Back in 2013, I was diagnosed with Colon Cancer. I found a Surgeon I had confidence in and went through with the surgery and have been cancer free since. On the 2nd anniversary of the surgery, my daughter posted a message on Facebook about the event and someone said 'Thank the Lord'. I responded "The Lord had nothing to do with it, i just had a good Surgeon". That ended the conversation.

@ThW5

8 жыл бұрын

+James Mostowski You are sure that that surgeon wasn't a Lordship? I mean the Hon. Dr. Lister or so...

@darthvirgin7157

3 жыл бұрын

i would have responded with: “why did the lord give me cancer in the first place?”

@indykatley10317

Жыл бұрын

Slay.

"Look to my coming at first light on the fifth day. At dawn, look to the east." Gandalf came back as promised. Your move Jesus.

@limlaith

5 жыл бұрын

This is my favorite youtube comment ever

It doesn't matter how smart you are when you were taught to not think.

When I was younger I was playing online in one of those ask bot websites that answer your questions through an algorithm (it was ASK PETER at the time). A relative came in scolding me and forbade me from playing it again telling me that I was communicating with one of many cyber demons who live in the Internet. And people wonder why I'm an atheist lol.

Ignorance has no respect for intelligence.

Growing up, my father was always the most intelligent person I knew. Yet he always told us not to go to the shop in town called 'All My Relations', because they sold potentially cursed or possessed objects. My brother and I both had a fondness for pretty rocks and crystals to put on display, and we collected them whenever we could. Since the store sold supplies for 'crystal healing', we were sure that they had some pretty ones. Dad was equally sure that we would come home with something demonic, telling us that people could curse rocks and crystals, and that "I don't want you bringing a demon-possessed rock into the house." Because of the religious coccoon we were raised in, I believed him and was terrified that my less-obedient brother would bring a demon rock into the house and endanger us all. I have long since realized that the idea of demon rocks is batshit crazy, though Dad still believes it to this day

@dmrenterprizes4101

2 жыл бұрын

😂Interesting. I love collecting rocks too and now your dad has me wondering. 🤣 Not.

@susanatkinson3978

Жыл бұрын

Oh...didn't you know you could have "blessed" the rock and that demon comes right out!!😂😂😂

21:15 - mom hears that pregnancy is caused by swapping genes, goes home and tells daughter to never put on her boyfriend's pants. Face, meet palm.

@theldsthinker4444

8 жыл бұрын

+Andrew Cooper Vote and support our first Atheist president Bernie Sanders. He is a smart guy that believes in rational stuff

@mikepanick468

4 жыл бұрын

Is the reverse true? Can I make a woman pregnant by wearing her jeans?

I mostly know about the east-facing burials thing from watching Time Team (archaeology programme from Britain). Whenever they're excavating an ancient site and they run across a skeleton, one of the first things they check is which way they're facing. Pagan burials were aligned north-south; Christian burials were aligned east-west. It may be an illogical tradition, but it's a very, very old one.

Great podcasts Seth. You have a few fans here in Jamaica. Slowly , there are more people who are agnostics and a small, but merry band of atheists.

@maybeonemore

7 жыл бұрын

Nick Sutherland hey atheist here in mobay.. big up!

@DMRoper1

Жыл бұрын

I'm late to this party but count me in.

I became intelligent and smart when I became an atheist.

Thanks for this, I’m not very patient with my friends strange beliefs, many aren’t Christians but New Agers and Conspiracy believers.

