The Other Skeptic

Bless You? Really?

2010-06-08T13:20:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up, it was normal for me to say “bless you” or the other statement with more grandeur “GOD bless you” after someone sneezed. I felt so good after I would say “God bless you” that I actually sensed that I was the one being blessed. When I was transitioning away from religion, I found myself still saying “bless you”. It was natural. But one day, someone sneezed - and at this point I was free of religion - and I was almost at a loss for words. Worse, I was in a group of people. I was just so nervous and time began to slow down. My mouth slowly opened, everyone slightly glanced at me, wanting me to make the blessing, and the thoughts in my head were racing. I wouldn’t say “bless you” let alone “God bless you”. So what was I left with? The words slowly rolled off my tongue, and in slow motion to make it worse, “Yooouuuuu.” Yep. I just said “you.” At which point I had discovered that someone had said “Bless” right before I put in my less than two cents worth. So that person said “bless” then we both said “you”. It wasn’t awkward, everyone has done that. Even you. Someone starts off with a statement that you know as well and you finish it off with them. So I was saved and time returned to normal speed. Now, as a joke, when someone sneezes, I just say “you”.

What’s interesting about the phrase “God bless you” is that almost no one knows that it is flat out silly. God, if one does exist, doesn’t need reminding. What are people thinking when they say “bless you”? What do they think god is doing? Maybe he’s up in heaven… I don’t know, doing godly stuff… filing the naughty and nice cabinets (which are separate from the heaven and hell cabinets, mind you). His office telephone rings and god turns on the speaker phone. “Yes?” “Sir, you have a bless you on line one from a Carl to a Susan,” says Mary, god’s secretary. “Thank you, Mary. I forgot about her. I was actually going to stop her from getting that cold but I was too busy debating with my children online that miracles are too distracting.” “What should I do about it, sir?” “Umm. Move it to tomorrow at seven in the morning, I’m too busy carving my image onto trees.” “Very good, sir.” “And please put a sticky note on my monitor so I won’t forget, Mary.” “Yes sir.” Give me a break.

I think that god can handle it. You don’t need to remind him, her, or it. What’s weirder than the fact that people still say “bless you” is the fact that sometimes after someone sneezes and another person says “bless you”, the person who sneezed sneezes again. Not just one more time, sometimes two or three more times. Maybe people should lighten up. “Achoo!” “Bless you.” “Thank y- Achoo!” “That’s the last time I fall for that.” That is probably the proof that there is no god: People keep sneezing after they are blessed… Well, now that I think about it, maybe god is probably teaching us a lesson. God’s out in heaven watching a person sneeze and just as he’s going to bless that person, some nimrod (god’s thinking this, not me) plays god and says “bless you”. God replies “Oh yeah. If you think you’re so worthy, let’s see how that works out.” I guess I retract my previous argument.

In class, people sneeze all the time. As always, someone says “bless you”. Sometimes there’s a whole string of people who keep sneezing followed by a string of “bless you”. The next time that happens, I’m going to look towards the ceiling and shout “DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS!” Or, if someone sneezes, someone blesses, and the person who sneezed sneezes again, I will look towards the ceiling and say “Hey! He's just trying to help.” Then god starts to chuckle.

Maybe the best thing to do is, as I did in my fictional anecdote in the beginning, is just to say “you”. Then god will probably come down from heaven and say “Who?” “Her,” you will reply. Then ZAP. No more sneezing… until the devil sneaks under god’s nose… again.

An Argument With A Theist: The Following is a True Story

2010-03-09T00:01:00.001-08:00

I have debated with and witnessed debates with atheists and theists since the time I became an atheist. Some debates are well presented, others are informal. Some debaters (on both sides) are considerate, others are irrational and rude. I have mostly partaken in informal arguments with considerate people on both sides, but recently (mid March 2010 if you are reading this in the future) I have found a somewhat funny, interesting, and downright weird website called omegle.com. Basically, it’s a chatroom, but there are no names, usernames, pictures, or any other information that you give to the sever (superficially, of course). You just open the webpage and chat with a random stranger. Most people are cool and interesting. Others I just click the disconnect button because they are so weird. Anyway, I went on this website and, like I might have suggested earlier, debated a theist. The following is a copy of how the informal argument went. I took out some unimportant back-and-forths and corrected some misspelled words and made sure to keep this relatively untainted. Please tell me what you thought about this argument in the comment box below. Enjoy!

You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!

Stranger [him or her]: Have you confessed your sins this month? If not you can confess to myself.
You [me]: i'm an atheist.
Stranger: Have fun in hell
You: i know
You: carl sagan is my idol
You: he's down there
Stranger: You're all a bunch of dumb cunts you know that
You: We just love sin. That's the only reason.
Stranger: You think we were just happened out of nowhere
You: would you like to continue this chat via email?
Stranger: We r talking right now u dumb cunt
You: well u seem like the type to insult then disconnect
Stranger: No
You: cool
You: let's continue
Stranger: Ok. You're going to hell
You: right
You: why?
Stranger: Because you have no faith
You: but i'm nice
Stranger: So
You: i love people and animals
Stranger: So
You: well don't gods like that stuff?
Stranger: Why can't you just accept god. You like his creations but youre too lazy o worship him. You take the earth for granted. You're going to hell
You: i don't take the earth for granted. if i'm an atheist, then i believe that i'm lucky to be alive.
Stranger: Please. You are part of gods plan
You: Then why is there free will?
Stranger: Because god isn't self imposing
Stranger: He will wait until you're ready to accept him
You: what if i die tomorrow?
Stranger: Then you will go to hell
You: but he didn't give me a good enough chance
Stranger: He did
Stranger: He's giving you one right now through me
You: ah yes
You: but then you have to prove something else
Stranger: Prove what
You: god
You: or gods
Stranger: Do you think that everything has come together the way it has out of coincidence?
Stranger: It just so happens that trees give us oxygen
Stranger: It just so happens that we need water to live
Stranger: It just so happens we need the sun to grow things
Stranger: It just so happens that we eat things from the ground. Do you think one day a banana decided to be a banana? No it was created
You: It just so happens that evolution explains all of that
Stranger: bananas fit perfectly in your hand
You: so do apples
You: so what?
You: so does mercury given the right amount
Stranger: How does evolution explain how we came to be.
You: It will take me too long to explain over the internet
You: go to talkorigins.org
You: if you want a simple explanation
Stranger: Ya haha u don't know do u
You: Is that a question or an assertion?
Stranger: You don't understand anything. I think god forgot to give all of you atheists a brain
You: ad hominem
Stranger: What's that
You: well if all atheists are stupid, then why don't you tell me?
Stranger: An ape man?
You: fine i'll tell u
You: It means an unfair attack not involved in an argument
Stranger: Oh
You: for example, "i don't like him, therefore he's stupid."
You: ad hominem
Stranger: Yup
Stranger: See but you don't prove your point very well. Therefore your a dumb cunt. Go to hell
You: strawman fallacy
Stranger: What's that
You: an ethos related fallacy where you attack an opponent and claim to have defeated him or her when that's usually not the case.
You: We sure are digressing
Stranger: Well you haven't provided relevant information so I'm telling you to piss off
You: right
You: well then let's get back on track
You: proof?
You: reason?
Stranger: Explain
You: I'm just asking you to continue explaining why i shouldn't be an atheist.
Stranger: Oh ok
Stranger: Because you're all homosexuals and that goes against gods plan.
Stranger: And how can emotions like ours come from nowhere
Stranger: And who wrote the bible then
Stranger: R u telling me the bible is a sham
You: Okay, this will take me a while to write so I'm asking for patience.
Stranger: Ok
Stranger: Write in paragraphs and send one by one not just send a whole big thing
You: okay
You: first, "homosexual"? how did you come to that conclusion? (don't refute it yet, just let me finish)
You: second, emotions do not prove the existence of a god or gods.
You: third, I'm not talking about the bible - any bible. I'm talking about any deity in general.
You: Okay, i'm done.
Stranger: That's it
You: for now
Stranger: That's all u have to say and u told me to have patience
You: you presented claims, i refuted. that's how things go
Stranger: That's all u have to say about the bible?
You: i'm not talking about any bible.
Stranger: Well I am
You: Fine
Stranger: It's a big piece of evidence that god does exist and you just blow it off. Your a dumb cunt. I'd rather believe all my life and then die and have it turn out to be a sham than to not believe and die and it turns out to be real
You: There's not just ONE bible, there are quite a few. there are also quite a few other claims of a supernatural being.
Stranger: Oh please there's only one
You: There's only one?
You: one bible?
Stranger: Yes
You: no qu'ran?
You: no book of mormon?
Stranger: No
Stranger: No
You: no operating thetans?
Stranger: No
You: why do you assert that?
Stranger: God created there gods to help
Stranger: To supervise things
You: but didn't god say that there was only one which just so happen to be him? isn't that the first commandment?
Stranger: Ya
You: so there can't be other gods?
Stranger: But then these other gods came and he used them to spread his message. So it's all the same really
You: so xenu's like god's cousin?
Stranger: Pretty much
You: how do you come to this conclusion?
You: what are your grounds?
Stranger: U wouldn't understand ur a dumb cunt
Stranger: it's the truth
You: you have no idea what truth is.
Stranger: Guess what
You: ?
Stranger: The game
You: game? like rabbit?
Stranger: The game
You: the game of Life. I LOVE LIFE!!!
Stranger: You lost
You: what game?
You: an argument is not a game.
Stranger: The game. Asking about the game means u lose the game
You: okay
You: fine
Stranger: I was bullshitting u the whole time. U dumb atheists like to argue about dumb shit
You: are you saying god is dumb shit ?
You: (strawman)
Stranger: So why do u bother wasting your time
You: because i'm stubborn
You: and a cunt
You: and an active atheist
You: and proud
Stranger: Fuck you

Your conversational partner has disconnected.

