Musings on Friday the 13th

It's late evening and I just realized it's Friday the 13th! If I recall, there is no definitive beginning to this superstition, only some suggestions of how it came about. Suffice it to say, people are superstitious and it doesn't take them long to associate an action or outcome with mundane things and think they are magically connected.

I think about this a lot, probably because I'm often trying to figure things out and make them better (I have a preternatural affection for efficiency, not to mention my desire to understand how things work).

For example, I was trying to set up my new phone (It didn't go well. Don't ask, I might start twitching again. Suffice it to say, a new phone - better, faster and stronger! - is on its way as I type!) Unfortunately every site I went to for information was written by the nerdiest, Asperger's Syndrome afflicted boys who obviously all failed every basic English class they ever had. Nothing was written clearly and the grammar was atrocious, making whole paragraphs meaningless. Everything was in gobbledygook.

I'm not stupid, but I'm only a surface level geek. Basically I know enough to fix common problems and (obviously) get myself into trouble for the bigger issues.

Anyway, suffice it to say, I read a hundred articles and tried a bunch of different walk-throughs. (And it worked, too! I waded into the Android pool and conquered ... briefly. Then I decided to dive in head first, only to find that the water was suddenly infested with piranhas with deadly lasers mounted to their heads! Oh, FAIL, Neece, you damned fool!)

Where was I? Oh, right. So as I was stumbling around trying different things with my phone, every time something went right, I would just keep going (after doing a little victory dance, of course). But if it went wrong, the very first thing that went through my head was, "what was I just doing to cause the problem?"

11-11-11

My friend received the following email recently:

This is the year of MONEY! In Chinese, this is a lucky number!
Check this out! This year we will experience 4 unusual dates.... 1/1/11, 1/11/11/,  11/1/11, 11/11/11!
So figure this out.. take the last 2 digits of the year you were born plus the age you will be this year and it will equal 111!
October of 2011 has 5 Saturdays, 5 Sundays and 5 Mondays! This only happens once every 823 years! This is called Money Bags.
Send this to 11 friends within 11 minutes and in 4 days money will come to you! If you don't forward this, no money will come to you.
It Works! 

This was basically 3 different chain emails rolled into one. So here is a nice dose of reality.

• First, 1 and 11 are not auspicious numbers in China. Also, even numbers are generally considered luckier than uneven. But four is the exception as it sounds like "death" so it's considered unlucky and is avoided. 
• Forwarding a chain email only irritates the people you send it to. Nothing magical happens. There is no mechanism in physics or natural law that supports such a ridiculous notion. 
• If someone forwards an email to you to reach their demanded quota, email them after the time that they were promised their money/luck/etc. See how many times those people win the lottery in those days. (It can happen, but that would be random chance, nothing more)
• Yes, we do have 4 mildly interesting dates this year. So what? You can find these little number patterns almost any year. Nothing magical or amazing happened in the world on 1/11/11 or 11/1/11, did it? Nothing magical will happen on 11/1/11 or 11/11/11 either.
• It is also meaningless and completely arbitrary. Read about the history of calendars. We use the Gregorian calendar now. They are fairly arbitrary. 
• If the good luck comes from Chinese beliefs, this isn't even 2011 in their calendar. 
• Not to mention the year isn't 11, it's 2011. If you add that factor in, it all falls apart. 
• Every month that has 31 says include 5 occurrences of 3 days of the week that follow a simple pattern that repeats every several years. 
• Money bags in Feng Shui have nothing to do with 5, days of the week, or 4. In fact, remember 4 is very unlucky and 5 isn't luck for them either. A "money bag" in Feng Shui has 9 Chinese coins tied up in red cloth with a red ribbon, and is placed where money is received or generated. This is superstitious, arbitrary nonsense. 
• Adding the last 2 digits of your birth year to your age for this year will always come up with the last two digits of the current year. For example, I was born in 1969. I arbitrarily ignore the 19 (so that they trick will work) then at 42 to that and I'll get 111. Spooky, huh? Ok, in 2010 I would add 69 to 41 and get 110. Nothing magical. Just numbers doing their thing.

