Reality Crowd

Some of the great minds of human history had pretty interesting things to say about religion. Benjamin Franklin is quoted: “Lighthouses are more helpful than churches.” I had to look that up to make sure. View the above video to see quotes of Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Homer Simpson, and many other interesting personalities and their takes on religion.

View RealityCrowd’s Quoatable Quotes category to see other posts on influential people and their assertions about religion, faith, reason, and science.

We’ll explore this subject more in depth at a later date, but I thought that this clip from the This American Life TV series is really interesting food for thought about how cameras change things. We act differently when we know we are being filmed. How does that change our society when suddenly we are being filmed all the time? That article is for another day… for now enjoy this clip:

What do you think? Do cameras change people’s behavior?

A new film premiering at the South By South West (SXSW) Film Festival in Austin this March will explore virtual worlds and the real people who inhabit them. Second Skin explores several different Massively Multiplayer online games (such as World of Warcraft and Everquest) as well as virtual spaces such as Second Life. As these worlds become more and more realistic people are choosing to spend more time in them than in the “real” world. The film examines this phenomenon and what it means for society at large. The questions asked in the film will only become more and more important as our technology advances and the line between real and unreal, virtual and reality becomes increasingly blurred.

The filmmakers sum up the movie nicely on their site www.secondskinfilm.com

Second Skin takes an intimate look at computer gamers whose lives have been transformed by the emerging genre of Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs). World of Warcraft, Second Life, and Everquest allow millions of users to simultaneously interact in virtual spaces. Second Skin introduces us to couples who have fallen in love without meeting, disabled players who have found new purpose, addicts, Chinese gold-farming sweatshop workers, wealthy online entrepreneurs and legendary guild leaders - all living in a world that doesn’t quite exist.

and here is the trailer for the film:

Links:

Second Skin Site
Boing Boing Story
BBC Story
Second Skin Blog

What is your delusion level? Take this fun quiz to find out!:

Special thanks to The Green Atheist for finding this gem.

What’s your delusion level? Lets hear it in the comments!

What would happen if people disappeared suddenly from the planet? Not in some kind of nuclear war or global warming gone wild kind of way, but simply disappeared? How long would the evidence of our existence stick around? Would the earth eventually heal itself? These thought experiments have inspired a book and now a special on the History Channel.

The book, The World Without Us by Alan Weisman examines all types of different ecological and human made systems, and how they would react if people were taken out of the equation. The results are often surprising. Weisman talks to scientists from all types of disciplines from foresters to nuclear physicists. It turns out that the things that we intuitively think of as permanent would be the first to go. Within a few years our massive infrastructure would start to crumble, and most of it would be gone within a few thousand. It’s the stuff that we don’t think of that often… like plastic, that would stick around the longest.

In addition to the book the History Channel has a special out called Life After People. Clearly inspired by Weisman’s book, the show uses special effects to help imagine what the landscape would look like and how different structures would react over time without the upkeep of people. Visit the History Channel site to see some previews.

Read on to see some videos from the History Channel and from “The World Without Us”
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Biblical “science” or creation “science” or “intelligent” design all attempt to put forth the same idea. That somehow despite total lack of evidence for their claims and complete disregard for the scientific method that they are somehow more scientific than science itself. We at Reality Crowd intend to examine this issue extensively as it is at the heart of what we are discussing here. Creationists, not content to have everyone accept their claims “on faith” (a rather dubious proposal) have now turned to the language of science to try to promote their ideas. The only problem is they occasionally run into real scientists:

For those who don’t recognize the voice, that is creationist Kent Hovind. The main point that we can get from this exchange is that creationists seem to have no concrete examples of what their “science” is for. It doesn’t make any reliable predictions about anything, nor does it describe in a useful way the way the physical systems of the universe work. Creationist’s version of science is merely attempting to shoehorn biblical passages into compatibility with what we know about the physical universe (but mostly the other way around).

One tactic that has been increasingly used by the religious in debates (both online and out in the “real” world) is to attempt to show that their claims are in fact backed up by science and reason. This has been the tactic of the “Intelligent” design movement and is often used by one of it’s leading proponents Kent Hovind. Essentially, their arguments are stated in a manor that makes them sound scientific. If I as a listener wanted to believe what these people are saying I would come away with the sense that they had somehow proven something to me, through reason and science.

However, when people that make arguments like these come across actual scientists, or even just people who are listening closely, their arguments are usually demonstrated to be much less solid then they would have you believe. Take Shawn (aka VenomFangX) on Youtube. Shawn has posted many videos that try to prove the existence of god, or jesus, or that dinosaurs and people were around at the same time 6000 years ago. If you don’t listen closely you might think that he makes some good points…but luckily for us a lot of people listen closely!

Here is an example of the type of argument Shawn tends to use, as well as some rational responses to it:

Sounds pretty good right? From the comments on YouTube you would think that Shawn had stumbled onto some ultimate line of reasoning that forever ended the Reality / Religion debate. After all, he even states at the end that there is no way to disprove him. I guess we can all go home and prepare for the apocalypse right? But wait:

That would seem to call into question Shawn’s rock solid “proof” of god’s existence. It also pretty much shoots down his (and all creation “scientists”) style of argument. By proclaiming that you are absolutely right without question you leave yourself wide open to being taken down, because if you are then wrong about one thing what does that indicate for everything else?

Or how about this response?

In fact, Youtube is FULL of videos of people debunking Shawn’s argument. Shawn is hiding all the negative comments on his videos (why the need if you are absolutely without question correct?). Read on for more videos addressing Shawn’s claims.

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