Ice, ice, baby

It seems like years ago that I came across an odd little book in the MBS (Madness, Bollocks and Stupidity, or Mind, Body, Spirit, depending on the bookseller you’re talking to) section of my old shop. The Hidden Messages In Water, by “Dr” Emoto Masura, has as its central premise the idea that our words and thoughts directly influence our environment, and that this process can be seen using water crystals. “Ugly” thoughts and words, such as “Emoto Masura is a lying charlatan”, result in the formation of “ugly” water crystals, whilst happy thoughts create beautiful snowflakes. You can view the pretty pictures here.

In spite of the fact the Emoto is not a real doctor, and that he specifically tells his photographers to only shoot images which support his theory; and that the end results are interpreted according to entirely arbitrary and subjective aesthetic parameters, The Hidden Messages In Water and its sequel have sold in excess of forty thousand copies. That’s forty thousand people who actually buy into this shit. In the grand scheme of things it’s not a huge number, but in terms of book sales that’s a pretty impressive figure.

However, never let it be said that I’m not open-minded. If “Dr” Emoto’s results are indeed scientifically replicable, it would be wrong of me to dismiss his research out-of-hand. With that in mind, I tried a little experiment of my own. Fortunately for both me and the good doctor, it doesn’t take a lot of funding to experiment with frozen water – all you need is a common-or-garden household freezer, an ice-cube tray and a tap…

I froze three ice-cubes in total, one underneath a piece of paper on which I’d written some adventurous swear-words, one beneath a note saying, “I love you, fluffikins” and one control (which is more than Emoto ever had) which was just frozen in the conventional way. Here are the results:

Swearing

I love you

Control

As you can see, there’s a noticeable difference between the three cubes. The first looks cold and frosty, like the cold, empty heart of a murderer standing over his stabbed and bludgeoned victim. The second appears to be chilled and cool, like a relaxed hippy enjoying a spliff in the summer sunshine. And the third is, well, quite ordinary and neutral, and nothing much to write home about. Obviously I’ve done Emoto Masura an enormous disservice by suggesting that he’s a money-grubbing shill with the research skills of a syphilitic otter and the scientific credibility of something I dug out of my nose. His results can indeed be repeated, suggesting that perhaps the apparently bugfuck stupid ideas behind his fortune book are in fact very likely true.

Expect to see my paper on “The Effect Of Heavy Metal Music On Peanut Butter” in New Scientist very soon…

Doesn’t that rather defeat the object?

Our local Freemason’s Lodge is holding an Open Day.

Does anyone else think that seems a little strange?

Six Things Meme

(((Billy)))‘s hit me with another meme – seems rude to refuse…

Here are the rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random arbitrary things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Six Random Things About Me:

I once tackled a girl I really fancied in a hockey game, then went on to score a spectacular goal. When I looked back to see how impressed she and all my teammates were, they were all crowded around her – turns out I’d broken her jaw. Needless to say, no-one was very pleased with me. (We still won the game, though.)

I almost never wear matching socks, believing life to be too short for sorting them into pairs.

I secretly think Predator 2 is a better film than the original Predator.

When making the bed, I invariably have to climb inside the duvet cover in order to get it to fit properly. My wife finds this hilarious.

My 22nd birthday passed me by entirely – I forgot when it was so didn’t tell any of my flatmates, and it was only when I got a card from my parents (a couple of days late) that I realised. Even now I still have to think for a few seconds when asked my age.

I can’t drive a car. Leastways I don’t have a license to do so. If push came to shove, I daresay it might be possible for me to figure out the rudiments – if I was fleeing from zombies, for example, or if… actually, zombies might well be the only thing capable of motivating me to drive. As such, it’s unlikely that I’ll be doing so in the forseeable future.

I don’t like tagging other people, so this is a free meme – if you want it, please consider yourself tagged.

Jungle Gym for Jesus

Now this is just odd. An exercise in faith? Given the safety precautions they would have been obliged to take, I doubt there’s much faith involved – if your partner lets go of the rope, well, there’s always a safety line. As desperate publicity stunts to try and breathe life back into the Church go, though, it’s a doozy.

Right Not To Think?

A number of my recent internet wanderings have brought me to The Garvanian, a site popular among atheists as a place to poke fun at its mentally disturbed author. It’s like a modernised version of Bedlam, but with only one inmate. I don’t want to dwell too much on Garvan, since he clearly needs psychological and possibly psychiatric help, but his recent ravings did get me thinking about the relationship between religion and mental illness. More specifically, I started thinking about whether or not we should be trying to dispel the delusions that religion creates.

As Richard Dawkins pointed out in The God Delusion, religious insanity has a cachet that other delusions do not possess. A man who believes that an invisible leprechaun lives under his bed and controls the Prime Minister’s brain using radio waves is considered mad, whilst a man who believes that an invisible superman lives in the sky and watches everything he does is considered an upstanding pillar of his community. There is some debate in psychology circles over whether it is ethical or even necessary to puncture the beliefs of Leprechaun-man (and Invisible-Sky-Bloke man is considered sane anyway), based on the idea that if his delusions are not affecting his quality of life, then there is no reason to remove them. Many delusional patients actually need their strange beliefs in order to function, so removing the framework of their worldview can be unproductive and even dangerous.