A Picture's Worth A Thousand Words. But I'll Only Use A Few.

2010-01-25T16:37:00.000-08:00

Enjoy these pictures that I made on http://www.motifake.com/!

The origin of this picture came from a video in which a disbeliever in evolution attempts to disprove the theory. The video states that science says matter and energy such as heat and lightning can create small forms of organic matter. They do not clarify that only a few types of atoms are necessary for the origin of life and not any one of them. They try to explain that evolution is false because if you take a jar of peanut butter and expose it to heat, new life will not form. It is patently false but the video's a hoot to watch.

That's right, it's true, Pat Robertson made a racist comment. The Haitians won their revolution against the French to save their people from slavery. To claim that the Haitians asked the devil to help them from slavery implies that slavery is good and to abolish it would be the work of satan.

Evolution is a fact. God created man in his image. The best compromise that I could come up with is in this picture.

This picture is pretty self-explanatory.

The meaning of this picture is also easy to understand.

Thanks for reading. I'll write more blogs soon.

Part 2 of My Two Part Series Where I Babble About Creationism and Intelligent Design

2010-01-16T21:19:00.000-08:00

Some Creationists and believers of ID claim to have ‘proof’ of the existence of God, gods, or a deity. Some give ‘proofs’ that the Christian God exists. Others are an iota more sensible and claim to have ‘proof’ of a deity or ‘a knowledgeable being far greater than humans’. In this last entry of my 2 part series of Creationism and ID, I will reproduce the ‘proofs’ of God, gods, or a deity. I will then follow up with my disputes of the ‘proofs’, Genesis, and the other arguments that I stated in my previous entry on Creationism and ID.

PROOFS

It astonishes me about how some people come up with ‘proof’ of God and still cling onto it even when others disprove them. These ‘proofs’ are eerily similar to the arguments that I wrote about in my previous entry, but these are more bold and stupid. It defeats the purpose of faith when there’s ‘proof’.

Bananas: the atheists’ nightmare:

This notion was conceived by Ray Comfort. He doesn’t use it anymore because people misquote him. In my description, I will not misrepresent what he was trying to say although it is foolish anyway.

Ray Comfort says that soda cans are specifically made to be easy for consumption. Bananas are easy to consume because of its size, shape, and certain features. Therefore, God made it. Comfort was eventually informed that wild bananas were artificially selected by humans in order to make the bananas we usually eat today. He says that God gave humans the knowledge to evolve the wild bananas. This is odd because Ray Comfort is totally against evolution.* He also says that dogs were modified to fit into our cars and cats were modified to be tamer. I think Ray Comfort is very ignorant in most aspects of evolution. He uses faulty logic that are similar to other peoples’ ‘proofs’ which always begs a question**.

[* Don’t believe me? Click here to see the video.]
[**Here is a link to one of my blog entries on logical fallacies where I give a brief description of “begging the question.]

It is also an ignorant argument. He says that since bananas are ‘perfect’ for humans, there MUST have been a being that created the banana. It is similar to the argument that animals where created by God because humans have 10 fingers and 10 toes, and centipedes have 100 ‘fingers’. The amounts of digits are all divisible by 10, therefore God. I could also say “therefore, Flying Spaghetti Monster,” but I digress. It is not good enough to prove a being in the clouds that ‘controls everything’ exists. It’s called a COINCIDENCE. It’s also a fabrication of my mind.

Proof is proof of God:

As I was searching for ‘proofs’ of God’s existence, I ran along a website with the unambiguous URL http://www.proofthatgodexists.org/. The first thing that pops up is the question “What do you believe?” The website lists the possible answers: “Absolute Truth Exists. Absolute Truth Does Not Exist. I Don’t Know If Absolute Truth Exists. [or] I Don’t Care If Absolute Truth Exists. (Absolute Truth - True for all people at all times, universally true).” I don’t think that there is such a thing as Absolute Truth because if there was, there wouldn’t be so many religions in the world (and that’s just in our own pale blue dot). So I go for the second choice. It sends me to a different page to confirm this. I confirm and it sends me right back to the first page which is exactly the same except the question is “This is not a glitch (Think about it).” If I would choose the third choice, it would do the same thing. If I would choose the fourth choice, I would be asked to leave. That only leaves me with the first choice. I’ll ignore this for now.

I continued the survey until I was asked if “Absolute Moral Laws Exist.” They used the example “Rape, and child molestation, are two examples of absolute moral wrongs.” This is a good example of what not to do under normal circumstances, but they are not sufficient moral laws. What if someone had to rape, murder, or molest a child in order to save, for example, one of their own children? I don’t think all people would say yes. If you don’t like my example, I’ll use a better one: WATCH THE SAW SERIES! In those movies, people are asked to either kill themselves or another person in order to save their own lives. Moral laws don’t apply in those situations. They can be changed in order to get whatever the individual wants. I clicked on the answer that I thought was correct, but they didn’t like it. The next question was something along the lines of “Do you think molesting kids for fun is right? Yes or no?” It’s using a very bad example which I have already rebutted. But, this is a website and I can’t argue with it. So, I went back and clicked “Absolute Moral Laws Exist.” I’m going to ignore this for now as well.

I was then asked to choose whether math, logic, science, and absolute morality are material or immaterial. I know that those laws are immaterial observations based on material phenomena. So, I chose immaterial. Next I was asked if all of those things are universal or individual. I think that absolute moral laws are individual, but I know that choosing it will only make me more frustrated. I chose universal for the sake of argument. They asked me if those things were unchanging or changing. For the sake of argument, I chose unchanging even though moral zeitgeists change all the time and are different in different places.

So, what is the conclusion? After all of those questions, what is it? What is the proof of god? Never mind the contradictions of absolute moral laws being absolute, universal, and unchanging. I don’t care about those. I will pretend that all of those are facts. I don’t care about you being wrong about Absolute Truth. So, what is the proof? Convert me. Make me one with the Holy Spirit! I saw the proof: “The Proof that God exists is that without Him, you couldn’t prove anything.”

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! You suck ProofThatGodExists.com! I hate you! I hate you! It doesn’t prove anything! It’s possible to have no God and have laws of the universe. Ever heard of the multi-verse theory? You ignorant bastards wasting my time! Your proof begs the questions “Which God?” and “Why do you need Him in order to prove anything?” Now there are more things that they have to prove. It’s not proof. But my story’s pretty funny.

My God, the almighty headcheese:

It is commonplace when someone, somewhere, has proof of God or Christ or Mary as the Supreme Being in a tree trunk, cheese sandwich, or the clouds. There are a few pictures of Jesus or Mary found in a tree trunk in Dallas. It, to me, seems like someone saw a part of a tree as being slightly human and decided to carve the rest into Jesus’ or Mary’s figure. That notion doesn’t stop the faithful from believing that it was God. Rationality would probably be banned from the imagination of the faithful ones, not by other people, but by themselves because they don’t want to lose their faith. People are willing to see those ‘signs’ as proof of the Christian God. But it’s not.

There are so many sightings of the ‘signs’ of God. You have to be really dense to believe that ALL of them are from God. People see what they want to see. Some ‘signs’ are more noticeable than others. I tend to believe that those are the ones created not by the hands of God, but by men and/or women. If one were to say that the ‘signs’ are from God, I would most likely (and I encourage anyone else to do so as well) show them this webpage: http://www.venganza.org/category/sightings/. It has several sightings of the Pastafarians’ God, The Flying Spaghetti Monster. To those who are unfamiliar by His Noodliness, I will clue you in: The FSM is a symbol to those who think that their religion isn’t weird while others are. It is also meant to support the movement to separate church from state. The ‘signs’ of The Flying Spaghetti Monster are found in, primarily, spaghetti. That can be easily said to be the work of man. The other sightings are more ambiguous. Some are sightings in soup, or the effect of taking a photo of fireworks while moving to make the fire look like His noodly limbs. This can be taken as a fabrication of a fictional character revealing itself through someone’s creativity in making pictures of it. My question is to those who think that the signs of the Christian God are real and the FSM’s aren’t: Why can’t your interpretations of the FSM’s signs be the same for the sightings of your God?

