Like all hard-nosed skeptics, I have a lucky number—two of them, actually. The first one is 5, and I’m not sure why, though each of my three names has five letters. But my extra special lucky number is 25, which of course is 5². So the landmark of 25,000,000 views of this site, a number that will be reached today (I’m guessing around noon), gives me some satisfaction.
When I woke up at 5 this morning, the views stood like this:
Since we have about 20,000-25,000 views per day, I expect the odometer will tick over at around 1 p.m. Chicago time. (I could make it sooner if I wanted to post some traffic-inducing drama like criticizing Richard Dawkins for tw**ting about his airport experience with a jar of honey, but you know I wouldn’t sink that low.)
This landmark, of course, calls for a contest and a prize. I pondered long and hard what kind of contest would be easy to enter, involved some creativity, and would be interesting. I thought about asking readers to write a limerick about cats, but not all readers are poetically skilled, and many lack cats. Finally, just a few seconds ago, I hit on it. Here is the contest:
In the thread below, please tell us one interesting or unusual thing about yourself AND one bizarre experience you’ve had.
I figured this would help readers get to know each other better, and also be amusing.
Please post your answers in the thread below, and I’ll give you one week to do so (contest closes at 7 a.m. Chicago time, Tuesday, November 12).
I’ll start things off with one item about myself and one interesting experience I had:
1. I can play melodies on my head by rapping the top of my cranium with my fist while opening and closing my mouth to vary the notes.
2. I am, perhaps, the only American ever strip-searched (yes, buck naked) by the Guardia Civil in Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona.
There will be one prize, selected by our panel of distinguished (and anonymous) judges. If you win, you have a choice of two prizes:
1. An autographed copy of WEIT with a cat drawn in it, to your specifications, or
2. A 20-ounce custom mug featuring a photo of the Official Website Cat™, Hili, as a kitten in Poland. Here is what the mug will look like:
I will also autograph the mug on the bottom, but that will wear off over time.
Get cracking! Do not be too long-winded in your answer, but don’t be too terse, either. (For example, for my strip-search example, I would describe it in a paragraph or so.)
I can recite Hamlet’s soliloqy in about 40 seconds, though I am out of practice!
When I worked at St.Paul’s Cathedral… There is a lift that was put in many years ago that goes from the crypt up to the whispering gallery. We had keys to call the lift. I was re-pointing the pocket roofs, & had just mixed a bucket of muck & was waiting for the lift. The door opened & there was the Dean, Alan Webster.
“Ah Dominic” he said, “this is the Finnish President!” (maybe it was Prime Minister)
“Oh” I said, or words to that effect…
And the lift door closed.
I could relate something funnier about St.Paul’s but if too many knew it might cause a – ‘fuss’!
2) Recently my department of music in Berlin was recruiting a new baroque cello teacher, for which he was to give a masterclass about the St John’s passion by J.S.Bach. As the department’s harpsichordist, it was my job to accompany the cello students at that event.
On the day, the concert hall packed to the last seat with colleagues, officials from the school, and students, Jan announced that he wanted to work “only on the recitatives”. But no one had invited any singers!
My job as an accompanist has taught me not to waste my energy on stage fright any more but to get on with the job in hand. But I wasn’t prepared for the following: Jan asked me, a small girl, to sing all the recits. There was no alternative… and so I sang, whilst playing the harpsichord, the Evangelist (tenor), Pilate (bass) and Jesus (bass) to a full and savvy audience. For 3 hours…
The word embarrassement doesn’t quite cover the experience. Although I am comfortable singing in a lower than normal range for a girl, which I found out that day, it was absolutely excruciating to suddenly have to listen to my own voice belting out all that antisemitic drivel that is the St John’s passion, with jewish musician friends in the audience. Bach’s church music is so important to me, but since then I find it hard to ignore the words and “just enjoy the sounds” any more…
1) When I see a cat in the street, I will kneel down and miaow at it to lure it to me. In this case, embarrassement is more often than not rewarded with a feline-human tête-à-genoux, if only for a few seconds, it’s worth it! Does anyone else here ever do this?
As a fellow harpsichordist, you have my true and sincere admiration. I never would have thought of doing the St. John passion as a one woman show!
