At least 50 people have lost their sight after staring at the sun hoping to see an image of the Virgin Mary, according to reports.

Alarmed health authorities in India’s Kottayam district have set up a sign dispelling rumours of a miraculous image in the sky and warning of the dangers of looking into direct sunlight.

Forty-eight cases of sight-loss, allegedly caused by photochemical burns on the retina, have been recorded at St Joseph’s ENT and Eye hospital in the region since Friday.

Despite warnings, and the potentially harmful effects of their actions, believers are allegedly still flocking to a hotelier’s house in Erumeli near where the divine image is said to have appeared. 

Here we are, surrounded by computers and aircrafts, and people are still stupid enough to do this kind of thing. As somebody famous said, ‘We take airplanes to get to an astrophysics conference. But when is the last time somebody got on a magic carpet to get to the spirituality conference?”

While those philosophical questions may seem simply rhetorical and un-answerable anyways, they are actually quite tractable and answerable through rigorous experimentation and logical deduction. Take the question “Is there a God?” for example. This is, in essence, a scientific hypothesis, because a world without God is observably a different universe than one with a God. (This is, of course, assuming that your definition of “God” is sufficient to yield such observable differences. If your definition of God is not as strong, than certainly it is not the belief of mainstream Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, hence of less concern.)

Of course some of these questions have already begun to be answered. The question “Why are we here?” was answered definitely by Darwin – we are here because of evolution. Now, I understand that some people mean more than that when they ask “Why are we here?”. But such pseudo-philosophical waxing is BS. The only meaningful interpretation of the question “Why are we here?” is to literally answer it with brute facts. Of course, another mistake many make is that such a brute fact-based answer is either demeaning or uncomfortable. Well, even if it were, that has no bearing on the veracity of the answer. And I don’t think it’s all that demeaning to begin with. In fact, it’s awe-inspiring that we could be here as a product of such a beautiful and elegant process like evolution. And those who claim otherwise apparently lack the imagination to grasp the austere beauty of the intricate and elegant universe around us.

This would be funny, only if it weren’t so close to what happens in real life.

So the service broke apart into 3 parts. The first part is the most similar to a typical Christian worship – singing hymns, doing congregational prayers, etc… And you can bet that during the prayers, I proudly kept my head up and kept my eyes open. I was proud to be the only person in the room who was not superstitious. The one different thing about a Mormon service is that there is no sermon. In fact, the Mormons don’t have a pastor. They only have a Bishop, which is more like a guidance couselor for the ward with a direct line to God. So instead of a sermon, they have “testimonies”. And this is one of the most brilliant brain-washing schemes I have ever witnessed.

Here is the idea: during Testimonies, any ward member is free to volunteer, come up to the podium, and deliver a “testimony”. They usually talk about how they personally experienced the love of God, how God helped him/her during the week, etc. And nearly every person who walked up to the podium started crying. Mormonism is not a passive religion, folks. It’s not like the typical Methodist who just shows up to church every Sunday out of habit. It’s a bonified cult. The most striking part about the testimonies was that EVERY person repeated the line “I believe in Joseph Smith the prophet, Gordon B. Hinkley the president of the church, a seer, revelator, and a prophet, and I believe that this is the only true church on this Earth.” Of course, no body ever explained WHY they believe these things. Only a repetition of “I KNOW this to be true” could be heard. Talk about faith.

This really is brilliant. Rather than have some authority figure (like a pastor) lecture you on why you should believe, they have your Peers do it. How much more effective this must be! And the self-riteousness of these people who walk up to the podium and do these testimonies. They must feel as though they are somehow spiritually superior for doing so. The whole ceremony is a total brain-washing tool, driven by peer-pressure and a collective sense of riteousness.

From my experience, the main difference about Mormonism in practice (as opposed to its theological backgrounds) to other forms of Christianity is its emphasis on Revelations. They claim that because they are the only ones in direct communication with God, they are the only true Christian church. All the other churches and denominations are wrong because they have fallen into “apostasy”. In fact, the president of the church is believed to communicate directly with god. And so the president has the right to say “God told me this, so we will now do this.” This is how Polygamy was started and this is also how it also ended. The current president is Gordon B. Hinkley, a poor old 95 year old man having to carry the burden of divinations from God. What a pathetic lie. And then there are the 12 Apostles, which are sort of like the 12 board members of the Mormon Church, and they are also expected to communicate directly with God. How bizzare is this? In the 21st century, here is a group of people who literally think that their leader really sees, hears, and talks to God. And they don’t mean this in a metaphorical sense.

