This Makes It All Worth It - A Followup

Earlier today I wrote about an email I received from Abraham (not his real name) and how he is starting to look to atheism. He said that it was partly due to deep thinking and partly due to things I said here on HDC. We had a very nice exchange of emails and he agreed to let me share them, which I did earlier today in This Makes It All Worth It

Well! Abraham read the emails I sent to him, and my elaboration on here (see above link) and said the following a bit ago:

Saw the post on the blog, and I appreciated it, and the comments. In terms of reading, not much so far. I did go to Wikipedia and looked up "atheism", and with your comment, it helped me greatly. I am now ready to say that I am, in fact, an atheist, and hope to be able to defend my knowing that God does not exist more in time (I did read your post on Dawkins Spectrum of Theistic Probablilty). I hope to learn more in time. I really am not that much into podcasts, but am willing to look at essays.

I told him he is now on the A-Team and that he will soon get to learn our secret handshake. :P

I had offered to share the podcasts with him that I feel have been so helpful to me. I also asked him which books he's read on the subject.

So hey, I need your help! Let's compile a list for new atheists. I'd like to put books, essays and anything else on there that you've found helpful in your godless travels. Believe it or not, I have read very little of the classic stuff on atheism/religion/etc.

What would you recommend to Abraham? Which one or 2 sources did you find most informative and helpful once you were comfortable calling yourself an atheist (or the label of your choice)? Remember, he's come over to the Dark Side now, so we don't have to convince him. Now it's about information, insight, and being able to defend his lack of belief in gods. Please leave comments with the books, essays or resources you recommend and briefly how you felt they were helpful to you. Thanks very much! :)

The Bible Should Be Banned

So many worthwhile books have been banned over the years. The Grapes of Wrath was banned especially in California because it was partially set there and made the residents look bad. Thomas Paine's Rights of Man was banned in the UK and Paine was charged with treason for supporting the French Revolution. It was also banned in Tsarist Russia. Uncle Tom's Cabin was banned in the southern US during the Civil War, then in Russia. (full list here)

The following list of great books have all been challenged somewhere in the US in the 1990's: Nineteen-Eighty-Four (1984), the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Catcher in the Rye, Brave New World, Cat's Cradle, Catch-22, The Handmaid's Tale, Harry Potter (series), James and the Giant Peach, Lord of the Flies, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Slaughterhouse-Five. (see full list here)

Different books are banned for different reasons. Many due to their political nature or implications that threaten the current government, many others for obscenity or for being objectionable in one way or another.

Well, I have a couple of books that should be banned. How about the bible and the quran for inciting violence against homosexuals, women, and anyone who doesn't believe the given book, for inciting hate, for glorifying murder, rape and incest. You get the point. It's immoral, unjust, violent and hateful.

Recently, a man stoned another man who he thought might be gay because the bible told him to.

It was at the hospital where Seidman met and befriended Thomas, according to neighbors. The young man and Seidman were often seen together grocery shopping and going to church.

Seidman was 70 and he made Thomas, 28, the executor and sole beneficiary of his will.

"I killed a man," Thomas allegedly told the witness. He then described how he placed batteries and rocks in a sock, and hit Seidman in the head at least 10 times. Thomas then returned to Seidman's apartment several days later and called police, saying he had discovered the body, according to court documents.

When police interviewed Thomas on Wednesday he said Seidman had been making advances toward him over a period of time. Thomas said he read in the Old Testament that homosexuals should be stoned in certain situations.

The bible really does say to kill homosexuals in Leviticus 20:13:

• New International Version: “‘If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.


• New Living Translation: “If a man practices homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman, both men have committed a detestable act. They must both be put to death, for they are guilty of a capital offense.


• English Standard Version: If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.


• New American Standard Bible: If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act;they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them.


• GOD’S WORD® Translation: When a man has sexual intercourse with another man as with a woman, both men are doing something disgusting and must be put to death. They deserve to die.


• King James Bible: If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood [shall be] upon them.


• American King James Version: If a man also lie with mankind, as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be on them.


