American Spirituality

When discussing matters of religion, ethics, &c., I hear something from Americans that I never hear from anyone else. Have you ever heard someone, when asked their religion or philosophy, utter the words "I'm spiritual but not religious", or other words to that affect? I used to react with revulsion to the idea; for me it was an oxymoron (especially while I still had the convolutions of belief that I mistook for faith), and I always took such a statement as a limp-wristed excuse to do one of the following:

1. to disregard religion altogether under the aegis of an "I'm ok, you're ok" touchy-feely-ism that doesn't actually require effort of the individual
2. to discredit contradiction by a religious orthodoxy that defines some individuals or 'non-negotiable' behaviors as anathema, such as bastards (once upon a time), divorcees (more recently) or gays (currently, in much of the country)
   
3. or to simply flout the beliefs "of the great mass of their fellow men", a la Screwtape
   

When you talk with these folks, what you hear them say is that they're not against religion, but against "Organized Religion". But I severely doubt that it's organization per se that is being objected to, either superficially or essentially. You'll find that most people love to congregate with people that reinforce their views of world, and abhore the company of those who contradict them, especially on a basic "you don't belong in my culture" kind of way. Organizations generally attract people, not repel them.

I suspect that part of the seeming anti-religious stance taken by those who would seem to be the types of persons who would embrace religion comes from looking at the landscape of religions, and, for lack of a better way of saying it, "not seeing God there". We do have two American religions, though, that one might suspect would fit the bill. The most widely known is the ex-Baptist post-Protestant evangelical fundamentalism practiced by most Americans who call themselves "Christian" without further qualification (none other being necessary because of course all other varieties of Christianity are by definition in error). The other American religion is the syncretic claptrap that people call "New Age" spirituality, being mainly a smorgasboard of Western divination & esoteric yoga welded to a believe in "higher powers" (or "Ascended Masters" or "guardian angels", &c) that help the willing along a path of learning that constitutes spiritual growth. Neither cauterization nor anesthesia fit the bill though--most "spiritual" people are nauseated by both of these home-grown options.

Of the list above, numbers 1 & 3 are clearly diseases. Number 2 is a disease if you embrace a contradictory morality. I think a lot of folks who superficially look like they belong in this list really don't, though, and that there's more afoot than I used to suspect.

Game theory explains Black Adder

Ok, for all you war-strategy-conflict folks, how 'bout a cogent explanation of Black Adder for you?

Now here's the 64 dollar question: how does this apply to today's terrorism woes?

Fantastic Wine!

It can be said with great truth that I'm not a fan of non-red wines. I'm kind of a snob about it, not because I really like snobbery, but because I want to taste the dirt my wine was grown in--I don't want to drink my wine so much as to chew it. I can tolerate a nice fume-blanc, and even sometimes a chardonnay so long as it's from Frogland (CA growers vastly over-oak their whites!). And everyone knows how the lemur likes his tawny ports (I've three bottles (of differing brands) in the closet, and just killed a different brand this week).

BUT, I have to give due respect to a rose' of all things! Seriously!

No, really! I mean it!


If you're into cool-aid wine like pinot-noir or anything by Gallo, you'll love the wonderfully and punfully named 'Goats do Roam' from South Africa. (N.B. 'Goats do Roam' is a pun on 'Cotes du Rhone'.)

Even I like it!

PS. Maddie says the Goats rock the house. I'll go one further and say:

The Goat's in the House, yo!

Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity

More on the latest chimera from Kansas, satirized in The Onion. My loss for words continues unabated. That people can so fervently believe that a God couldn't have designed the universe to work according to the understandings we arrive at via science while calling themselves 'people of faith' just makes my little brain hit the 'eject' button. Andy Blair has a semi-Cthulhoid term for this kind of thing: TOO STUPID FOR MAN TO KNOW!

Robokitty!

The link requires Quicktime; the article's self-explanatory.

Domo arigato robokoneko!

Teach Both Sides

The new Kansan curriculum.

Naral falsely accuses Judge Roberts -- the brawl begins...

From FactCheck; it's begun.

Attention all hubbies: hug your wives!

According to the beeb, female cardiovascular health is aided by hugs.

