My Awesome Pentecostal Sunday

This weekend my family celebrated my grandfather's 94th birthday.  This year we decided to forgo the more traditional jello shots at the local strip club and had a spit roasted sheep instead.  But before it was sheep time we all had to join my grandpa for a church service.

OK it occurs to me now that if you're reading my blog there's a 99% chance you've never met me so I should point out that the strippers & shots thing was a joke.  It's a funny joke because my family is for the most part very deeply religious.  And not just any kind of religious either.  The kind of religious that can get me in trouble for making stripper jokes.  But I digress...

Right so I'll be honest, I wasn't really looking forward to the big church service.  I haven't been in a church for a very long time.  Especially not one in the Pentecostal denomination I grew up in.  However by the end of the 2 and a half hour service I was so happy you couldn't wipe the smile off my face with a steel brush!  It was AWESOME!  I seriously considered buying that sermon on CD!  In fact I felt kind of bad about how little money I put in the collection plate!  After the show I got I felt like I owed them a lot more money!  As I'm sitting here I'm seriously reconsidering my churchgoing habits!

How awesome was it you ask?  Well first all my less religious cousins walked out, then all but the most devout left and by the end of the day at least one was having a serious crisis of faith.  THAT good!  Now on the pentecostal zaniness scale the service was only about a 6.  Only one person fell over when prayed for and started screaming in tongues and there was no dancing or prophetic words.  Also no "healings".  But the sermon?  Solid fucking gold!  It was wall to wall bullshit.  But not just any bullshit!  This was absolute, grade A, top class, uncut bullshit!  You don't really find anything this good outside of a Pentecostal church!  I'm going to try to share some of the highlights here but I'm afraid I'm not going to do it any justice.

See the problem is that while I enjoy telling stories, the pastor there was on a whole other level.  I can only dream of being that good at storytelling.  He was a charismatic guy, making self deprecating jokes all the time, while telling story after story about a humble hero (himself) bravely standing up to the forces of darkness.  Not that he's the kind of humble hero who would brag of course, it was mainly just to illustrate how knowing nothing isn't a handicap, it's a blessing.  He just humbly depended on the Holy Spirit to guide him and so time and time again God would use his simple humility to turn him into the mightiest of demon slayers. 

I learned so much listening to this humble man.  For instance did you know that qualifications mean nothing?  Titles mean nothing?  Degrees mean nothing?  Money means nothing?  I'm not paraphrasing btw, those were his exact words!  I'm not sure how that reflected on the Emotional Trauma Course Certificates they handed out right before the sermon started but I'm probably over thinking things again.  Also because money means absolutely nothing he asked God to provide the congregation with a bus free of charge.  They can't buy one and they can't have any debt on it because it must be a gift from heaven and if you owe money for it then it can't be a gift!  This was just during the opening prayer.  This was also the point I knew things were going to fantastic! 

Other things I learned was that:
Some kinds of depressions can't be medically treated because it's caused by demons!  If you do a business deal with the wrong person, you can catch demons from them!  If you were a happy person once but started feeling depressed and unhappy after you got married then it's because you married someone who gave you DEMONS!  Demons also cause children to be rebellious and husbands to cheat on their wives.  Oh wait, if I say it like that it sounds like something that happens over time.  Nooooooo!  See if you move into a flat where people worshiped Satan then that will IMMEDIATELY make your formerly sweet child rebellious and your loving husband will start cheating on you overnight!  Demons!!

The pastor did make it clear though that he's not the silly kind of pastor who sees demons behind everything - unlike some people he could name but totally wouldn't.  You don't need to look for demons, you just have to look for God and the demons will flee!  Except when they don't.  Which is pretty much all the time since the theme of the sermon was how good, saved, baptized, Spirit filled Christians can still have demons oppressing them all the time due to all kinds of things.  It's OK though, you can pray the demons away.  Prayer is all you need.  Prayer and fasting.  Also oil for annointing.  But not salts and holy water and stuff because that's just silly!

So back to the things I learned!  Did you know that cigarettes lead to marijuana and then to heroin and then to devil worship and death?  Did you know that everyone involved with the occult lives in constant fear and depression?  Did you now that all the Hollywood stars all have "spirit guides" (aka demons) and that is why they are all on drugs and unhappy and committing suicide?  I sure didn't!  Also prayer is powerful against demons but when someone has a magic medicine bag on them (filled with hair and nails and herbs and Lord knows what else) then prayer becomes powerless?

