This blog talks about issues considered “of the world of mystery”. The definition of this certainly not unique concept wasn’t made by us, but by those who live off the “mystery”. For them, “the world of mystery” is a variegated, disjointed, complex and disorganized collection of motley topics: divination, supernatural powers, supernatural beings, baseless interpretations of history, superhuman powers, reports of violation of all laws of Physics, gods of any kind, magical cures and some other things that change with the downwind, and have no rigor whatsoever.
If you are fully convinced that astrologers do know people based on the setting of a few stars in a sky strip visible from our planet, and that such stars affect our lives, love, finance, etc. in known ways, this blog is not for you. It offers data that challenges this belief, which can upset you, but doesn’t pretend to convince you. The same applies if you firmly believe that our destiny and personality are magically written in the tarot, in our handwriting, on the lines of our hand, in the bones of Santeria, in the coffee grounds, in tea leaves or anything like that. This blog recounts how the illusion of divination is generated, it will bother you, and it also doesn’t pretend to convince you.
If you think that traditional, old and “alternative” healing practices are better than evidence-based medicine and scientific knowledge, this blog is not for you. This blog deals with papers indicating that such practices are not only useless, but sometimes are dangerous. That will make you angry, and it also doesn’t pretend to convince you.
If you believe that any human being with an ordinary-looking, be him Hindustani, Chilean, Tibetan, Mexican, Spanish or whatever, has the revealed truth and can give indications on how to live your life by selling books, bracelets, CDs or asking for donations, this blog is not for you. We like to study the history and life of various gurus without worshipping them, proving these are guys who have no more knowledge of the “truth” than anyone else, and that they live off deception. This is going to make you angry, but it doesn’t pretend to convince you.
The same goes if you believe in a god (any of the thousands of gods that man has worshiped throughout history and around the world, any of them): This blog is not for you. If you believe the Pope, the Dalai Lama, the patriarch of Alexandria, an imam, a rabbi, a shaman or any other priest or religious officiant have direct communication with the god of your preferences, this blog is not for you. If you think there are books dictated by some god, same thing. This blog discusses and examines openly and fearlessly the evidence and facts of the gods and religions. Obviously, the questioning may offend you and make you very angry and, to top everything, it doesn’t pretend to convince you.
And the situation is the same whether you are a fan of any mystery trader and you believe that those of us who oppose the promotion of their outrageous proposals act out of personal hatred, envy of dirty money from million dollar hoaxes and deceptions, or that we envy the standing ovations from the very same people they have deceived. If your life and passion depend on zines, booklets, radio and TV shows about the world of mystery and other forms of business dishonesty, this blog is not for you. It will bother you, you will feel your idols are under attack and, to top everything, it doesn’t pretend to convince you.
It also applies if you believe there’s a racism or sexism problem within the atheist community, the New Atheists or the skeptic activism. This blog is not for you: you will find evidence that such claims are part of smear campaigns carried out by intellectually dishonest and envious people who have engaged in all sorts of unethical behavior, unworthy of the Humanist label. This will bother you and, to make things worse, it doesn’t pretend to convince you.
If you happen to need trigger warnings while surfing the web, this blog is not for you. I write for functional adults who are capable enough of reading something without getting PTSD because someone has an opinion. I have pretty strong opinions and this will surely upset you, but I don’t pretend to convince you. I don’t even write for you! Please go finish high school before even thinking of coming back.
If you think so-called ‘affirmative’ action is a good thing, this blog is not for you. Here, I provide arguments about why rights should not depend on skin color, sex, sex preferences, tribe, or the religion of your parents. I will argue that all humans have the same rights by the fact of being human instead of giving or taking away rights depending on biological traits or cultural heritage. This will probably make you angry. If you happen to uphold an ideology that turns out to be an excuse to create a comprehensive, social, intellectual, emotional, geographical, civil and legal apartheid among people, you will have a real bad time here, because such chauvinistic ideologies don’t get free passes, please take into account the blog doesn’t pretend to convince you.
If you advocate for censorship because you think some ideas can harm you and, hence, you feel entitled to shut up anyone with ideas you dislike, this blog is not for you — it will state that people should be exposed to bad ideas even if that means that someone will be persuaded by them, and that self-righteousness isn’t reason enough to deny people agency over their own lives by means of choosing which ideas are harmless enough to have them exposed to. This won’t make you happy, and it doesn’t pretend to convince you.
If you’re an activist against objectification, this blog is not for you. We reject any kind of thought criminalization and this site will provide evidence that so called ‘objectification’ is an euphemism for prudeness and an excuse to control the sexuality of others —since no one seems to be bothered by people who choose to make a living out of being human calculators or piano-playing machines—. You will be mad by this and guess what: it doesn’t pretend to convince you.
If you think an argument’s truthfulness depends on the ethnicity, sex or sex preference of the person who espouses it, this blog is not for you. Here, we determine the veracity of any claim by the evidence that can support it, and belonging to an oppressed or privileged population doesn’t make anyone right or wrong. On this blog, we stand by that and we will be more than ready to provide evidence that identity politics are effective ways to deny individuals’ individuality. Such statements might make you feel unconfortable and, furthermore, they don’t pretend to convince you.
If you think anecdotal evidence is enough for labeling anyone accused of a heinous crime or putting them away, this blog is not for you. “Everyone is innocent and nothing is true until proven otherwise” is this blog’s motto, and here we uphold the Enlightenment values such as due process, the right to defense and the presumption of innocence, so no one should be deprived of liberty on the mere basis of testimony hearsay. It is likely you will find this shocking and, as it so happens, I don’t pretend to convince you.