There is a phenomenon called pareidolia. It is when we see figures of ourselves, animals, religious figures, or anything else in otherwise ambiguous stimuli. There was a “bullshit” experiment made by Penn and Teller where they showed a picture of a supposed ‘sign’ from God. Most people saw nothing, others saw animals, and a few saw Jesus. They were then given another ambiguous photo and where asked to interpret it in any way they wanted. Again, most saw nothing, some saw animals, and a few saw Jesus. They were then shown the same photo, but zoomed out to reveal what it actually was: a picture of headcheese. I experience pareidolia all the time when I’m staring at the ceiling and look at the bumps created by the paint dripping down while it was drying. I see dogs, faces, letters, and whatever else I want to see. It is common for me and any other human to see objects and interpret them as some everyday thing.

NOW ONTO TO MY DISPUTES EXCLUSIVELY

I know that I was disputing the ‘proofs’ already, but now I will talk about what I don’t like about Genesis and the ID hypotheses without explaining them too much. If you haven’t read my first blog, you should read it or else you will be a little off track (unless, of course, you know about them already).

Genesis:

There’s no other way to start than from the beginning. What I notice right off the bat is how God created the earth (water was already existent, by the way) and failed to create the other planets in our solar system or in the galaxy. He created heaven too, and I have no problem with that. I hear it’s quite dandy. Then he made light. I’m going to ask you a question that anyone who is au fait with basic astronomy will know: What is our solar system’s main source of light? That’s right, the sun. Did God create the sun on the first day? Absolutely not. At any rate, on the second day, he created the horizon and the land. I’m fine that he created the land, but the horizon? I thought it was implied when he made light. It seems like the men who fabricated this story - I mean God - didn’t know that the horizon was already made. The next day is fine with me. But on the fourth day, he created the sun, the moon, and the stars. Now he created the sun! I want to remind you that the sun and the stars are far greater than the size of the earth. They may look tiny from our vantage point, but we know now that it’s not true. It took him four days to create the earth, but it took him one day to create the sun, moon, and stars? Are you kidding me? He eventually created the rest of the animals on the planet including man and woman. I would like to point out that he DID make man AND woman together, but in the second chapter, it says that they were created separately. He went to sleep after he saw how good his planet was. I think that God has to make another appointment with his eye doctor because his world was going to fall right before his eyes and continues to do so. Once he woke up from his nap, he created rain. Rain is fine sometimes but I think that God put a little too much force in the rain. Tornados, hurricanes, and typhoons are perfect examples of this. And again, the bible states that something was created days after it was actually made. Why? Because it was not the word of God but the scribbling of some crazy people a few thousand years ago.

Why does God have to be so poetic? It seems like it’s a story made up by some person who was on too many hallucinogens. God made man out of dirt. Is that foreshadowing? “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” Imagine that you are a farmer who lived a long time ago. How many animals do you know? There are goats, sheep, cows, chicken, ants, spiders, and a few others. Adam named all of the animals. If you were a farmer from 2,000 years ago, this doesn’t sound preposterous, it sounds quite logical that one man could name a few tens of animals. Sadly, that’s not the case. There are millions of mammals, fish, and bugs. It could not take any man one lifetime to discover all of the animals in the world, remember them, and make sure not to give two names to one species. It would be impossible even if one man had 800 years to do so like Adam did. It seems, again, that this is ancient hallucinated farmer logic. Now, like I stated before, God is a poet. He enjoys making things similar to the way a classic novelist would. He made Eve out of Adam’s rib. I don’t think that one rib would have enough atoms to make another human. “Well God didn’t transform Adam’s atoms into Eve’s, he created them,” says the imaginary Creationist in my head. If he made the atoms for Eve, then why did he need Adam’s rib in the first place? Why did he need Adam’s rib? Why did he need Adam? God created women - and I want to warn all of my female readers that they will be offended - to assist men. Women are assistants, helpers, cleaners, and whatever other jobs a man doesn’t want to do. Why is God so sexist? Once more, this seems like logic that only a dumb farmer from 2,000 years ago would approve.

Is God stupid? I think most will agree that God is not stupid. After all, he knows everything and has a plan. Does God want bad things to happen to his ‘children’? I think most would agree that God would not want anything bad to happen to those who love him. If he knows everything, has a plan, and wants nothing but the best for us, then why did he plant that f***ing tree of knowledge? Why does he want Eve to eat from it? Why did he create a snake that would tempt her into eating the fruit? Why didn’t he destroy the snake once he found out what was going on? Why did he tell Adam not to eat the fruit but didn’t tell Eve? Why did he expect Adam not to be tempted by Eve to eat a piece of fruit? Why? Because he’s a stupid, lying, malicious, devilish attention whore, megalomaniacal wolf in sheep’s clothing! Or as George Carlin describes, “An angry temp.”

Adam and Eve had Cain, Abel, Seth, and Other. “Who’s other?” Other is the unnamed wife/sister of Cain. God didn’t make her exclusively for Cain because he would surely want everyone to know. The only way to conclude that Cain had his offspring is if he had sex with his sister. Anyone with a high school education should know that when two people of the same family have children, the child will have severe genetic defects. So, several generations of inbreeding will create more problems than help.

And God saw that it was… well… not too good. So, he asked Noah to make an ark that was smaller than the Titanic. He required Noah and his family to make an ark instead of making one himself. God wants to kill all men but wants to save Noah and his family because they’re relatively good. How does he expect Noah to get away with all of this without anyone noticing? “Hey Noah, what are you up to?” “My wife says that I haven’t been bonding with my kids enough. You know women right?” “Yeah. A woman ate just one piece of fruit, screwed all mankind, and they turn the argument back around on you. I got it.” God expects Noah to control all of the animals and get them on the boat - I mean ark. Does God know that animals need to eat other animals to survive? Does God know that 40 days of rain can’t cover the earth? Does God know that flooding the earth higher than the tallest mountain will freeze and/or suffocate all of the animals on the ark? Does God know that covering the earth with water will kill all aquatic life because of the pressure and filtration? Does God know where he’ll put all of the water once he’s done with the flood? Does God know how the animals will survive after the flood? Where does he plan to put all of the food on the ark? Where does he expect all of the animals to get enough water? Will the animals poop all over the ark or does God want to constipate them to death? What about everything else that I don’t feel like writing? Is it magic? Does he want to use magic to kill all humans and save the animals? Has God ever heard of a heart attack? Why doesn’t he make things simple? I think that God is just a stupid dumby dumb-dumb. I don’t even think that a dumb farmer could believe that. But there are some people that do accept this and, on the accuracy of this event, are dumber than an ancient farmer.

All of these events seem like they would be written by a high, dumber than the rock he lives on, 2,000-year-old farmer. The writings in the beginning of Genesis also seem like they could be believed only by gullible oafs who won’t think for themselves.

Intelligent Design:

Some people look at the universe subjectively. They think that there is some force that exists which planned the creation of the universe (or universes). This thought that a force which doesn’t intervene with our everyday life but did create the universe is known as deism. I believe that the thought of a being that created everything but does not show itself is rather pointless. Then, as always, there is the question “How did that deity come into existence?” This is usually followed up with “It has always been there,” and may be refuted by saying “Why can’t the universe have always been here?”

The thought of an all knowing and all powerful being that created the universe and walked away is a conjecture that is based only on thoughts rather than observations. It is loosely based on the ignorant statement “I can’t imagine that this universe was not created, therefore I think it was created.” This is not based on anything but imagination. Sometimes even revelation, but then it wouldn’t be deist (nor sensible). It is part of the human condition to look at the universe from a subjective point of view. I don’t have that condition and neither does any other atheist.

Irreducible complexity, the argument from design, the anthropic principle, and the argument from ignorance are only slightly different, but I consider them to be the same. Gravity and electromagnetism are essential for the universe. But, it does not imply a creator by scientific standards. What interests me is how humans figured it out. Humans evolved over several billions of years because of several processes that couldn’t have happened but did. What I’m concerned about is when, why and how did this notion of something greater begin? I believe that since humans used to and still do imply a creator to what they don't understand is how this all came about. But humans have figured out several things over the millennia. Former gods have now turned into mythologies. Why can't this apply to all of them?

