Is Religion Good For Your Brain?

February 5, 2014 / esfein / 1 Comment

When you think of religion does your body get invigorated? Do you feel your soul flutter? Does your brain reach a higher state of functioning? In answer to the last question, Jeffrey Anderson, assistant professor of nueroradiology at the University of Utah states that,

We think we have the tools now to do a study of brain activity during the really profound and deep types of emotional and social interactions associated with religion, and we’re really excited to try and understand more.

Religion constantly falls under the close scrutiny of science.

Anderson and other researchers are launching a new study that will examine exactly how religion and spiritual rituals impact the human brain. The study will consist of participants between the age of 20 and 30 who are currently active in their faith. An MRI scan will be performed while the participants are surrounded by faith oriented activities, such as listening to spiritual music, listening to proclamations from their religion, and acting out religious rituals associated with their particular faith. Very interesting indeed, but it will take some time before the results of the study are posted. If you believe your self to be a prime candidate for the study, and of course as long as you are in the immediate area of the University of Utah, you can apply to be a participant on the Religious Brain Project website.

Related Article: Morals or More Rails (to guide us)

The study does beg another set of questions however: can religion and belief be measured by science? Or rather, should science be used to gauge religion? Is it morally correct to accept religion over science, or vice versa? Essentially we arrive at a very pertinent question: should religion be completely replaced by science within the school system as a more viable teaching strategy?

Bill Nye (yes, the science guy) and Ken Ham (Answers in Genesis, supporting the side of religion and creationism) squared off in a debate last night about religion which addressed these issues directly. The overarching question of the debate was : Is creation a viable model of human origins in today’s modern scientific era? Both sides had their own opinions as well as evidence to back up their claims.

Which Religion is right? Which book do your prefer? sciencebasedlife.wordpress.com

In the debate, Ken Ham defends religion by stating that science should be split into two separate categories. The first would pertain to observational science (a science based on models). This category involves what we experience now and how the world works today. The second category involves historical science (a type of theoretical science of origin) which is used to define our origins and makes sense of the world around us from a historical perspective. He stresses the importance of separating the two to help with the confusion that children are being exposed to. He gives the example that by only teaching evolution, which to most starts with a random beginning for no reason other than “it happened,” we limit children to thinking that science is just as random. This randomness can crate incredible confusion when making conclusions about existential quandaries children are trying to work through. Ken Ham asserts that instead, children should be taught religion and to embrace the idea of God because it empowers them to think they are indeed special, as they are made in the image of God.

Bill Nye on the other hand focuses on accepted scientific evidence to disprove Ham’s assertions regarding religious truth. For example, he refers to the different layers in stone and snow that have been compressed to form ice which would take far longer than the amount of time Creationism allows for. He talks about the allotted four thousand years since the Great Flood and the improbability of the amount of species we see today to exist with the limited time that Creationists claim elapsed since then. He stresses the idea that we need to depend on natural law and orders, not religious or divine laws, to predict practical and accurate future theories and laws. He asserts that the basis of scientific education must be information derived through the scientific process, such as evolution, in order for children and future scientists to make reasonable scientific predictions in the future. In essence, he is claiming that one must understand and accept theories like evolution which have been supported with scientific evidence in order to understand why a fish can come to walk on land, why there are over 8.7 million different species on Earth, why layers in rocks and trees and ice exist, and so on. He stresses that by allowing religion and Creationism to thrive in academic settings we are impeding the scientific literacy of future generations and essentially stifling the United States in future scientific breakthroughs.

Related Article: Watching Evolution Occur

The debate finished with questions and rebuttals, but the underlying theme of the debate, I fear, was lost. Instead of trying to prove why one or the other is wrong in the school system, it turned into a contest of ego and the denouncing of each others ideals.

Some surprising statistics about religion and science. blog.faithlife.com

I wonder, why not accept both ideas? Why not teach every child in every classroom the idea of science, and then, on your own time, teach your children your worship, your religion, and your belief. Allow for both religion and science to be taught in their own settings (in schools and at home/place of worship respectively) and allow for the child to then choose which idea they support and believe. What is with this unyielding hatred between the two schools of thought? What ever happened to being free and allowing for choice? Most importantly though: can’t we all just get along?

In the end, much of the issue is largely based on opinion, some opinions stemming from facts, others stemming from observed information. One thing is for certain, all this debate and speculation on religion is definitely causing your brain to function at an elevated level. Maybe you’ve been unintentionally participating in Anderson’s experiment this whole time!

To feed your own opinions further, or for the sake of debate itself, check out the Bill Nye and Ken Ham debate on Creationism vs. science in the video below!

Cheers!

Sources:

Religious Brain Project

Deseret News: What’s the effect of religion on the brain? U. launches new study

University of Utah

Youtube: Bill Nye Debates Ken Ham

Youtube: Bill Nye: Creationism Is Not Appropriate for Children

Youtube: Ken Ham Responds to Bill Nye “the Humanist Guy”

Answers in Genesis – Creationism

Wikipedia: Genesis flood narrative

Backreaction: Models and Theories

Models, Theories, and Laws

How many species on Earth? 8.7 million

Wondergressive: Watching Evolution Occur

Wondergessive: Morals or More Rails (to guide us)

Wondergressive: In 1610 God Was a Binary, Fractal, Self-Replicating Algorithm

Mars, The First Frontier?!

August 31, 2013 / esfein / 1 Comment

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/artists-concept-of-life-on-mars-long-mark-stevenson.html

In science news lately there has been quite a bustle about life on Mars. Not now, or rather, not about there being life on Mars right now, but about the likelihood of life on Earth originating from Mars. That’s right, our red brother could be responsible for the habitability of our mother Earth.

