Religion

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“Evolving position” (Evolution denial)

Human – business evolution

A longtime acquaintance asked if my position on the origins of homo sapiens was based on faith, belief, a combination of these, or neither. 

It is not based on faith, which is a necessarily religious concept. I define faith as holding onto a position regardless of the evidence. All of my positions are based on evidence and observation, which means they change if warranted by the science. If research reveals a spontaneous generation of a complex life form in the fossil record, that would shoot holes in evolution, and I would adjust my thinking accordingly.

By contrast, Youth Earth Creationists insist the universe is 6,000 years old even though we can see the light from stars millions of light years away. They argue that humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time, an idea refuted by the geologic column and radiometric dating. Their positions are unmoved by science and proof, making it the definition of faith.

Continuing with what my position is based on, belief would be a better word than faith,  but it’s still inadequate. Belief is defined as “an opinion, conviction, or confidence,” or “a feeling of being sure that someone or something exists or that something is true.” Feelings or opinions have no place here, so evolution is not a matter of belief. It’s a matter of being able to understand its mechanism and process. By way of comparison, I don’t believe 5 x 5 = 25, I understand how elementary mathematics work.

The question from my longtime acquaintance was accompanied by a video of Abdul Rashid asking biology students a question, then asserting that their unsatisfactory responses disproved evolutionary science. It was further implied that this was proof of creationism, an assertion critical thinkers recognize at the negative evidence fallacy. Close to 100 percent of the products I’ve seen from Evolution is a Lie, the Creation Research Institute, Answers in Genesis, et al, are manifestations of this fallacy. They relate no science showing evidence of creationism. They instead highlight alleged deficiencies of evolution and wrongly think this is a point for their position.

All this came into play when my 8-year-old son asked me where humans came from. Not where baby humans come from, that was another conversation. Rather, he wanted to know how humans got here on Earth. Since what we know about evolution is based on verifiable, testable, falsifiable, and observable research, I was able to tell my son that humans evolved from an ape-like ancestor, through the process of natural selection, whereby beneficial mutations enable populations to adapt to their surroundings. Because of his age, I didn’t say that in so many words, and it was picture heavy, but the key point is that I can know it to be true because I understand what drives the process, how it works, and the evidence supporting it.

If evolution is true, stratas of the geologic column should reveal a succession of hominid creatures with features that are progressively less apelike and more human-like. And that’s what the fossil record shows, including the appearance of hominids capable of a bipedal gait about 100,000 years ago. As my son grows older, he’ll get more of an understanding and we can go into more detail. When that happens, here are some negative evidence arguments he may encounter from creationists. 

The silliest and simplest, and hence likely the first one he will encounter, is “Were you there?” Seriously, this is passed off as a point by Ken Ham and his ilk. And no, neither my son, Lewis Leakey, nor Stephen Jay Gould were there, nor do they need to have been. Science goes where the evidence leads, which is why DNA testing and fingerprints are better evidence than an eyewitness during a home burglary trial. Likewise, the fossil record, comparative anatomy, and so on are windows to evolution.

Subatomic physicists don’t see electrons, astronomers don’t see dark matter, and archaeologists didn’t see Greeks developing farm implements. These scientists make discoveries based on inferences and employment of the Scientific Method, and biologists work the same way.

While not ridiculous like “Were you there,” a similar ploy is to construct a deliberately narrow definition of science meant to necessarily exclude evolution from being so described. The crucial claim is that it must be observed, and the Rashid video centers on the interviewer trying to get biology students to admit this has never happened with evolution. In truth, evolution has been observed; more on that later.

But first, a definition. Science is a set of methods for empirical hypothesis testing. Done properly, it is able to support or refute some testable idea.

As Dr. Steven Novella noted in his response to the Rashid video, creationists prefer an inaccurately rigid definition of science that stipulates it must be observed at the precise moment it is happening (although that leaves them unable to meet their own criteria when arguing that God created man in his current form 5,000 years ago).

And evolution has been observed, most prominently in Richard Lenski’s ongoing e. coli experiment at Michigan State University. It has also been observed on three Florida islands. In 1995 researchers introduced brown anole lizards onto these islands, and when the researchers returned in 2010, they learned that to evade the invasive brown anoles, native green anoles had moved to higher perches. Consequently, the green anoles had developed larger toepads with more fringes in order to  provide increased surface area. This improved the lizards’ ability to cling to narrow, unstable branches. In short, they had adapted due to random mutation and natural selection, the driving forces of evolution. 

In addition to these direct observations, scientists base their conclusions about evolution on fossils, genes, population distributions, comparative anatomy, and developmental biology. These observations include learning that there are species that live exclusively in isolated locales, which is consistent with the idea of evolution. Examples include glowworms found only on New Zealand, giraffe weevils found only on Madagascar, and scaly-toed geckos found only on Vanuatu.

Also like other scientists, evolutionary biologists check the physical evidence to see whether it leads to verifiable predictions. That’s why anthropologists were looking for evidence of a hominid ancestor in the horn of Africa when they came across one of the field’s most significant finds, Lucy. It’s also why biologists suspected they might find a creature with features of both fish and land dwellers near Ellesmere Island, which led to the Tiktaalik fossil.

Just a few months ago, I had to explain to a successful 47-year-old man that evolution does not teach that humans descended from monkeys. He also wanted to know why there would still be monkeys if this were the case. A common response to such questions is to criticize science education, but I cannot put the blame on our public school system. There would be rare exceptions, such as parts of Louisiana and Mississippi where creationism is snuck into biology class, and where a student may be leading an insular existence where these notions are reinforced at church and home.

Otherwise, persons are without excuse. The information is easily accessible to anyone that wants it. A cursory Google search will reveal that evolution teaches that monkeys and other primates share a common ancestor with humans. The same search will show that we know this because of the geologic column, our sharing of 98 percent of our DNA with chimpanzees, and other anatomy inferences. The website will further reveal that when an evolving species becomes isolated from the main family it split from, it will eventually acquire characteristics that make it distinct. The parent species may survive or go extinct.

Creationists will sometimes say that evolution cannot explain the origins of life, and this assertion is perhaps the only common ground they and evolutionists occupy. Abiogenesis studies how life may have arisen from non-living matter and includes a combination of laboratory experiments and an examination of genetic information from today’s organisms. Evolution is a separate field centering on the study of inherited characteristics in biological populations over time. Trying to count being unable to explain how the first living organism got here as a strike against evolution is as nonsensical as dismissing the entire physics field because botany has yet to produce a blue rose.