There was one story in particular that was just too good not to share.  I'm going to do my best to retell it but like I said, I'm not nearly in his league so I probably won't do it justice.

So the pastor gets called over to a house because mysterious things are happening there.  He doesn't know what they are - they're mysterious - but he goes anyway, taking 2 elders for backup.  As soon as he gets there an old photograph on the wall catches his eye.  It's an old black & white photograph from the very early 1900's of a stern looking old man.  So he asks the lady of the house who that is in the photo and she immediately exclaims that the man in the photograph is the reason he was called over!  Turns out that every time their young son leaves the house to go to school or to go to the cafe (because apparently there are still cafe's and kids still walk there) this old man follows him around!  Also sometimes the boy wakes up in the middle of the night and then this man is in his room!  Except this is her grandfather and he's been dead for decades!!!  So the pastor just starts walking around, not knowing what to do.  Of course this is great for him because when a man knows nothing, that is when God can really use his humble ass.  Anyway, so he walks around the house just praying but not really knowing what to pray while feeling the gaze of the elders on him (they didn't know what to do either and were looking to him for guidance).  As he walks through the house he notices that one room is closed and locked.  So he tells the mother that he needs to go in there but she doesn't want to let him.  He insisted though, telling her that God told him that the solution to whatever was going on was in that room.  So the mom goes in and he just hears a girl's voice in there sounding very unfriendly.  Mom comes out and says that no, they can't go in there.  The pastor wasn't going to let it go though so he insisted and forced his way in there.  In the room he finds a girl (their daughter I assume, he never said) with black hair, black nails (*congregation murmurs*) and Iron Maiden posters on the wall!!  (*congregation gasps!*)  This girl yells at him to get out because she doesn't need him or his God, she has her own god!  So he asks her who her god is and she answers defiantly that her god is Lucifer!  (*huge gasp from the congregation*)  Pastor Briel, being the man of God that he is, wasn't going to leave it at that so he immediately starts praying for her right there and then suddenly her mom starts screaming in the living room!  They run over and find her frantically pointing at the old photograph.  He looked and what did he see?  The old man's cheeks were glowing bright red!  And two red stripes ran down the edges!  (Was it blood?  He didn't say.  I like to imagine it was)  Red!  On a black & white photograph!  Turns out the old man was a fortune teller and now with this devil worshiping girl in the house the demons have come out to play!  They went back into that girl's room and cast out those demons and from that day on that house knew rest again!

Like I said, that sermon was the best!

There were many stories like that.  The common thread was that demons will fuck your shit up but a humble, heroic pastor can totally save you.  Oh and also women suck.  No seriously that was a running theme in the sermon.  Women were always terrible.  Except his wife I guess but she got a ton of those little joking jabs that some men love to aim at their wives where they criticize and demean them but not really because it's just a joke ha ha!  But no, all the girls in the stories were devil worshipers and all the mothers were hysterical.  Sometimes they were hysterical AND part of the demonic problem!  Like that one time he was praying for this little girl with a lazy eye and he commanded that eye to go straight and it totally did but then as soon as her (hysterical) mother touched her, that eye would go off to the side again.  Every time he prayed it got fixed and every time her mother came near her the healing came undone.  Also that other time he prayed for a little spastic boy who was all crippled and couldn't raise his arm and the kid started getting healed and then his mother started screaming (hysterically) and then he went spastic again so he had to have the mother removed so he could get the boy all healed.

I can haz souvenirs!!

See why I want to get the sermon CD?  That is solid gold bullshit right there!  Seriously, if you ever get the chance to go to the Apostolic Faith Mission Church in Centurion - go!  It's fantastic!

Magic never fails. Even when it does..

Magic seems to be a pretty powerful force, provided you never actually test it.  I recently posted about the striking miners of the Marikana mine who believed that the magic of a medicine man would protect them from being harmed by guns.  This belief made them fearless, up to the tragic point they decided to test the magical protection by attacking the police.  As inevitably happens when someone tests magic, the magic failed and 34 people died.

So with the magical protection failing so spectacularly you would probably think that this medicine man was in a lot of trouble for the failure of his spells.  That would seem like the logical conclusion, but only if you have no prior experience with magical thinking. 