Resources:

• Snopes 
• Snopes
• Wikipedia
• Travel China Guide

As an added bonus, check out the ridiculous woo proclaimed regarding 11:11.

The Harm of Religion

"Hey, let's do something to appease our Lord. We need to rid ourselves of sin."

"I know, let's baptize ourselves. I hear the Lord likes that sort of thing."

"We live in Siberia. It's January, and a bit nippy out."

"Well, then let's chop through the ice, in the shape of a cross of course, then dip our naked children in there. It will take away all of their sins."

"We don't have to take off our coats, do we?"

"No, don't be silly! Just the little children."

"Yes, I hear it's all the rage. I'll get my axe. You get the baby."

And I said, WTF? This is religion at work. In Communist Russia, religion was banned, driven underground. But since the fall of Communism, there has been a resurgence.



All it takes are liberal doses of ignorance and superstition with a dash of confirmation bias, a pinch of cognitive dissonance, and an authoritarian dogma to serve extra portions of indoctrination. And voila! You have people taking their children as young as newborns and dipping them in ice water in January in Siberia.

It's truly barbaric. And it's also dangerous. It can literally shock the heart enough to make it stop, and can cause hypothermia.

There is a popular belief that diving into an ice hole 3 times on Epiphany will erase your sins. But what sins do newborns or small children have? Supposedly, this belief is not endorsed officially by the Orthodox Church.

This has become popular since the 1990's, so it's not an old ritual. Father Yakov Krotov, an Orthodox priest of Moscow said,"This is not going back to our traditions - no, this is just an attempt [by the masses] to create some kind of great past." Whether Father Krotov agrees with it or not, it appears in the video an in other pictures online that there are officials (dressed quite warmly) officiating the abusive treatment.

While my imaginary conversation mentions only children, adults do it too. If they want to freeze their bits off and damage their hearts, that's their business. But it's abusive to make a child do this against their will, or under coercion and indoctrination.

Not to mention, does this give these people license to "sin" throughout the year, knowing all they have to do is get baptized in January to wipe the slate clean? I don't know, but I would think human nature would easily rationalize such behavior.

Epiphany, or Theophany, takes place on January 19 and commemorates Jesus' baptism in the river Jordan. Supposedly the waters are holy on this day.

BBC News

The Secret To Teen Power is Harmful Bullshit

Awhile ago my friend's daughter turned 21 and received a copy of The Secret to Teen Power by Paul Harrington. While I'll leave it to you to mull over giving a teen book to someone turning 21, it was not well received. Of course, having written a previous article titled The Law of Attraction - And The Secret - Are Bullshit, I was keen to see how ‘insightful and helpful’ this new book was. My friend was kind enough to send it to me. It's taken me a year to get up the energy to even look at this piece of work.

My first surprise was that it wasn't written by Rhonda Byrne, who wrote The Secret. The guy who wrote this bunch of drivel is an employee for Byrne, although in the acknowledgments he says she is his best friend and mentor as well.

Let's cut to the chase of this book, which is #6 in teen health/mental health on Amazon. The reviews are mostly glowing. The ones I read were of parents and people who gave the book to kids, which I find disturbing.

Here is exactly what the Secret is: (pg 5-6)

According to science, there are certain laws that govern the Universe. There's the law of gravity - whatever goes up must come down. And there's Einstein's law of relativity - everything in the Universe is made of energy. And then there's "string theory" - everything in the Universe vibrates, everything has its own vibe. But the most powerful law in the entire Universe is ... the law of attraction. THE SECRET is the law of attraction. Everything that happens in your life all comes down to attraction. You attract all the stuff that happens to you,  every last little thing, no matter whether it's totally awesome or truly awful, it's all about you. And you do it with the power of your thoughts. Whatever you think about, that's what goes down, that's what happens.

