Knowledge is power, my friends! A new study shows that when you lack control, you are more prone to see patterns in random images, or to see conspiracies and be superstitious.

Not long after I became an atheist, some personal stuff happened that made me really realize how little control I had in my life. Namely, I got in a car accident (some kid in his daddy’s car hit me while I was sitting at a light). Anyway, I didn’t have a god, religion or any other kind of magical fairy tales to pin the streak of bad luck I had. None of it was my fault, but bad stuff happened to me for a while.

I became rather superstitious. Unfortunately it’s taken me quite a few years to untangle myself from that crazy woo thinking. I still sometimes knock on wood when I say something bad. But now I remind myself that that is crazy woo thinking and I try to refrain from all superstitious behavior.

Here is a brief of the study:

Lacking Control Increases Illusory Pattern Perception Read more…

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This is the Introduction in a series about Logical Fallacies, Misconceptions, False Beliefs. We’re going to go through one fallacy a day (approximately). There are about 20 main fallacies altogether. I’m going to try to explain them with examples then find ways to help you refute those arguments when they occur.

I’m quite reasonable in many aspects of my life, but I don’t think my reasoning skills are up to par. I certainly don’t argue well, or defend myself in an argument. This is why I’ve been a closet atheist for so long. I just didn’t want to be confronted or verbally attacked by zealous religious people.

• Logical: Reasoning or capable of reasoning in a clear and consistent manner. Reasonable.

So, since I’m going to learn to think more logically, I will share that information with you. The great thing about this is that you can use it in all aspects of your life, whether it be science vs. pseudo-science, religion vs. atheism or agnosticism, the daily assault of advertising and consumerism, or simply to put your own belief systems to the test. I find that to be very nice, since I am, after all, quite pragmatic in nature. Read more…

Lately I’ve been talking to Jane. (not her real name) I am having trouble talking to her, and I think I figured out why. We knew each other about 10 years ago in a state far, far away. We were acquaintances, but we had a lot in common. (here’s where I tell you some dark secrets) We were into many different kinds of woo.

Woo: (n or adj) when you uncritically believe unsubstantiated or unfounded ideas. Short for woo woo, according to the Urban Dictionary, definition 4.

I was into reiki, divination, numerology, you name it. While I was an agnostic back then, I still clung to the idea of a kind of Universal Energy. Not really an intelligence, but kind of “magical” principles to energy that science just hadn’t quantified or qualified yet. I held to the beliefs that ancient societies knew secrets that had been lost. Like the Chinese were better at medicine than modern science, or the Mayans had some secret knowledge about the Universe that we were missing out on, as seen in their calendar stopping in 2012. Read more…

This is so fascinating to me. I heard this a bit ago and wanted to share it with you. It’s a rough quote, because I’m not good at dictation:

“Studies strongly suggest that beliefs are encoded in the brain differently than facts. Different parts of the brain seem to light up when we recall facts than when we recall thematic beliefs or emotional conclusions or beliefs about things.” Steven Novella from the Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast, episode 163, September 3rd, 2008.

How cool is that? I’ve always kind of vaguely wondered if there was a difference with how a believer thinks as opposed to an atheist. Now, before you go tearing me apart, Steven Novella said that this is all very new and not set in stone at all. If you know of any studies, let me know. He also mentioned that most of the studies were done with FMRI which is hard to do right, so you have to wade through the questionable techniques and stuff.

Still, all that aside, that’s pretty interesting to me, and I wanted to share it with you.