Christian MEN Wearing Skirts

[Sinned]

As I understand the sensible rules certain topics are constrained mainly because they can rouse very vehement emotions and posts. While the postings are civil and add to the general knowledge of the patrons and are not just a diatribe of personal opinion then the administrators are tolerant and happy to leave things be. If you'll read past posts they have had to step in a time or two and lock threads and speak to certain of us. And some of the topics have not involved politics, religion or sex!

B&B you just got in before me and we were thinking along the same lines.

[Tor]

But I am a believer in a supreme Deity, be it the Scriptural God or some other superior force. It simply seems to me to be too much of a long shot for things to have turned out as they have without some divine hand. But I don't see a God as some omnipotent intervener, but as a creator who devised the double helix and then unleashed it to go as it has, perhaps with a plan, or perhaps only the omniscient knowledge of how and where it would lead to the humanity we have become...and into which we are still evolving. And I do believe that man was endowed with curiosity and the ability to reason and explore for a purpose; I dispute those who say that absolute obedience is the only way to know God; I think we were granted intellect not to be sheep, but to be shepherds in stewarding creation.

Well put. I am probably a little more agnostic about the supreme Deity than you, but this is a very nice wording and very similar to what I currently consider most likely to be true.

On the supreme Deity, I recall reading reference (too much work to look it up now) to "the medieval scholars proved that an ultimate creator cannot be proven". I'm inclined towards there being one, but for the time being I'm content to leave that question as being unanswered and any belief one wishes to hold on that matter being equally valid.

On the idea of a creator who devised the double helix and unleashed it, while I am still considering the matter, I believe this is very likely. At one time I pretty much accepted the evolution story, but have recently come to very much doubt that on the basis of too many highly improbably "coincidences" that corroborate the old tales of creation - none of which have, as far as I can tell, any need to be the way they are according to the undirected evolution theory. If what I have seen is correct, and I'll freely admit that I'm still considering and testing it, the odds of these forms being as they are by chance make winning a pick six numbers out of fifty lottery on one ticket look like a safe bet.

Humans must be the stewards of creation, if only by virtue of being the only part of creation capable of thinking on a grand scale, though I fear too much of what is being created these days has the potential to bring about our destruction, though much of it in a less rapid and dramatic manner than thermonuclear war. It looks to me like scientists these days are playing with the same tools use to form us, but without sufficient knowledge of what lies underneath and then unleashing their tests across the globe.

[wsherman]

There are two basic tenents of faith that I as a Southern Baptist by up-bringing and practice adhear to.

1. This has been cited elsewhere but to sum up what should be Christian practice: "The first and greatest commandment is this: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. And the second is like unto it, , that; Thou shalt love thy nieghbor as thyself..."

2. In addition to the above I draw your attention to Ephesians 2:8-9 Which states "You are saved by Grace and that not of yourselves, lest any man should boast..."

I too have had my fill of legalistic christianity that promotes a belief structure of "do's and don'ts to justify themselves before God and anyone not adheareing to the code is not christian. What I have stated in my quotes above is my partial statement of the Christian practice and status before a Holy God. I say partial because I left one thing out and it is this "For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life." John 3:16

In the end I believe that God looks on my heart, soul, and, mind and what I've done with His unmerited favor (Grace) and the sacrifice of His son Jesus on my behalf , It does not matter whether I am naked, trousered , or decked out in a Kilt or skirt. But I hope He gets a chuckle out of my bucking the sartorial tide. "wink"

Now I see this has gotten way too serious so come away and laugh with me and enjoy the resplendant world around us! Yes I know the world is not a happy place just now and I'm not belittling that but now and again "laughter doeth good like a medicice! We I would like too believe are a band of brothers here whatever our persuasion is.

Slaint' M'Hath!
Bill & Sir Brinkley the Exubrant

P.S. If you want to disscuss what I've written please feel free to contact me via PM or e-mail and I will be most happy to answer you if I can. B.

[dillon]

Darryl, Bill, et.al. I love you as brothers and respect your beliefs, even at the points we may diverge. Glad we can do so civilly and without hard feelings.

[Darryl]

Will People Notice? (Pg 44 of 251)

As human beings we can be as "blind" as the next person in thinking we are excellent at observing others. As a species the information gathering capacities of our body exceeds the capacity of our central nervous system to process it. We are constantly deleting stuff out. And many times, what we delete or distort after we have begun processing it, is important stuff.

