Comment of the year!

OK I know I haven't been blogging as much as I'd like and so I deeply love and appreciate anyone who still bothers to read this blog and that goes double for anyone who still bothers to comment here.  However let it be known that anyone who has ever commented here now has a new comment to try and live up to.  But don't bother, you will never match its pure greatness.

Behold:

"
This is my testimony about the good work of a man who helped me..My name is Lee Marie, and I am from London.My life
is back!!! After 8 years of marriage, my husband left me and left me with our three kids. I felt like my life was about to
end, and was falling apart. Thanks to a spell caster called Dr momoh who i met online. On one faithful day, as I was browsing through the internet, I was searching for a good spell caster that can solve my problems. I came across series of testimonies about this particular spell caster. Some people testified that he brought their Ex lover back, some testified that he restores womb, some testified that he can cast a spell to stop divorce and so on. There was one particular testimony I saw, it was about a woman called grace,she testified about how Dr momoh brought back her Ex lover in less than 72 hours and at the end of her testimony she drop papa moh e-mail address. After reading all these,I decided to give great Dr a try. I
contacted him via email and explained my problem to him. In just 3 days, my husband came back to me. We solved our issues,
and we are even happier than before. papa momoh is really a talented and gifted man and i will not stop publishing him
because he is a wonderful man...If you have a problem and you are looking for a real and genuine spell caster to solve that
problem for you. Try the great Dr momoh today, he might be the answer to your problem. Here's his contact:
spiritualistmomohtemple@gmail.com Thank you great one. Contact him for the following:
(1)If you want your ex back.
(2) if you always have bad dreams.
(3)You want to be promoted in your office.
(4)You want women/men to run after you.
(5)If you want a child.
(6)[You want to be rich.
(7)You want to tie your husband/wife to be yours forever.
(8)If you need financial assistance.
(9)Herbal care
10)Help bringing people out of prison
(11)Marriage Spells
(12)Miracle Spells like magic pens for exams,interviews etc
(13)Beauty Spells
(14)PROPHECY CHARM
(15)Attraction Spells
(16)Evil Eye Spells
(17)Kissing Spell
(18)Remove Sickness Spells like HIV and Aids
You can reach him with his phone number +2347038174961 or
Contact him today on:
spiritualistmomohtemple@gmail.com
BE CAREFUL IN WHOM YOU DEAL WITH IN ORDER NOT TO BE DECEIVED BY SCAMMERS THEY ARE ALL AROUND YOU.THEY WILL COLLECT YOUR MONEY FOR SERVICES THEY CAN NEVER RENDER.REPORT SCAMMERS TODAY YOU MIGHT BE REWARDED.

SAY NO TO SCAMS!!!
"

I think my favourite part is when they warn you about scams.  I mean sure, all the OTHER wizards out there are totally fake but not THIS GUY!

Best part is this was probably left on this blog post because the post itself referenced spell casting (as a joke).  This means the odds are pretty high that this was left by some kind of internet spam bot.  If this was indeed the case then whoever created this spam should not be blocked but celebrated for indeed this has transcended spam and crossed over into art. ART!! 

That should have been your first clue

I know I'm over a decade late to the party but I recently discovered the delightful British series Jonathan Creek.  On the bright side, being late to the party means I get to watch the whole series on youtube for free!  For those unfamiliar with the show, it's about a man who devises illusions for a stage magician for a living who uses his skills and insights to solve crimes that appear to have been impossible.  If you're into skepticism and/or the very charming Alan Davies I strongly recommend watching it.  It frequently demonstrates how the truth behind an astonishing mystery can be incredibly mundane so if you want to believe that magic tricks are really magic, this may not be your kind of show...

So while watching one of the episodes, an off hand comment by one of the characters made me realize that there is an incredibly banal truth behind the very popular supernatural belief in reincarnation.  In the season 2 episode "Danse Macabre" the victim of a baffling murder is said to have been working on her autobiography - or rather her autobiographies - an account of her many lives throughout the ages. They included: "high priestess of the Aztec Empire... a courtesan to King Charles I, a Russian Countess and a Zulu at Rorke's Drift."

