Giving away religion

There's another war brewing over the idea of freedom of religion, this time in the state of Tennessee.

Turns out, Bledsoe County School District has for years been handing out bibles to kids.  It hasn't, fortunately, been mandatory; the bibles are put out on tables in elementary school libraries in the district, and students can take one if they want one.  And recently, a decision was made to discontinue the practice.

Unsurprisingly, everyone is up in arms.

"We simply go in, we lay it on the table, we tell them what it is and who we are and if they want one…they freely take one," said Charlie Queen, Chaplain for Sequatchie Valley Camp of Gideons, who sponsors the giveaway.  "We do not hand it to them, they take it freely and voluntarily...  I look at it more as a loss of a freedom more so than anything else.  We are right here on Veterans Day…. people have fought, sacrificed and died for their country and for these freedoms.  Now another one is trying to be taken away, that’s what breaks my heart."

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Predictably, Christians in the area are outraged.  Pastor Bill Wolfe, of Lee Station Baptist Church, said, "My whole congregation is very upset.  We talked about it yesterday morning.  They [the Gideons] come in and they don’t force anything on any child.  It’s an opportunity for them to receive a New Testament Bible.  They can take it if they want one and they don’t have to take it if they don’t want one.  This has been going on…well I’m 51-years-old and I still have mine that I received in the 5th grade, so it’s been going on for years and years."

That it's been going on "for years and years," of course, is not much of an argument.  Slavery, flogging for misdemeanors, and denial of women's right to vote also went on "for years and years," and that didn't make any of that right.  But it does bring up one question, that I think answers both Queen and Wolfe:

Why do you think it is the function of public schools to pass out religious materials?

If Wolfe is so furious that the giveaway has been discontinued, why doesn't he invite the Gideons into his church to give a bible to all the kids there?  There's only one reason to give bibles away in schools instead of in churches -- and that is in the hopes of convincing people who weren't already convinced.

I.e., proselytizing.

And that is not acceptable within a school.  What would Queen and Wolfe say if I, as an atheist, purchased a thousand copies of Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion and started handing them out free to fifth graders?  Or if Buddhists, Hindus, or (gasp) Muslims started doing the same thing?

I think the only thing that would send them more ballistic than my handing out copies of Dawkins is if some imam went in and started giving out copies of the Qu'ran.  But how is that any different?

The problem, of course, is that these people don't play fair.  They don't want freedom of religion, in the sense that all religions (and the lack thereof) are treated equally in the public arena.  They want exclusive access, which isn't the same thing.

Unsurprising, of course, considering where this all took place.  Hell, this is the same state where two months ago, parents flipped out when their kids were taught about Islam in seventh grade.

You read that right; these are the people who not only don't want their kids becoming Muslims, they don't even want them to know what Islam is.

Teachers, and schools, are here to expand children's worlds.  To make them more aware, to encourage them to question, to teach them how to tell fact from fiction, to give them the tools to be lifelong learners.  They are not here to perform religious or political indoctrination.

I do not bring up my atheism in my classes.  There is no reason to.  Do kids know I'm an atheist?  Probably a lot of them do; it's a small town, and I'm known to be a blogger.  But when I'm asked in class what my religious beliefs are, my stock response is, "Why is that relevant?"  Because it rarely is.  I'm a science teacher, and there should be no Christian, Muslim, or Buddhist science, no Republican or Democratic science.  There is only science, which is what we know to be supported by the evidence.

And I would be no more in the right to proselytize for my own beliefs than the Gideons are -- even if I do try to be cagey about it by saying "take it or leave it."

Boycotting Bigfoot

I don't usually do this sort of thing, but I'm going to make a request to my readers: boycott The History Channel and Discovery.

They used to be good.  I remember when The History Channel actually had shows about history and Discovery actually had shows about science.  I remember seeing War and Remembrance on The History Channel, and science historian James Burke's awesome series Connections and The Day the Universe Changed on Discovery.

But both channels have devolved over the last few years into the lowest form of sensationalist garbage, the television version of clickbait websites.  Ancient Aliens.  Pawn Stars.  God vs. Satan.  Haunted History.  Swamp People.  Naked and Afraid.  Mermaids: The Body Found.  Amish Mafia.  Bar Hunters.  The only good show on both networks put together was Mythbusters, and hell, I just found out a couple of weeks ago that that is going off the air.