Magic never fails, even when it fails completely.  If your magic doesn't work, blame it on a bunny:

"Mineworkers at Lonmin's Marikana mine believe the killing of a rabbit was the reason the shooting happened, according to a report on Saturday.

The surviving mineworkers claimed that the medicine man who was alleged to have told them his muti would make them invincible had warned them not to kill the rabbit, the Saturday Star reported.

"The traditional healer warned all of us several times on the day not to kill the rabbit but some among us decided to chase it around the hill and killed it," mineworker Khabo Khabo told the newspaper.

"I still honestly believe that if it wasn't for the healer far more lives would have been lost on the day. If we had let the rabbit free all of the dead would still be alive," Khabo said.

A worker at the memorial service, held at the mine earlier this week, agreed.

Last Thursday, a total of 34 people were killed in a shooting near the mine when police tried to disperse striking miners. More than 70 people were injured.

The medicine man had reportedly promised the workers that police guns would malfunction when they faced them if they followed his instructions and took his muti.

Police video footage taken from a helicopter before the shooting showed the medicine man performing rituals as workers stripped naked before him in long queues.    "

This happens every damn time.

A deranged cult leader proclaims a date for the Rapture/Armageddon, the date passes completely uneventfully aaaand nothing happens to the deranged cult leader.  His followers swallow whatever lame excuse he comes up with, keep on supporting him and waits with mouths agape, ready to swallow the next doomsday prediction.

A charismatic faith healer/prosperity gospel preacher promises supernatural health and wealth and sick people stay sick (or get better because they went to a doctor PRAISE THE LORD!) and the only person who gets rich is the guy sending around the collection plate.  Does anyone call bullshit?  Never!  They accept his explanations that they just didn't have enough faith/didn't tithe enough/had unconfessed sin in their hearts and humbly try to believe harder and plonk down more cash in the collection plate.

So why expect anything different when the magical protection against bullets completely failed to do anything against bullets?  Of course they will put the blame on themselves (and the rabbit) because the magic man is NEVER to blame!

It's the perfect con.  You can make up anything you want, provided you do it convincingly enough, and people will damn near worship you.  You never have to worry about failure either, if your bullshit gets exposed bullshit your followers will just blame themselves.  Provided you can think up some kind of excuse!  Don't worry, it doesn't have to be a good excuse, it can be as dumb as the crap you're peddling!

I think I was wrong, magic is a powerful force regardless of whether you test it or not.  You can test a magical claim a hundred times and watch it fail a hundred times and those who buy into it will never accept that it's false.  Magic can't make you bulletproof but magical thinking has perfected the art of invulnerability!

Why is Global Warming like the Internet?

Quick, without looking it up, who invented the internet?  It's Al Gore right?  Has to be!  It's one of those things you don't even have to look up, everyone knows it!  So how weird was it then during the opening ceremony of the London Olympic games when that weird inflatable house lifted up and they introduced the inventor of the World Wide Web:

This guy!!                      (From the really great tv.com photo recap)

Clearly NOT Al Gore!  It's Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the real inventor of the World Wide Web.

So you know what other thing everyone knows Al Gore invented?  Global Warming?  Yeah it turns out he didn't invent that either!

I don't know why but for a lot of people Al Gore is the face of Global Warming.  For reasons I understand even less, people seem to be under the impression that he invented it, as if Global Warming was something no one knew about until the late 90's.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Global Warming isn't some evil conspiracy that was hatched in the last decade or so, climate scientists have been warning us about it decades before anyone knew who Al Gore was.  Want proof?  (Trick question! You should always demand proof!)  Here you go:

Global Warming discussed in 1956:



And in 1958:



And again in 1979:



The potentially disastrous effects of greenhouse gasses and global warming was well understood by the 1950s.  It's nothing new.  Heck, Global Warming was even a plot point in the classic movie "Soylent Green"!  Global Warming is like the Internet - Al Gore may have talked a lot about both but he invented neither!

One more thing.