Seth cracks me up...that story about grandma lol

"Why Smart People Believe Stupid Things" It's call "doublethink". One of several iconic terms to emerge from George Orwell's novel 1984 was 'doublethink'. It referred to the acceptance of two conflicting ideas, in contrast to cognitive dissonance, where the conflicting ideas arouse conscious tension. An example of doublethink in the novel was where workers, who were ordered to falsify public records, would then believe their own forgery. There's more than a whiff of doublethink about the parent who employs all these manipulations on their child, then claims it was free to believe what it liked. We see examples of doublethink everywhere in religion. We see popes, who've enjoyed the shelter of backdated papal infallibility since 1870 (monothelitism, duelling, limbo, heliocentrism, holy communion, evolution), despite contradictory stances on a broad range of subjects. We see claims of eternal moral values, despite the assertion of diametrically opposed moral positions. FOR: Killing: Joshua 10:40 Thus Joshua… utterly destroyed all who breathed, just as the lord, the god of Israel, had commanded. Heavenly Images: Exodus 25:18-24 And make two cherubim out of hammered gold…. Retaliation: Deuteronomy 19:21 Show no pity; life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand… AGAINST: Killing: Exodus 20:13 Thou shalt not kill. Heavenly Images: Exodus 20:4 You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above…. Retaliation: Matthew 5:39 ...do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. We see psychopathic behaviour like genocide and perpetual torture exhibited by beings characterised as supremely loving. Unfortunately, with the child's critical faculties initially absent, then actively suppressed, the seeds for doublethink are off to a great start.

@jonesy2975

8 жыл бұрын

Ahh I see we saw the same video *wink*

i had a mentor in college. one of the smartest engineers i’ve ever met. even worked for NASA. devout mormon. probably the most disappointing thing about him.

My mum (who is quite religious...but she's cool about it) and I love watching the show "Supernatural". She tried to get her sister to watch it too. When my aunt realized what it was, she refused to watch it, because she believes that it opens up a portal for those demons and evil things to come through and possess you or some nonsense like that. It got me wondering, because that show also has God's angels in it. Does that portal work for God's creatures too? Wouldn't you want angels to come though this magical portal? To fight all the evil in the world? My aunt had no answer for that. But she still refused to watch the show. How ridiculous!

When I worked as an admin assistant I typed up technical reports for a professional engineer. However, if I typed the report on the 13th of the month he asked me to date it the 14th. Not only that, when the 13th fell on a Friday, he took a sick day and stayed home with the windows covered. 😈

37:00 I can attest to the silly superstition that the number 4 is bad luck in some Asian cultures. A friend of mine gave a $400 gift to an Asian friend at his wedding. The groom gave the check back and politely asked him to write a check for a different amount that doesn't contain the number 4. So he wrote out a check for $399 .

The Chinese thing about the number four is because the number four in Chinese is homophonic with the word for death. They are both pronounced "si" but with different tones. The word for four has the fourth tone while the word for death has the third tone.

Great show! I've got a dice collection similar to the caller's.

Funny to hear Dr. Michael Shermer mention the "debate" with Depak Chopra....and Depak Chopra's side kick, Jean Houston. My mom and I worked for Jean Houston and her deceased husband Bob Masters. Mom worked for them for years as house keeper and cook for Jeans various workshops in NY, before Jean moved out to the west coast. Mom got to meet Hilary Clinton, Margaret Mead and many others through Jean. Jean worked with Bill and Hilary during that time they were in the White House, and took both of them into guided trance states where they were supposed to be able to channel their heros. Bill met up with Thomas Jefferson. I forget who Hillary met up with, but I think it was Elanor Roosevelt. This went on for quite a while until the media somehow got hold of it and there was a cartoon in the New Yorker about it, and a wall came down, sudden silencing of all new age hoo doo. It was so very funny. I only worked cooking for the workshops to help my mom, and once or twice baby sat the dogs and cats in the main house. Jean is really nothing more than a new age show woman, she is not a bad person, but that is how she made a really good living. You could be entranced by her and deeply moved by the "rituals and meditations" she introduced people to. She wrote many books and had a following but was not a cult leader...It was an interesting time of my life, but all her "spiritual" teachings were for me part of a search for a replacement of Episcopal upbringing....and it took me a long time to unravel my psyche from ideas like levitation, astral travel, healing energy pulsating out from my hands and all that fun stuff. Jean was just trying to connect people to the concept of being more than mundane, and finding their larger, higher self whatever that is...but loved to tell how her father taught her to hypnotize crayfish when she was a kid...and I think that she was a bit of a con artist, like Gurdgieff and many swamis (Maharieshi) who found ways to support the ashram with western seekers pocketbooks.