What are some of the key factors that cause us to miss so much?

1. We are limited by our biology

Specifically we are limited by how much the brain can consciously track. The usual story line is we can only track 7 + or – 2 things "consciously", although experience will tell you that sometimes people can only track 1-3 things. In addition, because there are literally so many potential data points we could focus on, our body deletes out massive amounts which means that we typically have little awareness for the multitude of things that are going on inside and outside us – things like how you are holding your body (posture), the relative tension, the pressure of the air around you, and so on and so forth.

2. Our perception is also limited by what we focus on (and how we focus on it)

Whatever grabs our attention temporarily has got us hooked and tends to be what we focus on. During this time our brains filter out most of everything else that is going on, depending on how "hooked" we are on whatever it is we are focused on. If you have ever had to shout a few times to get someone's attention while they were engrossed watching a program on TV, you know this problem only too well. Usually it ends in the person who was shouting saying to the viewer "are you going deaf? I was calling your name!"

But it isn't just TV that hooks our attention. There can be any number of things that do so. However, once we do get hooked, we then too quickly frame how we are looking at that thing or situation from a specific perspective. For example, let’s say you hear from a friend that "John was out last night and threw up all over the sidewalk". Well if you have already had some prior experiences with John and these have always been about him getting very drunk, then without the person saying anything more, there is a good chance that you will instantly assume (lock in on) that John was getting drunk again. However he may have just eaten a bad curry!

In fact, there may have been many reasons why he threw up, but your brain will instantly lock in on the most probable bias you already have wired up, and then you will most likely state it as fact.

"John is always on the bender. I don't know why he just doesn't take it easy and have one drink and not twenty when he goes out".

This tendency of human nature to lock in on a fixed perspective, typically without any reference to reality, but rather simply a pre-wired model of the world and then treat their opinion as if it was "reality" can cause no end of misunderstandings and problems.

It can also be very useful, for example: if you see a car swerve in front of you when driving, that will trigger you to the "be careful, pull back" pattern, etc.

The problem of the "I have seen this already" mindset is that we instantly label something as X (our prior judgment), and think however we described the said situation is the only way it can be. This can have negative consequences because you completely miss out on what is actually going on in a situation. And in a learning context, this can result in years of wasted effort.

This human behavior pattern can be summed up as: we have lost touch with "reality", and replaced it with "this is the same as that" and so we lack awareness of what is actually occurring. People see what they expect to see.

[Darryl]

From an article reference the paper in the magazine Vision...incorporated into pg 45.

Change Blindness

This failure to notice what should be very apparent is something we unconsciously experience every day as our brains filter the barrage of visual information with which we are flooded. And it has a name – it is called change blindness.

Scientists at Queen Mary, University of London, have invented a unique spot-the-difference-style computer game in order to study it.

Milan Verma, a scientist at Queen Mary, explains: "It's the phenomenon where seemingly striking or obvious changes are not noticed." He and his colleagues are asking volunteers to play the game - which involves looking at a screen as it flashes between two images of the same scene.

"It flicks between a pre-change version and a post-change version of the scene," Dr. Verma explains. "The volunteers simply have to press the button and tell us exactly when they spot the change."

Trying out the game at Dr. Verma's office, my initial reaction was self-satisfaction; I spotted the difference in the first scene - a picture of a butterfly with orange stripes on its wings - almost immediately.

In the pre-change scene the colorful insect had two stripes - one on each wing, and on the post-change, there was just one. Easy. Next?

But I was quickly reminded that I am just as "change blind" as the next person. As an image of an iceberg scene with five penguins on it flashed in front of me, I stared blankly, unable to see a difference.

"I'll let you off - there is a lot going on in this image," Dr. Verma reassured me. "But it's quite a big change."

He had to give me a clue - directing me to the area of the image where the change occurred - before I realized that a whole chunk of iceberg was missing in the post-change image.

That represented one of the fundamental factors about change blindness; a whole chunk of iceberg might seem like an easier thing to spot than the stripe on a butterfly wing, but it is not as obvious to the human brain.

