227 posts tagged “culture”

I've often considered what attracts different people to religion and what purposes religion has served in society.  Recently, I've been thinking of the converse: what makes people reject religion and the different reasons why people are either atheists or agnostics.

I think there are several reasons, often depending on each particular person's personality and outlook on life.  A few types immediately came to mind:

First, are the scientific types, who reject religion because there is no proof as to its claims, because it defies reason and logic.

Second, are the "pull yourself up by your own boostraps" types, who view religion as a crutch and a haven for the weak who refuse to stand on their own two feet.

Third, are the hedonists and non-conformists who view religion as a series of lists with arbitrary and outmoded rules about moral behavior that are negative in nature.  To them, religion can be summed up as "Don't Do This" and see religion as a way to suck all the joy out of life.

These are the three types that most readily come to mind.  Personally, as an agnostic, I'm a mixture of reasons one and three.  I'm not so much the second reason, because I have no problem with whatever gets people through the night, as it doesn't affect my freedom to do differently.

Feel free to chime in with more types of skeptics and unbelievers.

Can you imagine this bimbo explaining this one to her grandchildren forty years from now?  That is, if she can get laid to bear any children in the first place!

Another “classy” tattoo

Bible verses and tramp stamps — the perfect combo!

This last one isn’t a tramp stamp, but I’m guessing the owner of these tattoos has absolutely no desire to ever get laid again:

While out driving on Halloween the other night, I drove through a neighborhood in full trick or treat mode.  Though a minority of older kids walked from house to house, most kids were driven by their parents to each house, getting in and out of the vehicle (mostly ubiquitous minivans) ever 25 feet or so.

This meant that the road was clogged with pausing and slow moving vehicles, which made it very difficult for through traffic to drive down the street.  It also made it more dangerous for drivers like me because it made it harder to see kids on foot, and made it more dangerous for the kids, as it made it harder for them to see through traffic, and because of the unpredictable movements of the minivan parade.

I don't know why the parents of small children just didn't park their vehicles and get off their lazy asses and walk with their kids to each house.  And the parents of older children should have been home giving out candy and let those kids travel in groups to trick or treat on their own.  It seems to me that if you're ten or eleven, having to spend the night getting in and out of a car with your parents there the whole time would suck all the joy right out of Halloween.

Halloween is totally different now for kids than it was when I was a kid trick or treating back in the sixties and early seventies.  For one thing, only the smallest children had parents going with them to trick or treat, and even then the parents walked with their kids, they didn't drive them from house to house.  And from about the second grade onwards (age 8), kids trick or treated on their own in groups in their own neighborhoods and the parents stayed home to hand out candy to other kids. 

I lived in a huge subdivision where nearly every house participated.   My mother would give me a king size pillow case and I'd fill that up, then return to get another one to fill.  Trick or treating typically began at dusk, and continued for a few hours. 

It was a lot more fun for us than it is for kids nowadays and I kind of feel sorry for kids now because they won't experience Halloween like most Baby Boom era kids did.

It seems as if I have a homing device to attract the religious of all stripes.  I don't know what it is; perhaps it's my air of disrepute that attracts them like moths to a flame.

Recently, they hired a new guy at my place of employment, a squeaky-clean, straight arrow kind of person.  I didn't have a problem with him until he started peddling his religion on me.  He'd heard that I liked music and had some formal musical training, so he used that as a way to start preaching to me.  Starting out innocently enough, he told me that he was the "praise leader" at his church, in charge of providing the music for their services, blah, blah, blah.

After a few moments of this, he got to his point of the entire conversation -- he wanted to know where I went to church. All the fundies do this, as they believe it's their duty to sell their religion to one and all.

Not really caring to discuss my opinion about religion with him, I simply told him that I didn't go, hoping to leave it at that.

No such luck.

He invited me to attend his church, telling me that I could be an asset to their "praise team" with my musical training.

I nearly choked and laughed myself to death all at the same time.  Hell, talk about barking up the wrong tree!  I'd probably burst into flames if I ever set foot into his smarmy, fundamentalist church.

Still not wanting to discuss religion in a work setting, I merely declined, citing the fact that I'm scheduled to work every Sunday. 

Fortunately, at this moment, he had to get back to work, so I was spared being more blunt with him.  But I'm guessing that some time soon, I'll have to tell him to fuck off in no uncertain terms.

Here's a sample of quotes I found about sex while surfing the net. Enjoy!