• American Standard Version: And if a man lie with mankind, as with womankind, both of them have committed abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.


• Douay-​Rheims Bible: If any one lie with a man as with a woman, both have committed an abomination, let them be put to death: their blood be upon them.


• English Revised Version: And if a man lie with mankind, as with womankind, both of them have committed abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.


• Webster’s Bible Translation: If a man also shall lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination:they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.


• World English Bible: “‘If a man lies with a male, as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.


• Young’s Literal Translation: And a man who lieth with a male as one lieth with a woman; abomination both of them have done; they are certainly put to death; their blood is on them.

See also Romans 1:26-32.

There's so much more in the bible that is murderous and despicable. If any book should be banned, it should be this one. And the quran should be banned as well, which I admit I haven't read as much as I have the bible, but what I have read is pretty hateful.

Of course, I don't really believe in banning books. I don't think information should be censored. Maybe the bible and the quran should just have warning labels on them. And they should definitely be in the fiction section!

Harry Potter Gets Rational

It's funny how you can spend years reading a series of books and never notice something glaringly obvious until someone points it out to you. Then of course it's, well, glaringly obvious!

I read the first 6 Harry Potter books and thought they were great. I thought they were something I could recommend to a young person to read, but then I just learned about Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and I realized, Harry never questioned the magic, never thought critically about it, never tested it. He just instantly accepted it as the new reality.

The Methods of Rationality is fan fiction, but I hear from Julia Galef over at Rationally Speaking, that this is good stuff. In it Harry Potter uses rational and critical thinking to analyze whether things are really magical or if there is a more plausible explanation. He devises experiments and tests his hypotheses. So far I think there are 63 chapters.

I have to confess, I haven't read any of it yet, this is all going on Julia's recommendation, so if it's really horrible, let me know! I am still reading The Selfish Gene so this is on my list for when I'm done.

Go Here for the pdf, epub and mobi (for kindle) versions that you can download and let me know what you think!

I'm Now A True Believer of Intelligent Design!

I've recently purchased a very handy book that explains Intelligent Design so well that I must abandon my godless heathen ways and start believing. Praise be to my wonderful friend Dan who shared this deeply moving tome with me! May the Intelligent Designer bless you and actually answer your prayers!

I am sure you'll want to get this great book too. It's so easy to read, which is what I like. No big fancy words or concepts. It's called The Intelligent Design Coloring Book by Pastor Brett Pirkle. It's not just a coloring book, it also has other activities in at as well! What more could you ask for?

Be honest, wouldn't you rather read a fun book with pictures to color and "science glasses" to cut out and wear, than try to muddle through some dry old book like God Is Not Great by some guy who uses big words in a foreign language like British? I knew you'd agree.

Need more convincing? How about the picture of the front cover? This book is blissfully 100% Fact Free! What more can you ask for? Who needs boring old facts when you can just have Faith?

You're still not convinced? Boy, you sure are a Doubting Thomas. The Intelligent Designer is going to make you burn in Hell for all eternity if you don't start believing without evidence. You don't want that, do you? Do You?! No, I didn't think so!

Ok, here is an excerpt:

Faith and Science

Starting To See Moral Relativism As Clearly Flawed

Most people don't think much about morality, in my observation. They are given their morals from their parents, pastors, teachers, and peers, etc. They don't need to know terms like "moral relativism". I have done just fine for 41 years without ever thinking about the definition of the term.

I think even once you eschew God and the bible, unless someone challenges you, you'll still rely on your basic moral code which you got when you were younger (and probably indoctrinated). A lot of that might evolve into what "feels" like the right thing to do, more than what the bible said.

Then there are those who think about this sort of thing all the time. I'm not one of those people, normally. I don't like philosophy very much. I prefer science and testable claims to pontificating about things that can't really ever be known. But as I venture on my Quest for Knowledge, lately I've run into philosophy more often.

I've even subjected you to it, such as the whole Free Will vs Determinism argument (which I still have plans to continue).

I think we are best served with examining our ethical code and reevaluating what's in there and why. I did that some time ago with my personal Principles. It was a challenging but rewarding exercise.

