An american academic suggested that putting salt in tea would improve it. Local news picked up a clip from BBC TV in which they put a teaspoon of salt in a cup of tea and no-one liked it, and the US embassy eventually got involved. The academic did an interview with the world service a few days later in which she clarified that she was talking about a pinch of salt, too small to directly taste, in the pot rather than a teaspoon in each cup. Diplomatic crisis averted!
I’ve heard of a pinch of salt in the teapot but can’t remember ever trying it … was several decades ago.
That’s what my grandmother (father’s side, 1899–1991) used to do: a tiny pinch of coffee on top of the ground coffee in the coffee filter, I think it was quite common back then. even I did that for some time, but after some time couldn’t really say that I sensed any difference in the taste or effect.
(Note: I drink coffee for the psychoactive effect, not for the taste)
and here’s “Dinner for One” — what millions of Germans watch every New Year’s Eve:
Rare colour version:
The first time I watched it I thought it was funny, the second time, well, “okay”, and there was no third time but for many people this is something they do every year. Interestingly, this piece is not as popular in the UK as it is in Germany.
I’ve heard of it, but never seen it. Now I wonder what people did in Germany that day before that movie came out
I am not sure that there is a similar tradition here. It is not a religious holiday, so the main purveyor of local tradition (the church) never organised anything for the “New Year”. For them the year begins at Easter (once Jesus is resurrected they hit reset on the Bible and go back to the Genesis ), so they do not care about the calendar stuff. Or maybe I never noticed. I never go out in the New Year’s Eve.
Yes, that’s apparently the reason!
I first didn’t believe it could only be that break, because huge parts of Berlin were affected and I personally heard from someone in a completely different part of the city that they also didn’t have water.
By now, the water pressure has been stabilized again - it’s almost back to normal in my apartment. So not much of a deal after all.
Oh wow … good that it’s back to normal again, but such things make me wonder just how easy it is to disrupt infrastructure for a HUGE number of people.
…
Thinking of the people in war-stricken regions now.
Oh, how I wish that 2025 will be better.
I promise I will do whatever I can to make it so, but I am just a small and unimportant man. But then again … most of us are these “small” and “unimportant” people, no? If I stretch out a hand, and you grasp it, and you stretch out your other hand, and someone else grasps it … will we, some day, be able to join our forces to fight the dangers that threaten ALL mankind and the tiny ecological niche we live in?
I wish you all a peaceful, happy, healthy new year, may this world be a friendly place for you and yours, and may we all be friendly to the world and all its inhabitants … may we learn to NOT hurt others, so that they and their offspring may also learn to NOT hurt others, because, you know the saying: “hurt people hurt people” … I believe that people only do bad because they have learned it that way (i.e. their environment taught them so!), not because they are inherently bad.
The answer is very easy, especially if you are in a place where such issues are not commonplace.
On a similar note, what makes me smirk a bit is the constant push for a transition to e-money, even while people worry about wars and attacks and sabotages. Most of them have yet to think “hey, if those databanks are breached or attacked, then our whole financial system will crumble!”
Why?
Because, so far, it had always been working, so in their minds the electronic banking system is invincible, a non-issue, since it has been “ever-present” through their lives.
Surprisingly so, that was true for me as well. Fingers crossed!
A definition is theoretical.
But ”practically” is what kills us.
Knowing means understanding too, not only memorizing figures and facts.
And when our power of understanding is too weak, we are not anymore in the realm of science but religion. And I can prove this in countless ways.
I will start a counting though.
1- Medicine is clearly a science. But still when the high priests decided that the best solution is to shove a pipe in the dying patient, or that the solution is a rushed vaccine, the hordes believed it and it seems that scores died needlessly. I do not know from personal experience that this is true, but many doctors declared that. Those in charge denied that. I have no power to research the truth, hence I only can believe a version or another.
2- Flathearthers knows that the Earth is flat. But they do not know that, they actually believe, since their brains are unable to process simple geometry. I mean those who are genuine. I assume that many of them are not actual idiots. I bet that those very active promoting their religion are just hypocrites looking for some attentions or clicks or something.
3- History. We know very well that history is written by winners.Also we know that often it is not true. But still we accept it as true. We memorize a lot of dates and facts without witnessing those facts. We believe them to be true.
4- Science is quite expensive. Research is gulping huge amounts of money. But those in charge of research are not in the possession of those fortunes, hence they need to convince the loaded ones, or those in charge of the public money that their research subject is important or that will return copiously the investment. Financists are scientists too, but not specialized in the sector that sucks the money. Hence, when they approve the funds, they believe, they do not actually know. (with the exception that they know that part of the money granted will be siphoned toward their own accounts)
I could continue, but I assume that you got the idea.
By the way, what do you think about fusion? Since always I believed that soon, in few decades we will have energy harvested from fusion. It was just around the corner. We needed few more decades. Half a century ago I had those decades. It is not the case anymore. And recently I learned that many believe that the fusion sector is a huge scam. What do you think, or believe?
When will be the first kw injected into the grid?