Another argument that I don’t care too much for is the cosmological argument. It seems to make sense to those who aren’t too logical, but it is actually full of holes. It starts out with a reasonable statement, “Things exist.” Then it goes on to say that those things must have been caused into existence. That makes sense for some things. Fruits are put into existence from trees, chips come from factories, we come from our parents, and they come from their parents. But making the assumption that all matter and energy was somehow caused into existence by an omnipotent and omniscient being. That theory contradicts the Law of Conservation of Energy and Matter. Even the Big Bang theory states the all matter and energy was existent, but they are in a small volume of space. There is the first hole in the argument. Then the argument talks about the impossibility of infinite regressions and eventually states that since the universe exists, there must have been an “uncaused cause”. I hear that apologetic Christians use this argument. Even if I ignore the flaws that the “uncaused cause” was an intelligent being and that all matter and energy was created from nothing but a deity, there is still one thing that has to be proven: “Which God?” If one accepts this notion, then it doesn’t prove the existence of any God that all humans of all time have fabricated. But, this argument is illogical and doesn’t work.

The ontological argument is even funnier than the cosmological or fine-tuning of gravity arguments. It’s funnier because it doesn’t require much thought to debunk it. What’s even funnier is that people actually use it. Saying “I think God exists, therefore God exists,” is hilarious. I can say the same thing for the Flying Spaghetti Monster or the Invisible Pink Unicorn. I don’t have to even write about how obviously fallacious this is because anybody with the knowledge of a five year old can figure it out. It puts a tear to my eye because of its humor.

I would like to write a little more about the anthropic principle. I have only talked about the earth’s gravity not having to be an issue. There are several solar systems that have planets. If you take all of the planets in the galaxy, it is very likely that they would have the right amount of basic elements in order for life to evolve. The elements that are necessary for life are among the top ten most common elements found in the universe. It’s not fine-tuned if the elements necessary for life are extremely common. It’s actually relatively simple for life to form. There are probably several planets that have some sort of life in our galaxy and there may be a few others that would be able to support life from our planet. It’s very ignorant to say that we live on the only planet that has life in our galaxy. Even if we are, it unfortunately doesn’t prove the existence of a deity by scientific standards.

CONCLUSION

No matter what you see, hear, or read, there is no proof of the existence of God. There is as much evidence for extraterrestrials visiting earth than there is for the existence of any deity. If you feel like a claim is too good to be true, especially if it attempts to use science, I would suggest doing some research instead of accepting it at face value. This happens all the time with new age religions, pseudoscience, and cults. Take the Jonestown Massacre, Heaven’s Gate Cult, and The Church of Euthanasia for examples. Hey, less stupid people! Am I right? Did you know that a few people escaped from Jonestown? I applaud them for being smart enough not to fall for Jim Jones’ crap. It is evolution right before our very eyes.

Creation is complete boloney. There is neither evidence nor observations that point towards it. The famous atheist YouTube user, Thunderfoot, made a series of videos entitled “Why do people laugh at Creationists?” He always ends his videos with the clever answer “Only Creationists don’t know why.” In the series, he shows excerpts of videos of Creationists attempting to prove the existence of God, fine-tuning, and the proof of Noah’s flood. It would be very safe to say that Creationism is downright brainless.

I wouldn’t vouch for Intelligent Design either. It is based on emotion and subjective observations of the earth. It is not based on scientific evidence. For an extremely long time, humans have believed that anything they didn’t fully understand was a god. The sun, the moon, the stars, the creation of the universe, a solar or lunar eclipse, etc. was usually associated with a god. Whatever they didn’t know, they filled in the blank with imaginary beings. “What are those bolts coming from the sky that sometimes hurt people?” “Why, it’s Zeus! And he sure is unhappy!” “How does the water fall from the sky?” “That’s God answering all of our prayers for rain.” “What is that bright circle that passes the sky during the day?” “His name’s Helios!” People are, have, and will continue to assign a deity to whatever they don’t know.

Part 1 of My 2 Part Series Where I Babble About Creationism and Intelligent Design

2010-01-07T16:31:00.000-08:00

This is the first of my two part series on Creationism and Intelligent Design. In the second part, I will give some people’s ‘proofs’ of God along with my personal points of view. Now, I will only summarize the important parts of Genesis and the Intelligent Design hypotheses even though I really want to pick on it.

GENESIS SUMMARY

Creation of the Universe:

On the first day, God created heaven, earth, water, and light. On the second day, he made the horizon and land. Third, he grew vegetation. Fourth, he created the sun, moon, stars, and seasons. Fifth, he made the fishes and birds. Sixth, he created the rest of the animals including man and woman. He said to them “All of this is your responsibility now. I’m going to take a nap.” When he woke up, he made rain, which created the river of Eden.

Creation of Man and How They F***ed Up Royally:

Next, he took a handful of dirt, created man from it and called him Adam. He let Adam have anything in the garden except for the fruits on the tree of knowledge. God threatened to kill Adam if he touched or ate from the tree. Eventually, God decided to make another human to help Adam. So, while Adam was asleep, God took one of his ribs and created a woman. She made friends with a snake who convinced her and Adam to eat from the tree. God found out, cursed them, and made life much more difficult for Adam, Eve, and the rest of mankind.

More Human Fallibilities:

The couple had their sons Cain and Abel. Cain worked with the vegetation while Abel worked with the livestock. One day Cain offered some fruit to God while Abel offered meat. God chose meat; this made Cain very jealous. So, in a fit, Cain killed Abel. This pissed God off big time and he banished Cain to Nod, east of Eden. Eventually, Cain and his wife had children.

Redo:

When Adam was 130, he and Eve had Seth (but who cares about Seth?). So, after the humans had enough time to populate the earth, God noticed that they were really screwed up. He called upon the most righteous man, Noah, to protect the animals as God wipes out mankind. So, Noah and his family made an ark, got two of every animal, and when all was said and done, God covered the earth with water and killed most of the humans. It rained for forty days and stayed like that for the rest of the year. After the flood, God told Noah to tell his family that it was up to them to repopulate the earth.

So..:

These are all the important aspects of Genesis and Creationism. Intelligent Design is not necessarily theism like Creationists, it is usually deism.

INTELLIGENT DESIGN (AKA I.D.)

Although Creationism may fall into the category of ID, ID is not necessarily Creationism. Basically, ID is the claim that certain things in the universe had an ultimate intelligent cause. Their views are something along the lines of “there are several complex physical laws and maybe an intelligent creator established those laws.” In the summary to follow, I will explain some of the concepts of ID since there are so many.

Irreducible Complexity:

The idea of Irreducible Complexity came from Michael Behe in his Book Darwin’s Black Box. Michael Behe’s makes the statement: “A single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning.” This statement is also used by Creationist and is called the Argument from Design. Although the Argument from Design has been used long before Michael Behe wrote his book, the argument for Irreducible Complexity is fairly recent. I do not think that his book is worth reading given the subtitle The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution.

Argument from Design:

This argument is mostly used by Creationists such as Ray Comfort. The most famous description of it is as follows: “When one observes a complex object such as a watch, he or she knows that the watch must have had a watchmaker. Life and the universe is much more complex than a pocket watch, therefore God exists.”

The Anthropic Principle:

Basically, the Anthropic Principle proposes the existence of a creator because our planet has several variables needed to sustain life. The right amount of gravity and elements, the ‘perfect’ size of our planet and sun, a good distance from the sun, etc. The conclusion is that none of these variables could have been possible without the intervention of an omnipotent and omniscient being. It is similar to the Argument from Design.

Cosmological Argument:

This argument is eerily similar to the two arguments preceding this one. It is meant to be ‘scientific’, using some observations of life to prove the existence of God. It is a little more difficult to understand than the Argument from Design or the Anthropic Principle. This is how it is described: “There are things that exist. Things that exist must have been caused to exist. An infinite regression mustn’t take place because there would be no initial cause. The universe exists. Therefore, the universe must have had an initial cause which is God.”

Ontological Argument:

This argument is so unscientific, but I wish to describe it because some people actually use it. The Ontological Argument, in short, is the notion that if one can conceive the existence of anything (preferably God), it must exist. A similar argument was proposed by Anselm of Canterbury. It goes something like this: “God is the greatest thing to ever be conceived. If God doesn’t exist, then there’s something greater than God that must exist. Yet, no greater thing than God can be conceived. Since the first two contradict each other, the second one must be false. Therefore, God exists.”

CONCLUSION

In my next entry, I will write about my disagreements of Creationism and ID. For this entry, I have no conclusion since it is only a summary.

Fallacious Logic: A Brief Overview

2009-12-28T17:45:00.000-08:00

The most deceptive and unreasonable types of arguments are the ones that use faulty logic. In this document, I hope to show some of the most common and misunderstood arguments that anyone should know.

REASONING

All logical fallacies use some sort of reasoning in order for the argument to seem more evident. Even sound reasoning can be a victim of fallacious arguments. The purpose of this overview is to get a better understanding of what the actual reasoning is.

