We Are Prewired To Be Superstitious

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According to Bruce Hood, Professor of Experimental Psychology at the University of Bristol, our minds have evolved the need to accept (be susceptible to) irrational explanations (supernatural beliefs).

"Mankind is adapted to reason intuitively, to invent explanations for how the world works, which increases the odds of keeping safe. Superstitions also provide a welcome sense of control. We cross our fingers to trap the bad luck between them. We say “bless you” to stop the soul following the sneeze out of the body."

He claims that even the most rational people behave in irrational ways at times.

To demonstrate his theory, he asked members of the audience if they were prepared to put on an old-fashioned blue cardigan in return for a pound stg. 10 ($25) reward.

He had no shortage of volunteers. He then told the volunteers that the cardigan used to belong to Fred West, the mass murderer.

"Most hands went down," Professor Hood said.

"When people did wear it, people moved away from them. It's not actually West's jumper. But it's the belief that it's West's jumper that has the effect.

"It is as if evil - a moral stance defined by culture - has become physically manifest inside the clothing."


I'll admit it, I have been known to wear a lucky shirt to the racetrack. And I know I still do other irrational things that border on superstitious behavior.

Professional athletes really show superstitious behavior over and over again. Hockey players not shaving during the playoffs, to baseball players who refuse to step on baselines. Some of this is God related, like crossing oneself before a pitch is thrown but for me, God has nothing to do with it......It is strictly irrational behavior that is prewired in my head. We have to fight it. I think we have to fight the idea of a higher power too....at least Atheists like myself do.

It might be a fine line to figure out what is superstitious behavior versus something that might make you feel overly confident. For example, it is irrational that a lucky shirt will make you win an event you aren't participating in, however, if you are in fact participating in the event, the fact you are wearing the lucky shirt may raise your confidence level enough to win.

In the animal kingdom, when a cat rubs it's ear grease on your legs in order to get fed....could this be some sort of superstitious behavior too? Does the cat think it is lucky if it does this?

Please note: I use the American spelling of behavior because most of my readers are Americans. Canadians can handle the American spellling. I'm not sure if Americans can handle the Canadian spelling. And besides, since I started this blog, I've used American versus Canadian spelling. If I change doing it this way, I know something bad will happen to me.

Also, if you want to view all my comics, go here.

Steve Irwin, Rest In Peace

This is why the Crocodile Hunter was hard not to like:

As I've stated here before, my dog Daisy loves watchng Animal Planet, and up until very recently, Crocodile Hunter was on almost daily. Daisy knows the Crocodile Hunter as Stevo. If I say "Stevo is on," she will go to the TV and watch him.

He knew the risks he was taking, and often made fun of those risks:


Stingrays don't usually attack unless provoked, as with most animals that were featured on the Crocodile Hunter. His provoking of animals was often parodied:

He had a reputation of putting his life at risk by going out of his way to agitate dangerous animals. But that is what made him. That is what gave him fame, which he altruistically parlayed into animal conservations and animal awareness.

44 is far too young to perish. But he accomplished much more than hundreds of internet warriors like me will most likely accomplish in our entire full natural lifetimes.

A couple of months ago Harriet, Darwin's famous tortoise, died at Steve Irwin's Queensland Zoo. She was 176.

Don't forget to click the Animal Rescue button on my sidebar. It doesn't cost you anything, and with each click of the button it leads to will feed .6 cans of food to a rescued animal.

Jew Hater Sentenced In Canada For Internet Postings

More proof that Jew haters are insane. Reni Sentana-Ries, 63, formerly known as Reinhard Mueller was sentenced today in Edmonton to 16 months in jail for spewing anti-semitic nonsense on his website called the Federation of Planets.

Here are some of his writings. They are still on the internet for all to see. I think this is his wife's site. She was not charged. Check out the articles.

Besides denying the Holocaust, Reni made claims that the Jews are responsible for creating the Ebola and AIDS viruses, the collapse of the World Trade Centre towers and the Columbia space shuttle disaster.

Like most anti-semites, Reni claims he doesn't hate Jews (he does say Jews are “sub-humans” and “demons” though) but instead of saying he just hates Zionists like most Jew haters on the internet, Reni states 'a few ancient writings have declared him the Lion of the Tribe of Judah and left him in charge of the future of the Jews.
Apparently the job discription forbids him to hate Jews, nor advocate their murder, but he is allowed to "chastise them."'

He is a whacko. Over the edge. He is evidence that Jew haters are self loathers. The reason he changed his name is because his original name "because my former name inspires hate because of its German nature."

I don't have all the facts in this case but I don't think this guy deserves jail. I think he deserves a loony bin. I honestly think he believes what he is spewing.
I don't think that is the case most of the time though as with imbeciles like Zundel, who deserved deportation. His conspiracy theories are no different than those found on delusional Muslim sites such as Cytations, who for the longest time accused the Mossad of kidnapping Christians in Iraq or revisionist terrorist sympathizing sites like iPouya. Jew haters love to rewrite history, change the dictionary and also conspiracy theories make them drool.


Now let us define "anti-semite" again. Yes, Arabs are semites, but the term "anti-semite" does not mean someone who hates Arabs and Jews or just Arabs when I say it or print it. It mean someone who hates Jews. For the confused and/or deceitful, I can go back on this post and replace anti-semite with Jew hater if you wish. But better yet, why don't you imagine it.

