Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Free Speech

Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s autobiography Infidel is a very powerful book. Her life and experiences as a young Muslim woman and later move towards atheism is inspirational and disturbing in equal measure. I would recommend this book to anyone as it gives a unique insight into the mindset of the Somali people, tied or opposed to each other by clan affiliation as well as religious and political ideologies. Every chapter is scary and revealing, with women suffering under strict social conventions all drawn from religious justifications and yet an inspirational story when seen as a personal liberation from that oppressive life. The only problem I had with the book, however,  was dealing with how angry and frustrated I got whenever I sat down to read it. Not wanting to give away too much, the book is an autobiography leading up to Ayaans eventual entry into politics and political office. From there she fights and speaks out against the injustices of Islam, particularly those visited upon the women in refugee communities in the Netherlands. The book opens with an account of the murder of her colleague, Theo Van Gogh, by a zealous Muslim in response to him releasing a film with her that criticised Islam. The account of the fallout of that film is genuinely scary and Theo’s death is only the beginning. What this story represents to me is how important free speech is to society and how much of a threat Islam represents to that right.

As I read, I saw parallels with the Dutch culture of Ayaan’s book and the current climate here in Ireland. We are becoming a more and more multicultural island every day and with that, cultures and practices from all over the world are being introduced to Irish society. I welcome this completely and think it’s an exposure that Ireland has been too long without. The risk for us is only that we don’t do enough to support this integration and that a sense of alienation might fester and force minority groups to associate only within their own culture. This is a situation which can lead to a lot of social unrest and at the minimum can prevent a means of dialogue between cultural groups. Last year there was a march on O’Connell street in Dublin in opposition to blasphemous material on YouTube  It was a call for the suppression of ideas and it was, as is usually the case, driven by religious justification. We already have a widely mocked blasphemy law in this country and despite its lack of enforcement we don’t need to be fighting this battle on yet another ground. The cultural isolation of groups who support the protest will only make it harder for us to convince them and oppose their efforts. Then there is the matter of us being able to prevent injustices within those societies especially when it comes to the rights of women, homosexuals and just people with sense enough to see that their faith is drawn from the plagarised rantings of a man who most likely just had epileptic fits in the desert and who we now can’t draw pictures of.

I would bet money that a lot of people will argue that these immigrants are entitled to continue the traditions of their homelands and I definitely agree. I think certainly as much effort should be spent introducing us to their customs as is spent acclimatising them to ours.  However, this can only happen when people understand that  those traditions can’t impose on the principles of the country they are now living in. I’m sure that some people will accuse me of Islamaphobia also, which when googled will return the definition ‘Irrational fear of all Muslims’ but that is not the case. The truth is I am afraid of Islam itself and with good reason. I am afraid, because even Islam’s claimed message of peace is delivered at a knife end. Accept us as peaceful and benevolent, or else. I also fear the capitulation of governments and the accommodation of Islam beliefs within our societies especially with regard to the barbaric Sharia Law. Respecting a religion’s right to be practiced and deciding when that practice infringes on the rights of the individual is dangerous political ground but nonetheless the decision is obvious. My opinion on the rights of women or the legitimacy of homosexual lifestyles for example should have no impact on how they are treated with respect to everyone else and no one should be allowed to step outside the law and impose their own judgements on others. We must fight for everyone’s rights to be exactly the same as our own. Despite it being obviously morally wrong, to do otherwise would be to invite infringement on my own rights by setting a precedent whereby this is seen as acceptable. The right to religion and religious expression and the right to freedom of opinion and free speech are one and the same.  They should be fought for equally but never at the expense of the other.

It’s important to note that I know that not all and in fact the majority of Muslims are opposed to Sharia with respect to the more extreme practices but they give support to those who do follow them by saying that Islam is the truth and is the final revelation.  In a world where tolerance for other religious ideologies is regularly called for, you only have to look to the recent case (here:  http://www.independent.ie/world-news/asia-pacific/teenage-rape-victim-sentenced-to-100-lashes-in-maldives-29165507.html) of the girl in the Maldives sentenced to one hundred lashes for the crime of engaging in premarital sex to see that tolerance is not always an option and that outright condemnation is needed. The sentencing in this horrible story is made even worse when you find out the sexual act was discovered while she was being questioned by the police about being raped by her stepfather. The stepfather also allegedly killed an infant child that the girl had conceived as a result of the rapes. This is an account from a supposed modern day culture that regularly has visitors from Irish and other Western countries and this is not reflective of the view most people have of the Maldives. Just because it isn’t obvious doesn’t mean it’s not there though and complacency is a crime in itself when it means the suffering of innocent people at the hands of religious zealots, especially when they are the people charged with protecting you.

Whether it’s holidaying in the Maldives or welcoming new peoples to setup lives in Ireland, we have a responsibility. If we live alongside these cultures, by ignoring the injustices they promote or merely being ignorant of them, we lend tacit approval to them. From the shadows these beliefs and practices inevitably rear their ugly heads and we have an obligation, not to react but to preemptively condemn them. The teachings of Islam are in direct opposition to the values of free speech and the rights of the individual, especially the women who are born into these societies. Public awareness and understanding about the religiously driven foundations of these beliefs is the best mechanism by which we can educate ourselves and fight against its influence and the inevitable influence its will demand to have on the basis of equality and religious tolerance. You have the right to hold any belief you choose as long as that belief doesn’t infringe on my rights. For that you need justification outside of a faith and more than a poorly founded understanding of morality drawn from ancient texts. I can criticise you and you can disagree and fight me on it but you cannot hold a knife to my throat and say that me voicing my opinions is justification for that violence. No reasonable and correct view would require that kind of coercion and I won’t respect any that uses it.

Holistic Therapies: Access Bars

This week is Access Bars, which I happen to find at random one day when I first discovered the directory and I was taken aback by how ridiculous it sounded and amazed that it could ever be taken seriously by any thinking person. Access Bars is the brain child of a man named Gary Douglas who can be found on his site grinning back at you with the intellectually secure, knowing look of the ‘guru’.  The website also has the inevitable links to testimonials that always accompany pseudo scientific crap that has either been disproven by scientific testing or is non-falsifiable. These tales, as a lot of skeptics know, unfortunately speak more to people’s daily lives than the cold facts associated with evidence based reasoning and are more convincing as a result. Despite the number of these testimonials and the fact that they come from people probably convinced of their truth, we all know that the plural of anecdote is not evidence.

 

Mr Douglas – humble black and white photo with

a disarming and knowing head tilt? Sign me up!!!

The core concept behind Access bars is the idea that there are “32 points on your head which, when gently touched, effortlessly and easily release anything that doesn’t allow you to receive? These points contain all the thoughts, ideas, beliefs, emotions, and considerations you have stored in any lifetime. This is an opportunity for you to let go of everything!” Activating these bars, it is claimed, will allow energy to flow and open new possibilities for self improvement and the site poses you the question – “As there are Bars for every aspect of your life do you think its possible that you could clear limitations relating to money, healing, body, control, awareness, creativity, communication, hopes and dreams, sadness and joy, aging and money?” (On a personal note, I love the fact that they mention money at the start of the list and at the end of it too. It gives me a warm feeling inside. Also, AGING?) The neurological literature behind these claims is unfortunately not linked to but I would be happy to give it a layman’s look over if somebody can provide it, although I doubt people will consider me cynical if I were to suspect that it doesn’t exist.

Something that concerns me about the majority of sites that are selling the benefits of Access Bars, that I looked at during my research, is that there was a surprising amount of preamble that you had to get through to find out these core beliefs. You are seduced with promises of life affirming changes and great developments using the all too familiar sales pitch of alternative therapies that could easily be whittled down to something similar to “Are you a person? Do bad things happen that you don’t like and want to fix? Have previous attempts at fixing these problems been bad? Well we have the solution”. (NOTE: the previous sentence is to be read in the tone of a QVC shopping channel presenter). The site was one of the more transparent sites I found and it begins on its home page with the promising line “Aren’t you just a little curious what Access is all about?” and (wait for the sarcasm) follows it up with some informative, beautifully constructed and easily intelligible sentences such as “Access consciousness is about empowering you to know what YOU know. So that YOU have the life YOU truly desire. What if you’re the creator of your life? And if you’re the creator, you can change any part of it?”. The details of what ‘Access Bars’ are, however, isn’t addressed on this page so you move on to ‘The Bars’, a section on the site which gives you the lowdown on the 32 Bars and provides you with a helpful graph:

 

Reading more of the details on the site left me scratching my head between the bars for ‘creating life forms’ and ‘money’ (which surprisingly didn’t result in any Leprechauns. Go figure?), and ruminating on a final couple of sentences I read. “At worst you feel like you have just had the best massage of your life. At best your whole life can change into something greater with total ease” and “And if you’re a healer or practitioner of any kind, how excited would your clients be if you were to add this to your list of service?”

