Tom's Views

I doubt the whole   religious faith   thing, where faith is believing strongly in an ideal or assertion or an entity without prior proof of its existence. Many a violent crime in the name of religion has been committed throughout human history because people believed in an ideal and then acted according to such beliefs (E.g. the radicals who knocked down the World Trade Center buildings, the Jews who killed Christ, the crusades, and so on). A belief that is not subjected to critical thought and externally measurable evidence to support it is dangerous. I don’t think I’d want “faithers” on my jury deciding my fate; especially if the evidence favored my innocence.  They might say, never mind what our eyes, ears and other senses tell us.  We have faith in the prosecutor, who knows what he’s doing.  So Tom must be guilty.  Nope.  No faith in religion for me.  It’s difficult enough to believe in things that are immediately verifiable.  So it’s nearly impossible for me to believe in anything that cannot be examined firsthand.

Besides, for an objective observer watching all these different faithers, how would he get a real sense which faith is the right faith without any externally measurable and debatable facts to either refute or back it up? Without additional validation through one’s own senses, one person’s faith is just as valid or invalid as anyone else’s.  Thus, the choice of which religious faith to follow becomes strictly arbitrary. That’s the big problem with believing in things just because you want to believe in them. Without more substantial reasoning, anyone can believe in anything if they want; and strongly believe in it too. Thus, the religious wars.  I blame the teaching of religious faith as a valid reason for adopting a belief for triggering many of those wars.

Here’s how the mechanism of conflict derived from faith works:  One set of people form  faithful beliefs that they cannot prove but through faith, accept. Then, another group does the same, with beliefs that contradict what the first group believes in. Then, the two persecute each other and eventually, fight it out. It’s the same story over and over, and this sad tale will continue repeating itself until people get past the implied arrogance of this faith thing.  They need to begin demanding objective data upon which to base their beliefs, and stop relying on conjecture, whimsy, or fantasy. We could head off many world conflicts if people would stop believing so much what they’re told to believe. 

I’ve read numerous religious books about religious faith through the years, and have spent hundreds of hours with my six or seven different bibles.  So do you really think that reading yet another book that makes the case for faith would further validate the case for it in my mind?  I doubt it.  I’ve perused numerous incantations of this faith idea before.  Every one of them is built on the notion, without objective proof mind you, that God exists exactly as is laid out in the Bible.  But a book cannot make a good case for what it is arguing, when its arguments are built on the premise that the thing that it’s trying to prove has already been proven.  It seems then that reading such material would probably be a waste of time.  In fact, God is not provable in a rational sense, which is why there’s this strong insistence on faith throughout religion in the first place.  You have to have religious faith and accept a whole bunch of wild stuff as fact, in order to genuinely participate in and highly enjoy religious services.  But I do not subscribe to the whole concept of faith.  So it’s unlikely that I’ll ever believe in God the way the strong faithers do.

Follow God through religious faith? You don’t need religious faith in a god to justify adherence to good (godly) moral principles.  I mean, the Bible teaches many ethics that I hold dear myself.  Many folks besides, uphold these in their lives, though they might not necessarily believe in God. On the other hand, there are those who trumpet their faith in religiou with such loudness and high frequency that it hurts the ears if you listen long enough. Yet, these vocal faithers do not uphold said moral values. Who among either these genuinely good and boastful good will be left behind and who will go? That answer is not so clear-cut. That is to say that there are those who question God’s existence, yet are still good, and there are those who claim that they’re quite certain, yet are quite bad. So as I see it, there will be those who remain here after the rapture that you would not expect, and those who will go to heaven that again, you would not expect; assuming that God and heaven exist in the first place.

No, I’m not bound and determined to reject the ideas in the Bible per se.  In fact, I admit that they could be true.  There are indeed many things in this universe that even to this day, remain beyond human sight, much less their comprehension.  I merely point out that this whole faith basis for knowing that the stories of God and Christ in the Bible are in fact true, is rickety at best, and fantasy at worst.  No, I’ll probably never agree with the faithers that the Bible was inspired by God, nor that it represents the absolute truth.  Still though, I’ve learned many good things from the Bible.  It is one of several potent guides for generations of humanity to follow, so that they might survive together and happily at that. 

Tom Hesley

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• Celibacy Turns Priests Into Dangerous Lustful Predators
• More Than Just God To Live For
• Which Religion is Right?

