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Picture yourself spending some time with congenial friends, sharing your lives and pictures from your cell phones." They're curious about that cool game, song, movie, camping trip, art show, or other event that fascinated you. You talk about all kinds of stuff, poetry, styles, personal achievements, relationships, and bad days. You can share your inner child, and laugh together. They sympathetically listen to your feelings about serious topics like politics or climate change, even when they don't agree.

Personal validation comes from paying attention to one another, giving more than you get. Everyone respects you and themselves, despite our amazing range of personal tastes and interests. They'll tell you they don't agree with an idea or behavior without implying you're a bad person or somehow deficient. It's an "I'm OK, You're OK" kind of fellowship, where nobody tries to make himself look better by picking on somebody else.

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Tags: Aldrich Lloyd Talonding, child singing sensation

Carved shell jewelry

Started by Ruth Anthony-Gardner. Last reply by Ruth Anthony-Gardner on Tuesday. 3 Replies 0 Likes

Browsing carved shell jewelry by Shinji Nakaba, I came upon this ring.LOL, "Kiss the ring" has a new meaning. They show how it's made.…Continue

Tags: carved shell rings

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Comment by Idaho Spud on March 22, 2013 at 9:40am: Haha! Sorry Rover, no way!

Comment by booklover on March 22, 2013 at 9:24am

Comment by booklover on March 22, 2013 at 9:24am: I'm with you Spud. I still don't "get" it, and I can't care.

Comment by Idaho Spud on March 22, 2013 at 9:13am: I'm another one that doesn't understand the meaning of the word meme, even though I've read Dawkins, Wikipedia, and several people on the net explain it.

I've just about given-up on trying to understand it. As far as I can tell, it's not necessary for me to understand it, and I have much more enjoyable things to think about and do.

Maybe it's just part of my curmudgeonliness, but there are a number of new words that I don't see any reason to use or understand. Most of them seem to have old words that describe what the new word does, sometimes even better.

Comment by sk8eycat on March 22, 2013 at 4:19am: LOL! I've had a problem for decades; I have had my nose in one book or another since I learned to read, and friends always say, "Why don't you write a book?" Sheesh! I can outline a simple plot idea, but that's about as far as I can go. I can't imagine characters in detail, and my dialog tends to run to one-liners and puns. And that's IT.

My favorite authors (living and dead) make the reader see, hear, and feel their characters without actually describing them in any detail. I can't do that. I think it's an inborn talent, and whatever talent I have ever had is/was physical. I can choreograph in my head, but I can't explain it to anybody else. I just listen to music and know what moves belong when. And the shape my body has been in for the past 25 years, I can't do the moves anymore.

So I read and enjoy it.

Comment by Joan Denoo on March 22, 2013 at 2:31am: Oh, I think I see my problem, I enjoy seeing memes, I am just not clever at creating them. Oh well, so what else is new; I'm not good at a lot of things and I am very good at a lot of things. Creating memes is not one of my strengths.

Comment by Joan Denoo on March 22, 2013 at 2:24am: sk8eycat, I like what you wrote and your experience. I know the fog will lift at some point and I will say "why did I make such a deal out of this; it is only ....!"

I looked up Judith Hayes and read only a little bit and like what I read. Sorry to learn of her suicide and its impact on you. I look forward to looking into more of what she had to say.

Comment by sk8eycat on March 22, 2013 at 1:43am: Joan, I'm not stupid, either, but I'm not exactly highly educated, and I have never *grokked* the meme concept, either. I have read The God Delusion three times, and reread certain sections more times than that, and I still don't understand a lot of what Dawkins is trying to say.

I have had a long-standing problem with a lot of writers in the field...they use another language that I call Academish, and I don't understand it.

That's why I was so delighted when I first found Judith Hayes (The Happy Heretic) online about 12 years ago. She "spoke" my language, and clearly explained many of the contradictions and nonsense in religions, particularly xianity. We actually became friends...email and phone...and I was invited to come visit, but I never had the oppportunity.

And that's why I was so hurt and angry when she killled herself last year. I miss her dreadfully. I don't know if her columns are still archived online, I haven't looked, but she always made sense...she didn't use vague terms like "meme," ...until she kinda went off the rails when her husband died. You might find her books (she wrote 2) at half.com. You can search by author.

Comment by Joan Denoo on March 22, 2013 at 1:00am: Let me see if I can get a little clearer on what I am trying to learn about meme. I read Dawkins' book and what Dennett had to say. I read the Wiki articles and still I don't get a feel for a meme. I know I am not stupid, even as I feel stupid in this case. Perhaps it is my lack of a sense of humor, in that case I will just enjoy what others create.

There is another aspect of this, too. It is I agree wholeheartedly with what Ruth describes as poo, or a virus that atheists spread, unintentionally. When I write or read something critical, I wonder if it is a virus.

Things I write about religion are my true thoughts based on my experiences. I am biased and I know that, but there are so many outrageous stories religious tell each other, i.e. that woman who describes how god kept her oil bottle full, Oh! I get shutters.

Well, I don't want to dwell on this too long, and what I am really trying to discover is how to use a meme to expose stupidity while not spreading poo all over the place.

Please feel free to alert me when I do such a thing. Kind of like what Dogly did for me today!. It hurt when I read it, but he told me the truth and I love him for that.

Comment by Ruth Anthony-Gardner on March 21, 2013 at 10:29pm: Joan you asked for examples of memes. It's like asking for examples of photographs or words, there are so many.

Waving to say "hello" is a nonverbal meme.

The shape of a knife is a meme embodied physically. It can be copied and reproduced.

Any melody you like or don't like is a meme. The ones that are earworms are more successful in one way, propagating without your intent.

Tinkerbelle is a meme, as are all other fictional characters.

The name Joan is a meme.

Purses of all sorts are memes, as are all varieties of architecture, and of guitars, hairstyles and of vehicles.

Anything that can be imitated, remembered, thought about, communicated, and reproduced is a meme. A meme is a unit of culture.

Internet memes are only a small subset of memes. That use of the word "meme" is derivative and narrow.

BTW, Flying Atheist, thanks for the hilarious samples, especially the last one.