Sense of the World: Archive

A Real Difference Between Dems and Reps

A lot can be said about the difference between Democrats and Republicans as political candidates. Each one of them stands for an agenda that is beyond one personal belief. But what of a non-politician? What makes a casual citizen vote either Democrat or Republican?

I was in a bar the other night when I overheard someone say to a friend of mine that he was voting republican because he didn’t agree with Obama’s economic policies. Now, I don’t know a thing about the details of economics, and I know that there are a lot of very smart people who do and say that conservative economic policies are better for us. That’s all well and good, I have no problem with that.

Yet I consider what that friend of mine said: that he’s voting Republican just because of the economic policy issue. When I heard this, I was suddenly struck with the notion that, despite the economy and its policies being that person’s motivating issue for his vote, that’s still not all he’s actually voting for by going Republican.

If he agrees with conservative economic policies, that’s fine, but by voting Republican he’s also voting for the other things and policies that come along with doing so:

Anti-abortion
Deregulation of just about everything
The inhibition of women’s rights
A lack of care or help for those in poverty
The narrowing of the definition of the first amendment
Keeping the ultra-rich ultra-rich
Anti-gay marriage
Anti-homosexuality in general (this is different from the last point)
Pro-Theocracy/removal of the separation of Church and State
Anti-science, anti-evolution
Anti-affordable health care for everyone

And not to mention a whole other slew of subtle issues involving racism, free speech, equality for all, and freedom for all.

It’s a sad fact that this is what the Republican party stands for these days, such that if you vote Republican for something like their economic viewpoint, you are also voting subjectively for all of the bullet points above and more.

Looking at the economic policies specifically, it’s no secret that the Republican stance advocates less taxes, smaller government, and thus more money per individual after taxes are collected—this is of course a fine thing for many people who look at just this one issue.

But is it worth saving a small percentage of your total income per year for yourself by also inhibiting the rights of so many other people in the ways listed above?

To me, it seems the only way you can possibly say yes to that is if you in fact DON’T care about the social and cultural freedoms that the Republicans want to take away and the Democrats want to insure.

And here’s another thing: the Democratic economic policies aren’t going to bankrupt you. They’re not going to run the country into the ground—logically speaking, it’s entirely against their own interests to do so. We’ve been under Democratic economic policies before, and we’ve turned out fine.

So, I ask the person who said he’s voting Republican because of economic policies alone: are you actually willing to vote that way just to save yourself a few extra dollars and ensure that large corporations and the mega-rich continue their hegemony over everyone, when by doing so you’ll be inhibiting services, respect, and equality for so many others?

It’s just flat-out selfish. You CAN’T vote Republican for economic reasons alone if you care about all these other factors and issues. It’s just flat out greedy, to be willing to sacrifice others’ rights so you don’t have to pay as many taxes. It’s not even like the taxes get pocketed by other individuals, it gets used for something—something that most people rely on in many way and don’t even realize it.

So, what IS a Republican these days? Is it someone who is truly conservative in all aspects, who believe that their way is the only way and everyone else can go to hell (literally), or is it someone who votes for them on one issue alone and ignores the entire list of others? I hope the numbers of the latter start shrinking fast. It’s very short-sighted.

This is a big problem with the two-party system when one party gets hijacked by one very narrow viewpoint. I feel sorry for conservative economic thinkers like my father who have vote Democrat because they realize that they actually don’t agree with the vast majority of current Republican policy.

…but only a little. :)

Mar 29, 20122 notes

#politics #Democrats #Republicans #economics #political parties #economic policy #policy #election #freedom

I find this article particularly cool mostly because I actually saw the real Lucy this last weekend in the Museum of Natural History.

Yet another nice piece of evolutionary evidence that will continue to be ignored by people who can’t tell the difference between mythology, folklore, and fact.

Mar 28, 20121 note

#evolution #science #fossils #human origins

singularitarian:

The Greenland ice sheet is likely to be more vulnerable to global warming than previously thought. The temperature threshold for melting the ice sheet completely is in the range of 0.8 to 3.2 degrees Celsius global warming, with a best estimate of 1.6 degrees above pre-industrial levels, shows a new study by scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Today, already 0.8 degrees global warming has been observed. Substantial melting of land ice could contribute to long-term sea-level rise of several meters and therefore it potentially affects the lives of many millions of people.