Taskin! I did already think the host can be proud of the diversity of his readership. But a fellow hrpschd nerd around here, I am impressed! Incidentally I play a beautiful copy of a parisian Ruckers-Taskin by Sebastian Nunez (Utrecht). I bet we know each other 🙂
Harpsichord nerd, yes, definitely. My Taskin is a Hubbard kit replica of an instrument from 1769. Maybe we should get Jerry to connect us. Here in the wilds of the Canadian prairies, my teacher/colleague and I are about all there is for Baroque specialists for at least a day’s drive. The local University Faculty of Music does not have a Baroque department, a bit sad really. It’d be great to chat!
Well, I can sing a little, but no one would want to listen, and I can’t play the harpsichord or anything else much but the radio, but I do talk to and beckon strange cats. Sometimes they respond, sometimes they don’t. Often depends on whether or not I have food.
Weird thing about myself : my 2nd and 3rd toes on each foot are webbed together (and I still don’t understand why my parents asked me if I wanted to get them separated).
Most interesting experience : leaving out the sex and drugs and rock’n’roll … how about this.
I walked up a mud volcano in Azerbaijan, as one does, to watch the sunrise on New Year’s morning, as one does. While watching the dawn build, I noticed there were a lot of little white pebbles in the mud of the volcano, crunching under my feet. As the light grew … I realised that they weren’t pebbles, but bone fragments. Human bone fragments (thank you, palaeontology tutors!). The volcano had probably been a burial ground for a long, long time ; plausibly going back to the Zoroastrians. I considered bringing some samples back, but decided that I didn’t need the interesting discussions at Customs.
Just in case I’m not too late…
1. I have since childhood been able to draw accurate portraits of people from memory.
2. Some years ago, a French lady gave me the “Secret” to heal burns on condition that I never reveal what the “Secret” is, as tradition demands. I since have used it on many people and to my amazement it works each time – and that is so very, very weird. It is a method used by “rebouteurs” in France and Switzerland. I have no idea how or why it works, and it has nothing to do with suggestion since I also used it successfully on a puppy who got badly burned when it knocked over a brazero and got badly burnt by the red-hot embers, in Kenya. It also works at a distance, i.e. people phone me and all I need is the name, gender, age of the person and what part of the body has a burn. I don’t call it faith healing because I don’t have any religious faiths at all. Talk about the twilight zone…
For those who read French, here is an article about the Rebouteurs (aka Rebouteux) in the Tribune de Genève:
http://journal.tdg.ch/geneve/actu/faiseurs-secret-sortent-ombre-2008-12-16
From the French-speaking Swiss TV:
http://tinyurl.com/ocnef2a
2) Wow! Hang on a minute.
If you truly thought that you had acquired the ability to cure something as serious as burns by having been passed on a secret tradition from a French lady, wouldn’t it be your duty as a moral human being to immediately have this special ability investigated scientifically, so that it can be established if and how it works and subsequently passed on to ALL other practitioners of medicine around the globe? Simply “passing on the gift” from person to person is way to inefficient to help your fellow human sufferers outside of France, or wherever else the “enlightened” people live.
If you believe in your “ability”, then keeping it a secret is cruel and arrogant.
How handy that the tradition “only works when kept a secret”. Why would that be the case? The obvious explanation is that is is a sham, and must be kept secret to fool people into believing it. There is nothing like whispering to make people listen up!
You say this special gift of yours has nothing to do with belief. But the article that you post a link to contradicts that:
“… Si les guérisseurs en général ont des croyances hétéroclites et croient surtout en une énergie universelle, qu’ils appellent parfois Dieu, tous les faiseurs de secret interrogés sont croyants. (…) Ils pensent que sans croire profondément à ceux qu’ils invoquent, il est inutile d’essayer de guérir par le secret», écrit l’ethnologue. …”
So if you go with what the article says that you posted a link to, you shouldn’t practice your special gift at all if you are not a believer.
And what’s that distance healing b******t all about? We all know that the physical body is attached to the ear that listens to a phone conversation, so you can in a way have “some effect or other” on a person’s body by talking to them. I would like to ironically add that this ability to affect someone else’s physical wellbeing for better or worse extends even to the modern media: Indeed my body reacts to reading your comment, quite strongly! With the result that my fingers are moving about the keyboard now as a response. I mean, wow!!!
But if you could really heal burns by the telephone, wouldn’t that lend itself nicely to double blind testing? Surely, how could you refuse?
The article says that the “faiseurs de secrets” developed their craft in remote areas of France where access to conventional medicine was scarce. That makes perfect sense: when there are on other ways to help people, you want to calm them down, giving their bodies the time to heal themselves. As they might very well do.