"I believed at that time that the planet …was warming. until I did research and found out it was all an orchestrated scam.

planet has gotten colder last 10 years. hence the not so subtle change in the media from saying ‘global warming’ to ‘climate change’. it is all connected to trying to make us all pay more taxes for our ‘carbon footprint’. in essence, you should be taxed just for breathing. good scam.   "  Billy Corgan

This is another thing I keep hearing.  They invented Global Warming but then it got cold and now to avoid egg on their faces they're trying to rebrand it as "Climate Change".  Well that sure sounds incriminating, but only if you aren't going to let facts stand in your way.  Ever hear of the IPCC?  That is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  It was established in 1988.  Long before anyone in The Smashing Pumpkins had even heard about Global Warming, in other words.  Global Warming and Climate Change have always been interchangeable terms, there is no conspiracy here.  I prefer Climate Change personally, it's a much more descriptive term.  Climate is changing and the only scam is being perpetrated by the people telling you it's not really happening.

"But it's just plant food!"

I touched on this particular point in my last post on the subject but I think it deserves its own post.  Global warming deniers often scoff at the notion of regulating carbon dioxide by pointing out that it's plant food.  If CO2 is plant food, how can it be bad?  Plants are good so feeding them must be good too, right?  So is it true?  Is CO2 plant food?

Yes, it is.  Carbon dioxide is plant food and plants do grow better with more of it, as anyone with a greenhouse could probably tell you.

Well OK, matter settled!  CO2 is plant food so more of it in the atmosphere will be good!

Well, no.  Actually, it would be very bad.  As with most overly simplistic statements, it doesn't quite measure up to the complexities of real life.  I'll get to the science in a bit but you really don't need a PhD to figure this out, all you need is a garden.  Having a garden will soon disabuse you of all overly simplistic notions about plants, I guarantee it!  For instance, a garden will teach you that:

a) Not all plants are the same!  There are plants you want - like pumpkins and daisies and roses and tomatoes - and plants you don't want - like poison ivy, weeds, thorns and burrs.

b) The plants you want require a lot of care and attention while the plants you don't want seem to thrive under any condition.

c) Lots of things can destroy your garden - too much heat, too much cold, not enough water, too much water, not enough fertilizer, too much fertilizer, pests, weeds... It's a fairly long list!

So, once you've learned these basic things while gardening, ask yourself again if you think more plant food would be good or bad.  Hint:  It won't just be the plants you want getting it.  See if YOU take steroids you become stronger than everyone else.  If EVERYONE takes steroids then all the people that used to kick your ass will still kick your ass but now they will have more muscles to do it with!

Global warming is terrible for plants.  The US Global Change Research Program, a high level cooperative research effort by combined agencies of the federal government, has several “Key Messages” about climate change effects on agriculture:

• Many crops show positive responses to elevated carbon dioxide and low levels of warming, but higher levels of warming often negatively affect growth and yields.

• Extreme events such as heavy downpours and droughts are likely to reduce crop yields because excesses or deficits of water have negative impacts on plant growth.

• Weeds, diseases, and insect pests benefit from warming, and weeds also benefit from a higher carbon dioxide concentration, increasing stress on crop plants and requiring more attention to pest and weed control. 

• Forage quality in pastures and rangelands generally declines with increasing carbon dioxide concentration because of the effects on plant nitrogen and protein content, reducing the land’s ability to supply adequate livestock feed.

• Increased heat, disease, and weather extremes are likely to reduce livestock productivity.   

So not only will the plants we like face stronger weeds, they will face more pests.  In warmer weather the pests will also live longer with no winter cold to kill them off.  Added to that will be the damaging effect of the extra heat drying up the plants and evaporating the water.  And when all that extra evaporated water comes down there will be too much of it which is once again very bad for the plants you like.


So in a nutshell, when it comes to more CO2 in the atmosphere the bad far outweighs the good.  Plants need a lot more than just more "plant food".  They need a nurturing environment.  If you don't believe me, go plant a garden.

Magical thinking leads to tragedy

Usually I like to make fun of the crazy claims the local witchdoctors make but I was reminded this week that what they do isn't always humorous.  Believing that a sangoma's magic can give you superpowers can be the death of you.

Last week, police opened fire of a group of striking mineworkers, killing 34 and wounding many more.  Now investigations into what exactly happened are still underway so details are still forthcoming and I'm certainly not going to try to defend the use of automatic rifles and live ammunition by the police.  However, belief in magic seems to have played a role in the tragedy.

According to this report:

Photo: Felix Dlangamandla

"Every morning, a group of men gathered on a hill on the outskirts of Nkaneng informal settlement near the Karee mine in Wonderkop.