To the Sleepy Lizard Queen

Harvard says to sleep more.... I know you'd love to do so--perhaps a hot toddy?

Best Movie Review Ever

Speaking about the new waste of celluloid 'The Dukes of Hazzard', movie reviewer Mick LaSalle of SFGate says (quoted without permission):

There are routine movies and others that blaze a trail. There are routine bad movies and others so horrendous that they redefine bad, that make us look up synonyms for agonizing and abysmal and then gnash our teeth because the language has not kept pace with the decline of film. There are even movies that are so blazingly rotten that they can redefine past experiences and make us look back on recent weak efforts like 'Stealth' or 'Fantastic Four' and think, "Ooh, that was fascinating."

'The Dukes of Hazzard' is hardly some routine bad movie. Rather, it's one of the elite, right up there with 'I Am Curious ... Yellow' (1967) and Bo Derek's 'Ghosts Can't Do It' (1990), in stiff competition for the lamest thing ever put on celluloid. ... The filmmakers couldn't buy a laugh in a burning poppy field. ... Instead of releasing this film in theaters, they should have sent it straight to Guantanamo, at least while it's still legal.

doh!

High speed cats in Brunei

Ignore the idiotic setting in which these (what do you call folks from Brunei, Bruneze? Brunettes?) cats show what cats can do, as some of the pictures are really amazing, and the owners of the web-page are obviously pre-pubescent morons.

Judging people by their covers

Apparently, looks really do matter. If the author's premise is true, society is already Gattica-like without need for those pesky dna-tests. What I find interesting is that apparently there's a bit of science going on as regards the whole beauty-thing. Really interesting--Russ and I have long decried greater society's slavish devotion to what we call "boring beauty", and perhaps there's something to that.

Then again, there's the empirical angle, which's intriguing. I'm no fan of Marilyn Monroe or Twiggy, but apparently what they both have in common with the oh-so lemurly Audrey Hepburn is a 0.7 waist/hip ratio, and that's considered important. It makes you wonder if one day public gyms will offer, for the proverbial nominal fee, a quantitative "beauty analysis". In one way it's really interesting, and in another, quite discomfiting. None of us like to think of ourselves as automata....

The Great Sheep Dip of 2005

Who knew sheep's fluffiness was a mass survival trait?

(07-08) 18:59 PDT ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) --

First one sheep jumped to its death. Then stunned Turkish shepherds, who had left the herd to graze while they had breakfast, watched as nearly 1,500 others followed, each leaping off the same cliff, Turkish media reported.

In the end, 450 dead animals lay on top of one another in a billowy white pile, the Aksam newspaper said. Those who jumped later were saved as the pile got higher and the fall more cushioned, Aksam reported.

"There's nothing we can do. They're all wasted," Nevzat Bayhan, a member of one of 26 families whose sheep were grazing together in the herd, was quoted as saying by Aksam.

The estimated loss to families in the town of Gevas, located in Van province in eastern Turkey, tops $100,000, a significant amount of money in a country where average GDP per head is around $2,700.

"Every family had an average of 20 sheep," Aksam quoted another villager, Abdullah Hazar as saying. "But now only a few families have sheep left. It's going to be hard for us."

Koan of the Month

As related in the Genjokoan of Dogen Zenji:

Zen master Baoche of Mt. Mayu was fanning himself. A monk approached and said, "Master, the nature of wind is permanent and there is no place it does not reach. When, then, do you fan yourself?"

"Although you understand that the nature of the wind is permanent," Baoche replied, "you do not understand the meaning of its reaching everywhere."

"What is the meaning of its reaching everywhere?" asked the monk again. The master just kept fanning himself. The monk bowed deeply.

Texas becomes Kansas?

From the NYT, bible courses in public TX schools. I'd have no opposition to a acknowleging the place of religion in society, but for all those who said "ah, that's just Kansas", take heed.

Zombie infection simulation

You saw it there first....

Researchers map entire sexual network of mid-western high-school.

The name has been changed to protect the school, but I think you can tell in the chart who the "popular kids" are.... (I don't know why it dropped part of my text in the first edit, but I also said:) It's interesting to note the relatively low amount of promiscuity compared to (promiscuous) adults; this is likely good news from an epidemiological perspective.