I've been fascinated by the supernatural since childhood and read anything I could find on the subject* and this seemed exactly like everything anyone claiming to remember their "past lives" has ever said.  It's the weirdest thing when you think about it, how these previous incarnations are always incredibly significant.  People were either very important historical figures or they were somehow connected to important historical figures and events.  How strange, seeing as the vast majority of people throughout history were neither important nor involved with anything important.  For most of history people were born, worked hard, lived lives devoid of comfort or importance and then died.  Yet funnily enough, you never seem to hear anyone with a past life being any of those people!  No one remembers a past life where they toiled hard, lived off turnips and died young because the most cutting edge medical procedure of the time was getting bled to death.  Nope, it's always kings and queens and courtesans it seems!  What are the odds?

Uncomfortable truth time, how important are you?  I know we all get told from childhood that we are special little snowflakes and that our lives have much importance and meaning, but does it? Really?  I'm not trying to insult you and I'm not insinuating that your life is meaningless.  Obviously if you are reading this blog you are an amazing and intelligent person with a sensitive soul and a great sense of humour! Your closest friends and family would no doubt agree that you are totally awesome.  However, in the grand scheme of things, how important do you think you are?  Will people be reading about you in a 100 years?  How about your friends and associates? Will they be famous centuries from now?  Will your work be discussed in Universities one day?

Several important events happened within my lifetime: Elvis died, ABBA broke up, John Lennon was assassinated, George Lucas created and subsequently destroyed several million happy childhood memories, the Berlin Wall came down, the Soviet Union collapsed, Apartheid ended and Lady Gaga was born.  I didn't play any part in any of those events.  It's a fair bet that you didn't either.  Not everyone gets to do something significant with our lives.  That doesn't mean we don't wish it wasn't so.

There is a reason that almost all works of fantasy involve someone plucked from obscurity and turned into someone of great importance.  I think all nobodies wish they were somebodies.  Who doesn't dream of being discovered and appreciated and admired and remembered?  I suspect this kind of dream, this deep wish for specialness, lives inside us all.  Therefore the fact that all past life experiences are so special and significant is the only clue you need to figure out that past lives are bullshit. There are no past lives, just current wish fulfillment. 

No matter how much you dream of being special, the cold reality of your life can't be shut out forever.  Reincarnation is however a great way of overcoming reality.  Maybe you're not so amazing NOW but what if you were incredibly special in a past life (or ten)?  Surely that could mean that you might end up being incredibly important in some other life in the future!

I'm something of a dreamer myself so I completely understand the allure.  But that doesn't make it true.  You can't make yourself special by wishing it so.  Burying yourself in fantasy is comfortable but it's also a little dangerous.  After all, if you're reading this you're probably not dead so your story isn't over yet.  History is not done with you, maybe you turn out to be more significant than you could even dream.  Who knows how your story is going to play out in the end?  You're not a Pharaoh or a High Priest or a brave knight.  You are you.  Why not make the best of it?

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*It led to many tearful repentance sessions and the occasional book burning since by even reading about the occult I was opening myself to Satan's influence.  If you didn't grow up Pentecostal or Charismatic that wouldn't mean anything to you but trust me, it was a big deal!

From Snowing to Knowing

A while ago, South Africa was hit by serious snow.  If you don't get why that's huge news then you probably don't live here!  We don't get snow like that.  Never.  But we did!  And everyone totally lost their shit!  Including me!

Snooooooooooooooow!!!  Look at it!  It's snow!!

That's my arm catching the 4 snowflakes that fell here.  It was awesome!!  Last time snow well in Pretoria was the 1960's so this may very well be a once in a century event.

There was a downside of course.  Suddenly facebook was filled with 2 kinds of post.  Firstly pictures like mine of people freaking out in the snow (even though people who live in places where it actually snows wouldn't have even counted what we got) and then there were posts where people were going "Ha!  Global Warming?  What a hoax!"

