Lifestyle & Culture
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »Sure. But Does God Believe In Christopher Hitchens?
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on January 4, 2009 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Sunday, January 4th, 2009Would You Trust This Man For Spiritual Guidance? You know that old rule about how you shouldn’t discuss religion, politics, or sex in polite company? Well thank God the Internet is hardly what you’d call polite company, or I wouldn’t have much to talk about. For awhile now, I’ve found myself a little irritated by [...]
 Would You Trust This Man For Spiritual Guidance? |
You know that old rule about how you shouldn’t discuss religion, politics, or sex in polite company? Well thank God the Internet is hardly what you’d call polite company, or I wouldn’t have much to talk about. For awhile now, I’ve found myself a little irritated by some of the more rabid atheists in the public eye (at least one of whom seemingly can’t be mentioned without mentioning his excessive drinking). I’ve always been aware that one of the reasons for my joy in goading atheists into a debate was that if they truly held that the foundations of their belief were logic, their side of the argument was doomed at the outset. Agnosticism is one of the predictable results of applying reason to the topic of God, but to attempt to proclaim the absolute non-existence of something is absurd. Much like saying humans have never been to the moon simply because you haven’t. This idea gets summed up nicely in the compelling book Cosmos and Psyche
Celibacy: The Abridged Virgin
[ Comments Off ]Posted on December 28, 2008 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Sunday, December 28th, 2008The Miracle Of Virgin Rebirth
 Maintaining celibacy is probably easier for some people than for others. |
Recently I was joking with a couple of friends about the age old question “How long do you have to go without sex before you’re a virgin again?” There was a consensus that women were more capable of being themselves without a man, so there was a significant gender imbalance. We agreed on something like about a year for men and maybe three years for women. We were kidding around of course; I had no idea people actually took the concept seriously. Although the poor soul who asked Yahoo Answers the question “Can u get virgin again??” was probably a little disheartened by the responses, apparently there are people out there who are serious about reclaiming their virginity through faith. Go ahead and laugh, but remember that (while science may dispute the claims) more than one world religion owes their entire history to the existence of a virgin who actually gave birth! So although it used to be true that virginity was the one thing you’d never find once you lost it, technology is changing all of that. For a mere USD 14.90 you can purchase an Artificial Hymen (for a more in-depth look at this topic see this piece on the surgical re-virgining business in China). There’s even software designed specifically to help you recover your long-lost purity. If, on the other hand you still have your virginity and are trying to get rid of it, there is again a gender imbalance. If you’re a man, this graph quickly sums up your dilemma. But if you’re a woman, your virginity might even help pay for college. And all this obsession with virginity finally makes clear to me why my otherwise hip friends were so happy to take their daughters to Jonas Brothers concerts…
Do You Need A Flowchart?
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on December 19, 2008 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Friday, December 19th, 2008I don’t know. Let’s do a flowchart.
We’ve talked about flowcharts here before. Although I’m a pretty organized person, I don’t actually find them useful for getting organized, but I do find them quite amusing. That’s why, when I dropped some lettuce on the floor as I was making a salad today, I realized I had to jump on the flow chart bandwagon and do one of my own. You see, I like simple rules, but the Three Second Rule for whether or not to eat food that’s been on the floor is just too simple. So here’s my flow chart assessing the problem. Think you might find a flow chart useful for a problem of your own, but you aren’t quite sure? Try the Flowchart Of Should You Make A Flowchart. Still not sure you’re getting the hang of it? Here’s A Guide To Understanding Flowcharts In Flowchart Form. And if you’re for some reason questioning the truth of the information I’m sharing, here are The Steps To Determine The Factual Content Of A Statement. You should be careful with this sort of self-referential analysis though, lest you become trapped in a Hasselhoffian Recursion.
Lifestyle Drugs vs. Drug Lifestyles
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on December 16, 2008 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Tuesday, December 16th, 2008I did my part in the war on drugs, but they just kept coming, and coming…
Although I’m not too fond of either these days, in my sordid former life I always preferred recreational drugs to therapeutic ones. As something of an amateur drug expert as a result (thorough field work beats lab work any day!) I was always amused by the fact that the “legitimate” drug trade bombarded us with ads constantly while we were simultaneously told that other drugs are bad. Yes, it seems there’s a legitimate drug for everything, and although lifestyle drugs are booming, the problem with a drug lifestyle is that it’s pretty hard to convey to a person who’s high that drugs are bad somehow. I think they’re finally getting the hang of it though. I might’ve been scared straight in my nightclubbing days if I’d seen this (slightly gory) ad at 4am, for instance. And although to this day I’d maintain that the worst thing about smoking weed is that you just sit around feeling like you’re doing something when you’re not, this ad might’ve brought me to that conclusion sooner. And it’s too bad the U.S. doesn’t have anything as hip as the U.K.’s Talk To Frank campaign, where you can meet Pablo, the Drug Mule Dog, Baggie, the talking cocaine bag, and Nostril, a rather unhappy orifice. Gotta go now, I just got an e-mail that says that on top of being overweight, anxious, and depressed, both my malfunctioning penis AND my breasts are too small…
Hey, Check Me Out
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on December 9, 2008 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Tuesday, December 9th, 2008Oral tradition? We got your oral tradition.
Next time you go to the library, you may be able to check out something a little more interesting than the latest best-seller. I’m working on a non-profit concept based on cultural sharing and community action, so I was heartened to learn that in the U.K. a concept called Living Library has been enjoying some success. Curious about another culture? Don’t feel like reading a bunch of books to get a feel for it? Why not let someone come and tell you about it in person? Much cooler than renting a person or buying someone, the idea was first explored in Denmark in 2000 by the group Stop Volden (Stop the Violence). Most hatred has its basis in fear and ignorance, which often dissolves when people just meet and talk. My favorite personal experience with this was years ago when I introduced a homophobic redneck friend to a gay friend . As soon as the redneck friend realized the gay guy wasn’t going to spontaneously kiss him and grab his ass, he stopped feeling the nead to beat him up and they actually became drinking buddies. Living Library is working on pilot programs in the U.S.; maybe the concept will catch on. Along the same lines, people are even building mini-economies using the concept of community currency. Pretty cool. More on this topic soon, I think I’m late for my Socialists Anonymous meeting!