Obesity is one of the greatest challenges societies face over the coming years. Australia as well as other developed countries around the world have ever-increasing numbers of overweight children. Is there a magic silver bullet to reducing your weight? Despite promises from television and glossy magazine advertising the unfortunate answer is no. Shannon Wills, who writes on health at Physical Therapy Assistant Schools , has kindly offered to highlight five common myths about diet and weight loss. I can speak from personal experience that these should be taken seriously. She welcomes your comments at her email id : shannonwills23@gmail.com.

Alex McCullie

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5 Myths about Diet and Weight Loss                                                    Copyright © 2010 Shannon Wills

They do the rounds every now and then, and because people tend to believe all that they hear if it’s repeated often enough, fiction becomes fact and myths become reality. There’s a lot of misinformation relating to diet and weight loss, and if you’re not really aware of what’s right and what’s not, you could end up jeopardizing your weight loss program. If you want to lose weight the right way and keep it off, you must be aware of the following myths:

• It’s ok to starve because I need to reduce my calorie count: Yes, you do need to eat fewer calories than you burn if you want to lose weight, but that does not mean you must starve yourself. Some people think that eating a piece of cake for lunch and then skipping dinner is the right way to lose weight because as far as they’re concerned, they’ve hit their calorie count ceiling with the cake and are not supposed to eat anything else for the day. If you starve or if your meal times are very irregular, you risk increasing the production of gastric acid in your stomach, and this may cause ulcers. So eat balanced meals instead of binging on one and starving for the other.
• Diets restricted to one food group help you lose weight permanently: Diets like the Atkins method where you are allowed to eat any kind of protein while totally omitting carbohydrates your food touched the peak of popularity before they crashed down to earth. Although it may seem like you’re losing weight initially on a protein-only or carb-only diet, your body is deprived of essential nutrients when you neglect certain food groups. The best way to lose weight and keep it off is to eat sensibly, in smaller portions and only when you’re hungry.  
• You can lose weight without exercising: Some people think that dieting is enough to help them lose weight because it’s the calorie count that matters. When you lose weight because you’re not eating enough, you start to look haggard and your skin hangs on to your bones when the fat disappears. Your immune system becomes fragile, your bones and muscles become weak and brittle, and you’re prone to injury and illness. Besides, if you don’t eat enough, your body goes into starvation mode and starts to conserve the fat that you do have in preparation for the lean times to come. If you want to lose weight in a healthy way, you must exercise regularly besides following a diet. You don’t have to sweat it out every day and struggle to exercise, even an hour of walking every day or four days a week is enough exercise for the average human being. You need to exercise smart, not take the no-pain, no-gain route.
• Once you lose weight, you won’t gain it back: Don’t assume that any weight loss you’ve achieved is permanent. If you stop exercising and revert back to your old eating habits, you could very easily gain all those pounds that you worked so hard to lose. Weight loss must be a way of life, not something that you adopt for a few months and then give up because you’ve achieved your goal.
• It’s all genetic, so it’s ok to blame my genes if I’m fat: Yes, our genes do decide where and how we put on weight, but that’s no reason to avoid exercise. If your genetic makeup is predisposed against you, you must work even harder to reduce weight. Once you get used to exercise and a healthy diet as a way of life, you look and feel much better because your health improves, you look great, and you lose weight.

By-line:

This article is written by Shannon Wills, who writes on the topic of Physical Therapy Assistant Schools . She welcomes your comments at her email id : shannonwills23@gmail.com .

Feel free to download a pdf version (right-click to save) of this document.

Russell Blackford argues that the so-called New Atheists – Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and Hitchens – are a welcomed reactivation of religious criticism and skepticism after a period of misguided accommodation. He supports their efforts, as should all atheists.

We see unjustified religious privileges everyday. In reality when religious organisations attempt to influence social behaviour with faith-based arguments, they are open to forthright analysis and criticism. I agree with Blackford that atheists have every right, in fact an obligation, to question churches’ ontological and epistemological bases of their claims, such as a benevolent god or moral Jesus, for their moral pronouncements. Once arguing in the public space, churches should not be allowed to claim any special immunity from robust inquiries and criticism.

In Australia we live in a democratic, secular society where people of different religious and non-religious beliefs can argue over public behaviour and norms. We must use a common public language of reasoning for social issues, like abortion, contraception, sexual behaviour, and euthanasia. By quoting theological doctrines to argue a moral position, religious organisations are automatically and unacceptably excluding other Australians. Any ‘will of god’ type justifications (overtly or subtly expressed) must be rejected as undemocratic for any form of public discourse. Atheists have every right publicly to ask questions or make demands on these organisations with “Show me that your god exists”; “how do we know your god prohibits abortion or contraception?”; and “Why should I believe your 2000-3000 year old Middle-Eastern story book?”. Finally atheists should demand non-secretarian justifications for their pronouncements, expressed in terms of secular ethics.

