Abbr. Enth.

While I’d love to do a full post on subliminal messaging, that’s not what this is.  This is just an interesting picture depicting the method in use by Dunkin’ Donuts and the French Vanilla coffee with cream and sugar that they gave me this morning.  It’s just sick I tell ya.

French Vanilla, Cream and Sugar

Thank you voters of Arizona, California, and Florida, for this week you have helped defend the free world from the tyrannical oppression of the Gay Agenda. Thanks to your votes and your support this country has made a big step towards censoring the rights of people we do not understand.

Proposition 8, which passed in California on November 4th of 2008, marked a huge win for supporters of traditional marriage. We all know that God only intended marriage to be between a man and a woman (or a man and a woman of the same color prior to Loving v. Virginia in 1967). Since this great country was founded by Christians (other than Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, James Madison, Thomas Paine, Ethan Allen, etc.) it is our responsibility to make sure that it stays a Christian nation. A government with a firm foundation on the absolute moral standards put forth by God himself in the Holy Bible will be blessed and prosperous, and will most likely not end up like all of the other failed theocracies.

So what are they whining about anyway? In many states homosexuals have the ability to partake in a “Civil Union”, which includes most of the same rights and privileges as a marriage. We’re not saying who they can and cannot love (yet), or what they can and cannot do in their own privacy, we are just saying that marriage is a special right reserved for heterosexual couples. In essence, civil unions are separate but equal to marriages (like having different drinking fountains, or different seating on buses). Besides, marriage is a religious establishment, so it is not up to the government to interfere with it (other than to change our tax status, welfare eligibility, or other matters of convenience).

But let’s face it. It’s not really about them is it? It’s about the children. The liberal heathens at the ACLU are trying to promote homosexuality in schools! No only do they think that homosexuals should be allowed to adopt children of their own (even though we know those 115,000 children are much better off in foster care), but they think that they should use class time to teach kids tolerance! This is not the kind of information that needs to be taught in schools, but by the parents of the child when the parents believe the child is ready. Just look at me and my fellow conservatives, we were never taught tolerance and we turned out just fine! Besides, forcing this idea on children when they are so young is akin to brainwashing them. The children should be memorizing Bible verses and reciting the Lord’s Prayer, not being brainwashed by liberal activists.

Same sex marriage isn’t about love, it’s about the destruction of marriage. Since traditional marriage isn’t doing a good enough job destroying itself with a near 30% divorce rate, the Gay Agenda aims to tear it down completely. Once the concept of marriage has been destroyed the homosexuals will have complete freedom of promiscuity without any social condemnation.

We need more initiatives like this one, to promote a culture consistent with our religious beliefs. A culture where we are not forced to be tolerant of someone who is different than we are. Where we don’t have to worry about our children thinking it’s okay to not pick on a kid who has two daddies. What really matters is that our Holy texts say that homosexuals are sinners, and we need to do everything we can to stop them from sinning. In the end, isn’t a little suffering, rejection, intolerance, hatred, and violence here on Earth worth being saved from an eternity of burning in Hell?

I would love to hear from people on either side of this, but I would especially love to hear a well thought out argument against same sex marriage that doesn’t revert to bias or godsaidso. What are you so afraid of? I cannot think of one rational reason to think that it could harm anyone any more than a heterosexual relationship, and I’d be more than happy to argue that point.

For further reading, follow the links below.

The Homosexual Agenda
10 reasons why gay marriage should be illegal

I wanted to talk about about the idea and concept of a soul.  In my experience the idea that we have a soul is something that is almost universally agreed on by theists and non-theists alike. Perhaps people just find it more comforting to believe that they are more than merely the sum of their cells. I don’t buy it. I’m not one to change my world-view based on what’s comfortable, but it’s almost a faux pas to suggest that there is no such thing as a soul; similar to suggesting that love may be merely a perception of the chemical and hormonal reactions that go on in our brains.

So what exactly constitutes a soul? Since it’s not something that can be directly observed I do not believe we will find a definition that everyone can agree on. The idea that I grew up with was that our soul was a non-physical “spirit” that was in some way linked to our bodies and was responsible for our characteristics, mannerisms, morals, and stored our feelings and memories. Our soul was our decision maker. It was what separated one person from another, what made you go right when I went left.