My position is, quite literally, an evolved one. I was once a 15-year-old Young Earth Creationist asking my erudite biology teacher where each preceding life form came from. We kept going at least as far back as her positing that a lighting strike into a body of water may have produced Earth’s first life form. Which caused me to ask where the lightning came from, and what happened before that, and before that, and eventually her answer was, “I don’t know.” I took this as a weakness in her line of reasoning, whereas today I realizing that admitting one doesn’t have all the answers, but is still looking for them, is something commendable. And it never occurred to me that I was just as unable to explain where God came from. I was still several years away from understanding the fallacies of negative evidence and special pleading.

Some creationists say how awful it must be to think one came from an apelike creature or something resembling a salamander creeping though the slime. This is the appeal to consequence fallacy and, as such, has no bearing on whether these descriptions of human origins are true.

Another common creationist objection is that it’s inconceivable that anything as complex as a protein, much less the humans that house them, could result from chance. First, their inability to comprehend is irrelevant to whether it’s happening. That is merely the personal incredulity fallacy. Second, this argument misstates the role chance plays in evolution. Chance does determine random mutations, but natural selection is the opposite of chance. Natural selection preserves advantageous traits, enabling biological populations to adapt to their environment. Because of this, a single-cell organism that lived in water 3.5 billion years ago is the deep ancestor of an 8-year-old who is having the process explained to him.

 

 

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“Qigong Show” (Qigong medicine)

 

SHADOW

In the same week, my 7-year-old daughter showed me a yoga pose, while my 5-year-old son assumed the lotus, complete with closed eyes and thumb-index finger circles. I have no idea where this interest in eastern mysticism is coming from, but decided it could come in handy while preparing this post on qigong. I could have my children practice the techniques and test the results.

Qigong is a system that incorporates posture, movement, and breathing in order to benefit mental health, spirituality, or martial arts. Its use can be valid or vacuous, depending on what the practitioner hopes to achieve.

This can be true with other religious practices as well. Some Hindus use yoga to help them achieve kaivalya, which they consider a state of liberation, unification, and contentment. Secular practitioners of the art, meanwhile, are satisfied with a more supple spine and are not seeking life on an elevated plane.

Likewise, wine aficionados may enjoy a merlot for its aroma, taste, and mouthfeel. But for Catholics partaking in communion, this same drink enables them to become momentary vampires, as they believe transubstantiation allows them to literally drink the blood of Christ. This could be tested easily enough, although a result deemed unsatisfactory by the Vatican would presumably be explained away as the blood turning back into wine when it was spat out for chemical analysis.

The meditation, flowing movements, and deep rhythmic breathing of qigong can have a calming effect and can be a means of improving one’s martial arts ability. These attributes can be seen on brainwave scans and in growing karate trophy collections. Claims that go beyond these abilities that are the focus of this post. We are mainly concerned with the assertion that qigong facilitates the flow of qi, which is vaguely explained as life energy. According to Taoist, Buddhist, and Confucian notions, qigong allows access to higher realms of awareness and helps awaken one’s true nature. This is because it unblocks the flow of qi along twelve meridians, all of which correspond to major organs. This idea incorporates an alternative anatomy and physiology, and has no basis in biology.

While tranquility and flexibility are benefits one can gain from the practice, the idea that qigong has preventive or curative properties is unfounded and backed by no science or double blind studies. Testimonials and self-validating statements are offered in place of controlled experiments. Claimed benefits include the elimination of hypertension, carotid arteries, peptic ulcers, chronic liver disease, diabetes, obesity, menopause, chronic fatigue syndrome, insomnia, cancer, myopia, and leg pain. Besides being backed by no research or peer review, this is a typical strategy of alternative medicine, where a curative net is cast so wide that almost any improvement can be credited to it. Any seeming successes, however, are owed to natural fluctuations of illnesses or the patient concurrently taking legitimate medication.

Some go beyond garden variety alt-med verbiage and make even bolder claims. For instance, some qigong instructors say they can distance heal and strengthen the immune system. Neither of these claims are true, which is a good thing with regard to the latter. Except in extreme cases like late stage cancer or AIDS, strengthening the immune system is undesirable. An overstimulated immune system means autoimmune disorders such as arthritis, lupus, and fibromyalgia.

Some martial artists give demonstrations in which they claim to use qi to knock people over without touching them. This only works as long as the person being knocked down believes it will, indicating either the power of suggestion or the victim going along with the ploy. It never works on skeptics, as demonstrated in these videos.

The man in these videos, George Dillman, is a black belt, leaving in unclear why he would need to harness invisible knockout powers. At any rate, he explains the failure by saying the skeptic’s negative energy was impacting the power, which doesn’t say much for the power. Another explication is that the “guy has his tongue in the wrong position.” I’m unsure if Dillman is referring to the pretend puncher or his intended victim, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter.

I had my children do some qigong iterations, hoping to use it help my daughter wake up more easily in the morning. This was about the only ability I hadn’t seen attributed to qigong, so this left me feeling innovative and cutting edge. And since my son loves wrestling and roughhousing, I decided if qigong practice would help him tap into the knockout power. I would be the test subject to see if he could bowl me over without touching me.

I can’t say qigong did anything to help my daughter rise with less protestation and flailing, but a scratch on her arm disappeared. By conflating correlating and causation, and using this anecdote in lieu of evidence, I can declare this to be a qigong success. As to my son, he seems to have misunderstood that his punch was supposed to stop short of my mouth.

 

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“A new pair of genes” (Evolution denial)

dish

I regularly run across claims from the biology-challenged that evolution has never been observed. Yet it is on display every day in Richard Lenski’s ongoing E. coli experiment at Michigan State University.

Since 1988, Professor Lenski and his compatriots have charted genetic changes in 12 initially identical populations of asexual e. coli bacteria. The researchers have observed a wide array of genetic changes, occurring in anywhere from one to 12 of the populations. The population reached its 60,000th generation two years ago.

To deal with the cognitive dissonance of observed evolution, creationists fabricated a  distinction between micro- and macro-evolution. Since it would be straining credulity for even Ken Ham or Kent Hovind to deny what was literally being seen, they needed to come up with the ad hoc rationalization that these changes were merely improving an existing species, not creating a new one. They have yet to explain what would constitute a new species (breeding abilities, new appendages, just looking way different?)

But even if one accepts the term macroevolution, the Lenski experiment has now shown an example of this in its first stage. That’s because one of the e. coli cultures has evolved the ability to use citrate as a carbon source. Until then, the inability to do this was one of the traits that defined the e. coli species.