Misinformation and pseudoscience thrive because it sounds "common sense" and can be stated in short, pithy sayings that fit on a bumper sticker.  My replies to such things tend to fail because I try to be super thorough so my reply ends up being several pages.  Rule of thumb, people who scoff at science don't enjoy reading that much.  So I decided it's high time I learned more about Climate Change, so I could be able to offer clear, sensible answers to anti-science folks that could easily fit on a facebook comment.  Since I understand things better when I try to explain it to someone else, I'm going to figure it out by explaining it to the imaginary people who read this blog.

I should probably have posted this first since I already started yesterday...

Anyway, I got one down already!  The short answer to "Why regulate carbon dioxide?  How bad can it be, we exhale it all the time!!" is:  "Because carbon dioxide is extremely good at trapping and absorbing heat.  So if you have too much in the atmosphere, it traps too much heat, causing the planet to overheat."  I'm going to see if I can do that for the other Climate Change "gotcha!" statements too. 

God of the Gaps VS Newton

Reading "The Ascent of Man" is the best part of my commute.  In it I found this jewel of a quote by Sir Isaac Newton:

"To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age.  'Tis much better to do a little with certainty, and leave the rest for others that come after you, than to explain all things."

Brilliant.  Just brilliant.  It's probably one of the best comebacks ever to the old "but science can't explain everything" stupidity.  The fact that it comes from every creationist's favourite scientist just makes it so much sweeter! 

No, science can't explain everything right now.  That doesn't mean that your mystery of choice will never ever be explained.  We may not even get the answer in your lifetime but that doesn't mean we will never get the answer.  With each generation of scientists building on the work of their predecessors, we keep learning and understanding more, just like Newton said.  So if I can't give you a scientific explanation right this second, it doesn't mean the answer isn't out there.   It certainly doesn't mean that you get to make up your own answer in the meantime!

In the past there were tons of things we didn't understand.  Today we understand a lot more about a great many things.  Interestingly enough, everytime something was figured out no matter how long it took us or how difficult it was to figure out, the answer has never ever EVER been "magic".

So on that note since I started this post with a quote from an eccentric genius I'll end it  with the words of another brilliant weirdo:

"Life is full of mystery, yeah,
But there are answers out there
And they won't be found
By people sitting around
Looking serious
And saying isn't life mysterious?"

Tim Minchin, Storm

Dogmatic Skepticism and the Art of Baking

Recently I read a piece where a scientist addressed the question all of today's foremost "science" channels love to ask, "Are human beings the result of engineering by aliens?".  PZ Myers had a simple answer:  "No."  But then someone in the comments got really upset because "no" is not what a Real True Scientist/Skeptic would say.  "No" is too dogmatic!  Real True Honest Skeptics have to say "I don't know".

So now, since I'm trying to become a better skeptic myself, I have to ask myself if that's really the way I should answer questions.  Are simple yes or no answers wrong?  Am I supposed to be skeptical of everything all the time always?  Is skepticism = agnosticism about all things?

I find that baking helps me think so today I tried baking bread for the first time in my life.  Not just any bread either, it was a healthy organic artisan bread made from the finest unbleached, stone ground flour.  It was a lot of fun to make and while there is a lot of room for improvement, I'm very happy with how it turned out.  It was delicious!  Soft inside with a crunchy crust and a rich, nutty taste.  I've eaten half of it already!

So then, should someone ask me if I baked this bread what should I say?  Can I say "yes" or would that make me a bad skeptic?  Shouldn't I rather say "I don't know"?  After all, maybe I didn't bake it!

Perhaps I was abducted by aliens!  But since people always seem to figure out they were abducted because they realise they are missing some time, perhaps the aliens planted a false memory of me spending 2 hours making a baguette, even leaving me with a freshly baked one from the mothership's kitchen so I would remember all the probing!

Perhaps I stumbled across a faerie in need somewhere in the garden and after helping it out of a perilous situation it decided to call in a troop of faeries to bake me a bread in gratitude!  Of course since their very existence must remain secret they used their faerie magic to make me believe that I baked it myself!

