Mind
Alzheimer’s leads atheist Terry Pratchett to appreciate God
TERRY PRATCHETT, the fantasy writer suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, has suggested he may have found God after years of atheism.
The 60-year-old creator of the Discworld series has spoken of an unexplained experience shortly after his diagnosis with the condition.
“I’m certainly not a man of faith, but as I was rushing down the stairs one day […]
Where Have All The Good Gods Gone?
As I promised in my last post, this one will look at the question of sport as ritual.
It helps to start with a definition.
According to the folks at Dictionary.com, a ritual is an “established procedure for a religious or other rite or an observance or set form of public worship.”
Anthropologist Evan M. Zuesse expanded these […]
Can Atheists be Religious?
Question:
Can atheists be religious?
Response:
Atheism and religion are often portrayed and treated as polar opposites; although there is a strong correlation between being an atheist and being irreligious, there is no necessary and inherent connection between the two. Atheism is not the same as being irreligious; theism is not the same as being religious. Atheists in […]
Addiction: A Zen Perspective
From a Buddhist perspective, addiction might be considered the archetype of attachment. Addiction is, in fact, a collection of attachments. It is attachment to fear, attachment to loss, and attachment to longing, emptiness, and a lack of a sense of purpose. Whether we choose alcohol, drugs, sex, food, pornography, exercise or even shopping, we are […]
3May2008 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
A Breeze of Eastern Epistemology: Knowing What Exists
Point 1
What exists?
Does yesterday exist now?
Does tomorrow exist now?
Of course, not.
Our thoughts of yesterday may exist now if we are now thinking of yesterday.
Our thoughts of tomorrow may exist now if we are now thinking of tomorrow.
But neither yesterday nor tomorrow exists.
What about the moment a second ago when you started reading this blog? What […]
Exorcism and the Future of Psychotherapy
Exorcism–the ritualistic expulsion of evil spirits inhabiting body, brain or place–has been practiced in some form throughout history, and is probably the prototype of modern psychotherapy. Hippocrates, the father of western medicine, was a trained exorcist. Jesus of Nazareth is reputed to have healed individuals suffering from mental and physical symptoms by casting out demons. […]
10Apr2008 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
Piaget’s Bridge (Or, Why Psychologists Don’t Care if God Exists)
On the morning of May 26, 2002, a tugboat captain with a heart condition blacked out while manoeuvring his vessel on the waterway beneath an interstate bridge in Webbers Falls, Oklahoma, causing his ship to collide with a central bridge support. Fourteen people died when their vehicles plunged into the murky water below, among them […]
Nice guys do finish first, study confirms
It’s actually better for your own self-interest to cooperate, researchers find
WASHINGTON - Screaming sports coaches and cutthroat tycoons have it wrong: Nice guys do finish first, a new study suggests.
The Harvard University study involved 100 Boston-area college students playing the same game over and over — a punishment-heavy version of the classic one-on-one brinksmanship game […]
Sex takes 3 to 13 minutes, study says
NEW YORK (AP) — Maybe men had it right all along: It doesn’t take long to satisfy a woman in bed.
A survey of sex therapists concluded the optimal amount of time for sexual intercourse was 3 to 13 minutes. The findings, to be published in the May issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine, strike […]
eSkeptic: Faith Healing
Human cognition has a problem — anecdotal thinking comes naturally whereas scientific thinking does not. The recent medical controversy over whether vaccinations cause autism illustrates this barrier. On the one side are scientists who have been unable to find any causal link between the symptoms of autism and the vaccine’s ingredients. On the other […]
28Mar2008 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
BBC “The Mind”
Outstanding website with plenty of interactive surveys and tests.
Prove to your friends that you are not crazy crazy.
Go to BBC Mind
Wireless neckband allows first voiceless phone call
A neckband that intercepts nerve signals allows you to talk on the phone without emitting a sound
14Mar2008 | Admin | 0 comments | ContinuedChurches Taking Confession Online
(CNN) — If you can pay for your bills online, why not pay for your sins?
Already a repository for too much information from bloggers divulging their every intimate thought, the Web recently extended its reach into territory the church once dominated.
Tens of thousands of the guilty among us are visiting confessional booths at ivescrewedup.com, mysecret.tv […]
Fear of Snakes Innate
By Clara Moskowitz
updated 1:22 p.m. ET, Wed., March. 5, 2008
Fear of snakes is one of the most common phobias, yet many people have never seen a snake in person. So how is this fear generated? New research suggests humans have evolved an innate tendency to sense snakes — and spiders, too — and to […]
A Neurology of Belief
The notion that all mental acts, all mental processes and dispositions have specific neural correlates has become much easier to explore in the past 15 years with the development of PET scanning and especially functional MRI. We can now, for example, demonstrate activity in the visual cortex when a subject views a test object, and […]
1Mar2008 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
Intepretation of this Optical Illusion Indicates What Side of the Brain You are Using
If you are seeing this lady spinning clockwise, then it means you are using the right side of the brain. If you are seeing her spinning counter-clockwise, then you are using the left side of the brain. Some people are able to see her spinning in both directions, but most of them see her rotating […]
25Feb2008 | Admin | 1 comment | Continued