While there can be significant deviations from the practical application of something (anything), to the actual/formal definition of it, when we are discussing that something (whatever it may be), we are bound by language and reason to discuss what is commonly defined and accepted for that something to be for the general public, hence its formal definition.
Noone can dive into the recesses of someone’s mind and dig out what they think/believed/learned what science or even simple things like football, are. Billions of people exist, hence billions of slightly different concepts and interpretations of those things exist in each head. Therefore when we talk about football, at most we might ask “american or the rest of the world kind of football” and suddenly we all know what is being discussed, even if we have a slightly different idea of football in our minds. (you will see where football fits in this post later )
In science and religion, where things are more complicated, since it is a more complicated concept, the variations can be more complex or surprisingly simple.
Case in point:
That is what you think you are doing, in terms of what you think/perceive/understand that religion is or is defined. However, all your examples are just cases where a simple belief (even one just based on trust on authority) has replaced the formulation of an actual logical opinion based on knowledge and critical thinking of some people, on that particular issue.
However that is just a misguided belief, not a religion.
Automatic faith towards doctors and medicine? Sure there are people that think that “if the doctors says it, then it is good” and never read the medication instructions or others that go the other way and go “if the big pharma sells it, then I am not taking it” and those end up believing some other “alternatives” (which are usually more expensive - ah, but “escaping the Matrix” is never free. What a coincidence each time ). Sure, both cases can be called out for excessive (and even misguided) trust, but “religion”? Since when?
Flateathers actually come from an actual religion since most of them base their lunacy on the Bible, so they are not a good example on wonky science, by default.
History being written by the victors is a commonly accepted fact, but still none of us has a time machine. When someone tells you that Cleopatra was a Ptolemaic queen of Egypt 2000+ years ago, you cannot say “naaah, my grandmother said that I don’t care what they tell you in school, Cleopatra was black”, unless you want to get hired by NetflixStill no religion though. I am Greek, I assure you that I’ve yet to revere or assign any religious belief to any historical book of our 3000+ years of recorded history and I am very aware that a lot of it is “historical marketing” of the time. Historians know it too, if you read up on that, and most serious historians leave a lot of caveats in their writings.
Some science is expensive - E.g. that quantum collider in CERN is top tier money. There is a lot of down to earth repeatable science though. Convincing a coalition of nations or investors that your project needs money still is not a religion, just because you made them “believe that this will make them money”.
I did get the idea that you conflate beliefs with religion.
But that is not the definition of religion.
Here is a hint on how complicated things are (especially if we dwelve on how you can create a tax-exempt church/religion in the USA):
So, to put things in a simple perspective, what a simple non-legal definition of religion contains at least these aspects:
a) Some sort of creed and form of worship b) A code of doctrine and discipline
In that regard, I’ll have to inform you that in comparison to your examples, the average Greek football hooligan/ultra is far more religious (and consciously so! ) than the “mere beliefs” examples you presented.
Look at what they are chanting (Olympiakos and PAO are the two most prominent teams):
“Θρύλε, Θεέ μου, Ολυμπιακέ μου!” ("Legend, my God, Olympiakos!)
“ΠΑΟ, θρησκεία, Θύρα 13!” (PAO, our religion, Gate 13!)
Mumbo-jumbo for the uninitiated, of course, but par for the course within their “religion”. Heck, if you think about it, if those dudes were hooligans in the USA, they could actually classify as a church and be tax exempt.
Proof
– Distinct legal existence (yes.)
– Recognized creed and form of worship (yes.)
– Definite and distinct ecclesiastical government (yes.)
– Formal code of doctrine and discipline (yes.)
– Distinct religious history (yes.)
– Membership not associated with any other church or denomination (yes.)
– Organization of ordained ministers (yes.)
– Ordained ministers selected after completing prescribed courses of study (yes.)
– Literature of its own (yes.)
– Established places of worship (yes. The football stadium)
– Regular congregations (yes.)
– Regular religious services (yes.)
– Sunday schools for the religious instruction of the young (yes. Most games are on Sunday anywah)
– Schools for the preparation of its members (yes.)
Hooligans are actually VERY organised. Some churches could learn a few tricks from them haha.
So, my point remains. We cannot play “dress up” with the definitions of things when we talk about them, else we end up discussing about other things, in a false (hopefully not religious ) belief that we have the correct meaning of said things in our minds.
Well no.
When we talk about science, we talk about what science is and does, and if we want to insert a new definition and caveats or a very particular part of what science is (e.g. mathematics, as a science is much more different than the aformentioned history or archaeology), that’s fine, as long as we do not pretend that the part of science that we are talking about is “the whole of science” (I urge you to read “the relative and the absolute” if you want more details on that concept).
Thus we cannot talk about “the science as defined in our minds” and then blame “the science as it exists in the world”. That only creates confusion.
Same thing about when we talk about religion, we talk about what religion is and does. If there is a specific formal religion or personal religious belief you want to focus on, for sure you can pinpoint that, but you cannot turn a “I trust my doctor” to a religious belief and expect anyone to follow along with that non-standard definition of the term. What’s next then? “I trust my baker to not put poison in my bread. Well, I am very religious, I’ve been buying bread from that dude for the past 20 years and I am still here. My prayers work!”.