Perhaps I did set out to bake a bread but the one I put in the oven turned out to be a massive flop.  However Empanda, goddess of bread did not want me to become discouraged lest I abandon bread making forever so she used her divine powers to replace my failed bread with a much better loaf.

Perhaps I'm actually mentally ill and I actually bought it at the supermarket and everything else is just the delusions of my fevered mind.

Perhaps I really bought it from a small artisan bakery in town but after buying it I did something terrible and completely unforgivable so the baker - who is also a stage magician and mentalist - used hypnosis to erase all memory of the bakery from my mind, replacing it with a false memory.

Or perhaps none of this is real and I'm actually living inside a computer simulation a la The Matrix, in which case there is no bread...

All of those options may sound unlikely - because they are - but its not like I could be 100% sure.  So while it's far fetched, there is an extremely remote chance that one of them could be true.  So then, if someone asks "Did you bake that bread" the only honest answer I can give as someone trying to be a skeptic is "I don't know", right?  Wrong!

I will say, "Yes I did!" because all those other options are fucking stupid!  But most importantly because I have absolutely no reason or evidence to suspect one of those fucking stupid options may be right!

So if you want me to be more skeptical, you have to give me a reason.  Either prove me wrong or at least give me some evidence that calls my version of events into question.  If you can't do that, I will remain dogmatic about the fact that I baked that delicious loaf as well as the fact that I'm not the result of an alien eugenics program.  That's not me being dishonest, that's me being entirely reasonable.  All evidence points one way and if you want me to consider a different way, offer me a compelling reason.  As the saying goes, there is being open minded and there is having a hole in your head where your brains leak out.

God of the Gaps - 300 BC Edition

Priest of Zeus:  "So, I heard you telling people that the Pantheon makes no sense to you and you don't believe in the Gods anymore, is that correct?"

Zeusnostic:  "That's true, the more I think about our theology the more it seems like stories people told to help them make sense of the world.  They seem childlike and cruel and I simply can't believe in them anymore.  I'm sure one day people will call our theology what it really is - mythology"

Priest of Zeus:  "How very dare you?!  These aren't stories!  It's all true and deep down you know it!  You're just pretending to be an unbeliever because you don't want to sacrifice your prize bull to Zeus, aren't you?"

Zeusnostic:  "No, that's not it.  I just don't see any reason to believe that this is true.  I mean do you actually believe that the King of the Gods turned into a swan to rape a girl?  That sounds like a loud of crap to me!"

Priest of Zeus:  "You blaspheme because you don't understand the nuances and sophistication of the art of theology!  Come to the temple sometime and we will explain it all to you.  "

Zeusnostic:  "I don't believe in the Pantheon because I see no reason to.  You priests tell a lot of crazy stories but I've never once actually seen any proof.  THAT is why I don't believe.  "

Priest of Zeus:  "Oh you want PROOF??  Well tell me this smart guy, those lightning bolts that struck the earth in last night's storm, what were they if not the work of Zeus?"

Zeusnostic:  "I... don't know"

Priest of Zeus:  "AHA!  See?  You don't know how lightning bolts work!  Obviously the only answer could be Zeus!"

Zeusnostic:  "Actually no, there could be a lot of answers.  It could be some Scandinavian deity with a hammer.."

Priest of Zeus:  "Preposterous!  There are no Scandinavian deities!"

Zeusnostic:  "... or it could be some kind of natural process.  But since it will still be many centuries before anyone figures out what electricity is and before anyone can prove that lightning is made of electricity there is no possible way I could explain that process to you now.  What I'm saying is just because I don't know doesn't mean your answer is then the correct one!"

Priest of Zeus:  "Yeah all I got from that paragraph was "I don't know ... your answer is the correct one""
  
Zeusnostic:  "Now you're just being an ..."

Priest of Apollo:  "What have we here?  A theological debate?  I do love those!"

Priest of Zeus:  "'Sup bro?  This guy says we have no proof of the existence of the Gods!  Can you believe that?"

Priest of Apollo:  "No way brah!  Tell me, if Apollo doesn't exist, who pulls the Sun across the sky every day?  Hmmmmm?"

