Saturday 11 July 2015

Verity, Ellen and why do people believe this tripe!

Now, as a penguin, I have to accept certain 'facts' of life. My mate will not return and our offspring will starve. She, or I, may succumb to a marauding leopard seal or orca. I may not survive a particularly bad winter. I may be harpooned by a Japanese trawler, the crew of which mistakes me for a Minke whale; the latter unlikely I grant you but I can get quite fat just before jumping onto the ice for my four months of unmitigated hell and have you ever noticed the East Asians always seem to wear spectacles. Or at least the ones in my purview do.

Despite  my obvious intelligence and profound (!) knowledge of all thing chemical, biological and physical together with my deep and lasting scepticism of all things which seem too good to be true (they usually are), I find myself perpetually perplexed (like the alliteration there?) by the wilful ignorance and sheer, bloody stupidity of, supposedly, the most 'intelligent' species on the planet. The deceptions some of you fall for beggar belief sometimes. Scientology, Mormonism, Christianity, dare I say it, Islam, Spirit Mediums, Spoon Bending, Alien Abductions, 9/11 and JFK Conspiracy Theories (I capitalise them all out the of due deference to others' beliefs) have little, if any, tangible or verifiable proof that might persuade me and too many seem to be the work of 'knowing' (or perhaps ignorant) charlatans.

Don't get me wrong, you teeming billions can believe whatever you want, it's your life after all, but unfortunately your 'beliefs' and your missionary-like zeal in trying to persuade others cost lives at the very worst and financial penalties at best. Few zealots give away their secrets for free!

I was reminded of this during some idle moments when I revisited the Darwin Award website and came across someone (back in 1999) who had 'knowingly' removed herself from the gene pool of humanity by becoming a Breatharian. (The Darwin Awards, for those who have missed these priceless gems of ineptitude, are for those humans who have by their own stupidity or ineptitude counted themselves out of propagating their genes. . . by dying. One shouldn't laugh at the tales, I know, but they ARE priceless.)

Now for those of you who don't know, Breatharianism is a 'crackpot' philosophy dreamt up by an Australian women (born of Norwegian emigres - says it all really - I always thought the post-Viking- era Norwegians a little strange) which maintains that you can live on air alone with a little proviso that three hundred calories or so per day will keep the wolves at bay if you start to get a little peckish. Poor Verity Lynn, who as far as I can make out bought into this nonsense, died as a result of starvation, dehydration and hypothermia while camping out in Scotland on a 'seven-day detox routine'. Needless to say, Guru Jasmuheen, born Ellen Greve, denies all responsibility  for Lynn's death, as well she might; two other, I assume, adherents of this 'cult' were jailed for manslaughter when they failed to act over the impending death of a third member.

As I say, I don't have too much of a problem with people, or for that matter penguins, adhering to their own beliefs but when they start proselyting, Ms Greve has published eleven books at the last count on her cranky notions in an attempt to convert or at least make some money, then I do have a problem! The notion that a healthy human being can survive on air, a little water, 300 calories a day and 'lotsa faith' is simply arrant nonsense; just ask any anorexic or bulimic! As far as I can tell Ms Greve is either anorexic or bulimic or she is a out and out charlatan who has one agenda and one agenda only; to make money out of the extremely gullible!

She does have one thing in her favour. She is both a winner of an IgNobel Prize as well the recipient of the Bent Spoon Award (named after Uri Geller's famous 'trick') by Australian Skeptics. In 2005 she turned down James Randi's offer to compete for the one million dollar prize which he has promised to give anyone who can demonstrate that their crackpot theories and/or practices actually produce measurable results. As far as I know, no-one, but no-one, has taken the 'Amazing Randi' (a professional magician and arch-debunker of hokum) up on his offer. And that just about says it all!

I can understand the human need to believe in something. After all, as endowed with consciousness as you must surely be, it can be frightening, alarming and dispiriting to believe that all there is to life is just that; life. I can understand God, Allah, Buddha et al; a belief in something other than yourselves, a supreme Creator or the perfect being. But believing in pure, unadulterated drivel? The mind, and certainly my mind, boggles.

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