Religulous

Any chance they'll show this movie here?



I'm not holding my breath, but I hope they do. :)

The System

Here's an excellent show by Derren Brown showing us how we can easily be fooled into thinking that the impossible is possible.

He shows us that seeing is not always believing, and that personal experience is severely limited and cannot be extrapolated over a large number of people.

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4


Part 5


Part 6

The importance of critical thinking

Yesterday I got a text message and it reads like this:

U.S. GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY PREDICTS A 6.8 MAGNITUDE EARTHQUAKE WILL HIT PHILIPPINE PLATES TONIGHT. PLEASE BE CALM AND ALERT. This text message comes from Hawaii State Emergency Preparedness Office. Pls pass (no harm in being prepared). pls pray

Now I'm pretty sure many people were scared (and rightly so) and passed it onto family and friends. But is there really any merit to it? This is where critical thinking helps. Here's are some of the red flags raised by this bogus message:

1.) There's no such thing as U.S. Geological Society. There's the U.S. Geological Survey, and they certainly don't make any specific predictions.

2.) There's no such thing as the Hawaii State Emergency Preparedness Office.

3.) There is no technology that accurately predicts earthquakes. The fact that this states a specific time (last night) and a specific magnitude (6.8) should also raise a red flag.

It irks me that there are people who are willing to create a panic and spread fear for a cheap laugh. True, there is no harm in being prepared, but there is plenty of potential harm in creating a panic.

It takes religion

I am stunned at this. What does it take to be able to do something so horrific?

For Abdel-Qader Ali there is only one regret: that he did not kill his daughter at birth. 'If I had realised then what she would become, I would have killed her the instant her mother delivered her,' he said with no trace of remorse.

Wow! And what crime did his daughter commit?

Two weeks after The Observer revealed the shocking story of Rand Abdel-Qader, 17, murdered because of her infatuation with a British soldier in Basra, southern Iraq, her father is defiant.

For an INFATUATION with a British soldier???? What's even worse, the brothers helped kill their sister! Having a daughter myself, I cannot imagine wanting to kill my own. Even if god was real, I would rather defy him than kill my own daughter just because he says so, because any god that imposes such barbaric rules is evil himself, and deserves to be rejected.

What's worse is that even though he was arrested, he was released after two hours, and the police actually CONGRATULATED him! Is this the kind of sick and twisted society that a "religion of peace" brings?

One thing's for sure, there won't be any Muslims rioting in the streets in protest of this horrendous and evil act. If a child dies because of ridiculous beliefs happens to a Christian family, you'd certainly see the backlash from other Christians...

...or would you?

The Pope with a rap sheet?

Someone just filed criminal charges on the Pope.

MANILA, Philippines -- A lawyer filed on Tuesday a criminal complaint before the Manila prosecutor's office accusing Pope Benedict XVI and Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales of human rights violations, including alleged disturbance of public order, swindling and teaching immoral doctrines.

Elly Pamatong claimed the Pope and Rosales "have been arrogantly, oppressively and offensively mounting loudspeakers on church rooftops, towers, belfries and trees that are blaring with monotonous false dogmas and doctrines."

"They have been disturbing the peace and quiet of non-Catholics throughout the country," he said in his complaint.

Among others things, Pamatong wants the court to rule that those who will not respect the rights of non-Catholics to live in peace "be deported to the Vatican and forever barred from entering the country."

However, I don't know if this is the same Ely Pamatong as the infamous Spike Boy, who wreaked havoc on EDSA last June 2004. If he's one and the same, he has no right to complain about "disturbing the peace". Can't say I don't agree with him on the "monotonous false dogmas and doctrines" thing, though.

"Science leads to killing people" - Ben Stein

What a sorry excuse for a human being. Ben Stein = BS.

Hypocrisy rears it's ugly head again

From an article in the Inquirer:

“For an official of the Roman Catholic Church, the commission of a homosexual act is the real issue behind the rectal surgery in Cebu City that exploded into a scandal on YouTube.

Msgr. Achilles Dakay, spokesperson of the Archdiocese of Cebu, Wednesday said the doctors and nurses who had made fun of an anesthetized male patient in the operation room of the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) and uploaded a video of the surgery on YouTube should not be blamed solely for the scandal.

“We are asking everyone not to forget or to bypass the main issue: the wrong act of a guy with another man,” Dakay said in an interview over the Church-run Radio Veritas. “People are not talking about what happened before the operation—the homosexual act that was done very badly.”

A homosexual act done badly? I suppose a priest would know how to do it correctly. Their kind have had plenty of experience with little boys.

Mr. Dakay (I won't call you monsignor because it means nothing to me), that is not the real issue here. Granted, what the patient did was disturbing to say the least, and allowing someone to shove something up your ass is pretty stupid, but THAT'S NOT THE REAL ISSUE HERE. The issue was that the doctors disrespected the privacy rights of the patient. Does it matter that it was the result of a homosexual act? If he was the victim of a car crash, would it then be acceptable to upload the video on Youtube?

Mr. Dakay, I would suggest you focus your energies on what goes on behind the curtains in your own organization. You'll find plenty to be disappointed about there.