If despite having a thought that this blog would describe as magical, religious, pseudoscientific, quack-y, postmodernist and irrational, you opt for reading the entries of this blog, I beg you to control the natural urges you will feel to tell me I’m closed-minded, bitter, ignorant, traumatized, envious, malicious, privileged, minion of the powers you particularly hate, or just an imbecile; that is if you don’t have the unoriginal idea to distantly psychoanalyze me to suppose that my childhood was very sad and that I have no personal satisfaction or that my life is devoid of any joy outside of this blog, that I will spend eternity in that thermodynamically impossible torture chamber called Hell, or any similar fantasy that reassures you in your rage. At least find out who I am before writing the same goofy comment I have received —I assure you— dozens of times, usually with an unfortunate spelling, wording on open struggle with grammar, and assorted capitalization to insult me and exalt your guru or irrational beliefs, with no provision whatsoever to subject them to criticism or analysis. I can assure you that whatever you’re about to say, your confreres already have done so on numerous occasions during all my years of spreading what the occultists conceal. I have assumed that’s the best they can do, don’t waste your time. Unless you’re very original, consider that I have probably read and countered your flim flam and I got over that stage. Learn how to endure others thinking differently from you without slamming yourself into the ground and making awkward tantrums.
If after being warned of this, you read this blog but keep the curious belief that among your fundamental human rights there is that of not being offended by anything, if you believe that any opinion is just as “respectable” no matter how disgusting it is (or that it promotes direct criminal actions), you are going to have a very bad time here, because we do not respect idiotic, harmful, racist, opinions or ones that may affect the freedom or health of others, among many other opinions that do not deserve any respect at all.
If you happen to think animals have rights or that a human boy is morally equivalent with a rat (or any other animal for that matter), this blog is not for you. I will make the case for anthropocentrism as a source of ethics, I will denounce the human cost of animal activism and I will expose the cognitive biases that drive that pesky veg fad. This is a humanist blog, so it will upset you and I don’t pretend to convince you.
If you practice the hatred towards human beings, you will have a very hard time here, it will make you angry and I do not pretend to convince you. If you believe that man is an evil, sinful, harmful species, parasitic of poor little mother earth, and a universal disgrace, know that this blog does respect, and to a great lenght, an animal species that a couple of million years ago was nothing else but part of the menu of numerous predators and, nonetheless, managed to survive, evolve, create tools and overcome adversity, and whose descendants have achieved accomplishments such as painting the Garden of Earthly Delights, composing and performing the Toccata & Fugue in D minor and writing Crime and Punishment. The human being like that, in the abstract, does not seem hateful or objectionable or reprehensible. In fact, I am amazed and delighted that despite all the invented systems to kill each other, well over the majority of human beings are born, grow, reproduce and die without hurting or killing anyone of their peers.
If you are misanthrope, be consistent with your beliefs and kill yourself, preferably without leaving much to clean and giving adequate notice to leave no doubt that you have self-eliminated from the list of enemies of the Pacha Mama Mother Earth Gaia voluntarily (so no one is accused of ending the life you despise and I celebrate). Incidentally, if you think that the indigenous people around the world must be maintained in its present situation without proper education, no health care, no opportunities, without knowledge and without intellectual and economic freedom, just to “keep their traditions”, paying with their blood and years of life the tropical dalliances you have in your pastoral feudalism you can also get offended. Indeed, I have a special interest in offending you and displaying you as a person of an unfortunate moral character, not to say a bastard of astronomical proportions.
But if, on the other hand, you have a healthy interest in what you are told is part of the “mystery”, but simultaneously believe that humans have been reasonably effective in unraveling thousands of mysteries by way of thinking, experimentation and reason, and that this knowledge has built airplanes, equally amazing buildings, a constantly evolving medicine and an increasingly accurate understanding of the universe, you might want to read about the men and women who have unraveled many of those mysteries, and which have found that many are not such mysteries, but ghastly, duly proven lies.
If you believe the claims of mystery and religions are so tremendous that we must take them with reservations, analyze the evidence and not believe everything their vendors say, and you’re also interested in the logical and argumentative weapons needed to justify your skepticism based on reasons and evidence, this blog may be of your interest.
If you have any doubt about claims that otherwise sound extremely alluring, perhaps here you will find food for your doubt and data to know how to think about certain things, claims and alleged investigations by unreliable characters.
I do not write for everyone, and really, with no animosity whatsoever, I don’t write for the sincere believers who are not up to challenging their convictions. A different thing is that I confront the hustlers who use these beliefs and convictions to fill their pockets by repeating known lies, pretending, deceiving and doing everything they can to abuse normal people and their ignorance, to sell fake ideologies they want to dress as information or social justice. I think countering them is the reasonably ethical thing to do, and I am aware they are a blood-sucking minority which should not be confused with ordinary, honest and uninformed people who fall into their traps, and they fall because these are fine-tuned traps armed by fear monger professionals, people who devote all their days, their working hours, their sleepless nights, to present the most sublime nonsense in an attractive way to get money from their peers and not find themselves in the quandary of having to actually work.
I hope this is clear enough. Are you sure this blog is for you? Welcome, then!
(Post inspired by —and some portions of it taken directly from— Mauricio-José Schwarz‘s El Retorno de los Charlatanes)