There are usually exceptions to most every rule. But as a general rule, women with body mass indexes (BMI) of 15 to 20 attract me the most often and most intensely. These are my goddesses. It’s automatic. It’s chemical. It’s electricity. It’s reflexive. It’s often   love at first sight.  It’s an involuntary reaction to the thin that I cannot change. Nor do I desire to change it. My attraction to thin women is part of who I am, and has always been.

So while this aspect of me may make me appear gravely imperfect in some others’ eyes, I still cannot settle for bigger BMIs. Larger bodies simply do not turn me on. I hold nothing against the bigger ladies. It’s just that I’m powerless to respond romantically to them; even if they have characters of gold. Unfortunately though, a   character of gold   cannot take the place of deficient physical attraction. No matter how nice a bigger lady treats me, no matter how honest and loving she is, she’ll be unable to create romantic allure in my heart without a naturally thin body to compliment her sweet personality. While I could be great friends with a big sweetie, experience shows that we’d probably never be great lovers who are actually in love with one another.

Now I’ve said nothing about how women should or should not manage their weight, and certainly would not expect a woman to “get thin” just so she could date me. In fact, I’d prefer that she be naturally thin, and not have to struggle to maintain her thinness. In fact, if some ladies prefer to sport curves, then more power to them. I just happen to prefer the thin side of a healthy BMI, which is 15 to 20. Many guys feel differently, yes. But personally, my heart beats loudest and fastest for the tall and quite thin and fair ladies.

If you think I’m shallow for this hard-wired preference, then let’s hear what you find attractive. I guarantee that no matter what you come up with, I’ll be able to make a solid case for you being shallow for that preference as well. Any single preference can be made to seem shallow with sufficient debating skills. So liking tall, thin women is on the whole, no more or less shallow than appreciating someone smart, rich, curvy, innocent, sophisticated, or whatever. We all have sacred preferences and things we value supremely in a mate that others might find shallow. Nonetheless, one of my core values just happens to be a BMI of 15 to 20 in a woman.

Who is to say that a particular preference is shallow, except those who, for whatever reason, do not meet it?  Those preferenes that make us fall in love at first sight should be embraced and sought after; not shunned.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Am I A Bigot For Wanting A Tall Thin Woman?
• Thoughts on “The Fat Ideal”
• What Is Ideal Body Weight?
• Why Believe In Love At First Sight?

References

• Body Mass Index (BMI)   definition on Wikipedia
• Ideal Body Weight   definition

Dear [Mentat],

Our culture could improve if people regarded one another with   more compassion,   and were happier with   less personal gain; at least, less money and material items. Sometimes, people become so obsessed with economic personal gain and getting ahead financially, that they treat others not as obsessed with disrespect; deeming them lazy and irrelevant. This creates many hurt feelings and disappointments throughout our work culture here in America. Instead, we should value people less for the opportunities to get ahead that they present for our own personal gains, and value them more just because of their unique personalities. Let’s worry less about how much we can get from somebody else and focus more on enjoying them for what they offer to us, without compelling them to offer it.

If we realized that we each achieve ultimate success differently, we might expect less from others that they’re not really capable of granting. What’s easier for one might be harder for another. Some people have much natural ability (talent). Others have somewhat less. Still others have still less, and a few have no talent whatsoever. Just because a discipline is easier for one person does not make it easier for all.

Yet those obsessed with personal gain (the overly greedy) treat others as a means to their own successful ends. When the others fail to deliver what the greedy think they should (or could), the greedy mutter and curse, humiliate, fire, and resent those who’s lacking talents and ambition (in the greedy person’s view), hold them back.

Still though, the idea that putting one’s nose to the grindstone as much as he can, and then much personal gain and success will come, is somewhat fallacious. After all, I built the good career and earned a fair amount of money, yet I did not achieve the success I wanted. This puritan work philosophy works for some to be sure; it will definitely feed you. But it will not make you happy, unless of course, it’s just the money that you need to be happy. I however, required more.

Laze-faire economics, material oriented trappings, and the whole Adam Smith philosophy that personal economic gain is best for a country, leaves many out in the cold. It rejects many more than it rewards, and offers fertile breeding grounds for prejudice, exploitation, and other unethical practices. So I just can’t accept the quest for personal financial gain as the right system for humanity, sorry to say. I’m not even sure that it’s the best system we’ve seen throughout the history of humanity.