OMFSM! My brain exploded! My BS meter overloaded. And I only got to page 6! Not only is this bullshit, it's Harmful Bullshit. We need some sanity! On the book’s page on Amazon, this is the first (most excellent) review, which sums up some of my thoughts:

'Scientific Rigor' Regarding Exorcisms

The Telegraph wrote a couple of credulous, one-sided articles regarding exorcism recently. Apparently the interwebs makes it easy for people to find information on satanism, which is leading, of course, to more exorcisms. OMFSM, I just said the word satanism! I'm probably already possessed now! Get me a priest!

So is there a rise in satanism? Let's see what Google Trends can find:

First I looked up satanism by itself. There is no increase in searches for that term since 2004. It's really not that popular, I don't think. Then I did "satanism, exorcism". Exorcism has spikes, either from movies like Last Exorcism or "scary" vatican rumblings about the exorcism "crisis".



So, I guess they lied? Or they have no idea what they're talking about.

Anyway, a few things in this article stood out. First, they were written because the vatican hosted a 6 day conference in Rome regarding the "crisis". It was to give support to families and priests. Apparently "there is a particular risk for young people who are in difficulties or who are emotionally fragile."

Also, the objective of the seminars was to look at the "phenomenon" of satanism with "seriousness and scientific rigour". Uh, really? That's laughable!

A Disconnect

I noticed something a few minutes ago that I'd like to share with you. Now I know this might seem extremely obvious, but I just got a real glimpse of the cavernous disconnect between how atheists and believers see God and the universe.

As you know, I am a skeptical atheist. I feel that science is the best way for us to understand the universe. It's not perfect but it's the best tool we have. And it's self-correcting, which is quite necessary since humans do science and we make mistakes and have biases, etc. One of the main reasons I am an atheist is that there is no evidence of any gods. In fact, there is zero evidence in all the universe of anything supernatural. It's that simple.

I have noticed in talking to religious people that they come at things from a very different perspective, worlds apart from where atheists are. From what I gather, they see God as Love. They rely heavily on Confirmation Bias so that everything that is good goes in the God column and everything that is bad goes into the Free Will/God works in mysterious ways column. It's very simplistic. And the system reinforces itself all the time. And it's based on emotions and feelings and faith, not on reason. So it feels good.

People who are religious and/or superstitious come from the worldview that there is a supernatural component to the world. Using confirmation bias as well as not understanding that improbable things happen every day all over the world (it's just statistics - not my strong point, so feel free to comment with more information on this), they believe they see evidence of the supernatural in their lives. Somehow they even extrapolate this to include something that there is also no evidence for, an afterlife, the continuation of consciousness after death. (at this point, we can't prove or disprove the afterlife since we can't test for it, but so far there's no good evidence for it) (edit: the burden of proof is on the believers to prove that there is an afterlife, since you can't prove a negative.)

Of course, this is faulty reasoning, but it's understandable how most people would fall into this trap.

Atheists read holy books in their entirety and see the god of these books as hateful, cruel, jealous and very much made in man's image.

Religious people read the parts of their holy books that give them the message they are looking for, then carefully interpret that into what they want it to say. This is classic Cherry-Picking.

When atheists and scientists don't understand something, we try to find a way to figure it out. We investigate, explore, observe, experiment. We understand our perceptions and memories are faulty so we look for answers to our questions through these methods.

When believers don't understand something they cop out and just say, "well then God did it." They aren't curious in this area. This is devastatingly limiting to the advancement of our species, science and our understanding of the world.

These are just a few glaring examples. What other ways do religious people and atheists have wildly opposing worldviews?

Resisting Woo

As you know, I've been an atheist for about 10 years or so, and a skeptic for about 2 or 3 years. While I found it easy to give up religion (in fact it was a relief once I realized I wasn't going to literally be struck by lightning for calling myself an atheist), I found it took longer to realize I needed to be skeptical about other things as well.

The hardest thing for me to give up was superstition. Deep down, I was afraid something bad would happen if I didn't knock on wood when I said certain things, or that I would be jinxed if I said something positive at the wrong time. It was crazy! I finally had to just force myself to do a basic experiment. I made myself not do the superstitious action and waited to see if there were negative consequences. Rinse, Repeat, Repeat, Repeat. Look at the results. Shabam, no ill effects!