To be clear, neither Lenski, myself, nor anyone else claims this is a new species yet, as speciation is not a single event. It is a series of processes, with a beginning stage of initial divergence, a middle stage where species-specific characteristics refine, and an end where a new species becomes a separate evolutionary lineage. From there, it begins its own diversified branch or goes extinct.

Some creationists say that science doesn’t count if it contradicts their interpretation of a specific Bible version. As such, I’m unsure why they even try to answer scientific research with their own creative biology. Why not just limit their response to quoting Malachi this or Heznekeriah that? But since they do sometimes try to sound science-y, we will examine their attempt to finagle their way around Lenski’s observation of macroevolution.

Leading the creationist charge is Scott Minnich, who has genuine scientific credentials, as he works as a microbiology associate professor at the University of Idaho. More specific to this case, he had a critique of the citrate-using e. coli find published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Bacteriology. He and his associates replicated Lenski’s findings, so the disagreement was over what it meant. Minnich’s overarching point was that since the bacteria gained its new ability by rearranging existing genetic elements, no new genetic information evolved.

University of Toronto biochemistry professor Laurence Moran compared that to “saying a new book…contains no new information, because the text has the same old letters and words that are found in other books.”

Minnich argued that since genetic information was merely moved around as opposed to being created that this was not an example of macroevolution. Yet an e. coli strain gained an ability it had never had before, so this could be a necessary step toward speciation.

Also, the result allowed microbiologists to observe the ecological and genetic factors that cause change in organisms – changes that over time can lead to a new species. Contrast that with summarily dismissing the notion of speciation because Genesis suggests otherwise.

Moran further explained: “A genome encodes not just proteins and patterns of expression, but information about the environments where an organism’s ancestors have lived and how to survive and reproduce in those environments by having useful proteins and expressing them under appropriate conditions. So when natural selection favors bacteria whose genomes have mutations that enable them to grow on citrate, those mutations provide new and useful information to the bacteria.”

Moran’s words describe one example of how evolution works. Existing DNA is modified to create new genes or regulatory elements from existing sequences. Genes and functions don’t just poof and appear, much as creationists would love for them to.

 

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“Tunnel vision” (Near Death Experiences)

HELL

While skeptic is the adjective I most use to describe myself, it would be fascinating to learn that there really are Yetis, Venusian visitors, or jasmine extracts that cure Multiple Sclerosis. And the most pleasant example of my doubts being proven unfounded would be to learn of irrefutable evidence of an afterlife. There is clearly death after life, but does another life or series of lives follow that?

Bill O’Reilly and Dennis Prager have touched on this subject and argued that if there is nothing to look forward to when this is over, then all life is ultimately pointless. I find that unnecessarily pessimistic. To me, hopelessness would be knowing there is an eternity and that it will be spent in a North Korean gulag. But the larger point is that O’Reilly and Prager are committing the Argument From Consequence fallacy. How much value there is in our Earthly existence has no bearing on whether it’s all we get.

The term Near Death Experience was coined by psychiatrist Raymond Moody, who interviewed hundreds of persons who had reported unusual experiences while hovering near death. The best-known elements are a light at the end of a tunnel, being detached from the body, and reviewing one’s life. Other than a buzzing or ringing sound, the experience is usually pleasant, though about 15 percent of respondents found the experience upsetting or even terrifying. Some report seeing deceased relatives or a religious figure, always someone from the dying person’s faith, as portrayed in their culture’s artwork. Some persons have increased religious fervor after these experiences, but there are no reported conversions. Muhammad has never appeared to a dying Jew, nor Buddha to a moribund Hindu.

These are NEAR death experiences since no one reporting them has died. This means they are not proof of an afterlife. The persons could be entering another plane, portal, or state of existence, but they could also be experiencing what happens to someone with a dying brain.

Vision researcher Tomasz Troscianko speculates that an overload of information in the visual cortex creates an image of bright light that gradually increases. NDE researcher Susan Blackmore, meanwhile, attributes the feelings of extreme peacefulness to endorphin release.

One of the stronger pieces of evidence that NDEs are all in the mind come from the experiments of Dr. Karl Jansen. He has produced the effects of Near Death Experiences using a short-lived hallucinogenic dissociative anesthetic. According to Jansen, this anesthetic reproduces features such as traveling through a dark tunnel toward light, communing with a higher power, and feeling detached from one’s body. Excessive release of dopamine and noradrenaline could explain seeing dead relatives and religious figures or watching key moments from one’s life pass before you.

Neurologist Kevin Nelson suggests a reduced oxygen supply is the main culprit in NDEs, as this causes various brain regions to slow down in order to conserve energy. This messes with the hypothalamus and temporal lobe, thereby impacting emotion, memory, and limb control.

While backed up by some data, these skeptic speculations involve some guesswork. The nature of NDE claims make them impossible to falsify, measure, or reproduce. This means they fall outside the scope of being dealt with by the Scientific Method. Thus, it is impossible to definitively conclude if NDEs are the result of persons entering a new consciousness that begins when biological functions cease.

But the same standard applies to the other side. P.Z. Myers exchanged online pieces with Salon writer Mario Beauregard, who had offered a series of vivid tales centering on NDEs. Myers explained why these anecdotes were inadequate evidence: “Beauregard could recite a thousand vague rumors and poorly documented examples with ambiguous interpretations, and it wouldn’t salvage his thesis.” Beauregard attempted a vague scientific spin by throwing in the word “Quantum,” which is the New Age version of God of the Gaps argument, where anything that can’t be explained is brushed away with this buzzword.

Meanwhile, Mike Adams at townhall.com related the tale of “Carl” and his NDE, and noted there are many such stories. He’s right, there are many undocumented, unverified, anonymous anecdotes out there. I hope Adams is right about Carl having glimpsed the unending bliss that awaits us all. Or really, even perpetual mediocrity punctuated by occasional doughnut breaks with Chuck Connors and Benjamin Franklin would be enough. But until proof is available, I’ll focus on making the best of this life, which is the one I’m sure I have.

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“Culture clubbed” (Lynn Andrews)

ANDREWSPICWhen I visit my wife’s hometown in the rural Philippines, I encounter a culture different from the one I grew up in. The religion is a Catholicism-witch doctor mix that includes a belief in a quasi-reincarnation which enables deceased relatives to sojourn in spirit or butterfly form. Neighborhoods are not quite tribal, but they feature a much stronger sense of identity than what is found in the United States. Most families grow at least some of their own food, usually rice and coconuts. While I’ve been warmly received in my handful of trips, it is unlikely that an outsider such as myself would ever be accorded access to the area’s deepest secrets and beliefs, even though I married into the culture. And it is much less likely that this scenario would happen six times to an interloper visiting disparate locations that prize tradition and secrecy.