My boyfriend keeps a Bible in the car for some kind of protective measures. Of course he doesn't read it. He treats it like a talisman, like a lucky rabbit's foot.

In the middle east, the burial tradition you mentioned also applies there too. Here they even avoid beds facing east if I recall it correctly. The water is believed to be blessed on the 6 of January (Jesus baptism) and on the holy Wednesday before easter (Job Wednesday). As for the rapture day, according the book of revelation, Jesus will descend in Jerusalem which is on the opposite side of the US so it should be OK for you people there. Our weird traditions include: Calling god each time you get into a house, calling him when the Muslim's prayer call is announced (5 times a day), drawing cross sign virtually on doors and precious stuff, if something bad happened it's a bad eye of some envious guy. Thanks Seth for this podcast.

4 in Japan is 'shi' (also 'yon') which also happens to mean death. So shi=death and this is typically why 'yon' is used.

@rataflechera

8 жыл бұрын

And that's why in Japan they don't sell sets of four elements (v.g. four cups).

@kokofan50

8 жыл бұрын

I was wondering if anyone else knew that.

@Nocturnalux

8 жыл бұрын

+Diablo Storm Indeed, different characters are employed, [死] for 'death' and [四] for 'four' but both characters can be read as 'shi' in certain circumstances. I was particularly unlucky according to Japanese numerology having been born on the fourth day of the fourth month. But in this context, while April does indeed get read as 'shi gatsu' [四月]; the fourth day is 'yokka [【四日]', from 'yon'.

@Nocturnalux

8 жыл бұрын

+rataflechera And when attending a funeral you can't give four bills to the grieving, you need to break the same amount into three bills and cover the rest with coins or break it into more or less bills, as long as the number of bills does not amount to four.

Jesus ain"t comin". he's not even breathing heavy.

much respect to Shermer. you should have Sam Harris on next. I would love that exchange!

"Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths." - Bertrand Russell

So if the water is blessed on easer, but its not after wouldn't it also not be blessed in the bottle?

Facing west works for Gaelic people, as in the British Isles the 'land of the dead' - the beautiful islands of the Otherworlds - were often supposedly to the west of the main islands.

I still avoid stepping on cracks in the sidewalk. I never even believed it but I still avoid doing it.

Although you meant it in the opposite way it certainly applies to people who refuse to sufficiently entertain the myriad pieces and abundant evidence that there is a God and He is Jehovah.

"Not a stupid man" "Believes Mormonism" Contradiction. At least one of your premises is false.

@MsHojat

8 жыл бұрын

+William Barnes It depends how you define the term "stupid". I think it's not productive to make insulting assertions such as that anyone is stupid. I think it's more appropriate to call a Mormon to be someone who is misinformed/indoctrinated, and/or ignorant or biased.

Sorry about the multiple uploads, Have no Idea what caused that other than it was from my cell phone originally.

What is Reformed Egyptian exactly?

About vampires and Easter water: in some mythos, the _Legacy of Kain_ in particular, vampires aren't able to touch regular water, let alone holy water. I guess the idea is that they're essentially walking corpses, and since vampires don't really decompose, maybe their skin is like leather. If it got wet, it'd crack and fall apart or something. Now that I think about it, Dracula never touched water, either. He always travelled by boat, and I don't think he ever bathed. Vampires must be really smelly.

Hey Seth, would you be open to trying to get Steven Pinker on the show? He's such a smart guy and I'd love to hear more from him. I also think he'd have a lot to say about the subjects of atheism and secular humanism, since he's said before that he thinks religion is not a good guide to moral behavior and that reason is one of our better angels.

