On 1/17/2011 10:50 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Tue, 18 Jan 2011 00:09:53 -0300, Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
>
>> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> On Wed, 12 Jan 2011 20:07:50 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>>
>>>>   It means, "We would like to encourage you to do
>>>> something specifically religious, not not just religious, but specific
>>>> to a specific 'set' of religions, since some don't."
>>>
>>> No, really, it doesn't.  At least not to me.
>>
>> Do all religions have such thing as "prayer"?
>
> I couldn't possibly speak to all religions.  Some involve meditation,
> which would be very roughly analogous.
>
> Jim
The effects are certainly analogous, based on study of the effects. A 
fact that is quite funny since you don't have to "meditate" *at* anyone 
specific to get the result, or about anything specific, etc., so anyone 
can do it, where prayer is supposedly "specific" to the deity(ies) in 
questions.

That said, no, not all religions use either. Though, the only obvious 
one I can think of would be Scientology. In principle, performance of a 
ritual, whether it involves something like prayer or not, would qualify 
as religious, if directed at connecting to/effecting supernatural 
forces. Prayer is simply the most common one for the two "recognized" 
religions when ever this stuff comes up (i.e. Christians and Jews), may 
be allowed for something like Muslims, if they bother to include them, 
and isn't, technically, part of the third one they tend to mention, to 
be "inclusive" - Buddhism. However, this is likely because 90% of the 
people talking about religions in this context, don't know a bloody damn 
thing about the religion, other than its been used as a "safe" one to 
pick when talking about their "inclusiveness" for so long that its 
almost Pavlovian to include it.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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On Tue, 18 Jan 2011 19:29:30 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> In principle, performance of a
> ritual, whether it involves something like prayer or not, would qualify
> as religious, if directed at connecting to/effecting supernatural
> forces.

I think pretty much everyone follows rituals of some sort, regardless of 
whether they admit to it or not.

Is it more or less religious, for example, to pray to a god, than it is 
to wear a red shirt to a ballgame because the last time you went to a 
ballgame wearing a red shirt, your team won?

Religion and superstition are very closely related in a lot of ways - so 
much so that some would say they're the same.

Jim

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On 1/19/2011 11:38 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Tue, 18 Jan 2011 19:29:30 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> In principle, performance of a
>> ritual, whether it involves something like prayer or not, would qualify
>> as religious, if directed at connecting to/effecting supernatural
>> forces.
>
> I think pretty much everyone follows rituals of some sort, regardless of
> whether they admit to it or not.
>
> Is it more or less religious, for example, to pray to a god, than it is
> to wear a red shirt to a ballgame because the last time you went to a
> ballgame wearing a red shirt, your team won?
>
> Religion and superstition are very closely related in a lot of ways - so
> much so that some would say they're the same.
>
> Jim
Why hedge the matter and say "some would say". There is hardly any 
difference at all between someone ringing a bell, to scare off evil Kami 
at the new year, or someone putting on the same shirt they did the last 
time their team won. The only real difference is that one is followed by 
a lot of people, the other, just by one. Its still the same thing. The 
only thing making Prayer different is that it often includes a process 
which "can" sometimes trigger the same effects as meditation, where as 
ringing a magic bell, or wearing a particular shirt, doesn't.

Mind, this wouldn't stop some people arguing that this was evidence of 
something "different" going on, then insisting that "different" means 
"spooks and 2,000 year old zombies".

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 20:28:07 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> Why hedge the matter and say "some would say". 

Because while you believe there is no difference, some believe there is.  
Who am I to say they're (or you're, or - for that matter - I'm) wrong?

> There is hardly any
> difference at all between someone ringing a bell, to scare off evil Kami
> at the new year, or someone putting on the same shirt they did the last
> time their team won. The only real difference is that one is followed by
> a lot of people, the other, just by one. Its still the same thing. The
> only thing making Prayer different is that it often includes a process
> which "can" sometimes trigger the same effects as meditation, where as
> ringing a magic bell, or wearing a particular shirt, doesn't.

Depends on the individual.  In both cases one can make the argument that 
correlation does not imply causation.  So what?

> Mind, this wouldn't stop some people arguing that this was evidence of
> something "different" going on, then insisting that "different" means
> "spooks and 2,000 year old zombies".

That doesn't mean there's a need to be offensive to those who take 
comfort in wearing the red shirt to the basketball game, or to those who 
take comfort in saying a prayer to a deity, real or not.

Similarly, I have on occasion used Tarot cards to help clarify my 
thinking on topics.  In my opinion, one has to read the cards 
themselves.  Why?  Because there's absolutely nothing mystical about them 
(or about astrology, for that matter).  They're nothing more than systems 
to help one frame thinking about something.

I haven't had to use that particular method to identify my own 
motivations on something (or to help me think rationally about a decision 
I was about to make) for quite some time.