But that is the claim of Lynn Andrews, who says she has been trained and mentored by shamans from various cultures, all of whom make up a highly-select group called the Sisterhood of the Shields.  

Her story of where these ideas and practices come from is almost certainly fabricated. Not that it matters much. Whether she came up with it on her own, or if she is heir to a multi-cultural conglomerate has no bearing on the legitimacy of what she’s peddling. And that is the notion that there is a magic emotional healing available through all of nature, and which has been used by every ancient culture and it still bursting through everyone’s chakra. Despite this ubiquity, it can only be accessed by purchasing it from Andrews.

Most of her writing features undefined New Age terms, but she is adaptable enough to throw in a dash of pseudoscience, such as, “Quantum physics, along with discovering the different ways the right and left hemispheres of the brain process information and function, are giving modern societies a greater understanding of the energy waves of life that bind us together and sometimes pull us apart when we are out of sync with the rhythms of our lives.”

In this sentence, she uses science terms, but tosses them into a gibberish gumbo. Quantum physics is the study of the behavior of matter at the molecular, atomic, and smaller levels. It is unrelated to society’s understanding of energy. As it happens, society’s understanding of energy is somewhat limited, as evidenced by the fact that Andrews and those like her get away with misusing the word. Her writing wows those who don’t know she is mangling terms, and the reader is left impressed, or at least confused and looking to Andrews to explain further. She also gets away with claiming to be on the cutting edge since her verbiage is unfamiliar.

While appealing to the future, she still makes the standard alternative medicine appeal to antiquity, writing, “These are the natural energies of the universe that Shamans have practiced for millenniums.” Of course, how long something has been used has nothing to do with its effectiveness.

Andrews excitedly reports that we are nearing the end of a 5,200-year Mayan cycle, a 1,000-year Incan cycle, and are entering a new Chinese cycle. In each case, this will lead to increased “cosmic wisdom, peace, harmony, and tranquility.” There have been multiple waits of 1,000 years or more, but they all happen to end in time for Andrews to take commercial advantage of it. Her energy waves do seem quite in synch after all. Even more, “new feminine energies” will use Lake Titicaca as a conduit, and pilgrims can soak these up by signing on for Andrews’ spiritual journey to Peru.  

With regard to this feminist energy, Andrews writes briefly about the “millenniums- long patriarchal oppression,” but never encourages voting, blogging, dialoging, campaigning, or organizing. Rather, the solution is to dress in natural fiber clothes, adorn sun jewelry, bang drums, and dance about a fire. Or more specifically, participate in these liberating activities at Andrews’ $800 retreats. There is also the option of paying $150 to talk with her by telephone for an hour. Or you can call me instead. Your cosmic energy won’t be any more attuned with Neptune or elk, but the chat is free and I will have Iron Maiden playing in the background.

If purchasing her phone services, seminar seats, or study programs, Andrews says students will be privy to knowledge she gained while apprenticing under shamans on four continents. Locales for these spiritual awakenings included the Yukon, the Yucatan, the Australian outback, the Himalayan foothills, the Pyramids, and Hawaiian shores. She never made it to Moline, Schenectady, or Tulsa. She knows the more exotic the locale, the more mystic it will seem to her followers. At some point in this spiritual journey, she claims to have been enshrined into the highly-secretive Sisterhood of the Shields, which numbers just 44 members. Furthermore, they appointed her as their spokesperson.

It is highly unlikely that Andrews gained access to folk medicine women from each of these cultures, and was encouraged to publicize what had been secretive methods. There is no indication of the Sisterhood’s existence separate from Andrews’ claims. These women from all parts of the world would had to have organized into an extremely tight group, then tapped an interloper to the spread cultural secrets of proud peoples. There is no good answer for how women raised in disparate cultures and religions would have sown together a seamless spiritual tapestry. In one case, Andrews  claims to be quoting a Lakota while using Cree terms.

Furthermore, she has cited Agnes Whistling Elk and Ruby Plenty Chiefs as two of her mentors, but  has never provided even a photo to document their existence. She did, however, relate that they had visited her again in 2014 and told her of a new vortex near Sedona that will open DNA doorways and provide energies from Mother Earth. Best of all, this new vortex coincided with the location of Andrews’ spring gathering that year. For several hundred dollars you get it all: Love, tranquility, and a previously unknown dimensional doorway.

Usually for my accompanying photo, I try to dig up something that highlights the ridiculous nature of the subject and maybe add some lazy Photoshopping. In this case I’m just using a picture from Andrews’ website because it accomplishes both of those goals nicely.

As to the words on that website, check this out: “Discover the ancient teachings of the Feminine Divine and learn how to heal and integrate your Sacred Feminine Energy Shield into wholeness. Through sound, action and intention, you heal the energy centers of your body – your heart, solar plexus and chakras. Move into Oneness and harmony with Mother Earth and the world around you as she shows you how to heal your life. This is the Way of the Wolf.”

In the end, is matters not whether these ideas are from Andrews alone or something cobbled together by herself and 43 other shamans. In either case, the result is pseudoscientific psychobabble that appeals to those comforted by platitudes, myths, tales, mysticism, and the appeal to nature fallacy, all wrapped in a bow of bastardized feminism.

 

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“The Kids Are All Might” (Indigo children)

SKID

Indigo children are said to be youngsters who possess highly desirable supernatural abilities. These awesome offspring are variously suspected to be multidimensional beings, human-alien hybrids, super-evolved hominids, or prophets destined to lead humanity to full enlightenment. While none of these distinctions have been confirmed in indigo children, we can be certain of their parents’ traits, most notably a massive ego.

The concept of indigo children originated with Nancy Ann Tappe, who attributed her discovery to her synesthesia. This is an neurological phenomenon where a person is using one sense but has another stimulated. Everyone does this to some extent. For instance, if someone hears the word giraffe, they likely will “see” this giant animal in their mind. But synesthesia primarily refers to such experiences as hearing a car start and associating it with the color green, or looking at a circle and getting an itching sensation. Tappe, then, attributed synesthesia to her seeing an indigo glow around select children.

A fairly minor point here, but that would not be synesthesia since only sight was involved. Perhaps she was claiming the color was her “seeing” the sixth sense. In any case, whether or not she is seeing shimmering children would be easy to determine. A dozen partitions could be set up, and behind each would sit either a person she considers indigo, a person she does not consider indigo, or an empty chair. She could then tell testers which partitions had an indigo glow rising from them. However, New Agers don’t normally care for these types of tests, instead preferring feelings, intuition, and client gullibility. Boyued by these elements, Tappe writes books on the subject and holds seminars, where hundreds of disciples bathe in each other’s bluish brilliance.