I still have the urge to knock on wood though. But I never do anymore. Thank g... Science!

It's funny how ingrained  superstitions are. I recently messed up my neck and back. Instead of going to the doctor I tried everything I could think of to fix it myself. It only got worse. I finally went today and will start physical therapy on Monday along with some mild medications.

Why was it so hard to go, though? Why did I wait 3 weeks, in which I was completely miserable? Ok, so I have an irrational fear of doctors and dentists. That's probably a big part of it. But also because I thought I could do it on my own. When I started thinking about turning to woo, I realized I was really desperate and finally went to the doctor. That's progress, isn't it? Three years ago I definitely would have been popping every supplement I could think of and going to a chiropractor, or even an acupuncturist.

Thanks to all the skeptics in my life, I now know about the lack of scientific evidence of those practices. Now, knowing that acupuncture is equivalent to a placebo isn't good enough for me. I'd rather just go straight for real medicine, based on real scientific evidence.

Logical Fallacy 12: The Availability Heuristic

A recent memory, an unusual event, or a striking anecdote leads us to overestimate the probability of events of that type occurring. (this is also called the Anecdotal Fallacy)

This is Part 12 in a series about Logical Fallacies. We are going through one fallacy at a time. There are many types of fallacious arguments. I’m going to try to explain them with examples then find ways to help you refute those arguments when they occur. Please comment or email if there’s a particular fallacy you want me to tackle, or if you have success with refuting an argument using a good technique you can share.

First, let's define the terms:

Heuristic: experience-based techniques that help in problem solving, learning and discovery. A heuristic method is used to come to a solution rapidly that is hoped to be close to the best possible answer, or 'optimal solution'. A heuristic is a "rule of thumb", an educated guess, an intuitive judgment or simply common sense. A heuristic is a general way of solving a problem.

Heuristics are basically evolutionarily good. They simplify and speed up decision making, using less energy to find a decent solution, especially when you don't really have enough information to make an educated decision, for when things are uncertain. For example, you have seen 2 people mauled by lions. It's a safe bet that if you run into a lion it will maul you. You don't need to actually be mauled by a lion yourself. When you go out to hunt, you will therefore do something to protect yourself from being mauled. Unfortunately heuristics are often irrational and instinctive.

Availability Heuristic: determining probability by the ease with which relevant examples come to mind, or by the first thing that comes to mind.

Examples:

More Groovy Science 4

Hello everyone! Here is more science to tantalize your synapses and neurons!

• Keep Your Fingers Crossed: How Superstition Improves Performance


• More Than Half the World's Population Gets Insufficient Vitamin D, Says Biochemist


• Low Vitamin D Levels Associated With Cognitive Decline


• Team Develops Non-Toxic Oil Recovery Agent


• Smoking Mind Over Smoking Matter: Surprising New Study Shows Cigarette Cravings Result from Habit, Not Addiction


• Light and Moderate Physical Activity Reduces the Risk of Early Death


• New Antibacterial Material for Bandages, Food Packaging, Shoes


• A Blood Test for Depression?


• 3-D Gesture-Based Interaction System Unveiled

Keep Your Fingers Crossed: How Superstition Improves Performance: New research shows that having some kind of lucky token can actually improve your performance -- by increasing your self-confidence. ...Volunteers who had their lucky charm did better at a memory game on the computer, and other tests showed that this difference was because they felt more confident. They also set higher goals for themselves. Just wishing someone good luck -- with "I press the thumbs for you," the German version of crossing your fingers -- improved volunteers' success at a task that required manual dexterity.

~Of course, this is still a form of delusion. Everyone tested in the study was superstitious and had a lucky charm. I'd like to see a study or two that involved people who don't rely on superstition as well. I think if a person understands the delusion of superstition, they will therefore not need the "lucky" feather in their cap. They will have appropriate self-confidence based on their actual abilities. Still, it's an interesting study.