Side Note: The Rationally Speaking podcast recently interviewed Joshua Knobe about his new field of Experimental Philosophy (x-phi), which was fascinating. Joshua even made them (and me) gasp with the results of one study that was very surprising! Here's a link to the episode.

The book club I'm in, as I've mentioned, is going to be reading The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris. I lost interest in our current book, so I've started in on this one and so far Sam Harris is speaking my language, that science can determine values for conscious beings.

The following excerpt from the book shows what moral relativism basically is (the woman in it is definitely a moral relativist), and why it's clearly flawed. This is an anecdotal story from Sam. But I think it's quite important to share:

Excerpt from The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values by Sam Harris. - Highlight Location 765-83 (chapter 1)

We already have good reason to believe that certain cultures are less suited to maximizing well-being than others. I cited the ruthless misogyny and religious bamboozlement of the Taliban as an example of a worldview that seems less than perfectly conducive to human flourishing.

The Moral Landscape: A First Look

I just started reading The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values by Sam Harris for my local book club. I'm not very far into it. So far I'm just getting an idea of where he's coming from and what he proposes to convince me of as I read along.

Before I started reading, I listened to Professor Massimo Pigliucci and Julia Galef talk about the book on their podcast, Rationally Speaking episode 20, from 18:29 to 27:30. Both of them find fault in Sam Harris’ logic and principles.

Massimo also wrote a blog post back in April titled, About Sam Harris’ claim that science can answer moral questions. This article is based on the TED Talk that Harris gave back in February.

Massimo is a former scientist and is now a philosopher, so he is well equipped to address this subject.

I thought I'd share it and ask you, have you read the book? What do you think? Can science answer moral questions?

A Universe Not Made For Us: Carl Sagan

I found this video the other day and wanted to share it with you. It's Carl Sagan reading from his book, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, from the chapter titled A Universe Not Made For Us.



I read a Terry Pratchett book recently called Reaper Man (it was great, of course). In it, he said, "In the Ramtop village where they dance the real Morris dance, for example, they believe that no one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away - until the clock he wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone's life, they say, is only the core of their actual existence."

In that sense, Carl Sagan is still very much alive.

A Wild Ride With Robert Sapolsky

My friend Brent sent me a link to a page on the web. It's a conversation with Robert Sapolsky, a quiet, funny, apparently brilliant professor of biological sciences at Stanford University and of neurology at Stanford's School of Medicine. Professor Sapolsky has written several books such as:

• Monkeyluv: And Other Essays on Our Lives as Animals


• Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers


• A Primate's Memoir: A Neuroscientist's Unconventional Life Among the Baboons


• The Trouble With Testosterone: And Other Essays On The Biology Of The Human Predicament

The link Brent sent me was called TOXO and he suggested it to me because our book club is reading The God Virus: How religion infects our lives and culture, by Daniel W Ray. Now the video on that page was Robert Sapolsky talking about a most interesting parasite called Toxoplasma. This is what pregnant women need to worry about, and why they avoid cats and cat feces. It can wreak havoc on their unborn baby's nervous system.

If you read The God Virus, which talks about parasites and viruses as an analogy for religion, I highly recommend watching this video. If you aren't going to read the book I still recommend the video. The transcript is underneath it too, which will make it even more accessible for you. But the video is longer than the transcript. So take 25 minutes and enjoy it. Here's another link to the video. I'm telling you, it's fascinating. As I mentioned, the video is longer than the transcript. He goes into telemeres and molecular age, which I heard a study about recently confirming what he is explaining.

What he's talking about touches on evolution, common ancestors, parasites and how they go about getting where they need to be, motorcyclists and speed freaks, and schizophrenics, as well as the government's interest in this parasite. A wild ride indeed!

Some Great Advice by Robert Gula

I belong to a book club that has been reading Nonsense: Red Herrings, Straw Men and Sacred Cows: How We Abuse Logic in Our Everyday Language by Robert J. Gula.

