External Consistency

I recently followed a link to a tarot card site and got some free readings. The general, love, and career ones, meant to answer specific questions I thought of while selecting the cards, were not particularly illuminating. Then I went to another love one which was supposed to predict romantic compatibility based on birthdates. So I entered my birthdate and chose a date for the guy, then it used those dates to assign us cards. I was Chariot; he was Strength. And this is how the analysis ended: "Both are independent spirits but Strength likes to occasionally imagine there is such a thing as soul mate and love of a lifetime. Chariot is far too sensible for that nonsense and inevitably Strength can feel Chariot is simply too cool a cucumber to meet the requirements for passion."

The first thought that struck me upon reading this was, "Since when am I too sensible to imagine a love of a lifetime?" I actually posted some of my not-entirely-against thoughts on the matter here.

Then I remembered that I am a Scorpio. The attributes associated with Scorpios that I always remember are passion and mystery. So, if the date of my birth makes me a passionate Scorpio, how can it also make me "too cool a cucumber to meet the requirements for passion"? I thought that maybe my mysteriousness hides my passionate depths, but then that is basically saying that Mr. Strength writes me off before bothering to really look for the capacity for passion. And that does not seem right at all.

Is it really too much to ask that two completely unrelated divination systems fit together logically?

Unspeakable Things

On Friday I was reading the part in the Book of Mormon where Christ is giving his apostles in the Americas their desires. Then, after Christ leaves, "...the heavens opened, and they were caught up into heaven, and saw and heard unspeakable things. And it was forbidden them that they should utter; neither was it given unto them power that they could utter the things which they saw and heard..."

I have often thought about why it was that they can't speak of the things they saw. The first part, where it says they saw unspeakable things, sounds like human language is inadequate to describe what they saw. But in the next sentence, it says they were not given power that they could utter the things they saw and heard. And that sounds more like they would just be too emotionally overwhelmed to do so.

Maybe human language isn't quite inadequate, and if they try to get across what they can in their language, they can't get the words out because of the power of the experience?

What Are They Thinking?

Not too long ago there was a popular video going around called "Should Christian women wear bikinis?" that talked about how the male brain reacts to seeing a scantily-clad woman. In it, the presenter read an excerpt from an article from Princeton and said, in part, "When the young men viewed the scantily-clad women, the part of the brain associated with tool use lit up...The researchers also discovered that when some of the men viewed these scantily-clad females, the men's medial prefrontal cortex (part of your brain) was deactivated... This is the region of the brain associated with analyzing a person's thoughts, intentions, and feelings.... The doctor remarked, 'It's as if they were reacting to these women as if they were not fully human.'"

I didn't read the research myself, but I'm assuming for now that it made it through peer review and was published in a reputable academic journal. And judging from the men of my acquaintance who shared it, it does fit with their personal experience, at least to some extent.

I would like to point out, by the way, that not every man's medial prefrontal cortex deactivated when looking at the pictures.

On Tuesday, a college friend of mine shared a link about a new law in Pakistan against throwing acid on women. As part of her response to a question I asked about it, she said, "Before this law, it was customary for a man to throw acid on a woman for an indiscretion like failing to bear a son, or out of rejection (if I can't have her, no one will want her because she'll be disfigured!), or through an inability to provide a handsome dowry to the husband from her parents, or for any reason that stems from revenge, or the need to dominate and control."

I can't help but wonder what the brain scans would show when those men looked at a woman. Because even a tool is generally better treated than that. And it's hard to imagine that somebody would throw acid at a person while really considering their thoughts, intentions, and feelings.