Saturday, April 23, 2011

Song About God's Less Inspiring Miracles: "Thank You God!"

I have always found it puzzling that people will believe that God has performed miracles of the most trifling sort - influencing the outcome of football games, for example - while leaving the massive problems that plague the planet and its peoples untouched by his omnipotence.  So, for all of you who feel the same way, this song's for you.

By the way, I didn't really time this for Easter; I just finally got around to recording it.

And I don't mean to pick on Kurt Warner in the video that opens the song; he's just a good example of what I'm writing about.

And, finally, yes I know that Tim Minchin has a song on his new album that is also called "Thank You God." It covers similar ground, although the two songs are obviously very different in every other way.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Ah, Texas, You Never Disappoint!


Now, there's nothing funny about drought and wildfire.  We Californians are familiar with both on an all too regular basis.  But the Governor of Texas is calling for a day of prayer  urging "Texans of all faiths and traditions to offer prayers...for the healing of our land, the rebuilding of our communities and the restoration of our normal and robust way of life."


I have a number of thoughts on this statement.  Not least of which is the usual one – doesn’t an omniscient God already know that there’s a drought going on? And if he does, why doesn’t he just send the rains to fix it? 

But also, don’t most of those “faiths and traditions” in Texas and throughout the world spend most of their time making the case that only their particular prayers are effective, because only they have the right “truth?”  So wouldn’t those with the real truth be joining forces with those who are inspired by the Devil, and if you send those prayers jointly, wouldn’t that be like crossing the beams in Ghostbusters?  Wouldn’t all manner of terrible fury be unleashed? 

I’m just asking.

But, go ahead, valiant Texans.  Raise your voices to the heavens and, perhaps, after he’s sprinkled some rain on your parched croplands, he’ll also wipe out those pesky evolutionists so you can get some good Bible science taught in your schools.

Friday, April 8, 2011

Tim Minchin's "Storm" - A Must-See Video!

I will freely admit that my own venture into the creation of Skeptical Music, feeble as it is, was largely inspired by the brilliance that is Tim Minchin.  And if there is one song in particular that got me thinking about how some of my skeptical beliefs could be put to music, it was Minchin's Storm - a nine-minute bit of poetical genius that, with humor and precision, eviscerates many of today's goofiest pseudo-scientific beliefs.  Now the song has been matched with some perfect animation to create the perfect skeptical media experience. Enjoy!

Sunday, April 3, 2011

More on the Amazing Water Healing Project of Dr. Emoto

After I wrote my little screed about Dr. Emoto’s plan to “cure” japan’s ailing waters by harnessing a global wave of omni-powerful prayers I had some second thoughts. Not about my criticism of the concept, mind you, but it did occur to me that perhaps I’d fallen for some elaborate April fool’s day prank. I mean, face it, that would be pretty brilliant, right? Coming up with something as silly as getting people around the world to focus their prayers on Japan’s ailing waters in an effort to heal them?  Right?

So I’ve been tracking Twitter posts and searching blogs and, alas, I am certain that I was right the first time. Not only does this goofball Dr. Emoto believe in the healing powers of prayer (and, again, healing water, not people!), but there are clearly many people out there who buy into it.

For example, when I do a Twitter search with the terms “Emoto”, hundreds of posts in several languages pop up that appear to applaud, confirm and get all gooey about the effort to heal the waters through prayer.  Scanning them, I see nothing negative in English, German or Spanish (languages that I know pretty well), although I can’t read the others.  

But when I search for parings of the word Emoto with terms like wrong, nonsense, pseudoscience, bullshit, criticism, skeptic, etc., I find not so much as a single tweet.  Now, maybe this is such a low level issue that the skeptical community just isn’t really aware of it.  But I’m surprised it hasn’t raised a little more of a buzz.

Oh well, as I’ve said before, a skeptic’s work is never done!