A hundred walked out of my lecture

[W*GS]

A Hundred Walked Out of My Lecture

I was invited to give a lecture on memes by the “Oxford Royale Academy”, an institution that has nothing to do with the University of Oxford but hosts groups of several hundred 17-18 year-olds for two weeks of classes and, I guess, some kind of simulation of an ‘Oxford experience’. I was told they were of 45 nationalities and I assumed many different religions. So I prepared my lecture carefully. I tried it out the day before on my husband’s grandson, a bright mixed-race 16 year-old from Paris, and added pictures of the latest craze for ‘Fatkini posts’ and more videos, including my favourite Gangnam Style parody (Python style), but I wasn’t going to avoid the topic of religious memes – religions are an example, par excellence, of memeplexes that use wicked tricks to ensure their own survival. I simply made sure that my slides included many religions and didn’t single one out.

[nyuk nyuk]

It's just a reminder of how many people amazingly run TO historically white countries to be oppressed.

[W*GS]

It's just a reminder of how many people amazingly run TO historically white countries to be oppressed.

Goddamn, but you're a clod.

[nyuk nyuk]

Goddamn, but you're a clod.

Ad hominem. Your usual mindless response.

[baja]

A Hundred Walked Out of My Lecture

Have you checked your breath wags?

[theAPAOps5]

I am sorry, but that woman reads as extremely ignorant and closed minded.

[orinjkrush]

A Hundred Walked Out of My Lecture

excellent read, thanks! it tends to show main stream muslims as pathologically deaf, as many fundamentalist "christians" or jews, or atheists.

[ghwk]

If you are going to go lecture on that kind of subject, in that kind of way, to that kind of audience you better know what you are doing and how to preface the lecture regarding the topic and what you are asking of the audience. To me it appears she didn't give much thought to her approach and quickly lost the crowd.

[Mecklomaniac]

So... The lecturer is a 63 year old, rainbow haired, parapsychologist, non Buddhist zen practitioner, evangelical atheist, who undergoes out of body experiences. and considers the audience she is speaking to to be ignorant. Trying to be relevant to her audience of teens she uses lame memes to mock the audiences core beliefs, religion and world view.

She is then shocked that the room is nearly empty when she gets to the slide noting that "religion is a virus of the mind"

[ghwk]

I think it just goes to show anyone can get degree but it doesn't make you smart.

[nyuk nyuk]

So... The lecturer is a 63 year old, rainbow haired, parapsychologist, non Buddhist zen practitioner, evangelical atheist, who undergoes out of body experiences. and considers the audience she is speaking to to be ignorant. Trying to be relevant to her audience of teens she uses lame memes to mock the audiences core beliefs, religion and world view.

She is then shocked that the room is nearly empty when she gets to the slide noting that "religion is a virus of the mind"

When I see professors with such bizarre resumes, I've wondered how many real jobs they've had.

[orangeatheist]

So... The lecturer is a 63 year old, rainbow haired, parapsychologist, non Buddhist zen practitioner, evangelical atheist, who undergoes out of body experiences. and considers the audience she is speaking to to be ignorant. Trying to be relevant to her audience of teens she uses lame memes to mock the audiences core beliefs, religion and world view.

She is then shocked that the room is nearly empty when she gets to the slide noting that "religion is a virus of the mind"

Nothing quite like confirmation bias to sooth the wounded soul, eh fellas?

At last, I've done it. I've thrown in the towel, kicked the habit and gone on the wagon. After thirty years, I have escaped from a fearsome addiction...I threw paper after paper on ESP, psychokinesis, psychic pets, aromatherapy and haunted houses into the recycling sack.

...It was just over thirty years ago that I had the dramatic out-of-body experience that convinced me of the reality of psychic phenomena and launched me on a crusade to show those closed-minded scientists that consciousness could reach beyond the body and that death was not the end. Just a few years of careful experiments changed all that. I found no psychic phenomena - only wishful thinking, self-deception, experimental error and, occasionally, fraud. I became a sceptic.

So why didn’t I give up then? There are lots of bad reasons. Admitting you are wrong is always hard, even though it's a skill every scientist needs to learn...[So] when the psychics and clairvoyants and New Agers shout at me, as they do: "The trouble with all you scientists is you don't have an open mind", I won't be upset. I won't argue. I won't rush off and perform yet more experiments just in case. I'll simply smile sweetly and say: "I don't do that any more."

http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/journalism/NS2000.html

[Rohirrim]

I can't prove that there is, or isn't a god. Of course, proving a negative is a difficult proposition, at best. I can prove that if there is a god, he is not merciful. One need only live a long enough life and pay attention to prove that one false. The Deists probably had this one right: If there is a god, he is like the watchmaker. He gets the thing going and then goes off on other business.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

I can't prove that there is, or isn't a god. Of course, proving a negative is a difficult proposition, at best. I can prove that if there is a god, he is not merciful. One need only live a long enough life and pay attention to prove that one false. The Deists probably had this one right: If there is a god, he is like the watchmaker. He gets the thing going and then goes off on other business.

This is undoubtedly true of God as conceived by the monotheistic religions of the West, viz., Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The "watchmaker" idea is an iteration of a linear model of space-time which contemporary physics disproved a long time ago.