Ramblings of an Armchair Skeptic

There’s one question that every non-religious person has been asked by a religious person at least once. “What if you’re wrong?” They are of course referring to the horrible implications for your afterlife and the dreaded fate that will await you there due to your lack of belief in their sky daddy. First of all I like to have some fun with them and say “what if you’re wrong?” They will usually answer with, “well, then nothing will happen if there is nothing there, so it’s no big deal if I’m wrong.” I’ll say, “no, no, that’s not what I mean. I mean what if you die and you find yourself face to face with Zeus? Boy will he ever be pissed!” I mean that tongue in cheek of course. I believe in Zeus just as much as I believe in God or the tooth fairy. It’s fun to throw a wrench in their system though. But seriously, If there is a heaven and an all-loving god like I’m told then I would like to think that being a kind, moral, helpful, all around decent person would be enough to get a ...

Not that it's anything new but the whole end of the world thing seems to be popping up a lot more lately. I have already been given invitations to two conferences where the lucky attendees will receive the secrets to surviving the end of the world. Now when they say "survive", I'm quite sure they don't mean in a physical way. I guess they are referring to your soul and which way it will ultimately end up after the death and destruction our all-loving creator will visit upon us. Why I would want to nuzzle myself up in the arms of the mass exterminator, I have no idea, but I'm guessing it's better than the alternative. Although, given the winters around here, I'm not altogether put out by the prospect of an eternity of heat. There are tons of end of the world scenarios and way too numerous to go into all of them here. I will mention the biggest one, the biblical prophecy which is affectionately known as the end-time. A gentleman by the name of Ronald Wei...

Ah, the bible, that bastion of faith and holiness that the religious cling to and glean comfort from. Bible believing Christians regard both the New and Old Testament as the undiluted word of god, spoken by god and written down in its perfect form by humans. If you type bible into wikipedia you see that it’s pretty complicated. Different religions have different bibles called by different names and each one has numerous translations and versions. I doubt that most folks who believe in god have even read the whole bible. They learn snippets in church and read the lovely cartoon children’s version (mercifully free of cartoon infanticide and other such atrocities) to their offspring. But some people take every word of the bible as truth and claim that it all happened in real life. The earth was created by god in six days along with Adam and Eve. There really was a flood and the animals (including dinosaurs) were saved by Noah on a giant ark. Etc, etc. Even many of the religious people I ...

I found something that fascinates me. Something intriguing and stimulating. An obsession if you will. Skepticism has become more than a hobby for me and it’s driving me crazy. Much to his chagrin, I sit and bitch at my husband about all the insane wooishness that exists on this planet. There’s not much usefulness in this obsession of mine. It’s useful in the way that I know that I and my family won’t get suckered by the charlatans and snake oil salesmen, but what can I do for others? Daniel Loxton has been kind enough to give his publication “What do I do Next?” to everyone for free. It lists 105 ways of getting the word out and bringing skepticism out of the closet and into the mainstream. While I do some of the things, there are many that I just don’t think I would be capable of doing. Skepticism requires confidence and a thick skin. Sadly, I have neither and this is a barrier that keeps me from going further. I would love to find a way of making money with my newly found fascinatio...

I watched a show called “Paranormal Investigator” the other day. I was hoping they may have a bit of skepticism involved but I ended up being disappointed. They claim to be investigating phenomena with a critical eye and then letting the viewer decide the validity but it seems they skew things in favor of the phenomena being real. The show I watched dealt with remote viewing . It seems that there are those among us who can “see” things or events that are hidden or far away through psychic ability. For example, there is a picture in a sealed envelope, the remote viewer then doodles on a piece of paper and when the picture is removed from the envelope, there should be an uncanny resemblance. This is a magician's trick employed by many mentalists. The doodle is also usually vague but yet something that could fit a wide variety of things. On the show they had one man pull up a random picture on his laptop and the viewer then had to draw what he “saw.” He drew a bunch of little circles ...

You hear strange noises in the middle of the night. You wake from a restless dream only to see an apparition staring at you from the foot of your bed. You feel a hand on your shoulder. What could be causing these mysterious and frightening things? You want to feel safe in your house but you can’t because you are obviously being harassed by evil entities hell bent on destroying your peace of mind and sanity. So who are you gonna call? The Paranormal Research Society of course. You can find this crack investigative team on A&E on Monday nights on a show called Paranormal State . The lead investigator, Ryan, had some scary experiences with the paranormal as a child (no details given) and he is now in search of answers. He has assembled a team and they now help people solve their own ghost mysteries. There are two different types of paranormal investigators. The ones that use actual science to get to the truth such as Benjamin Radford and the ones (like the PRS ) who use theatrics and...

Today is Charles Darwin's 200th birthday. I celebrated with a cupcake. Unfortunately, One of the side effects of being 200 hundred years old is that you are probably dead. Which, in Darwin's case, is probably a good thing as he didn't have to witness the circus that came to Dover, Colorado in 2005. Not the good kind of circus with elephants and popcorn either. The religious folk there decided that the kids in science class needed to hear that evolution isn't the only way that the earth and it's inhabitants came into being. They call this "science" Intelligent Design. This is simply creationism renamed and it has nothing to do with science. They claim to have evidence and they can prove that what they say is true. The Discovery Institute has many long papers on the subject. Not sure what there is to talk about for so long since their answer for everything is simply, "God did it." Oh sorry, I mean an "Intelligent Designer did it." It se...