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:

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.

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

Christmas Tree Nonsense

My friend AJ sent me this picture and I had to share it with you, after my brain stopped fizzling:



What is the reasoning here? "Let's celebrate the birth of our savior, but let's make sure we focus on his crucifixion at the same time? What would easter look like then? Would you have to mix holiday symbols there too?

Update: Here's the news story that explains the above image.

Of course, the bible mentions the "christmas" tree in the old testament, and they aren't too keen on it:

Jeremiah 10:2-4: "Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not."

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:

"god can do everything if you pray a lot"

Supposedly the virgin mary has appeared on an air conditioner in Texas. Apparently America is getting bored with these sightings since they've become so common lately, because this is on the local news down there, but I haven't heard of it spreading yet.

Personally, I think it looks more like an alien coming out of somebody's stomach.

EDIT: Upon reflection, I am really thinking it looks like those things from Harry Potter, what the hell were they called? The soul eater things that guarded the prison? It totally looks like one of them.

Here's the whole writeup from the above link:

Valley resident finds what she believes is an image of the Virgin Mary on her air conditioning unit.
Antonia Ruiz Hernandez says the image has actually been on the unit for a couple of years.
Why the image appeared, Hernandez says, "I don't know probably a miracle in there. God can do everything if you pray a lot.”
Hernandez has built a makeshift shrine around the air conditioning unit.
She lives along Mile 10 in Mercedes and says people are welcomed to stop by her house and take a look for themselves.

So, god can do everything if you pray a lot. Is that so? I just had the weirdest idea. I'm sure it's not something I can do. Maybe I can enlist the help of a devout christian? Ash, maybe you can do it! :D What I am wondering is, if you prayed for one simple thing every day, how long would it take for that thing to come true, for god to make it happen?

If I prayed to god earnestly, as a test, I have a feeling he wouldn't listen to me, since I'm a rather vocal atheist (and god doesn't exist). But if someone really believed, and really prayed every day, are there rules that say that god would answer? Or are there so many excuses and loopholes that no matter how many years passed, no one would ever hold god to one simple prayer?

Are there any devout christians willing to pray for a miracle as an experiment? Let me know! Of course, there will be controls and such, and we can't just take your word for it. This would be a real, albeit unofficial, experiment.

Sometimes It Sucks To Be A Skeptic

I think I understand what it's like to be lost in a world of woo thinking. Maybe even an inkling of what it's like to believe in Jesus as your personal hero.

Butch, my awesome husband, came home Friday night and told me he felt awful. He and I both got a cold about 3 weeks ago and he shook if off in about 4 days while I suffered with a nasty chest cold, congestion and laryngitis until just the other day. I didn't want to hear that he was sick again. It was my birthday weekend, we were supposed to go out to dinner on Sunday (last night), and I was hoping we'd both be feeling well for a change.

Alas, it was not to be. He had a fever, the chills, and was completely miserable. And here's where I realized I felt totally helpless. I can't stand seeing someone I love sick. When Butch or my dogs or someone I care about has a problem or is in pain, I want to fix them. I want to make them at least feel better. But sometimes there's nothing you can do.

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.

Confessions Of A Recovering Woo Addict

Lately I've been talking to Jane. (not her real name) I am having trouble talking to her, and I think I figured out why. We knew each other about 10 years ago in a state far, far away. We were acquaintances, but we had a lot in common. (here's where I tell you some dark secrets) We were into many different kinds of woo.

Woo: (n or adj) when you uncritically believe unsubstantiated or unfounded ideas. Short for woo woo, according to the Urban Dictionary, definition 4.

I was into reiki, divination, numerology, you name it. While I was an agnostic back then, I still clung to the idea of a kind of Universal Energy. Not really an intelligence, but kind of "magical" principles to energy that science just hadn't quantified or qualified yet. I held to the beliefs that ancient societies knew secrets that had been lost. Like the Chinese were better at medicine than modern science, or the Mayans had some secret knowledge about the Universe that we were missing out on, as seen in their calendar stopping in 2012.