In essence, the concept was a way of explaining something that was too hard for us to comprehend easily. It was a cop-out. Since it would be difficult to go out and learn how the brain works, how it processes data to make decisions, we made up a comfortable explanation for it. And it stuck.

To an extent it was even a subject where a little knowledge can be a bad thing. In high school biology we learn that our bodies are made up of cells, and that every year some of your cells die off and some new ones are created. So how can a brain store memories if over the course of a few years our brains will replace most of their cells? It’s hard to imagine. So we invent an explanation.

A soul. A link to some database in another dimension where our essence is stored.

It is comforting. To think that there is something about us that will survive beyond these bodies that we know to be fragile and decaying. From birth we are set forth on a road that can only lead to death…unless there is a soul that can live on outside our bodies.

So why have I decided that this idea is not believable? Through observation, my friends! Well, that and a few assumptions. If there is such a thing as the soul I have described above, a non-physical representation of ourselves, then we are safe to assume that the soul cannot be manipulated in a physical sense. We cannot shake hands with a soul, we cannot smell a soul, and we most certainly cannot eat a soul. As a matter of fact, a soul is completely invisible to all five senses.

Now, if a soul is not a part of the physical world and cannot be observed or manipulated in any physical way, then there should be no way to physically alter a person’s soul. But if we go back to our previous definition of a soul (a spiritual representation of our behaviors, memories, mannerism, and morals linked to our bodies) we can see that these characteristics can be altered through a physical means. A simple test would be to observe all of these characteristics in a group of people while sober and then while drunk. We would predict that if a soul did by this definition that being drunk intoxicated would not change any of their behaviors, memories, mannerisms, or morals. Since we can observe (and have observed) changes to these characteristics then we are left with two possibilities: either there is no soul or our definition of a soul is wrong.

So let’s look at the latter idea. If our definition of a soul is wrong then how do we need to change it for the definition to fit our experiment? Well, for starters a soul has to be part of the physical world. We have to be able to directly manipulate a soul by physical means. But now this definition is not by any means describing the typical idea of a soul. It’s a new idea entirely. Now we’re suggesting that all of our mannerisms, characteristics, memories, etc., are part of something physical. Like a brain.

Either that or our souls do not contain the aforementioned characteristics. But in that case what do they contain? If the definition of a soul does not contain any of the characteristics we’ve listed, then what does it contain? I would be more than happy to hear the opinions you have to offer here, but to me if we’re defining a soul as a spiritual link that contains nothing and agreeing that all of the characteristics usually attributed to a soul are the product of something physical, then what’s left?

And just like that, viola! As uncomfortable as it may sound, I see no evidence to suggest that we are anything but our physical selves, and would go so far as to say that we cannot be anything more.

I doubt I’m the first to inform you that adherents to almost any major religion will claim that they have a monopoly on moral authority.  Even non-religious Americans tend to make remarks that would indicate they believe Christians usually stand on the moral high ground.  And who can blame them?  Christians do tend to donate lots of time to helping people, they donate money to the church, help old ladies cross the street, etc.  But is this absolute moral lining in Christianity all it’s cracked up to be?  I would suggest not.

The claim I often hear which brings me to write this piece goes as follows:

If there is no God then there is no absolute morality, no absolute idea of right and wrong, and therefor people can decide for themselves what is right and wrong.

First off I want to point out the logical fallacy presented here, mostly because Name That Logical Fallacy is a fun game and mental exercise I like to play. This one is called The Argument from Final Consequences. It’s basically a way of saying that something isn’t true because we don’t like the outcome, which as you can see isn’t logical at all. Another example of this would be someone saying that gravity can’t be right because then people will fall and hurt themselves. The consequences of such things have nothing to do with their truth.

More importantly though, I don’t believe the argument holds water at all. Morals are not a rigid framework that we have to apply to our lives, they are a guideline to help us progress as a culture. To cite the example used in a previous post, if someone breaks into my house, puts a gun to my head, and asks if there’s anyone else in the house with me I’m not going to tell them my wife is hiding in the closet. I would deliberately lie to them and not feel bad about it one bit.

