"Ignosticism" written by Jim on estrip.org

07/27/08 11:56 - 73ºF - ID#45162

Ignosticism

Ah, a new word (to me): ignosticism. I am not sure how I've missed that so far in my life, considering how much I've thought and researched about this sort of stuff. I am more accurately ignostic. God doesn't matter to me, and my strong atheistic streak seems to flow from ignostic roots.

Pondering the recent discussions about what it means to have faith as a Christian, I've admittedly been more concerned about what it means to have faith as Jim, so let me summarize my thoughts so far, as discovered over the course of 30 or so years.

I have faith that I am a human being, that this life is real, and that anything before or after it is too nebulous to worry to much about, in a personal sense. I didn't mind not existing before I was born, so I aim to be cheerful when faced with my deathbed.

I have faith that human beings can learn from their mistakes. And more specifically, that I have been and will be able to learn from my own mistakes. My many, many mistakes.

More importantly, I have faith that human beings can learn from the mistakes of other human beings. This is the key to human culture. I don't think a culture needs a God to look to to get stuff right, human beings are capable of introspection and examination on their own.

I believe that we are tied to the past, and future tied to the present, but that being tied to this continuum is not a form of bondage, but of progression. Culturally, before and after my life is of a lot of importance to me (as opposed to personally, as above).

The foundations of my beliefs are as minimal as I can make them: buy into existing, into consciousness, into trial and error, and into broad human culture. Anything beyond those 4 pillars is extraneous, and everything I have ever managed to make better within myself is based on those simple statements. I've tried to brutally reduce the dependencies in that chain and that's as far as I've been able to cut. For consistency's sake if I could find a simpler way to state it I'd cut more out.

This faith is based on personal experience, but it's also personal experience that I can observe mirrored in the lives of other people. It's faith based on as much sense and definition as I can give the terms involved.

I've known lots of people who've lost or never had belief in God and they seem better off for it. Some seem worse, too, true.

The people I know who believe in learning from trial and error and not repeating their own mistakes would not be the same people if they give that up or didn't have it.

That's why I believe what I do and consider it essential, and could care less about God. When people can't agree on what the word God means, much less what 'he wants', it's a giant sink for me to spend time to even consider it (and I've personally spent much time considering).

We've got millennia of rich human history of to learn from, and that's plenty to keep me busy.

drew writes at 01:59:41 07/28/08 - Comment #37459: Just saw your last comment. Thanks for the props :)

I agree. Openness and directness is the best way to go. And that sometimes looks arrogant, but I think it can be done (and is being done) respectfully.

drew writes at 01:57:29 07/28/08 - Comment #37458: It takes just as much guts to proclaim that you know something about God as it does to claim that God doesn't exist.

One thing agnostics and the best of believers have in common is humility--which means that statements regarding God are limited and/or qualified.

(e:joshua), Christians have been attacked much of late because the public face of Christianity has been so negative. To put it in marketing terms (which is another thing we do that I hate), we have ruined the "brand." The word Christian communicates a whole lot of ideas that should have nothing to do with faith in Jesus.

But you are right, (e:joshua), the more Christian graciously receive attacks on their faith, the more they will reveal about who they were. The early church spread quickly, not because of fantastic preaching, but because of brave martyrs. Now we are far more likely to kill for the faith than die for it.

I also think that everybody puts together a belief system, and even if one is rejected, these questions are worth thinking about just as much as any other human experience is worth thinking about. Questions about divinity are part of the human experience for most of humanity, even if some people reject the idea.

I think I have shared this before, but where you and I agree, (e:jim) and (e:paul), is that there is an awful lot of bad religion out there.

Where I differ is that I think the answer to bad religion is good religion (although that is another word that has been just about wrecked. Maybe "good belief/action" is better.) And that, though we have distorted it, there is a way of good belief/action in Jesus as revealed in the Bible, even if people have ignored it, distorted it, and/or abused it.

jim writes at 01:51:52 07/28/08 - Comment #37457: I've never been in a church service where they haven't prayed for the world to come to Jesus. Religions assume that non-believers would be better off believing, without any exception that I know of. Christians believe the way the see the world is better then how I see it. Else why would they believe? Doesn't that take similar arrogance and guts? I am fiercely advocating my opinion, and don't mind them advocating theirs.

So sure, it's hard to talk about what I believe without saying what I *don't* believe in and why. It makes it antagonistic sounding. The other option is to not talk about it at all, and I don't see how that is any better. Conflict is sure to arise, but that's the nature of conversation.

I carefully phrased my post to make it clear that it was about me and how I came to see the world as I see it, and put that in the context of the largely Christian society of which I am a part. I do not want to go any further then that.