Pareidolia On Toast

Have you ever caught a glimpse of something out of your eye and thought, "oh that looked like a face!" "Look, Jesus is in my bar of soap!" "That cloud looks like a dog running!" That's pareidolia. You see something random and your mind fills in the blanks so that you think something is there.

Pareidolia: a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant.

In psychology, the Rorschach test is a series of images used to invoke pareidolia to delve into the psyche of the patient. In religion and superstition, a vague stimulus is believed to be divinely sent. Here is a news story of Mary in bird shit. Notice how the people react to a random stimulus.

No matter how much I look at this picture, it looks like a face. The sink looks a bit shocked or frightened.



Carl Sagan hypothesized that detecting faces is a hard wired evolutionary advantage. This allows people to use only minimal details to recognize faces from a distance and in poor visibility but can also lead them to interpret random images or patterns of light and shade as being faces.

In 2009 a study was done to show that objects incidentally perceived as faces evoke an early (165 ms) activation in the ventral fusiform cortex, at a time and location similar to that evoked by faces, whereas other common objects do not evoke such activation. This activation is similar to a slightly earlier peak at 130 ms seen for images of real faces. The authors suggest that face perception evoked by face-like objects is a relatively early process, and not a late cognitive reinterpretation phenomenon.

Which would explain why everyone sees the following simple line drawing as a face:

What Level Of Woo Would Make Someone Undateable?

Here is a question for you. What level of woo would make someone undateable? What about unfriendable? Do you have a limit that you've drawn in your life or do you have a lot of woo woo people around you that you interact with? How do you get on with them? Do you find it difficult? Do you argue with them or are you silent about your woo disbelief?

Woo can be defined as anything supernatural, irrational or lacking in evidence. So it would include religion and any kind of pseudoscience.

On a side note, is there anything that could be defined as woo that you still believe in? If so, why?

For me, I've somehow whittled down my friend list from all woo-lovers to all skeptical atheists. I didn't do this deliberately, but I guess with my skeptical talk and constant questioning (not aggressively, but I really did question all the woo I previously embraced), my woo-loving friends all went their separate ways and avoided me within months of when my quest for knowledge began.

I didn't have many friends for awhile but then found the Morgantown Atheists where I found several people that have become good friends. Also, having HDC has let me meet new people who were rather like-minded as well.

With extended family, I still have to deal with woo, both religious and supernatural. They know Butch (my awesome husband) and I are die-hard atheists so we have come to an unspoken agreement that we don't talk about religion. Or politics just to be safe and have nice dinners together. :P

I think I'm lucky in most respects. My skeptical atheist friends keep things lively by being smart and reason-based (most of the time, we're not perfect, of course). And my extended family gives me an occasional glimpse into woo-land so I get to see what the majority of people are dealing with and believing. It's enough.

Jerusalem is Populating a Biblical Zoo

And I said, WTF? Then I remembered, people in Jerusalem are there because they believe its the promised land, given by God to the Jews. They are just as nutty as the christians, the muslims and all the other religions.

So these zookeepers over in Jerusalem are trying to sort of reconstruct the animals from the bible (old testament, of course) in Israel. They aren't trying to repopulate the area with the biblical predators like bears, but they are trying to bring back vultures, even though Levitucus 11:13 called them detestable. Which makes me wonder why they'd want to nurture and breed them. And why cherry-pick certain animals but not the rest from the bible? But why try to get logical now?

Almost 100 animals were mentioned in the bible, according to the fluffy, credulous HuffPo article where I found this ridiculous story, so of course, I am quite skeptical. I guess that's how Noah was able to get them all on the ark, then. He only had 100 or so to deal with, not the millions found in the world today.

There are nearly 100 different types of animals mentioned in the Bible, many of them key players in well-known stories: the lions in Daniel's den; the dove that scouted for dry land from Noah's ark; the ram that was sacrificed by Abraham to save the life of his son, Isaac.

