds of men.
- Eivind
I take it you don't read poetry then, because that's what most of it is about :p
- Neal Jansons
from IM
Not up here in the cold north (Norway), Neal :) Our poetry is direct, brutal and dark.
- Eivind
Considering my love of black metal, I happen to know a good deal about Norwegian lyricism. I have also read the Eddas. They are full of poetic language about the forces of nature and the minds of men. And what I was "being intentionally difficult" about was exactly that assumption: the omni-max definition of god is the brain-child of monotheistic theologians and philosophers in western...
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- Neal Jansons
Or perhaps you meant "saccharine" or "trite" rather than poetic. The forces of nature and minds of men are often also "direct, brutal, and dark".
- Neal Jansons
The language of the Eddas is what I would consider direct language (" Cattle die, kinsmen die the self must also die; I know one thing which never dies: the reputation of each dead man."). When I was saying poetic language I was thinking along the lines of Paulo Coelho type language (which I can't stand). Maybe I wasn't being very precise (I'll blame the language barrier). edit: saw your comment. "Saccharine" would probably be a better description.
- Eivind
I understand, but I would consider that poetic; it uses language, theme, and imagery to reveal subtle truths about the human experience. Some poets are flowery, just like some painters. But some poets are like your countryman Varg Vikernes and express themselves far differently. I would consider a life lived un-poetically a sad life indeed, but what do I know?
- Neal Jansons
I see what you're saying. I wasn't really trying to make a statement about poetry anyway. What I was trying to say is: I see no need to use poetic language in answering the question about believing in a god ("l believe in a greater power", "I believe there is something greater out there", "I believe in god as the beauty we see all around us", "There are more things in heaven and...
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- Eivind
Oh, I agree on the "no" answer. My point was simply that I dislike being forced into such a limited narrative. There is nothing in the monotheistic narrative or the eliminative materialist narrative that describes what I think is true about reality, and being forced into one or the other irks me. And my apologies; I wouldn't want to force an association you wouldn't want. I just happened to be wearing a Burzum shirt and took it as inspiration.
- Neal Jansons
Hehe, no worries, Neal. It's just a little friendly rivalry between Bergen and Oslo.
- Eivind
Eivind, that is not very specific. An omniscient, omnipotent what? A physical being? An intelligence? Interfering in all human events, or selectively? But usually what I expect when I ask for a definition is a specific god, I disagree that people usually mean a set of characteristics... they're usually referring to a specific god. Once they've named him/her/it, then the answer is no....
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- Friday Lo is Friday!
I should add that asking questions rather than espousing my opinion is pretty much the only effective way I've found to get people to question their own beliefs (where I come up against other atheists often enough). For instance, if someone says an omnipotent being that cares about and loves me personally and will help me by interfering if I ask, my follow-up would be "what if what I...
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- Friday Lo is Friday!
Oooh, good answer! It points out the inherent narcissism of the idea wonderfully!
- Neal Jansons
In other news, what I just said utterly fails in clarity. But this case of Friday brain is too advanced to rephrase. In short, I agree.
- Friday Lo is Friday!
Okay, Neal you get bonus points for understanding me. It's so rare that people do :)
- Friday Lo is Friday!
It was clear enough to me. Nuanced, even.
- Neal Jansons
Another good one is to let someone explain what they believe, and just keep saying "Because...?" after each statement. So many beliefs come from external sources and aren't questioned. I have them myself (though not about religion anymore). Of course, to do this to an unwilling party is sort of mean imho. Being confronted with your illusions, or realizing you have no basis for a belief, can be upsetting to say the least.
- Friday Lo is Friday!
Now that I think about it, I should use that on the atheists who bug me. Most are great, but some are spouting off beliefs which are seem very contradictory to me, while simultaneously declaring them superior due to being founded on logic. It hurts my brain.
- Friday Lo is Friday!
Well, my training in epistemology lets me hit just about everyone equally. Knowledge is defined generally as "justified, true belief". Unpacked, that means it is a belief about a proposition (p is q) that not only corresponds accurately to reality, but that you are justified in why you believe it. You can't just happen to be right...you have to have good reasons that led you to being...
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- Neal Jansons
The means of gaining information through experience (sense), the means for recording information (memory), the means for interpreting that information (reason), and, finally, the one doing all of it (mind) are all easily occluded, fooled, and generally not built to pick up or process great gobs of reality.
- Neal Jansons
You sort of lost me with the first bit, but I agree completely with the 2nd comment. Anyone claiming to be objective just makes me laugh at this point. I don't think I ever thought about any of this sort of thing much before ~6 months ago. But when I realized I made some wrong assumptions as a child and never questioned them, I became determined to question everything I knew to the...
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- Friday Lo is Friday!
That's why all my education did was screw me up...delusion boy studies math and philosophy to get his head straight, figure out what's real, and finds out after two degrees that not only has his initial questions not been answered, that in fact the situation is far worse that he had previously considered.