The first sentence could apply to a lot of alternative therapies that usually involve a hands on approach (unlike Reiki for instance) but it was the last sentence that I dwelt on most of all. These sites are selling to an audience, not only of prospective customers of ‘Access Consciousness’ but also practitioners who want to add to their repertoire of alternative treatments. AccessBars.ie has a course advertised where you can, for an investment of 160 (80 for repeats), be guided through the first steps of Access consciousness. I can only assume this is 160 euros as it’s not actually stated on the site but it could be space hugs for all I know and I’m reluctant to assume anything when dealing with people so divorced from reality. Likewise the access consciousness site itself has a page () with details on how to become an access facilitator for the currency specific amount of $100 which is to be paid on an annual basis so that you can keep your ‘license’. Access facilitators appear, at least from my interpretation, to be a self regulated group. I suppose doing essentially nothing, for money, could hardly be seen as harmful outside of the financial costs incurred by the credulous but it is this approach that lends a false legitimacy to innumerable forms of quackery and helps them to present themselves as something other than fantasy bullshit. Access Bars appears to just be another form of magical thinking that if believed by its proponents has no real effect outside of head massage. For those practitioners who don’t believe in its claims, it is just a well packaged, self regulating school of crap that you can practice with all the bells and whistles of accreditation for an annual fee and a suppression of your moral instincts.

My New Project: The Irish Holistic Directory

My Blog posts have fallen off as of recently and I think the main reason is that I don’t have a project to tackle. In my previous posts I have taken a look at some of the pet peeves, like my annoyance at  gurus like Eckhart Tolle or frauds like Sally Morgan, that I have and  tried to stay topical but I don’t think that’s really what people are interested in. So I came up with a solution. I am going to try and pick apart the Directory for Holistic Practitioners and the therapies they have up on their site. Here is the list as it appeared on their site at the time of this post:

5 Rhythms Dancing	Abundance
Access Bars	Accredited Supervisor
ACT (Acceptance and CommittTherapy)	Active Birth
Acupressure	Acupuncture
Acupuncture Supplies	Addiction Counselling
Alexander Technique	Allergy Testing
Amatsu	Angel Card Reading
Angel Healing	Angel Readings
Angel Shop	Angel Workshops
Animal Healing	Animal Kinesiology
Aromatherapy	Aromatherapy and Healing Massage
Art Therapy	Artists Way Workshops
Assertiveness Training	Astrology
Aura Imagery	Aura Photography
Aura Soma	Autogenic Training
Ayurveda	Baby Massage1
Baby Sign Language	Bach Flower and Bush Remedies
Beauty Therapy	Bi-aura
Bio-Energy/Healing	Biodynamic Massage
Biodynamic Psychotherapy	Biofeedback1
Body Harmony1	BodyTalk System
Bootcamp classes	Bowen Technique
Brainwave Optimization	Brennan Healing Science
Bush Flower Essences	Career Evaluation
CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy)	Chakras
Chi Kung	Chiropractic
Coaching	Colonic Irrigation
Cosmetic Acupuncture	Counselling
Cranio-sacral	Creative Dance
Crystals	Cupping
Cutting the Ties	Dance
Dance Movement Therapy	Deep Tissue Massage
Divining	Divining for Water
Dorn Method	Dowsing
Dream Interpretation	Dry Needling
Ear Candling	EFT Emotional Freedom Technique
EMDR	Emotrance
Energy Healing	Energy Pschology
Enneagram	Equine kinesiology
Equine Touch for Horses	Feldenkrais Method
Feng Shui	Fertility Treatment
Food Intolerance Testing	Geopathic Stress
Gestalt	Gift Vouchers
Hair Mineral Analysis	Hawaiian Lomi Lomi Massage
Healing	Healing Massage
Healthfood	Heavy Metal Detoxification
Herbalist	Holistic Law
Holistic Massage	Holistic Pet Products
Home Birth	Homeopathy
Hot Stone Massage	Human Givens Therapy
Human Infrastructure Healing	Hypno-Band Weight Loss System
HypnoBirthing	Hypnosis
Hypnosis for Birth	Hypnotherapy
Indian Head Massage	Infant Massage
Integrated Energy Therapy (IET)	Iridology
Kinesiology	Laser Therapy
Laser Weight loss	Law of Attraction
Life Coaching	Lomi Lomi Hawaian massage
Louise Hay	Loving Relationships Training (LRT)
Magnified Healing	Manual Lymphatic Drainage
Martial Arts	Massage Therapy
Medical Doctor	Meditation
Medium	META-Medicine
Metamorphic Technique	Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction
Mindfulness Meditation	Moxibustion
Naturopathy	NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming)
Numerology	Nutrition
Osteopathy	Pain Management
Palmistry	Panic Attacks
Parenting	Past Life Regression
Personal Fitness	Personal Training
Physical Therapy	Physiotherapy
Phytobiophysics	Phytotherapy
Pilates	Play Therapy
Polarity Therapy	Pranic Healing
Pregnancy Massage	Prenatal Pilates
Prenatal Yoga	Primal Integration
Primal Integration Facilitation	Psych K
PSYCH K facilitator	Psychic
Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy	Psychologist
Psychotherapy	Qi gong
Quantum Touch	Raynors Massage
Rebirthing	Reconnective Healing
Reflexology	Regression Therapy
Reiki	Retreats
Rolfing	Scenar Therapy
Seichem	Sexuality Issues
Shamanism	Shen
Shiatsu	Smoking Cessation
Soul Retrieval	Sound Therapy
Spiritual Healing	Sports Massage
Stop Smoking	Stress Management
Structural Integration	Swedish Massage
Tai Chi	Tantra
Tapas Acupressure	Tarot
Thai Massage	Thai Yoga Massage
The Secret	Theta Healing
Thought Field Therapy (TFT)	Time Line Therapy
Touch For Health	Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)
Transference healing	Transpersonal Psychotherapy
Tui Na Massage (Chinese Massage)	Unconditional Energy VibratiWorkshop
Weight Loss	Weight Management
Workshops	Yoga
Yoga Therapy	Zero Balancing
Zumba

 

 

Yes, I know it’s a LOT of bollox to put up on one site and a lots of these ‘therapies’ will probably be loafed together rather than given a whole post but I think I can eventually get through it. The idea is that I, and hopefully you, get a better understanding of the some of the crap that’s being peddled right under our noses that mightn’t get the attention that Homeopathy or Reiki get and believe me, even a brief glance at some of the magic potions on offer shows you there is no shortage of magical nonsense to throw your money at.

The plan is for a post every week tackling one or more of the therapies and each one will be chosen at random until I get through the list. I have started with Access Bars as my first post and I will post it by the end of this week. (Believe me, it’s a doosie). Any comments or feedback would be really appreciated and I mean on the posts themselves or on whether you think this is a good idea.

 Note: There are some legitimate therapies here which have the support of scientific assessment/evidence and unlike the majority of the practices they also hold a grain of plausibility too. Weight Loss and Psychotherapy are mentioned in the list and you would be at a loss to find fault in them unless you’re a feeder or a Scientologist respectively. These topics I will only touch on as they have a weight of evidence surrounding them that is hard to contest and the point of this blog is to show the crap out there and unfortunately that’s a big enough task as it stands.

Dr. Spirograph says no to Vaccines

Vaccines save countless lives every year. Whether it is the MMR vaccine, Flu shots or the Polio vaccine, people are afforded immunity to otherwise potentially dangerous diseases. This practise, backed by rigorously tested scientific principles, should really be uncontroversial and you would imagine the obvious benefits would be apparent to all, regardless of cast or creed. This unfortunately is not the case and the objections are coming from many different regions.

