On the Purpose of Religion: Introduction

First, to preface: I have not yet taken a course or even read a full book on religion, though I ought to have by now. I have not yet traveled the world on my own to truly learn about its myriad cultures, though again I ought to do so.

These thoughts, then, come from a mind that is functionally illiterate in religion but nevertheless takes the liberty of having thoughts about it. Therefore, any corrections, additions, or (dare I hope) agreement would be very, very much appreciated. I know I know nothing, but I would like to.

Although the purposes of religion are perhaps uncountable, I believe the original functions of many are to give some combination of comfort and morality, order and causality. These are obviously interdependent and likely incomplete, but they will do as a starting point for now.

Social Media: What Am I Doing Here Anyway?

Pinterest. Facebook. Blogger. Picasa. Tumblr. Twitter. Deviantart. Google+. Instagram. LinkedIn. Flickr. Foursquare. Myspace. StumbleUpon. If I could come up with 14 sites on my own within a minute, then there must be over 100 well known social networking sites out there. What are they all for? What is their purpose in life? What is the point?

Well, I've been on only half of the above list, but it still took quite a bit of thinking to understand my presence in that limited fraction. Indeed, I go through that kind of reflection every few months and often find some redundancy in the sites I do use. We use social media to share our stories, but I'd like to share the story of my social media.

In the beginning, I used Blogger for everything: thoughts, stories, and pictures. Then Facebook came along, and all of a sudden the thoughts and pictures were shifted there, and the stories just vanished. I don't know where they went, because presumably I should still have them, but I've never been able to return to that carefree storytelling.

Anyway, my extended family began using Picasa for sharing pictures with each other, and still do, but ultimately I stayed with Facebook for sharing pictures with people I knew and actually cared about. Similarly, Google+ threatened to take the thoughts away from Facebook, but it never caught on as much as expected.

On the other hand, I suddenly became interested in sharing my pictures with people I didn't know or care about; this phase is a little hard for me to rationalize, even now. I went through Picasa, Blogger, and Deviantart before turning (as I am currently) to Tumblr.

So here is the status quo, then: my short thoughts go to Facebook, which is also used for contact and sharing pictures with friends and family. Tumblr is used to share pictures with people I don't know and will probably never meet. Finally, this blog is for my long thoughts, my ramblings, my musings, my poems, and basically anything else. And of course, most of all, my excitement and joy at random and sometimes trivial things, which I'm learning to cultivate even though it's my most immature and childish feature. :)

Variations: Blue Flame

A wavy flower, with a pink-purple-blue shading

When I'm playing around with GIMP, I often find a particular piece, a monomer if you will, that somehow has a lot of potential uses. I can warp it, rotate it, flip it, and more to make "polymers" of greater complexity by using tricks of symmetry and space.

A crab or spider with peacock tails or wings

These four pictures are all variations on a single blue flame, shaped in different ways to create quite distinct results. (In fact, I made around ten, but these are the best and most distinct of them all.)

An icy blue fern-like frond

The flower was made by simple rotation about the center of the picture. The crab-spider required three different kinds of warping for the tails, legs, and center flames. The frond just contains repeatedly scaled down versions of the very same tail. Finally, the butterfly was made with a single different warp, followed by rotations and fun color trickery. :D

A pair of glassy blue butterfly wings

Independent Indicators: Trial by Jury

This week, one of my friends in a probability class showed me a problem about jurors and Bayes' rule. The jurors voted a guilty person innocent or voted an innocent person guilty some not-so-small fractions of the time, and a person was convicted if at least 9 jurors voted guilty. They were asked to find the probability of an correct jury decision given that some percentage of people tried were actually guilty.

This problem can be solved well with some indicator random variables (1 if a juror votes guilty, 0 otherwise), and the assumption is that they make their votes independently. In reality, however, this is generally not the case. In most (if not all) jury-based judicial systems, the jury meets and discusses the trial, making their decisions very much interdependent. So here is my question: is this desirable?

On one hand, some jurors lacking in critical thought or engagement in the trial might benefit from the knowledge and thoughts of those who are thinking about the case. On the other hand, a few "loud" jurors might heavily bias the decision merely by virtue of their persuasive abilities, regardless of the facts presented in court.

I feel that if you're going to be idealistic and follow the first train of reasoning, why would you not be equally optimistic that there simply won't be such poor jurors at all? If we are going to be realistic enough to admit that there will be jurors who neglect to use their own critical abilities, we should admit that it is more likely that a persuasive individual will influence them to follow rather than to think for themselves--in which case, their presence is not only useless but also detrimental to a fair decision.

A Spring Morning

 

My coffee spiked with cinnamon and chocolate,

I pass by smiles and yawns and squinted eyes.

Robins with hearts of fire play hide-and-seek

With squirrels in bushes and blossoming trees.

Through layers of translucent verdant leaves,

Drops of sunshine filter and fall on my head.

The childish breeze plays with a tuft of hair

And tickles my face with its misty fingers.

A panda trundles through my messy room,

Nomming on bamboo shoots of graphite

Grown with care on crinkled notebook pages

 By the light of the flames burning there.

Riddle Me This 4: Picky People

What does each person like?

1) Alice likes avocado but not squash, okra but not zucchini, eggplant but not bell pepper.

2) Bobby likes cookies but not cupcakes, apples but not bananas, blackberries but not grapes.

3) Drew likes cheese but not crackers, trout but not salmon, brie but not gouda.

4) Huck likes blues but not reds, straws but not sticks, elders but not youngsters.

5) Irene likes arugula but not sage, oregano but not tarragon, basil but not coriander.

6) Katy likes coffee but not mocha, milk but not cream, tall but not grande.

7) May likes suns but not skies, corn but not cabbage, and passion but not power.

Hint: They are all happy with themselves.

Riddle Me This 3: Between The Lines

FIREVESAL | _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | DAMMN        

 EINTRANCE | _ _ _ _ _ _ | PALPENIPE
    CRONDOC | _ _ _ _ _ _ | SEDIMONSE
FORDFRYING | _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | WRANCALVE         

REMURCY | _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | NATURS   

DRELVANE | _ _ _ _ _ | YILL      

     MOGOL | _ _ _ _ _ _ | ENLODGE

Hint: Candy Fruit Capital House God Flower Poke