Love your neighbor, but don't get caught.
-- Unknown

Sow your wild oats on Saturday night -- Then on Sunday pray for crop failure. --Unknown

When I'm good I'm very, very good but when I'm bad I'm better.
--Mae West

Happiness is watching the TV at your girlfriend's house during a power failure.
--Bob Hope

You know of course that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.
--Somerset Maugham

A nymphomaniac is a women as obsessed with sex as the average man.
--Mignon McLaughlin

I believe that sex is a beautiful thing between two people. Between five, it's fantastic.
--Woody Allen

"What's the three words you never want to hear while making love? Honey, I'm home."
--Ken Hammond

I am always looking for meaningful one night stands.
--Dudley Moore

It isn't premarital sex if you have no intention of
getting married.
--Matt Barry

Leaving sex to the clergy is like letting your dog
vacation at the taxidermist.
--Camille Paglia

A man needs a mistress just to break the monogamy.
-- Unknown

I believe that trust is more important that monogamy
-- Savage Garden

While monogamy may be a great thing for families, it clearly is not for intellectuals
--the inventor of the birth control pill

Chastity: the most unnatural of the sexual perversions.
--Aldous Huxley

I've been too fucking busy and vice versa.
--Dorothy Parker

She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.
--Raymond Chandler

Older women are best because they always think they may be doing it for the last time.
--Ian Fleming

It's not the men in my life that counts - it's the life in my men.
--Mae West

It doesn't matter what you do in the bedroom as long as you don't do it in the street and frighten the horses.
--Mrs Patrick Campbell

Love is not the dying moan of a distant violin - it's the triumphant twang of a bedspring.
--S. J. Perelman

Is sex dirty? Only if it's done right.
--Woody Allen

When authorities warn you of the sinfulness of sex, there is an important lesson to be learned. Do not have sex with the authorities.
--Matt Groening

I don't see why I have to make one man miserable when I can make so many men happy.
--Ellyn Mustard

Ducking for apples -- change one letter and it's the story of my life.
--Dorothy Parker

Sex between a man and a woman can be great, provided you get between the right man and the right woman.
--Woody Allen

How many husbands have I had? You mean, apart from my own?
--Zsa Zsa Gabor

It is an infantile superstition of the human spirit that virginity would be thought a virtue and not the barrier that separates ignorance from knowledge. --Voltaire

Sex on television can't hurt you unless you fall off.
--Unknown

Promiscuous, adj. Someone who gets more sex than you.
--Author unidentified

Most of us were raised to believe that any sort of self-pity is an emotion that must be avoided like the plague. We were taught that when someone asks, "How are you?", we are to reply "Fine", regardless of our actual circumstances. It didn't matter whether we just lost our job, our mother just died, and our house burned down all in the space of a week; "Fine" was still the only appropriate response.

But why?

Self-pity is merely another way of saying "compassion for the self". It is an understandable emotion when times are tough, especially for a prolonged time, a way of acknowledging that we deserve better. Having to smile, smile, smile in the face of disaster is a form of denial, pollyannaism.

If we can never feel sorry for ourselves, that is, have any compassion for ourselves, then how can we feel it for others? Like charity, compassion begins at home.

Sometimes feeling sorry for ourselves can spur us into a "I'm mad and not going to take it any longer" mode that makes us work to change what we can about our situations. But there are many shitty situations we can't change by ourselves, or at all, and it's unrealistic to expect someone to always feel glad in such an instance.

Of course, when self-pity becomes entrenched and becomes a way of life that immobilizes a person from attempting to help themselves, it has gotten out of hand and should be overcome.

But not all compassion for the self is like this. Most of the time, if a person allows themselves to acknowledge thoughts of self pity, it will eventually run its course and the person will move on.

I imagine I'm going to get hammered on this one, as what I've said goes against conventional wisdom, but this is how I see it.

The following is a transcript of a WWII veteran speaking out for marriage equality in Maine.  I think this man's words speak eloquently enough for themselves, so I'll not add any comments of my own, except to ask for your thoughts after reading this:

"Men need respect, women need love".

I've heard this assertion from the pop psychologist crowd more times than I'd care to mention. Their underlying point is that men and women differ so profoundly as to be almost two different species.

What a load of BS.

I'm not going to go into a long discussion of sex differences here, as that would take many entries and open a can of worms I'm not willing to attempt to recan at this time, but I'll confine myself to this single assertion.

The above statement is made in the context of intimate personal relationships at a committed level. Though I'm no big expert in committed relationships, to be sure, there are a few things that are fairly obvious to me that conflict with this assertion.