I hope that dice guy is 3D printing now. He could make all kinds of cool dice and dice towers and such. I'm about to make a Cthulhu dice tower that is so awesome!

33:00 - so how does bottling it help retain the blessing? Does the blessing wear off when it passes through a living being? If it only lasts 24 hours, I don't see the point of bottling it.

@mikee839

8 жыл бұрын

+Onodera1980 if it was all water why not just get it from the tap?

@Onodera1980

8 жыл бұрын

+mike e perfect point

@oldmanfromscenetwentyfour8164

8 жыл бұрын

+Onodera1980 It's a "thing" that some people do in order to keep god (or god's blessing/magic) for themselves. Makes them feel special.

The reason for the East-Asian Tetraphobia is because of how similar their word for Four sounds to their word for Death.

@jrochest4642

8 жыл бұрын

+MilesUmbrae I should have read the comments before commenting, I guess. :)

@MilesUmbrae

8 жыл бұрын

Joanne Rochester Well, to be honest, I'm not the only one in the comments with that little factoid. O:) Mine just happened to not be buried...

The part about one less rib in men comes from a translation issue. The Hebrew word also refers to "essence". So you could read the passage as saying that God took the essence of the Adam and created Khavah (Eve). Sumerian (or Babylonian?) word for rib also translated as "life". Thus, Ninti (akin to Eve) literally meant "Lady of Rib/Life".

Star Frontiers was AWESOME!!

The holy Easter water is a thing in Catholicism. I also happen to come from New Brunswick, Canada, but I doubt it's a NB or Maritime thing. Catholicism is big on holy water. A lot of churches have little containers with holy water at the entrance and you had to dip a finger (of your right hand) in the holy water and do the sign of the cross. I always thought it was weird. For a while, I believed in Sound Healing.... Great show!

I can't find that Spinoza quote.

36:00 the number four is also eliminated from baccarat tables. at the risk of sounding racist, Chinese do tend to be the biggest clientele of casinos. Certainly the casino I used to work in.

Chinese people dislike the number 4 because the word for "four" sounds like the word for "death", or so I've heard.

About the number 4 in Asia; i know in Japan you can pronouce 4 (yon / yo) as 'shi'. Shi can also be understood as death, or words related to death... Fun fact, in the USA many building floors and house numbers skip the number 13 o.o

superstition - noun 1a: a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation b: an irrational abject attitude of mind toward the supernatural, nature, or God resulting from superstition 2: a notion maintained despite evidence to the contrary Merriam-Webster

4 in Chinese sound like the work die or death.

In Europe giving somebody an even number of flowers (2-4-6 etc.) is considered rude because the even number is only given to the dead (ex: when you take flowers to a grave).

@FlockOfHawks

6 жыл бұрын

Nonsense

Don't hold up the author of Twilight as an intelligent person.

"Safest time to fly is right after a crash" This one almost makes sense in a way. Right after a very public crash that sort of thing will be right at the front of everyone's mind, especially those who work on, work with, or pilot commercial aircraft. In theory that should lead to better practices for at least a while since "nobody wants to be the person responsible for [insert recent crash here]".

@kokofan50

8 жыл бұрын

The problem is that most crashes are caused by mechanical failure, so it's a bad idea to fly until those issues are addressed.

@positivistnullifidian3624

8 жыл бұрын

+kokofan50 "...most crashes are caused by mechanical failure..." That is not correct. The number one cause of all airplane crashes remains pilot error.

@positivistnullifidian3624

8 жыл бұрын

+kokofan50 "...most crashes are caused by mechanical failure..." That is not correct. The number one cause of all airplane crashes remains pilot error.

It is so interesting that your OWN crazy beliefs, superstitions, and doctrine seems totally normal and intelligent BUT when you hear the beliefs of another culture or religion they sound absolutely CRAZY! How come religious people are often unable to see their overt confirmation bias!