Some people who read Tarot cards (especially for other people) look at 
the results and say "it's mysticism" because the results are often what 
people want.

But the principle at work, I think, really is confirmation bias.

Last time I seriously used the cards was deciding whether or not to take 
a new job.  I was having trouble focusing on what was important for me 
and what was important for my family.  We talked about it and went back 
and forth, and I decided that I'd use a system to help me frame my 
thoughts.

Now, ultimately, I knew I wanted to take the new job.  I knew it was a 
good decision, but I had some doubts.

So I put the cards down in a prescribed pattern where every single card 
has a specific meaning based on where it is.  And I referred to an 
interpretation of the individual cards' meanings that helped me organize 
my thoughts.

And after I used that technique to clarify my thinking and what I wanted 
out of a new job, I accepted the offer.

Nothing mystical about it at all.  I used a system to identify what I 
wanted and to identify/weigh the pros and cons before making a decision.

Now, if someone decides to say a prayer to a deity in order to make a 
decision and as a result of framing their thoughts for this deity 
(whether it exists or not is immaterial), is able to make a clear 
decision.

Some call that divine intervention.  You and I call it applying reason.  
In either case, a decision is reached and if it goes well, whomever 
credit goes to, a positive result is reached.

It's really no different than what I used to do when faced with a 
particularly challenging IT problem - I'd call my wife.  I found that in 
explaining the problem to her, I could often find the solution, but the 
act of trying to explain it to someone who's not an IT professional 
really helped me understand the issue better.

So there again, I don't think it's necessary to be offensive to those who 
are happy to believe that some supernatural power intervened - whether 
that's the case or not.

Jim

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Why hedge the matter and say "some would say". There is hardly any 
> difference at all 

There's actually a fairly big difference between ritual and superstition, 
even if the ritual is only practiced by one person.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> And after I used that technique to clarify my thinking and what I wanted 
> out of a new job, I accepted the offer.

If you need to make a decision, flip a coin. Between the time the coin lands 
and the time you look at it, you'll learn exactly what it is you're hoping 
you'll find.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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On 1/19/2011 8:56 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 20:28:07 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> Why hedge the matter and say "some would say".
>
> Because while you believe there is no difference, some believe there is.
> Who am I to say they're (or you're, or - for that matter - I'm) wrong?
>
Its called "critical thinking". Apparently a practice that isn't taught 
too well in colleges (never mind it should start in grade school:

"After the full four years, 36 percent had shown no development in 
critical thinking, reasoning and writing, according to the study, which 
forms the basis of the new book "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning 
on College Campuses.""

If you don't know how to interpret facts in the first place, you can 
hardly, in the case of those people with the opinion there "is" some 
huge difference, whine about someone else pointing out that there isn't 
any. Right?

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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On 1/19/2011 8:56 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> So there again, I don't think it's necessary to be offensive to those who
> are happy to believe that some supernatural power intervened - whether
> that's the case or not.
>
> Jim
The problem is.. It doesn't just stop at them using it to effect their 
*own* lives. Failure to recognize that it is a form of applied reasoning 
(and I would argue that isn't always the case, since you need data to 
reason from, and religion tends to reject wide ranges of data and 
sources), leads people to trying to make decisions for *others* based on 
the same reasoning. It also leads them, invariably, to false 
equivalencies, failure to understand what they are actually advocating 
for/against, etc. We spent decades in the US, far more than any other 
country in the world, being "nice" to the religious, religious views, 
religious interpretations, and telling everyone, "We respect the wacky 
shit you believe!", we got fundamentalists, George Bush, Sarah Palin, 
and the Tea Party, oh, and some bozo trying to build an Ark in Kentucky, 
and whining about conspiracies, every time real experts, instead of his 
own friend, claims his "attendance and income projections" are even more 
fictional than Genesis.

Oh, right, and it also plays in to the hands of quack psychology, quack 
pharmacology, quack gizmos, modern patent medicine gibberish, and all 
the rest of the stuff, which preys in the same inability to tell the 
difference between confirmation bias, placebo, and/or what their own 
brain is doing, versus "quantum, spiritual, all natural, suplimental, 
toothpaste", or what ever they have made up this week to sell the same 
fools.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> >> I'll just point out again that it wasn't the executive branch, but the 
> >> congress, that declared a national day of prayer.
> > 
> >   The first words of the first amendment to your constitution somehow
> > resonate in my head when I read that, causing a terrible pain...
> > 

> Yeah, me too.

  Btw, the attitude that Americans have towards their Constitution seems
quite strange. Seemingly they consider it an infallible and untouchable
holy scripture, and even the idea of going and changing even a single letter
of it is tantamous to blasphemy. (Amendments can be added, but changing
existing text, *especially* the original text written by the Founding
Fathers, is considered some kind of sacrilege.)

