Posted by Haltse on March 3, 2009 – 1:39 pm
This is a fluffier book than Bonk or Stiff both grounded in a reality that’s going to be a lot harder to nail in a book about research into the afterlife.
Amongst other things Roach takes a look at ectoplasm, EVP that’s the people that listen to noise and claim to hear things, past lives,attends a class in the UK on how to be a medium. She also looks at the science of testing “psychics” like DuBois and other cold readers that are cynical ,delusional or both ( my bias). That blunt an answer is something this book isn’t going to provide for you but it’s probably a good thing that she’s not attempting to do that.
She’s a very entertaining writer,her footnotes amusing,and there’s real science to follow up on. I just didn’t learn as much as her prior works since it’s hard to accumulate a body of evidence for life after death when all we have is evidence of bodies.
Posted by Haltse on October 4, 2008 – 11:52 am
If you had asked me to write down 3 main criticism’s of Bill Maher’s movie, Religulous, that would be brought up in negative reviews number one on my list would be
“Well you’re atheism is just a religion anyway “
I get that one often. The need to drag people to their level is one of the ideas that Bill O Reilly espouses , you can’t justify bad action by pointing out another’s bad to make your point . I didn’t say O’ Reilly manages to walk that walk but it’s an ideal, kinda like the Christ myth on which the followers of both = Major Fail. Most negative reviews reference this sentiment and here’s an example From Glen Whipp at LA.com which neatly encapsulates the form of dementia.
“…thought is absent in “Religulous,” as is imagination. The movie is Maher’s monument to Maher, as ugly and hateful as anything he decries in the film.
Yep Bill Maher is the equivalent of crusaders, suicide bombers and those that rape children. Sounds like a psychotic* idea. A movie about ideas, EVEN , if you believe it to be a bad movie is not as hateful as the wanton destruction of sentient beings by blowing up families in a market because you’re invisible friend tells you too?
I call bullshit because this guy is as deserving of the phrase “and then there’s this asshole” as anyone claiming to be a critic.
Movies Maher ridiculous in ‘Religulous’
*the term is also used in a more general sense to refer to mental disorders in which mental functioning is sufficiently impaired as to interfere grossly with the patients capacity to meet the ordinary demands of life.
Posted by Haltse on September 19, 2008 – 8:55 am
Half the people you meet not only believe in angels but claim to have actually experienced their influence. Nope this is not from a country that burns witches ( I can’t say yet, maybe at this time is safer) or riots because they believe their football game were cursed but from the USA #1 in debt since , well let’s not confuse a stupid population with the current financial crisis 
, since it was worked out that you can do just about anything here and then pull out an angel to justify your actions.
By now you’ve guessed that we’re not talking about Curtis and his gang but the kind of bright light, flappy flappy harp playing goody two shoes types that schlep around carrying messages from the “Almighty” , whose omni presence doesn’t stretch to a decent two way communication system with his creation apparently, and seemingly are there to give you a push , a warning or whatever help you may need to stay out of harms way. Here’s a fun story I like to relate about a marketing manager at a prior company ( a few back) that crashed her car on the way back to the office after lunch.
Her eyes were closed while driving . There wasn’t a foreign object in there, not squinting from the sun or taken by a sudden bout of narcolepsy but.. they were closed because she was praying. Guess what ? She felt lucky that she was praying as the accident could have been so much worse OTHERWISE! 55% Adults , Voters, Drivers, EEP!
Guardian Angels Are Here, Say Most Americans – TIME
In a poll of 1700 respondents, 55% answered affirmatively to the statement, “I was protected from harm by a guardian angel.”
Posted by Haltse on September 8, 2008 – 9:52 am
This line from an article, front page, main story , about the Large Hadron Collider annoys me. Firstly Mainly as it has to justify why research is useful to us which is kinda scary. We’re reading this new SOLELY as a result of our research and understanding about how most of the ‘verse holds together in a tolerably predictable manner. Can they please maybe deal with us all becoming Fannie Mae stock holders? K thx bai.