The time it takes before most of the ice in Greenland is lost strongly depends on the level of warming. “The more we exceed the threshold, the faster it melts,” says Alexander Robinson, lead-author of the study now published in Nature Climate Change. In a business-as-usual scenario of greenhouse-gas emissions, in the long run humanity might be aiming at 8 degrees Celsius of global warming. This would result in one fifth of the ice sheet melting within 500 years and a complete loss in 2000 years, according to the study. “This is not what one would call a rapid collapse,” says Robinson. “However, compared to what has happened in our planet’s history, it is fast. And we might already be approaching the critical threshold.”

The importance of the Greenland ice sheet was also brought up in Al Gore’s documentary a few years back. Back then, they’d already accumulated a whole bunch of evidence showing the ice sheet was melting at an incredible rate (just see the documentary, An Inconvenient Truth), and that was many years ago. One can only wonder how much worse it is now. This could have significant impact on things like sea level, the prominent ocean currents across the Atlantic, and major weather patterns in North America and Europe.

Mar 27, 201296 notes

#science #global warming #climate change #Greenland

I posted a video of this before, but this is the interactive version!

Also, I recommend playing around with this with a Wikipedia window open as well. You can learn a whole ton of stuff about astronomical entities down to subatomic particles just by putting into Wikipedia what you find in this presentation.

Enjoy, and learn!

Mar 26, 20123 notes

#astronomy #science #Scale of The Universe

itscandidlycara:

Scientific American:

Old Yeller dies, Darth Vader is Luke’s dad, Little Red Riding Hood lives. Did I spoil it? Yes I did. But maybe I did you a favor.

Spoilers enhance the enjoyment of a story, according to findings to be published in the journal Psychological Science.

Researchers…

This makes me want to throw up a little bit….

A few things:

1) I wonder at the collective IQ of the test subjects. Would these results be the same for above-average intelligence people vs. below-averages ones?

2) I wonder if they tried to determine why this is so, or if they had any interpretation at all. I mention this because I suspect this might be an “ignorance is bliss” sort of scenario. Think of it this way: the conclusion to many stories that have twists or dramatic endings can trigger emotions to a much higher degree than stories that don’t. To put it bluntly, this sort of emotional response is somewhat traumatic, no matter how slightly so. It’s basically the difference between being able to go “hmm, okay, cool” and “WOAH HOLLY CRAP…WOAH….” Now, when you do the later, the next thing you might do is laugh, cry, breathe deeply, etc., and then right after that you might actually think about the story and THEN say “That was awesome!!” Even if the final result is immensely positive, this can be a very taxing process.

Now compare that to if you know the ending ahead of time. What will happen? You’ll go through the story WITHOUT that increased tension and buildup, and just kind of cruise along at a steady, base-line emotional state, and when the ending comes you’re still in that exact same state. Thus, you haven’t had to FACE anything that challenges you, scares you, makes you crack up, or makes you think. Honestly, if you’re just measuring enjoyment based on hearing the story, what’s NOT to enjoy about this scenario? You’re at peace the whole time! But this brings me to my next point:

3) Enjoying a story like this on this very basic level, without the dramatic build-up or emotional response generated by a “surprise” at the end IS COMPLETELY AGAINST THE POINT OF SUCH A STORY! Stories are MEANT to trigger emotional responses, whether they be exciting, funny, scary, whatever. Authors WANT you to suffer through those experiences, because THAT’S what they’re trying to get you to do.

One could even argue that by having the ending told ahead of time via spoiler means that the listener/reader is in fact not even experiencing the same story, whether or not they enjoy one “version” more than the other. In fact, I and I’m sure many other people say the same thing (example: how many out there think that the “Special Edition” Star Wars movies are exactly the same experience as the original, unmodified versions?) (And on another side note, damn you still, George Lucas).

4. Finally, as a result of the last point, I wonder what results the researchers would obtain if, after asking the subjects which stories they ENJOYED MORE, they asked them which stories were actually BETTER STORIES. These are actually two very different questions, as very often people will not enjoy something they still acknowledge as quality art. I say this because I guarantee you that almost any serious artist out there is more concerned with making good art as opposed to making something that just everyone enjoys.