Once religions attempt to influence the public space with their doctrines, those doctrines and their sources are open to criticism as with any other public proposal.

Alex McCullie

According to Deepak Chopra modern sciences have it all wrong. Modern sciences unlike Astrology is locked into a superstitious, obsolete worldview, one based on Newtonian physics and materialism.

Firstly, ‘reality’, as we understand it, does not exist. Secondly, only consciousness exists, even though we are unable to find it. So our sensations of colour like red are not from brain processing (most scientists are wrong) but it’s a result of this consciousness. Thirdly, here is a really cool fact. Chopra says that, “Every cell instantly knows what is happening in every other cell, in fact, in the whole universe” I am not sure what he means by ‘know’ and ‘cell’. In fact, what does he really mean by ‘consciousness’? The every cell knows every other cell sounds like a fanciful use of quantum entanglement from quantum mechanics. But then again that’s science built on superstition!

You know the most amazing thing about this article is that he has some relationship with The University of Oregon Institute for Theoretical Physics. What do they teach there?

Alex McCullie

Final comment: Chopra displays the same righteous arrogance that he accuses of materialist scientists.

An Irish secular group posted 25 ‘blasphemy’ statements to challenge new (read archaic) blasphemy laws that seek to protect religions from any sort of criticisms. Here they are shockingly re-quoted from their web-site.

Alex McCullie

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1. Jesus Christ, when asked if he was the son of God, in Matthew 26:64: “Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” According to the Christian Bible, the Jewish chief priests and elders and council deemed this statement by Jesus to be blasphemous, and they sentenced Jesus to death for saying it.

2. Jesus Christ, talking to Jews about their God, in John 8:44: “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.” This is one of several chapters in the Christian Bible that can give a scriptural foundation to Christian anti-Semitism. The first part of John 8, the story of “whoever is without sin cast the first stone”, was not in the original version, but was added centuries later. The original John 8 is a debate between Jesus and some Jews. In brief, Jesus calls the Jews who disbelieve him sons of the Devil, the Jews try to stone him, and Jesus runs away and hides.

3. Muhammad, quoted in Hadith of Bukhari, Vol 1 Book 8 Hadith 427: “May Allah curse the Jews and Christians for they built the places of worship at the graves of their prophets.” This quote is attributed to Muhammad on his death-bed as a warning to Muslims not to copy this practice of the Jews and Christians. It is one of several passages in the Koran and in Hadith that can give a scriptural foundation to Islamic anti-Semitism, including the assertion in Sura 5:60 that Allah cursed Jews and turned some of them into apes and swine.

4. Mark Twain, describing the Christian Bible in Letters from the Earth, 1909: “Also it has another name – The Word of God. For the Christian thinks every word of it was dictated by God. It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies… But you notice that when the Lord God of Heaven and Earth, adored Father of Man, goes to war, there is no limit. He is totally without mercy — he, who is called the Fountain of Mercy. He slays, slays, slays! All the men, all the beasts, all the boys, all the babies; also all the women and all the girls, except those that have not been deflowered. He makes no distinction between innocent and guilty… What the insane Father required was blood and misery; he was indifferent as to who furnished it.” Twain’s book was published posthumously in 1939. His daughter, Clara Clemens, at first objected to it being published, but later changed her mind in 1960 when she believed that public opinion had grown more tolerant of the expression of such ideas. That was half a century before Fianna Fail and the Green Party imposed a new blasphemy law on the people of Ireland.

5. Tom Lehrer, The Vatican Rag, 1963: “Get in line in that processional, step into that small confessional. There, the guy who’s got religion’ll tell you if your sin’s original. If it is, try playing it safer, drink the wine and chew the wafer. Two, four, six, eight, time to transubstantiate!”

6. Randy Newman, God’s Song, 1972: “And the Lord said: I burn down your cities – how blind you must be. I take from you your children, and you say how blessed are we. You all must be crazy to put your faith in me. That’s why I love mankind.”

7. James Kirkup, The Love That Dares to Speak its Name, 1976: “While they prepared the tomb I kept guard over him. His mother and the Magdalen had gone to fetch clean linen to shroud his nakedness. I was alone with him… I laid my lips around the tip of that great cock, the instrument of our salvation, our eternal joy. The shaft, still throbbed, anointed with death’s final ejaculation.” This extract is from a poem that led to the last successful blasphemy prosecution in Britain, when Denis Lemon was given a suspended prison sentence after he published it in the now-defunct magazine Gay News. In 2002, a public reading of the poem, on the steps of St. Martin-in-the-Fields church in Trafalgar Square, failed to lead to any prosecution. In 2008, the British Parliament abolished the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel.

