Oct 05 2012

[Lounge #372]

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Open Thread

by PZ Myers

This is the lounge. You can discuss anything you want, but you will do it kindly. Hey, is that a teletubby?

Status: Heavily Moderated; Previous thread

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1001

Ogvorbis: broken and cynical

12 October 2012 at 11:51 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

tithing is not charity

This is just my take on it, so ignore it with a grain of salt.

Tithing, giving 10% of your income to the church, is basically membership dues. If you do not tithe, your good standing in the church is called into question. Boy Scouts are a charitable organization but the dues paid to be a Boy Scout are not considered a charitable contribution, they are membership dues. If you decide to give more than your required membership dues then it would be charity? Does that make sense?
1002

Improbable Joe

12 October 2012 at 11:52 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

… insert “folks” where previously typed “guys”…
1003

Tony •Prom King of Sunnydale High•

12 October 2012 at 11:58 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

carlie:

Think of spending the next year, two years, whatever, always wanting the SO to pay more attention to you, and deeper than that, wanting him to want to pay more attention to you. That is a soul-sucking kind of pain, there. Even when two people both like each other a lot, that kind of incompatibility will always make the person who wants more feel bad.

I have never once thought about it that way. This puts a new perspective on a lot of past attempts at relationships.

****

Joe:

I’m all about the value-added relationships, where you get back more than you put it. When you’re putting in more than you’re getting out, it is like you’re slowly bleeding to death, and that’s no way to live.

Wow. Again, I never viewed past relationships through that lens.
Looking back over the last decade, I’ve put more into dating people than I’ve gotten out of it. I can think of 6 people in the last 5 years where that’s been the case. Sadly, unless my memory is wonky (which it may well be), the last time I dated someone who treated me as well as I treated him was in 2003, when I briefly dated someone in New Orleans, LA.
1004

Pteryxx

12 October 2012 at 12:00 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Lynna, thank you for all the references. Do you have any on misogyny? It’s much less well covered.
1005

chigau (this space for rent)

12 October 2012 at 12:04 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Improbable Joe

You ~~guys~~ folks are like an edible plant hate group!

No kidding!
I think some of these people don’t anything.
1006

chigau (this space for rent)

12 October 2012 at 12:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Hey PZ!
We’re on page 3!
1007

nms

12 October 2012 at 12:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Thanks, KG and PZ.
1008

Ogvorbis: broken and cynical

12 October 2012 at 12:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Eggplant (Yeah, I know I’m late)

Cut eggplant in half and roast. Scoop out pulp and dice. Add sauted onions, garlic, cheese and some herbs, put it back in the eggplant shell and roast until heated through. Peas can be added for colour, flavour and texture.
1009

Portia

12 October 2012 at 12:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

In my view, tithing is not charity in large part because so much of it goes to evangelizing. Paying to try and recruit people to your religion is not charitable. As Lynna noted, little of the LDS revenue goes to “actual” charity as we would colloquially define it.

Ogvorbis makes another excellent point wrt tithing. I completely agree.
1010

broboxley OT

12 October 2012 at 12:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Squash was grown by indians to get containers and decoration they didn’t eat the damn things
Indians ate seeds, fruit, leaves and roots, not vegetables
corn
beans
casava
tobacco etc.

Its my story and Im sticking to it :-)
1011

Esteleth, Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo

12 October 2012 at 12:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Good news everyone!

According to the stain I just did by accident, my glasses to not hydrolyze calcein! They are not alive!
1012

Lynna, OM

12 October 2012 at 12:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney have a habit of claiming that people agree with them when those people manifestly do not.

Paul Ryan tried to make the case that his controversial Medicare plan is “bipartisan.”

RYAN: This is a plan that’s bipartisan. It’s a plan I put together with a prominent Democrat senator from Oregon.

BIDEN: There’s not one Democrat who endorses it.

RYAN: It’s a plan … our partner is a Democrat from Oregon.