Incidentally, this last point is also why A) Hollywood has barely had a good auteur-style director come along in a while. There are no new Scorceses, Coppolas, Allens, Eastwoods, or Spielbergs who have a recognizable style or subject matter truly there own. The only one coming close right now is Zack Snyder, but his last movie got panned (even though I previously discussed why Sucker Punch is better than people give it credit for). Also Quentin Tarantino, but he had to come up via the Independent route, not Hollywood. Also also, Joss Whedon more or less did it for television.

It is also why B) George Lucas still sucks. Just find his interviews from not too long ago about Red Tails (I think I posted on it before but I can’t find it now. If only Tumblr’s search function wasn’t still broken… (WTF Tumblr!!)). He is clearly not such an artist any more, or at least hasn’t been with anything associated with Hollywood. He’s a self-admitted person who’s trying to make films that people enjoy without caring whether or not the film is actually good. Many people still do define enjoyment as good, but not many artists. They definitely go by different criteria. And they should, because the good ones will teach us much, much more that way.

Mar 26, 201256 notes

#art #philosophy #entertainment #enjoyment vs. quality #film #George Lucas #Zack Snyder #auteurship

Why the hell is every movie/tv series lately some type of reboot/remake? Doesn't anyone have an original thought/concept anymore?

I know, right? It’s a very sad trend in Hollywood (and New York for television) that’s been going on for years, and to put it bluntly, I think you’re exactly right in the implied meaning behind your question: I think the people in charge of such things DON’T have any original ideas left. Or rather, I think they’re scared to act upon original ideas because the bottom line has become much more important than actually creating anything artistically worthwhile.

Executives seem to think that the best way to make money is to capitalize on something that’s already made money: either an older movie that’s already successful, or a work in another medium that can be adapted (however crapily) to film. The reasoning behind this is sound, but it’s by no means the only way to make money in film. What’s more, Hollywood has forgotten that there are indeed other ways to do so; they’ve basically gotten “obsessive” with the remake.

What I think they don’t realize is that the real way to make money is just to make GOOD movies, whatever the source material. But when you’re only looking at rehashes and reboots, you’re ignoring a huge chunk of the possibilities for quality.

Take the reboot they tried to do a few years back of the Bionic Woman. I was excited at the idea; with modern special effects and such, this could have been a very good idea. But then of course they just went ahead and made it BAD. It was utterly horrible, laughable. And the reason why is that it was terribly WRITTEN. It always starts with the writing.

As for the NEED to remake something, check out my earlier post of a quote from Stephen Chow. That post basically sums up my opinions on that. To repeat, essentially, Hollywood has the process of making remakes backwards: they don’t remake to improve on a previous project when it can be better, they instead remake GOOD movies to capitalize on the recognition, but then make a WORSE product. It’s pathetic.

When the Weinsteins first came on the scene with Miramax, they broke in because they made good original movies from good writing. No one’s really done that since. Similarly, the reason why we have a small group of respected directors we like is because they were excellent creators of film. Now, the director is almost irrelevant to the studio and producers. Very few new directors actually get any creative say, it seems, and things won’t change much until this fact changes first.

Mar 24, 2012

#film #movies #remakes #writing #Hollywood #television

bijan:

One of the coolest things about Disqus, which powers the comments on
my tumblr, is that I can publish comments via email.

It’s quick and efficient. If I lose connectivity the mail client is
smart enough to try again later on its own.

Several other apps provide a way to email…

The one thing I really DON’T like about Tumblr’s reliance on Disqus is that Disqus itself is completely absent from the Dashboard. The Dash is clearly the primary way by which Tumblr users utilize the system, yet there is no way to formulate an actual discussion or debate from simply accessing Tumblr this way.

One of the appeals to me of blogging in the first place was to hear other opinions or comments based on what I post. If the only way, really, to interact with other Tumblr users and blogs is Disqus-less, then what’s the point really?

To go further, why CAN’T you easily comment on another post in a way that’s reply-able on Tumblr? This is an absolutely glaring problem with Tumblr, IMO, and I find myself seriously considering switching forums often because of this.

Also, I’m not a computer person, but I’d imagine implementing some sort of comment system would be very easy. Blogspot has it…why can’t Tumblr?

Mar 21, 201222 notes

#Tumblr #Disqus #commenting on posts

Play

Mar 20, 20122,588 notes

Awesome!!!

Too bad the trailer doesn’t represent actual gameplay, because if it did the graphics would already be insanely good. I hope gameplay at least comes close.