Morals change as the culture changes. Look at the music that was thought of as evil back in our parents’ youth. Even the idea of girls wearing pants was considered to be wrong at one time, and if we were around in that time we probably would have thought the same thing. To believe there is such things as absolute morality you have to rationalize this by determining that you are more in tune with this absolute morality than previous generations were, or that these morals are unknown or unknowable.

Another thing that I find strange about this claim coming from Christians is that the old testament lays out 613 laws in the first five books for the Jewish people to live by. These laws include such things as:

Exodus 21:17
Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.

Exodus 21:20-21
If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two since the slave is his property.

Exodus 22:18
Do not allow a sorceress to live.

But in Christianity it is claimed that when Jesus died on the cross he fulfilled the old covenant and brought forth a new one, as claimed in this verse:

Matthew 5:17 NIV
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish but to fulfill them.”

The funny thing is how seldom you hear the next part of the quote:

Matthew 5:18-19 NIV
“I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called the least in the kingdom of heaven.”

So while Jesus is explicitly stating that the old law is still in effect, Christians often use the first part of this verse to justify not following all 613 of the Jewish commandments. But they still claim that morality is absolute! There can be no absolute morality when something was sinful at one point and not sinful at another point.

If the Bible still holds to laws that allow slavery when very few of its followers would condone slavery, how can we accept such things as moral absolutes? I believe that being able to come to your own conclusions about your morals defines you far better than how strictly you adhere to any holy book.

I wanted to address some confusion I often see between the words Agnostic and Atheist. There are a few different understandings of these words, and perhaps the confusion is because they have been subject to a bit of linguistic evolution. Whenever I find myself not knowing the exact meaning of a word I tend to look into the Greek and/or Latin root of the word and create my definition from there. I’ll be following the same procedure to present my break-down of these words.

Whenever somebody asks my religion, my standard reply is that I’m a Skeptical Agnostic Atheist. Since a lot of people believe atheism and agnosticism are mutually exclusive some people end up thinking I’m confused about my beliefs, or that they’re not well thought out. Quite to the contrary, I hold that I am all of the above, a skeptic, an agnostic, and an atheist, and here’s why:

Atheist >> a - theist:
a-,an- >> The a is used to imply the opposite of the following word. Examples are: asymmetrical (non symmetrical), abiogenesis (non biological beginning), anarchy (absence of government).

the-,theo- >> Referring to a god or gods. Examples are: theology (study of gods), polytheism (belief in multiple gods), theocracy (government based on a religion).

Agnostic >> a - gnostic
a-,an- >> Again, the a is used to imply the opposite of the following word. Same examples as above.

cogni-,gnosi- >> Literally meaning “know”. Examples are: recognize (to know again), precognition (a knowledge of events before they occur), incognito (not known).

So my interpretation is that agnosticism refers to a lack of knowing if there is a god or not, and atheism refers to a lack of believing in a god. Where I think this gets confusing is when people take the position that atheism refers to knowing that there is no god. Since such a proposal is unfalsifiable, anyone claiming to know that there is no god is making a claim based on faith, and is therefor subject to the same ridicule as someone claiming to know there is a god.

Some refer to this as Strong Atheism vs Weak Atheism; strong atheism being a positive belief that there are no gods, and weak atheism being a lack of a belief in any gods. I know the two sound essentially the same, but they are not. For example, if asked if I believe there was someone in France right now with my exact name and birthday, I would say that I do not believe there is, because it has a very low probability of being true, but I couldn’t say that I believe that there isn’t, because it is still completely possible and I have no data to suggest otherwise. I’d hate to use the term “passive voice” here, because I think all the English majors would yell at me for it, but I see the weak atheism position as using the passive voice. Maybe a Venn Diagram will help.

If we are going with the strong/weak definition, then I would count myself as a weak atheist, but I don’t fully agree with such a splitting of the term. I think that Atheism refers to a lack of belief in, not a positive belief against, any gods.

So, saying I’m an Agnostic Atheist is my way of saying “I don’t believe there are any gods, and I also don’t know if there are any gods or not.” I would expect most rational people to hold themselves to this definition of agnosticism, whether theist or atheist. Unfortunately most theists claim they are gnostic, that they believe in one or many gods and know said god(s) exist. This is a dishonest claim, since it is an inherently unknowable position, that is why religion requires faith, so that one can believe in the unknowable.