Don’t you think we are out of the dark ages of “making secrets”? Surely, bringing truth to light is desirable? Please don’t think of my answer to you as hostile. Your post reminds me of my best friend: she thinks of herself as a fervent atheist and sceptic. And yet, she believes that she has “magic, healing hands”, that if someone has aches or pains, she will cure their problem and says “I don’t know how it works”. I regularly despair and want to tell her what I tell you now:
Give yourself a shove. If you believe in your gift, have it scientifically investigated. If you don’t want to do that, laugh and smile at yourself and say “I fooled myself”. For any human, there is no shame in finding out that they were a victim of an erroneous belief. And there is no reason not got go the whole hog and find out whether you are or not.
1) Now that IS a gift I utterly admire.
Firstly, a person who is recipient of the “Secret” will lose the ability if they reveal the “Secret”, that is why it is called the “Secret”. Those who are qualified to pass it to people they deem worthy are exempted. I am merely obeying the instructions given me when I was given the “Secret”, that is how it is and it is respected by all in France and Switzerland. It therefore is none of the recipients’ duty to have the “Secret” investigated scientifically. Also, one of the rules regarding the “Secret” is to never ask for money or any form of payment, nor to seek for patients – it is up to the latter to seek and solicit a recipient of the “Secret” — lists with the name and phone numbers of “Secret” recipients are available in most hospitals and many doctors’ offices, as well as in the book mentioned in the article.
I don’t actually believe in my “ability”, I don’t consider it to be an ability but just an “agent”, and keeping the “Secret” secret is neither cruel nor arrogant, it is for protecting it.
It is no sham and does not rely on people believing it – this is why so many doctors and hospitals have the lists of those who have the “Secret”. It works, and I am each time flabbergasted by the fact that it actually works.
Yes, most of the people who have the “Secret” are believers and religious, I am not, and neither are a few fellow “Secret” recipients that I have met. Many others do have those beliefs, and they think that without deep belief it is useless to try to heal with the “Secret”, but that is what they think, and they obviously are wrong.
With regard to distance healing, it is not bullshit either – many of those who phone do so on behalf of a spouse, a child or a friend, and I don’t talk to them after asking for the name, gender, age, part of the body that was burned, and the location of the person needing the healing. Your reaction is emotional and not open-minded because what I have explained goes against your own deep-seated and precious beliefs, that is all. You are a believer of sorts too, apparently religiously and almost fanatically so even if it is a belief that God doesn’t exist. That is your problem. I have no belief in God – which is absence of belief – contrary to your position.
I don’t care why or how it works, all that matters to me is the fact that it does work, whether you like it or not. I haven’t fooled myself – each time I am solicited to do the “Secret”, whether directly in the flesh or by phone, I am totally skeptical but do it anyway, and each time I do so it happens to work, and it even worked on a badly burnt puppy so it has nothing to do with belief, whether that of the burnt creature or mine (since I don’t have any).
Your answer to me is so emotional and so very reactional that it does come across as hostile, but that is of no importance to me.
What a load of fœtid dingos’ kidneys
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You are of course entitled to your uninformed and uneducated opinion – I couldn’t care less! LOL! 😀
Uneducated? Hardly.
Uninformed? Well, that’s on you.
/@ | Barcelona
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‘There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’
Well, perhaps. (My philosophys dreams can be pretty wild.) But we dont determine what does actually exist are by relying on unattested anecdotes.
What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
/@ | Barcelona
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Like it or not, what I wrote is the absolute truth, and it is in the weird category, after all. You are free to believe it is not true – that is an act of faith too.
No, it is exactly an *absence* of faith.
/@ | Barcelona
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Kindergarten semantics, at best.
Well, youd know, I guess.
/@ | BCN
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In you I have met my undisputed master!
No, it’s a *lack* of faith. That ‘scepticism is faith’ nonsense doesn’t work around here, we’re used to it.
“…I am merely obeying the instructions given me when I was given the “Secret”, that is how it is and it is respected by all.. …”
Golly, where have I heard that phraze before? Where was that? Nazi Germany? Or something to do with child abuse? Can’t quite remember now…
“…this is why so many doctors and hospitals have the lists of those who have the “Secret”…”
Many things get established in the mainstream without that being a proof of worth and need to be challenged by critical thinkers (I think the sorts of people you will meet around here). One example, again, so hard to remember…, was that maybe homeopathy?
“Golly, where have I heard that phraze before? Where was that? Nazi Germany? Or something to do with child abuse?”