22:00 Jesus Christ Marie they're minerals! I'm sorry i had to

I live in Japan. See the number 4 but yes many people avoid it. Four is pronounced "Shi" which is the same word for death. Even worse for many is the number 42 "Shi ni" same as "to death/die"

I used to believe the rib thing too... That's what happens when your mom is raised in a fundie family going to an aces school. She's broken a lot of the fundie "programming" (for lack of a better word) but still believes some weird stuff including old earth creationist 😒

Aren't they facing up?

The Easter water gathering may have origins in Pagan Vernal Equinox practices. It's difficult to determine which came first as many Pagan traditions carried over into Christianity and many Christian traditions carried over into modern Pagan rituals. My concern would be for the microbes in that water. Sure, the water from a running stream or brook would be cleaner than from a stagnant pond, but that doesn't mean it's potable.

So that Canadian trudged through feet of frozen water to get to running water? Didn't God bless the frozen water also?

If my limited understanding of Japanese culture is any bit accurate (Not sure about Chinese), there's some fear or dislike of the number 4 because their word for 4 is Shi. their word for death is also Shi. You can imagine, if you were taught to count like, "One, two, three, DIE, five, six...". But then again, we have tie-dye and no one gets upset about that... no one advocating it be renamed to tie-coloring or tie-staining for example.

Mormons believe they need certain handshakes, passwords and a secret name in order to enter heaven. They also believe everyone who has ever lived will need this ceremony too so they do the ceremony for dead people. Good thing for me that I still remember all the secret passwords! Mormons would say it doesn’t work that way. Well, I guess those passwords and handshakes weren’t all that important in the first place!

It would be possible for the vast majority of social scientists to have a certain political ideology without being biased, as long as that ideology is correct. We typically don't call agreement with reality a bias. However, I don't know of any such ideology.

I like the content, i went to his youtube channel and he has posted transphobic content, im a transgender girl, i try to blend in go on with my life, people don't even notice only if i bring it out, so i don't understand the fixation on transgender girl, despite representing less than 0.1% of the population. I think he secretly still has some of the conservative views from his childhood. His book is a way to deal with his own guilt.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Holy foreskins??? 😆 That will now be my new swear term.

I suppose if the graves in grandma's cemetery were oriented north-south, they would have turned her on her side? She's on her back, in any case, so she's really 'facing' up.

The thing about facing east is common in the UK. Although priests and vicars face west so they are facing their congregations come the end of the world.

I have a weird belief, it's not religious but it is strong: Growing up in the country, my parents (like any responsible country parents) taught me about the animals, birds, bugs, etc that I might encounter. These things generally fell into 3 categories: 1. safe to approach, 2. you leave it alone, it'll leave you alone, and 3. run away and tell an adult, it may have to be killed. Enter the praying mantis, which where I come from is an uncommon but not endangered bug about 2-4 inches long, non-venomous, usually green or brown. I'm sure my parents meant it to fall into category 2, after all, mantids don't hurt anything, why hurt them? But for some reason I wound up with the impression that killing a praying mantis was illegal, or possibly a sin. I don't know why, that lesson just imprinted very strongly on me. Even today I will not kill a mantis, and will go out of my way to protect one if I see it in harm's way. Makes no sense, but there you have it.

@steveb0503

8 жыл бұрын

+snitcheyes411 Why WOULD one kill a mantis at all? They're awesome!

@MsHojat

8 жыл бұрын

+snitcheyes411 They're generally beneficial predators for humans, they look amazing, and are quite rare, so it makes sense for it to be quite wrong to hurt or kill one. Some people I know get bothered if I kill a fly or ant or grasshopper (or mouse) and I think that's absurd. It's not like they're at all rare or productive for humans.