According to biochemist Steven Benner of the Westheimer Institute for Science and Technology in Florida, life came from a meteorite that originated from Mars. In essence, Mars has been deemed our creator. Let’s be serious for a second though, this is quite a discovery. Benner says that Earth was originally completely covered in water and that there was no room for life because of the corrosive effect water has on RNA. Why RNA you say? Without RNA there is no DNA and thus no life. So this meteorite, whether sent intentionally or sent due to a cataclysm on Mars, carried some RNA that helped spawn life on Earth. A little far-fetched, yet not all too unrealistic. To skeptics and critics Benner simply says:

Lightning Strikes! A Sit and Learn About Lightning

June 25, 2013 / esfein / 1 Comment

Often times we as humans struggle with various road blocks in our lives- in whatever it is that we’re trying to accomplish. It’s hard, frustrating and even annoying. Time seems like it is never going to turn around for the better (as if time was real- HAH!). Then suddenly a BOLT of INSPIRATION STRIKES. In honor of these moments of sparked creativity, I’ve decided to pay homage to the O.G. bolt: Lightning.

Some Cold Hard Facts About Lighting

Lightning is a giant discharge of electricity accompanied by a brilliant flash of light and a loud crack of thunder. The spark can reach over five miles (eight kilometers) in length, raise the temperature of the air by as much as 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit (27,700 degrees Celsius), and contain a hundred million electrical volts.

That’s right. You’re just sitting outside in the rain trying to enjoy a torrential downpour when the comfortable 83 degree air temperature turns suddenly to a most certainly uncomfortable 50,083 degrees of electrical hell. Some religions (none on record) believe that being struck by lightning is a direct symbol of your “existential deep-fry-edness” (copyright Wondergressive 2013).

And have you ever noticed just how many times a single bolt of lightning actually strikes?

The term lightning flash is used to describe the entire discharge, which takes on the order of 0.2 seconds. But a flash is usually made up of several shorter discharges which last less than a millisecond and which repeat rapidly enough that the eye cannot resolve the multiple events. These individual discharges are called strokes. Sometimes the strokes are separated enough in time for the eye to resolve them, and the lightning appears to flicker.

The answer is no, considering that you’re eyes aren’t capable of seeing that fast. But lets just say that you perceive time much slower than the rest of us. This is what it would look like

That’s slowed down to about 7207 images per second. Crazy, huh? Lightning needs to be slowed down to be properly viewed primarily due to the fact that a single bolt is traveling at about 62,000 miles per second–one-third the speed of light.

How does lightning form?

Well this rather silly website gives a simple explanation of how it works: Negative static charge builds up in the atmosphere while positive charges are pull upwards by thunderheads. Once there is enough electrical charge on either side, the insulating properties of the air are overcome. Checkmate wind, I’m taking this tree out!

Sources:

http://www.ucar.edu/communications/infopack/lightning/kids.html

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/06/0623_040623_lightningfacts.html
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/lightning2.html

http://eo.ucar.edu/webweather/lightning2.html

Immortality Formula: YOLF

June 3, 2013 / esfein / 5 Comments

http://dishondesigngal.com/inspiration-by-gandhi-learn-as-if-youll-live-forever/

Predicting the future is hard. At least that’s what Nostradamus tells me every time I’m on mescaline. But, damn it, if Ed McMann can do it, we might as well take a swing here at Wondergressive.

According to the calendar, it’s been 2013 for a little while now, and that means it’s probably safe to say we didn’t all explode in boiling hellfire at the end of 2012. It’s unfortunate, because, of all the dooms-day prophecies floating around, that Mayan prediction was especially promising. That means, though, if ever there was a time to plan for the future, it’s today.

While advancements in technology and medicine grow all the more futuristic with each passing moment and the internet is busy coalescing our collective hive unconscious into an unprecedented uber-mind, we wander ever closer to the upcoming singularity we’re so looking forward to. All these massive paradigm shifts coming at us exponentially quicker let us say one thing at least with near certainty: “This is the era where man will possess immortality.”

It may come in the form of implanting our sentience into cyborgs, imprinting clones with a map of the alpha version’s memories, or just extending our stays on this plane to 6 or 700 years via sea turtle style metabolism manipulation. However events may unfold, Carpe Diem has never before been so pertinent. (If immortality’s too big of a leap, just follow some of the previous links and see what we mean.)

So in the spirit of having oodles of time to do whatever the hell you want, we present you with part one of Qwizx’s guide to surfing oblivion.

Step 1: Shifting Perspectives (Introduction to the Avatar mindset)

Just change your mind a bit. The tools have been laid out already for those in the mood to adapt rather than shunt the burden off onto the next generation. Let’s take a moment and let some of the implications of prolonged life settle in…The ritual goes: same window, different visuals…

Instead of renting, or mooching off the parents, as immortals, we now own the property. Every perk and burden that comes with that. Global warming something you’re concerned about? You personally will be here in a few thousand years to experience the fall out. Think the country’s going to shit? You, yourself, will be witnessing the rise and fall of empires and shift of power regimes. Want to own your own continent? Spend a few hundred years amassing a fortune and learning all the skills you’ll need to rise to the top and control the ignorant populace. Want to topple a violent dictator? Same thing, control the ignorant populace. The point is, you will have the time, so anything conceivable is not only within your grasp, it’s your responsibility to foresee. Congratulations, us.

Just pretend you know with certainty that you and all those you love will live forever, then jot it down.

