On average, people who took the survey answered half the questions incorrectly, and many flubbed even questions about their own faith.
Those who scored the highest were atheists and agnostics, as well as two religious minorities: Jews and Mormons. The results were the same even after the researchers controlled for factors like age and racial differences.
So Mormons did almost as well as atheists? That makes sense. I knew a bit about religion as a Mormon. Then when I learned a little bit more, I became an atheist.
Oh, and in fairness, I did score 15 out of 15 on the poll, but the last question was a 50/50 lucky guess.
Many thanks to everyone who has responded to the news of my mother's death. I've appreciated everyone's comments, and I was especially intrigued by this one from a long-time commenter.
I would love you to meet my good friend, I've spoken of her before, the clairvoyant one.
I would like you to test her objectively, with your atheistic views intact. Ask her to get in touch with your mother.
I should add (for the religious minded amongst your readers) she is a pure Catholic - purest of pure hearts. And I should also add I am almost an expert on the biblical views on visionaries, prophets, and the like. So no-one can argue badly against her without my intervention!
She is likely to get some wisdom and advice from your mother - you can test it for yourself.
I'm challenging you to a duel of sorts, on belief.
Now, I don't think spirits exist, since no one's yet presented evidence for them. And the idea of having a medium contact dead relatives is silly. If my Mom's going to go to the trouble of crossing boundaries of time, space, and matter to give me a message, then I think she'd come to me, and not someone who has to fish around for information, saying "I'm getting the colour red; what does that mean to you?"
I don't like what psychics and mediums do. I think they're either fooling themselves into thinking they can communicate with spirits, or they're vultures, preying on the grief and desperation of the bereaved. Their techniques are well-known -- cold reading is something that you can learn to do. You throw out a lot of suggestions, wait for the subject to feed you information, take credit for the hits, and hope they forget all the misses.
In short, I'm with this guy.
It's the whole problem of rigour. Going to a medium wouldn't be a good test for me, since I'm as capable of fooling myself as anyone else. (And maudlin emotionalism, too. After Dad died, I cried watching Blades of Glory, for Pete's sake. On a plane! It doesn't take much when you're in a state.)
With all that in mind, I think the Medium Challenge is a great idea. Even though I don't believe in spirits and psychic phenomena, I could be wrong, and if we don't do the experiment, we won't learn anything new. So I'd like to run the experiment. But it's going to be a controlled experiment. I want to get not one, but three clairvoyants, psychics, mediums, what have you. As a control, I'll also need three non-mediums -- people who don't believe in psychic power or readings -- doing their best at their own readings.
To make sure I'm not feeding the mediums information, some tight controls will have to be in place. I will be obscured from view by a screen, so the readers won't be able to read my actions. (It should be all the same to the spirits.) I will only respond to direct questions, and I will only say "yes" and "no". Other than that, I'll be very helpful, truthful, and accommodating. The test will be whether the mediums are able to get hits with any greater frequency than the non-mediums, or random chance.
I'd like to video this and turn it into a programme -- YouTube at the least, possibly more. Full recordings of all the sessions will be made available via the Internet. And -- this is important to me -- I'll be publishing the results no matter what they are, even if they run counter to my current belief. (Or those of the psychics.)
The test needs to be blind, so I won't know who the mediums or non-mediums are. For this reason, Maureen has kindly agreed to assist in lining up the readings for various nights in November or thereabouts. So if you would like to volunteer as a medium or a non-medium (you-know-who, your friend has priority), please contact her at mediumchallenge@gmail.com.
I still need to work out the particulars of the experiment, so watch this space for the full list of rules and conditions here in comments.
Is there a difference between 'tomato sauce' and 'ketchup'?
When I first arrived in Australia 70 years ago, all you could get was tomato sauce. Ketchup wasn't available. Never mind, I thought, it's the same stuff, that's just what they call it here.
Then I noticed that my local supermarket began to carry both ketchup and tomato sauce. Obeying some primal American instinct, I always buy ketchup. But I feel rather silly, since there's no difference. Or is there? Tomato sauce: thinner, less spicy? Ketchup: more vinegar?
The term "tomato sauce" could be lost to future Aussies with Heinz, for the first time, advertising ketchup on TV.
In a move Dick Smith labelled "disrespectful" to the Australian culture, Heinz has unveiled a new national ad for Tomato Ketchup, which they say is thicker and has spices and more tomatoes than tomato sauce. "They don't give a stuff about Australian culture or our way of life," Mr Smith said.
Who knew the Australian way of life was less spicy, with fewer tomatoes?
Channel 9 star Scott Camm said the term tomato sauce would be lost to future generations.
"What, are we gonna start walking down the sidewalk?" he said.
"They're infiltrating us - it's not our way of life."
It isn't really about sauce. It's about language attitudes. Australians like the way they talk, and they don't like the thought of losing expressions like 'footpath', 'giving a stuff', or saying 'zed' for 'zee'. Mind you, this is a pretty strange place to draw the line. Other far more iconic expressions have dwindled with nary a peep. (When was the last time you called someone a 'cobber', honestly?) But maybe this item is extra sensitive because it's being framed as a foreign corporation dictating language change by fiat.
So even if there's no difference in the actual sauce, there's a difference in the words. 'Tomato sauce' is fair dinkum Aussie, while 'ketchup' is an American intrusion to be resisted. Will this become a selling point? We'll just have to see which way the chips fall.