I’m sure it seems like I’m really angry at religions/religious people if you read this blog much, but I assure you that’s not the case. What I’m really lobbying for is a better separation of church and state. I attack creationists and “Intelligent Design” proponents because they’re trying to get their religion taught in science classes, which diminishes the value of science. And I really like science.

One thing that I’ve always found frustrating is the widespread desire to put the 10 Commandments in schools, courts, and other public places. I’ll often hear complaints like “But they’re good values to live by, even if you’re not religious!” Well that’s just crap, and I’m going to show you why. Here are the 10 Commandments, in all their glory (as I was taught them, Catholics have a slightly different version but the point is the same).

The 10 Commandments
1. You shall have no other gods before me
2. You shall not make for yourself an idol
3. You shall not take the Lord’s name in vain
4. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy
5. Honor your father and mother
6. You shall not kill
7. You shall not commit adultery
8. You shall not steal
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor
10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or your neighbor’s possessions

So let’s take them one by one:

1. You shall have no other gods before me
I don’t think this one requires any explanation. Our government is not a theocracy, and while many of the founding fathers were Christians I believe we can all accept that America was populated early on by settlers trying to escape the tyranny of a theocracy. Also, many of the same founding fathers signed the Treaty of Tripoli. According to Article 11 of said treaty:

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

And just to let you know how big of a deal that treaty was, here’s what John Adams had to say about it:

Now be it known, That I John Adams, President of the United States of America, having seen and considered the said Treaty do, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, accept, ratify, and confirm the same, and every clause and article thereof. And to the End that the said Treaty may be observed, and performed with good Faith on the part of the United States, I have ordered the premises to be made public; And I do hereby enjoin and require all persons bearing office civil or military within the United States, and all other citizens or inhabitants thereof, faithfully to observe and fulfill the said Treaty and every clause and article thereof.

I, for one, don’t want to see people fleeing America because it’s becoming a theocracy. I hear Christians talking about how terrible the religious oppression of China is all the time. Do we want to become the next China? I didn’t think so.

2. You shall not make for yourself an idol
This one fits in pretty well with number one above. Since we are not a theocracy we cannot impose laws or rulings based on what form of delusion anyone worships. This is pure religious dogma, and has no place in schools or other government facilities. It promotes intolerance and prejudice.

3. You shall not take the Lord’s name in vain
To avoid repeating myself I’m going to extend this one a bit, because I often hear it used as implying any sort of swearing as wrong. The part of me that admires linguistics and wordsmithing finds swearing fascinating, especially how people can get completely offended by a single word, regardless of its context. I don’t have a problem with swearing, but swearing is generally associated with rudeness or anger, but in such cases it’s not the words that are the problem, it’s the attitude. It’s completely possible to be just as vocally offensive without swearing if you’re doing it in an angry, violent, or rude manner. To imply that a government should take a stance on what words are okay to use and what words are not is ridiculous. Swearing is offensive because people allow themselves to be offended by it, and that’s a cultural issue, not a moral issue.

4. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy
What really gets to me about this one is that most religious people don’t even follow it. Life is too hectic to take an entire day off these days. Sure, maybe people set aside one day to relax and have fun more than the other six days a week, but they still do work (washing dishes, cooking dinner, etc.) which is expressly forbidden on the Sabbath. Not to mention that it’s pure religious dogma, appealing to the Abrahamic religions and no others.

5. Honor your father and mother
While I do believe that people should honor their parents, I think it should be because the parents have earned the respect for it, not because it says so in a book. Heck, even Jesus speaks against this commandment when he says in Luke 14:26:

“Whoever comes to me and does not hate his father and mother and his brothers and sisters and his wife and children and also himself, my disciple he cannot be.”

So we’re supposed to both honor and hate our parents? In my mind that’s a contradiction, but I’m sure there are plenty of fundamentalists willing to explain it away.

6. You shall not kill
This one needs a big asterisk and pages worth of fine print after it, considering that in the chapters and books following the reception of the 10 Commandments God orders killings and genocide repeatedly. I think I’m going to have to defer to George Carlin on this one:

Murder. But when you think about it, religion has never really had a big problem with murder. More people have been killed in the name of god than for any other reason. All you have to do is look at Northern Ireland, Cashmire, the Inquisition, the Crusades, and the World Trade Center to see how seriously the religious folks take thou shalt not kill. The more devout they are, the more they see murder as being negotiable. It depends on who’s doin the killin’ and who’s gettin’ killed.

and

Thou shalt try real hard not to kill anyone, unless of course they pray to a different invisible man than you.