In the United States, there is a movement dedicated to ignoring the scientific evidence and raising ill founded concerns about the safety of the vaccine programs. These AntiVaccers are blessed with the convenience of not being subject to the facts around the efficacy and dangers of vaccines and like all well organised true believer organisations, they are usually just ignorant marketing machines. They also usually have one or more public figures that represent their fear mongering pseudoscientific nonsense.  They range from celebrities like Jenny McCarthy who, with no scientific background or training, feels free to bandy about ‘facts’ with no regard  for their truth value; to disgraced doctors like Andrew Wakefield who holds a privileged position in the movement due to his fraudulent and unethical paper and work on the MMR vaccine.

In other countries the problem stems from a very different place. The house of god also apparently takes exception to vaccination in the form of Muslim fundamentalists in countries such as Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan. You may scoff and say that to expect to have healthcare available properly in countries that are suffering through war is unfeasible, but the truth of the matter is that vaccination programs were in place and Polio was essentially on its knees. This program could have eradicated the disease and confined it to the annals of history but this western influence however was seen as a threat by the Muslim fundamentalists who, in their eyes presumably saw a threat to their privileged position of shepherd to their flock, issued fatwas denouncing vaccination. They claimed it was an American plot to impede the will of allah and that it was a means of covertly sterilising the population. Fear tactics were also employed to scare away those administrating the vaccine and this was the catalyst for Polio resurgence in those areas and its liberation from the influence of those trying to remove it.

Both of these influences, you could speculate, are driven by a similar desire but in very different ways. That drive is the need for power and influence. The desire not to be displaced from a position of influence might explain the religious objections while a need on the part of those like Jenny McCarthy to absolve whatever undeserved guilt may come about from having a child stricken by a developmental disorder like autism is a way to reassert a similar kind of influence. I imagine that at the root of the agenda of those like Jenny McCarthy there is a genuine belief that her cause is just and righteous but her approach genuinely leads to death and suffering that could easily be avoided. To be so passionate about the topic may speak to her desire to do justice for her son but it’s irresponsible to do it from a perspective of ignorance. The other side of the Jenny McCarthy story is the mechanisms by which she sells her position. She regularly invokes her ‘Mommy Instinct’ as though this gave her a privileged position that allowed her to circumvent all the scientific evidence that stands against her. This emotionally provocative tactic is unfair to the science and those being manipulated by its misinterpretation and dismissal.

These well funded Anti-Vac groups are selling the false claims in the shape of sophisticated arguments that create false controversies very similar to those put forward by creationists and their ilk. The main campaign which was spearheaded by Jenny McCarthy and her equally deluded partner in crime Jim Carrey was the one for ‘Green Our Vaccines’. This admittedly brilliantly word campaign is designed to illicit fear using the naturalist language that is so often bandied about to give an impression of a communion with mother nature which is rarely a view held with regard to the pharmaceutical industry. Claims of mercury poisoning from the preservative thimerosal were given as reasons for the alleged outbreaks of vaccine related autism and after sufficient pressure it was removed from the majority of vaccines. This was the first major claim and it lent itself to scientific scrutiny because if it were the cause of the autism incidents then its removal should coincide with a sharp drop off in the diagnosis rates of vaccinated children. This was put to most advocates for thimerosal’s removal and they all mostly agreed that this drop would be found. The drop never happened however and unsurprisingly this had no effect on the AntiVaccers who merely made the highly improbable claim that the benefits seen from the removal of the mercury preservative was perfectly counteracted by other toxins in the vaccines which had a similar effect. This is the logic employed by these people and this is the irrational approach that we have to fight against. Evidence isn’t something to be considered instead it’s just a resource from which they can cherry pick the data that they can sufficiently misinterpret to bolster their bullshit claims.

One of their other provocative claims is that there is a right for the individual to abstain from the vaccines that are mandated by governments and that to prevent people from opting out is an infringement on individual rights. This argument holds sway especially amongst Americans, with the concept of freedom being so integrated into their vernacular. The argument is remarkably short-sighted, however, as it ignores, once again, the science. The function of vaccines is not only to prevent the infection of those receiving the vaccine but to also to prevent the infection of people who, for some reason or other, cannot be vaccinated. The immune-compromised rely on the vast majority of those around them being free from dangerous diseases that they themselves are ill equipped to deal with. Herd immunity, where a group is statistically immune to a disease to the point where it is unlikely to spread successfully, is dependent on 9 out of 10 individuals in that group being vaccinated. This gives those most vulnerable members of the group the opportunity to avoid risks that they would be otherwise susceptible to. This is why in areas around the world where vaccine programs are being undermined there are outbreaks and subsequent deaths happening with alarming regularity. The argument that you child should be free from vaccines with which you don’t agree, doesn’t only have implications for your child, and as a result the laws surrounding immunisation need to reflect that.

Post Vaccines Ergo Propter Vaccines

The whole issue of vaccines and autism recently attracted fresh attention when Donald Trump, on the Fox News channel, came out against vaccines with what was essentially an anecdote about a friend of his which was completely divorced from the scientific facts around vaccines. He claims that he is not ‘anti-vaccination’, but then goes on to betray his ignorance on the subject he is about to publicly undermine. Firstly, he alludes to the increase in autism diagnoses that have persisted in the last ten years, and commits the ‘post hoc ergo propter hoc’ (after this therefore because of this) logical fallacy to say that this is related to increases in the vaccine schedule. His nostalgia tinted view on the good old days when doctors just tossed your hair playfully and sent you on your way with a lolly pop so he and your father could share a pipe and mid afternoon brandy, ignores the fact that there are no ties between these changes. Autism rates are increasing because of the change of criteria for diagnosis and the vaccine schedule has no effect on this. This is a difficult point to accept, admittedly, for any parent dealing with autism who wishes to find reasons behind their circumstances, but it’s tantamount to saying that ice cream and drowning are causally linked even though you are ignoring the fact that ice cream sales and swimming both go up in summer time. This is the kind of reasoning that reminds me of the crazy scientist in the old building who says to Bart in an episode of the Simpsons “Wait: did you know that there’s a direct correlation between the decline of Spirograph and the rise in gang activity? Think about it”. As with Dr Spirograph this needs to be treated in the same way, dismissal. Being a victim of your own stupidity is one thing but keep your misconceptions to yourself, preferably locked away in an abandoned factory like Dr Spirograph.

 Bart visiting Dr. Spirograph or Jenny McCarthy, I’m not sure.

The main problem I have is with the media handling of this and the fact that Donald Trump, Jenny McCarthy, and other Dr Spirographs are given equal time to spout their nonsense. This false balance added to the fact that it’s broadcast on a ‘news’ network as powerful as Fox’s creates the false impression that there actually is a controversy. The video I watched of Trump (http://bit.ly/HHsw1Q) has streams of supportive messages for his stand against the dangers posed by ‘Big Pharma’ and its child killing drive for profits at any cost. The informed and scientifically literate do arrive to save the day and do a great job of lining out the facts and figures in a reasonable way. The problem doesn’t lie however in there being no answers to these questions but more in the fact that we have a culture that respects the anecdotal opinion of celebrities more than scientific consensus and furthermore we have a global mainstream media that exploits this to bolster ratings and drive controversy for cheap ratings and to give an impression of standing up for the little man. Unless this is tackled, diseases that have been of late exclusively confined to history books will re-emerge, and the fallout will be the death and suffering of innocent people. At the minute, we could be compared to the fervent pen of Dr Spirograph. We are mostly turning in circles and getting nowhere and in the end all we end up with is a pretty picture for Fox to pin to the fridge.

Religious Discourse

I have been remiss in my blogging duties as of late but there is nothing like anger to fuel the inspirational juices and what better platform by which to be exposed to the disgusting religious ideologies that tend to bring it out in me, than Twitter. Twitter provides a forum for discussion with all extremes of religious viewpoints, from the demonstrably evil and ill informed to the moderate and self congratulatory whining of those willing to accept the ‘difference of opinion’ with regard to faith, while they simultaneously lend credibility to the views of the extremists. In fairness, once you give a pass to just one of the ridiculously childish, narcissistic or downright evil views held by all of the major faiths, you will be forced to give credence to the more extreme views, purely because they possess just as much truth value as the rest, and by that I mean NONE.