I understand this has just been a tease, a bit of intellectual foreplay to ponder, but I hope you’re as titillated as I am. Over the next few weeks we’ll be covering a whole range of lessons for the up and coming demi-god, from the 10,000 hour mastery law to do-it-yourself propaganda to Napoleon Hill’s formula for becoming the next Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

In any case, let’s not waste the next millennia on boredom.

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/who%20wants%20to%20live%20forever

Sources:

3 Ways the WWE Invented Professional Sports

Top 10 Doomsday Prophecies

Sign Me Up for Mars!

Augmented Reality Blows My Mind – Twice

New Cancer Treatment Shows Promising Results in Leukemia Patients

Honey as an Antibiotic

AI Prescribes Better Treatment Than Doctors

Robotic Sense and Feel

Bionic Hand That Can Feel

Reanimated Kidneys and 3D Printing

A Pill That Makes You Sober

Autophagy: The Unsung Hero in Slowing Aging

Erase Memories, Because… Why Not?

DNA Ancestry Checking as Cheap as $99

The Singularity is Nigh Upon Us

Brain Implants Powered By Spinal Fluid: Another Huge Step Towards Our Cyborg Future

Erasing Genomic Imprinting Memory in Mouse Clone Embryos Produced from Day 11.5 Primordial Germ Cells

Dietary Manipulation of Mouse Matabolism

Handbook for the New Paradigm

Become a God for 79 Cents

Fun Fact: You’re the Cause of Boredom

Breathe Deep to Relieve Stress

May 17, 2013 / esfein / 5 Comments

Image by: Tanya Burr Taken From: http://greatist.com/happiness/breathing-exercises-relax

While you’re currently engaged in deciphering the likely liquid-crystal display in front of you, your body (as always) is actively breathing. Your body does this in order to keep you, itself, alive. You breathe in and you breathe out. What exactly is happening? How do we get energy from the breath?

Every day the average human breathes* anywhere from 12-20 times per minute. There are 525600 minutes (see theater math) in a year and the average human lives somewhere around 62.7 years. So on average that could be anywhere from 395,461,440 to 659,102,400 theater breaths in an entire lifetime. In primitive terms: You breathe an awful lot.

With all of that in-and-ex halation it is easy to take for granted how the system works. When you breathe, oxygen is transferred from outside to inside the body.

“What exactly defines inside and outside?” Is a question that will lead to many a philosophical debate regarding the boundaries of a human. That debate is for another day.

From: http://zachburnettsproject.weebly.com/diagram.html

The oxygen is taken through the blood stream to muscles in the body where it is then traded for waste. The waste is deposited in various bodily systems and taken care of from that point on.

Warning: Upcoming Logical Stretch (ULS):
So supposing that you have half of a billion breaths in your life, each time you breathe you have a chance to study and/or refine your breathing. In doing so you just might find out a bit more about yourself.

To return to the Realm of Slightly Less Loose Logic (RSLLL), you really must be careful when examining the way that your involuntary body functions. If you push too hard for knowledge it may end up hurting you. So take your time and really get a feel for yourself.

Paying attention to your breathing is a proven method in relieving stress. Science and religion alike pay special attention to understanding the way in which we breathe. Breath Prayer is a Christian prayer focus. When you start to drift away from your original intention you actively shift focus back onto the breath (Hmmm… seems like meditation is a fundamental practice).

Science too, believes in the powers of breathing. Breathing to reduce stress is a concept not all that different than Breath Prayer. Stress, in this case, can be viewed as a distraction from your original plan or “prayer.”

When a person is under stress, their breathing pattern changes. Typically, an anxious person takes small, shallow breaths, using their shoulders rather than their diaphragm to move air in and out of their lungs. This style of breathing disrupts the balance of gases in the body.

So in order to train your body out of stress all anybody needs to do is deepen and elongate their breathing. There are many ways to do this seemingly difficult task of breath training. Pranayama, aka yogic breathing, is a good place to start.

…just do what you gotta do…

to be happy.

If you’re interested in learning a whole lot more about yogic techniques A Systematic Course in the Ancient Tantric Techniques of Yoga and Kriya is a very thorough book on the topic. It gives in depth explanations of this technique and many others.

Sources:

http://www.normalbreathing.com/index-rate.php

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/hlw/whathappens.html

http://www.prohealthsys.com/resources/physical/vital_signs_table.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_crystal_display

http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Breathing_to_reduce_stress

http://www.soulshepherding.org/2012/07/breath-prayers/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_monitor

http://onsager.bd.psu.edu/halmi/chem3airs05.pdf Experiment that you can try…

http://www.abc-of-yoga.com/pranayama/

Quotes taken from Wondergressive admin: Phil

Other Wondergressive Articles:

Seven Minute Workout Can Get You to Lose Weight

Smelling Calmness (And Other Things)

Power Posing Can Change Your World

Unsweet Dreams

Dalai Lama, “Religion is no longer adequate”

NOT Another 9-11 Article (rolls eyes*)

April 26, 2013 / esfein / 4 Comments

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TUvbzXE_ju4/Tmwu1oROgtI/AAAAAAABx_Q/P0T3C0aA1IA/s1600/9-11.jpg

You know him. Maybe you are him. The casual acquaintance, not quite friend, he saunters forward, dilated pupils scanning over each of his shoulders, iPad casually out and ready, a knowing smile forming a crest of righteously pompous paranoia across his stubbled jaw, beads of youthfully enthusiastic perspiration clinging to his hipster handlebar mustache, and, beaming with false solidarity, he presses play:

Half-way through the clip, he starts digging through his leather “Tool” wallet and pulls out five pre-creased bills to further baffle you with (below).

http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs45/i/2009/074/7/b/Twin_Towers_on_Money_by_haloflooder.png

Ok, great, I’ve seen this stuff before. So was 9-11 an inside job? Maybe just allowed to happen for private agendas? It’s old played-out news, and, most likely, your mind was made up long ago. The more important question no one seems to be asking is, “why should we give a shit?”