7. You shall not commit adultery
Frankly I can’t think of anything bad to say about this. Sure it excludes polygamist groups, but so does the government, and not for religious reasons (as far as I can tell). Although, I guess this one gets down to marriage being a religious ritual that was adopted by the government. And since the promise to remain faithful to your partner is part of marriage, I guess you could make the argument that this is just a form of lying.

Some people take this one more step and say that any non-marital sex is considered adultery, and I think that is a load of crap. I do think that teens have a ton of pressure to have sex young and before they can really comprehend all of the possible consequences, but I don’t think that gives anyone the right to condemn people who do know what they’re doing but aren’t married.

8. You shall not steal
Again, this is one I can’t say much against, though the meaning of the commandment can change depending on how you define stealing. I think that televangelists and faith healers telling you that God wants you to give them money counts as stealing, but I’m sure there are many who would disagree with that.

9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor
The way this one is worded I can agree with. Don’t go making up crap about people. That’s not the same as saying you shouldn’t lie though. If somebody bursts into my house and puts a gun to my head and asks if there’s anyone else in the house I’m not going to tell him my wife is hiding in the closet, and I’m not going to consider it wrong to lie to him. This comes down to the same thing as number five, that respect has to be earned. I’m not going to lie to you if I respect you and I’m not going to lie about you if I respect you.

10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or your neighbor’s possessions
There’s nothing wrong with wishing you have what somebody else has. In fact that’s a big driving force in the economy. Marketing revolves around making you want something that you don’t have. It’s what motivates us to go out and study, to learn a trade, and to be successful. What I believe this commandment was trying to avoid is having people killing each other for the others stuff, but in that case it’s not the coveting that’s wrong, it’s the killing.

It’s hard to see how people can actually think this list is in any way relevant to our lives, unless they want to make the USA a theocracy. Luckily, through some grade A investigative reporting, our good friend Stephen Colbert found out:

That’s right. People lobbying for this type of thing don’t even know what the 10 commandments ARE! It’s hard to think that a guy of that intelligence can get into congress, but then again, just look at who the voters are…

I usually don’t try to get political here, but I can’t resist this quote:

“The separation of church and state is critical and has caused our democracy and religious practices to thrive.”
- Sen. Barack Obama

Before I get started here, I want to offer up some free traffic for Eric, a good friend of mine from college. We never really get into any in-depth discussions face-to-face, but I think that’s because we both articulate our thoughts better in writing than verbally. Eric takes a similar approach to politics as I take to science, dedicating far more of our free time to it than is healthy. So, if you have any interest in politics at all, check back in with him frequently.

That being said, let’s get to the meat of this discussion. Kent Hovind is a misleading tool of a creationist. Now I think it goes without saying that I don’t have the highest view of creationists, but people have a right to believe whatever they want to believe and I’m not going to force my beliefs on anyone. Kent Hovind, on the other hand, makes made his living spewing the most ridiculous crap about science I’ve ever heard.

So who is Kent Hovind? You could have heard of him as Dr. Dino. Still no? Hmmmmm. Does this face ring any bells?

Well fine, maybe he’s not entirely popular in the world outside the bubble of creationism, but he’s at least famous enough that you could have heard of him once or twice. Oh, and the bars over his face are there because he’s currently serving 10 years for tax evasion or some crap, but that’s neither here nor there.

Anyway, Hovind has three degrees from major unaccredited universities: a BRE (Bachelor of Religious Education) from attending Midwestern Baptist College from 1972-1974, and two mail-order masters degrees from diploma mill Patriot University (now more appropriately named Patriot Bible University). I’m not exactly sure what the requirements are to get diplomas from these colleges, but judging by Hovind’s scientific know how (as shown in the following video), they can’t be too strict. These are some of the mistakes made by someone claiming to have a PhD:

So he’s either lying or completely ignorant. Either way, somehow he managed to teach high-school science for 15 years, which says loads about our education system, but that’s a topic for another day. His lack of science education isn’t even what really bothers me though. What does bother me is how incapable he is of thinking anything through. Hovind made his name doing creation seminars at private schools and churches, and here are some of the claims he made as proof that the earth is young. The claims have been paraphrased by me so we can avoid his “witty” comments and so I only have to focus on one problem at a time instead of the 10-20 lies that come out every time he opens his mouth.