The History Channel definitely hit a new low a couple of days ago with the show Bigfoot Captured.  You'd think a cryptozoology buff like myself would have been psyched, wouldn't you?  Even though I must add, at the risk of protesting too much, that I still don't have enough evidence to say that Bigfoot, or any other cryptid, actually exists.

But I'd love it if it did, you know?  If we found out that we shared the planet with another intelligent hominid, how cool would that be?

Any serious attempts to decide if such creatures do exist, however, are not assisted by such steaming mounds of bullshit as Bigfoot Captured.  And the problem is, this show and others like it don't even play fair.  They're billed as documentaries -- even though the story's not real, the majority of the characters are actors playing the roles of fictitious people, and none of the events depicted actually happened.  It's like someone took a cryptozoologist's wet dream and somehow turned it into a television show.

This show was so bad it wasn't even good for the humor value, which I have to admit programs like Ghost Hunters occasionally were.  This show was so bad even Jeff Meldrum, a Bigfoot researcher who was interviewed on the show and who has been known to throw himself behind some fairly sketchy stuff, disavowed any support for it:

To head off the flood of emails and phone calls, let me reiterate that as a guest interviewee, I had nothing to do with the overall plot or creative content of this production.  I do my best assess the intentions of a production company when I am approached, an encourage them to build upon credible information, but occasionally their enthusiasm is feigned and assurances are worthless.  It's always a bit of a crap shoot in this business.

Now, you might be saying, "Okay, Gordon, calm down.  So what if they make these shows for entertainment purposes?  Everyone who watches it knows it's not real."

It'd be nice if that were true, wouldn't it?  But Jim Vorel, of Paste Magazine, did a scan of Twitter while and immediately after Bigfoot Captured aired, and found the following tweets from watchers:

• Idk if thats a legit #bigfoot or not, but if it is…Holy shit!!! #BigfootCaptured
• So im watching this show where they actually caught a bigfoot but like i still cant decide if this is real or not
• So apparently Bigfoot has been captured. Is this real? @HistoryChannelX
• If you don't think Bigfoot is real, you're an idiot
• I have no doubt in my mind that Bigfoot is real
• #BigfootCaptured puts an end to all doubt! Bigfoot is REAL. A species of gigantopithecus.

Look, it's not that I'm against speculation.  Sometimes people doggedly pursuing ideas that everyone has thought ridiculous has paid off in the end.  But there is nothing to be gained by formerly reputable channels airing fiction passed off as truth, and fantasy passed off as documentary.  In the end, it makes everyone's job harder, from lowly science teachers like myself who are trying to get kids to learn how to sort fact from bullshit, to the honest researchers who would like to investigate fringe claims and do so in a rational, evidence-based manner.

So it's time to turn off The History Channel and Discovery.  They've been veering off course for a while, but it's getting worse, and it's time to send a message.  Stop watching this garbage, and better yet, send a letter or an email to them telling them you're doing so.  It's time to get some good science and history programming back on the air.

Hell, when we have to wait for a network owned by Rupert Murdoch to air shows like Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, there's something seriously fucked up.

Gotcha!

I think we need to clarify what counts as a "gotcha question."

It's a charge that gets levied against the media every time a political candidate is asked an awkward question.  Doesn't seem to matter whether the awkward question is relevant or not, whether it has anything to do with qualifications for public office, whether it makes sense or not.  If the candidate doesn't want to answer the question -- for whatever reason -- all (s)he has to do is call it a "gotcha question," and the onus is thrown back on the media for even asking it.

Now, to be fair, some things are "gotcha questions."  Take, for example, the question that Jeb Bush was asked a couple of days ago by a reporter from Huffington Post, apropos of whether Jeb would go back in time if he could and kill Hitler as a baby.

So here we have a question that presupposes using an impossibility (time travel) to commit a crime that might or might not prevent World War II and the Holocaust.  In Jeb's place, I would have responded, "What a fucking stupid question.  Where did you get your journalism degree from, Steve's Mail-Order Diploma Warehouse?"

Which explains, at least in part, why I will never run for public office.

Jeb, instead, decided to answer it.  He said, "Hell, yeah, I would.  You gotta step up, man...  It could have a dangerous effect on everything else, but I'd do it."

And what was he expected to say?  "No, I'd leave Baby Hitler alive, and sacrifice millions of innocent lives instead."  Or, "No, the bible forbids the taking of a life, I wouldn't kill an infant even if it results in a disaster."  Or "Of course, ethics demands that the value of many lives outweighs the value of a single person, even though I've claimed in the past that every life is sacred."  No matter what he answers, he opens himself up to being blasted -- and all over something that isn't even a hypothetical, it's completely impossible.