  This goes sometimes to such ridiculous extents as there being a small
controversy on whether a small smudge in article 1, section 10, is accidental
or really a comma. If it's really a comma (rather than an accidental drop of
ink), the sentence could ostensibly be interpreted slightly differently.

  It feels like the Constitution is holier than the Bible itself. Not even
a small smudge can be altered! Instead, lots of speculation and controversy
arise about what is it that the authors really meant when they wrote the
constitution.

  I don't understand where this idea is coming from. I have never heard
of any other country which would have such an attitude towards their
constitution. In most other countries I know of (obviously most importantly
Finland) the constitution reflects the current "state of art" in human
rights and the foundations of parliamentarian democracy. Changing the text
of the constitution is not something that can be done lightly, of course
(it requires, among other things, something like a 70% majority vote in the
parliament), but there are no qualms in doing so as needed.

  The United States constitution and its first amendments reflect the
"state of art" of human rights and democracy of the 1780's. The world has
changed a bit since then. It was rather obviously impossible for the authors
to know how the world would be like in 2011.

  Just consider the second amendment, for instance. In 1787 the most commonly
used handgun was a muzzle-loaded musket, which was very inaccurate and very
slow to load (the first fully self-contained breech-loaded cartridges were
not invented until about 1808, and eg. the modern revolver did not become
commonly used until Samuel Colt patented a revolver mechanism in 1836 that
led to its widespread use.) In the 1780's you could probably do more damage
with a sword than with a handgun.

  That is the background under which the second amendment was written.
Nowadays it's used to argue for the right of people to own fully automatic
rapid-fire weapons such as the M16 rifle or the Browning M2 machine gun.
Yeah, I'm sure that's exactly what the authors had in mind when they wrote
the second amendment.

  The original constitution of the United States is an invaluable piece of
history, but where is this idea coming from that it's perfect, infallible
and completely applicable to the modern world, over 200 years later?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> of it is tantamous to blasphemy. (Amendments can be added, but changing
> existing text, *especially* the original text written by the Founding
> Fathers, is considered some kind of sacrilege.)

Adding text to the end is how we change it.  One amendment says "By the way, 
now the federal government is allowed to pass laws about alcohol, too." 
Another, later, says "That was a mistake. The federal government no longer 
gets to do that."

>   This goes sometimes to such ridiculous extents as there being a small
> controversy on whether a small smudge in article 1, section 10, is accidental
> or really a comma. If it's really a comma (rather than an accidental drop of
> ink), the sentence could ostensibly be interpreted slightly differently.

I think this is true of a great number of legal systems, really. Arguing 
over the precise meaning of sentences and words and asking whether they 
apply in this particular case is exactly what the whole appeals process is 
about.

I'm not sure what drop of ink you're talking about. Are you exaggerating for 
effect, or have you actually heard an argument about this? (I *have* heard 
that in some contract disputes, but not the Constitution.)

>   It feels like the Constitution is holier than the Bible itself. Not even
> a small smudge can be altered! Instead, lots of speculation and controversy
> arise about what is it that the authors really meant when they wrote the
> constitution.

It's the highest law in the country. If you can convince the supreme court 
that the law as written means a certain thing, regardless of *why* it means 
that, then that decision is enforced on everyone in the country. So, yeah, 
it's a lot like the Bible, were God actually real and enforcing it. :-)

>   That is the background under which the second amendment was written.
> Nowadays it's used to argue for the right of people to own fully automatic
> rapid-fire weapons such as the M16 rifle or the Browning M2 machine gun.
> Yeah, I'm sure that's exactly what the authors had in mind when they wrote
> the second amendment.

Chances are, it is.  The whole point of the second amendment is to give the 
people forming the government the ability to overthrow the government if it 
goes badly.

Now, admittedly, it turns out that *today*, we've figured out that this 
"democracy" thing and this "federal" thing isn't too bad and is not too hard 
to steer. But at the time, just coming off King's rule and feudalism, it 
wasn't really obvious that a new democratic government was going to work 
out.  And, really, it wasn't until after the US Civil War that the federal 
government really took over the governing from the individual states.

>   The original constitution of the United States is an invaluable piece of
> history, but where is this idea coming from that it's perfect, infallible
> and completely applicable to the modern world, over 200 years later?

It's not. Most people don't think it is. That's why we have amendments every 
few decades, including amendments that contradict what's already written. 
It's just that the legal mechanisms for amending the constitution don't say 
"cross out this text". Many other laws in this country do, but we just don't 
do that with the federal constitution.  It's not because there's some 
strange reverence.

Some judges think it should be interpreted as "original intent". Some think 
it should be interpreted in a more modern way. It's an ongoing battle, with 
people picking sides not out of any particular philosophy but out of

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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