CLAIM: Niagara Falls is eroding at around 5 feet per year, so if the earth was billions of years old it would have eroded way past Lake Erie.
The thing that bugs me the most about this argument is that he actually convinces people that the earth can’t be billions of years old because Niagara Falls isn’t billions of years old. I don’t think a single scientist out there claims that it is that old. Nobody’s claiming that Niagara Falls has been there since the dawn of Earth. It’s like looking at the tag on my shirt and saying that I can’t actually be 23 years old because my shirt was made last year. He makes the same argument by analyzing the erosion rate of the Mississippi River, the age of Saturn’s rings, and the age of the coral reef.

CLAIM: NASA was predicting an inch of dust on the moon per 10,000 years. Extrapolated over billions of years the astronauts would sink in over their heads when they stepped onto the surface.
I looked at this already in a previous post, so I’m not going to go over all of the data again, but suffice it to say Hovind is using data that has been refuted for decades. It’s interesting how he can cherry pick the studies that make his claims sound better, even if they’ve been refuted for years and years, all while claiming that that’s a tactic of “Darwinists”. Like the previous claim, Hovind uses this type of claim over and over, taking data that has been proven to be wrong and using it as if it were true.

CLAIM: Short period comets, such as Halley’s Comet, lose some of their material every time they get close to the sun. Over billions of years the comets would have lost all of their matter. Since we still see short period comets then the universe can’t be billions of years old. Scientists think that the Oort Cloud (a large cloud of ice way beyond the orbit of Pluto) could be the source of replenishing the comets, but since no scientist has actually seen the Oort cloud then it probably doesn’t exist.
There’s too many contradictions to get to in this argument, but what I wanted to point out about this one was how he says something isn’t possible, then says scientists have a theory as to who it is possible, but then says that their theory isn’t valid because we haven’t seen it. I’d like to ask him just once if he saw God create the earth, but then again the rules don’t seem to apply to him. That’s not the point anyway. The point is that we don’t need to see something to know it’s true. We know that Pluto orbits the same sun that we orbit, but we’ve never seen it happen. Pluto wasn’t discovered until 1930, and it has an orbital period of 248 years, so by Hovind’s standards we can’t claim that Pluto is even orbiting the sun. That’s just not how science works! Science relies on observation and predictions based on known laws.

So I’m torn. I usually try to think the best of people, that if they’re lying about something it’s because they’re ignorant, and just need to be educated. In Hovind’s case we know he’s seen the facts because he’s been in tons of debates, but he’s still lying to anyone willing to listen. He’s not ignorant, he’s intentionally deceiving, and his followers are eating it up.

I wanted to take a look into some of the more convincing claims of the paranormal, and I though a good place to start would be with self-proclaimed psychic mediums. I’m sure we’ve all seen or heard of the likes of Sylvia Brown, James Van Praagh, and John Edward, people who have made a name for themselves by claiming that they can talk to the dead. Of course I view these claims with a healthy dose of skepticism, but I’ll freely admit that watching them perform can be fairly impressive. So what makes these “psychics” so good? They’re right way too often for it to be purely guessing. Well, let’s take a look at their art. First we’ll look at the various types of readings, and then we’ll get into some of the other techniques that add to the performance.

Hot Reading
Hot reading is when the “psychic” goes into the reading already having done research about the client, or is being fed information on the fly. A good example of this is Peter Popoff, a “Faith Healer” who claimed that God was talking to him and telling him who in the audience needed healing. James Randi, a famed magician and debunker of paranormal claims, decided to check out his work. Of course Randi didn’t come unprepared, and wasn’t the least bit surprised when the FM receiver he brought with him started picking up a feed from Popoff’s wife. She was feeding him names, addresses, and afflictions that had been filled out on “prayer cards” by the attendees, right into an earpiece that Popoff was wearing.