Adolf Hitler as an infant [image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

On the other hand, the questions that Ben Carson is being asked about his veracity in the past are not "gotcha questions."

There's his claim that he was offered a scholarship to West Point -- until it came out that West Point doesn't offer scholarships, and he amended that to saying that he was "invited to apply by a local ROTC officer."  Then it turned out that he in fact never even applied.  Carson said the news stories about the claim were a "political hit job."

There are the stories of his troubled childhood, that more than one person who knew Carson as a child say simply aren't true.  Carson responded by saying that the stories were too true, and that the things he recounted had happened even though none of the folks who knew him were aware of it at the time.

Then there's further evidence of a tenuous grasp on reality, with his claim that the Great Pyramids of Egypt were built by the biblical figure Joseph as places to store grain.  Confronted with this bizarre statement, Carson stood by what he said, placidly responding that the controversy over his words was nothing more than a liberal hatchet job.  "The secular progressives try to ridicule it every time it comes up and they're welcome to do that."

Okay, Dr. Carson.  We're happy to oblige.

See the difference?  With Bush, we have a deliberate setup using a pointless hypothetical, where any answer would leave you open to being lambasted by one side or the other.  With Carson, there are very real questions regarding his apparent lack of understanding of the commandment "Thou shalt not lie," not to mention its less-known corollary, "Thou shalt not make weird shit up."

So anyway.  Yes, the media could do a better job of avoiding stupid "If you were a fruit, would you be a banana or a mango?" type questions.  Just like with any profession, there are people who are competent and intelligent journalists, and people who are total morons.  But that doesn't make every awkward question that puts a candidate on the spot a "gotcha question."  There are times we need answers, because political figures should be held accountable for the claims they make.

To put it simply: dammit, truth matters.

Cup of woe

So it's a bright time in the calendar year here in the United States, despite the shortening of days and cooling of the weather.  Thanksgiving approaches, with its promise of good meals and family together-time.  And after that, of course, we have the Christmas season, a time of gift-giving, religious observance, and atheists declaring war on happiness, tradition, and little children's hopes and dreams.

At least that's the contention of a certain cadre of über-Christians, who every year trot out the whole tired "War on Christmas" trope.  Can we just get one thing out of the way, right from the beginning?

I am an outspoken atheist blogger, and I put up a Christmas tree every year.  I think they're beautiful. I love getting gifts for my family and friends, even though my gift-wrapping abilities are such that the presents I give usually look like they were wrapped either by a four-year-old or an unusually artistic gorilla.  I like a lot of Christmas music -- "O Holy Night" and "What Child is This?" are two particular favorites.  (I do have to admit, though, that I find "Frosty the Snowman" and "The Little Drummer Boy" so annoying that I nearly break my index finger turning the car radio off when they start playing.)

And most of my atheist friends are the same way.  We have no problem with anyone celebrating Christmas, or not, as they see fit -- as long as (1) it's not forced on anyone, and (2) Christmas displays aren't paid for at public expense.  If you follow those two rules, you can have a Christmas scene out on your lawn with lights so bright that it disrupts flyover jet traffic, as far as I'm concerned.

But that hasn't stopped the idiotic rhetoric from starting.  And this year, it's directed at none other than Starbucks, because they changed their holiday cup design from having reindeer and snowflakes to a simple red-and-green.

Well.  You'd think they were proposing terrorist attacks on Whoville, from the reaction that got.  Here's a smattering of responses:

From conservative British MP David Burrowes: "The Starbucks coffee cup change smells more of political correctness than a consumer-led change." 

From Christian Institute's spokesperson Simon Calvert: "What is it about Christmas that Starbucks are [sic] afraid of celebrating?  Haven’t they heard it’s the most wonderful time of the year, and the season of good will to ALL men?" 

From social media commentator Chuck Nellis: "My Christmas mentality: if a store won't promote Christmas re Starbucks, I'm not spending my hard-earned money there." 

From a poster on Twitter, in response to the story about the change on Breitbart News: "Since you're running away from Christianity, I'm running away from you.  Just exercising my financial choice." 

From Christian radio personality Joshua Feuerstein: "Starbucks has removed Christmas from their cups because they hate Jesus...  The Christian majority in this country has awakened and are demanding that our voice be heard."

Trust me, Joshua, we never have problems hearing the Christians of your stripe. given that they always seem to be screaming with outrage over something even though they are, as you point out, still the majority in this country and in control of damn near everything.

