If you ever wondered why some of your friends or family members seem to lack a certain degree of skepticism concerning their own beliefs, you might be interested in a study conducted by the Aarhus University of Denmark. Using magnetic resonance imaging, they studied 20 Pentecostals and found when they listened to prayers recited by someone they were told was a Christian, the part of the brain normally associated with skepticism and vigilance (yes, there are parts of the brain responsible for this) shuts down.

The study found the most important factor wasn’t what the prayer was about, but rather the perceived authority of the person reading the sermons. In other words, they’ve identified the mechanism that allows charismatic religious leaders to gain influence over other people, and all that’s required is for a part of their followers brain to shut down.

This is exactly WHY I’m so fearful of religion; perfectly logical and rational people can be convinced of any absurdity once they surrender their skepticism to some silver tongued preacher. It’s scary when you think about how easy it is for some people to just shut off a part of their brain with such ease. Could there also be other parts of the brain that are affected as well? This could go a long way to explain why generally peaceful individuals can be convinced to kill in the name of their religious beliefs. The more we understand about religious belief, the more it scares the shit out of me.

Remember all those annoying religious wackos who keep trying to convince us watching porn is evil? Well, it turns out their fucked up message and restrictive religious instructions might actually increase the chances of someone becoming a rapist. That’s according to two psychologists, Michael J. Goldstein and Harold Kant (who’s body of work goes back to the 1970′s), who had figured out the link between porn and rape was utterly bogus, even back then.

It doesn’t surprise me a strict religious upbringing can fuck someone up, especially when the religion focuses so strongly on our impulse to breed. Look, you’re an animal, and there’s a part of you that can’t resist the idea of having hot, steamy sex. If you try and repress this urge, odds are it’ll manifest itself in some pretty scary ways, and no one needs that. Religions are like the thought police; they don’t even want you fantasizing for your own pleasure. Instead they try and teach you lustful thoughts are bad, and need to be suppressed. I can’t even begin to imagine the kind of psychological damage that’ll do to a human being…

As far as the benefit of watching porn, the good news seems to be as sexually explicit materials become more widely available, the number of sexual abuse cases don’t increase; in fact, they actually begin to decline. And what about the idea that watching porn makes men misogynistic? Well, that too has been refuted. So if you’re sitting at home so bored out of your tree you’re reading this shitty blog, might I humbly suggest you go do your civic duty and go watch a lot of porn instead?

If you enjoy celebrating the birthday of dead famous people, then you’ll love today; 200 years ago, a spry little Englishmen named Charles Darwin was born, and to celebrate this momentous occasion, a number of different organizations are planning all kinds of cool and exciting tributes to the pursuit of knowledge, more commonly known as science.

It’s hard to believe we only started actually caring about this day roughly 15 years ago, but if you consider how religious folks still rue the day he ever wrote his famous book, “On the Origin of Species”, it’s not actually surprising. Everyone seems to love the quality of life science gives them, but not everyone is cool about the implications such discoveries have on our “spiritual” lives. Thanks to the pioneering work of men like Darwin, we have all kinds of ways of understanding nature without needing to rely on some omnipotent creator, and this isn’t such great news for religious folks.

Hey, they can always take comfort in the fact that if we ever get tired of knowing anything real about the world, we can always go back to being ignorant sheep following their every edict; sounds like a hoot!

Evolution is so fucking cool. Check out this article and marvel at the power of natural selection in all its glory. For those of you interested in only the short version, it basically talks about how wide spread use of bird feeders in Britain has created evolutionary changes in the blackcap bird. These include more rounded wings and a smaller beak. What surprised scientists was how quickly the changes started to occur. Before the advent of bird feeders to provide them valuable calories in the winter, these blackcaps would have died out, but now they no longer travel to Spain to breed. Over time these new birds are adapting to take advantage of no longer having to migrate south. Is that awesome, or what?

It geeks me out to this day we can actually see evolution at work, but it also boggles my mind how some people still choose to deny reality in favor of the non-explanation that “God did it”. Why don’t you read a few books other than the Bible and marvel at the power of the natural world for a change. Trust me, it’s a lot cooler.

es, I well aware there is no such thing as the “missing link”, which is precisely why I put it in quotations. Evolution isn’t like a chain; rather it’s more like a very big tree with a many branches stretching out in different directions. Now, thanks to an international researcher team (doesn’t that just sound so damn cool?), we have an even better glimpse as to what one of those “branches” may have looked like. The species, known as Ardipithecus ramidus, is roughly 4.4 million years old, and it’s providing scientists with a glimpse of light on a stage of human evolution about which little was previously known.

The bones were actually discovered in 1992, but it took almost 20 years to piece everything together. Yes, science takes that long sometimes, but hey, you need time to get it right! Ardi is like a snapshot in time; we can tell from her bone structure that her features were very similar to ours (contrary to what we used to believe). Neither chimp or human, Ardi sits somewhere in the middle, a reminder that not so long ago, we looked very different than we do today.

So, which creationist wants to explain away this fucking fossil? Are they going to ask for yet another transitional form? How much more evidence do they need before they stop believing in a book of fairy tales? My guess: never.