"The butterfly image is easy because the changed scene violates our expectations," explains Dr. Verma. "We expect butterflies to be symmetrical - to have two identically marked wings - so one that isn't really stands out to us."

Neuroscientists, as well as developers of artificial intelligence, have been interested in this facet of human perception for many years. In fact, the Queen Mary team incorporates their biological findings into the design of robots - studying the basis of human vision and perception in order to artificially recreate it.

And Dr. Verma says this might be the first truly unbiased scientific study of change blindness.

"Previously, scientists have studied this by manually manipulating pictures," he said.

"So they'd use... image manipulation software, make a deliberate change and then ask viewers: 'Can you see the change, yes or no?'."

This, he says, is cheating. If a human scientist makes a change to a picture, they are making a very human decision about what and where that change is - choosing to remove the bird from the corner of the park view, or to change the color of the sofa in a living room scene.

"So they're making some subjective judgment about how noticeable they think the change is."
Artificial intelligence

In this study, Dr. Verma and his colleague and supervisor, Professor Peter McOwan, created an algorithm that meant the computer "decided" how to change the image.

Professor McOwan told BBC News: "This is, as far as I'm aware, the first time ever that artificial intelligence [AI] technology has been used to generate experimental stimuli to test human perception.

"It brings together two interesting fields of study- AI and human visual intelligence."

Dr. Verma and Professor McOwan designed software that underlies the game's ability to make a change to each image.

Dr. Verma describes this as a "genetic algorithm". It essentially tells the computer to change the images in a process akin to evolution.

"It's like a process of survival of the fittest," explained Dr. Verma. "Darwin suggested that a fit individual is one that can best survive in its surroundings - like a moth that can camouflage with the bark of a tree."

But in this case "fitness" is determined by the smallest difference between the pre- and post-change scenes, in terms of how attention-grabbing they are.

The computer uses information about human attention and perception to generate two pictures that a person will view in exactly the same way; two images that are equally attention-grabbing. This means the scientists get an accurate measure of how noticeable the change is and there is no "human bias" of the results.

The research is beginning to reveal where in a scene people direct their attention as well as what kinds of changes are more noticeable.

"It all boils down to contrast," he says. "So color or orientation contrast; luminance contrasts in terms of light and dark things that pop out.

"And it's what's easy to spot in terms of our viewing attention behavior.

"So when we walk into a room, our eyes are attracted to a particular region and because we're attending to that region, if there was a change made there, we would perhaps notice it more quickly."

The scientists have published their findings and described their unique approach in the journal Vision.

Their test has also revealed some more specific points about what types of contrast are more obvious to us. We are more likely; for example, to spot that an object has been removed from a scene than if it has changed color.
Attention-grabbing
The team has already had interest from companies that want to apply the findings to the design of safety notices and advertising displays - to grab our attention.

And there is potential for these results to be used in more clandestine ways. Just like a magician might use misdirection, police or security services might take advantage of things that make people look.

"You can use these attention-grabbing principles to, for example, direct someone's attention to a particular spot and that could be a spot where there is a camera," explains Dr. Verma. "So you could take a photograph - a frontal image - that could be useful for police or security services."

Billboards in Times Square, New York City are examples of product branding and advertisements that aim to stand out and grab our attention. As well as applying these findings to the development of intelligent robots, Professor McOwan is more informally interested in the role of change blindness in magic.

"There has some interest recently at looking at how magicians misdirect people [with these attention-grabbing methods]," he says. "They have a role in the 'now you see it now you don't' tricks."

There are also more lucrative roles for these findings - in advertising or website design.

And Dr. Verma points out that they have already been applied by the emergency services.

"You might notice that they are starting to use different kinds of beacons and lights and different, very strange-sounding sirens," he says.

"This is because the classic siren sound has been so over-used by the media that it just doesn't stand out to us in the same way anymore."

So apparently, we all have an excuse for not noticing a friend's new look. It's a fundamental part of our perception - we are simply too focused on looking them in the eye and on what they have to say to notice something so superficial.

At least, from now on, that will be my excuse.

[Darryl]

And finally, a topic that has been nagging at me for a few weeks...

Dealing with Dissonance
The mind’s ability to detect dissonance or incongruence may be our best tool when dealing with people of all sorts. When we communicate with other people, we always want to watch out for our own interests and the easiest way to do that is to avoid trickery or lies.