CNN.com – Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News
Skeptics fear it will lead to the Earth’s demise
Posted by Haltse on August 18, 2008 – 11:19 pm
Erin with Teller. ( I love his voice, his writing’s rather good too)
I’ve been a fan of Penn and Teller since being exposed to them in the mid 80’s and one of the life goals, as far as I have plans, was to see them perform live. That’s another collective 40 years experience up on stage and if they were great in the 80’s they are now fucking amazing. During the intervening time I didn’t turn out to be an atheist as I always was one, as are all newborns it’s only the prevailing culture that tells a three year old that he’s a Christian child and sadly he’s doomed to burn in hell unless he thanks the zombie jew for his gift of ever lasting life, feeling sick yet?
Read More »
Posted by Haltse on August 18, 2008 – 8:22 pm
More insanity from the reality challenged community. Not only are they claiming that their brayers* lowered gas prices but that you can get over the more advanced cases of death by engine casing embedded in your head by following the right invisible man. Be sure to pick carefully as it’s really hard to tell the invisible and non existent apart. Not an original thought but please if you hate modern life so much stop using the medical , physical and all other technology that doesn’t fit in with your two thousand year old training manual. Your children are not harmed by our children living differently from you I wish I could say the inverse was the case. Yep you teach your toddlers to claim their parents are going to be hurt forever because they are bad.. And we’re the evil ones? More on that soon.
Survey: Many believe in divine intervention – CNN.com
Survey: Many believe in divine intervention
* 57 percent in survey said God could save a patient even if doctors said it was futile
* Researchers: Docs should be prepared to deal with families who expect a miracle
*not a typo.
Posted by Haltse on August 8, 2008 – 2:49 pm
Seemingly poor manners in public are worth millions. This sad story has the arguably most doable preacher’s wife ( Look I tried to put it delicately but the competition isn’t that great) of a Texas mega church accused of impoliteness to a flying waitress*. She was fined $3k back in 2006 so we can assume something valid happened but to the point where someone launches multi million dollar claim? For loss of faith? Love to see how you attach a monetary value to that because I’d like to know. I’d like to write the check for that part. $0.00
Witness: Mega-preacher’s wife threw tantrum – CNN.com
Her psychiatrist, Shayna Lee, testified that Brown has suffered depression and post-traumatic stress disorder because of the incident. She also felt disrespected in her role as a leader and as a black woman and had her faith affected, Lee said.
Position of leadership? Black woman? How the hell is she diminished , especially the latter, to the point were a real financial loss occurred? This is just two grown women acting like brats. The christian thing to do would be to smite each others family and just leave it at that:)
Posted by Haltse on July 20, 2008 – 1:56 pm
Daddy you can let go now…..
At a recent Father-Daughter Purity Ball, the girls ranged from college
age to a tiny 4-year-old dressed in purple who climbed into her
father’s arms to be carried
I wonder if they take a toddler to AA too? These people , these people that define innocence yet take their fucking 4 year old ( is there irony in there folks? ) to events like this. I am nowhere near taking Dobh, or myself , to a fetish ball in the near future but maybe I need to take a play from my ‘moral superiors’.
I can only hope that they are trying to create a super sexually fucked up batch of women to compete with the Catholic education / Baptist pastor’s daughter that have been highly reviewed by some of my friends.
Posted by Haltse on July 8, 2008 – 7:21 pm
I used to shop here, used to. Sadly I can’t take em seriously anymore. The same bullshit I saw with local atheist groups, e.g Bush’s god =bad, Kerry’s , Gore, Edwards and now Obama’s is fine. Suggests that there’s a lack of ethical rigor from a store that seems to be in favour of principle over profit. That Obama has a peace symbol sticker for the O in the name is hilarity itself that an overt theist is a poster child for the reality based community is desperatly sad. Crazy.. is crazy.
Don’t Make Me Come Down There sticker
$2.00
Don’t Make Me Come Down There sticker. Just a subtle warning from the
Almighty, to his so-called followers, lest they continue spreading
hatred and division in His name!