In her writings, Tappe lists traits to look for to know if your child is indigo. It’s unclear why this is needed, since having Tappe look at the kids would seem enough. Also, the list of indigo traits is so long and vague it could apply to everyone and so the Forer Effect comes into play. These descriptions include being curious, headstrong, unusual, driven, intuitive, intelligent, and resistant to structure.

Thinking one’s child is a hyper-evolved multidimensional being is attractive to those whose credulity is matched by their vanity. But author Sarah Whedon suggests the indigo label also appeals to parents who seek to excuse their child’s behavior and their parental responsibility to do anything about it. For instance, pro-indigo authors Jan Tober and Lee Carroll say such children may function poorly in conventional schools due to their rejection of rigid authority, their being smarter than their teachers, and their inability to embrace discipline.

Whedon suspects that many children who have ADHD or autism are instead labeled as indigo by their parents. This also gives a fabricated reason to avoid Ritalin or other medication, a plus in this mostly anti-vax, anti-Big Pharma community. Here, autism is just another word for telepathy. Skeptic author Robert Todd Carroll said, “It’s much easier for them to believe their children are special and chosen for some high mission instead of having a brain disorder.” Anthropologist Beth Singler considers the movement as part of a moral panic about children, parenting, ADHD, autism, Big Pharma, and vaccinations.

From a list of identifiers at indigochildren.com, we learn, “If this seems to describe you, chances are you are an Indigo,” followed by an exhaustive list of personality traits. Most are positive, such as creative, honest, sympathetic, and confident. Like astrology, it is kept general, while also telling the listener what it wants to hear. There are handful of negative traits thrown in – rebellious, antisocial, strange – in order to have cover for ADHD and autism.

I doubt if anyone who has wanted to know if their child was indigo has looked into it and decided the answer was no. If someone has gotten to the point of seriously asking that question, it reveals their motivation and mindset.

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“Winging it” (Angel therapy)

FALLENANGELAngel therapists insist the practice is as simple as requesting that supernatural beings deliver health and happiness, then having it instantly delivered. Oh, there is one other factor, that of paying the therapist.

The most prominent proponent of angel therapy is a Norwegian princess, and if everyone who called for winged intervention ended up as royalty, the idea might have merit. For commoners, Doreen Virtue hosts an online radio show dedicated the proposal. She said practitioners don’t pray to angels; they just talk with and petition them. As to what the difference is, I have no idea because Virtue didn’t clarify. But anyway, the method is you tell something to Virtue, who tells the angels, who pass it onto God.

Like other angel therapy proponents, all of her assertions are offered without evidence, unless we are generous enough to count unverifiable anecdotes. She also writes, “People of all faiths and cultures believe in angels,” which has nothing to do with whether they are real, or if they perform charitable acts at the behest of Doreen Virtue. If looking to hone your critical thinking skills, this is known as the ad populum logical fallacy. This is where a large number of people believing something is touted as proof that the belief is correct.

For customers concerned that she will summon a demon during these sessions, Virtue puts those diabolical concerns to rest. “I can see the spirit world. Angels have soft, swan-like wings. Fallen angels, in contrast, have short bat-like bony wings and clawed talons.” With the seraphim taxonomy clarified, we’ll move on, although not before pointing out that “clawed talon” is redundant.

Virtue explains how to avoid the Luciferian Legion and embrace only holy ones. Her methodology is supple, as she accepts both Visa and MasterCard. Her books and DVDs go into more detail about the ideas, including how to get the most out of your summoning of the Archangel Michael.

While they reference God and angels, these therapists otherwise ignore the Bible and are mostly frowned upon by Christians, who don’t care for the therapists setting themselves up as a conduit to Heaven. Furthermore, Biblical angels are wholly inconsistent with the ones who drop by a therapist’s office for a chit-chat.

One angel wrestled with Jacob for hours before intentionally throwing his opponent’s hip bone out of socket. Another is described as a hideous beast that kissed burning coals with impunity. The heavenly messengers who announced Jesus’ birth reassured the shepherds to “Fear not,” a common opening monologue during angelic encounters. The angels in both the Old Testament are Revelation wield swords of fire, are blindingly luminous, and are infused with superhuman strength. They also carried out the Egyptian infanticide. But now, Doreen will summon them to treat your anxiety and help you land that premium parking spot.

Angel therapists are full of contradictions. Virtue says we must call on the spirit beings first, that they won’t seek us. But then she says “Our angels communicate with us by causing us to look up just in time to see a clock or license plate with a certain number sequence such as 111. When we notice that we keep seeing the same number sequence repeatedly, we begin to wonder whether it means something.” It means that you are putting stock in subjective validation and selective memory, and giving in to the temptation to buy additional  books, which will explain more ideas, which will in turn drive you to purchase still other titles and have more 111 sightings.

Without explaining who wrote it or how she accessed it, Virtue cites “a universal law that binds angels.” It reads, ‘No angel shall interfere with a human’s life unless asked, with the sole exception of a life-threatening emergency.” She contradicts this with, “You can also consciously ask for more angels to surround your loved one.”

She further insists, “You have guardian angels with you right now,” but again contradicts herself by insinuating that you need to pay her to access them.

You can even learn these tricks yourself, through her daughter-in-law’s Angel University. The daughter-in-law, who also chats with fairies, sells telephonic advice for $3.33 a minute, which works out to $6.66 for two minutes.

After completing the cherubic curriculum, students receive this trio of blessings: A deep and permanent connection to the archangels; a powerful healing attunement; and a printed certificate.

Another angel therapist, Susan Stevenson, said, “Whispers in our ear, taps on the shoulder, brushes of air across your skin, changes in air pressure, flutters from deep inside, glints of light and color are all gentle hints to pay closer attention to the angels’ presence.” So the next time you experience heartburn while checking your barometer, you’ll know what’s really happening.

Some add energy healing like Reiki and Etheric Cord Cutting to the mix, with a promised result of love, peace, and joy. Etheric cord cutting is described thusly by intuitivejournal.com: “During the course of our normal day, we have many interactions with others, both sending and receiving energy. Many people tend to absorb the energy of others, both positive and negative.” This can from an etheric cord, which must be cut. Here’s how to manage this this invisible snipping:

“Find a quiet spot and begin by taking a deep breath in through your nose and exhaling slowly through your mouth. Repeat a total of three times. Close your eyes and call Archangel Michael by calling his name three times.”

