God is Imaginary - 50 simple proofs Proof #7 - Understanding religious delusion Let's imagine that I tell you the following story: There is a man who lives at the North Pole. But let's say that I am an adult, and I am your friend, and I reveal to you that I believe that this story is true. What would you think of me? Why do you think that I am delusional? Since you are my friend, you might try to help me realize that my belief in Santa is a delusion. "But how can the sleigh carry enough toys for everyone in the world?" Why didn't my answers satisfy you? Now let me show you another example... Another Example Imagine that I tell you the following story: I was in my room one night. You would ask some obvious questions. Most people would assume that I am delusional if I told them this story. What's interesting is that there are millions of people who actually do believe this story of the angel and the plates and the book and the Jewish people living in North America 2,000 years ago. Another example But you need to be careful.
Table of contents (With last update date) Cover Foreword (August 13, 2009) Part 1. Preface to part 1 (April 12, 2000) Chapter 1. 1.1. 1.6. 1.7. Chapter 2. 2.1. 2.2. 2.3. 2.4. 2.5. 2.6. Chapter 3. 3.1. 3.2. 3.3. 3.4. Chapter 4. 4.1. 4.2. 4.3. 4.4. Chapter 5. 5.1. 5.2. 5.3. 5.4. 5.5. 5.6. 5.7. 5.8. 5.9. 5.10. 5.11. 5.12. 5.13. 5.14. 5.15. 5.16. Chapter 6. 6.1. 6.2. 6.3. 6.4. 6.5. 6.6. 6.7. 6.8. 6.9. 6.10. 6.12. Part 2. Preface to part 2 (October 17, 2010) Chapter 7. 7.1. 7.2. 7.3. 7.4. 7.5. 7.6. 7.7. 7.9. 7.10. Chapter 8. 8.1. 8.2. Chapter 9. 9.1. 9.2. 9.3. 9.4. 9.6. Chapter 10. 10.1. 10.2. 10.3. 10.4. Chapter 11. 11.1. 11.2. 11.3. 11.4. 11.5. 11.6. 11.7.The victim/victimizer polar pair 11.8. 11.9. 11.10. Chapter 12. 12.1. 12.2. 12.3. 12.5. 12.6. 12.7. Chapter 13. 13.1. 13.2. 13.3. 13.4. 13.5. 13.6. 13.7. 13.8. 13.9. 13.10. 13.11. 13.12. 13.13. Chapter 14. 14.1. 14.2. 14.3. 14.4. 14.5. 14.6. 14.7. 14.8. Chapter 15. Chapter 16. 16.3. 16.4. 16.5. Part 3. Preface to part 3 (November 18, 2009) Chapter 17. 17.1.
Human Evolution & Archaeology Brain Explorer - StumbleUpon Modlab The Mortality Paradox by Maria Popova “Our overblown intellectual faculties seem to be telling us both that we are eternal and that we are not.” “It is quite impossible for a thinking being to imagine nonbeing, a cessation of thought and life,” Goethe, who ceased to be 181 years ago this week, proclaimed as he concluded that “in this sense, everyone carries the proof of his own immortality within himself.” Since the dawn of time, it has been the human instinct to resolve the psychological dilemma by constructing various immortality narratives — one of the hallmarks of our species. Cave argues that besides our immortality narratives, what sets us apart from other sentient beings are our highly connected brains and our self-awareness — adaptive developments that have enabled us to foresee different possibilities and make sophisticated plans, but also, in envisioning the future, to grapple with the terrifying prospect of our own demise. We therefore cannot make death real to ourselves as thinking subjects.
11 Unusual Methods for Being a Great Public Speaker Altucher Confidential Prakash Panangaden taught me everything about public speaking. The first thing he taught me when we were in Kaiserslautern, Germany, for my “fascinating” talk titled “A Mechanically Assisted Proof in Category Theory” was ‘never go to the porn shops here. They will rip you off.’ I was 22 and Kaiserslautern was the worst city I had ever been to in my entire life. In a 24 hour period, I was chased by a lunatic, accused of stealing at the hotel I was staying at, kicked out of a bar for reasons I still can’t understand, and warned by my professor/mentor not to go to any porn stores or I would be ripped off. Being 22, I promptly ignored him. I was very very nervous about public speaking to these people (the name of the conference is so boring I can’t even repeat it). (a slide from my talk tomorrow) So when the conference was having their big banquet and awards ceremony, Prakash (my mentor at the time and co-author on the article I was presenting) took me to the speaking hall. a. b. c. d.
Introduction to Evolutionary Biology Introduction to Evolutionary Biology Version 2 Copyright © 1996-1997 by Chris Colby[Last Update: January 7, 1996] volution is the cornerstone of modern biology. It unites all the fields of biology under one theoretical umbrella. Misunderstandings about evolution are damaging to the study of evolution and biology as a whole. This is a brief introduction to evolutionary biology. What is Evolution? Evolution is a change in the gene pool of a population over time. The English moth, Biston betularia, is a frequently cited example of observed evolution. The increase in relative abundance of the dark type was due to natural selection. Populations evolve. Evolution can be divided into microevolution and macroevolution. The word evolution has a variety of meanings. Common Misconceptions about Evolution Evolution can occur without morphological change; and morphological change can occur without evolution. Evolution is not progress. Organisms are not passive targets of their environment.
All Documentaries Welcome to the Must Watch section. It is our understanding that for a truly democratic society to exist, there must be a free flow of easily accessible information. For the most part (not including heavy censorship in China), the Internet has allowed for this free flow of information to everyone and anyone with access to the internet and it is imperative that this right continues to be protected. Unfortunately, the principle of free flowing information does not exist in the mainstream media because our governments continue to allow large corporations to consolidate the entire media industry. For this reason, many facts, perspectives, and opinions do not make it to our televisions, movie theatres, newspapers, and radio stations. The documentaries below epitomize the importance of free flowing information and the lack of it in mainstream media. Please take the time to educate yourself and to educate others about the important issues raised in each of the documentaries.
10 Open Education Resources You May Not Know About (But Should) This week, the OCW Consortium is holding its annual meeting, celebrating 10 years of OpenCourseWare. The movement to make university-level content freely and openly available online began a decade ago, when the faculty at MIT agreed to put the materials from all 2,000 of the university’s courses on the Web. With that gesture, MIT OpenCourseWare helped launch an important educational movement, one that MIT President Susan Hockfield described in her opening remarks at yesterday’s meeting as both the child of technology and of a far more ancient academic tradition: “the tradition of the global intellectual commons.” We have looked here before at how OCW has shaped education in the last ten years, but in many ways much of the content that has been posted online remains very much “Web 1.0.” But as open educational resources and OCW increase in popularity and usage, there are a number of new resources out there that do offer just that.