The yuk factor and others

by jgnat 65 Replies latest jw friends

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  Band on the Run

  I thought chili and chocolate don't go together no matter what the New York Times or New York mag says. There was a nice fine chocolate store in Philadelphia. I purchased a truffe. It was great! I have a lot of inhibitions about food. Could not eat most of the food at a fine restaurant.

  Snakes make me go yuck. Always did. I believe I had a yuk reaction long before I heard about Adam and Eve. Roaches and rodents - yuck.

  Pentecostals bother me more than they should. It probably is early Witness training. Demons are yuk but I have yet to actually see one. Women in purdah bother me a lot.

  Chinese music also bothers me.

  I can eat some food in a restaurant yet I cannot eat it at home.
• 

  Miss.Fit

  So the yuk factor would include bacon for Jews and beef for Hindus, blood for JWs, meat for vegetarians.

  I am curious: any ex jws eat blood after leaving? I don't think I could.
• 

  jgnat

  A fine summary, miss fit. I don't like wearing a cross either. It feels like advertising. Also my church put the crucifixion back in to Easter with live actors. I still get sad around Easter.
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  millie210

  I think the yuk factor would be induced quite often when it comes to foods. So many differing palates exist in the world and people become so fond of what they are exposed to when young.

  Heres an example of what we in the western world would shudder and say yuk to:

  http://www.culinaryschools.org/cuisine/10-disgusting-delicacies/
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  paranoia agent

  Hi jgnat, I happen to recently read regarding retribution with is aggregated to subjective moral values, there isn't really that much reading material even among philosophers, I read The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris and The Righteous mind by Jonathan Haith.

  Religion likes to impose a static form of morals even though they have been overwritten by the New Testament, but regarding the scientific community it all boils down to the old philosophical argument - nature or nurture, that is is it old traits we evolved from? (like fight or flight tendencies when we were cavemen and cavewomen) or is it in relation to our upbringing due to our religions, secular or atheist parents?

  If you start to compare us to other animals expects correlations, tribalism, sexual gratification and the need for new life, yet we are social animals and conscience of our own limitations.
• 

  jgnat

  Haidt and Pinker maintain that as dominant as we are, humans are still governed by instinct (nature). After reading about infant brain development, I liken it to a simple command, "go forth and multiply". It is both nature and nurture. Given a stimulating environment (nurture) it will grow to its potential.

  I'm not sure you captured the full value religion as a cohesive force, allowing humans to collective action.
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  smiddy

  I am curious: any ex jws eat blood after leaving?

  As a child I used to eat black pudding / blood sausage and really had ataste for it .

  As a JW , it was in the yuk factor catergory , If I come across it now I would definetly try it to see if I still enjoy it.

  The prohibition on eating of blood in the bible doesnt phase me as I reject the bible as coming from a god.

  smiddy
• 

  jgnat

  About foods, consider the waves of immigrants who came to our country (I think Canada, US, Australia and now the UK all have had their waves) each with their own cooking and their own smells. One way we separated ourselves is to declare the new group stinky. The garlic and onions of the Italians, and now the curries from the East Indians. Steadily we incorporated these new foods to our palate and they don't seem so strange any more.
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  jgnat

  How about the "contamination" of Apostacy and Satan? Can this explain the way some Witnesses shun, turning away in disgust?
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  humbled

  The words used to stigmatize a person or a food are always associated with YUK language. For the very young or unsophistocated words like "nasty" ,"filthy", "dirty" or simply "YUK" conveys enough disgust to teach us to reject AUTOMATICALLY any person or thing thus described.

  Older and wiserwe use words like "contaminate", "poison", "adulterate","pollute", to proscribe by generating a sense of revulsion.

  All these terms discourage the hearer from thinking about WHY.

  Why? why is something dangerous, nasty, evil? To label a thing or a person by first tainting its existence makes all further descriptions of it fall under disrepute---even if the actual factors involved are neutral or even comparable to accepted standards.

  We cast things, customs, people in this manner until we feel guilty if we even give them a fair trial. If we even say "hold on for a minute--let's think about this---" TO OURSELVES, we feel separated from whatever community we are a part of.

  The film "To Kill a Mockingbird" was of course the dramatization of what occurs when a man attempt to give a fair defense of a black man in a southern U.S. town in the 1930-40s. Trying to get people to THINK past their conditioning was the challenge.

  The yuk factor trumps fair reasoning for lots of people.