What's in my Inbox?

I was scrolling through my emails today, looking to see if I had received any Why Are You A Skeptic responses from any of you. Sadly there was nothing I'd missed; no stories of how you'd found skepticism after an all-night bender where you'd snorted ketamine and met God, or how you've always been skeptical since the age of two.

Instead, what I did find were some random emails that I thought might be of skeptical interest to everyone. Firstly, as a counterpoint to Craig's article last week about the James Webb telescope, Creation Ministries International have mailed me about the project, informing me:

“We are told that Webb will see stars and galaxies as they appeared 13.5 billion years ago, which is what is meant by “early”. Note that this is a claim based on belief in the big bang model. What Webb will actually observe will be light from galaxies and stars that are very far away. How long that light takes to get to the JWST is another question. In fact, even the assumed vast distances to the very far away galaxies are model and parameter dependent”

In other words, “if we imagine that light travels faster than scientists say it does, or that it used to travel faster in the past, then maybe the universe is only 6,000 years old”. Of course, having a much faster speed of light (two billion percent faster) throws the entirety of physics out of whack, but if we ignore that pesky detail then this hypothesis is a great idea.

Next I have an email from Josie in Canada telling me:

“I read your article about Father John Rea. We know him personally and we live in Canada. Miracles do happen !”

This is in response to an article I wrote back in 2017 about Father John Rea, after myself and several other skeptics went on a field trip to visit him at one of his healing sessions. As I wrote at the time:

“The idea of John's knowledge is that God has given him messages of who can be healed. John reads out a list of conditions, and for each condition he gives some clues as to who the person or people who are suffering might be… It reminded me of how stage psychics sometimes do a quick fire of throwing out lots of different guesses (the scattergun approach), and then honing in on those that resonate with someone in the audience, while quickly moving on from those that don't fit anyone.”

The email included a PDF called “Major St. Therese miracles experienced or reported at the Living Insights Center, St. Louis, MO, as of 12/22/21”, which documents the supposed miracle healings that have occurred around a statue of St. Therese housed inside the Living Insights Center building. From what I've read so far, none of these supposed miracles would pass the Catholic sainthood miracle test.

I received an email from fellow committee member Jonathon Harper, saying:

“My story in the NZ Listener on the Supreme Court test for Peter Ellis's mana is out. At least it will be on the stands next Monday (17th January). Karyn Scherer (the Editor) was great to work with, not quite as pedantic as some of the other publishers I have worked with, but I think very responsible and accurate. What I learnt from her is that tone is important. By that I mean, sticking to what happened, what people said, so if the conclusions you may feel compelled to draw are unpalatable, the 'you' is the reader, and not the writer. Also the idea that it is good to intimate that you have some understanding that we all have foibles, and we are all in this together. Karyn is also very enthusiastic, forthcoming, personable, friendly and supportive so I felt privileged in all the best senses of the word to have worked with her on this.”

If you're interested in the Peter Ellis case, you might want to pick up a copy of the Listener and have a read.

Finally I found an email sent to the NZ Skeptics committee that I will throw open to our members. If any of you would like to pen a respectful response to Andre, please send it to news@skeptics.nz and we'll forward it on:

Dear Sir,

Even just a month ago I never anticipated that I would find myself a victim of prejudice and discrimination in my own country and all ultimately due to junk, unscientific mumbo jumbo feeding an excess of unchecked power masquerading under the guise of a faux ideology, that it is in the interests of the greater 'public good'

Yes, how could I not be referring to the current, supposed pandemic 'crisis'?

You see, I am one of those dirty, contaminated unvaccinated lepers who supposedly are selfishly placing all of greater society at risk by selfishly refusing to bow my head to Mammon and be baptised by way of the 'jab' into their new-age evangelical church and therefore , by extension, the current state of crisis is all my, and my kindred's fault. Hell, it MUST be true, after all there always has to be someone to blame, doesn't there? Go and ask a Nazi if you don't believe me!

....and, just like the Nazi's one of the first victims in this 'soft war' against civil liberties and the innate human right of an individual to have sovereignty over their own body is to mute freedom of speech, a far too easily achieved objective in this age of digital communication. On this point I have been repeatedly 'censored' for daring to speak-out against this propagandised idiocy and again, just like Nazi tactics I am hastily and stealthily herded into a "nacht und nebel' virtual concentration camp by dehumanising me by the appending of clinical, arms-length labels: "anti-vaxxer" (not necessarily, actually), "inciting vaccine hesitancy " (how about encouraging rational thought and scientific appraisal based on review of ALL the information?), and the thoroughly vile coup de gras from social media; "de-platformed" ....and, "fact-checked false information" (hysterically funny given that this gagging is administeted by an AI software robot triggered only by keywords and not the understanding of actual content).

The population as a majority have willing acquiesced and given politicians and un-elected nameless, faceless beareucrats permission to un-plug their brains at the wall and flick their critical thought faculties to the 'OFF" position.

The term I deem appropriate to describe this manifest unravelling of our former democratic society is "Vaccination Apartheid". To me it is grossly offensive and an affront to my dignity that the government - both national and local - demonstrate that they have no moral scruples whatsoever about compelling me to pay my taxes and council rates which they in turn use to fund a system that writes arbitrary rules to write me out of societal participation. I can no longer enter the local library I pay for unless I flash an utterly worthless, good-for-nothing vaccination pass at the door. No measure of public safety WHATSOEVER is conferred by this requirement. No proper science was ever used to conjure up this stupid rule yet not only does it divide people but it requires a mountain of resources and money to implement it.

The real concern arises that we occupy one specific point of time on a continuum but when we look forward along that time-line into the future then the likely trajectory, now that these nutty policies have acquired almost global momentum, is that one can foresee that the politicians and their beareaucratic minions who craft and implement these oppressive policies have completely ignored real science which has become de-coupled from real-world social impact giving them a free-hand to test the extreme moral and ethical boundaries without regard to long-term adverse societal consequences.

So, my question to you is what position does the N.Z. Sceptics Society hold on this most pressing issue, and more particularly do you have or else, actively support organised opposition to this emerging new dark age? It really cones down to whether you care about the rights of marginalised and discriminated-against people like me. I ask this because I wish to add my voice of protest against these biggotted policies that pretend to be in aid of 'protecting' the public yet are anything but. Currently, I feel at a loss because there isn't really anywhere else to turn. The current crop of protest groups speaking out against these mandate policies all seem to have underlying religious agendas I wish nothing to do with and that have no proper scientific underpinnings (another side-ways leap onto the Flat-Earth!) much less the long-term de-construction of an egalitarian free society.

If you have not so far given any deep thought to this issue would you now consider collaborating with people like me to become the voice of reason amidst this storm? I would most appreciate hearing your thoughts.

Kind Regards, Andre ROUSSEAU.

P.S. Unlike most of the fools one hears pontificating on this issue I used to work in the Pharmaceutical industry in a managerial role. Our company made vaccines for which I had an involvement. Moreover, my role allowed me to see first-hand, the behind-the-scenes machinations of how this industry REALLY works, hence my cynical contempt for how governments have been 'captured' by them. Virtually all of those who advocate these policies frankly, wouldn't know their arse from their elbow. I would set my real-world expertise and experience against theirs, any day.