I really wanted to share part of chapter 17 with you. Mr. Gula lists the most important principles to be gleaned from the rest of the book. I highly recommend getting the book and reading it. It has really helped me think more logically. The other thing it's helped me with is to realize when someone has used a logical fallacy on me. I might not remember the name, but I remember that it is nonsense. It sort of gives me a red flag when someone uses bad logic in an argument. I think that's pretty invaluable.

So here's the list of important principles from Robert Gula:

How People Tend To Think And Respond

In our book club right now, we are reading  Nonsense: Red Herrings, Straw Men and Sacred Cows: How We Abuse Logic in Our Everyday Language by Robert J. Gula. It's very interesting as it goes through emotional language and logical fallacies in several ways that make them easier to understand. Robert Gula wrote the book in the 1970's which is interesting in its nostalgic examples.

But what I wanted to share with you was something from chapter 1 that I thought was quite valuable:

First, some general principles. Let’s not call them laws; and since they’re not particularly original, I won’t attach my name to them. They are merely a description of patterns that seem to characterize the ways that people tend to respond and think. For example, people:

Dawkins on the Colbert Report

Here is a video clip from the Colbert Report the other night (Sept 30). Stephen Colbert interviews Richard Dawkins. It's almost 6 minutes long:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Richard Dawkins
www.colbertnation.com

Oh, and take note of Dawkin's tie! It's Crocoduck tiled! LOL! :D

Amusing Ourselves To Death

I saw this comparison of Aldous Huxley to George Orwell the other day. I thought it was extremely well done and thought you might find it insightful:

Amusing ourselves to death by Stuart McMillen - Aldous Huxley, author of "Brave New World vs. George Orwell, author of "Nineteen Eighty-Four"

Codex Sinaiticus: The Oldest Bible Holds Surprises

The Codex Sinaiticus, which means 'the Sinai Book' holds a special place in history. And now the whole world has access to it for free. Here, let the website explain. This is from their about page:

Codex Sinaiticus, a manuscript of the Christian Bible written in the middle of the fourth century, contains the earliest complete copy of the Christian New Testament. The hand-written text is in Greek. The New Testament appears in the original vernacular language (koine) and the Old Testament in the version, known as the Septuagint, that was adopted by early Greek-speaking Christians. In the Codex, the text of both the Septuagint and the New Testament has been heavily annotated by a series of early correctors.

The significance of Codex Sinaiticus for the reconstruction of the Christian Bible's original text, the history of the Bible and the history of Western book-making is immense.

First, the many corrections are quite telling, spanning the centuries. Letters, words and whole sentences are added or removed. The books are in a different order, and there are some books in there that have since been removed. The codex is dated to the middle of the 4th century. This is one of the earliest manuscripts. The only other is at the vatican, so therefore out of the reach of the public.

Conversations with Craig the Christian 3: More Cherry-Picking

I have a bunch of stuff I want to wrap up into one post.

• Craig the Christian has started his own blog, based on his conversations with me. You can visit it at Simul Eustis et Pecator. On that note, he had emailed me several days ago and I finally replied. So I'll post that conversation down below.


• On Friday, I posted my story to de-conversion. It's basically the same as here, but they invited me and I thought I'd cross post over there to give support to others de-converting.


• I finished The City of Ember, the book. I know a couple of you commented and said you were going to get it. Well, I have to say the movie was better in several ways and the book was a bit disappointing. I don't want to ruin it for you, but if you're interested I'll give you a review. Let me know.


• I've basically made the change to this new theme for the blog. I hope you like it and find that it looks and works better. If you see anything that needs fixing, please let me know and I'll do my best to get it working even better.

Conversations with Craig the Christian 3

The other day, I wrote about Bible Quotes and Craig didn't like it. He said:

"...it was taking pop shots at Christianity. What came to my mind was "If you can't beat them, join them. ....I interpreted it as since Christians tend to cherry pick and logic doesn't work on them, we'll do the exact same thing."

Here is my response:
I have to say no, that is the opposite of what I was trying to express with that post. I was basically saying this:

If you Believe and have Faith that the bible is the true and faithful word of god, then you must take the bible in its entirety, with all the hate, jealousy, killing, wars, murder, sacrifice and horror that it encompasses. You don’t get to cherry-pick just the happy, touchy-feely verses and sweep the rest under the rug, pretending they don’t exist.