It seems like people of this mindset would not be content until every business, everywhere, plasters their walls with "Merry Christmas" and "Jesus Is The Reason For The Season," and blares Christmas carols from their speakers 24/7.  Anything less is a deliberate and personal attack against everything holy.

What makes this wryly funny is that one of Starbucks' most popular seasonal coffees is called "Christmas Blend."  ("Just right for the season," the description says.)

I wonder if the people who are screeching about this realize how rapidly this sort of behavior makes you lose your credibility.  Take for example Colorado pastor Kevin Swanson, who at the National Religious Liberties Conference last week had a complete meltdown in public and said that god was going to wreak destruction on the United States because of Harry Potter, despite the fact that the books were written by a British author, are set in Britain, and generated a movie series wherein the parts were played by British actors.

God, evidently, is not known for his accurate aim while exercising his "smite" option.

So anyway.  It's doubtful that Starbucks is anti-Christmas, given that the cups are still red and green, and a business deliberately cutting itself out of sales during the Christmas season would be kind of stupid financially.  Baby Jesus is unlikely to be upset if his image isn't broadcast everywhere; we all know that Christmas is coming, okay?

Let me end with an admonition from the War-on-Christmas cadre's favorite book, specifically Matthew 6:6: "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."

Spellcheck eugenics

And to end the week in an appropriately surreal fashion, yet another reader of Skeptophilia sent me a link that gives you instructions to see if you're one of the targets of the Illuminati.

The website Corruptico: All Answers Exist Within Your Actions (whatever the hell that means) a post appeared called "Microsoft Word 'Spell Check' Embedded Eugenic Code," wherein we learn that to tell if you're destined to be executed when the New World Order arrives, all you have to do is type your name into a Microsoft Word document and see if it flags as misspelled.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Here's how the author explains it:

There’s a program for that. One created by no other than Microsoft Crypto Jew eugenicist himself, Bill Gates. 

According to US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton’s first nephew, Greg T Dixon, a Masonic High School friend and informant deeply connected to Freemasonry, included within Microsoft’s Word “spell check” lies embedded code that filters out the names of people not making the elitist final eugenic cut. 

The program works simply enough, for which anyone, even children, can easily access to check and see their chromosomal eugenic status. All you have to do is type in your last name (surname) to see if it is underlined by a red squiggly line underscoring the surnames of those NOT making the genomic eugenic cut. 

That it, you’re done!

Which brings up a variety of questions, the first of which is, what the fuck is a "Crypto Jew?"  Is this some kind of superhero who runs around with a yarmulke and a black cape, defending liberty by using pieces of matzo like ninja throwing stars?  Because that would be kind of cool.  My wife is Jewish, and if I knew she had a secret identity that involved fighting crime by wearing a mask and slinging kosher food at wrongdoers, it would make her even more awesome.

But considering the claim itself, we're on shakier ground.  Spellcheck?  Really?  It couldn't be that the spellcheck feature includes lists of the more common names, so that you don't get flagged every time you write "Smith?"  I guess I'm fortunate; my own last name is also an English word, so I don't get red-lined.  Lucky thing:

Apparently, many people who are being told they are elite and making the “eugenic cut” are actually not going to be around after the Democide, if the true elites have their way, by proxy, their names were purposely left off of earlier editions of MS Word, and this is why older versions prove more accurate. 

Go ahead. If you dare, type your surname into MS Word to see your fate, it’s a fun and simple way to see what side of the railroads tracks you’re on. 

Just remember that, if the RED LINE appears, your fate is most likely sealed, and you will probably be killed at a FEMA death camp here very shortly via a hollow point bullet to back of the head.

Well, I'm not sure I would call this "fun," since it involves death camps and gunshots to the head, but it certainly is... interesting.

I do have a few questions, however.  What if your last name gets flagged and your first name doesn't?  This seems kind of unfair for people of Polish descent, such as "John Szczpanski."  Do Our Evil Overlords kill him because of the Szczpanski part, or let him go because his first name is John?

And what about people whose parents were trying to be clever, and gave them first names that appear to be deliberately misspelled?  A few years ago, I taught a girl whose name was "Kaytlyn."  This gets autocorrected to Kaitlyn (in fact, I just had to type it three times to get the Blogspot software to believe me that NO, THIS IS REALLY WHAT I WANT TO WRITE, DAMMIT).  Is this some kind of plot on the part of the parents to get rid of her?  This happens all the time to my wife, whose last name is Bloomgarden.  Autocorrect separates it into "Bloom garden," and then the red lines go away.  Is it telling her, "Maybe you really want to start spelling your name like that from now on.  Hint hint wink wink nudge nudge?"

