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Skeptic Summary #261

The future, the present, the strange, the idiotic, the hallucinogenic, the critical and more!

2012: Woo, woo, W0o7! - It isn’t good.

The Large Hadron Collider - It’s baaaaaaack!

Tree Lobsters - Nail Ray Comfort.

Editor’s Choice: Bill Maher opposes vaccines?! - Yeah, he still does.

From the Archives: Religon and magic mushrooms - The verse you’re looking for is John 4:20…

Neil Tyson talks about UFOs and the argument from ignorance. — This is a wonderful video of Neil Degrasse Tyson taking a question on whether he believes in UFOs. He expands on the subject to include a lesson in critical thinking including arguments from ignorance and other logical fallacies as well as the veracity of eye witness accounts in general.

As always he is engaging, informative as well as funny. Enjoy.

SkeptiQuote: There’s no religion like no religion. — Daniel Boles (runner up in Blasphemy Contest held by CFI)

Wednesday: This week chat was the first day that Ray Comfort’s forward was being handed out, so we started off with a review of it. Of course it sucked, but it sucked far more than one might expect. Out of no where a taxi does a hit-and-run on a dog outside of Kil’s house. Then the discussion turned toward cheese, cheese-like products, Philly cheese steaks and pizza. marf informed us of a new dietary study, The China Project, but we went right back to talking about cheese. The rest of chat focused mostly on TV shows, Hulu, and Under the Tuscan Gun.

Come chat with us.

dennisoc
jacq
Jayhawker Soule
treelobsters
Nate

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Bergman vs. Myers Debate: Should Intelligent Design be Taught in The Schools?

Bill Maher flames out in a pyre of stupidity over vaccines — again

Dithering over statins’ side-effects label finally ends

What’s New by Bob Park

Got some skeptic news items? Send them to us, and we’ll think about adding them.

Mortal Minds: The Biology Of Near Death Experiences, by G. M. Woerlee.



“Dying is the last conscious experience undergone by each person. But what do the dying experience? In the last few decades a good deal of publicity has surrounded people who have been close to death and then reported intense experiences that seem to suggest a supernatural existence beyond death. Does the conscious mind somehow continue to exist after the body has passed away? Mortal Minds answers these questions.

Dr. G. M. Woerlee explains how the normal functioning of the human body near death can generate beliefs in the reality of the supernatural and life after death. An anesthesiologist with more than twenty years of hospital experience, Dr. Woerlee has been struck over the years by the similarities between the body’s symptoms under anesthesia and its reactions near death. Among the issues he addresses are the sensations of being disembodied that those near death often describe, the perception that mind and body are separate components of existence, whether there is such a thing as a soul, the physical effects of decreased oxygen to the brain, and the visions that the dying sometimes report, from rapturous experiences of eternal peace to diabolical dreams.

While not dismissing near death experiences as mere hallucinations, Dr. Woerlee is also careful to point out that even powerful psychological impressions by themselves do not constitute scientific proof of life after death. Taking this balanced, objective stance, he succeeds in conveying a better understanding of the dying process and helping us all to realize the nature of these final experiences.”

— Product Description

Forum Topics:

1. The Supper
2. PZ expelled from Expelled — Dawkins slips in!
3. New World Order happening right now!
4. Funny FAILS
5. Sarah Palin naked again!
6. Scattershots: gargoyles & grotesques
7. Quote Mine warning propaganda poster
8. Reality
9. The shallow end of the gene pool…
10. Wrong images of Saturn

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1. Fundamentalists Hate Noah’s Ark
2. Evolving a Venom or Two
3. More on the Polonium 218 Controversy
4. Miracle Thaw — The Bogus Miracle
5. TAM5
6. Miracle Thaw Tray
7. The Bible’s Bad Fruits
8. Scientific Truth
9. Skeptic Summary #260
10. Mesmer, Casino Monkey, and Video Sex

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