Thursday, April 16, 2009

Religion and other time-wasters

Over the past week I've come across some cool sites/info that I thought you, my only reader, would be interested in. Fortunately, the info below is going to be far more useful than religion.

Richard Wiseman has published a couple of books, The Luck Factor and Quirkology. I have just purchase Quirkology but have not yet begun to read it. (I'm sure I'll post on that when I'm done. If you are in the Sarnia area and are looking for books, visit http://www.sarniabookkeeper.com/ in the Northgate Plaza.)

Richard has created a video - Colour Changing Card Trick. Take a view - he shows you how it is done. (If you've seen Penn & Teller recently in Las Vegas, you might recognize the idea.)


A blog that you might find interesting is that of Stephen Law. Stephen is a Philosopher and a wonderful presenter. His blog is accessible and his messages are pretty clear. I'm just waiting for Stephen to send me my copy of The War for Children's Minds. (Seriously, he's going to send me a copy - because I paid for it!)

Someone I've mentioned a few times in my blog, James Randi and his James Randi Educational Foundation, have their own YouTube channel. I can't pick a favourite video, The Amazing Randi is truly inspiring. Enjoy!

As Bill Gates once said, "Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning."

2 comments:

NathanColquhoun said...

One of my favourite shows on CBC is Wiretap, if you don't know it, you would love it (http://www.cbc.ca/wiretap/index.html?copy-audio), anyway the guy who started it just came out with a book that looks to be right up your alley.

http://www.cbc.ca/wiretap/
go there, see the video, the book is called "Ladies and Gentlemen: The Bible"

sarniaskeptic said...

Thanks Nathan, I'm going to have to get a copy. I'm a big fan of reading - I couldn't really nail down a "category" of books that interest me, though. Other than the bible, I like reading books that are likely to be true :) (I don't mean that, so much, as a dig - I'm not into science fiction, fantasy, etc., but I do read the bible because I think it is important that I know it more than those who use it to support their arguments/opinions.)

I'm reading "The Language Instinct" by Steven Pinker now and it is, oddly enough, a fascinating book.

One of my favourite books has been "Flim Flam" by James Randi (the Amazing Randi) and, more recently, Bad Science by Ben Goldacre (as I mention in my blog).

Of course, The God Delusion is a good read and Letter to a Christian Nation is definitely a must read.

Oh well - it's the weekend, the weather is beautiful, time to get out and enjoy it. After all, I am going to sleep in tomorrow - you should try that sometime (sleep in on Sunday).