Most of what Val and I have been posting so has been in regards to pretty heady topics: science, religion, politics, philosophy, etc. But we've also been shifting paradigms on the small things too, small changes to our behavior or lifestyles that work better for us even if it's not traditional or common. From time to time I'd like to share these other ways that we've broadened our minds as well, starting with a cheap dinner date idea.
Yesterday was our first anniversary, and the one thing we know we wanted for sure was a nice dinner at a restaurant with a fun atmosphere and excellent food. The problem was, how to do this when we're living on a tight budget?
We ended up ordering a three-course meal at an upscale restaurant. A small apple and goat cheese salad to start, a cup of roast pork chili verde, and for the main course the excellent pasta of the day with a vodka red sauce, chili verde, house sausage, bitter greens, and a soft white cheese.
All together this should have been a $80 dinner for us, but we managed to eat at this fine restaurant for only $35. How did we manage that? We only had water to drink, and we shared all three dishes. It was a luxuriously slow dinner, we received excellent service throughout, and they even gave us both full portions of soup for the price of one. Plus we were able to enjoy a larger variety of foods, the pasta alone would have been enough to fill us up if we'd had our own meals.
Anyone else have their own way of doing things that gets them a better experience for less money? If so feel free to help us keep shifting our paradigms.
In search of reason,
Mike
Ignosticism
Tip of the hat to "Big Religion and Spirituality Blog" for pointing out a new term for me to add to my lexicon: Ignostic.
Ignosticism is the position that all other theological positions, even agnosticism, assume too much about the concept of god.
In plain English, what ignostics are saying is that before we can argue if god(s) exist, we need to define the god concept in a clear and specific manner. Before we do, asking questions of existence is futile because the term "god" is meaningless.
I fully subscribe to this idea, and I'm glad I now have a term to sums it up.
Ignosticism is the position that all other theological positions, even agnosticism, assume too much about the concept of god.
In plain English, what ignostics are saying is that before we can argue if god(s) exist, we need to define the god concept in a clear and specific manner. Before we do, asking questions of existence is futile because the term "god" is meaningless.
I fully subscribe to this idea, and I'm glad I now have a term to sums it up.
Ethics Part 2.5: Moral Compasses Revisited
Before I start let me repost my late addition to the last post in my ethics series in case you missed it:
When writing about the Moral Compasses I felt guilty that I couldn't find anything to cite. I'd read about it very closely in a magazine (don't even remember which one) about a year ago, and because when I scrutinized the article I found that it fit in with my anthropological framework of human behavior and psychology, I accepted it and integrated it into my own way of thinking. Not in the habit of blogging yet, I didn't record where I found it, what the original study had been, or how to find it again. Well I was just looking under the wrong terms it seems. Today I found a NY Times article on the study (beware it's quite long) that goes into great detail on the subject (so you know I'm not making it up ;) ). Thanks to Greta Christina, another blogger who pointed me towards it in her own article on ethics and values.
Edit: I've changed the labels for each value on the original post, because these are simpler.
In her article Greta aggressively argues for the idea that some moral values are inherently stronger in liberals, and others are inherently stronger in conservatives. Remember how I said that for a secularist Harm and Fairness were the most crucial? Well Greta argues for how they are also the primary moral instincts of liberals. This makes a lot of sense, since secularism is philosophy supported by liberals and attacked by conservatives (oooh Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, and Glenn Beck; so many hours of anger and laughter that you give me). Greta points out, as I did, that these are the two value sets that are best able to be applied to both yourself and others. She also does a better job of explaining why universalization of values is important
I had another thought to share that is related to this subject: When talking about morality I consider moral/immoral to be a false dichotomy. Actions that are wrong and should be avoided or punished are obviously immoral, however everything else is not moral by default. I consider moral actions to be actions and behaviors that we want to encourage and reward. Actions that we would not punish but we also do not feel any need to encourage are morally neutral. For example, doing you homework in order to do well in school is a moral action, however watching an hour of TV after you finish would be morally neutral. I know I didn't explicitly mention morally neutral actions in my post, but they were part of the framework I was basing everything on.
When writing about the Moral Compasses I felt guilty that I couldn't find anything to cite. I'd read about it very closely in a magazine (don't even remember which one) about a year ago, and because when I scrutinized the article I found that it fit in with my anthropological framework of human behavior and psychology, I accepted it and integrated it into my own way of thinking. Not in the habit of blogging yet, I didn't record where I found it, what the original study had been, or how to find it again. Well I was just looking under the wrong terms it seems. Today I found a NY Times article on the study (beware it's quite long) that goes into great detail on the subject (so you know I'm not making it up ;) ). Thanks to Greta Christina, another blogger who pointed me towards it in her own article on ethics and values.
Edit: I've changed the labels for each value on the original post, because these are simpler.
In her article Greta aggressively argues for the idea that some moral values are inherently stronger in liberals, and others are inherently stronger in conservatives. Remember how I said that for a secularist Harm and Fairness were the most crucial? Well Greta argues for how they are also the primary moral instincts of liberals. This makes a lot of sense, since secularism is philosophy supported by liberals and attacked by conservatives (oooh Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, and Glenn Beck; so many hours of anger and laughter that you give me). Greta points out, as I did, that these are the two value sets that are best able to be applied to both yourself and others. She also does a better job of explaining why universalization of values is important
In other words, the philosophical underpinning of ethics are that they ought to be applicable to everyone. They ought to be universalizable.
And liberal values -- fairness and harm -- are universalizable.
In fact, it's inherent in the very nature of these values that they are universalizable
Comrades in Blogs
Without A Clutch has joined up The Out Campaign Blogroll, and the The Atheist Blogroll. Both can be found along the sidebar.
We're also proudly showing our support for Foundation Beyond Belief:
We've also set up the sidebar to link to more resources on various topics that relate to our blog.
We hope you find something fun and useful!
Never stop questioning in search of reason,
Val and Mike
We're also proudly showing our support for Foundation Beyond Belief:
A unique charity whose humanist and atheist members support ten outstanding secular organizations per quarter. Choose your donation level, and distribute among the featured causes as you wish.
The Foundation features ten charitable organizations per quarter in the following cause areas:
* Health
* Education
* Poverty
* Environment
* Child Welfare
* Human Rights
* Animal Protection
* Peace
* The "Big Bang" Fund (small charity, big impact)
* Foundation Beyond Belief
We've also set up the sidebar to link to more resources on various topics that relate to our blog.
We hope you find something fun and useful!
Never stop questioning in search of reason,
Val and Mike
Neil Degrasse Tyson is a Rock-Star of Science
More accurately, he is a rock-star of science literacy. We need more educators stressing the importance of learning to ask the right questions, I count myself very lucky to have had several.
In search of reason,
Mike
In search of reason,
Mike
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