Of course, no one would tell you outright that he is lying or he is trying to deceive you in any way. No one would do that for you – and no one has to do that for you because you have your critical faculty and the reptilian complex at your disposal.

The human mind can detect dissonance at various conscious (and unconscious) levels. For example, let’s say that you have just learned that there is going to be a massive lay-off in your company because of management restructuring.

Around the same time that you have learned of this development, you were invited to a company party where all the employees are going to be drinking and enjoying themselves for a few hours. From the moment that you received the invitation to the company event you felt that something was really amiss.

Conflicting thoughts and emotions swirl in your mind and you may even feel suspicious about the invitation (even if the company party has been planned months before the news that there was going to be a massive lay-off in the company).

When you attend the company party, you see happy faces and people that you know. You smile and enjoy yourself like everybody else, but at the back of your mind, you are not fully convinced of the authenticity or genuineness of the party.

What was management up to? Why were the bosses throwing a party even if there was going to be a massive lay-off? At one point in the party, the dissonance starts to dissolve just a little bit.

You want to feel hopeful and some of the joy of the party starts rubbing off on you and you think once or twice that maybe the news wasn’t true and maybe something good was heading your way in the company. You feel hopeful, but there is dissonance.

Despite the dissonance, you feel hopeful… But why? The key element in this type of situation is manipulation. There is manipulation involved and when there is manipulation, there is always a desired feedback and outcome.

When the company throws a party it is trying to send a persuasive message to the people involved in the party. This message is hopefully understood and accepted by people, despite apprehensions and anxieties.

This is how non-verbal messages can be used to turn the tables even in the face of hard facts. And in the grand scheme of things, the ones who can use non-verbal persuasion to their advantage each and every time are the ones who emerge victorious, always.

When people rationalize, they are legitimizing their own point of view of something and they are resisting change.

Now let’s move on to something equally important – something you have to learn carefully if you want to be really persuasive whenever you want to speak to someone face to face: people tend to process logical and illogical in such a way that everything would eventually align with their own biases and beliefs.



What does this mean? Well, people are prone to creating excuses to benefit themselves. Excuses aren’t ‘just’ excuses. Excuses are actually the end-products of people’s rationalizations about specific situations and outcomes.
Why do people make excuses?
Usually, people resort to excuses because they don’t want to adapt another behavior or they don’t want to change an existing behavior. It is always easier to rationalize something as opposed to changing an existing behavior.

When a person rationalizes, he creates a space for the old behavior. When a person makes an excuse for something, he is really saying that he wants to maintain the old behavior because it simply works for him.

A person in effect legitimizes something and shows his resistance to change. Why is this so important to our study of human communication? Well, if we would go back to the communication cycle itself, we would see that a persuasive message essentially wants to achieve just one thing – change.

That’s it – we want someone to change for us because we want a particular outcome to emerge from the conversation or exchange. Persuasion and influence would be impossible if the other person was completely resistant to change.

Right now, I’m telling you that people are essentially resistant to change itself, and a person would actually exert a lot of effort just to counter change itself.

Even the threat of change is usually countered with full force because humans have learned over time that in order to survive, a status quo has to be preserved. Preservation entails order and stability. Change is viewed as the antithesis of stability and order.

When something is changing and when this change is constant and continuous, the present order is disturbed and stability is removed from the equation. Thousands of years ago, instability usually meant migration from one place to another.

Change also meant that there might not be enough resources in a particular area to sustain family units that are living there. And so over time, humans have associated change with tragedy or disaster. This kind of thinking has become part of the instinctual mindset of mankind.

So whenever a person is confronted with the possibility of change, he reacts negatively to that possibility not because he is being a pain but because people were designed to think in such a way.

So if we were to combine all this knowledge now, what are the implications of change or loss of stability when we try to persuade someone? How must a person communicate if he wants to introduce change even if people were designed to resist change in the first place?

In order to answer these questions, we have to simulate a situation where a person was trying to introduce a particular change but was unable to do so because of the distortion of his message.

Here’s the hypothetical situation: let’s say that Person B was trying to convince a whole room of people that they should invest their money into Company B because this company has been experiencing a lot of success in the past year and all economic markers point to the positive.