While I agree with Shermer that command and control economics is bullshit, pure or too much laissez faire is also unfeasible. The mixed economics of social democracy have the empirically best results.

Ironic title coming from a believer in libertarianism.

did i just hear him compliment twilight?

@TheThinkingAtheist

8 жыл бұрын

+miner69erher NOPE. :)

@Achonas

8 жыл бұрын

***** Damn right! :P

@ThatOneGuy0006

8 жыл бұрын

+Azazel Acheron Wow, bringing that buzzword back from the grave, I see!

@GenerationX1984

7 жыл бұрын

I wrote a book. It's better than Twilight, trust me.

does this mean that vegans and vegetarians can't take communion? o.O

22:45 I'm ashamed to admit, I thought women had 1 less rib too, I just never thought to fact check it.

Humans having an immortal soul that leaves the body to go to heaven upon death is a tradition which has zero support in the bible itself. The scriptural doctrine of the bodily Resurrection frankly fits better with a more materialistic view of the self.

Stephenie Meyer? Intelligent?

You know, I'm listening to some of these strange beliefs and I'm wondering the amount of wasted time and energy to took create these beliefs let alone for follows to buy it. Do religious people sit around thinking up ways screw with peoples heads?

I knew a young woman who was pregnant with her first baby and was frightened of the upcoming birth. She thought that her baby was coming out of her navel! She was certainly relieved to learn the truth.

The avoidance of the number 4 in China and Japan is in most cases not superstitious, but merely because the number sounds unpleasant. Imagine if you live in a room numbered "One, Two, Die!" (124) or " your Dad will Die" (488). I would like to avoid it if I can avoid it easily. Not out of superstition, but rather because I simply dislike it. Just like how I would prefer blue notebook over a red notebook in one second -- It does not require any kind of hypothesis at all. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the color red; but I simply don't like it. However, I do agree that some people have gone too far with it. For example, having a building without Floor 4, Floor 14, etc.. I think that should be regarded as superstition.

Two Words: Ben Carson. Good doctor, horrible politician.

Do smart Christians know what intrinsicism is? It's the philosophical term for views like, for example, seeing evil personified IN a deck of cards, ouija boards, condoms, dice, etc. Likewise, it denotes the worship of material objects like crosses, bibles and communion cups. Theological terms for the same attitude include words like pantheism and idolatry. Do these thousands of well-meaning perpetrators even realise that The Church considers it to be sinful? Well, sometimes and sometimes not. Churches also have holy relics, and there's a Bible story about a man who became consumed by worms, instantly, for having the audacity - or was it irresponsibility? - of touching the Ark of the Covenant. In order to save it from falling!

25 minutes in and its just stupid things people believe, not why they believe.

Just one objection.... I wouldn't put Stephanie Meyer on the list of 'smart Mormons'....

Woah there!...Stephanie Meyer? Intelligent!? Smart people really do believe stupid things. xD

Should be titled stupid people believe stupid things..

Foreskins? Buddhists have Buddha's holy tooth - in a lot of places, iirc. He must have gotten into a helluva fight...

I'm sorry, but "Stephanie Meyer" and "Inteligent" do not go in the same sentence. "Stephanie Meyer" and "Creepy" do, however.

Tell me he isn't Bryan Cranston's brother. Tell me. You can't

So a woman wearing men's jeans can get pregnant can I impregnate a woman by wearing her jeans?

the number 4 in japanese is shi and means death its a phonetic thing.

Why do people post here?? The Thinking Atheist doesn't engage with or reply to posters (see below) Seems a bit pointless?? Just saying..love the Channel..subscribed..agree 100% per cent etc...

@rataflechera

8 жыл бұрын

sharing with other people who also post here...

@andreaarchaeology

8 жыл бұрын

He replies regularly.

@TheThinkingAtheist

8 жыл бұрын

+6madx The comments section is largely for commenters. It's impractical (impossible) for me to read and respond to everything that gets posted, and I have a full production plate. I usually follow up just after a new item goes live, but soon I'm into the next podcast, video, speech, whatever. Thanks.