I spent hours playing SimCity 2000 back in the day. It was truly an amazing game. I can’t imagine this one will be anything less than a stellar simulation with real world correlation.

Mar 20, 20122 notes

#video games #SimCity #gaming

Dear Michael Bay,

FUCK YOU!!!!!!! STOP RUINING SHIT THAT IS ALREADY GOOD!!!!

Sincerely, Me

Seriously, what on EARTH (pun intended? Maybe?) makes Michael Bay think this is remotely a good idea?? I can’t imagine he’s getting a single positive comment on this decision from ANY external party.

Futhermore, are the original creators of TMNT that powerless to step in and say “no, you can’t do that. It destroys everything you’re trying to pay homage to.”? Do they still own the copyright on their stuff? Did whoever licenses TMNT to Bay actually READ the contract? Can they back out??? Aaaagh! How do these decisions get made???

Bay needs to be brought down a peg or two. Or at least given a nice slap across his face to wake him up. He seems stuck in some alternate universe that he thinks all of the rest of us actually like. Ugh.

Mar 20, 20123 notes

#Michael Bay #TMNT #film #movies #terrible decisions

Play

Mar 20, 20129 notes

Play

Mar 20, 20129 notes

#Bill Maher #politics #television #Obama

Neat Nature Facts

wallytheidol:

fakescience:

Reblogging because this is totally my kind of humor. :P Thanks Wallytheidol for a great laugh!

Mar 19, 201214,116 notes

Mar 19, 201239 notes

#religion #funny stuff

A while ago, here, I posted a comment on evolution referring to an experiment run a while ago in a laboratory using fast-multiplying bacteria (turns out to be the ever-famous E. Coli) to examine evolutionary trends over many thousands of generations.

This link is to the Wikipedia page giving the overview of the experiment itself. Apparently they’ve passed 50,000 generations already! And the variety of results and conclusions they’ve already been able to draw is pretty significant as well.

I wonder if anti-evolutionists have any sort of counter argument to this very elaborate, ingenious experiment. I don’t remember ever hearing one…and I can only hope that this experiment succeeded in helping some people see the light of logic, reason, and science.

Either way, I also like that this experiment is still going on. It will be curious to see what they’ve found at other generational milestones.

In a sci-fi kind of world, maybe they can evolve a sentient species! Haha…one can always creatively dream.

Mar 18, 20123 notes

#science #evolution #E. Coli #laboratory science

Mar 18, 2012341 notes

#cloning #science #biology #mammoth #extinct creatures

Mar 18, 20124,514 notes

#Harry Potter #China

section9:

durkinator27:

A middle school teacher who read to his students from Ender’s Game is on “administrative leave” because a parent complained to the school that Orson Scott Card’s classic novel is “pornographic.” The parent also went to the local police, who have not yet pressed criminal charges against the teacher.

1) What the actual fuck.

2) This parent’s going to have a rude awakening when she see’s the “pornography” in every piece of literature from anything ever if she thinks this book is “pornographic.”

3) Does she have any idea what “pornographic” actually means?

4) Have we passed that law where we can kill all stupid parents yet?

5) Seriously, what the actual fuck.

This is what happens when I follow the “Ender’s Game” tag.

What kind of fuckery is this?

Yeah, doesn’t pornography have an actual definition? Here’s how this situation SHOULD have played out:

PARENT: Ender’s Game is pornographic!!!

SCHOOL BOARD/TEACHER/EVERYONE ELSE: No it isn’t.

End of story. That’s IT. The policies and bullshit that teachers have to go through when the educational system is already in dire straights is unbelievable. All it takes is one person to step in and say “we’re being stupid,” and this goes away. Why doesn’t that happen?

Mar 15, 201260 notes

#education

Okay, so, let me get this straight: MLB is NOT instituting more instant replay after considering the technology for at least three years, but they DO decide to alter the entire playoff structure AFTER setting the season schedule with the OLD system in mind?? WHAT THE FUCK IS BUD SELIG DOING??? Does he ever actually THINK before making changes? This is ridiculous!

Consider this quote from Mark Teixeira:

“If they don’t have it ready, I’d like for them to hold back. You don’t want to change rules in the middle of a season,” he said this week.

