A Mixed Bag of Interesting Articles
27th September 2022
As Craig talked about last week, we had a really good time meeting up in Hamilton to visit the Mormon temple, and also enjoyed meeting fellow skeptics at the first Auckland Skeptics in the Pub meeting in a while. Speaking of which, the plan is to keep these meetings going - if you’re in Auckland, and wanting to chat with like-minded skeptics, please consider going along to one of these meetings. I’m sure Craig will make you feel very welcome. And, if you can’t make our in person meetings, there’s always Skeptics in Cyberspace!
After we left Craig, Bronwyn and I visited Destiny church’s Auckland campus. It was less impressive than I was expecting, and a little funny to see the COVID testing station in the car park - especially given Brian Tamaki’s sermon’s railing against vaccination. And I found an odd quote from Apostle Brian in the men’s loos.
Having read Bronwyn’s articles about Highden Manor and their worrying connection to the ISTA sex therapy nonsense, and watched the Sex Magic documentary, I was keen to see it for myself. Although we couldn’t get past the imposing front gates, they were nonetheless impressive to see.
In this week’s newsletter, I try to take a novel look at a claim made in a surprising chess scandal. Bronwyn updates us on one of the many MLMs she’s keeping an eye on. And finally we hear from Tim, a longtime Skeptics in the Pub member and my partner in crime for many of the weird and wonderful skeptical escapades I’ve undertaken (going to Scientology meetings, attending OTO Gnostic Masses, spending 10 hours listening to David Icke live). Tim has written an interesting article for us about a particular academic claim that COVID is a bioweapon, and ponders how someone who’s not a scientific expert might evaluate whether a claim like this is likely to be true.