With that in mind, can we claim that our ongoing crusade against religious insanity is in fact morally prudent? Many theists incorporate their faith very tightly into their sense of self and personhood, and knocking this support mechanism out from under them can be psychologically quite damaging. Most, like Garvan, have entwined religion so inextricably into their psyche that no amount of evidence or argument will ever convince them of their fallacy, but if one could unravel and break the faith-wire wrapped around their minds, would that be a kind thing to do? It’s not as though anyone is getting hurt by their delusion (unless they get on the wrong end of Garvan’s crossbow, of course…).

My own opinion is that one is always better off knowing the truth. In a Matrix-like universe, I’d be chugging red pills like jelly beans. It seems to me that being given the chance to experience and understand reality is a basic human right, and if one’s mental machinations get in the way, they should be stripped back. That’s just me though, and I’m open to being convinced otherwise. I’d be really interested to hear other people’s answers to the question: if we actually had the ability to convince someone like Garvan that what they believed wasn’t true, would it be ethical to do so?

***edit – quick link to Eshu’s response. ***

ASBO thy neighbour

Christianity is all about love, charity and forgiveness, right? It’s with an ironic tone, then, that I bring you the story of Raymond Woods, who has been given an ASBO banning him from any church in the UK. Now fair enough, he had been caught with his hand in the collection plate a few times, but didn’t Jesus say, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone” (John 8:7)? Given that Christian doctrine says we’re all worthless sinners anyway, shouldn’t Mr Woods be given the same second chance that Jesus supposedly gives everybody else? Or is the disruption of a couple of church services too high a price to pay for a man’s eternal soul? He’s never going to get into Heaven if he can’t even get into church. Come on, Christians – let’s see a bit of love, charity and forgiveness!

World Philosophy Day

Happy World Philosophy Day! Raise a glass this evening in honour of all those wise men and women who have helped improve our understanding of existence.

The ugly face of British politics

I woke this morning to the unpleasant sound of British Nazi National Party leader Nick Griffin bemoaning the publication of his party’s membership list online. The BNP are, without a trace of irony, claiming that this publication constitutes a breach of the Human Rights Act, a piece of legislation they have consistently opposed. They argue that some of the members listed will lose their jobs as a result (under current regulations, members of the police and military are banned from being in the BNP).

So, some people who lied in their job interviews (“what, me, a racist? Nah, guv, I totally supported that Obama geezer, yeah…”) may be fired, and a few secret fascists may find themselves getting rather fewer dinner invitations than previously. Whilst I do somewhat agree that one’s political affiliation should not necessarily be a matter of public knowledge, I can’t help but feel a slight tug of glee at the BNP’s embarrassment, and their pathetic attempts to reframe this as a “nasty piece of intimidation” by the “Labour regime”. Secrecy and undercover tactics – a sort of fascism by the back door – have long been the BNP’s stock in trade, so any action which pulls down the curtain on their activities and reveals the ugliness beneath has a certain attraction. One only has to witness their creation of the Christian Council of Britain to see how keen they are to build a socially acceptable front from which to work behind. Mind you, the CCOB isn’t particularly subtle:

“The CCB believes in the biblical teaching of nations. We should live in nations as nations. If we are to exist as nations then we are to have our own national homelands. In our own national homelands in which our own identity has priority. The BNP doesn’t want the British people to be homeless. Each race should have its own space.”

That’s their founder, the Reverend Robert West, establishing that Christianity can be used to justify racism just as easily as it can be used to support peace and love.

Nationalism is an ugly thing, and deserves our contempt, as do those on the list who support Griffin’s aims. I sincerely hope that many of those named do indeed hit the dole queue in the next few days, since if anyone should be truly unwelcome in Britain, it’s those who would seek to deny entry to those of other colours, faiths and nationalities.

And that’s why I don’t work for Waterstones anymore…

…because they’re spineless gits who bow to pressure from hate groups.

I stopped shopping at Waterstones a long time ago (as soon as they took over my beloved Ottakars, in fact) but now I heartily encourage anyone who has even the slightest interest in maintaining freedom of speech in the UK to boycott their shops. You could also e-mail both the Cardiff shop (manager@cardiff.waterstones.com) or their MD, Gerry Johnson (gerry.johnson@waterstones.com), to let them know that their censorship is not appreciated.

Psychodiva has more.

Best of all, since I no longer work for the cowardly bastards they can’t sack me for blogging – as they have been known to do.

Christianity = Dettol

We’ve all, I think, been exposed to the concept of religious thought as a meme, a self-propagating idea that rides shotgun in the minds of believers. The concept of faith as a sort of mental parasite is neatly paralleled by new research from the Royal Society of Biological Science, which suggests that actual real-life parasites may have had an inadvertent hand in the diversification of religious belief. Fincher and Thornhill’s study indicates that the fragmentation of society which drives the development of new sects and dogmas is primarily caused by epidemics.

Now this is an extrapolation from what is effectively a correlative (rather than a clearly causative) relationship, but nonetheless it makes for an interesting theory regarding the origins of religion. Not only that, but it also suggests that faith exists not to get us into an imaginary afterlife, but to keep us in the here-and-now a little longer. As Fincher and Thornhill put it:

“Although religion apparently is for establishing a social marker of group alliance and allegiance, at the most fundamental level, it may be for the avoidance and management of infectious disease”

Christianity, Islam, Hinduism et al can therefore be regarded as the mental equivalent of bleach – and I think there’s a case to be made that they’re just as bad for the brain.