Occam’s Razor:

Basically, Occam’s Razor (also spelled Ockham’s Razor) is the philosophical and scientific rule that simple explanations should be preferred over more complicated ones, and that the explanation of a new phenomenon should be based on what is already known. If you can not already guess, this reasoning can be twisted to bias one’s illogical argument. For example, a Creationist might use Occam’s Razor in his or her favor. “Evolution, Astronomy, Cosmology, Physics, and the rest of the scientific schools of thought are so complex. Occam’s Razor shows that the simpler notions are preferred, therefore God did it.” In the case of Occam’s Razor, simpler does not mean “a shorter explanation”, it more formally means “entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity”. Another explanation of a fallacious application is “There are over 90 known elements, but ancient alchemists only knew four. Therefore, the ancient alchemists are correct.” Occam’s Razor is misused in this sense because one is more accurate than the other. Occam’s Razor is used when two or more theories are equally accurate.

Abductive, Deductive, and Inductive Reasoning:

In short, abductive reasoning is deducing an effect to a probable cause. For example, if my backyard is wet in the morning, I can deduce that it rained. This may be misused by creationists when they use the analogy of complex human bodies seemingly being designed such as an intricate pocket watch.

Deductive reasoning is probably more familiar to you because of Sherlock Holmes. For example, I know that I am going to receive three different colored balls; one red, blue, and green. I am given the blue and green balls first, so I may deduce that the next ball is going to be red.

Inductive reasoning is deducing general principles from specific examples. For example, if I find big leaves from my neighbor’s back yard in mine, I may conclude that the trees in my neighbor’s backyard have big leaves. I know there are small leaved trees, but I do not expect to see them in my neighbor’s back yard. You may already have found a way of this reasoning being fallacious, and you may be right; inductive reasoning can never lead to a definite conclusion (except in math).

FALLACIES

There are several logical fallacies that one may use in order to prove an otherwise improvable notion. I will only write about a few well known fallacies in this document.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc:

What that statement literally means is “after this therefore because of this.” The structure is simply “A happened, and then B happened. Therefore, A caused B.” I once heard of the example for this fallacy about an alien visiting earth. It goes something like this: “An alien from outer space visits earth and lands near two churches which have bell towers. Every day at noon, one of the bells of the tower rings a few seconds before the other bell. The alien believes that the first bell caused the other bell to ring.” As you and I know, a bell does not cause another bell to ring, but the alien does not know this. One way to get a definitive answer is to stop the first bell from ringing and see if the second bell will ring at noon without the first. The same type of manipulation is used in science.

Argument from Incredulity:

The Argument from Incredulity (also known as the Argument from Ignorance) usually means that one draws a positive conclusion because he or she can not imagine the converse being true. For example, “I can not imagine the toast burning in the toaster without a toast burning fairy, therefore there are toaster fairies.” This can also be used as “You can not disprove this notion, therefore it is true,” or “You can not prove it, therefore it is false.” There is, however, an exception to this rule. This argument can not stand alone without some logic, it would need further evidence. For example, “This is an abandoned train station, yet the lines are still open. I see a train approaching. Therefore, this train will not stop at this station.” Like I stated before, the argument can only make sense if evidence is provided.

Argument from Misleading Definition:

This fallacy seems pretty self-explanatory. When someone misuses a definition in an argument to work in their favor, this would be considered an Argument from Misleading Definition. “The Theory of Evolution is not true because a theory is just a hypothesis,” is a common use of this argument. If there ever is confusion of a definition of a word, it is best to consult a dictionary.

False Dichotomy:

In short, a False Dichotomy is the type of argument where someone presents only two options and makes a false conclusion when in fact there are more options. For example, “You are either with us or against us” is a False Dichotomy because you might not agree with their side or the opposing view. Not every argument where two options are presented are False Dichotomies, sometimes there are actually only two options.

Begging the Question:

A general structure of this argument goes like this: A implies B, B implies A, therefore A. Here is a simpler version: “The Bible is inerrant. The Bible says that God exists, therefore, God must exist.” Sometimes this may make sense, such as in this example: “You said you were at the market. Your friend said that you were at work. This begs the question, is one of you lying or are both of you?” In this case, there is no argument, just a question.

Strawman Fallacy:

The origin of this fallacy from an imaginary instance where two people argue, one builds a straw dummy of his or her opponent, destroys the dummy, then claims to have defeated the opponent.

The Strawman argument is when someone misrepresents an opponent’s argument, attacks the weaker argument, and claims to have defeated the opponent. I once saw a skit on television where two lawyers are talking to a man in court, asking questions like “Would you rather stomp on an old lady to death or a small dog?” The man would be forced to answer the question and would reply “Okay. I’ll kill the dog.” The lawyers continue to say that the man has murderous intents and can not be trusted. Other examples of the Strawman Fallacy are misleading definitions, putting words into the opponent’s mouth, and quote mining (misquoting, or quoting out of context).

MISLEADING CLAIMS

The following are not used as much as fallacies but to mislead.

The God of the Gaps:

In short, when an event or claim can not be proven scientifically, God is used as the answer, hence God of the Gaps. “I can not understand how an eye or insect wings could have evolved, therefore it was God,” “No one knows how Stonehenge was built, therefore it was aliens,” or “I hear ambiguous noises coming from this old house, therefore it is infested with ghosts” are all misleading claims.

Anecdotal Evidence:

Anecdotal Evidence (also called Unjustifiable Claims) is an explanation of events used as “evidence” to “justify” a claim. “I saw a UFO, therefore my claim is evidence,” “I was visited by my father through a clairvoyant, therefore clairvoyants’ practices are practical,” or “This little boy is claiming to have memories from a past life, therefore reincarnation is true” are examples of Anecdotal Evidence. Even if the events occurred, it is not evidence because they are not justifiable (even if it happened).

Cherry-Picking:

Cherry-Picking is sometimes used to disprove someone’s claims using only one piece of data and ignoring other’s data. For example, creationist Jim Pinkoski claimed that older fossils are larger, citing larger than modern dragonflies, beavers, cockroaches and other animals in order to prove the claim made in Genesis 6:4 stating that animals were larger before the flood. Cherry-Picking can also be used as Quote Mining. Some creationists Cherry-Pick Charles Darwin; they only read one or two lines, but do not read the entire paragraph or paragraphs where the actual context is different. Here is a link to a video where a creationist Quote Mines Charles Darwin. Please watch it.

Logical fallacies can, have, and definitely will be used to prove an otherwise illogical point. I urge you to follow this link on SkepticWiki.com and scroll through the other fallacies that I have not described. If you know these fallacies, it will be much easier to have a logical conversation or argument.

Reiki: Yet Another Dim Supposition!

2009-12-25T22:17:00.000-08:00

Imagine that one day, your computer crashes. You know a technique on how to fix it. Is it rebooting in safe mode? Deleting recently installed programs? Using a registry cleaner software? No! Why would you need that when you have hands? All you need to do it touch the computer, focus your energy on the problem - and bing-bang-boom - your computer is fixed. Does the preceding statement seem like it could make sense? For me, the answer would be no. But for some, it seems very possible. This technique does not just solve your computer problems. It can also prevent disasters both inside and outside your body. It is called Reiki (pronounced RAY-kee). Reiki, in a nutshell, is an alternative medicine in which healing energy is channeled (usually from the hands) from the practitioner to the patient (or by self-healing) to enhance energy and reduce stress, pain, and fatigue. William Lee Rand is a leading “expert” in the Reiki method. In a video that I saw, he says, “Reiki, I believe, is a very amazing tool. We can use it to heal ourselves and heal others. We can heal, also, disasters, stress on the planet. People have also used it to heal inanimate objects like computers [sound familiar?], we’ve charged batteries with it… Sometimes people can’t figure out how it works, but it does.”* Reiki seems too good to be true, but I have much to criticize.

[*If you wish to watch the rest of the video, click here]

I conducted a search on Google using the keywords “Reiki physics proof evidence” and the results were as I predicted. I followed the first link** which brought me to a webpage describing studies of how Reiki is convincing. The following is a excerpt from the webpage: “The studies were carried out on small samples and it was found that: Reiki works on the autonomic nervous system, effecting heart beat rate, blood pressure and/or breathing activity. Reiki can help reduce depression and stress. Reiki can help reduce pain.” Luckily, there was an additional link which sent me to the actual study conducted by Natural Standard and the Faculty of Harvard Medical School.*** As I read through the webpage, I noticed that the results were very unclear, unconvincing, and had a better explanation of its results.

[**Click here for the first link.]
[***Click here for the second link.]

First, the document describes the background and theory. After, it describes the evidence. As the former webpage described, Reiki is connected to changes in the function of the autonomic nervous system (which, basically, is a subset of the central nervous system which controls heartbeat, breathing, etc. during either stressful or peaceful situations). When one experiences this type of therapy, I would not be surprised if everyone either felt more peaceful or nervous. It is not the “universal life energy” as the theory persists; it is either the uncommon stimuli or the well known placebo which results in autonomic stimulation. It is general psychology which suggests that the brain would initially stimulate these autonomic functions, not the “universal life energy”. In short, placebo.

