Some interesting posts on Debunking Christianity: The Outsider Test.
It’s basically a request to assume if you were born in another country that you would likely be a believer in the religion of the area. Most people accept that it’s reasonable that OTHER people will believe in the religion of their geographic areas, but not THEM!
But assume you’re a different religion, and take an objective, critical look at your regular religion.

Then there’s this post: From an Atheist’s Perspective, which comments on the Outsider Test and discusses presupposition inherent in peoples’ religious beliefs. It also shows the geographic concentration of most major objective “Truths”.

And finally, and possibly most entertaining, is: More on the Outsider Test.
It has an interesting Flash animation that shows the distribution of the major objective Truths, or “religions”, over a timeline. Interesting.

Check them out!

After posting yesterday about religious experience being a part of the brain, and emotion being biochemical but no less important than thinking it’s mystical: I find this video today, and it made me weep.
I was so filled and swamped with emotional reaction to this I left my office for a bit.
THIS is what I have been talking about for the last four years:

Every time I’ve raged against the machine, complained about people ruining the country, railed against dogma and absolute certainty, fought against arrogant absolutist belief, despaired about war and greed and hate and bigotry and intolerance, it’s because of my understanding of the pale blue dot. This is one of the reasons why Carl Sagan who wrote the book Pale Blue Dot which inspired this video, is one of my greatest heroes. He, and too few others, understood that human arrogance and self-righteous importance is the foundation of our inexorable slide into self-destruction.

Our beliefs in absolute ideologies. Our faiths in self-certitudes and righteousness is the source for the short-sighted hate and intolerance. Beliefs that MY people are right and will live forever, that the world is a perfect divine creation protected from anything we can do to it, that the THEM is deserving of eradication because God is on my side. How much pain, wars, destruction, carnage, can we suffer as a human race before we realize how insignificant we are to the universe and vitally important we are to each other?!

I was reminded today of something interesting which led me to look into it a little bit and find some interesting info about the interesting topic. *grin*
It reminds me of a couple of years ago when I was reading someone’s blog and they were describing how it wasn’t until his mid-life when he was diagnosed with a form of autism known as Asperger’s Syndrome. It prompted me to blog: A Striking Discovery Regarding Social Inability. It’s a type of autism along the continuum of severity of autism in which the person is fully functioning, usually extremely intelligent, above normal in dealing with huge lists of facts and information, but unable to recognize social cues and affectations (such as facial expressions, tones of voice, irony and sarcasm,) and usually have trouble empathizing with others. They often have to consciously learn how to read social cues like one learns a foreign language. Learning about this made me discover things about autism in general I had no idea about.

Back in high school and in college as I was working toward by BSE degrees (which ended up becoming BA’s and a psychology minor) I started getting interested in aberrant psychology. What in the world is happening in the mind of a schizophrenic. How do they perceive reality? What is delusion? Why is dissociative personality disorder a neurosis and not a psychosis…. The brain just fascinated me! All the ways something minute can go wrong with it, completely changing your reality (or perception of it.) Everything we are is in our brains. Everything we sense is filtered through our brain. Our entire appreciation of existence and what is real, is all controlled by this biochemical organ running on glucose fueled electrical impulses. As I believe comedian Emo Phillips jokes, “I used to think the brain was the most amazing organ in the body–and then I realized what was telling me that.”

So what was I reminded of earlier today? I was listening to an interview with Julia Sweeney on the latest Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe podcast, and she discusses what set her on the path of her atheism and skepticism. It started, ironically, with a religious vision. She experienced what she was certain was a visitation from God, which led her to return to Catholicism. It was during a course in Bible study that she started realizing that the Bible didn’t make sense, theology was mythology, and eventually, well, she writes “Letting Go of God” (and the upcoming “My Beautiful Loss of Faith.“)

Wha!? you say. A religious experience ultimately leads her to atheism?! That makee no sense.
Well, what she later discovers is that her experience was created by a stress induced right temporal lobe seizure. A brain hiccup that prompted a religious experience.

