Neurocreationism
Appended with author reply April 22. The following book review, originally published in Skeptic Magazine volume 14, no. 2, gives my rather unflattering overview of the assertions made in The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Case for the Existence of the Soul by Mario Beauregard and Denyse O’Leary. The book distresses me in that I see [...]
Marked as: Belief Systems • Bunco • Science — 4 comments (RSS)
Comfortable Delusions: An Interview with Ray Comfort
The banana, Ray Comfort famously declared, is “the atheist’s nightmare”. Observe, if you will, the compelling evidence for God’s Creative Hand at work. A banana: Is shaped for the human hand Has a non-slip surface Has outward indicators of inward content: Green — not ripe enough; Yellow — just right for eating; Black — too [...]
Marked as: Belief Systems • Bunco • Reality Frames — 3 comments (RSS)
Reading, Writing, Transcendent Levitation
Friday 3 April, 2009: David Lynch’s press conference is poorly managed and uninformative but well-planned enough – it seems – to achieve its intended effect. The attending Press are either convinced, or confused and cowed – by the PowerPoint presentation of statistical graphs and PhD presented data. Nobody seems capable of a sensible question by [...]
Marked as: Abnormal Sociology • Belief Systems • Bunco • Societal Policies — 1 comment (RSS)
Myth as Asylum from Questioning
There is too much religious tolerance in the world today. This may read as nonsense given the seemingly endless stream of news items in which guy from faith A attempts to kill person from faith B and recent quasi-scrutiny of the belief system birthed by that science fiction author; if so, suspend your disbelief for [...]
Marked as: Belief Systems • Science • Societal Policies — 7 comments (RSS)
Leaving The Cult: An Interview With Therapist John Knapp
John M. Knapp, LMSW (pictured below), is a therapist who specializes in counseling those who are recovering from “cultic abuse”. Doug: A friend of mine forwarded me your website and I’m generally very skeptical of cult experts, but I was struck by the fact that you don’t seem to be promoting the idea, popular in [...]
Marked as: Abnormal Sociology • Belief Systems — 1 comment (RSS)
The Empty Safe
As an amateur prestidigitator, I have always had the utmost respect for well-performed stage magic. In the Art of Magic, effect is of course everything. Sleight-of-hand is a practiced and elite skill, but I am equally impressed by the genius that has devised methods of producing illusions that are staggering in effect but simple in [...]
Marked as: Belief Systems • Bunco — 3 comments (RSS)
Expulsion
I didn’t recognise her voice, nor did I recognise the number on my caller ID, but she said my name with such enthusiastic familiarity that I felt compelled to match her tone. Some of my friends have proven easily insulted by my occasional failures of immediate voice recognition, and who but a friend would be [...]
Marked as: Abnormal Sociology • Belief Systems • Science • Societal Policies — 21 comments (RSS)
Of Souls and State Machines
William is packing for, and in transit to, Italy this week where he’ll be doing a couple months of work on The American Memory Project with Justin Bennett. So, you’ll have just Doug and myself this cycle. Many known belief systems in the world feature the idea of a ‘soul’ — a sentient component of [...]
Marked as: Belief Systems • Introspection — 13 comments (RSS)