Warm Reading
Warm readings are a bit trickier than hot readings, but not by much. In a warm reading the reader will make some very general statements about the person being read, usually utilizing general facts of psychology and culture. For example, it is very common for a widow to wear jewelry given to her by her deceased husband, so the reader will say something like “Your husband is telling me you’re wearing something he gave you.”

Another way to make a high probability guess about someone’s appearance just requires a little bit of knowledge of genetics. When the medium is talking about someone’s parents, children, or siblings, they can often make fairly accurate guesses as to the relative’s hair color, eye color, etc., based on the attributes of the person receiving the reading, if the reader knows how such traits can be inherited.

Cold Reading
Cold readings often start out as warm readings, but the reader takes it to the next level. They will often start with general things, like letters or general names (”I’m hearing a J. Is there anyone involved with a J in their name?”). From there they look for clues from the person’s reaction to see how to proceed. If they nod when the reader mentions the letter J then the reader may suggest names like “John” or “Joe”. If the person does not give a positive reaction then the reader moves on to another general claim.

Many people refer to this technique as “fishing”, since the reader is basically throwing out all kinds of stuff until he or she finds something to latch on to. Here’s a good explanation of it from the Australian Skeptics:

One way of fishing is to phrase each statement as question, then wait for the reply. If the reply or reaction is positive, then you turn the statement into a positive assertion. Often the subject will respond by answering the implied question and then some. Later, the subject will forget that he/she was the source of the information! By making your statements into questions, you also force the subject to search his/her memory to retrieve specific instances to fit your general statement.

Once some of the general facts are found then the reader can start honing in on the specifics by continuing to try for high probability hits. For example, if a person responds positively to the letter L then the reader would never guess “Liam”, they would probably start with “Larry” or “Laura”. Often when the reader says a name that is important to the person they will respond with “Yes, Larry, he was my uncle”, and it’s all too common to hear the reader say “Yes, he is saying he was your uncle”. This isn’t even reading, it’s simply repeating back what the person already said in a way that makes it sound like the medium is actually talking to Larry.

Unfortunately a lot of people who get sucked into this do so because they want to believe. Because of this the reader can make hundreds of false guesses in a reading session, but the person will only remember the ten actual hits that were made. Generally these misses aren’t shown on the TV shows, but when people manage to get some of the raw non-aired footage from show filming it’s astounding how many false claims they have to go through before they get one right.

Derren Brown shows exactly how susceptible we are to to this type of reading (as a side note, look at other videos of Derren Brown, he’s absolutely amazing and never claims to be using “magic” or “spirits”). The video linked there is about 10 minutes long, but it’s well worth the time. He provides readings for a bunch of people, many of whom say the readings are over 90% accurate, and then fills them in on how it was all a trick.

I’ll be the first to admit that some of these people are really good at what they do. They have the whole act down, and know what subtle hints to look for in eyes, voice, and body language, which makes this a great bar trick. The problem I have is when it is used to exploit someone’s grief or to con them out of huge amounts of money (Sylvia Brown makes up to $700 for a 30 minute phone session). Unfortunately there are no regulations on these things in the USA. A “psychic medium” can get thousands of dollars from someone and provide them nothing in return, and there’s nothing the law can do about it. So what can we do about it? Educate!

The aforementioned James Randi has set up the James Randi Educational Foundation which has held a long standing offer to pay out $1,000,000 to anyone who can provide proof of any paranormal ability. The members of the JREF even go out of their way to travel to the person with the claim, create a test that they BOTH agree on, and then do the test.

Randi doesn’t have a science background, but he spent quite a while as “The Amazing Randi”, a magician, which gave him some invaluable insight as to how these seemingly magical feats are accomplished. At first there were people lining up to take the challenge, but as the con artists realized that James Randi was not easily fooled, the line of challengers quickly became just the true believers, with the likes of Sylvia Brown and John Edward nowhere to be found. Since the challenge has been put forth the JREF has tested tons of people, from psychics to dowsers, astrologers to faith healers, and not one of them has even passed the preliminary testing.

Who could ask for more proof than that?

I really don’t see any reason to post this today, since the world is obviously going to be ending within a couple hours of the posting.

