sexy failures

[Marek]

Santa Claus does indeed originate from the Sinterklaas tradition as celebrated in the Dutch colony on Manhattan (called New Amsterdam for most of its existence). There's actually a lot of things in American culture that are rooted in Dutch culture, but had its origins sort of covered up after the British took over.

If you're remotely interested in this shit I recommend reading the book "The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America" (phew!). It's a fascinating read.

[Marek]

Also Black Petes are not ACTUALLY black you see. That's just the soot from crawling through all the chimneys to deliver the presents. Underneath they're totally normal asians white guys. This fact makes it non-racist somehow. Or at least that's what everyone's telling themselves.

[Scrobbs]

Is it true they bought it for $24 from the indigenous folk?

[Marek]

Yeah that's the story of Peter Minuit and it's believed to be true. The current day value of his payment would be around $1000 though, not $24 (it's still not very much). Lots of land purchases were made over a period of many years and the myth is often that they were made by giving the natives beads and trinkets, but apparently in most cases the natives were offered advanced tools and wares.

Sadly what they didn't realize was that the natives had a different concept of land ownership. What they thought they were selling was 'territory', and implicit in that deal was an alliance, so when the settlers failed to help out the neighboring natives to fend off other tribes they got really pissed off.

The Dutch colony was run by a bunch of jerks for most of the time but there were also a few good things happening. For instance, if you made a trade with a native that was unfair, you would be hung in public on the main square. Which is kinda cool.

Also, FUN FACT, Americans eat cookies instead of biscuits because of the Dutch settlers (koekje). Also words like stoop (stoep) and boss (baas) originally come from New Amsterdam and were assimilated by the English speaking colonies. Also, we invented the District Attorney. Yeah.

I'm clearly excited about this topic.

Edited December 19, 2008 by Marek

[DanJW]

Keeping with this rapidly evolving thread, I read some fascinating essays a little while ago about the so called "Lost Colony" of Roanoke, the first British colony in America that disappeared with little trace. I can't remember where the essays I read were (in print I think), so here's the wikipedia article.

From my reading of it, sounds like they got caught up in an inter-tribal war. I also find it fascinating that the missing included the first British child born on American soil.

[Scrobbs]

*cough* Hanged.

[Marek]

[Scrobbs]

Bah, I killed it.

Ephedrinally, a village of a lost civilisation was discovered recently

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1091550/Ancient-city-discovered-deep-Amazonian-rainforest-linked-legendary-white-skinned-Cloud-People-Peru.html

Apologies about the Daily Mail link.

A lost city discovered deep in the Amazon rainforest could unlock the secrets of a legendary tribe.

Little is known about the Cloud People of Peru, an ancient, white-skinned civilisation wiped out by disease and war in the 16th century.

But now archaeologists have uncovered a fortified citadel in a remote mountainous area of Peru known for its isolated natural beauty.

[miffy495]

Idle Thumbs: Where it takes us only 3 pages to seg from sexy costumes to lost cities of Peru.

[Nachimir]

Religious beliefs are generally an inbred cesspool of ideology turned into chinese whispers over the course of millennia. I was once taught that the Roman Catholic Church was only able to spread so well in Europe by absorbing local customs, so there seems to be plenty of pagan influence around. Added to that, rival faiths are always looking for ways to discredit each other.

A lot of the laws the Israelites/Jews followed initially seem very odd, but since they were a very new nation at the time they were probably designed to militantly keep them seperate from surrounding cultures. For instance: "You must have beards and not shave your heads" (Note: not vebatim ) makes little sense as a law, but it made them distinct from the Egyptians and would have helped to create a sense of cultural identity. Later on they repeatedly turned to the gods of surrounding nations and, if the bible is to be belived, there were occasional murderous and maybe even genocidal purges to stop this happening.

someone needs to plot the thread de-railment course of this thread, it's gone off somewhere completley insane.

All of the images in your post are still chock-full of sexy failure.

[Roderick]

Mentally, I'm still with Sinterklaas and his pagan origins.

Though I will look out for the book with the ridiculously long title about New Amsterdam.

(Even old New York was once New Amsterdam,

Why'd they changed it I can't say,

people just liked it better that way!

- They might be Giants)

[Scrobbs]

In the Neal Stephenson book I'm reading at the moment (Quicksilver), the name is changed from New Amsterdam to New York to flatter the then Duke of York. Whether there's a grain of truth in that I'm not sure - it essentially being fiction, but based around history.

[brkl]

Man, reading through that series took me years. They're good books, but damn they're heavy and long.

[ysbreker]

heh, I'm re-reading quicksilver right now. and I'm really curious as to how much of the history written in it is true and what's not.

[ThunderPeel2001]

That sounds like some cool stuff. I'm quite interested in the New Amsterdam book. I'm guessing that the name was changed because the British bought it from the Dutch and changed the name to an English city(?). At least that's what I always assumed. Who knows whether there were other political motivations.

Religious beliefs are generally an inbred cesspool of ideology turned into chinese whispers over the course of millennia.

I read a rather interesting article in New Scientist about religion: Basically it's stood the test of evolution, which means that it has a purpose for human beings -- it is actually needed. But why? Well the theory I liked the most noted that ethics and religion actually developed at the same time (not before or after as other have speculated). The reasons for this, they surmised, was that our own beliefs (or "religion") were created to back-up our own sense of justice and right or wrong.

That is to say: When man developed ethics and decided that killing and stealing were wrong, they needed to believe that some greater good backed up their own beliefs.

Makes sense when you think about it.