This is EXACTLY what baseball did for the playoff schedule!!! But of course, Teixeira probably doesn’t mind THAT change, since playing in a division with the Rays and the Red Sox means two wildcards helps out the Yankees. But does he care that this change was implemented after the season was already designed for one wildcard? Nope! Way to be short sighted in your arguments, Tex…and way to screw stuff up more, baseball. Get your freakin’ act together…and step one in that process is FINALLY getting rid of Bud Selig. He’s been a terrible Commissioner for his entire tenure. The only good thing he’s done is implement the modern drug testing policy—even though that should have been done AGES before he even got to office—or even before he actually did it. He was around for quite a bit before he got that done.

Mar 15, 20121 note

#baseball #Bud Selig #instant replay

This is a very irresponsible article. It’s a nice lesson in how correlation does not imply causation. Is there a single person out there who actually thinks that the DATE of the election has any deductive thing in common with who wins? Are voter’s opinions somehow swayed by the date on the calendar? That’s more than a little ridiculous.

And here’s my favorite line:

Or maybe, despite all of these strange coincidences, it might come down to the voters.

As I heard many a time in second grade… NO SHIT SHERLOCK!!! Correct me if I’m wrong, but THAT’S HOW YOU DEFINE “ELECTION”!!!

Way to put up a completely useless article, CNN. It would have been better if you just put something in the margin that said “Crazy Coincidence: No Democrat has ever won on November 6th.” That’s about all you can legitimately say on this.

Perhaps I’m overreacting…or maybe I’m just getting fed up with all the stupid journalism in the world today, no matter how insignificant.

Mar 15, 2012

#election #journalism #really dumb and useless facts #politics

Play

Mar 14, 201214 notes

#politics #science #Bill Maher #global warming #climate change #extreme weather #fact

Mar 12, 201214 notes

Ugh, these people piss me off. It’s not even a question that what they’re doing isn’t legitimate science, yet these people are so afraid of the truth that they’re not trying these backhanded methods to get their non-scientific viewpoints into the scientific literature. Fortunately, since real scientists use logic, deduction, and real tools to discover truth, they’re not falling for this latest attempt. I really hope this publisher opts to go the way of credibility and not publish this ID book just for the profits. If they think long-term, hopefully they’ll see how publishing it would be a bad idea.

Science is science. There is no room for fake science in real science. The people who call themselves “scientists” who are trying to do this should have a little self respect and keep their non-factual religious views separate from factual scientific information. The damage that can be done otherwise is staggering.

Mar 12, 201211 notes

#science #intelligent design #peer review

Mar 10, 201295 notes

#film

Limbaugh vs. Maher...heh...

I think it’s very funny how the GOP is trying to bash Bill Maher on the exact same grounds that EVERYONE is bashing Rush Limbaugh for their sexist comments.

The thing is, calling Bill Maher a sexist as an answer to Limbaugh totally misses the point of context. Yes, Bill Maher has made incredible sexist comments, but from what I’ve seen of Maher over the years, the motivation for doing so is VERY different from what Limbaugh did.

DICLAIMER: I don’t think that Maher should use sexist language at all, especially if he’s not actually a sexist. There’s no excuse for that; when he calls Sarah Palin a “bimbo” or some such sexist term, there’s no reason why he can’t use a non-sexist term to make fun of her political ideology. And he should; even if he doesn’t mean it in a chauvinist way, disseminating sexist terminology is only going to make the situation worse.

That said, the difference between Limbaugh and Maher is entirely on the level of political motivation.

First off, I do not believe for a second that Bill Maher is actually a sexist—as in, believes males are superior to females. I have never seen him do or say anything that suggests this fact. I’m fairly certain I have seen him argue for women’s rights quiet a lot. Also, when he lambastes a female, he usually does it because of their political agenda that usually involves TAKING AWAY rights from people. That was a large part of Palin’s platform, after all (as is most of the GOP agenda these days). She believes in disallowing gay marriage and all those other oh so prejudiced and restrictive subjects of law that deserve to be argued against on the basis of their restriction of freedom. THIS is why Maher makes fun of Palin and other politicians (female and male alike), and this is what prompts his often sexist comments (which, again, should be replaced with non-sexist ones—he’d certainly get the same effect, though maybe not as many laughs from the common watcher of his show) as a way to insult the person putting forth these views.

