Forum As a born again skeptic I find it hard to write about an experience which challenges my entrire values system; dead men don’t talk, dreams and premonitions tell you nothing except, perhaps, something about your body chemistry, the whole body of scientific knowledge in all the different fields of hard science hangs together, so if crap like creationism and flat-earth geography are true, then everything else we’ve discovered in the last 500 years must be wrong… Still I must be brutally honest. Skeptic editor Annette Taylor was offered a chopper ride today, and she had forebodings about it. I have ridden in helicopters many times without mishap, and I talked her into going, as it’s an exhilarating experience and quite safe. Nevertheless, a few hours later I rang to confirm that she’d returned in one piece. Alas! Premonitions may well foretell the future. One of her fellow passengers was airsick. Reductionists and doubters like myself oversimplify this mysterious universe if we ignore them. Well, I’
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I didn’t wish to begin a debate about the issues surrounding religion in the 16th and 17th-century, nor would I ever wish to stop anyone from taking in interest in history. All I wanted to do was to point out that history is an academic discipline the same as any other, and it is dangerous to make pronouncements of such a dogmatic nature in the subject in which one has not been trained. Little in Jim rings reply to my letter persuades me that I am wrong. I still think that the comment about Archbishop Laud implies that he was executed for burning heretics, otherwise why say while burning heretics was still a pious duty it could have unfortunate consequences, particularly for archbishops. However it is possible that in the area of toleration we are talking at cross-purposes. Toleration was strictly limited in its application in the 16th and most of the seventeenth century. Catholics for instance, were discriminated against for almost all of this time. Quakers and other minority religious sects were fiercely
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As a born-again skeptic, I find it hard to write about an experience which challenges my entrire values system; dead men don’t talk, dreams and premonitions tell you nothing except, perhaps, something about your body chemistry, the whole body of scientific knowledge in all the different fields of hard science hangs together, so if crap like creationism and flat-Earth geography are true, then everything else we’ve discovered in the last 500 years must be wrong… Still, I must be brutally honest.
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I found it interesting to read Bernard Howard’s article on complaining to the authorities. I myself complained about an incident that happened some years ago, when someone who was promoting a book he was trying to sell to a school library maintained that the author was “working with the health department on a cure for AIDS”. The book was called Magnetic Healing and Other Realities. I complained to the Department of Trade and Industry, where I was in fact treated with the utmost courtesy and consideration.
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I AM looking for ideas. For the last four years, I have had a challenge to psychics for them to find a promissory note with a value of $50,000. For the first six months, it was located within five kilometres of my tourist activity – Stuart Landsborough’s Puzzling World in Wanaka. I had two serious psychic challenges, each of whom seriously failed!
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I was interested to read the letters by Jim Ring and Felicity Goodyear-Smith to my article with the above title [NZ Skeptic 47].
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An article by Gordon Hewitt in NZ Skeptic 47 states, “In June 1995…an article appeared in this publication saying counselling was no use. This judgement was based on a single study conducted in 1939.” This is not true, but as the author of the article I am obviously biased. May I urge all skeptics to read it for themselves?
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I am sure Jim Ring is correct when he says we are on the winning side of the creationist battle [Forum, Summer 1997], but there is no room for complacency. As he says, the castrated form of biology taught in American schools has resulted in a minority of Americans believing organic evolution has occurred.
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Ten or twenty years ago, prominent overseas creationists once toured in a blaze of publicity. They spoke in public schools and received plenty of air time on National Radio and prime time TV. Some of us were out there fighting, and we felt we won most of the major battles.
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WE WERE skeptical. We demanded you respond to our clarion call for pithy pieces — but only a few of you pithed on us. For this we are grateful and we have sent suitable telepathic gifts to all of you, for which you should be grateful.
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LET us be clear. We think skeptics are the most witty, pithy and intelligent of people. The type who can get their profound insights across in 300 lively, well-chosen words. We insist you prove us right by flooding us with splendid examples of the genre. The author of the best contribution in each issue will receive a suitable telepathic gift. The worst example will earn an unsuitable telepathic gift. Here are the rules
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THE concepts of God and evolution are inextricable. In the beginning God created the Universe. The series of events that followed produced man. This imperfect product needed a higher authority (scapegoat, infallible architect, benevolent headmaster, king of quiz) so before long the concept of God evolved. This God created the Universe. The series of events that followed produced man. This imperfect product needed a higher authority etc, etc.
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