Unfortunately, Person B was trying to say “Company B is doing excellent!” but his body language was actually saying “Company B is secretly already in ruins, stay away!”

People were naturally keen to discover the truth and the dissonance between what he was saying verbally and what he was stating non-verbally was enough to convince people not to listen to him. Person B completely lost his audience because he was unable to convince the room that Company B was indeed worth their time and effort.

Now let us examine what just happened in the hypothetical situation. Why didn’t the people in the room just believe Person B even if he was saying outright that Company B was doing extremely well? Why weren’t the people swayed by all the statistics and pie charts presented by Person B? The problem boils down to dissonance.
Dissonance
Person B wanted people to believe in him and he wanted to introduce change (i.e. investing in Company B instead of other companies). Since there is a natural resistance to change, people needed to see and hear that everything was indeed true.

As much as people wanted to see facts and figures, the audience also wanted to see confidence, conviction and genuineness in the speaker, because he was the only ‘live marker’ in the room. He was the fountain of information and people expected more of him.

People weren’t expecting more statistics and such, the audience wanted to see congruence in what his body language and what his verbal language was transmitting. Any incongruence between the two channels of communication will easily convince people that the speaker is not telling the whole truth.

People would become even more resistant to the message of change because their internal alarm systems have gone off because of the dissonance between the verbal language and the non-verbal language being used by the speaker.

When you think about it, so much is really at stake when we communicate to people. We can’t expect people to convince themselves to change.

Speakers need to convince people, period. Speakers need to deliver both content and non-verbal cues that will prevent people from being resistant to what is being said in the first place.

In the same way, those of us who wear skirts for comfort or for a fashion statement or whatever should (as has been pointed out in many places) endeavor to have their non-verbal cues match what they are trying to say with their manner of dress. If there is no cognitive dissonance, no mismatch between our visual and non-verbal cues, the observer is likely to pass right over what we are wearing.

[happykilt]

OK, let be it that it is OK to discuss religion on the Off Topic -part of the forum in spite of the forum rule: "2. No politics, unless related to skirts/kilts. No religion, unless related to skirts/kilts.".
I am quote new in here and can adapt myself to rules that are not meant to be obeyed, maybe...

BUT: Why do you corrupt an interesting thread? This thread was really interesting when it was mens unbifurgated garments in context with religion. Why don't you open an other thread to discuss your personal religious beliefs with no context to skirts, which are really annoying stuff to read while trying to find something relevant to the topic?

I feel like being forced to let some Jehovahs witnesses (or Mormons or whatever) in my living room to "witness their faith". Normally I can say no thanks and close the door in front of them. Here I have to "let them (=you) in and preach" to be able to follow the otherwise interesting thread.

[Tor]

I've been enjoying the entire thread, though to be honest, I've found the later parts more interesting than the beginning. My personal take is that the underlying theology is difficult if not impossible to separate fully from the title, especially where there are a nice collection of different sects of Christians (apologies if I've made a blunder here) are trying to hash out the title subject. As for the rules, typical policy around here tends to be "Most people here are capable of remaining polite, at least for a good while, so the itchy mod hats remain on the hook until the smoke becomes visible." I suspect there may have been earlier times when enforcement of those rules was more of a benefit to good relations here than it seems to be now.

Thanks for the previews of your work, Darryl. Despite my being quite decidedly not any form of Christian, I'm looking forward to reading it. Looks like it will have a good bit of "common knowledge" (around here) distilled into a well fleshed out and well reasoned form, much of which one need not hold faith to appreciate. Nor am I averse to learning theological interpretation by osmosis through the vehicle of something I have more interest in. What is the saying, "No knowledge is ever wasted"?

One possible nitpick in the p44: While I've not studied this aspect of physiology, my experience with scuba diving suggest that the human body is incapable of discerning static pressure. Fifty feet of water feels no different from five, as long as one has air at the ambient pressure to breathe. Of course, this may make this a particularly appropriate example, in that only changes can be noticed.

[Milfmog]

One possible nitpick in the p44: While I've not studied this aspect of physiology, my experience with scuba diving suggest that the human body is incapable of discerning static pressure. Fifty feet of water feels no different from five, as long as one has air at the ambient pressure to breathe. Of course, this may make this a particularly appropriate example, in that only changes can be noticed.