I didn't talk about religion much before Drew showed up. I love when Drew posts, and it makes me think and post about my take on some of these issues. I speak here in front of the (e:strip) community, as Drew does. I'm not leafleting random churchgoers and telling them to give up Jesus. I speak more surely and strongly here then I would elsewhere, because I know many of you personally and try not to equivocate and be politically correct and respectful.

So I'm not sure how much of your comment was directed at me, but I will try to moderate myself in my opposition to clearly defining the scope and personal nature of my statements.

Thanks, Josh :)

joshua writes at 12:07:27 07/28/08 - Comment #37448: Remember, it is freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion. The genius of America is that it is okay to believe what you want to believe, if anything at all.

What is particularly interesting to me in these types of conversations is the non-religious person's views on what it means to be religious in a sense they don't agree with or believe in. To me that takes a large amount of guts, if not arrogance. It is never enough to just believe that there isn't a God - there still seems to be a need to stick it in a religion's eye because of some lack of satisfaction. It is almost more important to repeatedly explain why the Christians are wrong than why the athiests are right. That mode of thinking is ENTIRELY self-absorbed and in the end is superfluous and hateful. Christians tend to turn the other cheek when people attack their religion... I think far more is revealed about the person doing the attacking in these cases then the actual topic at hand.

Still though (e:jim), being an athiest I think if you live your life according to your belief system then you'll be fine in any sense, religious, non-religious, good guy/bad guy, etc. I would even argue, much to the chagrin of many religious people, that in your own way you've developed a set of morals. You put far more faith in your fellow man then I do, thats for sure!

paul writes at 12:16:52 07/27/08 - Comment #37429: I feel very much the same. I would actually prefer to just never evn discuss religion again as it has already wasted so much time in my life. However, like fashion and the latest movies I reallly don't have a choice as everyone else can't stop.

Permalink: Ignosticism.html
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Location: Buffalo, NY

07/21/08 05:18 - 74ºF - ID#45091

Rails Dev Job

By chance, should there be any lurking Rails developers on this site, please send me an email if you're looking for work (fulltime position with benefits, local to WNY only).

jim/at/jimlindley/dot/com

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07/19/08 12:33 - ID#45072

Smart

Leaning a giant ladder up against power / cable lines, eh?

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Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: me

07/17/08 07:06 - 81ºF - ID#45054

Haircut

Getting pretty enough to hang out with designers this weekend :)

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Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: culture

07/16/08 06:30 - 81ºF - ID#45039

That's How I Roll

Visit original site here!

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Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: design

07/15/08 11:10 - 69ºF - ID#45025

TypeCon 2008 This Weekend

Sorry Paul, I just realized my typography convention is this weekend, and so I definitely can't go to WEMF :(

But it does bring up an interesting question: how does one properly ask to get an autograph from a typographic celebrity? Does "Do you mind letterpressing my chest?" sound to forward?

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Category: technology

07/12/08 02:54 - 83ºF - ID#44980

Shazam!

There's an app for the iphone that will listen to music and then identify it for you. It's super cool and so accurate.

Also the iPhone 2.0 calculator is improved, and includes scientific calculator mode:

james writes at 10:45:32 07/12/08 - Comment #36985: Great. Everyone. Stop commenting.

This is ugly. So let's stop.

Journal over.

uncutsaniflush writes at 10:42:01 07/12/08 - Comment #36984: ok (e:james) my intent was never to hurt anyone's feelings. As far as I know (e:jim) didn't contribute any code to the Gracenote Mobile Music ID, so there was no personal agenda on my part.

jim writes at 10:27:07 07/12/08 - Comment #36983: OK, James.

james writes at 10:24:27 07/12/08 - Comment #36982: Hey, how about everyone step away from this journal and knock it off.

jim writes at 10:20:45 07/12/08 - Comment #36981: Leetee, yes. This is what he said:

"It is sometimes most amusing to see where a snotty one sentence comment will lead to."

He's not genuinely engaging in conversation, he's playing games. He's trolling. That is the very definition of trolling. If that's not being an ass what is? He is not talking to me like a human being, he's doing a science experiment on me and I have no wish to further this conversation.

I engage in dialogue with many people on this site that I don't see eye to eye with, but we are civil and respect each other. Your husband is admitting to callously engaging in antisocial behaviour. Why would I want to talk to someone who I constantly have to second guess what their motives are?

uncutsaniflush writes at 10:20:25 07/12/08 - Comment #36980: (e:jim) - Actually, I replied directly to each and everything that you said to me. I never attacked personally you at all. I never said a single negative about you. And yet, you attack me personally. I reckon that the iPhone 3G must really suck if all you can do to defend it is call me an "ass."