Women do indeed need love in a committed relationship. That is so obvious as to not need mentioning. But what is love without respect? A woman who is loved by a man who doesn't equally respect her is in an unhealthy relationship. Love without respect isn't love at all.

As far as men go, yes, we most definitely need respect. But if I were in a committed relationship, I'd certainly expect to be loved, otherwise, what's the point of the commitment?

I neither expect nor necessarily desire undying love in my many casual relationships, nor is a high level of respect expected. But if I were in a long term commitment where the woman merely respected me without loving me, it might as well be a business relationship.

Love and respect. Two equal sides of the coin. For both men and women.

And, by the way, I am from Earth. I expect my women to be from Earth. To hell with this Mars and Venus shit.

I haven't done a language rant in awhile, so here goes.

The offense of the day is:

"Alot"

This spelling abomination is used by people to mean "a lot".  It's a mistake I didn't see years ago, even by people with generally atrocious spelling and grammar.  It apparently is a fairly "new" mistake, that I'm seeing more and more.  And what makes "alot" different from other language errors, is that I'm seeing it used more often by people who generally don't make frequent spelling and grammar mistakes.

I've often wondered why people in increasing numbers have started to run the two words "a lot" together.  First, let's look at the definition of the phrase "a lot".

A lot

Very many, a large number; also, very much. For example, A lot of people think the economy is declining, or Sad movies always made her cry a lot. It is sometimes put as a whole lot for greater emphasis, as in I learned a whole lot in his class. It may also emphasize a comparative indication of amount, as in We need a whole lot more pizza to feed everyone, or Mary had a lot less nerve than I expected. [Colloquial; early 1800s]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.

Is it that they don't understand what a word "lot" means?  Here's a couple of definitions of the word "lot" that relate to the phrase "a lot":

Lot

a piece of land having the use specified by the attributive noun or adjective: a parking lot; a used-car lot.

a distinct portion or parcel of anything, as of merchandise: The furniture was to be auctioned off in 20 lots.

a number of things or persons collectively: There's one more, and that's the lot.

Often, lots. a great many or a great deal: a lot of books; lots of money.

I'm guessing that they're confusing "a lot" with the bona fide word, "allot", which is a verb that has an entirely different meaning from "a lot":

Allot

to divide or distribute by share or portion; distribute or parcel out; apportion: to allot the available farmland among the settlers.

to appropriate for a special purpose: to allot money for a park.

to assign as a portion; set apart; dedicate.

Personally, I think the rise of "alot" has quite a bit to do with the fact that increasingly fewer people read regularly, so they are spelling "by ear", rather than imitating what they've seen in print.

So ends the spelling lesson of the day.

This morning while idly surfing the net, I read one woman's rant about the latest sexual brouhaha du jour; that of David Letterman being blackmailed over the many sexual dalliances he's had over the years with women he'd worked with.  In complete indignation, she ripped Letterman up one side and down the other.

She reviled him for his inability to be monogamous; that he'd been repeatedly unfaithful to his partner of 23 years.  Calling him a "creepy, perverted old man", she jeered at him for his apparent inability to "keep in in his pants".  And then she wrapped up with hand-wringing about the increasingly so-called "dying breed" of men who remain absolutely sexually faithful to their female partners who, unlike Letterman, in her opinion, were "upright, righteous, strong, moral men with integrity".

I won't take the time to address all her points here, because that isn't the main point of this post, save to say that infidelity wasn't something invented in the 1960s.   People have been struggling to adhere to monogamy ever since it was imposed on us by religion countless generations ago.

What mainly struck me as absurd and short sighted about her post was the fact that the Letterman "sextortion" news has followed directly on the heels of the latest news about Roman Polanski's arrest.

If she wanted to vent her spleen on a "creepy, perverted old man", then she need not have looked any further than Polanski, who drugged and forcibly raped a 13 year old kid, then evaded justice for over thirty years.  Polanski is the real deal when it comes to creepy, perverted old men and it's completely ludicrous to even attempt to put Letterman into the same category.

Unlike Polanski and his misguided defenders, (such as Whoopi Goldberg, who has said that Polanski did not commit "rape-rape", but "something else"), who have tried to minimize the seriousness of what he did,  Letterman has stepped up to the plate like a man and openly admitted the dalliances without trying to explain them away.  Unlike many other celebrity men who have been outed for adultery in recent years, was honest about his behavior. 

Letterman was also involved with adult women in consensual encounters; hardly the crime of the century that will lead to the end of civilization as we know it.  Polanski and his defenders, who somehow think he's special and not subject to the same laws as the rest of us, on the other hand, say something very sad about our society.

Thoughts?