[O/T] As a diver I will confirm that pressure is only directly discerned it two ways:

* When changing; pressure across the ear drum can cause significant discomfort or pain and ultimately damage if the diver does not equalise it, other air spaces (face mask, buoyancy compensator, drysuit etc) also need to be managed.

* At significant depths the density of breathing gas increases the work of breathing. This is not always easy to discern and can be mitigated to some degree by careful breathing mix selection.
[/OT]
[/Useless information release of the day]

Have fun,


Ian.

[Sinned]

BUT: Why do you corrupt an interesting thread? This thread was really interesting when it was mens unbifurgated garments in context with religion. Why don't you open an other thread to discuss your personal religious beliefs with no context to skirts, which are really annoying stuff to read while trying to find something relevant to the topic?

hppyklt, Your comment amused me as this phenomenon is called thread drift. It occurs when the initial topic becomes, not stale, but familiar and a possibly throw-away remark is commented on and the thread continues on that tangent. It's very common and I, for one, wouldn't want to open another thread because then the continuity of the thread would be lost. If you'll read through even a small selection of previous threads then you'll see what I mean. Don't worry about it, you can always skip posts that don't interest you but persevere because a thread can end up talking about several things before finally petering out. Sometimes the thread actually gets back on track, more by accident than design. Also it's a bit of a pain searching through the threads to find one that, even if it starts on the topic you have in mind, actually stays on track so that you can add your post. For example I know that there was a thread that had a lot of comments about short shorts but had difficulty finding it so just tagged onto a thread that happened to be talking about shorts. Laziness, I suppose.

[Milfmog]

Moderator input:

The mod team have discussed this thread and come to the unanimous decision that we will let it run while it remains civil and does not descend into name calling or personal attacks.

So far, this thread has been a credit to the forum. It has remained well informed and polite, despite some widely differing opinions being expressed in areas that often generate more heat than light. Thank you guys; I am impressed by the calibre of correspondents demonstrated here.

So folks; play nice, keep it as civil as it has been to date and we will all be happy. However, if it goes off the rails we WILL step on it.

Have fun,


Ian.

[MrNaturalAZ]

It makes my brain hurt just imagining the amount of compartmentalization that most religionists must exercise in order to reconcile their beliefs with reality.

For the record, I consider myself a "pagan atheist":

Atheist because I do not believe in gods; in particular, the anthropomorphic interventionist type as believed in by most religions.

Pagan because I have a reverence for Earth and Nature and choose to live harmoniously with my environment. For purposes of ritual, I look to the pagan calendar, with its holidays and rituals based on the change of the seasons. My personal philosophy and principles are most aligned with the broader Pagan community; unlike some pagan paths, however, mine does not include a belief in gods.

[dillon]

I respect your views, MrNaturalAZ, though I don't share them, aside from the notion that we have lost much when we abandoned a relationship with nature.

I suppose, if asked, I would HOPE that a supreme deity exists, if only to render some sort of karmic justice. The idea that there is no ultimate justice or punishment earned by the most horrid monsters among us - that such men like those we now watch in ISIS can commit their evil with complete impunity - I would find truly disheartening, if not maddening.

[crfriend]

I suppose, if asked, I would HOPE that a supreme deity exists, if only to render some sort of karmic justice.

Karmic justice actually happens quite handily well within one human lifespan, so those who do ill to others will find things more difficult as they plod along in their nasty ways, just as those who try to tread the path of light are rewarded. Too, recall that being completely and utterly forgotten is karmic justice as well as it indicates those who are not remembered may as well have never existed.

The idea that there is no ultimate justice or punishment earned by the most horrid monsters among us - that such men like those we now watch in ISIS can commit their evil with complete impunity - I would find truly disheartening, if not maddening.

The trick here is not to get mad. Those folks are entirely evil when it comes to the mores of the greater world that surrounds them, and I rather doubt that they're very popular with the folks over whom they now lord with their very kinky version of religion. But they have power, and might, for a while, makes right. Recall that they might be replaced with something vastly worse.

I wonder how Saddam Hussein would have dealt with the situation, but he's not available for comment at the moment. Somehow I rather doubt he's have had a problem dealing with the situation. Even Assad can't be very happy with what's going on, but he's got bigger worries at the moment.