Woah woah woah!! You can’t mean that?

I do. Absolutely. And if I do my job here, hopefully you’ll be shrugging with indifference as well by the end of this article, and the world can be a happier place with just a few more rainbows and baby unicorn farts. Come follow me on this fanciful rollercoaster ride, enjoy all the benefits of “disregarding bad news.”

Where we stand

Today, 36% of Americans either are certain or pretty sure that 9-11 was an inside job. So, this is not some fringe group of loonies, but a rather hefty chunk of “we the people,” not to mention the masses on the fence open-minded to the idea. The countless YouTube links circulating Facebook are everywhere so the question has been posed to just about everyone by now. If we can all unite for a moment and assume the very worst, “9-11 was our government killing its own people,” that’s exactly why we need to knock this right the hell off. Terrorism is bad, but thinking about terrorism is far worse…

Check it out

We’ve seen the documentaries, and the documentaries refuting the documentaries, and even the refutations of the refutations blah blah blah.

There is a natural rhythm to peering down the rabbit hole. First is the rush of finding something sensational; it triggers this carnal craving to be “in the know”. Then, once the initial high of learning something edgy wears off, the specific details slowly fade away from our memories and we’re left with only a few linchpin ideas. These are the singular points that, at least to us, are utterly irrefutable. The linchpin is a beautiful mental process that allows us to unburden and feel righteous in our opinion, free wonder about other things.

On the official story believer’s side of the case is the old, “how could that many people possibly keep something this big a secret?” Then, to the conspiracy theorists, all they need are 2 words, “building 7,” and the argument is over. In either case, it’s like an atheist preaching to a born-again; it always ends in a, “well I just have faith,” and a perforated stress-ulcer coupled with bloody stool.

I mean something far greater than apathy when I say this: once you quit giving a shit, it’ll all be roses. I promise.

The motives

http://t.qkme.me/35hgha.jpg

Whoever the group responsible, there is a wide array of believed motives. Conspirators say Iraq war, oil, create enemy, repeal rights, globalization, fear agenda. Meanwhile, official storyers say… umm… “They hate freedom” or something, U.S.’s Saudi Arabia presence, sanctions on Iraq. Whoever the culprits, whatever the aim, each of these explanations shares a common bond; they all hide under the same umbrella: “propaganda.” There is some message that attack was designed to send. There was a message, and that is part of why we need to stop caring…

See, the mind of the conspiracy theorist is an interesting place. They tend to be the more curious amongst us, believing themselves more open to the truth than others. Whether their world view is ever validated or not, there have always been a segment of the people who don’t buy the “official line.” Be it JFK, the moon landing, Lincoln, freemason founding fathers, or “God” is a mistranslation for “Aliens,” alternative explanations of history abound.

What that means is, if a small powerful group of the world’s elite was responsible for 9-11, they knew full-well that some would shout “bullshit.” It’s a matter of human nature. So don’t you think, just maybe, if they knew how you’d react, that might have been part of the plan?…

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b91/Aaron244/i_4230_keanu-reeves-conspiracy-meme-017.jpg

I hope you can bear with me here. Remember, we’re still assuming the “truthers” are right.

Since the 60’s, the idea of “the man” has been all but ubiquitous, but in the last decade especially, an overwhelming shift in perspective has occurred to where it’s now just assumed common knowledge that “your government is out to get you,” like some unspoken rule. FEMA camps, chemtrails, illuminati symbols, clips of cops beating rioters all flood through our bandwidth. Ideas that would have gotten one ostracized a decade ago are now commonplace. politicians are corrupt, the news is filled with lies, food is poison and breathing causes cancer, so cynicism seems to be justified, but let me ask you this: How bad was 9-11 really?

Even the “they” out to get you isn’t out to get you.

3000 people died that day. That’s terrible, but not really (how dare you?). Nearly 3000 people have died since you started reading this article.

But those weren’t Americans so it’s not as important? Or, those were largely natural causes (circle of life)?

The callous truth is, in spite of all the hype, the numbers are a speck of rubble amidst the heap of steel and concrete that is human mortality. Being blown up by a terrorist is terrifying (hence the name), but not only are you more likely to die slipping in the shower than you are to die in a terrorist attack, you are 4,167 times more likely (where’s the war on hygiene?).

From this angle, the attack itself was not a big deal. I’m sorry to all the victims and their families, but for God’s sake, I’m just as sorry to the 3000 people who are killed each year by hippos. Perhaps this is too large of heartless a leap to take, but our own cops do more damage than that.

It’s no longer just a game!!!

http://www.cowart.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Hungry-Hippos.jpg

“Mission accomplished”

Here’s what I’m suggesting: the result has been accomplished. Even If our own government were the orchestrators of 9-11 (again, maybe so, maybe not), it absolutely doesn’t matter.

The numbers are so small they are inconsequential. If the government attacks its own people, you should worry about it if you also expect to be struck by lightning while holding a winning lottery ticket; it could happen, but it won’t.

The dwindling baby-boomers who still trust FOX-news may fear terrorist, but the internet doesn’t. The internet, though, is afraid. We are afraid of something far worse…

If these elusive shadow men really run the show, the larger game was not anything tangible, but the propaganda campaign that followed, where we now collectively fear our government. That was the aim. The result has been this massive uneasiness on the collective mind of the people that the one’s they were supposed to rely on were out to get them, and that is far scarier.