The problem is, when you use a sexist term to insult one person, you’re A) not just insulting that one person, and B) you’re not insulting them based on the thing they’re doing that’s actually insult-worthy, thus deflecting the point of said insult in the first place.

The OTHER problem is that Maher’s show is also a COMEDY show. The sad fact is that people will laugh when he makes sexist jokes like that, and that’s a large part of why his show gets watched. In fact, I wonder if he did this sort of thing nearly as much on Politically Incorrect when he had to worry about language censorship. I don’t remember, it was too long ago…anyway, Maher will probably continue to use sexist language to elicit laughs even though he’s not actually a sexist.

Limbaugh, on the complete other hand, flung his incredibly derisive sexist tirade at a person who was trying to stand up for the rights of people who are in danger of having them stripped from them. Sandra Fluke was A) there to argue FOR women’s rights, B) there not even to argue for herself, but for her friend, and C) wasn’t even ALLOWED to speak at a panel discussing women’s rights in a move that was itself ridiculously sexist.

So when Limbaugh blasts a women with sexist language in THIS setting, one can’t help but think he’s actually a sexist who does not believe women have a right to defend their rights when others are trying to take them away. Furthermore, Limbaugh ISN’T a comedian who thinks it necessary to elicit laughs with crude jokes; he runs an actual political show and is a higher-up representative of his political party. When he says things like this, it’s presented as Republican stance and policy, not comedy like Maher.

In short, the POLITICAL ANGLE of Limbaugh and Maher are quite objectively different. Maher flings sexist remarks at women when they argue for the restriction of rights and legislation based on prejudice, hate, intolerance, and close-mindedness, while Limbaugh does so because he and his party believes in a theocracy in which he and other rich people stay rich, women don’t have a say in their health decisions, and people who don’t share his beliefs do not deserve to have their voices heard.

None of this excuses the sexist language itself, but comparing Maher and Limbaugh politically in terms of their motivation is ridiculous. Of course, Republicans will never admit this fact anyway, because they’re so afraid of the logical contradictions and incorrect assumptions that their platform is base on, and as such they’ll ignore reason as much as they can.

Mar 9, 20123 notes

#politics #Rush Limbaugh #Bill Maher #sexism

realcleverscience:

Comments to this post about the Chevy Volt:

luvrly:

My main grip about this vehicles and they way they are pushed is that they are zero emmission vehicles and if you think about it for a second you are probably burning mroe fossil fuels and generating more CO2 emmissions than with a…

I would also argue that the amount that a gas-powered car actually emits in CO2 has to be measured against the exact amount of extra emissions put out by a power plant when it must work harder to account for a single electric car. That data might be very well impossible to discover…but it’s certainly within the realm of possibility that the extra pollution put out by the power plant to power an electric car might be an extremely tiny fraction of the amount of pollution put out by a gas car that goes the same distance (or runs the same amount of time) as an electric.

My instinct says that power plant production is the equivalent of “bulk”, so that several EVs might be powered with the same net pollution output as one gas car…but I of course have no way of knowing that.

I also wonder about how EVs might affect the SPREADING of pollutants. If everyone in Los Angeles drove a zero-emission vehicle, wouldn’t that help the smog problem there, since there are no power plants in downtown/close suburban LA? And considering that a whole lot more people live in LA than by a power plant (I’d imagine), wouldn’t that have a tremendous net benefit on people’s health? Perhaps pollutants emitted by a power plant have a net range, which will only affect a certain amount of the environment. The very high number of cars in certain areas might put out MORE pollution in heavily populated areas that would not be affected by an increase pollutants from a power plant. I wonder if information like this is out there

Mar 8, 20124 notes

#electric cars #environment #science #pollution #technology

wallytheidol:

happyatheist:

every day the gap between what we know and what we do not know is getting smaller. time will come when science will demystify every thing. it will come. everything.

bold claim, so we’ll see, but very cool

Pretty amazing experiment! And people don’t believe that evolution can have identifiable empirical evidence that is produced in a laboratory…

This reminds me of that experiment a few years ago where a scientist took rapidly reproducing (and short-lived) microscopic creatures (I forget what they were) and ran several thousands of generations of breeding in his lab. His results showed clear signs of evolutionary change. A very elegant, incredibly intelligent, experiment. If I can find more info on it, I’ll post it later.