ApolloZeusnostic:  "Like I was telling your friend here, I don't know but just because I don't have an answer doesn't mean your story about a sky chariot is automatically true!  For all we know the sun isn't moving at all!  Perhaps the earth rotates and it just makes it seem that way.  I know it sounds crazy and it will be centuries before people figure out the planet and gravity and stuff but ..."

Priest of Apollo:  "OK, now you're just embarrassing yourself!  Is it so hard to just admit the truth that is staring you in the face?  We have shown you all the proof you could want!  You on the other hand are just waffling around with your "science" but you haven't been able to give us an alternative explanation of how lightning or the sun works without the Gods.  That proves our point!  You just don't want to believe!"

Priest of Poseidon:  "Tide goes in, tide goes out, never misses a beat.  You can't explain that!"

Open Minded

One complaint that gets thrown at Skeptics all the time is that we aren't being open minded.  To which I say bollocks!  A skeptic who is not open minded is no skeptic at all!  Being open minded is a virtue, but like a lot of virtues it stops being virtuous when you start doing it wrong.  Under the right conditions being open minded is great - under the wrong one's it's the opposite.  Allow me to demonstrate.

Suppose I was handed a mysterious envelope with something inside.

Behold!  The mysterious envelope of mysterious mystery!

What is in the envelope?  I don't know!  It doesn't say anything on it so it could be anything really.  Well not anything.  Obviously it would have to be flat and envelope shaped so no Boeing 747's or ponies.  But within reasonable limits it could be anything.  Is it a letter?  A photo? Cash money?  The Colonel's list of 11 secret herbs & spices?  I don't know!  Dogmatically pretending like I do know when I don't would just be stupid.  So the only thing that makes sense is to stay open minded until I can know. 

The mystery, it taunts me....

Lucky for me, this is a mystery that can be solved.  All I have to do is to open the envelope.  When I do that I find...

 

 

Sigh.  Not the secret formula for KFC...

It's a playing card!  But which one?  I haven't looked yet so as far as I know it could be any of them.  Is it a high value card?  Is it red or black?  I don't know!  I will have to stay open minded for now.

If only there was a way to find out...

Until I actually check it could be any one of 52 different options (I doubt this will be a 13 of lightning bolts unless this is some kind of novelty deck).  Until I know I could make some educated guesses but I would have to be open minded about it because again, being dogmatic at this point makes no sense.  So lets take a peek!

Is THIS your card?

There we go!  Mystery solved.  It was the 8 of Diamonds all along!  Well now I know, the facts are on the table.  Should I still be open minded?  Hells no!  Why?  While it's certainly important to keep an open mind when the facts are not available, it makes no sense to "keep an open mind" when they actually are!

But let's say I look at the 8 diamonds staring me in the face like the hard facts they are and I decide I don't like them.

I bet they are conflict diamonds!

 I decide I would rather have the card be a cool one like an Ace or a face card.  You know, a card with a song like the Queen of Hearts or something. Well, you'd probably tell me that's just tough, the card we want is not always the card we are dealt.  But what if I decided that wasn't good enough, I really want this card to be a better card and I don't appreciate you being so dogmatic about "reality" and "facts"!  I'm going to stay OPEN MINDED about this dammit!

Maybe if I believe hard enough!

Well that would be idiotic, wouldn't it?  Actually I doubt even an idiot would be stupid enough to ignore the reality right in front of them.

And yet, the sad truth is that millions of people who totally aren't idiots do that every day.  There is no end to the amount of subjects in which people will choose ignorance over information - mostly because they dislike what the information is telling them.  And when you remind them of what the information actually is they get all huffy and tell you to be more open minded.  But as I tried to show here, doing that is not being open minded, it's being willfully blind to reality.

Being open minded is great - when you don't know all the facts.  When you do know something it doesn't make much sense to still be "open minded" about it. Sure, we need to stay open to new facts or the fact that maybe we were mistaken somehow.  However for that to happen your first need to show why the facts we have are wrong.  And no, "because I don't like how that makes me feel" is not a valid reason for rejecting reality.  You can't reject the evidence we have now in the vague hope that maybe one day we will find new evidence that you will like better.  That's not actually being open minded at all!