Pissed off guys in caves with access to box cutters is not a threat to a heavily armed nation. But a group who controls the riot police, watches all the satellites, monitors your browsing history, and owns the judicial system is trying to kill you… that’s scary.

Guess what, my friends; they aren’t. 3000 people. Whoever it was killed just enough to make it seem plausible that they are killing us. They aren’t. They just aren’t. Do serial killers exist? Of course. Will you be skinned and made into a lampshade at some point this week? Absolutely not!!!

Now I can already hear the backlash. “He must be working for the man. They got to Qwizx, too.” Or, “What about the FEMA camps, flying drones, and U.S. citizens put on no-fly lists or labeled terrorists without trial?”

Yep. Those are things alright. So what? The only thing that’s changed is now we know about it. Far worse things have happened and will continue to, because that is part of the human condition. Say thank you to the internet for being a check on the villains of the world’s nefarious bullshit. You are just as safe you were before you did a Google search for codex alimentarius, but now you are aware.

Wherever you stand, if we could go ahead and give every last benefit of the doubt, and assume the most extreme explanation is the right one: some race of hyper-intelligent aliens is controlling humanity through the media and orchestrated 9-11 as a false flag operation to scare the population into an Orwellian state so they can harvest our soul energy to create a negative-polarity Hell universe (heavy heavy stuff)… still… they killed only 3000.

They want you scared; there’s nothing to be scared of. When you “expose the truth” you’re really the one spreading the fear. The very powers you’re trying to expose, you are doing their job for them.

We have the power to make this world a better place, and it only takes one simple step: Just shut the hell up already, and play some ultimate Frisbee. Things are good.

https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/6326262272/h5ABB99DA/

Sources:

9/11 Predicted in Movies

Coincidence or Conspiracy?

Managing Bad News in Social Media: A Case Study on Domino’s Pizza Crisis

Why the 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Won’t Go Away

9/11 Loose Change (Full Length)

Debunking 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists

9/11 Truthers: Meet the Scholars for 9/11 Truth

9/11 Free for All– Debunking Popular Mechanics

How Convenient! The Epistemic Rationale of Self-Validating Belief Systems

Why the Human Brain is Designed to Distrust

John Kerry: Building 7 was Deliberately Demolished

Taliban Says 9/11 Attacks Were Excuse for ‘Illegal’ War

On Anniversary, Iran’s Ahmadinejad says U.S. Planned 9/11 Attacks

The Enemy-Industrial Complex

What’s the Takeaway from September 11th?

Globalization, Terrorism, and Democracy: 9/11 and its Aftermath

President Bush Addresses the Nation

Motives for the September 11 Attacks

Understanding the Iraq Sanctions

Why People Believe in Conspiracies

10 Best JFK Assassination Conspiracies

The Moon Landings Were Faked

Lincoln Assassination Theories: A Simple Conspiracy or a Grand Conspiracy?

Famous Freemasons

www.sitchin.com

FEMA Camps and the Threat of Martial Law Didn’t Start with Obama

What Chemtrails Really Are

The Illuminati: Symbols, Signs, Meanings, & History Revealed

Savage Beating of Protestors by Greek Riot Police

Scientists Calculate Odd Ways to Die

10 Incredibly Bizarre Death Statistics

You’re Eight Times More Likely to be Killed by a Police Officer Than a Terrorist

The Culture of Fear

Gun Ownership Statistics and Demographics

The Five Most Terrifying Civilizations in the History of the World

Google

Aliens Blamed for September 11 by Conspiracy Fans

How the Illuminati Exert Control Through the Media

History of American False Flag Operations

Orwellian

Unholy Experiment: Alien Greys and Soul Harvesting

The Illuminati Conspiracy Against God

Good News Beats Bad News on Social Networks

Photographic Memory (Phase 2: Holy Shit)

April 13, 2013 / esfein / 26 Comments

http://newvaluestreams.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/super-memory.jpg

A few weeks ago, we posted a potentially paradigm altering question: Can the human mind be trained into photographic recollection? (This is a follow up, so maybe check out the link before reading on) Two sentences are more than enough build up. The results are in folks, and…

The short answer is “yes”.

The slightly longer answer is “FUCK YEAH!!!! WHEW!!!! (6 back-flips)”

For the last month, I’ve been religiously following this protocol, and it has worked. I have a photographic memory. No joke. After the power-lust erection and adrenaline jitters subsided, after a few hours of daydreaming plots to use this new ability for super-villainy, after a day of gazing at perfect recollections of stolen glances at cleavage, I feel I’ve calmed down enough to share with you eager readers the wonderful news… and you can totally have this too.

It’s incredibly easy. Do it. That’s really all you need to know. Do it now… but for the more curious, like I know you are, just a few things:

What’s happening in the brain that makes this work?

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gj-hEp5gzIU/T2CmZNhvS7I/AAAAAAAAAc4/5Hk-QBSKIk4/s1600/jesus-revealed.gif

Well, there are 2 theories of how color vision works. Trichromatic theory says, essentially, that there are 3 types of cones (receptors) in the eye that sense specific pairs of colors; the occipital lobe then translates this information into what we call vision.

