Skepticism

Skepchick Quickies 4.17

Amanda

Amanda works in healthcare, is a loudmouthed feminist, and proud supporter of the Oxford comma.

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14 Comments

  1. Atheists no longer the most desipised […]

    That’s it?? The Scientologists are the only group more disliked, despite all of the good books and reasonable discussions atheists have been involved with in the last year? The Xenu-fearing, free-speech quashing, celebrity-tainting Scientologists are only SLIGHTLY less popular than the (on the whole) neutral and own-business-minding atheists???

    This is…discouraging. Extremely discouraging. I will hang my head (hang my head) low for the rest of the day.

  2. Whoa… that blue-blood thing really threw me for a loop. At first, I thought you were kidding, and maybe some religious group had come up with some wacky explanation of how angels make it blue or something. But no, you were serious. It’s not blue.

    Even after all this work I’ve done as a skeptic, there’s still so much pseudo-scientific bullshit mashed into my brain!

    That makes me sad.

    (Is “pseudo-scientific bullshit” redundant?)

  3. I’ve gotten with so many arguments over the blue blood thing over the years… Interesting side note – horseshoe crabs actually have blue blood. How cool is that?

  4. Scientology,

    Can’t Science sue them for having part of the word” Science” in the title? If only.

    I’d like to say the all the films I’ve seen, on U-tube and the like, are really well done. And I think those who make these films are seriously brave.

    The ones on U-tube appear to be completely un-edited and really demonstrate the hatred the pro-Scientology camp shows for any opposing view.

    This will, combined with Tom Cruz, make them appear “un-cool” to most youth and dry up any college level recruiting that they will attempt in the near future.

    Unfortunately, this will do the “church” far more harm than just pointing out the facts to many teenagers. It shouldn’t but it will. ( We need to have critical thinking courses in High School and make them a requirement).

    It won’t do anything to help those poor kids who have parents in the CO$, but it’s a start.

    We may look back on all this, in our lifetimes, and see it as the “beginning of the end” for the CO$, as a religion anyway, in the United States.

    Of course, I’d rather see the “ring-leaders” up on charges and the evil shut down, but it would “something” if the jerks at least had to pay taxes, on their ill gotten money.

    rod

    BTW: I think the person who said “L. Ron is gone but the con goes on”, needs to get a bumper sticker made and become rich.

  5. The 40 year old article on Scientology was great. As with many people I’ve read a number of the “leaked” documents and writings from Scientology. Related to my work I’ve had the experience of reading the writings of a number of very mentally ill persons. LRon’s writings really are nothing more than bazaar somewhat creative delusional made up crap. Patients in institutions write this kind of stuff on a regular basis and it’s usually only used as a good reason to have ones stay extended. That it has become a “religion” is beyond me and what a crazy evil religion it is.

    I’m still not sure if LRon was a con or if he just believed his pervasive delusions and had the innate intelligence and personality to convince people to look through the same crazy glasses. It really is appealing to be special, very special, above average, clear, in the know, righteously persecuted, friends of aliens, and alienated from friends. Crap. crap crap.

  6. The blue blood thing is cool. :)

    On the Gallup poll………I have the same question that one of the commenters there did, but not the time to check it out right now: Is this new or is it just because the Scientologists haven’t been included on previous polls?

  7. Blue Veins – This one, kinda like the myth of the “giant moon on the horizon” phenomena is exactly the sort of thing I love to hear about. I was told the deoxygenation story when I was a kid, but it never came up much for me as I got older.

    I do a little painting, and learned a while ago that painting veins on skin isn’t done with blue paint – it doesn’t look realistic (Also, steel isn’t gray either). It was a very interesting lesson to learn.

  8. I really enjoyed the one about why veins appear blue under the skin (of white people, mainly).

    But, as a new uncle, looking for ways to appropriately warp his new niece and nephew, I really must find a copy of “Mommy’s New Tits.”

  9. I get really depressed when I hear that a talented and seemingly intelligent musician or actor who I really like is a part of scientology, it really upsets me – I mean I could care less about John Travolta or Kirstie Alley … but Beck, Giovanni Ribisi, Jason Lee, Nancy Cartwright?

    I read an article somewhere about why there are a disproportionate number of celebrities who susbscribe to this crap, but I can’t seem to find it on the web … Any thoughts?

  10. I’m a bit puzzled by the geeks bearing gifts article. It doesn’t say whether any of passwords they were given worked. I’d happily give someone on the street a password to a non-existent computer system (that doesn’t match any of my real ones, of course) in exchange for free chocolate. But then, I am a bloke, and therefore not to be trusted.

  11. See, I knew it — being a blueblood doesn’t have anything to do with oxygenation! ;)

    Of course, it probably doesn’t have a heck of a lot to do with being the great-great-great-great-granddaughter of a British lord and lady, either. My understanding is that the term “blueblood”, indicating someone of aristocratic descent, stems from the fact that in medieval Europe, those classes were often a) very fair and b) able to keep their lily-white skin lily-white since they could hire other people to do any work that would expose them to, you know, sun and wind and nasty stuff like that. And therefore their skin (particularly at the wrists) had a faintly bluish tint because they were so pale.

    Of course, we’re ignoring the fact that the pale skin came from their fair-skinned Norse and Saxon ancestors, who marauded, raped, burned, cannibalized, and otherwise behaved badly in order to get the nobility to where they were.

    Oh well. I have a grand and glorious heritage, and if I apply skepticism to everything that contributes to my pale complexion, I am now free to disbelieve in God, Odin, heaven, hell, Valhalla, Niflhel, Ingwaz, Irmin, Lugh, and Thor. Wheeeeee!

  12. Trevor makes an excellent point about the passwords. I am guessing they never tested them (well, how could they?).

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