Tom Hesley

I’ve owned three copies of the  Marpac SleepMate 980A Sound Conditioner  for roughly two and a half years, and have run them close to every night in my bedroom without noticeable harm or any ill effects whatsoever. I also know friends who have used the SleepMates for twenty years with health improvements noted (they sleep better with them).  Thus, let me review them here because I found them to be highly effective at covering up distracting noises such as televisions playing downstairs, the cats jumping from high places and thumping around, and traffic noise outside.

The Marpac SleepMate 980A sound conditioner indeed helps improve sleep, and fits into most any room decor.  The unit comes in an ivory, off-white color.  Thus, it can compliment any color scheme.  Indeed, I wish I would have known about thes SleepMate years ago, when I’d use much bigger table fans to generate enough white noise to sleep by.  The fans, while creating a great white noise, had the disadvantage that they also generated much unwanted drafts.  The Marpac SleepMate however creates all the noise but none of the draft.  Nice.  Thus, the following:

The Marpac SleepMate 980A sound conditioner offers probably the best white noise sound of any of the sound conditioning devices I’ve tried.  I prefer the electro-mechanical 980A sound conditioner sleep aid over the more modern, digital sound conditioners because the 980A creates a fuller white noise, whereas the digital ones generally have a “tinny” sound that lacks low-frequency content; an essential component of effective white noise.

The Marpac 980A SleepMate contains a real motor and blades inside that create a very steady, non-varying white noise that has no “loop effect.”  Often the digital sound conditioners play a three or five second long sample over and over again.  Call me strange, but I hear that looping when trying to sleep, and it agitates and distracts me.  Thus the digital units end up keeping me awake; having the opposite of their intended effect.  The Marpac SleepMate on the other hand, just emits a gentle air-blowing sound that blocks external mid-range and high-frequency noises very well, and it does a pretty good job masking the lower frequency sounds (bumps in the night, slamming doors, television bass, cars going over rumble strips outside, and so on).

I found very little to criticize about the Marpac SleepMate 980A sound conditioner.  Even the $49.99 price per unit seemed pretty reasonable.

Benefits Of The Marpac SleepMate 980A Sound Conditioner

• The 980A SleepMate is simple to operate.  It has an on-off switch, a top disc adjustment that rotates, and a side ring adjustment that also turns.  The latter two adjustments alter the characteristics of the produced noise to tailor the 980A to most any sleeping situation, room acoustics, types of surrounding noise being blocked, and so on.
• You just plug in the 980A, turn it on, and rotate the adjustments.
• The 980A SleepMate has a low speed and high speed setting built into the power switch.  I usually run mine on high.
• The 980A SleepMate comes with a foam rubber pad on its bottom to provide some isolation from the surface that you sit it on.  This keeps humming noise from the AC motor inside pretty low.
• The 980A SleepMate is much smaller than the fans I was using before purchasing the 980A SleepMate.  So it’s much easier to find room for it close to my bed.
• Unlike the fans that became quite encrusted with dust over time, the 980A does not collect much dirt as there’s effectively no air movement through the unit.
• The 980A SleepMate is a light ivory color that makes it go well with most any room color scheme.
• The 980A SleepMate blocks otherwise intruding noise pretty well for moderately quiet environments. However, I have extremely sensitive ears.  So just one 980A was insufficient.  So I bought two others to place around the bed for a stereo white noise effect that worked much better.

What I Dislike About The Marpac SleepMate 980A Sound Conditioner

As mentioned, I found none too much to legitimately gripe about in the 980A SleepMate.  But here are several gripes I did come up with:

• The Marpac 980A SleepMate is not loud enough at times; particularly in close living quarters with neighbors, where very thin walls are the order of the day. Thus, I had to buy three instead of just one.
• The 980A SleepMate does not block very low frequency thud style noises very well.  I wish Marpac would consider designing a much bigger unit that generates a much louder low-frequency component in the white noise.  This would better cover the jolting thumps of footfalls above, and door slams below me.
• This model of the Marpac SleepMate provides insufficient vibration isolation; I can hear the motor humming unless I fold an undershirt and put that between the 980A and the supporting table.
• I’m not crazy about the ivory color of this unit.  I wish it came in a bright white, gray, or slate blue color.

In sum: I feel that the   Marpac SleepMate 980A Sound Conditioner   is a good value for the dollars. It lacks none of the features that I anticipate from a truly great sleep conditioner, though perhaps some of them could be improved a little.  Nonetheless however, I would again buy the 980A SleepMate.

I’ll add any new information I discover to this post as it comes in, about this Marpac sound conditioner.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Marpac SleepMate 580A White Noise Machine Review

References

• Marpac’s Web Site