Running takes a lot of time. Runners say it is good, and often try to recruit more runners, but the activity is probably a net productivity drain. The elevated alertness after running doesn't last that long. It creates a focus around something that is pretty fleeting. Perhaps runners live longer, but maybe it is just better if we die off soon after retirement anyway? Reflecting on it, I guess the main benefit is that it illustrates one path to transformation. A runner can see that their perceptions -- how they feel in the moment -- can change dramatically after they become active.
One could argue there is a transformation that occurs for people in 12 step programs and that is "real". A difference is that there is more than a belief at work with fitness. -----Original Message----- From: Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ?>$ Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2021 1:53 AM To: friam@redfish.com Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [dis]integrated I feel that way about anyone who "stands in awe" of anything, actually. We're consistently bombarded with phrases like "the majesty of" this or that ... or this or that "takes my breath away" and whatnot. Maybe we could call such nonsense the Idioms of Awe. Religious belief is the favorite bogey of atheists. But we find it everywhere. Back in Portland, I abutted so many "foodies", it literally dis-gusted me. Food is fuel. That's it. No matter how much the True Believers proselytize the latest fad, that Awesome New Breakfast Place or whatever. It's just food. Please eat so we don't have to hear you talk anymore. We see it a lot in our obComplexity crowd. We see it in the Singularians. We see it in the formalists and even the Dionysians. Runners are especially bad, coonnssttantly yapping about their religion. But weightlifters are no better. Even the mobility bros seem to have drunk the Kool-Aid. Pretty much anywhere anyone can "get carried away" with something, you'll find the True Believers waiting in the wings to swoop in and brainwash you. At least the Rationalists have a method for mind-changing, unlike most True Believers. But rationality isn't *fascinating*. People need to be fascinated. My own pet theory is that our anatomy has been pressured toward fascination, a desire to concentrate, to focus for an extended time. The trick is to ask, given the target domain/problem/issue, how long do we need to focus on it? Perhaps some domains really do need multiple generations of concentrating individuals. Perhaps some domains only need a few people to focus on it for a year or so. In that context, those who are seemingly stuck in some gravity well of True Belief are more pitiful than repulsive. (Or maybe they're repulsive *because* they're so pitiable?) What we need is an education program that gives the pathetic True Believers some tools that help them climb out of their hole. But like the cops responding to a call from a homeless camp littered with human feces and used needles, educating the True Believers can be dangerous. The abyss stares back into you. On 10/11/21 12:38 PM, David Eric Smith wrote: > Yeah I don’t know. > > For some years I was working in ocean-floor engineering, and got a feel for > seawater. For all the devices you design, it is all-surrounding and > omnipresent. It relentlessly intrudes through any crack, seam, or pore, and > it corrodes whatever it touches. For whatever reason, this describes the > affect of my response to people’s religiosity. The more genuine and sincere > they are, the stronger my aversion to that in them. It’s not even the same > as being averse to the whole person. There are people of whom I think the > world, and to whom I am very attached, in whom I just have to work around > this one radioactive thing. n.b., however, that all such people are related > to me by birth. There don’t seem to be any ones I have sought out as friends > of whom that happens to be the case. Maybe, borderline, one or two Jews, who > seem to have a decorum and sense of proper privacy (those particular people, > I mean) for themselves and for others. > > There is another metaphor that also serves. I have a friend with fairly bad > arachnophobia. I was commenting that I didn’t know what that would feel > like, as spiders don’t particularly bother me, was for example ticks do. She > commented that it was funny, because her brother had said the same thing, > using the same examples. The reason, of course, is that most spiders prefer > to mind their own business. (Some Australian mouse spiders, perhaps less > so.) For ticks, their business is _you_. Likewise, there is no box within > which religiosity is content to stay. It’s business is always _you_, so you > can never turn your back on it in rest. > > In trying to form a clear view, for my own purposes, of why I respond this > way, in a quite different context earlier this week, I was thinking of trying > to explain to someone that I grew up with religious people on me trying to > force some kind of “religious conversion” and, in looking for a metaphor, the > one that came to me was “like cops on a black man”. And no matter how > submissive I am and how much I would like to be cooperative, I so far have > not found it in myself to want to go back into that. > > It surprises me that these studies don’t seem to address questions of > domination and constriction, and the degree to which being able to breathe > matters to one or another person. > > Eric > > > >> On Oct 11, 2021, at 2:07 PM, Marcus Daniels <mar...@snoutfarm.com> wrote: >> >> Doesn't work for me. My parents are in a very liberal church and (I think) >> like it because it gives some structure and support in their community. My >> dad's (I think formative) education at a strong liberal arts college >> probably contributed to my tendency to deconstruct things. I'm not >> particularly annoyed with their semi-religious activities, but there were >> plenty of people in my high school that I found to be religious crazies who >> I almost felt obligated to abuse. That hardened my atheism, but really it >> was hard right away in my early teenage years. >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ?>$ >> Sent: Monday, October 11, 2021 9:43 AM >> To: FriAM <friam@redfish.com> >> Subject: [FRIAM] [dis]integrated >> >> Study: Atheists are Made By Their Parents >> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fskepchick.org%2f2021%2f10%2fstudy-atheists-are-made-by-their-parents%2f&c=E,1,2G1IsnysW37qkXOrMoyLXGgacehySvzlBBD0wGXgUiHZFPFiq8oRkLu4J8VyPqz0vteY4F9ijy0I1jQMz57JJIg1WkOeQPeOqYDV9WgSFj4,&typo=1 >> >> Much of the argument is about credible displays of faith and hypocrisy. I >> thought this might be interesting following on the epically bent thread on >> [in]consistency, as well as some old conversations about how well one can >> describe/explain some historical decision/branch-point in their own life. >> >> I land about where Rebecca does, I think. -- "Better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie." ☤>$ uǝlƃ .-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ .-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