More interestingly, though, and what we’ll be looking at in detail, is the opponent-process theory of colored vision. With the opponent-process theory, whenever it suddenly shifts to dark, a perfect photo-negative image of whatever was just in the visual field gets transposed onto the retina. That’s the mechanism at work for the well-known illusion on the right (stare for ten seconds, then look away and blink fast) (or maybe it’s God talking to you. I don’t know). That negative image is what we utilize for super memory…

As long as the eyes are open, these negative images are constantly being processed and filtered by the brain. See, way too much is happening at once, though. Your eyes take in trillions and trillions of bits of visual information every instant, and almost none of it matters. So the occipital lobe, hard-worker that he is, weeds out what it doesn’t think is necessary. While you “see” everything around you, you only actually perceive an infinitesimal amount, the things that pertain to your safety/survival or what you’re focusing on in the moment. For example:

So, how does the occipital lobe know what’s important? Easy, you tell it. You do this all the time and don’t even think about it. A new parent will notice the “Diapers: Half Price” sign that the rest of us glazed over like it had neon lights, just like Alex Jones fans tend to see the chemtrails and “all-seeing eyes,” as though reality had been hit by a highlighter. Watch: right now, take a quick moment, without moving your eyes; notice all the things around you that are the color black…

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Easy, of course, but did you notice that while you were doing that, everything else just sort of faded away? You could still see it, but it just wasn’t in focus, sort of. This is the process we hack…

The mind is plastic, flexible to our will, and if we know how it operates, we can train it to do just about anything. To develop a photographic memory; we need only develop a simple habit, so, real quick, let’s understand how habits work. It’s 30 days. That simple. If we do something every day, after 30 days, it no longer takes effort. The mind is retrained and the process is automatic (remember this for anything you want to do, because it’s universal, not just for memory training).

So with the dark-room process, we read words etched into our retinas, right. These negative images are always there and, usually, disregarded as irrelevant. What we’re doing is stepping into this process and saying, “Hey, don’t throw that out just yet. Let me take a look at that.” (You control your brain; your brain doesn’t control you, and never let anyone tell you otherwise), so the brain says “Oh, ok. Here it is. I didn’t realize you wanted that.” Your brain, however, is in the habit of tossing these negatives, so every day for a month we step in and say, “let me see that for a second.” after 30 days, the brain gets the point and will automatically save these images for you to look at whenever you want. Welcome to the club; you now have a photographically perfect memory.

Additional tips (in retrospect)

1.) Don’t read a book. The absolute best thing to attempt to read is not a book. What works much better is black background with bright and blocky white lettering. Far far easier to try to read.

2.) Wink. Part of the frustration you’ll come across with attempting to read your hindsight is overexposure. If you flash the lights before the image is totally dissolved, there is this overlap effect, like double exposed film (I’m not too ancient for remembering what film is, am I?). The solution: wink. Do it with one eye at a time; it has no effect on the process and allows one eye to recover as the other works. Doing this, my overall exercise got to as little as 3 minutes.

3.) Ask. Who knows how many little gimmicks and tricks I figured out? Feel free to write me at qwizx@wondergressive.com. I’ll get back to you as quick as my busy life will let me, and if there’re enough of the same questions, later, I’ll add an FAQ to the bottom here.

Finally, and most importantly, did I mention “fuck yeah” and “cleavage?”

Sources:

Experiments in Photographic Memory (Phase 1: Guinea Pig) (wondergressive.com)

What is the Trichromatic Theory of Color Vision (about.com)

What is the Opponent-Process Theory of Color Vision (about.com)

Awareness Test – Basketball Passes (youtube.com)

Why Habits Aren’t Always Formed in 21 Days (lifehacker.com)

Hey Cat-Lovers, You Have a Mind-Controlling Parasite

April 2, 2013 / esfein / Leave a comment

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Isn’t it fun to pretend we have control over our bodies? Isn’t it fun to believe that freewill isn’t some fanciful bit of make-believe? I don’t know about you, but that’s one of my favorite late night drunken fantasies (oh yeah, gettin off (or not) to the illusion of choice). Really though, the bag of chemicals we live in is a precarious balance of hormones, enzymes, and other gook, teetering the high wire of sanity by the tiniest margins. If that statement needs any justification, maybe give PCP a try.

The excretions of other life forms have altered our realities and actions for epochs, so the idea is nothing new. Usually we think, however, that these things are mostly under our control. From licking a toad, contracting the stomach flu, or perhaps a total personality makeover after a blow to the head, our body’s chemicals and fluids determine everything. So, keeping that in mind… there’s a good chance you, at this very moment, have a mind-controlling parasite, making your decisions for you. It happens all the time.

Look:

But that’s just ants, right? And they’re stupid.

Nope. And it’s not just ants, either. Countless species are chemically manipulated; there are zombie snails, suicidal grasshoppers, and even, of course, YOU…

Half of the world’s population is currently infected with a fun-loving little fucker known as Toxoplasma, the sci-fi sounding name of a cat poop dwelling parasite that will make you crazy.

Try saying it out loud. Toxoplasma. You’ll feel pretty badass.

Now look to your left. Look to your right. You have a 50% chance of infection of…Toxoplasma. (You said it out loud, right?)

Come on. You can’t be serious?

We already knew bacteria were controlling our minds, but now there’s this little fella, too. He lives in cat poop, we breathe him in, and he sets up shop in our nervous system, excreting enzymes that lead to schizophrenia and overall bat-shittedness (not necessarily a bad thing). Essentially, I get infected, I get this hankering for another cat, then I get more infected, I adopt the conviction “who needs men?” and before you know it my home soon becomes a den of feline chaos.

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It seems that society’s obsession with lolcats is actually all a part of some master plan being orchestrated by this little bastard. It flips our brain’s chemistry to, you guessed it, love cats.

The heated war between dog people and cat people will rage for centuries more, but now we know about all the fuss over our feline friends: we are victims of a cat conspiracy to take over our internet memes, one poop at a time.

They sure are cute, though.