The Republican congressman was, of course, referring to Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who tried to work with Ryan on Medicare policy. So, is Wyden a “partner” to Ryan on the GOP Medicare scheme?

Not according to Wyden. The “prominent Democrat [sic] senator from Oregon” went to Facebook after the debate to explain why he “strongly” opposes Ryan’s proposal: “The Romney/Ryan plan raises the age of eligibility and repeals the ACA leaving millions of seniors with no health coverage. The Romney/Ryan plan on Medicare pulls the safety net out from under the poorest and most vulnerable seniors, taking away the opportunity for nursing home care from seniors who need it and have no other options. The Wyden-Ryan white paper strengthened the safety net for these dual eligibles. The Romney/Ryan version shreds it. The Republican ticket knows that neither I, nor any other Democrat, would support these policies.”

Wyden didn’t get around to telling Ryan, “You know nothing of my work,” but he should have. [Reference to McLuhan moment in the film Annie Hall.]
1013

AJ Milne

12 October 2012 at 12:27 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

So in case anyone’s wondering, the white chocolate tempering thing didn’t work out so great.

I mean, sure, it tempered. Seems to be reasonably glossy, set up in minutes, as tempered stuff is supposed to do…

But in the zone, the stuff was maddeningly difficult to handle. Really thick, difficult to get to and keep at temperature–best guess is either the specific heat is a lot higher than dark stuff, or conductivity is lower, and, obviously, viscosity of this stuff at 87 Fahrenheit is a lot higher as with dark at 89. So I got like eight truffles out of a pound of chocolate before the whole thing became an unmanageable mess, and each truffle is this freakin’ huge blob of white chocolate, with, somewhere in each, presumably, the centre…

Not sure if that’s the material I used or what. But anyway. I’m probably going to have to go back to dark stuff just to cover the rest of the centres I’ve got. Which do seem pretty promising, anyway. Mint and coffee and unadorned chocolate ones, as planned, and my ganache is now a lot easier to handle, too.
1014

broboxley OT

12 October 2012 at 12:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Og and Portia thank you, so stipulated 10% tithes is a membership not a charity. Fair enough, so Romney only contributes 20% of his income to charity then. That is still a sizable percentage of money being handed to others. Still cant buy your way into people liking you but still a chunk of change
1015

Portia

12 October 2012 at 12:33 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Bummer, AJ.

On tithing. Another thing: you pay so you can stay cool with gawd (or whatever) and keep all your brownie points and get safely into paradise. With charity, you do it for its own sake. Ideally, anyway. Not to mention the disgusting extravagance of modern churches, which is paid for how? Oh yeah, tithing.
1016

Aratina Cage

12 October 2012 at 12:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

@broboxley

Okay, someone explain this one real slow

tithing is not charity

I dont give money to any priest pastor rebbe or imam
but if I did so they could afford to study, buy food for the needy, paint the church or take cooked meals to the elderly or gamble it away in a casino I would consider that charity

Charity usually means it will be used for people in need and not a business transaction. While it may seem like that is what is happening at smaller churches where the tithing is doing little more than paying for utilities and groceries for the priest, it is still the price of being entertained every week. Ask yourself, would they still tithe if the priest was not entertaining them regularly and/or not doing something church related?

Of course one should never have to go without food and shelter and other necessities of life, but why obfuscate the act of tithing to pay for the priest and the temple, etc., into this idea of charity and not just call it like it is: payment for the entertainment? The unwillingness of most people to look at churches as businesses is the problem.

Also, tithing has been found to hardly even go toward charitable actions at the broader level with well-organized church groups, especially the nationwide ones: http://www.secularhumanism.org/fi/vol_32/4/cragun_32_4.pdf
1017

Portia

12 October 2012 at 12:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Simultaneous posting, broboxley, didn’t mean to pile on. You’re right, that’s a lot of money. I’m willing to bet it’s from a place of “I’m running for office for Pete’s sake!”
1018

PZ Myers

12 October 2012 at 12:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Yes, finally, a NEW THREAD.