Today, many of them are gone, hunted to the point of extinction or driven away by ongoing conflict. Of the 10 animals that are listed as acceptable dinner fare in Deuteronomy 14 -- ox, sheep, goat, deer, gazelle, roe deer, wild goat, ibex, antelope and mountain sheep -- only two (the gazelle and the ibex) could still be found in the historical boundaries of Israel in 1960. ...

"... I want to keep the vultures because they were mentioned in the Bible that it was a common animal and that's good enough for me."

Pure Atheism vs Skeptical Atheism

Quite some time ago I noticed that all atheists do not approach nonbelief the same. I, for one, was first a doubter, then an agnostic, then an atheist who still believed in woo, then a full on skeptic and atheist. One of my new friends on Facebook, Cursus Walker, put it clearly the other day in a strange conversation a bunch of atheists had in a new group I joined called People for the Ethical Treatment of Atheists. (lol!)

Cursus Walker said, "I make a distinction between Pure and Skeptical Atheism. The former refers only to lacking belief in gods, while the latter extends the attitude to all supernaturalism."

I couldn't agree more! I like the terms and thought I'd share them with you.

Pure Atheism: A lack of belief in gods.

Skeptical Atheism: A lack of belief in all things supernatural.

As a skeptical atheist, I have trouble understanding how people can believe in ghosts, ESP, life after death, or anything along those lines, while not believing in any gods. So the concepts aren't mutually exclusive. But it still amazes me to run into atheists who use no skepticism or logical reasoning when it comes to supernatural woo. Can't you just feel the cognitive dissonance?

And why do you think that is? Is it a need for comfort? Is it fear of the unknown and death? Is it ignorance in science and the laws of nature? All of the above? Probably.

Of course, as synchronicity would have it, I stumbled upon a QualiaSoup video (thanks to my awesome husband) shortly after and it was so good I have to share it with you here. It's kind of relevant, but excellent in its own right. About 10 minutes long.

Putting Faith in its Place

The Secret Is Still Bullshit

The Secret, which is all about the Law of Attraction (not a real law, or even real), is still bullshit. But Elizabeth found a great video from Australia that will make you laugh. It explains how The Secret works. It's about 7 minutes long:



Notice how in the demo clips it's always about some materialistic thing like a bike or a necklace? How shallow and self-serving! Why don't all believers in this stupid lie wish for world peace or clean drinking water for everyone? Or everyone to be disease free? Instead they have to have a new Shiny. Pathetic!

Oh, and see the waves of rays coming out of the peoples' heads? That doesn't happen. That's a special effect. So when you wish for something your thoughts don't actually leave your head. Just in case you were wondering. Don't believe me? Ask a neuroscientist. They have proof your thoughts don't leave your head by magic (they only leave your head when you speak, write something down or perform an action based on those thoughts)

Oh OH! And when you ask for something, then believe it's already yours, there's no invisible man in the sky that says to you, "Your wish is my command." You know that, right? The Universe doesn't have a log of every time you wish for that new Ferrari. It doesn't wait for the wish requests to reach 1,000 before it has it shipped to you. (Don't move your house because it will get delivered to your old address! LOL!)

Other posts about The Secret:

• The Law Of Attraction - And The Secret - Are Bullshit


• The Secret Divides


• The Secret Divides Part 2

Don't Assume I'm A Sensitive Soul

I received this email from a woman the other day. After careful thought I replied to it and decided it was worth sharing.

Here is the email in its entirety:

Thank you for sharing “Wild Geese”. After Joe Biden used most of this poem as his reflection upon the anniversary of 9/11, I went in search of the poem. The two of Mary Oliver’s collections I own did not include it. I was happy to find it at your site and amazed, actually. Amazed and delighted, because a poem I find so “religious” is at the same time such a balm for you. I grew up Roman Catholic; I am now an Episcopal priest. I am convinced after 20 years that what most people throw away – the cats they heave – are indeed worth heaving. Sometimes we have to go deeper, below the interpretations of history, to find our own deeper truth.