So anyway, I encourage you to check your own name.  (Sorry for the bad news if you're Polish.)  I'm lucky -- neither my first, middle, nor last name gets red-lined.  Of course, the Illuminati Crypto Jews may change their minds after reading this post.  I'll be able to tell if I start getting mail addressed to "Gordin Bonnetski."

The dying of the light

I was challenged by a loyal reader of Skeptophilia to take on a topic I've never discussed here: end-of-life decisions.

She said:

The Humane Society is for "humane" treatment of animals.  "Humane" is supposed to embody the very best of human attributes.  It's "humane" to put a dying or mortally wounded animal out of its misery.  It's murder to do the same for a human.  What would Skeptophillia say about this?

At first I was reluctant, and to be honest, it was from nothing but cowardice.  I responded:

I've tended to shy away from purely moral questions -- to me, morality is very private, and best left to each person's conscience.  That said, I agree with you, and if I knew I was incurably ill and was going to be a burden to my family, I would unhesitatingly choose euthanasia for myself.

Which was disingenuous of me.  And she called me on it:

I'm... interested in what a discussion would be which says we are bound by "God" to allow humans to go through suffering which we would arrest a person for standing idly by and watching an animal go through.  That same "God" who killed 99% of the population of the earth several times?...  I'm just surprised that you take on religion, but "shy away from purely moral questions."  NOT a criticism -- just a conundrum?

Which, of course, was spot on.  And the whole thing came into sharper focus with the story that hit the news last week of five-year-old Julianna Snow, who is dying of an incurable neurodegenerative disease called Charcot-Marie-Tooth syndrome, and whose parents have made the decision that if she has another episode -- nearly a certainty -- she will be taken home and allowed to die rather than going back to the hospital for more excruciating treatments that will ultimately not be successful in any case.

"She made it clear that she doesn't want to go through the hospital again," Julianna's mother Michelle wrote.  "So we had to let go of that plan because it was selfish."

The whole thing took on a more awkward twist when it came out that the discussion the Snows had had with Julianna hinged on her being told that she didn't need to be afraid of dying because she was going to go to heaven afterwards.  "So if you get sick again, you [said that you] want to stay home," Michelle told her daughter.  "But you know that probably means you will go to heaven, right?  And it probably means that you will go to heaven by yourself, and Mommy will join you later."

This appalled a number of people, all for various reasons.  There were people who lambasted the Snows for allowing a five-year-old to make decisions which (in their opinion) she was too young to understand.  Non-religious types said that comforting a child by holding out a false hope of heaven was wrong, and could induce her to choose death because she was being duped into thinking there was an afterlife.  Others said that it amounted to euthanasia, which is immoral, period.

And all of it brought into sharper focus the questions surrounding end-of-life choices.

First, let me say that I hope with all my heart that I never have to be in a situation like this with someone I love.  To be responsible for making the decision of when enough painful medical intervention is enough has to be one of the hardest things anyone could be faced with.

That said: do we really believe that the quantity of life is all that matters, that to extend it by hours or days is the goal regardless of the cost in suffering or the quality of life that would result?  Let me say it again: this girl is dying.  Her condition is progressive, incurable, and agonizing.  It's all very well to say, "Maybe they'll find a cure" -- but the likelihood of finding a cure fast enough to help Julianna is nearly zero.  Is "death later" always a more moral choice than "death sooner?"

As to whether she's capable of understanding death -- probably not, or at least not in its entirety.  But hell, who can?  What she does understand is suffering, that there's no treatment that's going to make her better, that the rest of her short life is going to be spent in devastating pain.  And she understands that death will end that.

What about the parents' holding out the hope of heaven for her?  As an atheist, I might be expected to criticize this, but I can't.  These are grieving parents comforting a dying child.  As a parent myself, I know that I have felt at times like I would do anything to take the pain from my children.  I don't think that what they're telling her is true, no.  But if it gives some emotional comfort to a scared child who is facing an inevitable agonizing death, regardless of what medical science can do?

I can't see that there's anything morally wrong with it.

The quality of life is more important than the quantity.  There, I said it straight out.  The worth of a person's life is not measured solely by its span, and artificially extending someone's life in the case of a progressive and incurable disease is not always the more ethical choice.  How much each person is willing to go through to live should be solely their decision -- when to stop fighting, when to accept death rather than continuing the torture in the hope of a few more months.  