Unnaturally Natural

You know what's really unnatural?  Smoking!  Seriously, can you think of any creature that would stand around actively inhaling smoke?  Bet you won't!  Breathing in smoke is wildly unnatural but besides that one Bond villain, I've never heard anyone make that argument.

You know what argument you do hear all the time on the other hand?  That homosexuality is unnatural.  Male + Female = Natural.  Any other equation = an unnatural abomination!  It's weird then that something so unnatural would be so common in nature then!

♪ It's guy love between two guys ♫

Here's a quote from the recent Cracked article (which you should totally go read because it's funny AND informative), "The 6 Sleaziest Ways Animals Are Mimicking Human Sexuality":

"Homosexual activity has been observed in 1,500 species and is likely present in many, many more. These species range from turtles to bears to dogs to whales -- bonobo apes, for example, are largely bisexual.


... ,in one experiment in sheep sexuality, scientists placed a male ram in the vicinity of male and female sheep that had been deprived of sex (read: extremely horny). The ram had a ready and willing female standing right there ... and in 8 percent of the cases, he chose the sexual partner with a dong. That's right: According to this study, sheep are homosexual in at least as large a percentage as humans (about 8 percent for the animals, versus 8 percent of Americans who admit they've at least experimented).


But what if it's just a case of a species not having enough females to go around and the males turning prison gay until more show up? There's at least one species that proves that theory wrong: giraffes. You see, male giraffes have been observed having sex with other males even though 60 percent of giraffes are female. If a giraffe can't find a female to mate with it's probably because, like the gay penguins, they're simply not interested."

There's more in the article but I believe I've made my point.  Sure, Cracked.com is a comedy website but before you use that argument to discount all the above points, go ahead and click on those hyperlinks.  The claims it makes are pretty solid and very much supported by the facts.

Now I know that in an earlier post on lions and stepfathers I made the point that just because something happens in nature doesn't mean we should do it too.  You and me baby may be nothing but mammals but that certainly doesn't mean we have to do it like they do on the Discovery Channel after all!  But my point here is not that people should be gay because animals are.  My point was simply that there is clearly nothing unnatural about something so prevalent in nature.

From God Hates Checkered Whiptail Lizards.  Go read the whole thing, it's hilarious and makes my point better than I just did...

Fun with Nutrition!

Something Dara O'Briain said in that hilarious rant I posted really made me think.  OK, truthfully just about all of it made me think which is why I love it so much.  But only one part made me consider a career change, the part where he talked about Nutritionists vs Dieticians.  He mentioned how, unlike Dietician, Nutritionist was not a protected term so pretty much anyone could become a Nutritionist and dispense nutritional advice.  Could it really be that easy though?  Could I be a nutritionist?  Well I did some research and it turns out the answer is yes and no.  But mostly yes.

First he was totally right about dieticians, that's not an easy course.  A good friend of mine married a dietician and they started dating while we were all students so I got to see a bit of what it takes to get that degree.  Believe me, it's no cakewalk.  It's years of study plus a lot of hours working long shifts at various hospitals and none of it looked fun or easy.

Unfortunately the thing about "nutritionist" not being a protected term wasn't totally true.  While in most parts of the world - including most US states, parts of Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom - the term "nutritionist" isn't subject to professional regulation it turns out that South Africa is the exception in this regard*.  How is that for irony?  If I lived in the first world, I could just advertise myself as a nutritionist with zero education or experience and no one would be able to call shenanigans.  However here in the third world I would actually need a qualification to do that!  What were the freaking odds?!