New Products for Freethinker science lovers darwinfish holders civil right workers and many others
Posted by Haltse on July 2, 2008 – 6:07 pm
Apology on the cards as police pup picture sparks warning over offence to Muslims – Scotsman.com News
A POLICE force has apologised over concerns that an advertisement featuring a German shepherd pup could be offensive to the Islamic community. As part of a campaign to publicise its new non-emergency telephone number, Tayside Police used a picture of a black puppy, Rebel, on postcards to be distributed throughout the east coast region.
Now the rest of the story From a local paper.
Doesn’t it look like the Police apologized to one man 
One councillor but let’s see how that story played over here in the USA , the Freedom center of the world. Fucking pigs never apologized to me for an baseless allegation but hey I don’t hack off people’s heads that offend me in the name of my invisible friend.
I just make fun of them online.
Posted by Haltse on June 24, 2008 – 6:01 pm
I love it when the followers of love and peace get into a fight.Looks like the old case of “it doesn’t matter what’s written as long as I get to interpret it for you” Same goes for constitutions as it does from fairy tails..
Evangelist accuses Obama of ‘distorting’ Bible – CNN.com
Posted by Haltse on June 13, 2008 – 7:16 am
And in the question of the day.
How does one tell that which invisible apart? I’m confused. The obvious answer is ignorant stupid people but hey the shaman has a prettier way of saying it.
“These are vendettas. It is not that people really bewitched somebody,”
he says, adding he believes that witch hunts are really about people
expressing hatred and coming up with an excuse to hurt someone.
What this illustrates? That Sam Harris is mainly right in his book,”The end of faith”. Religion is a framework within which the true nutballs are given license by their society to believe/ behave in manner that wouldn’t arise without an invisible friend to redirect your actions against. Without the casual believers it’s hard to imagine the fanatics would have the moral framework in which to operate and seen for the criminals they really are.While many found that Harris’ conclusion re a form of personal spirituality / mysticism to be a replacement for organized religion was not bleak enough ( yeah some atheists demand rigidly defined areas of rational thought ) yet this one case points to a better way forward. What’s better billion believing in 1 “gawd” or a billion gods believing that they are Elvis?
Deadly hunt for ‘witches’ haunts Kenya villagers – CNN.com
- It may be difficult for Western cultures to fathom, but in Western Kenya, beliefs in ghosts and witches are very real. And sometimes they have deadly consequences.
Posted by Haltse on March 20, 2008 – 10:59 pm
I’m not going to spoil this one. Suffice to say that reality beats fiction any day. Sadly Adams is no longer around to make this stuff up but the residents of the B ark are quite happy to fill in.
You never know in some far out universe , on some very lucky day you may win against the forces of idiocy.
Pharyngula: EXPELLED!
I’m still laughing though. You don’t know how hilarious this is. Not only is it the extreme hypocrisy of being expelled from their Expelled movie, but there’s another layer of amusement. Deep, belly laugh funny. Yeah, I’d be rolling around on the floor right now, if I weren’t so dang dignified.
Posted by Haltse on December 30, 2007 – 12:47 pm
His poopiness the hole has decided to take on the forces of darkness and evil. Excellent! Not only will he be doing good and valuable work but he’s doing so in an environmentally sound manner.
After all he won’t have to travel too far to get started.
A phrase comes to mind about a fox guarding the chickens but I’m sure that’s unfair and suggests that people that have been proven in court to expose children to known abuse and that allowed those accused sanctuary would not be the best people to root out evil. And why? because G_d tells them to. I am glad that I don’t need a book to tell me that abusing children is wrong but for those that need help I suppose a large hat, a dress and a ratlike countenance ( ad Popium attack) is just the kind of motivation needed.
Pope’s exorcist squads will wage war on Satan | the Daily Mail
Vatican chiefs are concerned at what they see as an increased interest in the occult.
They have introduced courses for priests to combat what they call the most extreme form of “Godlessness.”