- Neal Jansons
Ha, yes! I remember in college getting to really advanced science, and finding out things I have previously learned were incorrect. I was outraged (!!!) and talked to my super-cool prof about it. He told me, "well, it's only a model. That model is all that freshman can be trusted to comprehend." or something like that. For the rest of that day the reality of all science being models and all that entailed crashed over me like the ocean. Totally awesome freak-out.
- Friday Lo is Friday!
To this day when people claim "science agrees" or "science proves" I stop listening. Science is inherently limited to human understanding and as such cannot be presumed to authoritatively be any sort of truth.
- Friday Lo is Friday!
I'll explain it a bit more. Consider the proposition "the cat is on the mat". This proposition can either be true, false, or undecidable. So let's say I flip a coin and say the proposition is false. This is not knowledge...I have no justification for my belief about the cat. An empiricist, someone who claims experience is justification for knowledge-claims, says "observe the cat, and...
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- Neal Jansons
Tell them "Science is a concept and doesn't agree or prove anything, scientists do. Care to cite some, or do you just make claims based on authority based on vague abstractions?"
- Neal Jansons
Something that has helped me immensely is reading more about consciousness, and what studies have shown consistent errors the human mind makes. To operate anything it helps to know its limitations, doubly so for anything as complex as a brain. I read one book that listed a series of study results and the disconnect between what people thought they would do vs. what they did. While...
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- Friday Lo is Friday!
Yeah, the fundamental attribution error...other people do things and they are just stupid/mean/whatever....when I do it it's justified, extenuating circumstances.
- Neal Jansons
Lo, if one of these vocal theists ever ran into you, I bet he would stop complaining about the "militant new atheists" :-P
- Eivind
Yeah, it'd be "annoying crackhead atheists" at worst. Militant I am not :) - or wait, did you mean I'm worse? Because that is probably also true *looks wicked*
- Friday Lo is Friday!
Oh yeah, before I left school after abandoning the whole academia idea I used to tear theists and atheists up all the time. I even debated Ian Hacking on the issue (world famous philosopher) when I was lucky enough to get into a seminar with him. He declared me a "worthy opponent" in my eval. I was very flattered.
- Neal Jansons
Besides, what the hell is militant about the new atheists? They are just actually saying what they thing. Don't militants have to be...you know, militant?
- Neal Jansons
Neal, I think I understand now. I'm a knowledge nihilist too some of the time, though I still am rather obsessive in lusting after it. I tend to sort of cycle through positions, but that seems to work, keeps me open-minded at least. I tend to come to this point of "well, I don't know what's true, so let's just figure out what works." But then that's another can of worms. It's hard to...
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- Friday Lo is Friday!
When someone equates being offended to being shot in the head, there is something wrong with their math.
- Neal Jansons
Well, as much as I disagree with the hysterical hyperbole from "oppressed" Christians and the like, the way some hysterical atheists engage them does little to calm down the debate and give a rational tone.
- Friday Lo is Friday!
I hear you, Lo, trust me. I came to the conclusion after many years of wrestling with the notions of reality and knowledge that, since knowledge is impossible and life is essentially absurd, the secret was to find the best approximation, a working model, a "theory-in-practice" rather than a true theory. I mentioned before in the mental health (or lack thereof) thread I live a sort of half-dream...thus I decided to try to dream the best dream possible.
- Neal Jansons
Right, but even the most hysterical atheist is still just talking. They are responding to the most complete disenfranchisement our society accepts...they are right to be angry. We just finally had a minority president...how long till we have an openly atheist one, who doesn't have to make what church he goes to part of his campaign in order to even have a chance?
- Neal Jansons
I do not fear an openly atheist President. I already know what an openly atheist society looks like and it is called Totalitarianism. Both poles are a leap of faith IMO. I try to stay somewhere in the middle and remain open minded and tolerant. I also am intrigued by this video though some of it may arguably be classified as psuedo-science aka "fiction". Science fiction has proven...
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- Eric Logan
I agree that it makes sense for atheists to be angry, and for a while I was hooked up with the more political-movement wing of the charitable atheists. Here's the type of people I don't get: they claim religion is an evil force that cannot be tolerated and must be eliminated for the good of humanity. They seek to do this by mocking religious "idiots" publicly and starting flamewars on...
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- Friday Lo is Friday!
Are you implying you are better than those people, Lo? ;)
- Eivind
I AM BETTER THAN EVERYONE. :P Actually Eivind, usually I think I'm worse than most people. But over time it has dawned on me that "I'm the worst person alive" is just as arrogant a thought as "I'm the best." Tying into what Neal & I are saying about what's true vs. what works, I've found that basically any time I compare myself to others, I'm unhappy. Whether or not it's true, I like to...
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- Friday Lo is Friday!
Eric, you make a claim: openly atheist society is totalitarianism. How do you account for the fact that Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland, some of the most non-religious countries in the world, have some of the most liberal social laws allowing the most individual freedom, as well as higher standards of living, more overall leisure-time in the populace, universal health-care, better education levels, and higher happiness indexes than the more religious countries, like, say, the US?