(See some info:
Transcendent Experience and Temporal Lobe Epilepsy
Seizures and the Sight of God
God on the Brain)

There are countless cases in which people who experience excessive stimuli of the right temporal lobe, often associated with types of epilepsy, experience religious visions or ecstasy of the Biblical type. Alternately, there are many cases as well of people suffering damage to that location of the brain due to trauma or stroke, and in effect losing their religious belief. I commented on that once in my post: Emotion Is The Source of Faith, Belief where a formerly very religious person suffered a stroke in that region of the brain which subsequently affected his ability to experience emotion and caused him to stop believing in matters of faith.

It’s absolutely amazing what the brain does. We don’t have VCR’s and camcorders in our head: this slimy organ processes how light waves reflects off objects as perceived by the eye and translates them into electrical impulses which get chemically stored in an arrangement of cells allowing us to “see” and store memory. What we see may not at all be the same thing someone else is seeing! Literally. Memories can and do get stored with errors. The brain is imperfect and material and utterly awesome! And scary. Everything we assume about reality is all up in that delicate organ in our heads. Why do many schizophrenics do what the voices tell them? Because to them the voice of God/devil/aliens/ghosts/whatever, are utterly real. As completely real to them as anything you or I can experience. We believe exactly what this organ allows us to believe. We can learn all we can, think about things all we can, change our minds and improve our knowledge, but at the end of the day all we know and experience and believe is what a wrinkly gray gooshy organ allows us to think and sense and believe.

It can be scary; who wants to accept that what we think we believe is a result of bio-electrical cellular reactions? Getting theological for a moment: why would a personal and loving God allow innocent, faithful people who could be good and valuable servants of Truth, loose their belief due to physical trauma to the brain? Does that make sense? Would an Intelligent Designer really make it so that religious experience can be induced through physical stimuli to the brain and faith lost due to trauma to it? The religious answer can include, God has a purpose for them, they are warnings to others, he talks to us through mysterious ways, his plan is not for us to know, and other rationalizations. But that’s all they can be, superstitious rationalizations to defend a belief when Occam’s Razor’s answer is plain as day: belief is a result of neurology.

There were three components to my LONG and eventual deconversion from theism and beliefs in personal gods. One was, like Julia Sweeney, when I finally read the Bible cover-to-cover and not just the good bits fed to me through church, Sunday School, church camp. I started thinking to myself, “THIS is the psychotic, childish, petty, ridiculous deity I’m believing in?!” But, I could pass it off as God inspired words of men, with bits and pieces being Truth and the rest being human failings in transcription. (Never mind the issues of who decides what pieces are Truth, for what purpose, and how can any bits be justified as Truth if not all of it is. And if some is Truth and the rest is not, why might that not be the case for other religions? Or personal “relationships” with God?)

Another component was my learning about religious history. A lot, (I won’t say “most” but it likely is,) of Christians think there’s an original Bible somewhere, that the Hebrews were around since the beginning of people, and Judaism and Christianity are unique and unchanging religions. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Hebrews are late blooming splinters off Sumerian culture, originally polytheistic and practicing human sacrifice, bringing with them names for gods shared by the Canaanite and Ugarit relatives, such as El, Asherah, Yahveh, El-ohim, Adonai, etc. That the heroes Abraham, Noah, and some of Moses actually come from ancient Sumerian mythology. That there were many different lines of Hebrews with variations to their mythology all collected helter-skelter by many various Jewish scribes to form a collection of stories that often conflict and reflect very different evolutionary results of Hebraic pantheon. That every aspect of Jesus and Christianity is borrowed from other existing Asia Minor religions, from virgin birth to eating of the body, death for salvation, resurrection and ascension, etc.
That Christianity had to be spread not by any perfect and universal means devised by a loving God that wants all the world to know the Good News, but rather by the mouths of men coming from a little dusty spot on the planet out via the force and domination of a brutal empire.