The second part of the service is akin to a Bible study, broken up into little groups. I followed my roommate to his group. There was alot of unjustified claims and igonrant remarks made during this session, and I had to constantly stop my self from voicing my concerns. But at on point, someone said “I think Science is alot like religion too in that sometimes, it is progressed through revelations.” I couldn’t take this any longer. I spoke out and said: “I think that is a gross mischaracterization of Science. Science progresses thorugh EVIDENCE. For you to think that Science progresses through revelations like your religion does is to spit in the face of millions of scientists who devote their entire lives to objectivity and collecting evidence.” After a silence, they just moved on. I was fuming.

The third part of the service was a meeting among just the male members of the church. The females also had their own meeting. I will not get into the sexual discrimination practiced in Mormonism in this post. In the male meeting, or the “Priesthood” meeting, we talked about the practice of sacraments. Nothing too exciting there.

All in all, I got the impression that if you are inclined to be religious, Mormonism might be very tempting. There is something about it that really draws you in. Perhaps its the fact that the Book of Mormon places the Americas at the center of Chrisitian Theology. Or maybe its the claim that Mormons are in direct communication with God. If that was true, Mormonism would indeed be the only true religion. From an atheist’s perspective, this makes it all the more dangerous. There are things Mormons believe that not even a Christian would admit to believing in. It was Hitler who once said “The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one.”

And as to why the service did not take place at a Mormon temple, the temples are apparently not for worshipping in. In fact, they are closed on Sundays. The temples are used for Baptisms, Endowments, and other Mormon cult-like ceremonies. An Endowment is a ritual similar to a Masonic ritual where Mormons learn a secret hand-shake that will allow them to enter heaven (I am not making this up). Also, you need a “temple recommend” to be allowed to enter a Mormon Temple. Furthermore, you dress in all-white robes called “temple garments” to enter the temple. Needless to say, all this is very cult-like.

If you have free time, go search for images to a Mormon Temple. It certainly looks very beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, to the point of being haunting.

Be Proud.

About three in four Americans profess at least one paranormal belief, according to a recent Gallup survey. The most popular is extrasensory perception (ESP), mentioned by 41%, followed closely by belief in haunted houses (37%).

THREE IN FOUR AMERICANS? I was very shocked to find this result, which is only from a year ago. It is simply unacceptable that in this day in age, more than 75% of people in the most industrialized nation in the world believe in paranormal crap. We live in a world where almost all natural phenomena are explained by scientific principles, and we enjoy the products of technological innovations grounded in scientific knowledge. All one needs to do is employ some common sense and see the world as it is – there are no paranormal phenomena!

I suppose the 41% of Americans who supposedly belive in ESP are the ones driving the psychic industry in this country. What a disappointment. The US government should have prosecuted these people by now for false advertising and the failure to deliver promised services.

And if you are one of the three in four people who still believe that there are paranormal pheonomena, consider this: a world in which these inexplicable events occured would be one that is profoundly different from a world where everything happened via scientific principles. And especially given the power of the Internet and other modern innovations, statistics tells us that we should be seeing these events captured on tape, film, or audio all the time.

The mathematician J.E. Littlewood has calculated the probability that a “miracle” would occur to a person given that there are no paranormal pheonoma. Taking into account the world population and assuming that a “miracle” is any event that only has one in a million chance of occuring, Littlewood has calculated that an average person can expect to experience about one miracle a month. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littlewood%27s_law) Remember, this is assuming that there are no paranormal phenomena. If there were indeed paranormal phenomena, we can expect that this proability would rise dramatically.

But what we observe in reality is that the so-called psychic pheonomena are extremely rare. So, based purely on the immutable laws of probability, we must conclude that there are no paranomal phenomena. And if you are going to question mathematics (not Science, by the way), then you must realize that all of mathematics is based on pure logic. And if you question logic, you have just shot your own foot.

There will always be stupid people in the world, but three in four is way too many. This suggests to me that something is missing from how we educate people. We tend to agree that patience, love, forgiveness and the like are virtues. We emphasize them in grade school and every parent teaches them to their kids. But what about skepticism, the virtue of requiring evidence before belief? This should be a very important virtue, but is rather passed off as a negative trait in the minds of most people. For some inexplicable reason, faith, which is belief without evidence, has been accepted as a virtue. America needs to wake up. Faith is dangerous. Skepticism is on par with forgiveness and patience.

 Believe in
 %
Extrasensory perception, or ESP
 41
That houses can be haunted
 37
Ghosts/that spirits of dead people can come back in certain places/situations
 32
Telepathy/communication between minds without using traditional senses
 31
Clairvoyance/the power of the mind to know the past and predict the future
 26
Astrology, or that the position of the stars and planets can affect people’s lives
 25
That people can communicate mentally with someone who has died
 21
Reincarnation, that is, the rebirth of the soul in a new body after death
 20

from http://home.sandiego.edu/~baber/logic/gallup.html