Monthly Archives: July 2011
Sunday Best
That is actually me, second from the right, all dressed up for church in my Sunday best. My cousins sport the hats while my brothers wear the goofy smiles. We were dressed up like little men ready to make … Continue reading
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God’s Eye: Part 1
As of Aug 1st, 2011, only 43% of you had enough divine insight enough to realize that point #4 was the correct point needed to form The Divine Proportion. Future posts will illustrate how this Divine Ratio yields much magic. … Continue reading
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Jostling the Juggernaut: #1
The momentum of our habits is usually unstoppable. So taking a moment to ram or jostle our Juggernaut of habits can be eye-opening, if not just pure fun. I will post a weekly series of jostling experiments. Try them sometime this … Continue reading
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“Mindfulness” Hype & Driving
“Mindfulness, mindfulness, mindfulness” is the mantra of many Western Buddhists. It has almost been hackneyed into meaninglessness. For great analysis of the mindfulness craze see posts by both D. Chapman and Glenn Wallis. Meanwhile I’d like to add my simple … Continue reading
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The Ecological Fallacy
I occasionally have discussions on blogs where basic statistics concerning “averages” is useful. Rather than referring to another site that explains these statistics, I thought I’d try to summarize them here. Imagine a town, Sudsville, located on a beautiful lake. The town … Continue reading
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Story vs Myth
Stories can be great vehicles to communicate useful perspectives on reality. They can also communicate destructive perspectives. One thing has become clear to me over the years: Our brains are very bad at separating fact from fiction. For example, if you read … Continue reading
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Home Key Blunder
Those of you who can actually type without looking at your keyboard know that sometimes your fingers accidentally land on the wrong home keys. Sometimes you don’t notice the mistake until you look up and see the gibberish you are typing. But this week … Continue reading
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Evil
Evil = An intentional act or actor which you dislike enough to feel it needs to be eliminated, eradicated, extinguished or made totally impotent. Calling something “evil” is more than just saying “I don’t like that at all!”. The word … Continue reading
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The Juggernaut of Habit
In a certain Hindu festival, a massive cart bearing a statue of the Hindu god Krishna (Jagannath – “world lord”) is paraded through town. In the 1300s, a Brit (Mandeville) alleged that devotees of this god would sometimes throw themselves under the … Continue reading
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Comparing Buddhism & Christianity: An Offense?
Over the years I have repeatedly seen many Western Buddhists offended when parts of their beliefs or practice have been compared to Christianity. I am not sure why but I have some thoughts: Many Western Buddhists feel like a minority … Continue reading
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Desperate Women
Humor break: On the atheist websites there is controversy about if it is OK to ask a woman to your hotel room for “coffee” at 4 am in a hotel elevator. Skepchick (her choice of a handle) and Richard Dawkins … Continue reading
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The Divine Proportion
Euclid of Alexandria, in his “Elements” (300 BC), gave us the first clear definition what he called ”The Extreme and Mean Ratio” but what was later raised to loftier levels and called “The Golden Ratio” and ”The Divine Proportion”. The ratio … Continue reading
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The Feel-Good god
People use “God” in many ways. See my post on “God Definitions“. But a very common core god for most people is this: God = What I value; What I find Inspiring; What gives me awe. All of these sentences … Continue reading
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Math
This is an index of posts concerning Math. Last Updated August 2011 Phi: The Divine Proportion God’s Eye: Part 1 The Divine Proportion : Phi Math and the Religious Mind Math & the Religious Mind: Intro Phi : The Divine Proportion : The … Continue reading
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Math & the Religious Mind: Intro
Introduction: We all have buttons that, when pushed, can stop us from thinking clearly and can polarize dialogues making them useless, if not destructive. On Triangulations I discuss highly polarizing topics: religion, philosophy, politics, lifestyles and more. On most my … Continue reading
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Types of Numbers
Above is a diagram I made to illustrate the common number types. There apparently is no agreement on the definition of “number” and the meaning has changed over the centuries. I will be using this diagram to assist in other … Continue reading
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Infinity is not a Number
Thinking about infinity as a real (albeit, large) number is a common error. I think it springs from the same habits of mind that creates many religious concepts. The temptation of the mind to concretize abstractions is what forms this … Continue reading
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Re-Defining Atheism
Here is my list of all the various terms used by nonbelievers to describe themselves. Among these, “atheist” vs “agnostic” are frequently debated. To many, the nuances of ”atheist” appear overly certain and the nuances of “agnostic” appear too wishy-washy. … Continue reading
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