But more on topic was the third component of my deconversion: the realization that belief is emotional. That all the feelings of closeness to God, divine communion with the Spirit, peace and serenity that comes from faith and the joy that comes from belief–could all be recreated via non-religious stimuli. Movies, plays (acting in and watching,) music, TV, self-inspired via imagination or memory. And also, that there were billions of other people who were experiencing the same joy, ecstasy, peace, love, support, presence, etc…but under completely different religious doctrine! What does it mean when someone worshiping Allah and Mohamed, or Vishnu, or Pele, or whatever, could be feeling the same exact feelings of faith with the same utter certainty?!

Belief is emotional. It’s based on ingrained indoctrination taught to us by our parents and communities, and fueled by the activity of our right temporal lobes. How can we not believe it to be utterly “real” when it’s the very organ that gives us our sense of reality that tells us it’s real?!

Emotion is a wonderful thing, don’t get me wrong! I love my emotions! I love that I can empathize with someone and understand how they might be feeling, prompting me to care about them or understand their circumstances. I’m glad that I feel warm and wonderful when I hear “my wife’s my song.” I’m glad I feel moved and proud when Bill Pullman makes his speech as the President in that silly and ridiculous movie “Independence Day.” I love that I get nervous and scared and totally creeped out when I play a “Silent Hill” game. I absolutely love when my daughter casually says “I love you” in a way that lets me know she was just thinking about it and not expecting from saying it. I couldn’t live without the love I feel for my wife. I like that I get angry at people who are trying to ruin this country. I’m glad I get angry at people who would do harm to children. I revel in the awe and amazement I feel learning new incredible things about our universe. I LOVE MY EMOTIONS! My intellect, curiosity, drive for knowledge is what feeds my brain. But my emotions are what gives me anima! Without it, life would be gray drudgery and even the quest for knowledge would be a bleak and meaningless pursuit!

But let us realize where these emotions come from. Because my love, pride, joy, anger, are material brain activity, doesn’t make them any less “real.” But they’re mine, I know what causes them, I don’t have to ascribe some mystical, spiritual source upon them. I don’t have to deify them to have them, enjoy them, welcome them.

Funny!
From: http://www.wellingtongrey.net/miscellanea/index.html

An interesting post over on Debunking Christianity today, about why there was no veneration of Jesus’ tomb, empty or not, until the 4th century: Why Wasn’t There any Veneration of Jesus’ Empty Tomb?

“The fact that there was no tomb veneration indicates that the early Christians did not know the location of the tomb of Jesus, neither of an empty tomb nor of an occupied tomb. The best way to avoid this conclusion is, I think, to assert that there was tomb veneration despite the silence of any first-, second-, or third-century writers on such an interest.” And how likely is that? Even James D.G. Dunn admits “that it was quite customary at the time of Jesus for devotees to meet at the tomb of the dead prophet for worship (Matt. 23:29).

Article’s author John W. Loftus discusses issues of shameful burial, utter belief in the immediate coming of the apocalypse, and the like.

“Liberal media” my rear. What court proceedings is the leftist, administration hating, liberal media filled with the last few days? Is it the “Scooter” Libby trail in which the crimes of the administration is being investigated? Where evidence has been admitted that implicates Cheney and even prez. shrub in possible treason? Nope.

Is it the federal appeals court upholding the Military Commissions Act of 2006 which repeals habeas corpus, with the reason that “Congress has made this law so we uphold it” as opposed to oh, I don’t know, adjudicating on the constitutionality of this Act? Nope.

It’s filled with the Anna Nicole Smith trial crarp. Our government has repealed an inalienable human right that has been codified as far back as the Magna Carta, observed even by feudal kings, that countries like even Malaysia observes, and and our media cares more about tragic celebrities. Our highest ranking legal official in the country, Attorney General Gonzales, stated for the record his opinion that the United States Constitution does not expressly guarantee habeas rights to United States residents or citizens (lest we think they’re extending their disdain for human rights on just so-called “enemy combatants.”)

The concept of habeas corpus is so basic, so fundamental, that the US Constitution assumes all citizens have this right to the extent that indeed the only mention of habeas corpus in it is to mention the instance in which it may be suspended (not repealed!)

