Articles tagged with "friend"

Decult is back – with a special offer for our sceptical friends!

Longtime member Pippa emailed us the other day after she heard Bronwyn talking about Thomas Driver on our podcast. She said:

I had a fun time this weekend with friends coming over to my house to celebrate Christmas. No, this email hasn't been delayed six months, or arrived from the future - it's July, not December. Like me, most of the friends that came over on the weekend are from the Northern hemisphere, and there's something that just feels right about having a second Christmas celebration every year when the weather's cold and miserable, just like it was in the “good old days”. We eat brussels sprouts and roast potatoes, drink mulled wine, and open presents - all while the TV plays YouTube videos with cheesy Christmas songs as the audio track and logs burning on an open fire as the video track. For one of our few Southern hemisphere guests, Aaron, not only is this mid-year “Midwinter Christmas” an alien idea, but he also never celebrated the usual December 25th Christmas when he was growing up. This is because he was brought up as a Jehovah's Witness, and they famously avoid celebrating events like Christmas, Easter and birthdays. I met Aaron through the NZ Humanists a while after he'd “faded” from the organisation, and it's been great to be there to see him find his feet and move on with his life since then.

At the beginning of April I received a friend request from none other than Jason Momoa, star of the Aquaman movies, the Conan the Barbarian remake, and Jacques Villeneuve's recent version of Dune. Of course, this wasn't the real Jason Momoa - just another Facebook scam, something that's becoming more prevalent as Meta appears to have given up on even their half-hearted attempts to combat fraud on their platform.

Publisher: Te Herenga Waka University Press

This is the cover image of one of NZ's own lightworkers, J. Lee Frisbee. He works at “Explore Daydreaming Inc”, and describes himself as “Multidimensional Navigator - I Am Light Zen Master”.

I've had a wee break off writing the newsletter for the past couple of weeks, as Brownyn and Mark have contributed lots of content, but it's my turn again this week - thankfully with some great contributions from the aforementioned Bronwyn - with a continuation of her look at the life of Christian Evangelist Ray Comfort, and also previous contributor Alistair Blenney, who takes a look at NESARA.

Last Friday I attended a service for Robert Woolf. Long time members of NZ Skeptics would recognise Robert's name as a committee member, and conference attendee. He also attended Skeptics in the Pub in Auckland back when it was first running.

This week I take a look at a media attack on our friend Dr Siouxsie Wiles, and talk about the European heat wave and climate change.

I have a good friend who often helps me out by sending me articles that might be of interest to Skeptics - and they sometimes come in handy both for this newsletter, and for my regular weekend radio chats with Graeme Hill on Today FM. He's is one of quite a few skeptically minded friends I have who have no interest in the organised skeptical movement in New Zealand - he just lives his life being wary of the nonsense that surrounds us.

It's nice to be reminded sometimes that the number of skeptics in society is likely to exceed the number of Skeptics in our Society by several orders of magnitude. I was reminded of this recently after seeing a couple of interactions on social media, one where a friend tackled misinformation, and another where it was the friend that was spreading misinformation. In both interactions, the misinformation was quickly and easily debunked, with references given to sources. The first one was about Ukraine's president Zelenskyy being a Nazi, as “proven” by a picture of him holding up a football (I'm from England, so for all you kiwis I mean soccer here) shirt with his name and a swastika on it. The second is about the recent parliament protest, with an image of a child who had supposedly been pepper sprayed by the Police.

Allison Mack was once famous for her role in the TV show Smallville, a spin-off show about Superman. However, a few years ago she joined a group called NXIVM who promised to help her on the path to enlightenment and happiness. The group pulled in more famous people, including other TV celebrities, the director of What the Bleep Do We Know, and the Bronfman sisters, heirs to the Seagram fortune.

Around this time of the year it's common to be spending time with extended family and friends.

I'm Sheree McNatty, Secretary of NZ Skeptics. I've just been asked by a teen about how Skeptics disprove psychics, paranormal activity and the afterlife. When I was a teen I was interested in finding proof of paranormal and the afterlife. I told enquiring Aunts that I wanted to be a Parapsychologist when I left school. I found the thought of people I had known who have died being somewhere else comforting and I wanted to experience it and prove it. Friends and I had seances, I did Tarot and tea leaf reading and tried mind reading. There had to be something after this left and I wanted it to be real. However, it led me to become a Skeptic as no matter what we tried it wasn't convincing. I also found out there was no point being a Parapsychologist as nobody is going to fund repeated experiments that have failed every time.

How to be a positively skeptically active person, some suggestions

Alison Campbell has been spending time on Facebook recently.

Judith Goodyear became the youngest ever presenter at the 2006 New Zealand Skeptics conference with this exploration of the chain letters of the average teen.

I had a dream. One of those ones which are slightly alarming in that they come true. In my dream a friend happily announced she was pregnant and when I chanced to bump into her the next day, she told me -- excitedly -- the good news.

The Misinformation Age has arrived at last

Despite being clairvoyant Angel Destiny admits she was taken by surprise when her 1920s house collapsed around her as she soaked in the bath.

IT'S A funny old world, I was thinking to myself on the way home from coffee with a friend. Except, it wasn't coffee, it was decaff, and, to add insult, instant. During which she'd helped me to a generous serving of the state of the universe as she saw it.

AS A CONFIRMED, but lightweight, sceptic, I have had to endure many jibes from friends and colleagues as I questioned information reported in the newspapers and on the news. Equally, I have had to explain what being a sceptic is really all about -- not straight dismissal of, but the opportunity to question information that is presented as fact.

Bernard Howard proposes an answer to a curly question.

THE other day I was doing a spot of painting with the help of a friend. She was telling me about a fancy dress party she'd gone to, and how some friends had dressed up all in green, as aliens.

The other night, after a particularly fine feed of nachos, my friend pulled out her numerology book and proceeded to do my chart. I'd done some things wrong in a past life, and there were a number of lessons I hadn't picked up on -- but generally I was happy to learn my soul was a fairly evolved one.

A friend of mine once visited a faith-healer, one of the religious variety from the United States who periodically come to New Zealand to swell their bank balances. She attended the meeting because of a persistent pain in her elbow. Despite my suggestions that it was only tennis elbow, she was worried and thought perhaps the pain was serious. She had an aisle seat near the front and during the proceedings the "healer" approached her and asked about the pain in her arm. Apparently she hadn't told anyone why she was there. She was impressed.