That is a form of argumentum ad Hitlerum, aka “playing the Nazi card”, one of the lowest and most abject forms of logical fallacies which reflects more on the one making the fallacy than on the one against which this fallacy is directed.
People, People! Stop beating on this person! There are a lot of things that are real and the truth that many of you don’t know, don’t understand and/or don’t believe. Sometimes, as a group of scientists and/or well educated brains, many of you are way too quick to start yelling “woo” or otherwise sneer. You begin to sound like the Inquisition! Professor Coyne asked for interesting and bizarre anecdotes. She obliged him. If you choose to disbelieve, fine, but sniping at her is just rude.
I think you must not be a frequent visitor here, or have not been paying attention, if you cannot see why vierotchka’s claim can easily be dismissed as woo.
Reading more widely, there is clearly nothing more to these “enleveurs de feu” than a combination of the placebo effect, confirmation bias, &c. — the usual stuff.
Just because Jerry invited interesting and bizarre anecdotes does not give anyone a free pass.
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Oh, so you are inferring that the badly burnt puppy on whom I used this technique and who stopped yelling with pain instantly and who healed in a few days without a scar was responding to a placebo effect? Fine. I am glad that this placebo works each time, that the pain vanishes in moments and that the burn heals extremely quickly without leaving scars.
Thank-you Lisa. I am used to close-minded and indoctrinated people impugning my honesty and truthfulness. It only reveals their ugly side.
I once met one who knew the secret too. Helped me recover from a severe cigarette burn. Wouldn’t take any money…
You have a noble and generous soul (metaphorically.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUB4j0n2UDU
Atheists didn’t use to believe in hypnosis and acupuncture, but both have since been proven to work. See acupuncture anesthesia in surgery for example.
@Ant. I read this notablog almost daily, so you’re wrong on the first comment. This lady is sharing info. She never asked anyone to believe it. She says several times that she doesn’t understand or believe in it, she can only do it. She comments here with about the same frequency that you do and I have never noticed her make any claim to have magical powers or attempt to aggrandize herself in any way. Every time science cannot explain something doesn’t mean it is “woo”. It often means that science can’t explained it yet. A scientist should be open-minded until all the data has been reviewed. We don’t learn much until we ask questions. It may seem preposterous to you now, given what you know. But neither you, nor science in general should dismiss something out of hand without investigating it first.
@ vierotchka :
Non sequitur: Disbelief (or belief) in hypnotism and acupuncture has very little to do with atheism. In any case, it is very far from the truth that acupuncture has been proven to work. (Not that science ever proves anything.) The results are far from conclusive. The efficacy seems little different from a placebo with the same kind of intrusiveness and attentiveness from a practitioner. And as someone else noted above, YouTube is hardly an authoritative citation.
@ lisa :
Then you seem not to have been paying attention. (And, btw, Google shows that she’s commented here less than a tenth as much as I have, in fact, but that’s neither here nor there.) Here claim here has all the hallmarks of a claim to have magical powers. Including the “I don’t know how it works but it does”-type statements. Uri Gellar said much the same kind of things as vierotchka.
Being open minded doesn’t mean that you have to be credulous. “… neither you, nor science in general should dismiss something out of hand without investigating it first.” I’m sorry, but that’s just not so; there are many claims that science can and should dismiss out of hand (see Sean Carroll or David Deutsch, for example). As I said, you seem not to have been paying attention.
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I’m sure you must be right. From the beginning Issac Beekman had no problem making science believe that ‘air’ was matter and had mass. We can just skip all the intervening years and go right to sciences assurances that no large asteroid or comet could ever hit the earth because of Jupiter’s massive gravitational field. Or even a decade or so ago when science declared that, despite regular reports from sailors since some homo sapiens built the first rafts, that isolated ‘rouge’ waves were mathematically and physically imposable. Until luxury liners showed up with irrefutable evidence. Or the dismissal of repeated reports of pilots who claimed to see ‘sprites’ until they were photographed them from orbit. Shall I go on?
And I apologize if I did not notice the discrepancy in the ratio of your posts to hers. Perhaps I just noticed them more often because her star is prettier than your ant. Not that it isn’t a cute ant…
Im sure youre fully aware of the logical fallacy youre committing here.
/@ | LA
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@ Lisa
“Firstly, a person who is recipient of the “Secret” will lose the ability if they reveal the “Secret”, that is why it is called the “Secret”. ”
Hmmm. Doesn’t sound too amenable to scientific investigation, does it?