From Wikipedia: Despite the use of the prefix "anti," the terms Semitic and Anti-Semitic are not antonyms. To avoid the confusion of the misnomer, many scholars on the subject (such as Emil Fackenheim) now favor the unhyphenated term antisemitism.[5] Yehuda Bauer articulated this view in his writings and lectures: (the term) "Antisemitism, especially in its hyphenated spelling, is inane nonsense, because there is no Semitism that you can be anti to."

The term anti-Semitism has historically referred to prejudice towards Jews alone. It does not traditionally refer to prejudice toward other people who speak Semitic languages (e.g. Arabs or Assyrians).

In recent decades some groups have argued that the term should be extended to include prejudice against Arabs, Anti-Arabism, in the context of accusations of Arab anti-Semitism; further, some, including the Islamic Association of Palestine, have argued that this implies that Arabs cannot, by definition, be anti-Semitic. The argument for such extension comes out of the claim that since the Semitic language family includes Arabic, Hebrew and Aramaic languages, and the historical term "Semite" refers to all those who consider themselves descendants of the Biblical Shem, anti-Semitism should be likewise inclusive. This usage is not generally accepted.

To those who hide behind the guise of saying they don't hate Jews, they just hate Zionism or Israel.........let me challenge you. Do you spend equal time on each Muslim and/or Arab country that do much worse things than you accuse Israel of doing?
I know the answer. How much have you written about Darfur? How much have you written about Israel? You can't fool me. Are you fooling yourself? Read this absolutely accurate article "SAY WHAT? ANTI-SEMITES?
WHO, US ANTI-ZIONISTS?" by Steven Plaut.

Anti-semitic sites like My Blahg fool no one, except Robert McClelland himself and his assmonkey NDP regulars. These people are the dumbest rockheads in Canada. I notice he hasn't bitched about the Jews and Israel for about a week now. He must be getting itchy.

Blatant anti-semitic bloggers like Hitler Was Right like to blame Jews for everything and at least he doesn't try to hide his insane hatred.

Other Jew hater sites like Digitally Arranged, try to blame Jews for everything, but in a more PC manner. Steve is an anti-semitic coward. He should take a deep look at his posts. He is in fact fooling himself. But he aint too bright. Here is classic anti-semitism by dhimmiwit Steve.

I Knew I'd Eventually Get Tagged For The Book Meme

Recovering Ortho Jew has tagged me to do a Book Meme.

I was sort of hoping to avoid this Meme, but it was inevitable to get tagged as I've seen many blogs on my blogroll do book meme posts. I am not much of a fiction reader. And the truth is that I am a slow deliberate reader. Sure, I can "read" a book quickly, but it is a lie to say that I retained much of anything if I try this approach. And I have a sneaking suspicion that those of you who think you can read a 250-300 page book in a night, haven't really read the book. It is impossible to read a book properly at a rate of more than 10 pages per hour.

Most of the non fiction books I've read were in high school. I enjoyed reading in high school, and the focus on existentialism that my school had in their English department definitely had an impact on my transformation from someone who assumed there was a God, to me becoming Agnostic, to finally becoming Atheist.

Don't get me wrong, I read tons now. Most (all) of the books I read though are non fiction texts though. And of course I must read 30 to 40 blog posts a day and 30 to 40 newspaper/science/sports articles a day.

Now for the Meme:

A book that changed my life?:
Who Has Seen The Wind by W O Mitchell; all about life and death, I found it thought provoking at the time and it made me become introspective of my own life, and the mortality of everything from amoebas to humans.

A book I’ve read more than once:
Tough one. Does Winning At The Races by William Quirin count?

A book I would take with me if I were stuck on a desert island:
Here is where I get practical. Robinson Crusoe. I figure it would give me an idea of how to cope. I'd also consider a book on how to make a boat.

A book that made me laugh:
Horton Hears A Who by Theodor Geisel.

A book that made me cry:
I don't know about crying. I admit I've come close though, especially while watching some feel good movies. I think there were parts of Johnny Tremain that made me come close, but I was pretty young back then.

A book that I wish had been written:
The Harry Potter series. I haven't read them, but it made the author filthy rich.

A book I wish had never been written:
The Koran, or Qu'ran, or whatever you call it. Too many people have some ugly interpretations when it comes to what it says.

I'm currently reading:
Outside of Now You Know, by Doug Lennox(the red version and the blue version), books about trivial facts, I am not reading any book right now. Especially non fiction.

A book I've been meaning to read:
The End of Faith by Sam Harris. I came close to buying the Jesus Mysteries, but I found out enough on the internet to satisfy my curiosity.

What turned me onto fiction?
Other than being forced to read fiction in school, absolutely nothing.

Now it is time to tag 5 bloggers. I will focus on tagging females. One, their gender seems to like reading fiction, and secondly, they seem to like to talk about themselves, generally speaking of course:)

Atheist Girl, Begin Each Day As If It Were On Purpose, Lemons and Lollipops, Memoirs Of A Gouda, and Beep Beep It's Me.

Actually this group of chicks I'm tagging has a lot of smarts, so I expect their responses to be quite impressive.

Hezbollah Used UN Bunkers

It must of been a UN bunkers. The UN wouldn't just watch bunkers being built by terrorists and not report it.................would they?

I just can't figure out why the UN would build bunkers so close to UN buildings. Someone could have mistaken them to be bunkers that are being used to hide terrorists, and this would put the UN buildings in danger of getting blown up.

Thanks to Jaakobou, who has been emailing me some very informative clips lately. Check out his videos and favorites here.