Category Archives: Thursday posts

“Seeing red” is real. But how does it happen?

The scientific reason your world brightens up when you do

This study affirms some common observations about color perceptions and emotional states. When one is enraged, the color red appears more vivid in one’s perceptions; when depressed, the color blue. When one feels elated, all colors appear brighter, and in times of severe depression color perception can all but disappear; the world looks black and white.  Or, perhaps, bleak and white.

The study attempts, and IMO fails, to attribute these things to the activity of neurotransmitters such as dopamine.  But there is no finding of direct action by such neurotransmitters on the color-perceiving apparatus of the visual cortex.

Continue reading “Seeing red” is real. But how does it happen?

Bible contradictions #08: Is God love and light?

1 John 1:5:

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.

1 John 4:8:

Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.

The author of John appears not to have been aware of Isaiah 45:5-7:
Continue reading Bible contradictions #08: Is God love and light?

Bible contradictions #07: What caused the Babylonian exile?

According to 2 Kings 24:3, the Babylonian Exile was God’s punishment upon the nation for the sins of Manasseh.  In the thinking of ancient times, the righteousness or sin of a king was attributed also to the nation as a whole.  See also 2 Kings 21:10-15 and 2 Kings 23:26-27.

Continue reading Bible contradictions #07: What caused the Babylonian exile?

The indigo children: Where are they now?

Some generations are just more religious than others, some less.  The worldwide indifference of millennials towards faith may not spell the end of religion; it may just represent the influx of a large group of souls who happen, as a group, to be less religious than others.

This, along with the prospect of a forthcoming post about auras, recalled to me the supposed influx of another cohort of souls: the indigo children.

Continue reading The indigo children: Where are they now?

✓ Some more prayer exercises

Previous post:  Some prayer exercises

Monday morning, Pastor asked me to pray about some anger management issues among our youth.  Some have been somatizing their anger, e.g. having seizures; others have got in fights at school.  Tuesday morning it came to me that I have already reported a number of techniques to use, in the previous post above.  The new notions that came to me are here below.

It won’t be feasible for me to teach these to the children myself, since Youth Group meets on Sundays after the deadline for me to get back to the shelter.  But some of them may be usable in Children’s Sermons.

Continue reading ✓ Some more prayer exercises

Bible contradictions #06: When did Saul first meet David?

Samuel anoints David as king over Israel in 1 Samuel 16:1-13.  It is notable that this comes before David kills Goliath and before he first starts playing the lyre for Saul.  In other words, David was already king over Israel before either of those other things happened.

The story of David playing the lyre for Saul comes at 1 Samuel 16:14-23.  Now, it is very clear from this passage that Saul had never heard of David ever before.

Continue reading Bible contradictions #06: When did Saul first meet David?