Mar 8, 201227 notes

Mar 6, 2012362 notes

#Republicans #politics #equal rights

The Spiritual vs. The Religious

I was wondering recently if people realize that being “spiritual” and being “religious” are two entirely different things.

Tumblr sure doesn’t…the “Spirituality” tag seems to cover all of the “Religious” blogs as well. That’s rather inaccurate, in my opinion.

The way I’ve always looked at it, Spirituality is essentially one’s relationship with one’s non-rational beliefs, how those beliefs get expressed or otherwise acknowledged, and the examination of how these beliefs manifest themselves in every day life. Religion, on the other hand, is an organization of people that share the same belief system independent of what the spiritual qualities of those beliefs are.

In a vast majority of cases, I would imagine, people’s spiritual beliefs line up almost perfectly with their religious beliefs. I would venture to say that the more “religious” someone is, the more their spiritual and religious sides overlap. But even within the bounds of a well-defined religion, levels of spirituality can vastly differ. I’m no expert here, but I’ve known people who follow Christianity who fall on both ends of the spiritual spectrum but both hold firm beliefs in the religious tenets of Christianity. The less spiritual person might go to Church every week, observe the holidays, and have a belief in all that stuff that Christians say about God and Christ and whatnot. The spiritual Christian might infer more intuitive meanings from the words in the bible and change his or her life behavior accordingly. They might even “meditate” more on Christian values (I’m not sure what sort of spiritual practices exist in Christianity…in Judaism this could be like the comparison between someone who just occasionally goes to services—probably primarily for the high holidays and family bar/bat mitzvahs—and someone who is actually into kabbalah). The spiritual often involves personal ritual, while the religious involves communal ritual.

I venture to say that often what people value as “spiritual” does not line up with what they value as “religious.” I, for example, am an atheist who still has a rather spiritual side that largely lines up with Taoism and the personal cultivation that comes from Eastern Thought. I am culturally Jewish, but it is not my religion, and has not been for over a decade (I question whether it really ever was…I certainly never “believed” the way religious people do). My spiritual journey, however, has taken many changes over the years.

When I consider these two facets alongside Faith, I come to the conclusion that Faith, or having faith in something, is NOT solely the property of either religion of spirituality. One can have faith in both realms, as well as different degrees of faith in both. I’ve met a Taoist Spiritualist who was a Ba Gua master and firmly believed in the ability to manipulate personal energy, pass it between people, and use it to heal, yet this person was also a rather devout Christian. He was a fascinating, deep, and HAPPY person who was very enthusiastic to share his diverse views with us.

I also feel that the confusion between religion and spirituality is an important factor in the reason why many religious zealots believe that atheists have no faith. That is simply not true: while one may not believe the tenets of a religion, one may have a deep well of faith in the spiritual—and this spiritual side of said person may not align with any accepted or popular religion at all. Indeed, I ask “why should it have to?”

I actually find that most atheists have a great deal of faith, whether it’s faith in rationalism, science, peace, love, charity…the list goes on. These ARE qualities that are capable of being the target of faith, and they are all worthy of such a link. This is what those who persecute in the name of religion to not understand. Well…that and the fact that they just don’t understand anyone who can be different from them at all (for the extreme ones, anyway).

I think that the overly religious people out there, the zealots, don’t realize that religion and spirituality can be and are very different things for a lot of people. I have a feeling I’m going to become increasingly annoyed at the zealots who insist that atheists are faithless. Clearly they don’t understand the concept of faith AS a concept; they only view it as something only they understand. What a shame.

Mar 3, 20128 notes

#religion #philosophy #faith #spirituality #atheism

A lot of this is pretty damn as insane as the article calls it.

What strikes me is how un-used to the term “accountability” was to old-school Hollywood producers. Was getting the shot really more important than, I dunno, making sure someone didn’t die? Especially if the director was specifically responsible for the lack of safety—nowadays, half the stuff on this list would lead to pretty open-and-shut cases resulting in serious jail time (like life).

The one that astounds me the most is #7 on the list. That guy’s basically a murderer—and he directed Casablanca. That’s pretty stunning. WTF dude.

Some of the more modern stories I’d heard before, but nothing of the actual death that occurred on the older stuff. Hard to believe.

Mar 1, 2012

#film #negligence #people dying on set #film abuse #crazy directors

Sense of the World

March 2012

31 posts