Two arguments are generally had when you engage the faithful on Twitter. The first is the argument surrounding the plausibility of the god hypothesis and it is the initial catalyst to conversations in most cases, at least for me, and yet it is rarely the common theme throughout. Inevitably you are faced with some abhorrent and self-righteous viewpoint that burrows its way into the dialogue. An initial courteous exchange of proofs and their dismissals is taken upon by both parties where a veneer of respect for the opposing position is held up to afford enough time for you to point out the legitimacy of your position and the lack of legitimacy behind theirs. Simple right! Fuck no! The acceptance, by your opponent, of the points you make such as the fallacy of the prime mover argument and the circular logic of inferring the truth claims of the bible because the bible itself says that is always right (It is called ‘gospel’ for a reason you know), are progress you tell yourself. “I am getting through to at least ‘some’ degree”, you mutter to yourself as your enthusiasm for the debate increases. Then after a while you have a point in the conversation where they need to make the concession that faith is the only position they can legitimately hold. This has to happen by the way. From an evidence based position, they don’t have a leg to stand on and you know it, but do they? Of course not, and now is where you can see the conversation and work you put in, unravel in front of your eyes. They will suddenly start bringing back up points that you spent a lot of time deconstructing and that they have previously conceded to. They will highlight perfectly that any and all concession were made to provide them time to find a point you can’t deconstruct and in that gap they can assert god and move one. This, in most cases, leads to a certain level of frustration on the part of the Atheistic debater and may lead to obscenities, which then also leads to the inevitable accusations of irrationality and zeal from the right honourable gentleman that you have been debating.

The second type of conversation is the more initially offensive debate, usually in response to an outrageous fundamentalist’s tweet about the sin of homosexuality or contraception. You know, the kind of small minded vitriol spouted by members of the Phelps family or some similarly deluded piece of shit. In these cases your initial disgust is usually mirrored by the majority of people on twitter and I include the religious in that group. Most moderate theists are as disgusted by that crap as anybody else and they join in with the condemnation. The initial outrage then usually subsides and turns to ridicule and humour usually because you know debate isn’t on the agenda and most people just revert to dismissing their vile crap out of hand and get back to making bad jokes and tweeting about their lunch. Even though these views are way more disgusting than anything put forward by the majority of moderate believers, it ultimately annoys me less because at least its glaringly obvious what position is being taken by the human stain that’s putting it forward. With the believers in scenario one there is a false impression of intellectual inquiry and integrity that is consistently not met. The fact that it cannot reach this goal is not necessarily the fault of the believer but of the belief itself. Religion is not a matter of fact or science. It can attempt to answer questions in these fields if its proponents want to but it deserves no special treatment when it does. Its sciences’ house so you play by sciences’ rules.

The difference in outcomes of these two approaches on the part of believers is very important in my opinion because it gets to the root of what I disrespect most about the religious discourse in countries all over the world.  The type of person that engages in conversations of ‘type one’ kind are those who believe that religion has a position outside of personal belief. They are the foundation from which campaign are built that have effects in real world circumstances and social policies of governments. Religious claims are, as I said, not scientific and they are not based in any way on the real world around us. Because of this they have a position that should be exclusive to the individual and should be restricted in influence to the churches, mosques and synagogues of their respective faiths. Religion should stop butting its nose into the lives of others and demanding special privileges as it does it. People who stop asking questions about the most important issues, the religious, should have the right to preach their views and expose their ignorance for all to see and then be relegated to the white noise that can be blocked out while the grown-ups talk. Censorship is not what I’m calling for. In fact I am insisting that, as individuals, they have the right to very explicitly express their views on abortion, marriage, homosexuality and whatever theme of the day arises. When they put forward a salient point that’s not driven by the insistence that the creator of the universe told them, then we should listen to it. When they spout scripture after getting that nagging uncomfortable/intolerant feeling when they see two boys holding hands etc, we should tell them where to go (I’m trying to temper my language a bit here). As an organisation they, however, deserve no platform for opinion. Just because in most civilised discourse, your views are met with tolerance and only, as Sam Harris puts it, ill-concealed laughter on the part of those with rational views, doesn’t mean that those views should be granted rights outside of that conversation. Enjoy your tax exempt status and your reassuring sense of communion with a higher power who passes judgement on your thoughts and actions constantly. Just leave us out of it.

I realise there are those who will read this who will object to my opinions on the place of religion in modern culture and claim that I am intolerant and that my atheism is just as fundamentalist as the extreme religious. The truth is that for every argument you put forward for tolerance because of your ‘broader cultural viewpoint’, I think to myself BOLLOX. Stop lending legitimacy to the extremist, albeit fringe, contingent of these faiths. I’m tired of being labelled strident and ‘fundamentalist’ when arguing against religion when the only fundamentals I hold as an Atheist are regarding morality and fairness and the rights of the individual to be informed and treated correctly outside the authoritarian demands of the deluded faithful. The other charge against me may be that I am taking the example of Twitter too far and that it doesn’t reflect the way the religion interacts in the majority of cases. Well, living in a country that opposes gay marriage, the rights for women to fully control their bodies and which only recently came about to the idea of divorce, I can comfortably again, cry bollox. Religion affects and infects all of society with its assumed moral high ground and its archaic and inflexible world view. A great example of this was the debate on Frontline, an Irish television current affairs program where the topic of secular education and freedom from religious persecution was discussed recently. The religious argument was unashamedly an argument that special treatment should be afforded to the majority of Irish citizens who believe in a Christian god at the expense of the minority who either believe one of the other major religion or have the good sense to see through the childish reasoning of the past. I know the debate will go on and unfortunately it will most likely be a ‘type one’ conversation, with the secular approach being labelled intolerant and inherently designed to persecute the faithful while the religious side will push their faith based view into every aspect of life that they can warp it to fit. Religion will hide behind its all too commonly unquestioned public image and continue to influence and distort the issues it has no right to affect. Whether it’s the strident approach taken by the dress wearing, child abuse concealing, aids denying bastards in places like the Vatican or whether it’s the cap in hand, eyes to the floor while twisting your foot around on its toes, unassuming priest on the school board, they will make a case for special privilege and people will give it to them. The stage is set for a long debate and a serious change in public mindset that can’t be driven by circumstances like the child abuse scandals or actions of individuals in the religious organisation. To do that would lead only to discussions about those individuals and not the institutions that harbour or possibly create them. We need instead to change the mindset of the legitimacy of where religion should sit and where it should be hushed into a humble and appropriate silence. As much as ‘type one’ conversations annoy me and as rarely as they have an effect, they must be had and had and had until the message becomes clear to all or until it’s at least heard by the undecided and unaffected by indoctrination of childhood religion. I expect to be a bald and probably very frustrated man in the future. Hopefully the frustration will be with the minority and not the majority that exists today.

 

Note: I am aware that my use of the comma is quite liberal and not always correct. I will be buying an issue of Eats, Shoots and Leaves (weird, I nearly wrote ‘Of Pandas and People’ instead) in an attempt to fix this. Also, please excuse if the above rant was a little disjointed. I wanted to get it out quickly as its been a while and anger sometimes effects the clarity of my message too.

Paying the Tolle on the road to ‘Now’

This is the fourth instalment of my weekly, well almost weekly, blog on Skepticism/Atheism/Science. This week I have the subject of a spiritual guru, although he prefers not to be called that, in the form of Eckhart Tolle. Our buddy Eckhart is one of the leading spiritual authors around and a firm favourite of, if book sales are to be trusted, tens of thousands of people. He preaches, if that’s a suitable description, a kind of “live for the now” philosophy which I find disturbingly similar to a “take no thought for the morrow” approach of a slightly better know Jewish carpenter. Proponents of Tolle’s approach say that he is a guiding light and inspiration to them and that his philosophy of appreciating the now is a true key to happiness. Critics would be more along the lines of saying that his pointless rambling, works only to confuse and disorientate the reading into assuming there is actually more being said than we can hear. Well, maybe that’s just my opinion, but with vacuous statements like “stillness is the only thing in the world that has no form”, I’m just happy that my previous sentence was typed without my bullshit induced, keyboard tourettes kicking in.

Tolle has, to date, at least according to Wikipedia, released seven books, five DVDs and hosted an online seminar. The main message of these works is to convey the idea that the Now is what is important and that dwelling on the past or future only serves to prevent happiness and improperly guide our decisions. This in itself is a fairly noble and possibly  partially correct ideal, in principle, that I think should be at least considered by most people at some point. This, however, is not where Tolle stops with this broad analysis. Oh no, no! You don’t fill seven books and five DVDs unless you are a talker and our buddy Eckhart is an expert at speaking at length while managing to say sweet fuck all. Let’s take some examples shall we so we can get a proper appreciation for his message?