Reader Lisa wrote to intuitivejournal, “I have been suffering upper shoulder and neck pain and headaches now for over two weeks. The day before yesterday I had a deep tissue massage combined with craniosacral and Reiki. I felt a little better yesterday but am back in pain today. It occurred to me that I may have some cord cutting to do along with my daily grounding and protection rituals.”

Site maintainer Laurra cautioned this may still be too little mumbo jumbo: “Something else you may want to try is pendulum dowsing to find the source of your pain. It can be quite helpful in determining if the source of the pain is mental or emotional and from what area of your life it has come from.”

This should be cut-and-pasted into the “What’s the harm?” section of skeptic sites. Both Lisa and Laurra are embracing unprovable notions reliant on post hoc reasoning. Pain fluctuates and people are apt to try new ideas, no matter how ridiculous, when the hurt is at its worst. If the condition improves, as it often does naturally, it seems to work, and the miracle cure is added to the anonymous anecdotes that are considered proof by those who frequent these sites. The harm is thinking that ruminating on archangels is a valid prescription for chronic pain.

Beliefnet.com offers some ways to call upon the angels. These include writing a letter. “Pour out your heart when discussing your confusions, hurts, and anxieties. Hold nothing back so that the angels can help every part of you and your situation.” For all these details, the instructions fail to include where to mail these heavenly notes.

Another option is to envision them. “These visualizations are angelic invocations that create your reality.” Indeed, doing so will create a reality of believing absurdities.

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“Vulture club” (Birds gathering for Armageddon)

IVULTUREThe Book of Revelation features vivid imagery of sea dragons, winged lions, and scorpions with human heads (or possibly humans with scorpion bodies). But some modern-day interpretations also include a much more mundane creature, the vulture.

On the website of Paw Creek Ministries, Joseph Chambers lays out the relevance this despised bird has to cataclysmic end times. Chambers begins by interpreting Armageddon to be in Israel’s Mediggo Valley. This seems a fair enough conclusion. Every action in the Bible and Koran took place in either modern-day Israel, southern Turkey, eastern Egypt, northern Saudi Arabia, or western Iraq. Hence, almighty God’s omnipotence seems limited to a small circle of the Middle East.

After dispatching with cookie cutter references to the Antichrist and the tribulation, Chambers gets to the heart of the apocalyptic matter: “The hatred for Israel that fills the Middle East and much of the world is a prophetic fulfillment. It could not be otherwise or we could not be living in the end times.”

Critical thinkers may note the affirming the consequent committed here. For any new readers, this is when one: 1. Makes a conditional statement; 2. Affirms the consequent; 3. And conclude this proves the antecedent to be true. In this instance, Chambers notes that it is prophesied Israel will be hated, and since some people hate Israel, this proves the Bible is true. Chambers did not cite which verse predicted this, and I could find no verse that made the claim. But even if there is such a verse, there could be reasons persons would dislike the Israeli government that would have nothing to do with God foreshadowing it. Its treatment of Palestinians or its civil rights abuses could be an issue. Or it could be plain old anti-Semitism, which has existed as long as there have been Jews. Anti-Semitism was in existence at the time Biblical prophecies were written, so predicting that it would continue is an underwhelming prognostication.

Getting back to the blood and gore, Chambers writes that Armageddon will be the greatest battle in history, not just fought by men, but featuring angels, demons, dragons, griffons, and Sleestak. What a mess it will be.

“The clean-up from such a slaughter cannot be accomplished by human hands,” Chambers writes. “Vultures will be called by their creator to descend en masse and devour the rotten flesh,” which will be peeling off 200 million victims, although he never explains how he reached this figure.

At any rate, an avian army will descend, according to Revelation 19:17-18: “An angel cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God, that ye may eat the flesh of kings.” All this explains why the number of vultures in Israel is substantially rising, Chambers adds.

Also showing an interest in Israeli scavenger birds is cuttingedge.org. This site is similar to Paw Creek Ministries, but with more interest in the New World Order and exclamation points. It tells us, “The Jews of Israel are showing great concern for vultures, to the point where the population is increasing dramatically!”

The site then segues into Israel’s standing in the world. “Israel has fought five major wars, most of them against considerable odds. Israel today numbers 6.6 million citizens living amidst 300 million Arabs who universally want to kill her once and for all and throw her out of the Middle East. That tiny Israel can withstand this kind of opposition is proof positive of the omnipotent power of almighty God. God defends tiny Israel against overwhelming foes.”

Another critical thinking interjection here. This is one more example of affirming the consequent. The writer is saying, “If a small nation can survive despite being surrounded by hostile enemies, it is because it has godly protection. Israel survives despite being surrounded by hostile enemies. Therefore, God is protecting it.”

However, there can be other factors. God, for instance, is providing $9 million less a day to Israel than the United States is. Neighboring countries may also may be hesitant to provoke a nation strongly suspected of having nuclear arms. Those countries are also aware that Israel’s Begin Doctrine calls for preventive strikes if an enemy attempts to possess weapons of mass destruction. Israel employed this in 1981 when it bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor under construction, an attack that would be superfluous if God was offering absolute protection.

Cuttingedge.org then quotes the other biblical book known for its vivid imagery, Ezekiel. It claims 39:17-18 is referring to Armageddon’s aftermath: “Say to the birds of prey of every sort and to every beast of the field, assemble yourselves and come, gather from every side to the sacrificial feast that I am preparing for you, even a great sacrificial feast on the mountains of Israel.”

It then explains, “‘Gather yourselves to my sacrifice’ alludes to an invitation common in the Middle East to invite friends over for a specially prepared feast. God is celebrating a victory over the enemies of Israel!” Come one, come all, for free food, drink, and a celebration of genocide!

The author also concludes that the prophesied destruction of the House of Esau refers to Palestinians, and he excitedly notes their impending slaughter. And the vulture increase in Israel is a complementary miracle since something has to eat the flesh of the displaced people and pluck their heathen eyes.

I usually find websites that specialize in prophecy fulfillment or conspiracy theories to be selective in their facts and interpretations. I don’t know that I’ve ever come across any that were just so wrong as these two. For vulture populations in the Armageddon vicinity are actually plummeting dangerously low.

Jon Gerrish runs the Jerusalem Cornerstone website and he is one Christian who takes a jaded view of imminent doomsday pronouncements. With regard to the ornithological implications, he writes, “After my arrival in Jerusalem in the fall of 1982, I was introduced to articles and newsletters regarding Israel and the End Times. One had to do with a sudden and dramatic increase in vulture populations across the country, especially in the Jezreel Valley, where Megiddo is located. Since then I have become more familiar with Israel’s flora and fauna. It is well documented that Israel’s current population of vultures has unfortunately diminished to the brink of extinction. Only 40 pairs of griffon vultures are left, when there were 1,000 in 1948.