@6madx

8 жыл бұрын

+bobbytookalook It was a rhetorical comment..just thinking out loud really..as I said I'm subscribed so I follow the channel..just struck me that maybe he wasn't that convinced of his own arguments if he didn't engage with people posting responses..so yes me and you are here..hopefully we both stay in such good company lol

@6madx

8 жыл бұрын

+TheThinkingAtheist Thanks for clearing that up..I appreciate you're busy..I was just wondering is all..and I exaggerated a bit..I agree about 99.9% of the time! Take care and keep up the good work sir

sorry, but did someone bring a compass to your grandma's funeral!? or are Christians magnetic?

Does god exist? I don't know but i think he'd love to if tanakh, talmud, quran, NT, priests would permit it!!

ummmm Stephanie Meyer is not an example of someone intelligent. Lucky, yes. Intelligent, no.

Come on, it is *not* intelligent to believe *stupid stuff* !

What I find interesting about Mr. Andrews stories such as the one he provides here concerning the direction of the casket facing the East is that as a Catholic I have never heard of such a thing. As a member of the largest denomination of the Worlds Christians, approximately over one billion Christians, I have never witnessed nor heard of an incident described by Mr. Andrews such that a Cancer Patient sought non-medical treatments for the condition. It seems as though Mr. Andrews' object is to deliberately paint with an exceedingly broad brush tacitly conflating Catholics with a host of fundamentalist groups spanning snake handlers to casket directional advocates to rapture awaitors which of course are not beliefs held by the Catholic Church. In the interest of honesty and objective reporting one would hope Mr. Andrews would exercise a bit more care in distinguishing between fundamentalists and the orthodox.

@tamragsdale5870

2 жыл бұрын

Shut up! Don't listen if "Mr. Andrews" annoys u so!

I used to be ok with this kind of thing... Broken to shine! Last night in the mall there was a lady and two kids. One was a big kid, and the other one was a toddler. The bigger one had a pack of glow sticks, and the toddler was screaming for them. The Mom opened the pack and gave him one which stopped his tears. He walked around with it smiling; but then the bigger boy took it, and the toddler started screaming again. Just as the Mom was about to fuss, the older child bent the glow stick and handed it back to the toddler. We walked outside at the same time, the toddler noticed that the stick was now glowing; and his brother said, "I had to break it so that you could get the full effect from it." I almost ran, because l could hear God saying to me, "I had to break you to show you why I created you. You had to go through it so you could fulfill your purpose." That precious child was happy just swinging that "unbroken" glow stick around in the air, because he didn't understand what it was created to do - which was "glow". There are some people who will be content just "being," but some of us are chosen... we have to be "broken." We have to get sick. We have to lose a job. We have to bury our spouse, parents, best friend, or our child... In those moments of desperation, We were broken. But... when the breaking is done, then we will be able to see the reason for which we were created. So when you see us glowing, just know that we have been broken Copied and Pasted!

Why Shermer? He believed it a good idea to write a baseless, moronic, unsceptical article about the species description publication of Homo naledi, so the believing stupid things, like writing about a publication you did not read, is OK, but does he have any claim to be "smart"?

Michael Shermer is a mild-mannered gatekeeper. Seth, if you're listening, many of your own listeners challenge you to heed the advice of your own show's opener by assuming nothing, questioning everything, opening your eyes, challenging the opposition and actually start thinking instead of heeding the gospel so many high profile shills. You've done it before - you can do it again.

by 'smart' do you mean well educated? I contend that you can't be truly smart and consistently do dumb things. Intelligent and educated does not necessarily mean smart.

Shermer the fool.

REPENT! GOD'S JUDGEMENT IS COMING.

To be atheist is to stop thinking...

I would include Trumpers…..except there’s nothing smart about them