I mentioned above, the quote about stillness being the only thing in this world that has no form. This quote has a similar relationship with a meaning, as stillness claims to have with form, and by that I mean it lacks one. This quote is what Daniel Dennett might refer to as a deepity. An example of a deepity would be the phrase “Love is only a word”. On the one hand, this statement is true but lacks any fucking meaning whatsoever. Love is a word and so fucking what. On the other hand, it’s deep while being completely incorrect. Love is much more than a word in this case, it is about dedication and sacrifice and a desire to help make someone else’s life better, occasionally, at your own expense. I’m fairly sure I’m selling love short here but you get my meaning nonetheless. Eckhart’s stillness quote is the same in that it only ventures into the realm of depth when it becomes untrue. Even when depth is granted to it, the statement is dependent on appreciating the sentiment rather than listening to its content. The full quote is –

stillness is the only thing in the world that has no form. But then, it is not really a thing, and it is not of this world.

Way to be specific Ecky (my new nickname for him) and not leave any room for interpretation. The vagueness of the statement and lack of any point whatsoever serves to insulate it from criticism. If you are saying nothing, then what is there to criticise? The only truly revolutionary thing going on here is strangely related to physics. It is, by all conventional wisdom in the physics world, impossible to destroy information, yet Eckhart Tolle seems to be doing the closest approximation to it when he speaks. I can almost feel the anarchy take hold of my mind and the information disappearing, never to be retrieved again.

Watching Tolle’s videos is a similar experience. You get the distinct impression that there are many words missing from each of his sentences and you are left unsure as to whether this is intentionally done to create effect or not. Eckhart utters sentences like –

Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.

This appears intentionally vague and misleading. His confident leaning and flippant laugh seem to be tailored to provide misdirection and to invoke doubt in the mind of the listener in the event that they choose to dismiss his teachings too quickly. This leads to people like me straining to maintain an objective view on what he is saying and waiting for the message to become clear or even show any signs of existing at all. Remaining open minded is only a virtue up to a certain point; when that point is reached, then you are obliged out of self respect to cry “Bollox”! This is a common topic in alternative philosophies and something skeptics will regularly have thrown back at them when expressing criticism. Cries of an intolerant mind, bound by the overly rigourous constraints of modern thinking and the scientific dismissal of the transcendental, can be heard from the herd if you will excuse the use of homophones so closely placed in a sentence. All this ambiguity has a solution however, because help is at hand. Those missing words, that are so glaringly absent and that could turn what seems like a bunch of circular, nonsensical shit into a meaningful message are all apparently stored in his numerous books. Books on how to “Live in the Now” and become ‘insert vague, non-descript bullshit here’. It has to be pointed out that for a guy who describes his philosophy as being incredibly simple, he sure has a hard fucking time describing it and a constant stream of books would lend credence to the notion that maybe, just maybe, he doesn’t have a fucking clue.

Moving on, I look for another pearl of wisdom and after a quick search about Eckhart on Google, I come across one of his many YouTube videos. From one of these gems of insight, I get this direct quote (grammar might be a little changed due to his liberal association with proper sentence structure):.

            Instead of going through life and reacting to the content that arises in your life, continuously new things, thoughts, emotions, external events, people, places, the scenery around you changes continuously, that’s all content. Instead of reacting to content, the content is allowed to be… and then you are aware of and just being aware of identified with what arises in the now you become aware of the now itself, beyond the phenomena that arise in it. That is the miracle of transformation of consciousness.

Well, I think we can all agree that nothing more needs to be said on that point. Fairly self explanatory really! In case you missed it however I will add some key behavioural nuances that might be lost in the transcription from video material to written quote. Here is the actual quote –

            Instead of going through life and reacting to the content (pause to allow people to absorb) that arises in your life,(run on sentence so you don’t dwell too long on what is or is not being said) continuously new things, thoughts, emotions, external events, people, places, the scenery around you changes continuously, that’s all content (still said nothing but he’s smiling as though you as an audience member should be nodding in agreement and realisation). Instead of reacting to content, the content is allowed to be (btw, this is not him saying that content is allowed to exist, it’s him not finishing his fucking sentence, honestly check it out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW6-iD713No&feature=related )… and then you are aware of and just being aware of identified with what arises in the now you become aware of the now itself (smile as though you have actually made a fucking point), beyond the phenomena that arise in it (a sound of popping coming from the exploding heads of anybody with a skeptical tilt who happens to be listening to him). That is the miracle of transformation of consciousness (close eyes for a couple of seconds to add effect).

Excellent, how about one last final gem of wisdom and see if we can gain as much sense from that as we did from the quote above –

Where does your sense of self come from, the conceptual? The concepts in your mind? Or does it come not from any kind of thought, but from that which is deeper than thought. The stillness, the depths, the presence that you are. And that’s the, that’s the liberation, it’s when the sense of who you are comes out of the presence of… of who you are in essence which is the consciousness that you are… It is no longer of absolute importance what your life situation is. (Eckhart then goes on to describe the “now”).

So the question is, does either of these messages deliver a piercing insight into the pitfalls of the human condition? Are the day to day challenges faced by every one of us now put into perspective, leaving them seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Have we reached, dare I say it, Nirvana? No? Ah well, you can’t say that we didn’t try.

If I am to give my honest impression of Mr Tolle it is this – his teachings are hugely open to interpretation, which although useful when reinterpreted into something positive, don’t actually have any worth in themselves. His lecture or talks are littered with hugely ambiguous sentence structures that trigger suspicion on my part that his transformation to a being of complete contentment was somehow linked to a neurological problem. It is almost as though he has fabricated a persona that looks to exploit the patience we have when talking to people with stroke-like symptoms and our need to simplify the more complicated aspects of our day to day lives. His philosophy could be argued as a way of forcing you to discover your own interpretation, and apply it to your self. If this is the case then it is an expensive and highly suspect approach and one that I am not willing to believe in. It’s true to say that any philosophy when interpreted in a certain way can lead to positive changes in somebody’s life, but it says nothing about the truth of that philosophy but instead only points to the fact that it is sufficiently vague. Rather than giving people the tools to focus the drives and ambitions they have, he tells you “to generate negative fields of trying to find the self”. I don‘t see how confused language like this, which incorporates and exploits scientific misconceptions amongst the general public, can be anything other than a scam, even if it is one that is believed by the messenger himself

I know that I can be condemned by proponents of Tolle’s philosophy for having a closed mind or being unable to appreciate the message he is trying to convey. These people may be right but in my opinion they are bleating after a false prophet who has little of nothing to say. This smug rodent-esque little holy-man (and he is a holy-man in the most pejorative sense of the term) has little or no value to people with real problems. He is the placebo to philosophical thought. Somebody whose teachings act as a mental sugar pill aimed at convincing his listeners that they are witness to a privileged understanding of the universe. It’s the age old promise of knowledge that is exclusively yours, at a price, and entitles you to a unique status, at least in your own mind.

A Skeptic in Paris

My plans for a blog entry this week were supposed to be around an advertisement for a perpetual motion machine that I had seen whilst watching a match earlier in the week. Unfortunately there was a death in my girlfriend’s family and I had to travel to Paris for the week. This by the way is my excuse for the delay in my post. The trip did however bring up a lot of skepticism related topics that ranged from homeopathy, dowsing and my all time favourite subject Religion. When it comes to subjects such as this I think of myself as one of those old water features you see in Japanese movies. The ones where the water drips slowly into a container until finally it reaches the point where it is heavier than the counterweight keeping it in place, and the water spills over. For me, the drip, drip, drip of pseudo-scientific claims and religious observances take their toll in the same way.  The murky waters of woo eventually overcomes the resistant counterweight of tolerance and topples the container. The question is did I manage to prevent that happening whilst doing my utmost to support my girlfriend in her time of need. Well let’s see…..

