Of course, if she exudes open and direct hostility though, that’s another story. If she looks bored, that’s even more excuse to approach.

I guess I’m not experienced enough to note the really subtle body language of ppl in relationships. If you can and you know you’re accurate, then more power to you; but if you’re not that observant, and the guy and gal just don’t appear that intimate to you, then it’s still your job to find out.

Also, you can always tell when someone’s attached to someone else. It’s the body language – how close they stand together. Holding hands is a great indicator that she’s taken.

This is quite interesting, I shall read your other articles.

LOL, man was always god – you didn’t have to get to the end of the post to realise that :p. Man INVENTED the concept of god, for god’s sake (And plus, the title kinda said it all =p).

Btw, you’re welcome for me handing you the pebble – it was on the ground over there, all along. Jesus said “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone” – without realising that He Himself cast the first stone, when he accused all of mankind to be sinners by default (by defining all significant human natures as cardinal sins). When important concepts such as bigotry is being taught, one must lead by example. If there is to be a rock-fight, I’ll see to it that the Christians don’t get to hold more rocks than our friendly neighbourhood Atheists.

Your comment about the Community factor strikes the heart of the issue: In a society where ppl feel lonelier when the crowd gets larger, and any amount of care (that’s beyond negligible) for your mates can be miscontrued as “gay”, religion is really going places by satisfying ppl’s fundamental needs such as unconditional love and acceptance, unassuming friendships (usually impossible to find after tertiary education), and a “genuine” sense of belonging (and other stuff, but that’s for later). And as you said, without the Community factor, the religious only have their bigotry and freedom from sound logic to keep themselves warm at night.

I was going to save the spiel on religion and belongingness for some other future blog, as a series of Counter-Offensives On Religion, but your comment summed it up very well. Also, being from an Christian background, you probably have a more interesting insider’s view on religion than I do. You should definitely do some contributor’s posts for PULL: There is certainly still a lot that PULL readers can learn about self-development from religion (arguably, starting with “a large and deep Y-shaped incision” – but that’s a bit harsh).

I think many atheists, secularists and general people immune to religious bullshit (such as myself) are hypercritical and see little if any use for blind faith. But you raise both a very important and very practical point — logic and faith can and SHOULD exist within the same person in order to function properly. It is too easy for a scientifically minded person to scrutinize themself and everything they do and require evidence in order to believe propositions (such as self-efficacy, positive self-image) that are a pre-requisite to further success.

To actually expand a little more on your content, the reason that religious people seem happier than the ‘heathen’ population is, for the most part, they are. But not due to any inherent ‘God-praising happiness bonus’ or any fulfillment of some fundamental human need to kiss cosmic ass, as many religious folk will tell you. The simple answer is community. Religion gives people access to many people all with at least some common interests (even if they are vested in nonsense) who care and provide mutual support for each other. This sort of social support, attachment and affiliation is of course wonderful for starving off depression and living psychologically (and physically) healthy. Research has verified that religious people do infact live longer and subjectively report being happier than non-religious people. However when factors such as community involvement and social support are stripped away the effects largely disappear.