Yes, a “barbarous” God exists in the pages of the Bible: What all-kind God and Father would will the death of a Beloved Son? How could God command Abraham to kill his son Isaac as a test of faith? Isn’t that sadistic? Yes, indeed. On the face of it. For us in the 21st century these stories are barbaric. They are foreign to our experience. They were not foreign to the persons for whom they were written when the “first fruits” in ancient societies were offered up to the deity – including in some cases, the first born child. In some places in later writings there seems to be a critique of these practices in the Bible itself. The question becomes, it seems to me, is it worth reinterpreting these stories for our own time, or do we jettison them and replace them with our own stories of sacrificial obedience and love? Yes, life does involve sacrifice – we give up our children constantly to the gods of war who exact a savage price. There are no rams in the thicket to take their place …

But the same source of barbarism comments on itself in texts of amazing love and mercy. We cannot hear these texts enough.

The Secret Divides Part 2

The other day I wrote about a woman named Ruth who emailed me asking for some advice. Ruth's sister Esther (not their real names for their privacy) had been introduced to The Secret by her husband and now avoided Ruth because she said she is toxic. The first post is called The Secret Divides and I gave my initial opinion, then asked Ruth for some clarification, as well as asked you for your take on the situation.

Ruth said the following:

My sister and I are 5 years apart, she is in her late 30s I am in my early 30s. We live on opposite sides of the country.

[Esther and I] talked on Christmas - but only if I agreed to be play nice. We did exchange gifts. As long as I am willing to play along, she will speak to me - but it is obviously strained and only to make my mom happy. I have always had issues with hypocrisy or injustice - and I hate the fact that she doesn't have the respect for me and my feelings that she expects for herself - but I try.

Is there anything within the teachings that I can use to help her see my even a tiny bit of the pain that we feel when she says Dad, Grandma or I got what we asked for?  I don't want to destroy her belief - she has a right to it and I can respect that - as hard as it is for me to refrain from argument.

I am not the kind to sit and let people wallow in ignorance. I take serious exception when someone comes to a conclusion based on erroneous fact or assumption - that is my job. It is my job to present evidence and arguments and win. I can't do that here - and that alone throws me so off balance I am unsure how to proceed.

I have been thinking about this for 2 days. I'm afraid I can't really give Ruth what she's after. I don't have a copy of The Secret but I am quite familiar with the law of attraction as I spelled out awhile ago in a post called The Law of Attraction, and the Secret, are Bullshit. For your convenience, here are the basic rules for the law of attraction again:

The Secret Divides

As you may know, I make no bones in saying books like The Secret and their ilk are complete bullshit. I wrote about it awhile ago - The Law of Attraction, and the Secret, are Bullshit.  Beyond the bullshit I have found them to be harmful if swallowed. If you believe what the book says, you will have a distorted worldview. This can be extremely detrimental to your own thought processes, and as you will see below, can also skew how you look at someone who is in an unfortunate situation.

For example, let's say you believe that your thoughts dictate what will come to you. Then someone steals your wallet while you're at the grocery store. According to The Secret, you brought that negative event to you by worrying and thinking negative thoughts. Because you were afraid of having your wallet stolen, you worried about it in the back of your mind, and that made that guy behind you decide to run up and steal it. Wow! You are so powerful! The universe listens to your thoughts and acts upon them, even when you aren't paying attention!

In this fantasy world, the universe is a busy-body accountant, tallying your thoughts and then scheduling events to correspond. Ridiculous!

So wow, what would happen if you really focused your attention? What would happen if you got rid of all of your negative thoughts (not humanly possible or healthy)  and wished for only good things? Perfect health? Wealth? A perfect spouse? Sure, why not! If you can dream it, you can make it happen. (cough cough BULLSHIT!!)

Of course, here's the catch. It doesn't happen overnight. In fact, it might be years and years of wishful thinking before something comes true. (Coincidence?!) Oh, and most likely you actually DID things to make it finally happen. Maybe you made decisions and took actions that led to you finally acheiving your dream.

But that's not magic. The universe doesn't work the way The Secret says it does. If it did, my life would be very different because of the power of my thoughts.