[brkl]

It does make sense, especially if you want to spread your view of what's right and what's not. Basically, as an atheist, I have no reason to act right, but I try to anyway. It comes from within myself, but I can make no argument for doing the right thing.

[DanJW]

I read a rather interesting article in New Scientist about religion: Basically it's stood the test of evolution, which means that it has a purpose for human beings -- it is actually needed. But why? Well the theory I liked the most noted that ethics and religion actually developed at the same time (not before or after as other have speculated). The reasons for this, they surmised, was that our own beliefs (or "religion") were created to back-up our own sense of justice and right or wrong.

While the link to ethics is a sound hypothesis, it's wrong to say that it has "stood the test of evolution". It hasn't been around long enough to be affected by biological evolution, and as a meme it is more behavioural than genetic so the same mechanisms may not apply. Even then, evolution can throw up some artefacts, like men's nipples (they need to form in case the foetus turns out to be female, but if it is male then they have no purpose).

Religion could be the cultural equivalent of a man's nipple.

edit: Brkl, actually there are sound philosophical atheistic reasons for acting in a moral manner. Game Theory is, coincidentally, an excellent place to start if you want to read into the matter. Of course early humans didn't have Game Theory.

[Roderick]

This is all rather dangerous speculation.

Memes, foremost, are the cultural equivalent of genes. Culture, as we know, can change and adapt within generations, so there's no reason why memes should adhere to the millions-of-years span that genes take to mutate, test the waters, are weeded out, etc.

Next; reciprocal altruism is encoded in genes (instinct) and is a perfectly sound Darwinistic principle. That doesn't necessarily undermine the theory that religion may have been created as a ways to give some meaning and depth to our urge to do good, but I'd like to read more about it before I make up my mind. It doesn't sound very reasonable. Religion itself is a slowly mutating meme; it never just sprang up overnight, but evolved out of myths and stories of people trying to come to grips with the seemingly magical world. Ethics are the codified morals that people have had in themselves for as long as they have existed. But it is an interesting link. Undoubtedly, religion has been used to keep people in line by emotional blackmail (the promise of hell, an all-seeing eye keeping watch and keeping tabs or even some mysterious force like karma coming to bite you in the ass). But a direct correlation is one I hesitate to accept without some more reasoning.

Thirdly, just because something survives in the grand scheme of evolutionary time, doesn't mean it is wanted, desirable or in fact needed at all. For every necessary gene that we use in our body to survive, there are numerous parasitic ones that do nothing for us but simply use us to survive (or in some cases, even harm us when they are activated if they're dormant or recessive). They're hitchhiking a ride and they managed to survive because there simply wasn't any direct pressure to remove them.

Now, though I'm more willing to make a case that religion is akin to a hurtful gene that's been riding undetected in the trunks of our mind, that's not directly my intention here. All I'm saying; something surviving according to Darwinistic principles doesn't imply anything but that it is good at surviving in its direct gene or meme environment.*

(* Why a gene/meme might be good at surviving can depend on many things. In the (for us) best scenario, it actually does something good for us by making us stronger, healthier, etc. But it might also simply be extremely proficient in not being detected and evading removal. Truly a selfish gene! )

[Nick]

She could sample my ectoplasmic residue!

[Nachimir]

It does make sense, especially if you want to spread your view of what's right and what's not. Basically, as an atheist, I have no reason to act right, but I try to anyway. It comes from within myself, but I can make no argument for doing the right thing.

I've met a few fundie Christians who seem to think belief in god is the only thing that stops us from wantonly killing and raping, and I think they're full of . Moral behaviour arises with or without religion, but religion can both reinforce and warp it, as can any codified cultural practice enacted by a majority of peers.

I suspect not being a bastard is ultimately in everyone's self interest. Most of the bad people I've known have ended up disconnected from and reviled by others, and in contrast, having good connections with peers, even regardless of status/hierarchy, confers some strong advantages in terms of cooperation and having one's needs met.

As an atheist, I believe my life and my general state of mind are both far better for trying to be good to others

I also see my atheism as a form of faith. It's based on a lot of considered thought and my ultimate conclusion that there probably isn't a god. Ultimately that faith reaches back past the big bang to things I can never observe or otherwise obtain proof of, but I'm convinced enough to not label myself agnostic.

I'm intrigued by religious people now, since everything they believe in from how the universe came to be to how a person should behave in terms of ethics is part of a single great big and often inflexible blob of faith. I can kind of understand how atheism panics some Christians so badly, since it appears to them to break morality away from our origins.

I'm now pretty convinced that certain universal needs and capacities arise from our genes, in turn leading us as a species to certain behavioural patterns. It doesn't matter where you are in the world, what cultural differences there are or whether or not there's a language barrier, there are certain things that everyone needs and wants. What we are implies morality and always has, though as a cognitive/genetic stack it's malleable.

[n0wak]

I also see my atheism as a form of faith. It's based on a lot of considered thought and my ultimate conclusion that there probably isn't a god. Ultimately that faith reaches back past the big bang to things I can never observe or otherwise obtain proof of, but I'm convinced enough to not label myself agnostic.

And baldness is a hair colour and not collecting stamps is a hobby.

[Roderick]

Train-ignoring is a hobby...

But what my friend n0wak is trying to say is that it's a bit weird to call a belief that is based upon reason, logic and a sizeable volume of evidence 'faith'. Faith could be described as 'believing in something despite the lack of any evidence pointing towards it'. Don't put your own educated worldviews in the same category as beliefs based on gutfeelings and indoctrination, Nachimir.

[Nick]

This thread is so good.

[n0wak]

Yes.

.

[elmuerte]

omg... they've got frog