Scientology: crisis in France
It claims to be one of the world’s fastest-growing new religions but a battery of legal cases threaten its very existence in this secular country.
In a small Normandy village, surrounded by wheat fields, Gwen Le Berre keeps a Scientology “electrometer” machine in his bedroom. He opens the large green briefcase and peers at the machine inside. It looks like a lie-detector from an old TV cop show and Le Berre doesn’t really understand how it works – he just knows it’s a key piece of kit for the Church of Scientology.
Le Berre, 21, keeps the machine as a memento of his mother’s life. Four days before Christmas 2006, Gloria Lopez, a 47-year-old secretary, tidied her kitchen, hung out her washing, left her dull, suburban apartment overlooking the railway in Colombes, west of Paris, and walked the 30 metres out on to the tracks. She stood with her arms outstretched, smiling at the driver of the oncoming commuter train. He couldn’t stop in time.
Morality without God
Some sensible and fascinating discussion from Nigel Warburton’s excellent, excellent Philosophy Bites series. They really are ever so good.
From the site: Morality is a human creation. We don’t need God to have morality. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, author of a recent book on the topic, argues forcefully for this position in this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast.
Legal case against God dismissed
A US judge has thrown out a case against God, ruling that because the defendant has no address, legal papers cannot be served. The suit was launched by Nebraska state senator Ernie Chambers, who said he might appeal against the ruling.
He sought a permanent injunction to prevent the “death, destruction and terrorisation” caused by God. Judge Marlon Polk said in his ruling that a plaintiff must have access to the defendant for a case to proceed.
“Given that this court finds that there can never be service effectuated on the named defendant this action will be dismissed with prejudice,” Judge Polk wrote in his ruling. Mr Chambers cannot refile the suit but may appeal.
Narcissists are attracted to Facebook because it allows them control over their image
Rachael Croker doesn’t just see the sights as she travels around south-east Asia, she blogs them too, in order to “sound exciting”. ”I want to make people a bit jealous – so, even when we’re a bit down, we can see that others would love to be where we are, and we stop moaning.”
Is social networking as much about promoting yourself as it is for maintaining friendships and sharing interesting things?
Psychologist W Keith Campbell has found that narcissists are attracted to Facebook because it allows them control over their image.
“They pick attractive pictures of themselves instead of snapshots; they are more likely to have glamour shots and more self-promoting descriptions of themselves.”
Of course, not all users are self-obsessed and Campbell speculates that the generation gap, between older people who are less comfortable giving up their privacy and younger people who don’t care, will become a thing of the past.
More ‘Evidence’ of Intelligent Design Shot Down by Science
Intricate cellular components are often cited as evidence of intelligent design. They couldn’t have evolved, I.D. proponents say, because they can’t be broken down into smaller, simpler functional parts. They are irreducibly complex, so they must have been intentionally designed, as is, by an intelligent entity.
But new research comparing mitochondria, which provide energy to animal cells, with their bacterial relatives, shows that the necessary pieces for one particular cellular machine — exactly the sort of structure that’s supposed to prove intelligent design — were lying around long ago. It was simply a matter of time before they came together into a more complex entity.
The pieces “were involved in some other, different function. They were recruited and acquired a new function,” said Sebastian Poggio, a postdoctoral cell biologist at Yale University and co-author of the study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Take part in The Events!
Come and be involved in my nationwide experiment, and be part of The Events.
Yesterday evening, a curator of London’s famous Science Museum drew a picture in secret, wrapped it up in newspaper and placed it in the museum on display. No-one but she knows what it is.
Until next Thursday, 3rd Sept, this picture will remain on display for any of you who wish to take part, to come and look at the wrapped-up picture and attempt to sense what the image is. The only limitation placed on the curator is that she was to draw some ‘simple design’, to make the image relatively straightforward.
If you would like to take part in this experiment into psychic ability which will form part of one of The Events, please visit the Science Museum and follow the signs to the picture.
Good luck! Your guesses will be shown on TV in September.
Best wishes to you all,
Derren
Location details :
The Science Museum
Exhibition Rd
South Kensington
SW7 2DD
Art fans – follow @lordcoopy for insider DB Art updates
Derren has been chatting to Coops about his painting. We had to lock all Derren’s art materials away (forgot he picks locks too!) but it seems as though they are out and about and he’s raring to paint.
Not being allowed near anything fragile I we decided it best for Coops to keep you all up to date on what’s happening on that side. So you can follow @lordcoopy for updates and I’ll make sure he gives some free stuff away too.
Derren Brown The Events – Forwards
You can all start thinking the right way round or stop thinking the other.
The Events – starting in September:
Mind Control Can Make You A Better Surgeon
A team of researchers has found that trainee eye surgeons can significantly improve their surgical skills by regulating their own brainwave activity, using a process called neurofeedback.
Published in BMC Neuroscience 2009 this month, the study, led by Tomas Ros and Professor John Gruzelier, both from Goldsmiths, University of London, specifically looked at the effects of self-regulating brainwaves on National Health Service trainee ophthalmic microsurgeons.
Neurofeedback is a kind of ‘brain training’ which involves brain activity being monitored by sensors, so that individuals can see the activity on a screen. The individual being monitored can then see their brain activity in real time – and can then try to affect the activity themselves (self-regulating). The idea is that the individual can then ‘train’ their brain to perform a specific task more efficiently.
The study found that neurofeedback training provided significant improvement in surgical technique in the trainee eye surgeons whilst also considerably reducing the time they spend performing the surgery as well.
Science Daily (Thanks Tiram)
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