magic is about honesty
everything here is true
except for the bits I made up
This is deeply nerdy but still oddly fascinating. AronRa gave this talk at DragonCon about how to fit the dragons of literature and film and fit them into modern cladistic taxonomy.
AronRa is a giant of a human who is physically intimidating and has this astonishing knack of churning out these 45-60 minute talks at an alarming rate. There are tricks that I've had in nearly every show I've ever done for over a decade and I don't think I've ever seen him give the same talk more than once.
Magician Penn Jillette explains in this video how he converted to Christianity:
And then after a suitable awkward pause and the gotcha moment, he goes on to share a very sincere message of hope explaining what's wrong with the term islamophobia and how to go about helping people you disagree with.
Maybe we're doing this all wrong, trying to listen to politicians and academics. Maybe the way to a better tomorrow is by listening to magicians and jugglers.
This coming weekend, I'll be performing at a rather unusual event — The Non-Conference. Contrary to its name, it is a conference. It's a one-day conference for non-believers in Niagara Falls, Saturday, August 13.
Speakers at the conference include Maajid Nawaz (who recently co-wrote a book with one of my favourite authors), Catherine Dunphy (a former executive director of The Clergy Project, Scott Clifton (I'll let you figure out on your own why they invited a three-time Emmy winner General Hospital cast member) and several more. If you're free to attend, it will be a terrific event. Tickets are $159 for the day.
My part comes in at the special sit down VIP dinner on Friday, August 12 where guests have a chance to sit down with the speakers. I'll be doing some good old fashioned magic with a skeptical bent. I believe there are still a few tickets left for the dinner.
Last night at a special bonus instalment of Magic Tonight, we were joined by a group from the Centre for Inquiry Canada celebrating the winter solstice and raising money for the centre. The holiday season can be difficult for skeptics, freethinkers and atheists, particularly those spending time with religious family members. It can create a feeling of being left out and so it's a pleasure and an honour to be able to provide a place for like minded people to celebrate and have a good time. On top of the magic, we celebrated The Flying Spaghetti Monster and all present were touched by his great noodly appendage!
This year secular organizations like CFI have been busy this year fighting for freedom of expression and freedom from religion around the world. In particular, CFI Canada has helped bring a number of free though refugees and their families to escape religious persecution around the world and make their way to Canada. The best way to support them in their work is to join CFI Canada.
For those who were interested in attending but weren't able to make it because of other holiday commitments, take a look at some of the fun we got up to. There may also be some video coming later in the week.
Magic Tonight runs weekly at the Crimson Lounge in downtown Toronto, every Sunday night. Readers of this blog can use the discount code cficanada for a discount on the price of tickets and dinner when purchasing online. A portion of every ticket sold will also go to support the centre and its work.
This Saturday night (December 19) we're doing a bonus instalment of Magic Tonight as a fundraiser for the Centre for Inquiry Canada. This organization, near and dear to my heart, promotes reason, science and secular values and offers a terrific range of educational programming. Dinner is included with tickets to the show and there are discounted tickets for Members of CFI. If you're not a member but would like to join, you can buy a membership along with your tickets, available at www.magictonight.ca/cfi. The evening starts at 5:00 PM with some mingling (yes, the bar is open!), dinner at 6:00 and the show at 7:00.
For those who haven't been, Magic Tonight is our weekly show in Downtown Toronto at the Crimson Lounge (College Street, just west of Spadina). If you can't make it on the 19th, but still want to support CFI, you can buy tickets for any of our regular shows with the discount code cficanada. You'll get a huge discount and a portion of the proceeds will to go the centre.
It's a shocking thing when you start to ponder a question silently to yourself, wondering if anyone knows the answer, and a few days later, someone in your RSS feed points you to a four-part video series answering it. I was thinking about scripture and how most people today agree that scripture is a mixed bag. Some of it is true in the literal sense and other parts are vaguely metaphorically poetically true, in the sense that the play Romeo and Juliet can teach us "truths" about the human condition and maybe even inform our decision making about how to lead more prosperous lives even though the events in the play are themselves fictional.
Side note: the problem with this point of view is that once you admit that, you acknowledge the necessity of turning to an outside source for determining which parts are which (usually the scientific method) then you can dispense with the scripture entirely and still be just as well off when it comes to knowing how the world actually works.
I was especially curious about the phrase "God hardened Pharaoh's heart" (Exodus 9:12) which had popped up a few times in different places. The problem seems to be that it implies that our hearts make choices, and not our brains as modern science teaches us. And I was extremely curious to know if the authors of these books actually believed what they were writing as literally true or if they were using the word heart as a vague substitute for soul or personality in general, since that tradition continues linguistically to this day.
Enter TruthSurge to answer for me. I was hoping the answer would be vague and open to interpretation, but it seems crystal clear. These authors had no clue whatsoever that the brain was the part of the body that did the thinky bits. Go ahead and take a look:
h/t Friendly Atheist.