Replacing Everlasting Life

Yesterday my local atheists group met and talked about many different topics. One question a woman asked was something I think most people who give up god and the supernatural have to face. I will paraphrase:

If there is no god, no heaven, no life after death,  or no reincarnation what do you replace that with?

In other words there is a comfort that many people find in religion, that they will live after death in some fashion. But when you come to understand that there is no god, then soon after you have to give up this comfortable idea in life after death, that our consciousness survives death and lives on in some other way.

For me, I became an atheist but still believed in reincarnation and the idea that there was some part of us, our soul, that somehow lived on. I was a spiritual atheist. Over time I realized that there is no evidence for a soul or any kind of supernatural and eventually gave it all up. For me, giving up the comfort of the supernatural was much harder than giving up the fear of god. But I had to be honest with myself and rely on science instead of my own fanciful wishes. For me, I didn't really replace the idea of the supernatural and the soul with anything. I just gave it up. If there was an exchange it was reason and science that replaced wishful thinking.

Butch, my husband, was raised catholic. He read Revelations in the bible, about how 144,000 Jews' names are written in the book of life, so that was the limit for heaven. He assumed he'd go to hell. So when he gave up religion and god it was a relief more than anything else.

I know a few atheists that still believe in ghosts and the supernatural. I see the appeal, as I went through that stage myself, but I wonder why we feel the need to cling to such beliefs.

The woman at the meeting asked what do you replace the comfort of life after death with. So I am asking you, my nonbelieving friends. What process did you go through? How did you transition? What did you replace the soul with, if anything? Was it easy for you, or did you struggle?

If you want to reply and it's lengthy, you can email me or leave a comment, whichever you prefer. I'd love to hear your story.

Many Americans Are Religiously Mixed Up

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life just released a new survey today. I've given it a quick persusal and I have to say, while some of it is interesting, most of it doesn't surprise me. Apparently large numbers of Americans engage in multiple religious practices. Stuff you'd think would cancel each other out, but they handle the cognitive dissonance without hesitation.

For example, many blend christianity with Eastern or new age philosophies such as reincarnation, astrology and the belief in spiritual energy in physical objects. Sizeable minorities in all major U.S. religious groups say they have experienced supernatural phenomena, such as being in touch with the dead or with ghosts.

A third of Americans attend different religious services. Personally I find this amazing. When I studied different religions, I lost my faith in all of them pretty quickly because they sort of canceled each other out. Instead 35% of Americans seem to handle the conflicting faiths and stories just fine.

24% of Americans and 22% of christians, specifically, believe in astrology and 15% have consulted a fortuneteller or psychic. Damn, I'm in the wrong business.

Nearly half (49%) of the public says they've had a religious or mystical experience, defined as a "moment of sudden religious insight or awakening."

This is interesting but not surprising. About 1/4 of adults express belief in tenets of certain Eastern religions: 24% believe in reincarnation, 23% believe in yoga as a spiritual practice. 26% believe in spiritual energy located in physical things such as mountains, trees or crystals and 25% believe in astrology. About 16% believe in the 'evil eye' or that certain people can curse or cast spells that cause bad things to happen to someone.

Why Does God Hate Pigs?

More to the point, why do Jews and Muslims hate pigs, since god doesn't exist. But for the sake of argument, let's look at the bible and quran to see what they say about the other white meat.

Question: Are pigs native to the Middle East, then? If no decent jew or muslim could eat them, why were they raised and by whom?

God seems quite fickle about what were were to eat:

• Adam and Eve are supposed to eat a vegan diet: Genesis 1:29: And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.


• Noah and his sons can eat any living thing, but they have to drain the blood first: Genesis 9:2-4: And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.

That didn't last long because in Deuteronomy and Leviticus he gets into all the things that are forbidden. Here I'll highlight the references to swine.

• Leviticus 11:7: And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you.


• Deuteronomy 14:8: And the swine, because it divideth the hoof, yet cheweth not the cud, it is unclean unto you: ye shall not eat of their flesh, nor touch their dead carcase.