Not sure what I’m talking about?  Check out the LHC Countdown, if you can. The last couple of times I’ve tried to check it I couldn’t get on because the site’s bandwidth was exceeded, so apparently there are a lot of people sitting there watching the slow yet inevitable countdown to doom.

So what can we expect to see from doom-seekers as the days pass by and the world doesn’t explode? Well I, for one, expect to see a shift in claims. When the thing gets turned on all those fear mongering nuts who were convinced that 8/8/2008 would be the end of Earth will start saying

“No, it’s going to take a couple months for them to accelerate a particle up to high enough speeds.”

And once we pass that barrier it will be

“But there’s only a 0.04% chance the particles will hit in the right way.”

And once it’s been online and crashing particles long enough to convince even the most hardcore apocalypse junkies that the LHC will not be their demise, that’s when we’ll start hearing about how

“It’s a government conspiracy! We’re all really dead and the government has planted our souls in machines on Mars to convince us otherwise!”

But that’s just my guess. Who knows, maybe people will actually admit that they were just being dumb.

Haha, I crack myself up.

Luckily, in the event we end up going the way of Alderaan, none of you will be around to say “I told you so,” so it’s a win-win for me.

Today I’d like to present you with the first (and perhaps only) strip of The Good Word.  The Good Word is a comic I whipped up to illustrate a point I see happening all too often, the Trump card of “Yeah well you’re going to hell” whenever you stump a creationist/fundie.  But I’m getting ahead of myself… (click for the full sized image).

1 Peter 3:15 actually reads:

But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,

It doesn’t actually demand you have an answer ready for the questions presented in the comic, just for “the hope you have”. I thought it would be safe to use anyway, because I see and hear a lot of Christians preach the verse as it is presented in the comic.

As for the three questions presented, I’ve heard a couple answers for them that I’ll go over to give you all an example of the standards set by Christian apologists. The first one questions how Judas died. According to the book of Matthew he hanged himself, but according to Acts he fell head first and split himself open spilling his guts out. Now let me pull a quote from the Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry:

There is no contradiction here at all because both are true. A contradiction occurs when one statement excludes the possibility of another. In fact, what happened here is that Judas went and hung himself and then his body later fell down and split open. In other words, the rope or branch of the tree probably broke due to the weight and his body fell down and his bowels spilled out.

And if you believe that then I have a boat full of non-contradicting holy books to sell you. Besides, even if the rope did break he’d fall on his feet, not on his head.

The second point asks about Jesus’ last words. While Matthew and Mark both say that he “Cried out and breathed his last”, in Luke and John we find contradicting verses:

Luke 23:46
Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.

John 19:30
When he had recieved the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

CARM also has an order they put these verses in so that he says both of them before he dies, but I couldn’t find an explanation as to how they chose the ordering. It seems to be a bunch of BS trying to explain away an obvious contradiction.

The last question refers to different genealogies of Joseph, Jesus’ step father. Similar to the others above, in two books we have completely different lineages extending from Abraham through King David and to Joseph, in an attempt to fulfill the prophecy that Jesus was the heir of King David. This is a silly way to complete that prophecy anyway, since Jesus and Joseph share no blood, so even if Joseph was King David himself it wouldn’t mean Jesus would be his heir. Here’s a look at the verses in question.

Matthew 1:15-16
Eliud the father of Eleazar,
Eleazar the father of Matthan,
Matthan the father of Jacob,
and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.

Luke 3:23-24
Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph,
the son of Heli, the son of Matthat,
the son of Levi, the son of Melki,
the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph,

Again, this seems like an obvious contradiction. Apologist arguments try to say that the verses in Luke are actually the lineage of Mary, but that’s obviously not what the author was trying to present.

The underlying problem here is not the inconsistencies or the contradictions, it’s the method of thought that’s required to hold the Bible as the inerrant word of God. In order to make up such ridiculous explanations for these contradictions you have to already have the mindset that everything in the Bible is true, and that no facts or problems will convince you otherwise. In other words, it requires a completely closed mind. Where the scientific method would have you analyze data and see what we could resolve from that, religion starts off with what they think is the resolution and works backwards to try to find facts that fit in with their beliefs.

Anyway, I kinda enjoyed making the comic, so I may try a couple more and see how it goes. If any of you graphic design goons want to give me color/drawing tips go for it, I’m all ears.