As to not engaging in conversation, the last I heard, it takes at least 2 people to engane in conversation. Since you make it clear that you are not a friend of mine because you call me schoolyard names, I see no reason to assist you in avoiding conversations with those whom you think are asses. I've heard that you are an adult. I reckon that you can choose not to talk to me without any help from me.

leetee writes at 10:13:16 07/12/08 - Comment #36974: Ass? Miserable excuse for a person?

Sure, go ahead, argue about your little geek things and have fun bating each other.

But do you really have to resort to name calling?

'Cause if that's the order of the day, i can think of a few to hurl back at you...

jim writes at 09:34:46 07/12/08 - Comment #36967: So you dropped a tangential one sentence comment, which had nothing to do with what I was saying, and then when I said you misunderstood what I was referring to, you went round and round continuing to not actually address what I was talking about, and I was supposed to magically divine this? You were testing me by making non-sensical replies?

And then you sarcastically referred to me like I had some sort of problem, when you were orbiting out there in space playing mind games?

You sir, are an ass. Don't ever engage me in conversation again you miserable excuse for a person.

uncutsaniflush writes at 08:52:01 07/12/08 - Comment #36965: (e:jim) - I'm sorry if I offended you. I'm not angry at all. I found the whole exchange most humorous. It is sometimes most amusing to see where a snotty one sentence comment will lead to.

Through happenstance, I've known about Gracenote Mobile Music ID for the iPhone for a while. I kept mentioning mp3s to give you an opportunity to tell me that you weren't talking about mp3s.

From what I've seen, the Gracenote db is fairly extensive. But no matter how good the software, the weak link is the database itself - I wonder if your iPhone would identify a Serbian punk rock anthem from the 1970s.

jim writes at 08:24:44 07/12/08 - Comment #36963: You said, 'wouldn't it be easier to use the ID3 tag', when the whole point of this is that there are no ID3 tags, so it looks the song up by pattern matching the sound. ID3 tags are embedded in MP3 files, so there is no way that it looks them up via ID3 tags. ID3 tags have nothing to do with the way this looks stuff up. I pointed out that I didn't understand why you were bringing the topic of ID3 tags up, and you're getting really angry. It's really bizarre.

metalpeter writes at 08:23:40 07/12/08 - Comment #36962: Here is what I don't get say for example there is this song from pulp fiction that is awesome then fergie or might be someone else takes that same beat but then has people clapping if the phone only hears the part of the song that is the same in both of them how would it know the song?

uncutsaniflush writes at 08:00:41 07/12/08 - Comment #36961: yes, (e:ajay) that is exactly what Gracenote (formerly CDDB) Mobile Music ID can do. But don't take it from me. (e:jim) says that I missed the point. Thus, if I say that it can, it obviously can't. When HE says that is what the software does, that's WHEN you can believe it.

ajay writes at 07:48:36 07/12/08 - Comment #36960: If I'm reading this correctly: this software _listens_ to a song (say, playing on the PA system in the elevator, or in the gangbangers car next to you) and identifies it.

uncutsaniflush writes at 06:37:28 07/12/08 - Comment #36959: OK, you win. I thought you were talking about Gracenote Mobile Music ID which analyzes snippets of songs and compares the snippet to a database. But since I'm missing the point, it is obvious to me that you aren't talking about that.

So, kind sir, pray tell, WHAT are you talking about???

jim writes at 06:15:34 07/12/08 - Comment #36958: You're missing the point, and I know what ID3 tags are. This is for music that's not on your computer and so ID3 tags are irrelevant.

uncutsaniflush writes at 06:07:03 07/12/08 - Comment #36957: What I am talking about is that virtually all commercially available and most ripped mp3s have ID3 :::link::: tags that indentify the song, the album, the artist, the genre, etc.

Most cd ripping apps compare the cd being ripped with an an online database such as freedb or CDDBx to get information about the album and songs. The cd ripper then encodes this in ID3 tags within the mp3.

What I think you meant is that you think that your app analyzes the mp3 to find its melody and chord progression and then compares said melody and chord progression against a data base of melody and chord progressions to identify the song. And then, once that is done, it somehow manages to identify the artist, etc.

Contrariwise, perhaps you meant that your app analyzes and compares the mp3 with an online database of mp3s and then gives you an answer.

jim writes at 05:47:21 07/12/08 - Comment #36956: I don't think you understood what I meant :(

jim writes at 05:46:59 07/12/08 - Comment #36955: What are you talking about?

uncutsaniflush writes at 05:18:12 07/12/08 - Comment #36954: Wouldn't just be easier to use the ID3 tag?

Permalink: Shazam_.html
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Location: Buffalo, NY

07/12/08 01:08 - ID#44979

iPhone 3g

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Words: 5
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: photoshop

07/11/08 09:59 - 71ºF - ID#44935

LOLIRANIANS

So, a few days ago Iran got busted for distributing altered photos that made it look like they were launching more missiles then they actually had. (See below before and after and the original story

)