- Neal Jansons
Call me crazy, but I think a society's nature depends a lot more on the prevailing attitudes of its members than any easily measured metric, be it religion or anything else. If there were a truly correct formula "a = good society, -a = bad society" it would be nice, but that seems unrealistic in the extreme.
- Friday Lo is Friday!
I don't know, Lo. I believe in the power of ridicule. People care far more about being cool than being right.
- Neal Jansons
I would agree, Lo. But I want to see the justification for a correlation between personal liberty under government with religiousity.
- Neal Jansons
Good point, Neal. But their targets (strict creationists, homeopathic swills, etc) seem immune to it. I guess maybe they'd fear ridicule from within their own group? Now I'm trying to decide whether going "undercover" would work. If any atheist could stand it.
- Friday Lo is Friday!
You're right to ask for the justification. I'm just fast-forwarding past that to "there isn't one" :P Patience is not my strong suit.
- Friday Lo is Friday!
Part of my "surf the waves of chaos" life strategy is trying not to get under the wave, let things happen on their own terms.
- Neal Jansons
I have been seeing a religious coll-um in the Sunday Comics, it is totally agreeable there among all of the other squishy make believe things. A most well placed place to put it. Quit Doonesbury though Ss looking like pure propaganda n the heart thing is gone. Be Kind Dudes love your neighbors Dudes avoid propaganda like the plague it is. Do not fear or hate a people for being different, Hell their birthday suite looks a whole like your birthday suite you know?? :--)
- ThatDBD
@neal True. I'm trying to work on acceptance. I think I have a hard time with it because it feels like giving up. But I know they're not equivalent. I guess "obsessive struggle" and "defeatist despair and inaction" are just the two modes I'm most familiar with. So many things (like loving oneself) make sense intellectually but I don't know how to do them.
- Friday Lo is Friday!
@ThatDBD Righteous, dude. Actually you sound a bit like a Dudeist (see dudeism.com)
- Friday Lo is Friday!
Neal, it's been a pleasure as always - another dull Friday afternoon sped up with interesting conversation. Thanks!
- Friday Lo is Friday!
Openly Atheist may not have been the best term to use. State Atheism is more along the lines of my thoughts in reference to an Atheist President. Each of the countries that you mention are actually religious by any standard metric even paganism is a religion. I am certainly not going to try to explain the melting pot of belief that is prevalent in the U.S. I am interested and do study...
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- Eric Logan
I would agree that a state that does not allow religious freedom could be construed as not a democracy... but that doesn't really say much. The choice to define "atheist" as meaning "denier of others' religious freedom" would probably be surprising to most atheists. As for "family values," that's a vague term to the point of meaninglessness, and in any event is not one limited to a particular religion.
- Friday Lo is Friday!
Eric, where does paganism come into the picture? I wouldn't call the Nordic countries religious even though there are religious people living there. There are churches and mosques and synagogues in all those countries, but a large percentage of the people (including people in government) identify as not religious. I think maybe it is the other way around, though. The feeling of security...
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- Eivind
I was referring to Norse etymology or old customs. I do see your point and can visualize how a highly functioning social democracy would as a matter of course marginalize fundamentalist belief. I do not see current instances where the Nordic countries in this example have institutionalized that process. I actually agree with you on the family values thing too but, only since you pointed...
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- Eric Logan
"For ages, it was accepted that there were only four primary tastes on the tongue from which all others arose. Those would be sweet, sour, salty and bitter. But over the last few decades, a fifth taste called "umami" has gained acceptance among gourmands worldwide. A Japanese scientist identified it in 1908, and it can best be described as savory."
- Derrick
from Bookmarklet
That flavor (enhanced by an all-natural umami rub made of proprietary ingredients) is the secret in the sauce at the ascendant L.A. chain Umami Burger. The first Umami Burger opened less than a year ago on La Brea; last month, a second outpost opened in the old Cobras & Matadors space on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Feliz. The second Umami has an attached Japanese-centric beer and wine bar called Salaryman (the space was formerly Sgt. Recruiter).
- Derrick
Then there are the burgers: juicy patties smothered in fresh cheese that literally drip and crumble and bleed into their chewy buns. The flavor, that umami magic, is there, begging you to gobble it up. There are eight burgers on the menu (though there are other options), including the signature Umami; the Manly burger with zesty beer cheddar, smoked-salt onion strings and gooey bacon...
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- Derrick
I wonder if this is the same or related to what I've heard called the 'brown' flavor. The brown you get from carmelization of sugars and the searing of meats.
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
the 'brown' flavor...ZOMG. (see my post about the ppl behind Dove bars)
- Joe Silence is not dead
Umami, AIUI, is often carried by glutamates, and those occur naturally in high concentrations in tomatoes and parmesan cheese, so it's probably not the 'brown' flavor.
- Andrew C
I've noticed umami is getting a lot of press lately.
- Trish R
Kikkoman's (I think) is running ads for their soy sauce based on umami.
- Andrew C