A recent episode of the Penn Radio Show has guest Peter Sagal, a journalist and NPR game show host, who expressed the basic problem with American mass media is its “popularist” approach. News organizations poll viewers regarding what they want to see. What news they want to see? The mass media feeds the people what they want as entertainews in a cynical, corporate-minded desire to grab ratings and viewers and money. The American populace doesn’t care what’s going on with their country so long as their SUV’s have gas and the entertainment that helps them forget about their lives of quiet desperation keeps coming, while people in power slowly turn this country into a fascist state run by lobbyists and corporate interests.

What can be done to change things before the worlds described in “1984“ and “Fahrenheit 451“, which we’re beginning to realize, become irreversible?

OK, that’s a terrible title. Anyway….
Phil Plait at BadAstronomy has a post titled:
Should creationists be able to get PhDs in geoscience?
He explains the case of young-Earth Creationist Marcus Ross who is currently teaching biology at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, got his PhD by writing and defending a thesis about the 65 million year old mosasaurs. So, this young-Earthist basically committed fraud in order to get his PhD, and at the very least is hypocrite willing to lie and deceive in order to get ahead.

Phil links to a great article by Larry Moran at SANDWALK: Strolling with a Skeptical Biochemist. He discusses why this is an unconscionable event and how those who support Ross, like the Discovery Institute and bloggers at Uncommon Descent, are supporting underhanded and dishonorable deception and are working to undermine the efforts of real science.

OK, this is funny stuff!
Textbook Disclaimer Stickers: http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/cpurrin1/textbookdisclaimers/

The Berkeley site on understanding evolution, what it is and isn’t, and how it affects our lives:
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/

Faith in “alternative medicine” is going to kill a child in Oregon:
Family puts faith in alternative hope
I learned about this from the latest Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe podcast.
In short (read the article yourself, please,) a couple with a daughter who had a brain tumor and seeking all possible medical solutions and went to a faith healer. After extensive medical treatment, after seeing the faith healer the tumor went away. In standard post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy, they believed what came before must have caused what followed and so the psychic must have cured the cancer and not the medical treatments.

Well, years later the tumor came back. Over the phone the psychic “sensed” that the “tumor” was actually new brain tissue growing, and his original psychic treatment was still a success. (By the way, it’s impossible to grow new brain tissue.) And on his recommendation, they’re not going to seek medical treatment!

As the main host of the podcast (who’s a neurosurgeon) said, it’s one thing for someone to seek all possible medical solutions and someone who will wave their hands over someone. But to refuse possibly life-saving medical treatment over woo-woo, is negligent! And as a parent, and a doctor who has seen this kind of thing, he empathizes with the parents. He understands that a parent who is seeing their child in such a terrible condition, would cling to anything that appears to be able to save her life. The parents are also victims in this, and the true villain is the psychic who is advising a poor duped couple to basically let their daughter die.

But also culpable is the state legislature! By passing and enforcing such laws that allow parents to use religions or faith as a reason to refuse medical treatments, is allowing parents to potentially kill their kids because of ignorance! And the sad thing is when this poor child dies, the parents will likely blame the doctors and say what they did interfered with what the psychic tried to do for them. They will blame the doctors and not the crook, nor themselves for making a horrendously terrible decision. Not that I would wish them to be in that situation! No parent should. I’d rather than her tumor magically disappear than to have it kill her in order to prove the charlatan wrong and the parents as credulous dupes.

But this is our culture, this is our legal system. It’s heartbreaking.

There’s a great looking book called Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion that I haven’t read yet, but certainly plan to.
It’s a collection of chapters written by various people, including a couple of reverends even, educators, psychologists, and of course parents. Like the host of the AgnosticMom Web site and essayist for Humanist Network News.

Book’s Web site: http://parentingbeyondbelief.com/

Well, the book has a forum that’s only just started so it’s still a little slight on content, but looks like might become one of my most frequented forums:
http://parentingbeyondbelief.com/forum/index.php

This is so sweet!
Jennifer over at Idle Rambling’ has a post today which links to an essay by a professor of Science and Faith Studies at a Christian college “who has since won several awards for his published articles concerning the intersection of science and religion.”

