Brief History of Bad Things...

Reach Out and Touch Faith...

An article in the New Scientist about how the idea of God may be in the brain:

This anomaly was documented in the early 1970s, but only now is science beginning to tell us why. It turns out that human beings have a natural inclination for religious belief, especially during hard times. Our brains effortlessly conjure up an imaginary world of spirits, gods and monsters, and the more insecure we feel, the harder it is to resist the pull of this supernatural world. It seems that our minds are finely tuned to believe in gods.


Religious ideas are common to all cultures: like language and music, they seem to be part of what it is to be human. Until recently, science has largely shied away from asking why. "It's not that religion is not important," says Paul Bloom, a psychologist at Yale University, "it's that the taboo nature of the topic has meant there has been little progress."


The origin of religious belief is something of a mystery, but in recent years scientists have started to make suggestions. One leading idea is that religion is an evolutionary adaptation that makes people more likely to survive and pass their genes onto the next generation. In this view, shared religious belief helped our ancestors form tightly knit groups that cooperated in hunting, foraging and childcare, enabling these groups to outcompete others. In this way, the theory goes, religion was selected for by evolution, and eventually permeated every human society.

Quote of the Day...

"There is no doubt that the very nature of faith means that some of our beliefs will never be the same. We read from different texts. We follow different edicts. We subscribe to different accounts of how we came to be here and where we’re going next – and some subscribe to no faith at all...

We know too that whatever our differences, there is one law that binds all great religions together. Jesus told us to "love thy neighbor as thyself." The Torah commands, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow." In Islam, there is a hadith that reads "None of you truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself." And the same is true for Buddhists and Hindus; for followers of Confucius and for humanists. It is, of course, the Golden Rule - the call to love one another; to understand one another; to treat with dignity and respect those with whom we share a brief moment on this Earth."


- Barack Obama at (of all places) a prayer breakfast this morning.

On the Culture Wars...

Both Ross Douthat and Peter Beinart have some pretty solid pieces on the 'culture wars.


Beinart:

In the 1990s, things began to change. Crime declined, welfare was radically scaled back, and affirmative action receded from the political stage, in part because of the deep support it enjoyed from such conservative bastions as corporate America and the military. But the culture war didn't end: It simply morphed from a struggle primarily about race to a struggle primarily about religion. In the 1990s, as the affirmative action, crime, and welfare debates subsided, the void was partly filled by gay marriage, an issue that pits not black against white, but secular against religiously orthodox. The impeachment of Bill Clinton was not a racial battle, but a battle over what standard of public morality would govern political behavior. Bill Clinton's legacy, noted political scientists William Galston and Elaine Kamarck, was to relieve some of the racial anxiety that white working-class voters felt about the Democratic Party but substitute for it a new moral anxiety, felt most acutely by whites who regularly attended church.


For Barack Obama, this shift has been useful. A black politician running in the midst of a racial culture war is virtually doomed. But amidst a religious culture war, being black is less of a handicap since blacks are the least secular element of the Democratic coalition. Barack Obama was more successful than John Kerry in reaching out to moderate white evangelicals in part because he struck them as more authentically Christian.

Douthat (in response):

...what makes Obama promising to liberals isn't his potential to "end" culture-war battles - it's his potential ability to win them, by dressing up the policies that Planned Parenthood or the Human Rights Campaign or the ACLU or whomever would like to see in the kind of religiose language and fuzzy talk about consensus that swing voters like to hear. So waiting a day to reverse the ban on overseas funding for groups that provide abortions, for instance, isn't a compromise in the culture wars, or an act of moderation - it's a way of making a victory for the left seem like an act of moderation to people who aren't that invested in the issue.

In Australia, There's No Such Thing As Whiskey Dick...

I think a hard drinking country like Australia will appreciate their researchers findings:

Australian researchers have made the surprise discovery that alcohol improves, rather than damages, men's performance in the bedroom.

They hope the finding, which flies in the face of conventional belief, will reassure men who worry about the affects of drinking on their sex lives.


Until now, it has been widely believed alcohol consumption could cause erectile dysfunction, commonly called "brewer's droop''.


But a study of 1580 Australian men has shown the reverse may be true, with drinkers reporting as many as 30 per cent fewer problems than teetotallers.


Even binge drinkers had lower rates of erectile dysfunction than those who never drank, although this type of drinking can cause other health problems.

Now I'm not a scientist but could it be that people who have a drink or eight on the weekends are more likely to come across a friendly lady who has had a drink or eight herself? I only know very little about erectile dysfunction at the moment, but I imagine using it on a fairly regular basis is good for the cause.

It's All In the Face...

The science of attraction...

Coffeeblind...

Money Talks...

This isn't really surprising is it?

Scientists have found that the pleasure women get from making love is directly linked to the size of their partner’s bank balance.


They found that the wealthier a man is, the more frequently his partner has orgasms.


“Women’s orgasm frequency increases with the income of their partner,” said Dr Thomas Pollet, the Newcastle University psychologist behind the research.


He believes the phenomenon is an “evolutionary adaptation” that is hard-wired into women, driving them to select men on the basis of their perceived quality.


The study is certain to prove controversial, suggesting that women are inherently programmed to be gold-diggers.


However, it fits into a wider body of research known as evolutionary psychology which suggests that both men and women are genetically predisposed to ruthlessly exploit each other to achieve the best chances of survival for their genes.

The Perfect Drug...

Okay, not quite. But this new AIDS drug looks fairly promising.

No... Really?

A recent study at the Johns Hopkins tells us what most of us already know :

Teens who take virginity pledges are just as likely to have sex as teens who don't make such promises -- and they're less likely to practice safe sex to prevent disease or pregnancy, a new study finds.

You're Getting Sleepy...

Unfortunately, if you were a patient of this asshole hypnotherapist, you were subsequently raped:

A 75-year-old hypnotherapist was jailed for eight-and-a-half years today for committing a string of sex attacks on young girls during massage sessions.

Knight, who claimed to be healing his victims, was convicted of 16 counts of indecent assault and three other sex offences last month following a two-week trial at Birmingham Crown Court.

The court heard the pensioner, of Selsey Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, committed the offences against young women and girls over a 10-year period from the late 1980s to the late 1990s after billing himself as a spiritual healer who specialised in positive thinking.