No. In fact, you might want to look at the bible’s uglier side (which is much larger than the nice bits) and really contemplate if this god you worship faithfully is really who you think he is. Are you sure he’s even a god? He sounds pretty much like a very angry jealous mythical creature. That’s what I meant.

Entertainment That Enlightens 1

Today I thought I'd share some books, movies and podcasts with you. Like anyone else, I love being entertained. I go through phases where I only read textbooks, then sometimes I only want fiction. I've noticed that even when I'm only reading fiction I still seem to always get something more from the book, though. Right now I'm in a fiction phase, pointedly ignoring the dozens of textbooks I have piling up. Yet I still want to share the good ones with you because they are much deeper than just a light read. I also thought it was high time to share my favorite podcasts and some great movies with you. What all these things have in common, aside from being entertaining, is that they are all enlightening too. Bonus! :D

So let's start with podcasts. A couple years ago I finally realized that even though most people love music, I don't care for it much. I prefer listening to people talk about interesting or funny things. Most of the time when I'm working on the computer, I like it quiet. If I'm designing t-shirts, I listen to Ricky Gervais' podcasts which are really funny and quirky. But whenever I clean or cook I like to have people talk to me. So I am always looking for great podcasts. I love learning interesting things, so most of these are science oriented.

My Favorite Podcasts:

• The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe: Intelligent, witty, always interesting. My favorite podcast. I look forward to the new episode every week. Great stuff!


• The Skeptics' Guide 5x5: Only 5 minutes long, it briefly covers one topic. A good companion to the SGU.


• The Naked Scientists: British, intelligent and always chock full of science and interesting stuff.


• Ask the Naked Scientists: This is a podcast dedicated to answering any kind of science questions. They know just about everything. I always learn cool stuff here.


• Freethought Radio: I have taken a break from this one, but I still get them. I find them a bit overbearing sometimes, but when it comes to religion, it's usually good to know what's going on in the world. They are always talking about their billboard campaign though, which personally I think isn't nearly as amazing as they do.


• Quirks & Quarks: A Canadian podcast about science. I find they have good interviews on new science before most other podcasts, but that might just be the schedule or something.


• Reasonable Doubts: I'm new to this podcast which a friend just told me about a month ago. He said, it's the SGU but about religion instead of science. These three guys know their stuff and I get a lot out of each episode. It's for people who don't just take things on faith.


• Science Talk: Scientific American's podcast. Quite enjoyable and educational.


• Ricky Gervais: His podcasts are pretty funny. He has an infectious laugh. I love his Guides To stuff. He and his friends Steve Merchant and the irrepressible Karl Pilkington are just perfect together. I literally laugh out loud sometimes.


• Breaking Science: I am just downloading all of the episodes of this podcast right this very minute. I found it while getting links for the other podcasts. It's from the Naked Scientists, so I am sure I'll like it. :)

Enlightening Movies I've Seen Recently:

How Many gods Are There In The Bible?

If you read the old testament, you will soon come to realize that god was jealous because he hated his competition. This is interesting because he went to so much trouble to be the "one god" for Abraham and his "chosen" people.

Thousands of years later, though, billions of people believe it as gospel truth that there is one god and that it's always been that way.

As a side note, I also find it irritating and interesting that christians cherry pick so much of what they believe, and conveniently write off the rest of the bible, their one and only book. For example, exodus contains the 10 commandments. So they choose to follow those. And genesis contains the infamous beginnings of the universe and creation of man nonsense. They love that stuff too. But all the ridiculous and petty rules from leviticus are dismissed. Funny how that works.
But I digress.

There are 13 instances in the entire bible that say that there is only one god. Some of those are a bit weak, though. Like Deuteronomy 32:39 - See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me.

Goo-Tastic!

OH MY GOSH! There is a really long story attached to this bit of fun, but basically if you have a Wii, there is an AWESOME, FUN game I highly recommend! World of Goo! Oh! And I am pretty sure you can get it for your computer too! It's so FUN!