8. Matthias, son of Deuteronomy of Gath, in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, 1979: “Look, I had a lovely supper, and all I said to my wife was that piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah.”

9. Rev Ian Paisley MEP to the Pope in the European Parliament, 1988: “I denounce you as the Antichrist.” Paisley’s website describes the Antichrist as being “a liar, the true son of the father of lies, the original liar from the beginning… he will imitate Christ, a diabolical imitation, Satan transformed into an angel of light, which will deceive the world.”

10. Conor Cruise O’Brien, 1989: “In the last century the Arab thinker Jamal al-Afghani wrote: ‘Every Muslim is sick and his only remedy is in the Koran.’ Unfortunately the sickness gets worse the more the remedy is taken.”

11. Frank Zappa, 1989: “If you want to get together in any exclusive situation and have people love you, fine – but to hang all this desperate sociology on the idea of The Cloud-Guy who has The Big Book, who knows if you’ve been bad or good – and cares about any of it – to hang it all on that, folks, is the chimpanzee part of the brain working.”

12. Salman Rushdie, 1990: “The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas – uncertainty, progress, change – into crimes.” In 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie because of blasphemous passages in Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses.

13. Bjork, 1995: “I do not believe in religion, but if I had to choose one it would be Buddhism. It seems more livable, closer to men… I’ve been reading about reincarnation, and the Buddhists say we come back as animals and they refer to them as lesser beings. Well, animals aren’t lesser beings, they’re just like us. So I say fuck the Buddhists.”

14. Amanda Donohoe on her role in the Ken Russell movie Lair of the White Worm, 1995: “Spitting on Christ was a great deal of fun. I can’t embrace a male god who has persecuted female sexuality throughout the ages, and that persecution still goes on today all over the world.”

15. George Carlin, 1999: “Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!”

16. Paul Woodfull as Ding Dong Denny O’Reilly, The Ballad of Jaysus Christ, 2000: “He said me ma’s a virgin and sure no one disagreed, Cause they knew a lad who walks on water’s handy with his feet… Jaysus oh Jaysus, as cool as bleedin’ ice, With all the scrubbers in Israel he could not be enticed, Jaysus oh Jaysus, it’s funny you never rode, Cause it’s you I do be shoutin’ for each time I shoot me load.”

17. Jesus Christ, in Jerry Springer The Opera, 2003: “Actually, I’m a bit gay.” In 2005, the Christian Institute tried to bring a prosecution against the BBC for screening Jerry Springer the Opera, but the UK courts refused to issue a summons.

18. Tim Minchin, Ten-foot Cock and a Few Hundred Virgins, 2005: “So you’re gonna live in paradise, With a ten-foot cock and a few hundred virgins, So you’re gonna sacrifice your life, For a shot at the greener grass, And when the Lord comes down with his shiny rod of judgment, He’s gonna kick my heathen ass.”

19. Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion, 2006: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” In 2007 Turkish publisher Erol Karaaslan was charged with the crime of insulting believers for publishing a Turkish translation of The God Delusion. He was acquitted in 2008, but another charge was brought in 2009. Karaaslan told the court that “it is a right to criticise religions and beliefs as part of the freedom of thought and expression.”

20. Pope Benedict XVI quoting a 14th century Byzantine emperor, 2006: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” This statement has already led to both outrage and condemnation of the outrage. The Organisation of the Islamic Conference, the world’s largest Muslim body, said it was a “character assassination of the prophet Muhammad”. The Malaysian Prime Minister said that “the Pope must not take lightly the spread of outrage that has been created.” Pakistan’s foreign Ministry spokesperson said that “anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence”. The European Commission said that “reactions which are disproportionate and which are tantamount to rejecting freedom of speech are unacceptable.”

21. Christopher Hitchens in God is not Great, 2007: “There is some question as to whether Islam is a separate religion at all… Islam when examined is not much more than a rather obvious and ill-arranged set of plagiarisms, helping itself from earlier books and traditions as occasion appeared to require… It makes immense claims for itself, invokes prostrate submission or ‘surrender’ as a maxim to its adherents, and demands deference and respect from nonbelievers into the bargain. There is nothing—absolutely nothing—in its teachings that can even begin to justify such arrogance and presumption.”

22. PZ Myers, on his desecration of a Roman Catholic communion host, 2008: “You would not believe how many people are writing to me, insisting that these horrible little crackers (they look like flattened bits of styrofoam) are literally pieces of their god, and that this omnipotent being who created the universe can actually be seriously harmed by some third-rate liberal intellectual at a third-rate university… However, inspired by an old woodcut of Jews stabbing the host, I thought of a simple, quick thing to do: I pierced it with a rusty nail (I hope Jesus’s tetanus shots are up to date). And then I simply threw it in the trash, followed by the classic, decorative items of trash cans everywhere, old coffeegrounds and a banana peel.”