I knew going away that with a catholic ceremony ahead of me there was going to have to be some lip biting and tolerant nodding on my part. This is usually quite difficult for me as I have an especially low tolerance for religious bullshit at the best of times and the temptation to pipe in with even modest criticism is usually a stepping stone to scenes of me spewing a constant stream of argument at an unsuspecting believer. This tends to be punctuated only by whiskey travelling at the same rate in the other direction with predictable consequences. I have to mention this is also not helped by my limited grasp of the French language. Not only does it result in many things getting lost in translation but the scent of a discussion related to any sort of ‘Woo’ is very seductive when your previous five conversations have revolved around such lofty topics as the weather, me being Irish and how tall I am. (It’s my fault entirely to be fair, I’ve had 6 years of French in school and a girlfriend who teaches French for an addition 6 years and yet I learn nothing). Faced with this religious ceremony I took care to ensure I was respectfully dressed in my best (and only) suit and that my diplomacy dyke, as Tim Minchin would put it, was as strong as it ever was.

The first drips started soon. With the ceremony in French I was insulated from a lot of the language of the mass but my familiarity with the whole ordeal from my time as an altar boy, six years to be exact, left me with a rosetta stone of bullshit with which to decipher what was being said. It was the usual servile crap about the wisdom and beauty of god and how we are merely granted time in this world at his pleasure. The donation basket was bandied around the church with obvious intent. Like religion does best, it was taking advantage of people at their most susceptible. The majority of the people in the room, my girlfriend assured me, were actually Atheists. Some believers I’m sure were there but when we were asked to place our hands on the coffin to pray, everybody complied irrespective of their beliefs. Everybody that is but me! I admit that at first I was going to join in so I wasn’t making a scene but I held back and luckily there was no, discernable, reaction. The next part of this grandiose ceremony had the holy water being passed around with what looked like a metal baby-rattle for us to all douse the coffin with. After my heroic stand (shut up it was) against the last peer pressure ceremony, I reluctantly took the magic stick and sprinkled the magic water on the coffin. Honestly, I just didn’t want to give the impression that I was showing disrespect. I barely knew my girlfriends grandfather but I knew enough about him and what kind of person he was to respect him greatly. Cracks were forming in my respectful facade, however, and eye rolling was becoming an unconscious and all too frequent response. I was far from breaking though and even managed to resist saying something ‘disrespectful’ as the numerous ten euro notes were placed in the collection basket as people left the church.

Onto the short journey home with my girlfriend, her father, her mother and myself in the car ,where a conversation had started between them about a friend of Fanny’s mother. I will qualify this story with a description of Fanny’s mother first. Angel is her name, pronounced On-Gel, and she is, without doubt one of my favourite people. She is a genuine, caring, intelligent and remarkably loving person. She holds beliefs that are completely opposed to me but never condemns me as close-minded or zealous, which is something all too common amongst most true believers. Angel does however hold a lot of superstitious beliefs. She visits a psychic and gives readings herself to people over the phone. This is not with the aim of getting money out of them, I will add, but with the aim to help them. She is also a big proponent of homeopathy which I know can’t be true, never mind just being improbable. For homeopathy to be true, physics and chemistry have a lot of explaining to do. The story of Fanny’s mother friend, you with me?….ok, we’ll call her Suzie for convenience sake, is that Suzie has cancer and a pretty aggressive form of it. The conversation in the car revolved around how it was horrible that Suzie needed to take over 50 pills a day. I sympathised and asked what she was on. (I take methotrexate for Arthritis and knew it was used in some cancer treatment but, honestly, I really just wanted to have something to say). The pills however turned out to be most homeopathic, or in other words, fucking useless. I raised my concerns about this slightly hoping not to rock the boat. No real response! The conversation passed on as the drip, drip, drip continued, albeit quietly, in the background.

Drips continued over the day in the form of references to the afterlife and granddad looking down on us. The kind of thing you can brush off and allow as the day to day approach that a lot of people have. So, dinner done with, and Fanny off to bed after a long day, Alain, Fanny’s father, and I had our usual drink and discussion about life the universe and everything. This is where the cracks really started to show. Now, Alain and I agree on a lot of things and he is a very rational man but occasionally we come across a topic that we both hold firm positions on and things can get heated a little, however when they do, a level of respect always keeps it just below the boil. Further to the drips of the day that lay lingering in the background, there was the addition of a dousing session by Angel using a pendulum and chain to predict to future. Add to that a large quantity of alcohol, consumed by yours truly, and my cup overfloweth.( The dousing  by the way was explained to me as Angel’s body’s intuition, feeding information to her brain which then travelled to her arm and manifested as a circular pendulum motion for yes or a back and forth motion for no. Questioning why she couldn’t just intercept it when it got to the brain was met with no reaction. That comment was a sign that I was already teetering on the verge) Alain and I went on to talk about science and the emergence of society and culture and whether it existed outside of the human species and to what degree. You know, the kind of light and fluffy topics that pepper most nights of drinking. This continued with varying degrees of success due in part to alcohol and in part to the language barrier. So it went on until we reached the topic of homeopathy and vaccines. Now, having listened to a lot on both these arguments I have a fairly good command of the facts. I know the facts of herd immunity and the fabricated controversy over thimerosal that was regularly fuelled by ignorant irresponsible celebrities like Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy until it was eventually removed and shown, as predicted, to have no fucking effect. Because of this information I am particularly susceptible to reaching a, what’s a good way to put this, agitated state. These fuckers are ignorant of what the truth is and they are endangering people because of it. It’s amoral and it’s supported by the TV evangelists like Oprah who preach it to their slavish followers. The same ignorant masses that depend on the opinions of these morons so they can decide what clothes to wear and what books to read. The blood boiled as similar ideas ran through my head and they, unfortunately, came out in my conversation with Alain. He was giving credence to the idea that homeopathy was scientifically invalid but still felt it had a place in medicine because Fanny was always treated by a homeopathic doctor. Pointing out the non-validity of anecdotal evidence and the logical fallacies in his arguments only drove us deeper into our positions. The accumulation of two days of ‘grin and bare it’ led to a proper row with him doubting vaccines and supporting homeopathy, and me, driven by what I considered a justified position, arguing against him and calling into question his morals.

Ok, so that was a bump on the road to being the supportive non-judgement boyfriend, here to help, that I wanted to be. Fortunately, Alain and I are practically impossible to offend. We hold our opinions out of what we at least imagine is a reasoned position and we respect that the other person holds that view for their own reasons, even if we disagree. So things moved on. That was Wednesday and I worked for the next couple of days from their house in Paris and in that time I got into a few discussions on twitter. With twitter, I generally seek out those people who hold opposing views to me. I love debate and more importantly I always want to put myself in the mindset of the person who believes in something that I can’t believe in. The arguments are usually futile to be fair but they do give you a unique insight. On twitter you are occasionally faced with people who will never change their minds about something. This is mostly due to the fact that I generally argue with fundamentalist Christians and there is rarely any place for facts in their philosophy.(I like to say that debating fundamentalists is like playing charades in a straight-jacket, unless the answer is crazy, you don’t stand a chance) It did, however, draw a comparison for me with the discussion with Alain. After days of suppressing my skeptical muscles I was entrenched in that mindset. Not voicing it just made it all the louder in my head. The reason I saw this was because, in our discussion, Alain was not voicing his objection to vaccines in the way that the moron Jenny McCarthy does, he was actually looking at it from a statistical risk perspective. I still think he was wrong but I didn’t see his argument for what it was at the time. I was too determined to vent some of the pent up frustration of the previous two days and because of it I defaulted into what I had read before about this argument. These were positions that Alain knew about but just didn’t agree with. Now, just to be clear, Alain is wrong regardless of the reasons why, so don’t think that I am justifying his position. The point is, that because of my blurred perspective at the time, there was no hope I would ever turn him around to see my position. I wasn’t arguing his points, I was fighting Jenny McCarthy. I was referencing my book of information to dismiss his position without really listening to it and because of that I was as bad as the guys who quote verse to me over twitter. Skepticism and a natural offshoot of that in my opinion, Atheism, are both reliant on reasoned discussion. That’s what this blog is about for me. Learn the arguments and know how to convey them. Don’t memorize the lines but instead learn the subject so you can help other to understand it. There are many paths to the wrong understanding of something and because of that it’s not just one battle of ‘Us against Them’. ‘Them’ is a group of people who believe something that we might see as unreasonable but possibly for very different reasons from each other. Unless those reasons are addressed specifically we will never change minds.