Sources:

The Sonoran Desert Toad (erowid.org)

A Model of Personality Change (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

Little Mind Benders (sciencenews.org)

Parasitic Mind Control (youtube.com)

Enslaved Ants Regularly Stage Rebellions (wondergressive.com)

How to Control an Army of Zombies (nytimes.com)

World’s Deadliest: Zombie Snails (youtube.com)

Suicide Grasshoppers Brainwashed by Parasite Worms (nationalgeographic.com)

Toxoplasmosis-Schizophrenia Research (stanleyresearch.org)

The Secret World of Bacteria (wondergressive.com)

A Note on the Top 1% (wondergressive.com)

The Almighty Escapism: Creating Distraction

March 22, 2013 / esfein / Leave a comment

http://sl.nmc.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/creativity-slide_01.jpg

Contention 1: Life is suffering.

Sword makers of old understood that the more they heated the steel, the stronger the blade would become. The mightiest tools have always been forged in the fiercest fires, and, likewise, the trials of man’s life sharpen the tenacious ones into razor-edged forces that shape the annals of civilization. To the initiated, life’s sufferings are turned to purpose, and this is why the greatest achievements in history are often preceded by the greatest defeats, because life, like the aged swordsmith, knows to test the metal it’s forged with before setting it to its Herculean tasks. Whether one defiantly taunts adversity or nestles into safety, life is suffering, and suffering is abound on life’s road to enlightenment.

Contention 2: Enlightenment is the purpose of life; we are all already enlightened.

Among the countless teachers professing to be enlightened, one of the most common yet ironically dualistic claims is that each of us is enlightened already. Christ, Mohamed, Zoroaster, Osho, David Icke and even Scientology’s L Ron Hubbard all pointed out that divine wisdom is our true nature. Yet, simultaneously, they say reaching for enlightenment is our reason for being, the so called great answer to life. Wait what! Become what I already am? Not being enlightened (or rather, aware of the inherent enlightenment ever-present) we struggle to wrap ourselves around how this double-talk isn’t some cosmic catch-22. If reaching for enlightenment is the highest purpose, then survey a thousand pedestrians on what they want more than anything and how many would say “divine understanding?” Not many.

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There is a calculated purpose, though, behind why countless methods of realizing our divine nature within a single lifetime have been known to humanity for millennia, such as Kriya Yoga or sun-gazing, yet go widely unheard-of in general. Delusion is mandatory for existence. Yes, the transcending of mind, a necessary step, is often misunderstood to mean forfeiture of critical thought, and this is one of many pitfalls, but the harder pill to swallow and the reason for epidemic ignorance is this: Without deception, without lies, there is no meaning to anything.

Contention 3: There IS a soul; the soul DOES reincarnate.

Imagine the soul this way: energy, the pulsating power rippling through existence, the animating essence behind your beating heart and thinking mind, is inherently incapable of being either created or destroyed, according to the first law of thermodynamics; this power that drives you is absolutely eternal. This notion, for many, is proof positive of the immortal soul and its propensity for reincarnation. For the “seeing is believing” mind of western understanding, there is Dr. Ian Stephenson’s Expansive study into reincarnation back in 1975, lauded by the Journal of the American Medical Association as a “painstaking and unemotional” collection of cases that were “difficult to explain on any assumption other than reincarnation.” This study has been a vital resource in the tipping of the collective scales toward acceptance of this ancient belief structure. European Cases of the Reincarnation Type is the title but the study continues.

Ok, so what are you getting at?

So on the pretenses here that enlightenment is the ultimate purpose of life, reincarnation is an absolute, and this life cycle will continue indefinitely until the soul realizes its oneness with all existence, let’s take this train of presumptions one step further. When Hunter S. Thompson took his life after the end of the 2005 football season, perhaps it was because he understood this great truth: like water and breath, entertainment and distraction are a finite resource. Man’s inability to sit with himself in a quiet room can be seen as the root of all modern man’s problems in a perfect way, because distraction itself serves only one enormous overarching purpose: delaying pain. And pain, further still, is what we feel when we fear what we’ll realize when there is nothing left to worry about. When there is nothing left to consider, you are simply a human “being” (not a human ‘doing’ or a human ‘having’), just being, or, in other words, enlightened. Entertainment, therefore, is our barrier to enlightenment.

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Contention 4: Life is but a dream.

Because we are all enlightened by default, all of civilization and its achievements can be seen as a massive distraction from this state of is-ness. When we are enlightened, the cyclical cosmic ride is over and we merge with the almighty oneness of existence, the Godhead. Here is the point. In order to perpetuate existence, collectively we must be distracted from the truth, because the truth is there is no existence (Descartes said, “I think, therefore, I am,” but I only think I am, therefore, I am what I think). If it seems at times that everything is a lie or too crazy to be true, that is because it is… Everything the senses perceive and interpret is a fabricated dream we are collectively creating to allow the Godhead (us) to experience itself as the illusion of less than everything. That old stoner question of “if God is so powerful, can he make a stone that not even He can lift,” has an answer: You are God, and you have told yourself the stone is too big so you can experience your only limitation, lack of limitation. Without believing the illusion that you are separate from the mountain, moving mountains makes no difference.

So what does any of this have to do with creation?

Creation, in every conceivable form, from writing a novel, doodling a stick-figure, building a desk, or amassing an empire, all expand the Godhead. Here’s how. Your unique experiential wisdom, through what you create, is transformed into a vessel for others to divine new relative wisdom, previously unexperienced.