Meanwhile, the Al-monitor newspaper reports that vultures native to Israel are in danger of extinction. About 150 years ago, Briton Henry Tristram documented thousands of vultures in modern-day Israel. A survey taken in 2000 counted just 400 of them. That means these 400 birds would have to finish off 200 million victims, quite a miracle indeed. But 5,000 people were fed with a few fish, so maybe this idea just needs to be inverted.

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“Read Allah bout it” (Muslim conspiracy theories)

GUITARSHARKI have been on an unintended conspiracy theory kick of late, with four straight posts focusing on the topic. Let’s keep it going by addressing conspiracy theories with an Islamic flavor.

Muslim conspiracy theorists attribute so much power to Mossad and the CIA, it seems they should be worshipping those agencies instead of Allah. This power was displayed during a string of shark attacks in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, in 2010. Before delving into the attacks and their conspiratorial aftermath, please allow me a personal tangent. I knew Sharm el Sheikh shark victims before they were cool. I lived there for six months in 1999, where I met Herb. Herb had a mantra, “Everything is easy when the will is strong,” which he claimed to recite 500 times a day. Skeptic or not, I have no doubt about this. I would hear him saying it out loud to himself as he bicycled across the desert at night. He had an amazing biography that included fishing with Hemingway, introducing 15-year-old Mike Tyson to his trainer, and receiving unsolicited job offers of up to $500,000 a year. He turned the jobs down because he didn’t want to wear a suit.

I was interviewing him once when he decided that Muhammad Ali would be a better source for my question, so he thumbed through his rolodex for Ali’s home phone number. He stopped after realizing that the former heavyweight champion’s Parkinson’s disease would keep him from being speaking well enough. So he went to plan B, Norman Mailer. Norm wasn’t in, which was fine. The idea of conducting an unplanned and unscripted interview with Norman Mailer tended toward the intimidating side.

At any rate, Herb’s life experiences also included being bit by a shark during his daily three-mile swim from Sharm El Sheik to Tiran Island, Saudi Arabia. More than a decade later, shark attacks became common in the area for one week. There were five attacks, one of them fatal. Other than Herb’s shoulder being bit, there wasn’t much history of shark attacks in the area. The most likely reason for the abrupt spike was the dumping of sheep carcasses during an Islamic festival two weeks prior. But why blame Muslims when scapegoat Jews are nearby?

Some Egyptians, including the South Sinai governor, figured that Mossad agents were behind the attacks. This was typical of a pervading mindset in the region that sees Israel, and to a lesser extent the U.S., as behind any misfortune. Even the electricity going out is seen as sign of infidel sabotage. The shark attack victims were all Europeans, so the idea was that Israel was trying to cripple the city’s robust tourism industry. To do so, they captured a shark and planted a GPS unit on its back. That still leaves no explanation for how a device that tracks movement would enable a cartilaginous fish to be moved by remote control and then forced to chomp on a Ukrainian leg. On the flip side, a guy named Spielberg directed Jaws.

Keeping with unpopular animals, another idea posits that Mossad agents train vultures to spy on Saudi Arabia. One of these ornithological espionage agents, R65, was captured by Saudi Arabian security forces, wearing a bracelet declaring, “Tel Aviv University.” As Top Secret efforts go, emblazoning your nation’s capital on your spy’s footwear is an unorthodox strategy.

The university reported the vulture was part of a migration study, which is code talk for Zionist insurgency. Other birds have not returned, meaning they are out there getting more information. How they get it, what they have reported, and how they speak Hebrew is unknown. They are spies, after all.

Having promulgated theories based on sea and air, a ground-bound conspiracy is easy to concoct. Istanbul is the only city in the world that occupies two continents, and this has symbolic as well as geographic relevance. Turkey is a not-quite-east, not quite-west, locale that serves as both a dividing line between, and place of diplomacy for, two vastly different cultures. Turkey is populated by persons who would be comfortable living in places as disparate as Greece and Iran, and it borders both. So Istanbul provides just the right element for a Zionist plot to insult Turkishness though power chords.

The 2010 Sonisphere festival in Istanbul featured Metallica and Megadeth. But its most distinguishing characteristic was that it occurred the same month as a Gaza flotilla raid that killed nine Turks. As such, the concert was meant to mock the deaths by celebrating at a time of grieving. The headbanging was organized by Purple Concerts, which is run by Israelis. Of course, the show had been planned long before the raid took place. Or had the raid been planned long before the show took place? Conspiratorial minds want to know.

For evidence, Turkey’s Vakit newspaper noted both alcohol and Rammstein were present. Sonisphere played in 10 other countries in 2010, so the organizers were evidently also making fun of Greece for its debt crisis and needling Spain for losing the World Cup final.

Moving on. Hindu-Muslim rivalries are mostly associated with Kashmir, but if there’s a holy war brewing, Iran needs a slice of the jihad pie. Hence, its state-owned mouthpiece pushes the idea that Mossad agents cooperated with India to plot Umar Farouk Mutallab’s attempted plane bombing in 2009.

In the scheme, an Israeli security company paid for the would-be bomber’s plane ticket from Amsterdam to Detroit. He lacked a passport, but a mysterious “Indian man” arranged passage onto the plane. All this was made easier by Israel clandestinely controlling Nigeria and Yemen, where Mutallab was born and trained, respectively. The goal was to give the U.S. an excuse to invade Nigeria and Yemen. What interest Israel had in the U.S. invading countries that, per the theory, it already controlled, is never explained.

These have all been comical ideas, but we now make an abrupt transition to the jihad against polio vaccinations. As dangerous and unhinged as the U.S. anti-vaccine movement is, the threats to murder doctors, legislators, and lobbyists are unlikely to be carried out. Not so when a fatwa is ordered. In fact, scores of aid workers and their security guards have been killed since the latest vaccine jihad was declared in 2012. Another tragedy is the doubling of polio cases in Pakistan’s tribal regions during the time.

Maulana Fazlullah of the Pakistani Taliban considers the vaccinations a “conspiracy of Jews and Christians to make Muslims impotent and stunt their growth.” He also declared it to be against Islam to combat a disease before contracting it. He additionally declared women in public to be an obscenity, so he encourages the kidnapping and human trafficking of female health care workers.

We will close by returning a lighter note, specifically the idea of pig’s blood in cola. According to the Al-Riyadh Newspaper, “The scientific and medical research says that drinking Pepsi and Coke leads to cancer because the key element is taken from pork sausage. The pig is the only animal that eats dirt, dung and urine, which makes for lethal germs and microbes.”