World of Goo is Goo-tastic! Anyhoo, I was TRYING to do something today, and ended up finding this little gem of a game. It's a good price and totally addictive. I think it was just released to wiiware or whatever that's called on the 13th of October. So give it a try and tell me what you think. You can get the PC version here. And get the demo of Level One here.

So, what I thought of today was, wouldn't it be neat if I could use my Wii to read my pdf books? I have all these pdfs that I'd love to read, but I don't have a reader, and reading on the computer is so uncomfortable. So, I got the Opera internet browser for the Wii, but I can't get it to see pdfs. I'm a bit flummoxed. But hopefully I'll get it all worked out soon.

The book I'm trying to read is Atheist Universe by David Mills. I've read the intro and it's awesome, but I really need to get it into a really small doc file or .. I have no idea.

Anyway... if you need a break, look into World of Goo. If you have any suggestions for me using my Wii as an ereader, let me know! WOOT! (oh, and the Logical Fallacy lesson will start tomorrow. I got a little distracted by the shiny today, sorry)

Inside The Evangelical Mind

It can be easy to feel superior to theists who blindly follow around like docile then alternately hostile sheep, parroting whatever bullshit is fed to them by their minister or media of choice. They seem stupid but they're smart enough in some respects to be unnerving and to keep most of us supposedly intelligent freethinking atheists hiding in our closets. Although any mob is dangerous, and sheep are no exception.

What causes the sheep mentality? Does it only happen to dumb people? These are questions I am curious about especially after reading an excerpt from Matt Taibbi's new book, The Great Derangement. I've never heard of Taibbi before, but he has his own Wikipedia page. He works for Rolling Stone, oh, and it seems that he is a regular contributor to Real Time with Bill Maher. Interesting.

So my friend linked me to freethoughtpedia to an excerpt of this book. It's kind of long, but I found this to be an exceptionally compelling must-read.

Atheism, Politics and Friends

I’m reading a book that is so good, so interesting, that I’ve highlighted almost every sentence. It’s a gold mine of ideas and information, a real treat to read.

If you looked at my book list, you’ll notice that I haven’t read all the “traditional” books that all other atheists seem to love. That’s not to say that I won’t, but I became an atheist when most of those books didn’t exist. Once I reached the point where I was ready to shed the oppressive mantle of religion, I was so relieved and felt so free, I didn’t have a need to read anything else on the subject for a long time.
Since I let go of god - all gods actually - a lot of books have finally come out about atheism. At the time, I didn’t even notice them. It was nice that it was being talked about, but I was happily god-free and in no need of conversion anymore.

An Inadequate Supply of Cold Hard Facts

Here at Believers Anonymous, when it comes to providing you information, only the cold hard facts will do. In some cases, this is not as easy as it may seem, as I've found out today.

I've just spent the last 2 days looking for information on something that I think will be helpful to you. It's about the symbols and stories of christianity and how many if not all of them are merely taken from other earlier religions and myths.

While I know that such things as the cross, the fish symbol, wedding rings, the virgin birth, the resurrection, the trinity, the crucifixion, the theft of all the pagan holidays, the christian vestments and the baptism were all stolen, I don't have any cold hard facts to cite for you.

I've found several sources. Unfortunately they are either laden with agenda and biased, or simply not cited and lacking any validity. While most of those sources basically say the same thing, that doesn't make it fact.

This might be one of those areas where there just isn't a lot of hard evidence. This is stuff that happened thousands of years ago, not to mention that pagan religions and myths were targeted by the church in an attempt to get rid of them during the Dark Ages and at other periods. Also the original texts of the bible have been cut and edited, rewritten and improperly translated so they aren't all that reliable either.

So, I'm on a Quest of biblical proportions (pun intended) to hunt down some great historical information for you. If you happen to have wonderful texts sitting quietly on your shelves, secret stashes of links to great sites that contain hidden treasures of historical facts, or anything else that might be useful, please comment or email me at heavingdeadcats@gmail.com