Second, the study clearly states that “There is evidence that Reiki can reduce symptoms of distress when compared with placebo. More information is needed before a conclusion can be drawn.” The preceding statement seems self-contradictory, and it is. There are also similar statements such as “Further research is needed to confirm these findings,” “More studies are needed,” “However, additional studies are needed to confirm these findings,” and “Reiki instruction may help HIV/AIDS patients reduce pain or anxiety, but study results are unclear.” As opposed to what the first link suggests (which is “In addition to the organizations mentioned … there are several more research organizations and medical schools conducting experiments that might provide conclusive evidence regarding effectiveness of Reiki”), Reiki is unconvincing at best when studied scientifically.

The second link is seemingly a study that was originally meant to be against the supposition of Reiki. There is a section which shows a list of 83 “unproven uses” ranging from addiction to cancer to nervous system function to wound healing. Evidently, the “universal life energy” needs to recharge its batteries. I do not mean to digress, but I wish to say that I, personally, find it insufferable when a spiritualist or the anybody like one use the word “energy” in order to describe dogmas. Energy is one of the most revolutionary discoveries in human history and today it is used to describe something unscientific. Anyway, Reiki is one of those notions which uses the word “energy” quite often; and I loathe it. I urge you to follow the three links which I have provided and see for yourself the interestingly illogical idea of Reiki.

The Law of Attraction: Another Dim Supposition!

2009-12-16T19:19:00.000-08:00

Do you notice how upset evolutionists get when someone says “It’s only a theory”? Evolution has evidence that make sense, yet it is still called the theory of evolution as opposed to the law or principle of evolution. When it comes to science or pseudoscience, the labels theory, law, principle, hypothesis, conjecture, or theorem are commonly mistaken for different definitions. Why is the theory of evolution still called a theory? By definition, theory means both fact and hypothesis. Basically, it is called a theory today because the name stuck. It is a fact; it has been proven and has yet to be disproved. But, there is one label that utterly infuriates me. If you have not caught on yet, I am talking about the “law” of attraction. Rhonda Byrne has popularized this notion in her DVD and book entitled The Secret. The “Secret” is supposed to give you whatever you want just by thinking about it. There are no laboratory studies that have proved this supposition. It is inconsistent, full of holes, and is schemingly worded by Rhonda Byrne in her book.

The Secret is supposed to help you with only your thoughts. You think happy thoughts, you become happy; you think sad thoughts, you become sad. That one popular notion is eerily similar to psychology and not pseudoscience. Another idea is that if you want something and think about it, it comes to you. The only three rules are “Ask, Believe, and Receive”. For example, if I believe (which I did at one time) that the “universe” can give me an expensive video camera that I have wanted for a long time, it will give it to me. But, Byrne clearly states in her book, “‘Well, I’m sitting around visualizing millions coming into my lap.’ Well, they’ll come take your furniture away. And then how are you going to visualize [when you’re living] on the curb? You’ve got to act on it.” With her advice I would “act on it”. I would get a job, save some money, and buy it on my own time. If I did not know any better, I would thank the “universe” for what it has given me even though I did it all by myself. This never really happened when I was intrigued in The Secret, I never considered myself at that level with the “universe” where I could ask for such favors. I did once, however, ask the “universe” for a Play Station Portable for free at no expense to anyone and with no immediate negative consequences to anyone. I thought about it for weeks and nothing ever happened. Big surprise!

What may seem more magical about the secret is that it could give you something miniscule like a penny that is rusty on one side and shiny on the other (this was my first experience with the law of attraction working for me in mysterious ways). A story that was written in The Secret was a story of a man who visualized a feather that had specific patterns on it that only he knew. One day he found the feather below his feet as he was entering a building. How is this unconvincing? Well, it is not to some people. For a lot of people who have discovered the secret, this account and several others were enough to convince them that the law of attraction is real. If it is, in fact, true, someone who is a devout believer in the law of attraction (maybe Rhonda Byrne) would be able to think of a number and be able to roll it on dice. Maybe even you, under the conditions that you believe. All you would need to do is ask then receive. If the law of attraction “works” for a person who knows what it is, they can say that it was the “universe”, but it is difficult for them to explain exactly how the physics work. In another one of my documents about astrology, I brought up the question which also applies to this: Imagine how big the solar system is. It’s hard isn’t it? Now imagine how big the Milky Way galaxy is. Even more difficult, right? Next, imagine the spaces between galaxies and all of the galaxies in the universe. In summary, it’s pretty damn big. How does something as big as the universe affect something as relatively miniscule as one human being, let alone them all?

Throughout the book, DVD, and audio book, several “scientific” claims are presented. To show how erroneous these claims are, I will refer to Ingrid Hansen Smythe’s article The Secret Behind “The Secret”: What is Attracting Millions to the “Law of Attraction”. I will put in parentheses what Smythe used for footnotes: “What about the scientific claims upon which the Law of Attraction is based? Such as: Our thoughts are magnetic and travel as energy and vibration for vast distances. ‘It has been proven scientifically that a positive thought is hundreds of times more powerful than a negative thought’. (Michael Beckwith, The Secret DVD. ‘Powerful in what way?’ one wants to ask. If I affirm, for example, that there is an elephant in my garden shed, by affirming it have I increased the likelihood of its existence there by 100?) ‘It is no more difficult to attract on a scientific level something we consider infinitesimally small.’ (Mike Dooley, The Secret DVD) ‘Our physiology creates disease to give us feedback, to let us know we have an imbalanced perspective and we’re not grateful.’ (John F. Demartini, The Secret DVD. If disease exists to teach us to be more loving and grateful, one has to wonder why even dinosaurs got bone cancer).” This is just a small number of many other rebuttals Smythe has to offer in her article.

The law of attraction is similar to the argument quarrelling whether prayer does or does not work. The only difference is that one has “science” to “back up” its claims. The Secret is a trick of the mind, using faulty claims and stories that can be better understood if one knows the phrase “post hoc ergo propter hoc” which means “after this, therefore because of this.” It is a notion that should not even be considered to be a law, theory, principle, cause, hypothesis; I will not even consider it a conjecture.

Scientology: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

2009-12-13T16:03:00.000-08:00

AN OVERVIEW OF THE FOUNDER
Scientology is the fastest growing religion of the 20th (and maybe 21st) century. It already seems so inviting, so what is this Scientology? Scientology is a religion that was fabricated by La Fayette Ron Hubbard. L. Ron Hubbard grew up a very intelligent and adventurous young man. He traveled to Asia, learned their philosophies and put them to good use. He also learned several Western sciences such as Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic techniques and Albert Einstein’s theories. With his wonderful life experience, Hubbard decided to become a science-fiction writer. He wrote several novels and novelettes under several different names. He continued his studies in Eastern philosophies and even visited Native-American tribes on Alaska’s panhandle. Eventually, while Hubbard was in his house in Seattle, he wrote a paper entitled Excalibur. In his manuscript he wrote about the single common denominator between all living things he called a “dynamic principle of existence”. He met a road block that prevented him from writing more works, World War II. He already obtained a rare mariner’s license and used it to captain warships. He was wounded during a battle and was sent to a military hospital. While in the hospital, he continued his work that he had left when the war started. He found that some soldiers’ depression was preventing them from getting better. He helped those soldiers with a technique he would later call Dianetics. Dianetics, and some of his other works, were the basis for his religion Scientology. I will get into detail of his works later.

THE APPEAL
Scientology is, has, and will continue to attract people with its philosophies. On the Scientology website, it shows the religion’s philosophies with several videos. Here are Scientology’s advantages: Their promotion of human rights, helping people who have difficulties with their studies, and the Way to Happiness program. They are also against drugs and try to rehabilitate those who need it. They also offer auditing courses, which is a different form of psychotherapy where the “auditor” asks emotional questions to a patient. The patient answers the questions while the auditor detects galvanic skin responses on a device called an E-meter. That’s it, asking questions, answering questions, viewing galvanic skin responses. People put a lot of money into this therapy. It helps and that is what counts. There is a technique called Narconon which is the name Scientologists give drug rehabilitation. Scientology has several techniques which are meant to help people that are strikingly and arguably similar to other methods used by psychotherapists. These and other good points of Scientology are what suck people into this religion. But remember, Scientology is a religion, but we will get into the religious aspect of Scientology later.

THE CONTREVERSY
Although Scientology has its good parts, it also has its stunningly horrible parts. The techniques that I have described and others are Scientologists’ only methods of healing. Sometimes these methods failed and have caused several tragic deaths. There is a group of anti-Scientologists called Anonymous who are just as bad as they are good. They are bad because of countless death threats towards the Church of Scientology. They are good because they try to help people reunite with their families who are strict and alienated Scientologists. I am neither for nor against Anonymous. Both of them are equally unappealing to me.