Nice to see this article about a successful co-parenting situation.
SEAN BROGAN is ''enormously proud'' of what he and his ex-wife, Ayela Thilo, have achieved for their family.
Divorced for nine years, they share custody of their three children, Arielle, 17, Sienna, 13, and Oliver, 11, in a ''week on week off'' arrangement.
Mr Brogan agreed with the findings of the Shared Care Parenting Arrangements study that shared custody is positive for both parental satisfaction and children's wellbeing.
''In a funny kind of way it has given the kids a sense of stability,'' he said. ''They know where they'll be at any given time, if they've got something coming up they see whether they'll be with mum or dad and talk to that person about it.''
The arrangement has also improved his relationship with Ms Thilo by increasing co-operation and joint decision-making.
''We were determined to make it work for the children,'' he said. ''It has certainly healed any rift we might have had. We talk regularly, we talk about school things. Another upside is that it allows the non-custodial parent time out in their week off and time to do all the things they want to pursue.''
It's in the news because of a recent report evaluating shared care arrangements since 2006 (PDF). At that time, a new emphasis was placed on shared parenting arrangements, rather than custody.
Among the findings of the study:
This research confirms that children‘s wellbeing is optimised under certain circumstances:
Parents are able to cooperate about the arrangements for the children
Parents have a say in making decisions about the child
There is relatively little conflict between the parents
Parents believe that each parent is paying their fair share of the costs associated with raising children.
...
Overall, this research paints a relatively positive picture of shared care in terms both of parental satisfaction and children‘s wellbeing. However, it remains only a relatively small minority of parents who can share the care of the children and fewer still manage to sustain it for a substantial period of time.
I'm firmly of the opinion that a good divorce between people who are genuinely concerned about their kids and who are determined to share the parenting is far less damaging for kids than an intractable, conflict-filled marriage. I may be one of the lucky ones, but this kind of arrangement has worked well for me and my boys, who are so far thriving under the care of both their loving parents.
It's a big ask. It requires parents to work together at a time when their will to do so may be at its weakest. But perhaps knowing that this setup is good for children would help parents to muster the ability to make shared parenting work when staying married doesn't.
This is a post about my Mom. It's not intended to distress family members -- I think I've written it with a modicum of sensitivity and tact -- but it may. If you think you may be offended by my views on the implications of religious belief as they pertain to mortality, best to stop reading now, instead of making a scene at the funeral later. If, however, you're willing to risk it, or you just want to know where I'm coming from, please read on.
Facebook friends will already know that my Mom passed away last week. It wasn't unexpected -- she hadn't been well for a long time, and I'm glad she's not in the pain and the frame of mind that she was in. I'd already done a lot of the emotional work and the 'letting go', but I was still surprised at how tender I felt that first day; I felt the fragility of my body, my heartbeat, the delicate chemistry of my consciousness. I walked and moved gingerly, as one does at the beginning of a cold. I'd always lived in a world where my mother existed, and now I didn't.
Subsequent days have been fine. I may feel different at the funeral (jet-lagged), but for now I feel like I've bounced back. In particular, I feel no desire to revert to the comforting myths of the religion of my youth. Quite to the contrary -- when someone wrote that Mom was in a 'better place', I felt a quiver of very mild exasperation.
This has raised a question for me, though. I've often heard that stories of an afterlife serve to 'comfort' believers in times of death. So why are the religious members of my family so glum? Of course, we're all sad because we're going to miss her. But among all the condolences and the contacts I've heard and read, there has been precious little optimism (so far). Why are they expressing sadness at all?
They ought to be delighted! Right now, Mom's wearing a robe, padding around in little white slippers, waiting to be taken to some kind of veil thing where she can give the handshakes and passwords. Whereupon she will be ushered into a bright white place with tasteful furniture, there to be with my father, her sisters, parents, Jesus, and everyone, for all eternity.
I believed in that story, and I talked with other believers for years, so I think I know the mindset pretty well. When you believe in the supernatural stuff, there's always some vacillation between certainty and doubt. It comes in cycles. You can have a doubting period, but then you pump yourself up with faith until you're 'strong' again. Maybe some people don't let themselves doubt, but I'm sure many believers are familiar with what I'm describing.
For me, the conflict ended when I realised that the evidence for gods was poor. The concept of a 'spirit', or a little ghost inside of us, was equally unsubstantiated. The sensible explanation was that our brains were the things that produced the sensations of cognition and perception, and when the brain died, perception would simply stop and we would experience nothing. I wasn't fond of this conclusion (and I'm still not), but I found it to be the explanation that best fit the facts. You could say I 'took the hit', and accepted its implications for my life.
As a result, I've accepted my Mom's passing with an equanimity that I couldn't have mustered in my believing days. I was taking all my time going between belief and doubt. Someone who believes in heaven and an afterlife is just dodging the inevitable conflict. They can't do the work of accepting the finite nature of human existence because they think they're going to live forever. Their religion keeps them from accomplishing this very important task of adulthood. They are prevented from growing up.
Me, I'm waking up today and feeling grateful. I'm enjoying all the sensations my body feels. I realise that my life is a tiny blip in an eternity that will go on without me, and I feel happy and amazed that I get to be here on this day that will never come again. I'm tasting food. I'm enjoying the touch of a sweetheart. I'm the guy you saw riding the bicycle too fast, shouting "I'M ALIIIVE!"
For so we are. All of us here today are alive. Let's get out there and do it.