When we consume escapism and distraction (TV, drugs, games, work, sex, anything at all), it eventually leads to boredom (“I’ve already seen this movie, heard this story, been here, done that a million times”). The boredom, in its beautiful necessity, drives us to create (a new game, new idea, new records and feats), adding to the collection of consumable distraction from is-ness for the hive. Rinse. Repeat. But every creation is meaningful in its own way, as a portal to move another into your same state of consciousness. This is why the greatest art wells up the strongest emotional charge.

http://www.the-tao-of-flow.com/everything-is-easier-in-flow/

Starting in the mid-60’s, Dr. David Hawkins lead a 40 year global kinesiological study on levels of human consciousness, with hundreds of thousands of subject. His findings systematically proved man’s divinity. His map of levels of consciousness (above), on a graded scale, showed how even the most ignorant of racist rants (terrible) holds value, because there is wisdom to be found for an audience of child-rapists (more terrible).

When we create, we activate a higher level of our minds, advancing ourselves. But through advancing ourselves, we contribute to the advancement of humanity as a whole via the ones we affect and the ripple effect. When Roger Bannister became the first in history to run a mile in under 4 minutes, he lifted a veil of possibilities that 36 others, in only the subsequent year, followed him beyond. When you create, the realm of the possible expands.

When you learn you have the power to move mountains, you’ll know you were already the one who put them there.

Sources:

Greatest Achievements of Human History (rationalwiki.org)

50 Famously Successful People Who Failed at First (onlinecollege.org)

Jesus Christ Quotes and Dying Statements (free-spiritual-guidance.com)

10 Prophet Muhammad Quotes: A Taste of Honey (islamicrenaissance.com)

Zoroastrianism (heritageinstitute.com)

Osho on Enlightenment, Osho Enlightenment Quotes (oshoteachings.com)

Remember Who You Are – David Icke (youtube.com)

My Philosophy By L. Ron Hubbard (lronhubbard.org)

thefreedictionary.com

In 1610, God Was a Binary, Fractal, Self-Replicating Algorithm (wondergressive.com)

Europe PubMed Central (europepmc.org)

Living of Light Research (home.iae.nl)

Meditation – Pitfalls on the Path (lifepositive.com)

First Law of Thermodynamics (grc.nasa.gov)

Ian Stevenson (wikipedia.com)

European Cases of the Reincarnation Type (amazon.com)

The Last Words of Hunter S. Thompson (phrases.org.uk)

Veritas Publishing (veritaspub.com)

Gold Eluded Banister, But Track Immortality Did Not (nytimes.com)

Elizabeth Gilbert: The Elusive Creative Genius (youtube.com)

Morals or More Rails To Guide Us: Science Vs. Religion

March 4, 2013 / esfein / 1 Comment

http://www.theofantastique.com/

The virtues of right and wrong have been around since the first creature felt what would be later called pain and responded to it. When something hurts, you try not to do it again. It is a relatively simple concept that has evolved unobstructed for one life time (one life time being from the start of all life, until now). There are many different sources of morality. Each of these sources share one major thing in common: They all believe that they are the most right. I’m not here to call your god a shape-shifting molester of women (unless you pray to Zues) or tell you how to live your life but rather, I would like to examine a few schools of moral thought. I’ll leave the conclusion making to you, our Wondergressive readers.

Science

Before I begin I would like to address a euphemism. You see, There are No Morals in Science but what science lacks in morals, it makes up in “ethical concerns” which if you ask me, is a science’d up way of saying that even scientists have morals.

Science believes, whole-mindedly, that the answers to everything are measurable. Using analysis, a scientist decodes the world. There is nothing that cannot be measured. The things that are not yet measured are only not yet measured because we haven’t found a way to measure them yet. Science will find a way to answer every question through precision measurements. From What is Science:

Science is continually refining and expanding our knowledge of the universe, and as it does, it leads to new questions for future investigation. Science will never be “finished.”

Logic is the pride of science. Every decision must be logical. Since I’m in the habit of asking google what things are, I decided to ask “What is Logic?”

Briefly speaking, we might define logic as the study of the principles of correct reasoning. This is a rough definition, because how logic should be properly defined is actually quite a controversial matter.

Basically logic is the refinement of thinking in order to achieve perfectly scientific results.

Fables, Fiction, and Fantasy:

Guided by both the imagination and the wisdom of everyday life, invented stories are another means of instilling morality. This time, when I searched the rules of fiction, there is nothing concrete. There are limitless ways of expressing good/evil dichotomies when you use your imagination. There are a few guiding points in writing a good piece of fiction. Each work must have elements of plot, setting, character, conflict, symbol, point of view, and some sort of a theme to tie it all together.

That is just from the standpoint of the author. The great thing about these three ‘F’s is that the infinite imagination of the reader is coupled with the infinite imagination of the author to create unparalleled sharing of ideas. Reading fiction challenges the morals, or-if you prefer-ethical concerns, through vivid imagery. A good author is capable of projecting feelings through the work that has been created in order to engage the reader in a decision making process. Did things turn out the right way? But what happens when you pair both science and these three ‘F’s?

Religion

Unlike any of the aforementioned morality boosters, religion deals primarily with what happens after you die. Some philosophies approach the matter more scientifically and some choose to use time-tested stories in order to explain the whatnots and whyfors of morality. Religion asks its followers to fully believe that there is no other way than the path that they are on. Relying on a sense of community to herd the masses into doing what is right, religion gives security to the faithful.

Secular ethics and the World Around You

Speaking as somebody who has a terrible time deciding what class to choose in RPGs (I often choose the druid or shape shifting class), I think that we all have a responsibility to find our own moral code. Religion, Science, and Fables/Fiction/Fantasy all give us ways to learn something new, or really.. really old. It is up to us to decide to be kind and charitable to each other whether or not we share the same values. At the core, we all want to be happy and that is all that matters.

In closing, as Kurt Vonnegut puts it best: