Finals Redo

4. What is your real name?

Ting-Yu Kuo

5. What is your "user" name?

Anita Kuo

6. What is your email address that you use for this class?

7. Name and address for your website.

8. Have you done all the reading for the entire class?

Yes

9. Have you watched each of the films that were required?

Yes

10. What was your midterm grade? Or, if you revised it, your revised

midterm grade? Provide a LINK to your midterm.

11. Please place here all of the postings you have done for this

class (you can copy and paste them. ALL EIGHT WEEKS OF POSTINGS.)

Week One & Two

Cargo Cult Science by Richard Feynam

            According to Cargo Cult Science, Feynman indicates that people tend to fail the science experiment by always missing the essential information. Whenever people are investigating the new theory, they always take credit from others that they use other peoples claim without testing it first themselves. With the uncertain claim, there will be a high possibility that one fail the experiment. Just as a valid argument, one has to have right premise in order to lead to the right conclusion. As the criminal punish system or educational system, people had assume many ways that will work with these systems, but it all seems to fail because they are missing the essential parts – there are various of people, they all have various characters, to use one fixed system on various people, I believe it will never work out  perfectly.

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out by Richard Feynam

It’s a really interesting interview that from the beginning he talks about an argument he had it with his friend about how scientists usually cannot appreciate the beauty of an object since they always break things apart and analyze it; however, Feynman disagrees with him that he believes instead of passing over the beauty of every object, whenever scientists analyze it, science actually add beauty to an object because science makes people appreciate things not only from the appearance, but also from various dimensions. I also admire the way Feynman’s father educated him. One popular fallacy people have nowadays is that people believe they already know a great deal about the world from school. From the school, we may get in touch with different names from different subjects, such as the name of a mathematical method or the name of a scientific theory, but in fact we have no idea where or how the idea came from. Feynman’s father indicated this fallacy to Feynman that knowing the name of something do not mean you know anything about the actual thing.

Viruses of Mind

The author uses the idea of computers been infected by virus as a metaphor of human being been infected by religion. In human childhood, people tend to soak up all the culture of the people around them; however, infant is lacing the ability to differentiate right or wrong. Children believe whatever they been taught, and unable to abandon inaccurate information as adult. His idea can not only be use on religion, it can also be use on morality. I agree with him that children are prone to mental infection than adult that they are getting virus from parent versus adults are getting infection from all the media. For example, in the present day, we are receiving all the information from online, TV shoes, or movies that creates vanity among adults. People start to value money or things more than anything else. I will say this materialization is other type of infection as author uses religion as an example. But then who can determine what is the mental virus what is not? Who can decide religion is the virus or atheism is truly the best thing for human? I believe as long as one will not use any beliefs as an excuse to harm oneself or others, no one can say that one’s belief is a false one.

What is Cold Reading?

As I am an international student, I am really aware of how popular the fortune tellers are in China. We have a saying that says “It is always more preferable to believe its existence than to ignore it” that makes most of the people in China become superstitious, they believe in ghost, dream, prophet etc. I think as long as people believe in it, it will be easier for the fortune tellers to manipulate them. Just as my mom has had a fortune teller to predict my future. She predicts that If I get marry after 30 or so, I will be able to find a rich nice guy. This is a vague prediction. From the rational side, people are usually more mature as the age goes up, so they will have better ability to determine who the nice guy is. From the emotional side, people are usually more aware of their age when they get marry after they heard the prediction, and this will probably make the prediction comes true.

Clarity and Exact Thinking by Bertand Russell

I agree with Russell that I believe clarity and exact thinking are important qualities we have to maintain in our life. I remember when I was old enough to making most of the decision in my life; my father always accompanied me and gave me important exhortation. There is one question he always asks me: Do you know exactly what you are doing? When I stepped in to the world, I encountered various types of people. If I lost the clarity of my life, I would easily be influence by others. If I did not what I was doing, I would only drift around the others. Thanks to father, now whenever I feel lost in my life, I will just simply ask myself: Do you know what you are doing? It never failed after this question, it always change the whole thing or whole perspective around.

Week Three

The Himalayan Connection

This article starts out talking about the UFO that it is interesting to think that there were people releasing fake UFO video to mess up others people’s mind. Is it because they want other people to believe want they believe? Later on he talks about dreaming which people can get confused by the dream to the reality. For me, I believe dreaming is an action the reveals what people are really thinking. Dreams come from one’s own mind that I do not believe it will predict the future for one, but I believe people can analyze it because one cannot control one’s dream that it shows the true self or deep inside what one is really thinking. If one goes analyze the dream by doctor or others, it will probably tell the character of one that may seem amazing to he/ she, but in reality it might just be one telling the true self from one’s brain.

Should Skeptical Inquiry Be Applied to Religion? by Paul Kurtz

I think skepticism should definitely be applied to religion, as religion has dominated most of people’s life that why shouldn’t people give doubt about it?  Personally, I believe it is people’s right to decide what they want to believe, it is people’s right to be blinded by faith. Even with many evidences prove that many concepts in the religion are wrong, people still keep faiths to it. They can only have faith since there are no grounds to support it. Then my question rises again: why can religion still be a foundation for many societies? It is people’s freedom to keep faith on something, it is my freedom to apply skepticism upon religion.

Filed guide to Critical Thinking by James Lett

Lett organizes a guide for people to diagnose the information we gained from contemporary world. Nowadays, we have many sources to get information such as online, media, TV shows etc. Once my political science professor had asked that nowadays students are able to get information or learn the course from online, then what is the point of student going to the school? Then he answers that the point the professor still exists is that it will be a chaos if one try to absorb all the information and determine what is right or wrong. When we at school, the function of professors are not only organizing the information for us, they teach us how to think critically. After we graduate, without the accompanying of the professors, it will be our obligation to determine our beliefs with the support of evidences.

Mysticism and Logic by Bertrand Russell

At first Russell consider the world as a whole and was divided by two impulses. One is through mysticism and other through science, then, he makes philosophy as a greater of two, as it is the combination of the both. I think that to believe only on mysticism and science only shows the narrow minded of people that they are not willing to be open up to any possibility in the world. To philosopher, they are open-minded and willing to believe anything can happen in the world. I think only with this concept that our knowledge of the world can be improved but not detain.

Intelligent Design by Ken Miller

Right when I watched the film I am confused by the term intelligent design. After he talks more and more, I realizes it is probably the term for anti-evolution that they believe the form of life should began with intelligent causes. I always think that when people gain knowledge from the world, it is their right to decide whether to believe it or not. When Miller describe how his book was label with sticker that is trying to prevent people from believing the evolution theory. It is always important about what to teach in all class in the United States. Instead of parents or schools tell the children what to believe, children should be educated with both sides of knowledge. With the full understanding of it, then it will be fair for anyone to determine their beliefs without biases. 

Week Five and Six

Mark Juergensmeyer/

According to Professor Mark Jurgensmeyer, religious zealots are prone to use terrorism because they believe it is a vigorous way to communicate with the world, also they are attempted to awake the world from the control of rotten government which they believe it is tricking people for they own benefits that they all want to shame the government. In the name of religion, they believe their actions are just and righteous, and gaining the power to control is the only way to show people the truth they believe in.

Gumby Land/

Gumby Land think is that to think of something that cannot be tested out. Two examples of it can be supernatural and most of the fiction story book such as Alice in the wonderland. In supernatural we can't really text it out if it's real or not, some people clam that they saw it before, but no one actually know if it's real or not real and it can't be test it out in real life. The second example is the Alice in the wonderland. We can all think that there is a rabbit hole to jump into or the potion that can make us big and little within the second, but who know if it's real or not no one can test it out.
By Wolfgang Paul's witticism, "you are not even wrong?" it's like not matter how ridiculous we think it might still be possible, there is no right or wrong on how we think about everything. We shouldn’t think about the thing that can't be test out too much because that doesn't help us as human.

Truth Lies by Nietzsche/

Week Seven

John Polkinghore/

He believes both in religion and science and he uses science world to infer that there is a higher being exists. He states”self conscious life on earth occurred when the world was 15 billion years old. The universe was pregnant with the possibility of life from the big bang onwards. The laws of nature were just exactly finely tuned to allow that happen. They couldn’t happen in just any old world. Again you could ask is that just a happy accident or a sign that there is some divine purpose?” Polkinghorene believes science and religion are able to co-exist with each other. He thinks God created the world and God give knowledge of science to human that we are able to live life easier and we are able to use science to explain the things that is unpredictable.

Week Eight

James Watson and DNA and the Brain/

James Watson believes that genetics holds the secret for understanding human behavior because DNA contains lots of information and there are many evidences show that genetics are the answers for many things, such as people’s IQ and personality.

Intelligent Design/

Intelligent design is regarded as junk science by most evolutionary biologists because there is no sufficient evidence to support it. Intelligent design is based on the probabilities; however, I think the followers of intelligent design promote the idea of intelligent design only because they are afraid the reality that there is really no God exists. They want to rule out the evolutionism over creationism.

How Socrates Died/

Socrates was accused by Meletus for corrupting the youth with the charge of impiety as he “invent new gods and deny the existence of old ones.” Socrates thanks that Meletus made the accusation because he is a wise man and Scrates is the opposite.

            Socrates stated that “people regard the same things, some as just and others as unjust about these they dispute; and so there arise wars and fighting among them” which means that when people have different views on the same things, disagreements are inevitable. Who can determine who is right? Who is right? Many opinions seem to be not right but also not wrong. In his time when the fighting or wars arise, the winner is the one who wins the war among them, but is the winner right? I do not think his death was justified as if he did not believe there is a god exists, he would not bother to ask them on their wisdom, and also, there are no evidences to show that he had negative effect on the youth as he had never hold prejudiced against God while he questioned who the widest man was.

            Socrates was found guilty and poison to death.  Many people had seen the act that Socrates refused Crito’s helped as suicide; however, I think he was trying to show people how certain he was toward his beliefs.

Gumby Land/

Gumby Land think is that to think of something that cannot be tested out. Gumby is a figure come from clay animation. In the video, Gumby is believed to be the incarnation of spiritual love that has spiritual powers to give happiness to others; however, this abstract idea cannot be verify that only people’s faith support this claim. This type of thinking is Gumby Land thinking which refer as people blindly believing in something that cannot even be proven as wrong or right.

            Two examples of it can be supernatural and most of the fiction story book such as Alice in the wonderland. In supernatural we can't really text it out if it's real or not, some people clam that they saw it before, but no one actually know if it's real or not real and it can't be test it out in real life. The second example is the Alice in the wonderland. We can all think that there is a rabbit hole to jump into or the potion that can make us big and little within the second, but who know if it's real or not no one can test it out. By Wolfgang Paul's witticism, "you are not even wrong?" it's like not matter how ridiculous we think it might still be possible, there is no right or wrong on how we think about everything. We shouldn’t think about the thing that can't be test out too much because that doesn't help us as human.

Apophenia/

The term was coined in 1958 by Klaus Conrad that means the experience of seeing meaningful patterns or connections in random or meaningless data (Wikipedia). Apophenia is the resulted from human evolution which human has the ability to recognize patterns. As the text states “humans are pattern seeking, story telling animals. We look for and find patterns in our world and in our lives, then weave narratives around those patterns to bring them to life and give them meaning”. This makes me think of the example which a person gave one bite to chocolate and he claimed that he saw Jesus face after that bite. I think he did not point out about Jesus face, no one would truly realize it.           

            This case shows the dangerous thing of apophenia which human always try to find connection on random things that they sometime will lose logical thinking on things. Also, this idea suggests that most of the paranormal phenomena people had seen for religion witness might be wrong since human are always seeking pattern which related to his/her own life.

12. Why are certain religious zealots prone to use terrorism, according to Professor Mark Juergensmsyer? What does Jurgensmsyer believe we should do in the future to mitigate such attacks?

            According to Professor Mark Jurgensmeyer, religious zealots are prone to use terrorism because they believe it is a vigorous way to communicate with the world, also they are attempted to awake the world from the control of rotten government which they believe it is tricking people for they own benefits that they all want to shame the government. In the name of religion, they believe their actions are just and righteous, and gaining the power to control is the only way to show people the truth they believe in. Professor Jurgensmeyer believes people should first eliminate the bias toward terrorist and try to understand the purpose of religious terrorists, by doing so, people will be able to protect themselves better from terrorism in the future. As for terror, they live in a life that “war between good and evil” is very real. Also, he believes people should not interpret God’s words since everyone has prejudice in one’s favor. If everyone learns to be open-minded and respect on others people’s beliefs, it will be the best way to mitigate terror attacks.

13. Is there sufficient evidence to support the claim that Edgar Cayce was psychic? Use your critical thinking field guide to substantiate your answer.

            There is no sufficient evidence to support the claim that Edgar Cayce was psychic. His prediction is vague that it could include broad details without mistaken prediction. This vagueness makes his claim falsifiable since it is not possible to provide evidences to prove this kind of claim wrong. Also, his followers tend to be selective of his ability for prediction. When his vague prediction becomes true, they believe he really have the psychic power; however, when his prediction did not come true, they blame on people’s free will make the result changed and thus his claim is not comprehensive since people ignore the wrong prediction. His claim is also not sufficiency. As we are talking about the psychic power, it is hard to back up with extraordinary evidence since it is always hard to materialize the paranormal power. It could be back up with people testimony, although people could always lie. His followers were already unwilling to think the possibility of Edgar Cayce being wrong on his prediction; they were willing to give any explanation to back up him. I still do not believe he is a psychic; however, I believe he is a smart person like a psychologist and able to read some people correctly and gain some followers.

14. Why is your professor so critical of cults?

            I think my professor is more than critical of cults that he taught us how to think critically in our everyday life and it is not that he wants to denounced the existence of religion; he is trying to expose the true of cults with many evidences support. Cults tend to believe things that are lacking of evidence to support it and manipulate others to believe it for their benefit. For the people who are anxious on finding attachment on something in their life, they tend to believe what cults manipulate them to believe. This is a horrible thing that can happen, as people are unwilling to face the reality that they can do something bad under the name of religion which what they believe it can make all things become just. He wants to show us what cults really are instead of what they claim themselves are. Professor David Lane taught us see from different perspective and it leads to different result. At first, it might all be confused since we are not use to the way it is. It is important to teach young generation to be open-minded; I believe it will result less conflict between each other since people can understand each other. Ultimately, people can be honest in their life and not to trap into emotional attachment.  

15. What do the films reveal about Sai Baba’s claim for paranormal powers?

            He uses sleight of hand to trick his followers to believe that he has paranormal powers. This film reveals that Sai Baba’s claims for paranormal powers are nothing but hand tricks. Despite many criticisms, there are still many people following him.

16. Why did Thakar Singh believe in blindfolding children? Why do some religious followers lack critical thinking skills?

You said ignore this question.

17. JOHN POLKINGHORNE believes both in religion and science. Why?

            John Polkinghorne is an English theoretical physicist, theologian, writer, and Anglican priest (Wikipedia). He believes both in religion and science and he uses science world to infer that there is a higher being exists. He states”self conscious life on earth occurred when the world was 15 billion years old. The universe was pregnant with the possibility of life from the big bang onwards. The laws of nature were just exactly finely tuned to allow that happen. They couldn’t happen in just any old world. Again you could ask is that just a happy accident or a sign that there is some divine purpose?” Polkinghorene believes science and religion are able to co-exist with each other. He thinks God created the world and God give knowledge of science to human that we are able to live life easier and we are able to use science to explain the things that is unpredictable. He states “we understand the world in a very profound way… a degree of understanding far beyond what we need for everyday survival.” Polkinghorne believes that science gives human with answer of how the universe works; however, there is limit of it that human still cannot understand everything because of this reason he believes that there is a divinity exists.

18. How does Nietzsche critique religion? What are his main arguments against a belief in God?

            Nietzsche has many arguments against religion; he believes that there is no God as he states “God is dead”. He criticizes that religion has no meaning for existence since it will kill free spirit from people. The one who is dedicated to a religion, one has to sacrifice oneself to not get in touch of worldly thing. The reason that they cannot do the worldly things is that they have fear in God and they believe if one do bad thing their sins will not be forgiven that will prevent them from going to the heaven. The fear and emotions people have toward God had block people from thinking rationally.

            He argues that the rules that God set for human to follow are not natural. It is not the nature way to be. The morality standard which religion has is use to control people and makes the man to obey. As Nietzsche states “Nothing has been exercised and cultivated better and longer among men than obedience.” He believes the real intentions of religion are make man subdued and obeyed.

            Also, he argues that there is “no clear communication” from God. Who can determine the words from bible are truly from God? He states “the practice of every hour, every instinct, and every valuation which leads to action is today anti-Christian; what a monster of falsity modern man must be that his is nonetheless not ashamed to call a Christian.”

19. Why does James Watson believe that genetics holds the secret for understanding human behavior? Why do some people resist believing that we are just bundles of DNA?

            James Watson believes that genetics holds the secret for understanding human behavior because DNA contains lots of information and there are many evidences show that genetics are the answers for many things, such as people’s IQ and personality. He also talks about autism disease. People who have these diseases are lacking of social and communication skill. At first, it was believed by people that this disease is forming from being around the environment which is lacking of care and love by others; however, they found out it was due to genetics reason. This case shows that genetic effect is responsible and related to human behavior.  People resist believing that we are just bundles of DNA because human always consider themselves something greater. Also, it could be a dangerous idea for the society if human behavior was fully determine by genetic since human will become lack of motivation to improve as everything was predetermined. Moreover, religion will become pointless to exist since outside influence cannot change people the way they are so the spiritual people will be the first one to object this idea. James Watson did not deny the effect of nurture completely, instead of saying genetic can explain everything in life; he only states that it is able to give us better understanding of human behavior.

20. Why is intelligent design regarded as “junk” science by most evolutionary biologists?

            Intelligent design is regarded as junk science by most evolutionary biologists because there is no sufficient evidence to support it. Intelligent design is based on the probabilities; however, I think the followers of intelligent design promote the idea of intelligent design only because they are afraid the reality that there is really no God exists. They want to rule out the evolutionism over creationism.

            Also, whenever people are unable to solve the question exist in the earth, the thing they do is that they give credit to the Creator. Since science theories are able to change and evolves, I think one day there will be a time that science are able to prove everything in the earth with strong evidence that the believers of intelligent design have no choice or option but to give credit on evolutionism, in the contrary, intelligent design can prove its own authenticity.

21. What is the underlying theme behind the movie the ZAHIR?

            “The Zahir stands for beings or things which have the terrible power to be unforgettable, and whose image eventually drives people mad.”

            The short film is about a man named Jorge Bore and his coin. Zahir is a coin that a man is given in a bar in the movie. The negative obsession with money and world consume the character’s dream and him. He projects the thought onto the coin itself. The character wishes to become so lost in the thought of the coin that he will forget the negative within it. He states “perhaps by thinking of the Zahir unceasingly, I can wear it away. Perhaps behind the coin is God”, which means that he constantly focusing on the thought and fears and trying to focus off the negative thought he projects on the coin, by this he wish he will find something positive.

            The movie also shows that how much people can control their own mind. I believe that only if we give significant meaning on to an object, otherwise, it has no meaning to it.

22. How can little things that jiggle reveal the universe around us.

            According to Richard Feynman, “things are made of little things that jiggle.” The true behind the universe is that everything in the universe is made out of tiny parts of thing; they are just the things that jiggle in the universe. As human body is made up of different organs that have thousands of cells, the universe is full with particles that make everything together. There are four forces in the basic principles of physics that explain everything that are gravity, strong and weak interaction, and electromagnetism. These forces cause particles to move around and interact with each others that bring life to the universe.

23. Why is fundamentalism a mental disease, according to movie of the same title?

            Fundamentalism is a disease because it believes in intelligent design which religion blinds people from facts and evidence that without it people could clearly see.  Creationist believes that God created everything that God is able to solve any problem in the universe.  By accepting a religion, people are accepting the rule, the stories within that religion that they place their faith beyond their critical thinking skill so this type of fundamentalism is considered a mental disease since it blinds people from the truth. People’s mind is infected by this disease that people believe things that are no evidence to support it. According to the film, there is no God and “to think that there is one, only tortures us unnecessarily” (Darwin). Fundamentalism is a choice that people made to believe things (religion) to fulfill their emotional attachment; they choose to create meaning to a religion even though there are no proofs.

24. Name eight common fallacies when arguing for a position. Be sure to give examples, perhaps drawn from your own life, for each of them.

1. Appeal to Ignorance: Just people do not have evidence to overthrown your argument does not mean that your argument is correct. For example, just because there is no sufficient evidence to overthrown the existence of God does not mean God is really exist.

2. Appeal to Emotion: Use one’s emotion to believe your argument.

3. Wishful Thinking: We believe what we wanted to believe and believe positive thinking can really turn out one bad situation to be good. For example, girl tends to hypnotize themselves that eating fast food won’t gain that much weight, but in fact that won’t make it so.  

3. Appeal to Popularity: Just because something is famous does not make that thing right. For example, celebrities are popular people, but do not make them a right person.

4. Appeal to Celebrity: Just because something is popular does not make that thing right. For example, just because some celebrity claim something is good, does not mean that is.

4. Appeal to nature: Just because something is natural does not mean it is always good.  For example, tobacco is natural but it can cause harm to people if people smoke. 

5. Appeal to fear: using people’s fear to get away with something. For example, you cannot threaten people for not spilling out your secrets.

6. Appeal to force: Threaten people to believe what you believe is right. For examples: terrorism.

7. Appeal to Authority: Bring authority to an argument because you are an expert of it. For example, teacher might claim that everything he/she said might be true which will not always be the case.

8. Appeal to Consequence: Cannot say that one’s argument is a valid one only because the consequence is a good one. For example, if one knows certain product’s price is going up in the future, one intentionally store that product for future benefits.  

25. Provide your own critical analysis of the current “war on terrorism” as waged by the USA. Your argument can be either pro or con or both, provided that you substantiate your reasoning.

            Many people would believe that the terrorists are acting against political matter based on religious reasons; however, in my opinion, there is another critical factor covering the terrorism such as the Soft power. The Soft Power, introduced by Joseph Nigh, is the idea that conquers or rule people by culture, language, or any other thoughts. The opposite word is the Hard power, which is the ruling power by using weapon or any other violence. Nowadays, most of economy is under the English speaking nations, the population of which is more than a billion, even though Chinese speakers and Arabic speakers are also over a billion. Thus, English speaking nations have conquered the world economy and they will be able to do in the future as well because English as the Soft power has been able to rule the world without violent power. On the other hand, the terrorism of other language nation such as Arabic probably has frustrated about the English conquer of the world economy, but they can control the world economy by their Soft Power. That is the other factor that the terrorists are against their enemy, the U.S., by using weapon or violence to achieve their goal. Even though it would be a logical reason, I would say I disagree with the idea of terrorism because violence would generate violence as revenge.

26. In the Beyond Belief conference there was much heated discussion about religion and its place. Place a 750 word or more review of the entire series. Whose arguments were most persuasive? Whose arguments were less so?  

            The Beyond Belief conference discusses a great deal about the debate between religion and science and the theory of evolution.

            I find Michael Sherman to be the most persuasive since he talks about views of both science and religion. As he says, the most important things are understand what your goals are. If you had set your goal in one way, and do the things the other way around it will only lead to failure. Also, I think for an argument to be persuasive, one has to present both side of stories. Michael Sherman did, and he let the audiences decide what they want to be.

            I find Sam Harris to be the weakest. He is an atheist, he believe human can still do good things without religion.  He believes religious people are not rational, they only hold with blind faith that they worship things that they do not even know if it is true. As I mentioned before, I think for an argument to be persuasive, one has to present both side of argument. If people only present one-side of argument, it will only show the bias of that person. It simply means he is lacking of evidences to support his argument, also he is lacking of evidences to prove other side of argument is not true.

27. How does the book, Darwin’s DNA, explain the evolution of consciousness?

            Darwin’s famous theory natural selection is related to human evolution of consciousness. As natural selection states that the one who is stronger and more adapted to the environment is able to outlive others. When it comes to consciousness, human has develop consciousness in their brain that they are more aware of the dangerous environment and thus are able to keep away from it. Also, I had seen a video from anthropology class that it states from an experiment which monkey is unable to recognize its own images from the mirror; however, human is able to do that. That’s the difference between human and animal. Human has self-consciousness; they are able to decide what is wrong or right; human has consciousness of guilt. From the perspective of natural selection, consciousness could be the reason that human flourishes in the environment since it allows human to think deeper than other animals.  

28. Explain Nietzsche’s transvaluation of values.

            Nietzsche believes in transvalution of values that he believes Christianity has put down what human really is. Religion prevents people on developing their desires. Prohibiting the development of having a better life, instead of telling people to enjoy or treasure the moment they live, religion ask people to think of the lives after their death. There are many things that had been proven from science or Darwin’s theory which shows the human is are considered sinful in religion. Religion is oppressed the development of human that it twists the value of human. It put the burden of morality on human’s shoulder that whenever people fail to obey the rules, that person is immoral. People are running away from the truth that they have faith in religion that creates weak minds among human because they are unable to jump out from the safe zone.

29. What was the favorite thing you learned this semester?

            This semester, we had read many things about religion and science. I believe the debate over it will never end. But it is always good to know both sides of arguments. This class gives me a new perspective on religion and science such as I know that many people believe in god because they are lacking of confidence that they believe there has to be a higher power exists since human cannot solve current issues. Even though I still cannot decide which side I will go whether science should rule out religion or religion is able to rule out science or they are able to co-exist with each other; however, we also read many articles that teach us how to think critically or be alert that there are many time our own mind is able to trick us to believe something we wanted to believe even that is opposite from the reality.  I believe that is really important for deciding many issues in the society. Other than this, I really enjoy Richard Feynman’s lecture J

30. Give a review and an reaction to the three magazines that you read listed above.

How Socrates Died/

Socrates was accused by Meletus for corrupting the youth with the charge of impiety as he “invent new gods and deny the existence of old ones.” Socrates thanks that Meletus made the accusation because he is a wise man and Scrates is the opposite.

            Socrates stated that “people regard the same things, some as just and others as unjust about these they dispute; and so there arise wars and fighting among them” which means that when people have different views on the same things, disagreements are inevitable. Who can determine who is right? Who is right? Many opinions seem to be not right but also not wrong. In his time when the fighting or wars arise, the winner is the one who wins the war among them, but is the winner right? I do not think his death was justified as if he did not believe there is a god exists, he would not bother to ask them on their wisdom, and also, there are no evidences to show that he had negative effect on the youth as he had never hold prejudiced against God while he questioned who the widest man was.

            Socrates was found guilty and poison to death.  Many people had seen the act that Socrates refused Crito’s helped as suicide; however, I think he was trying to show people how certain he was toward his beliefs.

Gumby Land/

Gumby Land think is that to think of something that cannot be tested out. Gumby is a figure come from clay animation. In the video, Gumby is believed to be the incarnation of spiritual love that has spiritual powers to give happiness to others; however, this abstract idea cannot be verify that only people’s faith support this claim. This type of thinking is Gumby Land thinking which refer as people blindly believing in something that cannot even be proven as wrong or right.

            Two examples of it can be supernatural and most of the fiction story book such as Alice in the wonderland. In supernatural we can't really text it out if it's real or not, some people clam that they saw it before, but no one actually know if it's real or not real and it can't be test it out in real life. The second example is the Alice in the wonderland. We can all think that there is a rabbit hole to jump into or the potion that can make us big and little within the second, but who know if it's real or not no one can test it out. By Wolfgang Paul's witticism, "you are not even wrong?" it's like not matter how ridiculous we think it might still be possible, there is no right or wrong on how we think about everything. We shouldn’t think about the thing that can't be test out too much because that doesn't help us as human.

Apophenia/

The term was coined in 1958 by Klaus Conrad that means the experience of seeing meaningful patterns or connections in random or meaningless data (Wikipedia). Apophenia is the resulted from human evolution which human has the ability to recognize patterns. As the text states “humans are pattern seeking, story telling animals. We look for and find patterns in our world and in our lives, then weave narratives around those patterns to bring them to life and give them meaning”. This makes me think of the example which a person gave one bite to chocolate and he claimed that he saw Jesus face after that bite. I think he did not point out about Jesus face, no one would truly realize it.           

            This case shows the dangerous thing of apophenia which human always try to find connection on random things that they sometime will lose logical thinking on things. Also, this idea suggests that most of the paranormal phenomena people had seen for religion witness might be wrong since human are always seeking pattern which related to his/her own life.