The most famous story of Scientologists’ brutality was Lisa McPherson’s. In her later days, she was admitted to a Scientologist-owned hospital. The Scientologists prevented her from treating what could have been a mental illness. The Scientologists used one of their techniques instead called Introspection Rundown. The “treatment” involved her being placed in isolation. The technique obviously failed because weeks after the beginning of Introspection Rundown, she died of starvation and dehydration. It was found in McPherson’s autopsy that she had several bruises and bug bites. Her family attempted to sue the Church of Scientology and failed. This is only one of several accounts of death and lawsuits due to the Church of Scientology’s severely flawed methods.

What I, personally, do not like about Scientology’s website is that it attempts to fool people into this religion. Most of the videos portray humans as vile and angry beings. There is one video in particular that bothers me. It begins with some kids in a cafeteria line, one kid bumps into another kid. The one who was bumped shoves the other kid to the floor and yells at the cafeteria lady. This anger makes her upset and she makes someone else upset and it keeps on going until it goes full circle and the angry kid in the beginning gets shoved. If you want to see this stupid video, go to http://www.scientology.org/#/videos/dont-do-things-to-others.

THE RELIGIOUS AND HIDDEN ASPECT
Religion is defined as, among other definitions, people’s beliefs and opinions concerning the existence, nature, and worship of a deity or deities, and divine involvement in the universe and human life. Scientology is definitely a religion. It may be confusing at first because the website clearly does not promote any deity or divine involvement. Why is this considered a religion, then? Scientology is a religion because of hocus-pocus that is hidden from the general public. The most common religious dogma is a series of lessons written and lectured by L. Ron Hubbard.

The series of teachings are fifteen books entitled OT. OT stands for Operating Thetan.* In the third book, it is clearly stated how Thetans and humans were created. Hubbard lectured the third book and it was eventually leaked and exposed. Here is a quote: “They had elected a fellow by the name of Xenu to the Supreme Ruler. And they were about to unelect him. And he took the last moments he had in office to really goof the floof [sic]. Xenu decided to take radical measures to overcome the population problem. Beings were captured on other planets and flown to locations near ten volcanoes or more on Earth. H-Bombs were dropped on the volcanoes, destroying the bodies of the beings who, as Thetans, attached themselves to one another as clusters. A revolt followed at the loyal followers against Xenu. Xenu was locked up in an electronic modern fortress and remains there still. Since that time, beings born on this planet, have had clusters of Thetans attached to their bodies. OT III can run out these clusters and cause them to leave us and reincarnate as individuals.” Apparently, the OT levels are also supposed to help those who wish to take the courses perform magical feats such as acquire psychic powers, move objects at a distance using only your mind, and have out of body experiences. Auditing sessions may come up with this result as well. Those who can not move objects from a distance will have to take the expensive course again.

[*A Thetan is Hubbard’s word for spirit. I do not know why he does not just use the word spirit either.]

It does not seem like a lot of people will get into this kind of nonsense. It actually turns out that John Travolta is at an OT level 7. I have not seen or heard of him reading other’s minds lately, it seems like he skipped some steps. The Church of Scientology also offers people to join a special sub-cult - I mean sub-organization - called the Sea Organization or the Sea Org. Those who do wish to serve at the Sea Org will be exempt from all communications from the outside world. No TV, no phone calls, no internet access, and no walking down the street to get a cheeseburger. It seems like a child’s worst punishment. Additionally, one would have to sign a contract if he or she wished to stay at the Sea Org. It is a contract that lasts, not for 50 years or even life, but one billion years since they believe in reincarnation. If anyone sneaks out, they are exiled from their friends and possibly family at the Sea Org. Or, if their family members are devout Scientologists, they have little to no contact with their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. Additionally, if one leaves, they are considered a Suppressive Person, or SP. Sometimes, these people who can not get into contact with family join Anonymous. In my opinion, it is one of the world’s most foolish mass cults.

CONCLUDING REMARKS
Scientology is very good in some ways, very bad in others, and very ugly on several. But, if one wishes to follow the ethics and morals of other scientologists, that person does not have to become a scientologist to be a good person. That person may read L. Ron Hubbard’s sensible books, but that person does not have to join the religion. If someone is a scientologist, yet says that he or she does not believe in Xenu, OT, or any other faulty claim that scientologists declare, that person is not a scientologist. I am sorry to burst those people’s bubbles, but if you are a good person, you are not a scientologists, you are a good person. One would need to believe in something such as OT, Xenu, telepathic, telekinetic, psychic powers, etc. to be considered a scientologist (to me at least).

Like many of my other documents, I urge people to think critically of their or others’ beliefs. Critical thinking is essential for anything, big or small. I am going to end this document about critical thinking from Carl Sagan’s book The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View in the Search for God: “If we have such an emotional stake in the answers, if we want badly to believe, and if it is important to know the truth, then nothing other than a committed, skeptical scrutiny is required. It is not very different from buying a used car. When you buy a used car, it is insufficient to remember that you badly need a car. After all, it has to work. It is insufficient to say that the used-car salesman is a friendly fellow. What you generally do is kick the tires, you look at the odometer, you open the hood. If you do not feel yourself expert in automobile engines, you bring a friend who is. And you do this for something as unimportant as an automobile. But on the issues of the transcendent, of ethics and morals, of the origin of the world, of the nature of human beings, on those issues should we not insist upon at least equally skeptical scrutiny?”**

[**Sagan, Carl. The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View in the Search for God. New York: The Penguin, 2006.]

Jesus Christ!

2009-12-11T11:36:00.001-08:00

About 2,000 years ago, there was a man named Jesus Christ. His father created everything and controlled everything and continues to control things today.* Jesus Christ healed the sick, walked on water, turned water into wine, and controlled the wind and the seas. That seems pretty impressive from a man’s point of view, but what about God’s point of view?

Jesus’ father created everything and the best trick (in my opinion) his son pulled off was making a storm stop. Here is how the story went, in Luke 8:22-25, it reads “Now it happened on one of those days, that he entered into a boat, himself and his disciples, and he said to them, ‘Let’s go over to the other side of the lake.’ So they launched out. But as they sailed, he fell asleep. A wind storm came down on the lake, and they were taking on dangerous amounts of water. They came to him, and awoke him, saying, ‘Master, master, we are dying!’ He awoke, and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water, and they ceased, and it was calm. He said to them, ‘Where is your faith?’ Being afraid they marveled, saying one to another, ‘Who is this, then, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?’” When I first read this, I thought it was a little funny how Jesus woke up, nonchalantly stopped the storm, said “C’mon! Where’s your faith?” and the disciples' jaws landed on the floor. That’s just another day in the life of Jesus Christ. Today, we have people who make entire monuments disappear, they are called magicians. When David Blaine performs, no one follows him, thinking that he is the son of God. The same goes for Chris Angel, David Copperfield, Lance Burton, and others. They have fans, but the fans know that when they watch their favorite magician perform a magic trick, they know that it does not defy the laws of nature.** It is a trick. If we see amazing feats being performed on television and not accept him as the son of God, then why do some people still believe odds-on erroneous writings from 2,000 years ago and accept that man as their savior?

Jesus Christ healed the sick as well. He cured the blind, deaf, mute, paralyzed, lepers, people with internal bleeding, and others who he came across. There are people today that do that, they are either a priest of some kind, a faith healer, or a down-right scam artist. If others can believe that those people are miracle workers, then why is Jesus the only son of God? I do not have an answer, there are so many possibilities.

There are so many people today who are supposedly the "son of God" or the son of some other being. There are also so many other people that think those "sons of gods" are deluded. What makes Jesus Christ so different?

* I am aware that that statement is a cause of much dispute. But in order for me to prove a point, I want to accept that statement as a fact for a moment.

** On the off-chance that there are some followers who think that a magician is the son of God, others will consider them loony.

Astrology: My Stars, What A Dim Supposition!

2009-12-10T23:18:00.000-08:00

We (as skeptics, I presume) have all heard it, the stars and planets rule your life. This belief came about around the time when man was still not entirely sure what shape the Earth was in, what stars were, and the positioning and orbit of the planets relative to everything else in the solar system. It was thought up when we did not know our place in the cosmos is what I am trying to get across. Astrology was thought up around 2,000 years ago by the Babylonians. Back then, the astrologers were, in a way, the early astronomers. When the people of Babylon observed the night sky over long periods of time, they discovered that when the sun rose, it crossed paths with certain groups of stars visible from Earth that formed distinctive patterns. We call those patterns constellations. Another phenomenon that the first astrologers noticed were that some stars did not take the usual east-west route throughout the year, they went left to right except with some loops in between. The conclusion was that those individual stars were gods with their own personality.* Mars is the god of war, Venus is the god of love, Saturn is the god of agriculture, etc. So, as I would assume if I grew up in those times, if the sun rose over a "god" or "gods" on the day a baby was born, that baby’s personality would conform to theirs’. The same (in my fictional clones assumption) would hold true for the stars. I connect the dots to find different shapes and figures; those figures have their own personality too which also influence babies. I do not know how my copy came up with these personalities, but he did. At that time, to explain any immediately unexplainable event would most likely be assumed as a god’s influence with the second being nature. But now, such a notion should be under much more thoughtful and rational scrutiny, right? Nuh-uh! Well, why would this possibly be true? Astrology has and survived through many generations because young people are extremely gullible, no matter what era it is. I do not think that gullible children are a bad thing, it is quite essential for survival and social interaction. But, if a child was raised to believe things that make sense, there would be a lot more highly critical thinkers in the world. Astrology should have, like I stated earlier, a much more scrutinized examination.

