The Emperor Wears No Clothes

"Be thankful that you have a life, and forsake your vain and presumptuous desire for a second one." (Richard Dawkins)

Video: Michael Shermer on strange belief

This is a very amusing short talk by the founder of Skeptic Magazine, Michael Shermer illustrating the phenomenon of pareidolia (i.e. the making of something meaningful from something that doesn’t necessarily have any meaning at all). I found it on the TED website where there are a many interesting videos of particular interest to atheists. Some are serious talks but many are just very entertaining comedy. This is a bit of both those things.

“Why do people see the Virgin Mary on a cheese sandwich or hear demonic lyrics in “Stairway to Heaven”? Using video and music, skeptic Michael Shermer shows how we convince ourselves to believe — and overlook the facts.” (TED)

About two thirds of the way through this 14-minute video Michael plays some Led Zeppelin backwards. He does it twice and on the first run we hear just the music. We can hear the word “Satan” a few times but the rest is unintelligible. On the second run he shows us some accompanying lyrics and then the message becomes very clear, providing an excellent illustration of how human beings get so easily sucked into religion.

Michael sums it all up in a nutshell in one quote on his profile page at TED…

“We overvalue the shreds of evidence that support our preferred outcome, and ignore the facts we aren’t looking for”

The natural “preferred outcome” for human beings for hundreds if not thousands of years was that there was a benevolent God watching over us. That religion came about is not surprising. That we still cling onto it is.

I’ve embedded the YouTube hosted version on this page because WordPress does not allow flash. The TED website is well worth a visit so why not check it out at the link below.

Related Posts:
Life is more than a Rorschach Inkblot (09.08.2009)

Links:
TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Front Page
TED – Original Video Post – “Michael Shermer on strange beliefs”

Michael Shermer’s Home Page

B.P.

Welcome…

"The philosophies of one age become the absurdities of the next and the
foolishness of yesterday becomes the wisdom of tomorrow."
Sir William Osler

Atheist Quotes

"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."
Richard Dawkins


"When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion."
Robert Pirsig


"We must question the logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes."
Gene Roddenberry


"I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it."
Mark Twain


"Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned."
Unknown


"I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious ideas of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God. So far as religion of the day is concerned, it is a damned fake. Religion is all bunk."
Thomas Edison


"I'm afraid that I am severly dissapointed in God's works. All three of him have shown no tendency to improve and He merely sits at the back of the class talking to himselves. He has shown no interest in rugger, asked to be excused prayers, and moves in a mysterious way."
Monty Python (God's School Report)


"People will then often say, ‘But surely it’s better to remain an Agnostic just in case?’ This, to me, suggests such a level of silliness and muddle that I usually edge out of the conversation rather than get sucked into it. If it turns out that I’ve been wrong all along, and there is in fact a god, and if it further turned out that this kind of legalistic, 'cross your fingers behind your back', Clintonian hair-splitting impressed him, then I think I would choose not to worship him anyway."
Douglas Adams


"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."
Steven Weinberg


"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
Stephen Roberts


"After my Christmas Lectures I received letters from the pious saying that they would have no objection if only I had qualified my remarks by saying: 'But I should warn you that many well-informed people think differently'. When did you last hear a priest-in the pulpit, on radio, on television or in Sunday School qualify his statement with 'But I should warn you that many well-informed people don't think God exists at all?'"
Richard Dawkins


"Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime; give a man religion and he will die praying for a fish."
Unknown


"From the first moment I looked into that horror on September 11th, into that fireball, into that explosion of horror, I knew it, I recognized an old companion. I recognized religion."
Lorenzo Albacete


"If there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence."
Bertrand Russell


"Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"
Douglas Adams


"From the first moment I looked into that horror on September 11th, into that fireball, into that explosion of horror, I knew it, I recognized an old companion. I recognized religion."
Lorenzo Albacete


"If there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence."
Bertrand Russell


"Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"
Douglas Adams

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Videos

Michael Shermer on strange beliefs
"Why do people see the Virgin Mary on a cheese sandwich or hear demonic lyrics in "Stairway to Heaven"? Using video and music, skeptic Michael Shermer shows how we convince ourselves to believe - and overlook the facts."
Michael Shermer at TED

Click Here to watch

Elaine Morgan says we evolved from aquatic apes
"Elaine Morgan is a tenacious proponent of the aquatic ape hypothesis: the idea that humans evolved from primate ancestors who dwelt in watery habitats. Hear her spirited defense of the idea -- and her theory on why mainstream science doesn't take it seriously."
Elaine Morgan at TED

Click Here to watch

Pat Condell - Apologists for Evil
"The comedian Pat Condell has made over 50 videos that are hosted at YouTube. This one, "Apologists for Evil" is one of his best to date and deals with 'The cultural treachery of the liberal left.' Mr. Condell's plain speaking doesn't pull any punches. He tells it how it is and I've yet to find a single thing I can disagree with in any of his videos."
Pat Condell

Click Here to watch (with full transcript)
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