23. Ian O’Doherty, 2009: “(If defamation of religion was illegal) it would be a crime for me to say that the notion of transubstantiation is so ridiculous that even a small child should be able to see the insanity and utter physical impossibility of a piece of bread and some wine somehow taking on corporeal form. It would be a crime for me to say that Islam is a backward desert superstition that has no place in modern, enlightened Europe and it would be a crime to point out that Jewish settlers in Israel who believe they have a God given right to take the land are, frankly, mad. All the above assertions will, no doubt, offend someone or other.”

24. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, 2009: “Whether a person is atheist or any other, there is in fact in my view something not totally human if they leave out the transcendent… we call it God… I think that if you leave that out you are not fully human.” Because atheism is not a religion, the Irish blasphemy law does not protect atheists from abusive and insulting statements about their fundamental beliefs. While atheists are not seeking such protection, we include the statement here to point out that it is discriminatory that this law does not hold all citizens equal.

25. Dermot Ahern, Irish Minister for Justice, introducing his blasphemy law at an Oireachtas Justice Committee meeting, 2009, and referring to comments made about him personally: “They are blasphemous.” Deputy Pat Rabbitte replied: “Given the Minister’s self-image, it could very well be that we are blaspheming,” and Minister Ahern replied: “Deputy Rabbitte says that I am close to the baby Jesus, I am so pure.” So here we have an Irish Justice Minister joking about himself being blasphemed, at a parliamentary Justice Committee discussing his own blasphemy law, that could make his own jokes illegal.

Finally, as a bonus, Micheal Martin, Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, opposing attempts by Islamic States to make defamation of religion a crime at UN level, 2009: “We believe that the concept of defamation of religion is not consistent with the promotion and protection of human rights. It can be used to justify arbitrary limitations on, or the denial of, freedom of expression. Indeed, Ireland considers that freedom of expression is a key and inherent element in the manifestation of freedom of thought and conscience and as such is complementary to freedom of religion or belief.” Just months after Minister Martin made this comment, his colleague Dermot Ahern introduced Ireland’s new blasphemy law.

Andrew Denton, a popular Australian interviewer and comedy writer, spoke to Richard Dawkins as part of Denton’s Elders series. It was probably one of the worst interviews I’ve seen for some time. Denton repeatedly tried to take Dawkins where he didn’t want to go – talking about his inner feelings.

Dawkins explicitly rejected opportunities to disclose personal feelings and that’s his right. Denton asked for word definitions like ‘wisdom’ as a way of getting Dawkins to talk about himself. This obviously made him uncomfortable – he kept saying use a dictionary instead. I found, surprisingly, Denton continued this line of questioning instead of then changing direction to make the interview more effective. The whole aim of this type of “celebrity” interview is to garner as much information as possible – let the interviewee talk.

Finally the interview finished and Dawkins had virtually left before the final wrap-up.

Alex

Here’s the link to the ABC. The transcript or video isn’t there yet. ABC televison page

“Popes have had no problem voicing their opinions when we wanted contraception or divorce. No problem criticising The Da Vinci Code. No problem criticising Naomi Campbell for wearing a bejewelled cross. Yet when it comes to the evils done by paedophiles dressed as priests they are silent. It is grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented. They stand for nothing now but evil.”
(Sinead O’Connor, Independent)

as quoted by National Secular Society (UK).

Alex McCullie

It looks likely that I shall be running a new course in Melbourne – Seeking the Historical Jesus – What do we know? in the first-half of next year at CAE.

My thinking is for six nights. The course would a survey of the efforts to date to understanding the historical person of Jesus, separate from the figure of devotion. Such as course could cover:

(1) Review of research over the last 300 years with particular emphasis on last 100 years since Albert Schweiter’s book ‘The Quest of the Historical Jesus’ (1906).
(2) Nature of historical research, including use of Christian and non-Christian sources and treatment of miracle claims with a close look at the Resurrection story.
(3) Society, politics, and religions of early first century Palestine and Middle East.
(4) How Jesus, the man, is profiled by today’s scholars – disagreements and consensus.
(5) Criticisms and future directions of the Jesus research

Alex McCullie

Thank you, Karl

Alex McCullie

According to The Independent Donal Murray, an Irish Bishop who has been a professor of moral theology, has essentially been forced to resign as a report on the handling of child sex abuse cases in the Irish Roman Catholic Church “concluded that he had acted “inexcusably” in one case, and that he had handled other complaints and suspicions badly. ”

Alex McCullie