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Stephen King wrote in Danse Macabre, "Most of us would like to die peacefully in our beds at age eighty (preferably after a good meal, a bottle of really fine vino, and a really super lay)," and I certainly can't argue with that.  The truth is, however, that few of us are so fortunate.  The idea that we provide our pets with more options for putting an end to the misery of an incurable disease than we do our loved ones casts our own sense of morality in an awkward light indeed.

About my own life, I am as clear as anyone can be when considering such an emotionally fraught question.  If I am facing a life of pain with no hope of improvement; if I am facing the devastation of a disease like Alzheimer's, with the prospects of being a burden on my loved ones for care; if I am being kept alive only by being hooked up to life support -- let me choose death, by whatever means it takes.

Ghost radio

I got an email yesterday with two links and a message.  The message said:

Wondering what you think of this.  I'm not convinced but I think it's interesting.  This guy says he's made a device that can allow two-way communication with the dead.  The messages he picks up do seem to be answering specific questions and comments he's making.  Not just random words or phrases. 

Watch the guy's video and see what you think.  I'm keeping an open mind about it, but I'm curious what you think. 

Sincerely, 

T. K.

The links he provided were to YouTube videos made by a guy named Steve Huff, selling software that is called "The Impossible Box."  He claims that this software is manipulable by the disembodied spirits of the dead, who apparently surround us.  The first link plays audio recordings of messages that Huff has received using the software; in the second, he explains to us how he thinks it works.

Here are a few of the messages he received:

• I am the portal
• Let there be light
• The light will surround you, Mr. Huff
• Blessed art thou
• Olee's at your side
• The devil's gonna profit from you

And so forth and so on.  The software is available for download for $49.95 (and can be purchased here).

So I watched both videos, and predictably, I'm unconvinced.

The way it works, which he does get to on the second video (about halfway through), is that the software scans internet radio, and pulls out words and phrases that it then plays for you.  Allegedly, this software only turns on when the ghosts have something to say.  "There is no continuous scan of audio," Huff tells us.  "The scan only starts when the spirits want to speak." 

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

When it comes to explaining how the programmer created code that can specifically be manipulated by the dead, he's a little cagier.  The Impossible Box contains "software with all kinds of tech," he says, giving no other real details presumably to protect his proprietary interest, but also preventing any kind of critical analysis of what's really going on in there. 

The real problem here, though, is the same one that plagues attempts to demonstrate that rock musicians have engaged in backmasking -- hiding demonic messages in songs, so that when you play them backwards you hear voices saying things like "Here's to my sweet Satan."  (That one is from one of the most famous claims of backmasking -- in Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven.")  As Michael Shermer points out in his wonderful TED talk "Why People Believe Weird Things," the message only becomes clear when someone tells you what the demons are saying via a caption -- just as Huff does in his video.  Before we're primed by being told what the message is, it more or less sounds like gibberish.  "You can't miss it," Shermer says, "when I tell you what's there."

The other thing that is troubling is the question of why ghosts have to have source audio in order to speak.  If they can manipulate software, you'd think they'd be able to do the same thing without having to rely on picking out words from internet radio.  He tried making a "spirit box" that used white noise instead of scanning radio, Huff says, and it didn't work.  "Spirits have a hard time forming words out of white noise as a source audio," he tells us.  "They need audio with human words to really be able to leave you sentences "

Which I find awfully convenient.  We're given garbled phrases, made up from words pulled from internet radio, and we get to decide what it is we're hearing, and then assign meaning to it.  While it's possible that we're talking with ghosts, what's more likely is that we're seeing some kind of audio version of the ideomotor effect, where our own subconscious decisions and expectations of meaning are creating a message where there really is none.

Now, let me conclude with saying something I've said before; I'm not saying that the afterlife is impossible, nor that spirits (should such exist) might not try to communicate with the living.  All I'm saying is that the evidence I've thus far seen is unconvincing, and I find the perfectly natural explanations for what is going on in The Impossible Box (and other spirit communication devices) sufficient to account for any ghostly messages Huff and others have received.  If anyone does decide to shell out the fifty bucks for the software, however, I'd be really interested to hear what your experience is with it -- and especially, if you got information from Great-Aunt Marjorie that you couldn't have otherwise got, and not just vague messages like "The light will surround you."

Until then, however, I'm afraid that I'm still in the "dubious" camp.