The article goes through a host of maladies associated with the drinks, then warns, “Drinking six bottles of Pepsi or Coke at one time causes instant death.” Presumably at the hands of a Muslim polio jihadist.

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“Collision collusion” (CERN and Tower of Babel)

ATOMSMASHERThe conflict between Christian fundamentalists and biology is well-documented. The former also has a distaste for astronomy, at least the light years problem. But I recently came across their objections to another branch of science, particle physics. Specifically, they are comparing the Large Hadron Collider with the Tower of Babel.

This began due to a misunderstanding of the Higgs boson’s unofficial name, the God Particle. The Higgs boson is the particle thought to give other particles mass, and it acquired its nickname through the frustration of Nobel-prize winning physicist Leon Lederman. He and his fellow physicists were almost certain the boson existed, but were unable to pin it down, theoretical particles being not all that easy to catch. An exacerbated Lederman took to calling it “the goddamn particle,” and the language was softened for print.

So, then, the Higgs boson has nothing to do with any god or its characteristics, but the toothpaste is already out of the theological tube, so there’s no turning back. Now let’s look at why some people think CERN and its Large Hadron Collider are tampering in the domain of the Judeo-Christian god by searching for this unholy grail.

As it so happens, CERN has not only built the world’s largest and most powerful particle collider, it is also the birthplace of the World Wide Web. And like Frankenstein and Albert Hoffman, its designers can only watch in sorrow as their creation goes bonkers. For the web has enabled any idea, no matter how detached from reality, to be promulgated and embraced. That includes some websites that promote idiosyncratic views of particle accelerators.

We’ll start with the redundant salvationandsurvival.com. This site is maintained by a woman calling herself Belle Ringer, a name so made-up sounding that it has to be genuine.

The bell-ringer writes of the LHC, “Man is trying to become like God. And we know what happens every time we try to break into that barrier that separates us from the throne room of God, right?” Having never attempted to break this deified door, I am unaware. Please enlighten.

Ringer chastises CERN for trying to decipher how matter is created, when Genesis clearly states that God did it. There they go domain-tamperin’ again. And what is with all this Scientific Method and pursuit of knowledge stuff anyway? “Just why do we need this information? Anytime man determines to explain away the sovereignty of God in creating the world by dismissing it as a simple matter of a particle giving mass to other particles, I sense the hair on the back of my neck begin to rise.”

She has completely missed the point of the LHC, which is to better understand the laws of interactions between elementary particles. Then in an evidence-free assertion, Ringer accuses the physicists of trying to open a wormhole. These are theoretical shortcuts that would allow space travelers to get somewhere much more quickly than would Buck Rogers. But according to Ringer, the purpose is to get to Heaven, inside God’s mind, or some similar verboten location. She has a warning for anyone contemplating this cosmic misdeed.

“God destroyed the Tower of Babel and scattered the peoples across the earth, causing them to lose their common language, and reducing them to strange tongues so they couldn’t understand each other and collectively conspire against him. This sure seems to mimic the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel, doesn’t it?”

Well, yes, if you completely misrepresent what LHC is about and equate today’s most brilliant particle physicists with ambitious construction workers in a myth written by Bronze Age Middle East nomads, then it’s the same. This elasticity also allows her to conclude that dark matter sought by physicists is actually the “spiritual forces of evil” that Paul wrote of.

In March of 2013, the boson was tentatively confirmed, and Ringer suggests this opened a diabolical portal. Her evidence is that since then the world has experienced “an increasing amount of evil,” which she makes no attempt to qualify or quantify.

All this is being done because, “Once again, instead of worshipping God, man thinks he can become equal to or greater than creator of the universe. Have we become as arrogant and rebellious as Nimrod building the Tower of Babel that we are about to repeat ancient history?”

Just as I was about to conclude that she was going to offer no evidence for any of this, she drops her Beelzebub bombshell: There is a sculpture of Shiva at CERN headquarters. She points out that Shiva is the Hindu god of destruction, so this proves the purpose of the LHC is to destroy Earth.

As jumping to conclusions go, this represents a world-class leap. It also contradicts everything she had written up to that point. She had presented CERN’s scientists as egomaniacal, power-crazed people hell-bent on overtaking God and controlling the world. But she closes with writing that their intent is to obliterate it. But, wait, an explanation for that is offered on another website, nowtheendbegins.com.

“The significance of the sculpture is that Shiva is shown as first destroying the world, then recreating it,” we are told. The site also quotes a Bengali hymn written in tribute to Shiva, which goes, “You, Dark One, hunter of the burning ground, may dance your eternal dance.”

The author then uses a nifty non sequitur, deducing that “Dark One” and “burning” reference Satan, even though the Bengali text he quoted predates the concept of the dark overlord.

The explanation continues: “The same science that inspired the builders of the Tower of Babel is also behind the work of the people at CERN. Men, who like Satan, said they did not need God to reach Heaven.” My attempt to corroborate this by finding a CERN scientist who had said this came up empty.

Another website making the CERN-Babel connection is Prepare For The Lamb, which warns that, “In Genesis 11, the people spoke the same language and the Lord said, ‘They are united and speak the same language, now nothing they set out to do will be impossible.’ Today, CERN created the World Wide Web, uniting people under one language again.” Using the web to rail against it, I appreciate the irony, intentional or not.

The author cautions that, like the Tower builders, CERN physicists will unleash chaos. “Dark matter can be very dangerous. Demonic spirits live in this dark matter.” He adds that Hindu writings suggest Shiva was studying the same topics as CERN, an idea he said he got by watching Ancient Aliens.

The website also says that the CERN logo makes a 666 symbol. It looks more like 9OS, and you have to ignore the letters C, E, R, and N prominently displayed in the middle. But with a lot of imagination and a little apophenia, pareidolia, and satanic trickery, you might be able to make it out. You can try it here.

Meanwhile, khouse.org employs the Appeal to Consequence to warn against attributing creation to anything other than “the skillfull handiwork of a desginer.” Doing so will prompt a “loss of hope that has caused young people to lose any sense of meaning in life.”

Finally, from a website unfamiliar with URL shorteners, endtimewatchmancommentaries.com, we have this characterization of CERN: “The evil elite are diligently trying to open portals and bring in their evil fathers, Satan and the fallen angels.”

But where would CERN and Satan be without their Luciferian Legions in California? “Hollywood includes images of the Large Hadron Collider in movies, TV, and music videos. CERN is a critical component of the New World Order and will be used to weaponize the demonic hoards.”

This sounds drastic, but it’s not really so bad since Shiva is just going to create another world anyway. Hope he thinks to include chocolate marshmallows in it.