Borne from a frustration with having students of all stripes not understanding what evolutions is (and is not), this Dr. Robert J. Schneider has written an essay that explains the science and factuality of evolution where any ordinary person, theist or non-theist, could understand!
http://community.berea.edu/scienceandfaith/essay05.asp

Excellent, excellent excellent essay that really does a great job!
As an addendum, I would also recommend the book The Top Ten Myths About Evolution.

Added Update: Man, this guy has a lot of great essays!
Here’s a link to his essay on how science is done:
http://community.berea.edu/scienceandfaith/essay04.asp#howDo
it’s part of his greater essay on the Big Bang and studying the history of existence. It’s interesting that I read this today since all last night I’d been having practice conversations in my head trying to explain the scientific method and the way science is a consensus of observations and experimentation.

Last night I played a second round of Texas Hold’em at the local Fox & Hound pub. Last week I finished 6th out of 21. Eh.
Last night I finished…1st! *glee!* Well, 1st out of I think about… 15. But still!
So, that qualifies me to play in the final round in two weeks. And the winner of that round will receive a seat at a WPT satellite tournament. How cool would THAT be?!

There were only two hands that I played wrong, otherwise, I simply played well *pats self on back*. I didn’t get that good of pocket cards. An AK, QJ, KT, but otherwise I just played a good, tight-aggressive game and read the players. But those two hands: man I screwed those up.

Messed up hand 1: I was in early position with K8. In my tight game I generally muck something like that if I’m in early position, but I decided to mix up my game a bit right there and bet 150 (the big blind was 50 at the time.) That knocked all but one other player out who called.
The flop came out, and I hit nothing. I think it was something like 4, 6, 9. I thought I’d bet strong-ish to represent that I had high pocket pair to justify the opening bet and that I wasn’t worried about the flop, and bet 200. She called.
The Turn was also nuthin’: I think a 2. Now, I should have either checked which would have really not given her any good information about what I had, putting her on the spot, and making her wonder if I’d check-raise; or I could have bet big and try to force her out. She had about 4 times the chips I had so it would have to have been big bet to make her really think about it. But, I didn’t have a read on what she had. The way she kept calling made me think she had something, maybe a pair of 9’s or on a solid straight draw.
But, what I did, was bet 150. HUGE mistake that I realized the second the chips touched the felt and I couldn’t believe what I’d just done. I basically just said “Pardon me, but would you be interested in knowing that I happen to have absolutely nothing? Here, let me just give you my chips because I suck.” And of course she raised. The hand was essentially over, I folded.

Messed up hand 2: Later in the game I had pocket 8’s, the big blind was 200, I bet 600. The next guy called, the third guy went all in with 850, the next two folded, and I called that extra 250, no big deal for me. The guy was short-stacked, he would have been blinded out the next two hands so I felt comfy.
But that guy next to me who had called before decided to put me all in! (I had something like 4,000 left, that guy had like 16,000.)
My read on him was that he had something like QJ. He thought the same thing I did about the third guy that he was just making his last stand with anything before he’s forced to because of the blind, and the pot odds were right for him to get in on it, and was deciding I didn’t have better than something like QJ and so we’d be about 50/50.
So, at that moment, I KNEW I had him. Pair of 8’s at this moment is much better than the QJ-ish I had him on…but my gut said don’t do it. Live to fight another day. My head said call, go all in, but I just didn’t like the feel. I folded!
What’d they have? Guy two had QT (I knew it!) and small stacked guy three had like T9. GAH!
So the flop came out, and it included a 10, pairing both players… and an 8 came out on the Turn!! (Don’t recall the River, but it was inconsequential.) I would have had trip-8’s and would have won a VERY nice pot! Gah!
I was on tilt pretty bad after that. For like the next four hands, I couldn’t concentrate and had to get up for a bit.

But, it all ended up OK! =) I eventually took out that guy to leave him in third place–and I finished 1st! Woohoo!