@Lisa
Clearly none of the sceptics here are against scientific investigation, but they are for it, regardless of the result. That is what having an open mind is all about.
Can you tell me how any of the above personal anecdote invites any kind of investigation in any way?
I suggested a double-blind trial, which seems to me perfectly suited to the healing by telephone information. The person with the “secret” does not even have to reveal anything about what it is that they do. They would just have to agree to take part in the study.
But my suggestion was met with silence by vierotchka.
If someone claims to have had this kind of experience repeatedly and is unwilling to have it tested in a double blind fashion, I don’t see why I should trust their anecdote.
“I suggested a double-blind trial, which seems to me perfectly suited to the healing by telephone information. The person with the “secret” does not even have to reveal anything about what it is that they do. They would just have to agree to take part in the study.”
Where did you suggest that in those exact terms? I certainly don’t recall it, but I would be happy to participate in such.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that after each time I practice the “Secret” on someone, I get positive and grateful feedback days later and often offers of money which I refuse.
If such a ludicrous story were true, how could you live with yourself, knowing that burn patients all over the world were enduring hideous suffering simply because they don’t know about this ‘secret?’
I can only be concerned by that which is within my reach, my sphere of influence. Same with THC that cures cancer – if you know this, how can you live with yourself, knowing that cancer patients all over the world were enduring hideous suffering simply because they don’t know about this fact?
THC cures cancer?? Sweet!
I posted a bunch of links to demonstrate that THC actually can cure cancer, but for some reason my post didn’t come through. You should google “THC cures cancer” and you’ll find plenty of evidence. Also, search YouTube for “HOW and WHY does Cannabis Cure Cancer – Scientific Explanation”
“Also, search YouTube for “HOW and WHY does Cannabis Cure Cancer – Scientific Explanation””
I like to get all my scientific explanations from YouTube.
I posted a whole bunch of links that were not to any YouTube videos but to studies, including Harvard studies, which demonstrated the effectiveness of THC in destroying cancer cells, but my post for some reason did not get through. The YouTube video I mentioned is of scientists. Just sayin’
TrollOLOL 🙂
Oh ye of such utterly bad faith! (pun intended)
Amongst other medical problems, THC can also be used to treat glaucoma and the alleviate the pain associated with rheumatoid and osteoarthritis. It’s no damned good for treating cluster headaches, for which the best treatment is neat oxygen, which will truncate an attack in a matter of seconds, minutes at worst. Vigorous exercise, which, of course, increases oxygen flow, will also work in 10 – 20 minutes, not to mention help to keep one fitter!
http://www.geteyesmart.org/eyesmart/living/medical-marijuana-glaucoma-treament.cfm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3790227.stm
http://www.neurologyreviews.com/index.php?id=25318&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=206144
I’m sorry the sarcasm didn’t come through there LOL. I have seen much scientific evidence to support benefits of medicinal marijuana, as well as hearing testimony of those who swear by it to control epilepsy. When children with previously uncontrolled seizures are able to experience measurable relief, it definitely deserves to be studied further. My unbelieving response was to the previous claims of it curing cancer. I had only ever heard of it being used to reduce nausea and loss of appetite brought on by cancer treatments that are toxic for humans in addition to the cancer they kill. Silly me!
Cannabinoids inhibit cellular respiration of human oral cancer cells.
Whyte DA, Al-Hammadi S, Balhaj G, Brown OM, Penefsky HS, Souid AK.
Source
Department of Pediatricsy, State University of New York, Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, NY, USA.
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE:
The primary cannabinoids, Delta(9)-tetrahydrocannabinol (Delta(9)-THC) and Delta(8)-tetrahydrocannabinol (Delta(8)-THC) are known to disturb the mitochondrial function and possess antitumor activities. These observations prompted us to investigate their effects on the mitochondrial O(2) consumption in human oral cancer cells (Tu183). This epithelial cell line overexpresses bcl-2 and is highly resistant to anticancer drugs.
EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH:
A phosphorescence analyzer that measures the time-dependence of O(2) concentration in cellular or mitochondrial suspensions was used for this purpose.