There, under the instructions of a medicine man who allegedly hails from Eastern Cape, they stripped naked, stood in single file and waited for their turn to be sprinkled with herbs.

The medicine man used a razor blade on some of the men, making small incisions on their foreheads before smearing a black, gel-like potion on them.

These procedures, it is believed, were part of a process to prepare for battle to make the men invincible against the enemy.

There were stories doing the rounds that on Monday, mine security guards had tried to fire on the striking workers, only for their guns to jam as a result of the rituals conducted on the hill.

“That man over there is unbelievable,” said a young man in Setswana, referring to the medicine man behind the rituals on the hill.

“There are men who sleep on that hill at night. They never go back to the hostel or their homes. They say at night you can’t see anything there because that man has made the hill to be invisible at night.”"

So it would appear that these men fearlessly charged the police, armed with machetes, spears and other improvised weapons.  They feared no retaliation because they thought magic would make them invincible.  It did not.

Image by: Alon Skuy from The Times

This is why skepticism is important.  This is why debunking magical claims matters.  Believing in magic is not harmless and it's not something that should be left alone out of cultural sensitivity.  Believing in the unbelievable can get you killed.

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. 

The Problem with CO2

"The dangers of carbon dioxide? Tell that to a plant, how dangerous carbon dioxide is," 
Rick Santorum

"I am strongly opposed to the President’s misguided attempts to regulate carbon in direct contravention of the will of Congress. Carbon dioxide is not a “pollutant” and I will seek an amendment to the Clean Air Act that makes this clear. " 
Mitt Romney

"But there isn’t even one study that can be produced that shows carbon dioxide is a harmful gas. There isn’t one such study because carbon dioxide is not a harmful gas, it is a harmless gas. Carbon dioxide is natural. It is not harmful. It is part of Earth’s life cycle. "
Michele Bachmann

"George, the idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know, when they do what they do, you’ve got more carbon dioxide." 
John Boehner

Carbon dioxide is totally natural.  We all exhale it, plants consume it during photosynthesis, so why are some people trying to limit it?  You keep hearing people telling you that we need to limit CO2 emissions and that we have to reduce our Carbon footprint, so why this vendetta against CO2?  A friend of mine thinks he knows.  After years of listening to Alex Jones, he has it all figured out - THEY want to label CO2 a "pollutant" so THEY can tax you for breathing!  (Also it's probably going to be used to justify their sinister plot to kill all humans)

So is that true?  In a word, no.  That is not why scientists are warning us against our excessive CO2 emissions.  They aren't claiming that CO2 is dangerous to make money, they are saying that because it poses a very real threat to the world.  How can it pose a threat?  Isn't it both natural and non-toxic?  Yes, it's natural but so is cyanide.  Yes it's non-toxic but so is water and that kills a LOT of people every year.  Those aren't very good argument for the harmlessness of CO2.  So why then? 

The reason there is concern about CO2 levels (and not for instance Nitrogen levels) is because carbon dioxide is really really good at absorbing and trapping heat.  Simple as that.  Here, I'll let the scientists explain:



That's the problem with CO2 - it traps heat on earth and if we have too much of it, it will trap too much heat.

But OK, if you don't believe in Climate Change then you probably don't believe in scientists with all their science either.  After all, if you believe that they are lying through their teeth about Global Warming then how can you believe anything they tell or show you?  It could all be a trick!

Well, you're in luck.  The heat trapping ability of CO2 isn't some esoteric scientific principle that only those with a 5th degree High Exalted Science Dragon qualification can demonstrate!  You can do it too!  Right now!  At home!!  All you need is:

2 Identical clear containers
2 Identical thermometers
2 Identical heat sources (like incandescent bulbs)
and,
a source of CO2.  A gas cylinder used to carbonate drinks would work fine OR go old school and use baking soda and vinegar to make your own CO2

Step 1:  Set up a thermometer and a heat source in each container.  It should go without saying that the heat source cannot be a candle but I'm saying it anyway.
Step 2:  Fill one of the containers with CO2.
Step 3:  Turn on your heat sources, leave for 5 to 10 minutes and compare the readings on the thermometers.  Then turn off both heat sources, leave for 5 to 10 minutes and take readings again.

What did you observe?

If you'd like a visual demonstration of the experiment, here is a video showing it:



So who are you going to believe?  Right Wing politicians or your own lying eyes?