That’s not a religion, sorry.
On fusion I have no expertise. I understand that it is a complicated and very tricky issue because what nature can do naturally, we might need a lot of complex machinery to achieve. So, while the Sun might be a fantastic fusion reactor, replicating that on earth might not be easy or even feasable. In that regard, fusion has always been, as you said, a “just around the corner” kind of thing (I remember vividly reading a Mickey Mouse story titled “The fantastic TOKAMAK”, thirty years ago - it still remains fantastic ), that keeps evading us. At least it is being tried on and if the result is that it cannot be done with the current technology we possess, then it is an acceptable result for the time being.
Again, words matter.
A ragpull in an altcoin is a scam.
Selling “special water that cures a rare ailment” is a scam.
In order to have a “scam” you needmalicious intent and conscious deceptions concerning the intentions and facts around your project. We do not get to redefine words, and especially not legal terms.
Legitimate research by a multitude of scientific teams that just fails to deliver a marketable result, is not anywhere near the definition of a scam, unless they know that it cannot ever work and they are decieving all the investors. I am open to the idea of some of those teams falling into that category (let’s not be naive - there are such people in every profession after all), but not all of them (unless there is actual proof for that), therefore the whole sector cannot be called a scam, without a significant body of proof backing up that statement.
This can happen tomorrow if we just like to hit the milestone and call it a day. It is not as if fusion is a total bust and doesn’t work at all. It does produce energy.
What does not happen is a net positive production of energy, therefore there is no cost efficiency, thus no gain (literal and monetary).
That might not probably happen within my lifetime, if I were to guess.
P.S. Edit: Added a link to the “Fantastic TOKAMAK”. Turns out it was made in 1983. Sometimes the internet has the most obscure things preserved/recorded.
Sure, if you narrow the idea of religion only to the legion of those who pick your pocket lying about the origins and purpose of life, then yeah, I am wrong. But I extended the concept of religion to any other sector that has a parasitic aspect.
And I can give you other examples of religions.
Vegetarianism is one to which I fell prey myself. For me is actually a branch of yoga. I practiced yoga fooled by the idea that I can fix my vision. Yep, they promised that. They said that you can even regrow teeth. I did not believed that. I actually recovered vision just watching a guru talking in Russian. Kashpirovski, maybe you heard of him. And I barely understood a dozen words in Russian. And after three sessions, of half an hour, somehow I could see more clear. But then my vision fell back. Years later, I fell to yoga, which a religion with some science wrappings. And about vegetarianism, the logic was that animals, when killed are flooded by toxins/hormones something, and that is really bad for us to process. I swallowed that. And since I did not really liked meat, except few sorts, It was easy to be converted. And it is exactly what you have said. A misguided belief. Actually may have hurt me, my gallbladder being removed because of stones, apparently more frequent to vegans and women. So it is not about a deity, or about our origins, but about a way of life. About the morality of not killing.
Now, tell me that this is in no way at least a resemblance of religion.
In my dictionary is an absolute religion.
Also, climate change. Or electric vehicles and green energy. It may be a science, but is an emerging science, not quite understood by well versed scientists. But I believe being true. It is a belief. Religion is belief, so is not hard for me to accept the opposite as true. Belief is religion. Sure, it is not about where we come, but about where we go. Actually the official religions are also about where we go, but mostly as individuals, not as specie.
EVS and green energy, is mostly science. It it well known that oil and coal will end somehow sooner or later. And I know that we will end using alternatives in the end. And I believe that for us as a specie, is better to start using them sooner, because the transition is cheaper while still we still have some energy canned underground. And I actually spend some money from the little I have, and time and energy toward green energy, et voila, I am a prozelite. It is or not a religion? It has a moral core too.
Now you get my point?
I am misguided because I want a better life for future generations even I do not have kids of my own?
And I can tell more. Some people believe in expensive things. Sure, it is not a religion per se, but they follow this creed religiously, as sick people take religiously their medicine. So I regard these as religions too. If not established religions, at least as religious activities. I mean they struggle now, for a illusory future (for those believing in expensive things,even they do not actually can afford them. The medicine part is less religion though. Some actually works, and there is placebo effect too. )
It seems that you got me started:) .
I ended few times this diatribe and came back. Now I remembered that I labeled first time as religion half a century ago as a child. I grew under communism. My father was and still is a bloody communist. (or at least it is how he labelled himself. In reality he was just a tyrant, as any other scoundrel) And when I grew enough to have an opinion, and started to see things, I decreed that communism is just another form of religion. In other words giving the sparrow from the hand for the crow on the fence. Priests were selling something that you get beyond the grave, party members were selling something beyond the horizon. And since then I labeled many other things as religions. And everybody accepted my opinion, or at least din not tried to convince me of my mistake.
You are the first to try convince me not to broaden the meaning of this concept. You did not convinced me. You are free to try some more. Debating, maybe I will convert you
)
) than the “mere beliefs” examples you presented.