Sally Forth-coming

A week on from my first introductory blog and I’m fairly sure my prediction of readers being restricted to my close family and friends has come true. Still I will persevere and hopefully attain even a modest following. Anyway, on to this week and the decision about what to write has to be dealt with. So far this week I have come across a scam for a perpetual motion device to power your home, an article by Tim Minchin on censorship of his recent appearance on Jonathan Ross’ new show and advertisements for the Sally Morgan’ Psychic show, on in Dublin in the coming months. Where to begin and does it warrant writing a full blog entry about?

Tim Minchin manages to capture the whole JR Show thing himself pretty well as you might expect and you can read that here: http://www.timminchin.com/2011/12/22/im-not-on-the-jonathan-ross-show/. The perpetual motion machine I will actually save for next week because it really is a highly concentrated form of pseudo-scientific bullshit they are peddling. I have to read up if I am to do justice to the lies and deceit being spouted by these rainmakers. What’s more, they use the typical ‘Secret that the big energy companies don’t want you to find out about’ shtick to lure in the painfully ill-informed public. I mean how many times does this need to be shown to people? Haven’t they heard about the first two laws of thermo………..urrghh….mff…..ok!! That’s for next week. For now I will draw my sights on the figure of our seemingly innocuous entertainment psychic Sally Morgan.

To begin I would like to start off by saying that in assessing Sally, I will at least attempt to remain honest through a thin veil of impartiality that hides the contempt that I invariably hold for anybody wishing to speak on behalf of people who can’t speak for themselves. In my opinion, a self interested business woman whose lies, created for her own self serving interests, can only be changed in the mind of the victim by an equally unscrupulous charlatan whose motives, we can only hope, are as altruistic as our Sally’s. (I do also have to mention that there is the possibility, however slight it may be, that she is a genuine person merely trying to help those in need with what she believes is an actual power. Although I couldn’t condemn her for that if she is so deluded, I don’t believe this is the case, I just have to admit to there being a chance) Anyway, on to my impartial review!!

Ok, let’s start off with our Sally’s site. A quick google and you get a nice taste of what’s in store. The second link I find, after the ticketmaster site selling her tickets, is for her site sallymorgan.tv. The first line under the link is the pricing, which really does get to the heart of what she really is about. Let’s not be confused here people, her site shouts, this priceless gift of psychic powers must be charged at a rate of £1.53 at least, lest we cheapen what has been bestowed upon us. Once into her site you are instantly hit with offers for her books and tour events all nicely accompanied with the smile of the unassuming and warm woman we can all trust. I’m not sure yet whether she is intentionally dressing in a comical way or not but I imagine it can only help to allay any fears that this is anything but a regular woman just trying to share the gifts god gave her. (By the way if this seems dripping with angry cynicism, then rest assured it is completely intentional and comes from the heart, he says as the thin veil of impartiality drops limply to the floor). Accompanying Sally on her adventure are many fellow psychics manning the phones to answer your questions and give readings to anybody who requires a meaningful interaction with a lost loved one and who subsequently has the cash to backup this need. The site consists of many plugs of various Sally merchandise you can buy and a helpful blog where Sally can regale you with stories of people fleeced in lands far and wide and of course testimonials, speaking to the validity of Sally’s undoubted power and how she has affected the lives of those around her.

So, how did this lovely lady do when visiting Ireland last you may ask? She is coming back so she must have done something right….right? Well actually it turns out it’s a bit of a mixed bag. Reviews for her show seem to fall one side of the fence or the other but what I see as the most important point is that the reviewers all seem to be people who held some initial faith in our Sally. Who better to ask than them? So what were their major complaints? Let’s take a few examples and examine the reasoning behind their satisfaction with the show or otherwise. I’ll kick off with those who liked it and move down to the ones that give me a little hope in this otherwise bleak scenario. The final review is the kicker and leads to a part of Sally’s story that might not be well known to those of you who live outside Ireland.

The first satisfied customer review of her performance shows that she is definitely an entertaining night out even if you do hold a level of scepticism about whether it’s actually true or not.

“not sure if I believe or not, but hey ho what a show, I loved it…

Favourite moment: when Sally was talking about the man who was there one minute and gone the next, his sister was sitting in front of me.”

The favourite moment however reeks of the broad stroke approach used by most cold readers. In a crowd of two thousand people, the odds of finding a person who knew somebody who died suddenly is going to be overwhelmingly in her favour. In these cases you are spoilt for choice especially if the numerous references in other reviews to the desire people had for readings, irrespective of whether they applied, are true. Example of this is the next review which gave the show a 3 star rating:

her first half of the show was much better because people were willing to let faith take its course if it was meant for u it would happen but in the second half people became desperate for a sign or reading and would put there hands up if Sally said boo! She was accurate a few times but I think people’s desperation to get value for money slowed the show down! I would go again but wouldn’t rush to buy tickets like I did this time.

The wording of the second part of that review is what bothers me the most. ‘She was accurate a few times’ is the type of thing you would imagine would raise alarm bells of ‘it’s not real, it’s not real’ in the back of your mind. The dead are apparently initially restricted to exclusively giving gender and initials up until the point where somebody has said it’s their Great Aunt Gregamira or something similar. From that point the guessing starts and in the mind of the observing believer, accuracy is a reflection of Sally’s success, however any and all inconsistencies or failures end up being put on the person who apparently mistakenly let Sally read them. This is common throughout and regularly in the reviews that award her 3 or more stars, it crops up. Here are a few examples:

4 Stars:

I was in the balcony and could see that numerous people putting there hands up for each new reading but one particular group in the front put their hands up for everything, eventually they railroaded themselves on to a reading, that only half a name applied to them (ryan looking for cath, her name was catherine but didn’t know a ryan, this took 15 mins to get to this fact) it was very dragged out but it was due to the crowd, not sally

3 Stars:

Poor Sally. She really didn’t get a chance. As soon as she mentioned a name A member of the audience would call out and say it was for them. The problem was it rarely was for them. With the result the “message” never got to the intended person. This went on all night. I spoke to a number of people outside and they almost all agreed that it ruined what could have been a good night.

And this 2 star review ends on a very telling note:

First half was definitely better than the Second. Not sure if it was Sally or the audience as in the wrong people standing up etc which wasted a lot of time to find the right person to whom Sally’s messages were aimed. Overall disappointed with the show and undecided as to whether we would attend again. Our friend was very disapointed as the last message may have been for her but as the “house lights had gone down”, Sally wouldn’t finish the message which was frustrating.

I mean, Sally is claiming to be in the position where the dead relative of a person sitting in the audience ahead of her has a message from beyond the grave. A message that this person obviously wanted so much to get on to the audience member, that shuffleboard with Elvis and Newton had to be put on hold, not to mention the daily TV appearance from the dear leader that the deceased all know and love (that might be North Korea, I’ll have to check). Nonetheless, Sally says no!! The lights are off which means the show stops. Stick some more coins in her ass, the bullshit jukebox has stopped. Although the writer of this particular review seems to have been undecided on our Sally, the friend was obviously still victim to the need to believe and more upset by not having been included than deciding whether inclusion was worthwhile.

There is a serious case of cognitive dissonance going on here, he said hoping he was using that term correctly. People are reasoning around the evidence to get to the position they believe in. Facts are merely obstacles to what they ‘know’ is true. I mean 3 stars for somebody who rates the show like this?…

3 stars

Disappointed I didn’t receive a message myself but I don’t think those who did receive a message got much comfort from them, as they were very vague.

I mean COME ON!! The pieces of the puzzle are staring you in the face and when you put them together it spells fraud (to mix metaphors).

Ok, quickly on to one specific negative review found on the site and then the real point about whether our transcendent host for the night is deserving of a full house on her glorious return. The review shows a nice indication of the magic of television and lends some explanation as to why she is able to draw crowds of approximately 2000 people a night.

I was very very disappointed wit the Sally show
I always watched her on tv and she came across
Very sharp and sincere on tv. Her show was nothin like that
She didn’t give many msgs to people and I felt it was
More of a guessing game, I couldn’t believe how different it was
From her tv show, it was a real let down. I would never
Go to see her again nor would I watch her show
And would advise anyone who thinks of going to her
Not to waste their money.