KEY RESULTS:
A rapid decline in the rate of respiration was observed when Delta(9)-THC or Delta(8)-THC was added to the cells. The inhibition was concentration-dependent, and Delta(9)-THC was the more potent of the two compounds. Anandamide (an endocannabinoid) was ineffective; suggesting the effects of Delta(9)-THC and Delta(8)-THC were not mediated by the cannabinoidreceptors. Inhibition of O(2) consumption by cyanide confirmed the oxidations occurred in the mitochondrial respiratory chain. Delta(9)-THC inhibited the respiration of isolated mitochondria from beef heart.
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS:
These results show the cannabinoids are potent inhibitors of Tu183 cellular respiration and are toxic to this highly malignant tumor.
Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20516734
Kind of makes you wonder how any of us ‘baby boomers’ ever get cancer.
Not all baby boomers use or have significantly used pot, and for the THC to be effective in curing cancers one needs to ingest daily doses of cannabis oil (not hemp seed oil) following a defined protocol.
I was just kidding. Actually, neither me or my boomer husband indulged. Luckily, neither of us has cancer either.
While research suggests that cannabinoids present in cannabis retard the growth of many forms of cancer, cannabis use has been linked with testicular cancer, head and neck cancer and lung cancer, although the latter has long been associated with tobacco, which is often smoked together with cannabis. However, a 2012 report by the British Lung Foundation suggested that the risk of developing lung cancer is nearly 20 times higher from smoking typical cannabis cigarettes than from smoking tobacco cigarettes.
If only it were as simple as smoking a joint, but alas!
Alas indeed. It consists in extracting THC from the buds, a relatively simple but potentially dangerous operation as solvents are needed, and solvent fumes are highly inflammable. Great care and discipline are required to do so, but the technique itself is not complicated and a rice cooker is not an expensive piece of equipment.
Could we possibly have a very skilled Poe on our hands?
I don’t get this reference…please explain?!? (As a Poe fan, I feel daft having to ask this)
@ wlmeeks
Sorry, not that Poe! It’s an internet meme, used frequently on some bl*gs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law
(BTW, I thought your sarcasm was loud and clear, and your remark hilarious.)
Very informative…thanks!
Naked assumption is always dangerous, but, given the information you have provided so far, one has to assume that the old lady who imparted the “secret” to you, must also have provided the information or skills required to identify others whom you might “deem worthy”.
Given that, and the knowledge that there are thousands of burns patients around the World, has it ever occurred to you, in the spirit of altruism, to extend your reach by actively seeking out other “worthy” recipients of the “secret” and pass it on to them, with instructions to do the same?
In any event, how could you not deem any medical burns specialist “worthy”. They have clearly devoted their career and lives to helping burns victims, whereas you seem to regard this “secret” as a mere hobby, which seems somewhat uncaring and selfish. Or is it that dissemination of the “secret” would make you feel less special?
Firstly, she was not old, and secondly, she did not impart me with the authority to identify others to whom to pass on the “Secret”.
Many medical burn specialists in Swiss and French hospitals also call people who have the “Secret” for burns.
For me, the “Secret” is not a hobby, it is a service I render to those who ask me to do it, including and especially those referred to me by doctors and the local University Hospital.
I don’t need the “Secret” to feel special, I am not insecure.
Oh, it is neither ludicrous nor untrue – that is your perception of it, but your perception is incorrect.
What follows is true and, I believe, totally unique. It represents a most unusual event in my life worth sharing. Seldom, if ever, is Christian indoctrination so in tune with science that a Sunday school class becomes instrumental in a child’s conversion from Christianity to atheism.
It happened this way: The class gathered as usual in a meeting room at the prestigious Riverside Church in NYC. We were met by several teachers and a large poster upon which was drawn a large ladder. On the bottom rung our teacher drew a single celled organism. As he lectured, he drew multi-celled organisms, fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals and finally humans on the other ladder rungs. This, we were told, was the scientific version of creation. It was called evolution, biological evolution. It was the first time I understood the concept that would start me on a career in science and a life totally free of superstition.
An explanation of this unusual Sunday school lesson follows. During the 1950s, Sophia Lyon Fahs was an influential policy maker at the nearby Union Theological Seminary. Fahs was a liberal Christian educator who devoted her life to promote liberal religious education a la Unitarian style. As the story goes, she sent her student apostles out to spread the concept of liberal religious education. The Riverside Church, whose senior minister was the renown liberal, the Reverend Harry Emerson Fosdick, became an educational research laboratory.
It all paid off. Only one classmate out of thirty claimed to be a literalist, and we had one atheist and many agnostics.
At the point of posting this comment, there are already 333 (!). Does that make this thread half evil, or did it reach that mark at #308? 🙂