So how hard would it be for me to get that qualification?  I looked around a bit and it turns out that it wouldn't be that hard at all!  I found a whole bunch of courses offered by everyone from Hotel schools to Cosmetology Academies.  None of those looked particularly challenging either but unfortunately that website didn't give me all the syllabus and fee information I wanted and I was sure as hell not going to contact any of those places to ask.  Made that mistake once and I'm still getting spam and the occasional call...  However I did find two schools with all their info online and it turns out I could have a fully accredited diploma in nutrition in under 6 months.  For $650 and 5 months (or less) of my time I can get a diploma in nutrition from The Institute of Natural Healing.  Seems that I just need to hand in 15 assignments which sounds totally doable!  For £365 and a suggested 200 hours of study, I can get a diploma from Oxford college.  While that's not as prestigious as Oxford University I would still get a diploma with the word "Oxford" on it and that is bound to impress someone!  Plus I just have to pass an online multiple question test at the end to get it!  So then for around R5000 I could become a certified nutritionist - which is more than I'm willing to spend right but still pretty cheap considering that's for the entire course.  At an actual university you'd be lucky to spend that little per subject!

Now you may be wondering what I would do with such a qualification.  Well I guess I could try to offer sound advice on healthy eating hwqi'jsdfl'kajhl'ahhl'zzzzzzzz  Oh sorry, that sentence was so boring I passed out while typing it!  No, there will be none of that!  As I see it it would be good for two things:

I could go over to the dark side and make tons of money preying on people with low self esteem, bad body image and more money than sense.  I rake in the cash telling people to cut out gluten or carbs or rice crakers while selling my special brand of "Cayenne pepper and Anchovy Cleansing Shakes".  You will lose weight or die trying, guaranteed!  I will let my absolute favourite skeptical sketch artists Mitchell & Webb demonstrate:



Alternatively I could use my nutritional powers for good and spread some joy instead.  At my Super Happy Funtime Nutrition Academy, I will help you feel better about eating the things you like.  By starting sentences with "As a certified nutritionist..." I could help ease your troubled mind.  Allow me to demonstrate:

You:  "I really love banana cream pie but I feel so guilty everytime I eat it!  What should I do?"

Me:  "Well as a certified nutritionist, I can assure you that dessert is without a doubt the most important part of any meal.  There really is no reason for you to feel bad at all, trust me, I'm a nutritionist!  In fact the only thing ruining your life right now is all that unnecessary guilt!  Stop beating yourself up, you look fantastic!"

You: "I've never heard that before, could it be true?"

Me:  "Of course!  I'm not just making things up, I'm a certified nutritionist!  Here, have a look at this pamphlet I wrote about the health benefits of chocolate and remember, chocolate is twice as healthy when you enjoy it with a nice glass of red wine.  No go on out there and eat something delicious!"

See?  I would be awesome!  On a completely unrelated note, if you would like me to become your personal nutritionist, I am accepting cash donations!  Best part is that since nutritionists aren't technically dispensing medical advice, you can't actually sue me for malpractice!  Best part for me that is, not so much for you and your diabetes!

Look, I'm not trying to call all nutritionists quacks.  I'm sure a lot of them are really great at what they do and will give very sound advice.  But be honest, if you broke your arm who would you rather go to?  A medical doctor who spent years and university and countless hours in the ER or someone who did a 3 month online course on bonesetting?  Sure, the bonesetter may turn out to be fantastic at it but how can you know for sure?  If you have an actual problem, why not go to an actual professional?

Then again, an actual dietician will never make you feel as good about yourself as the Super Happy Funtime Nutrition Academy would, just sayin'...

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*According to Wikipedia that is.  However the Institute of Natural Healing's FAQ page said the following regarding regulation in South Africa:
  "AHPCSA (The Allied Health Professions Council of South Africa) is a statutory health body, however there is no government control over nutritionists in South Africa.

The AHPCSA legislation governs all medical and mental professionals. The legislation is primarily intended to regulate doctors and dentists, but to be absolutely safe, it would be wise to give client’s a document pointing out that you are not going to treat any medical or mental conditions. "

Get in the sack!

My previous post shows where I am right now with regards to giving a response when someone praises the irrational.  Clearly I still have a lot to learn when it comes to expressing myself well without it devolving into angry ranting.  My elders and betters tell it's good to have goals.  Very well then. Here is mine.  To one day be this good at addressing the irrational:



Wish me luck!