This was found surrounded by the more common one liner reviews along the lines of, she’s a fake, don’t buy into it, and what a waste of money. A healthy perspective from someone who identified that they were tricked by a well produced TV program and finishing nicely with a new outlook and revised opinion. There is hope yet! The main interesting review however is this one and it triggered a minor controversy in Ireland and the UK:

Myself and 9 members of my extended family went to see Psychic Sally last Sunday, we were really looking forward to it! Overall we were really disappointed with Sally, she came across as if she was playing with people’s heads, most people she spoke with were searching for answers after tragic death circumstances, I had never thought about this before when watching her on TV. One person thought she might have a message for him as he was adopted and didn’t know if his biological mother was alive or dead, she quickly brushed him aside and told him that he had family in Australia! What a thing to say to someone who is searching for answers! Also we heard on the Joe Duffy radio show the next day that the people in the back row could hear a mans voice behind their wall, basically talking to Sally obviously through an ear piece telling her what to say!! She also regularly said ‘this is amazing the work that I do’ I thought this was a bit weird, she was trying to convince us that she was amazing. I’m afraid to say that I think Sally is a scam, making money from misfortunate people, what a disappointment!!

Sally has voices she hears alright but unlike her claims that they have been with her since she was a child, these are more related to the man at the back of the theatre feeding her the information. Ok then, get the presses rolling and let’s get the word out. She can’t survive a scandal like this can she? I want the TV to show me spinning newspapers with pithy headlines that involve puns on Sally’s name and slate her for the fraud she is. Cue the interviews and discussions about Sally’s show on news stations and radio shows like the BBC News site. BBC did do a piece on it and the status quo, of showing both sides of the argument, resulted in Uri Geller weighing in with his opinions on the truth claims of a fellow con-artist. Uri is regularly dancing back and forth over the lines of calling himself psychic one day and then implying he is just a magician when his transparent crap falls on its ass. He, toeing the line, decides to say nothing really meaningful at all except to claim that some frauds exist and they tarnish the reputation of ‘real’ psychics. He also gets the last word in being able to attack the man holding the skeptical position, finishing off with ignorant bullshit about déjà-vu and the sense people get when they go somewhere for the first time but know it already. This is his standard for proof but I didn’t honestly expect more from him.

So where is the nail in the coffin of Sally’s credibility? Does scandal like this not lead to doubts and questions about the validity of this woman and to a small extent the whole profession? The answer is no and most people will agree with me that true believers can’t be turned around on the truth of their beliefs; like the reviewer’s friend who strained to hear the final message of the night in a vain hope that it would be directed at her, even though she had been unimpressed by the whole night. Her need for closure, the same need that Sally is exploiting, is what drives her belief and not her reasoning about whether it’s true or not. I’m sure those who managed to get readings that they were happy with, came away from the experience immune to the reports of possible fraud. ‘It worked for me’ and ‘That was definitely my Johnny telling me that he accepts my apology for the issue with the money’ (or something similarly vague) are bound to be their overall impressions.

So what’s the harm you say? Where does the line get drawn between comfort and the need for that comfort to be based on reality rather than magical thinking? For me, broad belief in this crap and acceptance of it from those who don’t believe, inevitably leads to the victimisation of a minority few. By the way, that’s being generous to the swindlers here. I wouldn’t be surprised to find ‘minority’ is a wholly inadequate adjective to describe the offense this market of lies produces and equally unsurprised to find ‘minority’ only a suitable tag for those who actually gain something from this disingenuous masquerade. It grants somebody who is completely removed from the relationship of the two people involved, the right to speak on behalf of one of those people. They abuse and lie for money and their victims are those of us in the weakest positions.

Sally is coming back to Ireland and she is bound to impress a few who are easily impressed, speak on behalf of those she has no right to speak for, and leave in her wake a large amount of vulnerable and confused people who can’t get what they need from Sally because she doesn’t have it. Speaking out against it might not do anything but the alternative is silence and that is too often confused with support. On the other hand, she could just be crazy.

Note: Just to be clear, the reviews I pasted into the blog were taken from the site word for word with spelling mistakes and all included. My punctuation might be terrible but I can use homophones like there, their, and they’re. Just for the record. J

Let’s stay Vigilant

Hi All,

This will be my first blog entry and hopefully a kick off to a weekly one I’m sure will be read exclusively by my parents and girlfriend. Hi Mom, Dad and Fanny! Yes before you ask, that is her real name, and believe me if you think it’s got a bad meaning in America you should check what it means over here in Ireland. I will be sending the link to this blog out to my followers on twitter and hopefully get a bit of talk going.

Anyway, I have a story to tell you that triggered this venture into the blogosphere and like a lot of people I know, I have toyed with the idea of doing a blog for a bit.  I did worry about finding content to write about and every poster on a Dublin bus for some sham fix-all remedy or discussion on twitter with a particularly brainwashed IDer (Intelligent Design) eventually convinced me that there was lots of stuff for me to be frustrated about that would possibly, stress that word, be interesting. Anyway, to the story…

I just got back this week from a holiday in Berlin. My girlfriend and I took the opportunity to sit in and watch a movie one of the nights. As is our usual custom we decided to turn off the light to fully enjoy the film (mind out of the gutter people). During the movie the lights in the room, which were controlled from the other side of the room by a switch, turned back on. Dodgy switch, I thought of course, after all, this hotel is on the East side of Berlin and because of that, the electrics probably go back to the 1950’s. The Tv, as an illustration of this, was the size of a small car and remote control a little bigger than an iPad. A couple of minutes later it happened again though. Cue the jokes between me and my girlfriend about ghosts and floating candlesticks going across the room. A firm bang of the switch to turn them off ‘for good’ and back to the movie.

Ok, at this point I can admit that not having an explanation for this was a bit disconcerting, more because I wanted a reason but slightly because, joking aside, it’s pretty fucking creepy. We were after all the only people on that floor of the building and eerie imaginings of twin girls dressed in blue in the corridor are only a few steps away for even the most sceptical person (I convinced myself anyway). This I think is what annoyed me most. I KNOW there is no such thing as ghosts and the supernatural but that eerie sense was still there along with a frustration that I couldn’t figure out the problem. This by the way was probably not helped by my drinking half a bottle of Whiskey during the course of the film.

Cutting a long story short, we eventually realised that just behind the bed, on the wall was a switch that controlled the lights. That’s obvious of course, you say. “What a couple of idiots, I know I would have seen through it”, you might mutter. As a skeptic I pride myself on trying to see through the veil of the improbable and although I was certain I would find out the reason, the doubt and desire to see an agency behind the phenomenon was enough to fuel my non-critical faculties into action. That is why it resolved me to start a blog. It may be read only by me when I edit it for spelling mistakes or grammatical errors (or to stop myself sound like a dick), but it adds to my understanding of happenings like this, to review them. Learning to hone our skeptical skills is a necessity and spelling out your reasoning helps you understand your own position better. A healthy community of skepticism is needed if we hold any aspirations of overcoming the Tsunami of bullshit that’s out there. From Homeopathy to Faith healers, Magic and Intelligent design, there is a lot of crap out there and we lend it legitimacy in part by the fact that it’s not ridiculed for the childish, magical thinking that it is. What I got from the story above is that although most of us as skeptics pride ourselves on being out of the reach of these modalities, we have to acknowledge that we are susceptible to them and things similar to them. Even when you know there is a reasonable explanation, there is something in you that drives for an explanation and that can work both ways. It can drive you to look for evidence, and piss off your girlfriend who is patiently waiting for the film to resume or in some cases it can undermine your skeptical nature. Skepticism is, in short, unnatural when not practised and the open-minded view that evidence will change your opinion on anything when properly shown, can leave you susceptible to considering CRAP, even temporarily.

So even if this is only for my girlfriend and family to quickly tire of reading, it will hopefully better hone my bullshit detector and lend fuel to growing need to get involved in Skepticism. Lets keep on top of the nonsense out there, vigilance is the key. Also, please point out my bullshit when you see it, I don’t want to get away with anything and calling each other on our mistakes is part and parcel.

Cheers.

NOTE: Just a final note to say that, another reason, which I am reluctant to mention, as to why I started this blog, is the recent death of Christopher Hitchens. He was an inspiration and a hero of mine. If a hundred people who share his beliefs and possess half of his conviction, make their voices heard, it might do something to fill the void left behind by this giant of rational thought. I am reluctant only because I would never want to cheapen his memory by piggybacking on his death. He is sorely missed.