I understand that my thesis statement was a little long-winded; I just wanted to teach a little bit of astrology and its origins to the skeptics who possibly do not know exactly what astrology is. Now I will get down to the nitty-gritty. The points you are about to read are, in summary, the following: How do the physics work in astrology? Do modern astrologers agree among themselves? Do we take into account current events that change astrology’s rules? And finally, is it consistent both with and without the rule changes?

In the time of the origin of astrology, no one knew what stars were made of, how big they were, nor did they know how far it was from Earth. As I stated before, the most common explanation for something unknowable at that time was some kind of deity. So the explanation for stars is that they are the creations of the gods. Which gods? The gods resided in the heavens with the stars, wandering, influencing. Orbiting, inanimate? WHAT HERESY! Those, precisely, were stars. Nowadays, most people know that planets are inanimate and inhabited thanks to the discoveries of telescopes, Voyager 1, and Voyager 2. We, too, know that stars are hydrogen and helium, among other things, because of spectroscopes. Why, then, do we still think that inanimate objects millions of kilometers to several light-years away, affect something so relatively miniscule as an individual’s personality? A very reasonable answer is the impressive powers of persuasion. Well, does the gravity affect us? I will use the wise words of Carl Sagan in his brilliant mini-series Cosmos to answer this question.

"How could the rising of Mars on the moment of my birth affect me then, or now? I was born in a closed room; light from Mars couldn’t get in. The only influence of Mars which could affect me was its gravity. But the gravitational influence of the obstetrician was much larger than the gravitational influence of Mars. Mars is a lot more massive. But the obstetrician was a lot closer."

The physics of astrology is a little less convincing if one thinks of it this way. Is it understandable that so many people believe in astrology? Not because of physics, but because of persuasion.

Astrologer today use mind tricks to suck some people into their beliefs. For example, here is the horoscope for the sign of Virgo provided from horoscope.com from December 10, 2009, "Don't shy away from romance because you don't think you're feeling up to it. You might be surprised to find that romance is part of the cure. Just getting out of a rut and deriving positive energy from someone else can be the best medicine in the world." Let us dissect this statement. First, “don’t shy away from romance.” Well, that is pretty vague; it seems like advice rather than a prediction. Second, “you don’t think you’re feeling up to it.” I am writing this on the date that this horoscope was posted, I can say with certainty that I would surely feel up to some human contact. The astrologist guessed that I am a social person like most other humans. How, ever, did he know? Next, “you might find that romance is part of the cure.” Again, this is not a prediction, it is advice; maybe not legitimate advice, but advice none the less. Lastly, “Just getting out of a rut and deriving positive energy from someone else can be the best medicine in the world.” How surprising, more advice. These predictions are not predictions, they are meant to be vague. On the off-chance that there is a prediction, there are three ways that it can play out. One, the prediction is correct, thus reinforcing the readers' belief. Two, it is incorrect and the person does not notice that the horoscope was incorrect and continues his or her belief. Or three, the prediction is wrong and the person decides to challenge his or her belief. It is not surprising to me that 2/3 of my outcomes result in the individual keeping his or her faith. I was a person who experienced the third outcome.

Have astrologers taken into account the changes in the Earth’s axis? “What is the change in the axis?” I am glad you asked indiscriminate person. If I was born 2,000 years ago, the sun would have risen over the constellation Virgo on the night of my birth. But now, the Earth’s axis has shifted one constellation to the left. Since I was not born 2,000 years ago, the sun has risen on the constellation Leo.** So, am I a Virgo or a Leo? Almost all astrologers today would say that I am a Virgo (I have heard). Excuse me? Why are astrologers going against their own rules now? I do not have the answer because I do not know any astrological enthusiasts. Here is an even more amazing fact. Stars move, too. A lot slower than the Earth’s axis, but they do. After a few ten thousand more years from now, none of the constellations we know now will be in the sky. Will people still believe this hocus-pocus? I do not know, I can not foretell the future.

Let us not, for a moment, consider these changes to be true. The sun still rises over the same constellation at the same time every year and the stars’ positions will never move. Is astrology still consistent? My educated guess is no. Through psychology, we know that everyone’s personality is changing due to learning and life events.*** We are who we are because of our genes and how we were reared. This is called gene-environment correlation. Stars are neither nature nor nurture. It is definite that what we are predisposed to - such as personality disorders - and what we experience in our lives affects us. It is not bodies of gas and rock floating around too far to be influential. It goes back to one of my first points, giant gas balls light-years away can in no way affect everyone’s personality.

Now that I have explained my rational point of view, it is time for the conclusion that I made a long time ago which is also the conclusion for this document. Astrology, as we have seen, is false. Some say “You can’t disprove it for sure. Maybe there’s a force of some kind that means astrology is true.” Such as what? All things that convince people that astrology is true are inconsistent. Additionally, there is no “force” because if there were, there would be only twelve kinds of people on this planet and there are far more than twelve. Please think about it.

* The word “planet” came from the Latin word planeta, meaning “wandering star”. In Greek, it was planētēs, meaning “wanderer”.

** Look at a map of the constellations if you are confused.

*** I know I said before that I was not going to get into psychology, but for me to explain this point, it is imperative that I explain a little bit.

Superstition and the Regression Effect

2009-12-08T20:56:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, people who believe in superstitions are able to predict certain events, but it is the way they attempt to explain themselves that intrigues me. Justin Kruger, Kenneth Savitsky, and Thomas Gilovich in their article Superstition and the Regression Effect explain the regression effect and how it relates to some people’s superstitious beliefs. For example, the authors wrote that when Ben Affleck, David Duchovny, and Matthew McConaughey were at the top of their game, they experienced a fall in their popularity after all of them took similar magazine cover photos. The regression effect explains that some things that are at the highest point (like the fame of Ben Affleck, etc.), would likely gradually decrease (basically, whatever goes up must come down and vice versa). But instead of linking the regression effect to the downfall in the actors’ fame, some people believe that it was the cover photo that caused the actors to become less popular. Even if the actors did not take the photos, they most likely would have experienced the regression effect. The article continues to explain that the regression effect might be the cause of some things to rise and fall, but not all of them.

One of the authors’ explanations of the regression effect was Sir Francis Galton’s “uninteresting” experiment. “Galton was interested in the relationship between the heights of fathers and their sons. The uninteresting part is that he found one: Tall fathers have taller sons than do short fathers… Despite the strong relationship between the heights of fathers and sons, the tallest fathers tended to have sons that were somewhat shorter than the fathers themselves (Galton 1885). Likewise, the shortest fathers had sons who, although short, were a bit taller than they were… Scientists refer to the contribution of all these hard-to-prophesize elements as ‘random error.’ What Galton recognized is that extremely tall people tend to have ‘random error’ work in their favor… Although the regression effect is easy to grasp, people often have difficulty spotting its influence in everyday life. This can result in a variety of superstitious beliefs, from the benign to the pernicious” (Kruger, Savitsky, Gilovich 24). The authors continue to explain superstitious beliefs in the sports world, alternative medicine, gambling, and everyday life.

Being a skeptic of several beliefs, I yearn to understand how people come up with and believe strange superstitions. Additionally, I explain my skeptical points of view to some superstitious people so they do not always use their beliefs for some important or risky situations. I enjoyed the authors’ article because it had very convincing information that I may use later in life. They did a great job researching data, citing sources, and used several interesting examples of how some people believe what they believe. I became interested in this topic while I was reading An Introduction to Psychology by Benjamin B. Lahey. I came across an interesting experiment about the origin of superstitions conducted by B. F. Skinner. Basically, he trained pigeons to peck a disc in order to get a treat, but he found one pigeon that coincidentally spun around before pecking the disc and continued to do so every time it would want a treat. Once I read about that experiment, I continued to study superstitious beliefs. Most of the superstitious events are not scientifically explained and sometimes when someone does have an explanation, it is ludicrous to me but not to him or her.

The Skeptical Inquirer, “Superstition and the Regression Effect”, Justin Kruger, Kenneth Savitsky, Thomas Gilovich, Mar/Apr 1999