Bøger af Phd Bo Bennett

Maybe you were born to Christian parents and raised as a Christian. Or maybe you are just a part of a Christian nation. You might have attended church regularly, or maybe just on special occasions. If asked, you say that you believe in God, but you really never thought about what that means exactly. You are a well-educated person who accepts the idea of Biblical miracles, but only the more "reasonable" ones. You have read some of the Bible, mostly just parts of the New Testament, but never committed to reading the Bible cover to cover. You are a good person who admires the many "Christian values" as demonstrated by Jesus Christ. But something does not feel right.* Science tells us that the universe is 13.7 billion years old, but the Bible tells us it's 6,000 years old.* Science tells us life is the result of emergent properties in combined molecules, and we have evolved from a very primitive life form, but the Bible says that God made us, as is, from dust, and blew life in our noses.* You see a world where little bunnies burn to death in forest fires, and wonder why an all-good and loving God would allow such a thing to happen.* You pray to God and you realize that sometimes your prayers are answered, and sometimes they aren't - just as if you didn't pray at all.* You hear about other religions and wonder why your religion is right and every other religion on the planet is wrong.* You have a real problem with the idea of all your non-Jesus-believing friends and family spending eternity in Hell.In fact, the more you look around, the more you see a world absent of this perfect image of a perfect God. As much as you want to avoid critical thinking and "just let go and have faith", you find that you cannot believe in something contrary to your logic and reason - no matter how much you want to. This might lead to feelings of guilt, insincerity, and/or hypocrisy. Yet you just can't imagine living life without God, and you don't have to.When you start asking serious questions about God and religion, you begin to see through the stories of people living inside the stomachs of big fish, 900-year-old men, and bodies coming back to life after three days, and understand how man created God, and not the other way around. By daring to question "sacred" religion, challenging your childhood beliefs, and risking eternal damnation (okay, so there might be a minor side effect to reading this book), you will discover an appreciation for religion on a new level, as well as a renewed appreciation for the human race.Through a unique blend of science, philosophy, theology, and a touch of humor, you will see how you can trust your logic and reason, be true to yourself, and embrace God -- not as a being, but as a concept -- The Concept.

A fact is a fact, right? Unfortunately, it's not that simple. A "fact" is primarily defined as "a thing that is indisputably the case." The problem with that definition is that virtually anything can be disputed, and most things are. But the legal language of "beyond a reasonable doubt" applies to this definition. Many times, especially on the Internet, facts that are disputed are done so WITHOUT reasonable doubt. For example, there is an entire organization devoted to disputing the fact that the earth is NOT flat.A secondary definition of "fact" is "a piece of information used as evidence or as part of a report or news article." These "facts" are still "things that are indisputably the case," or are supposed to be, but used in this context; facts are used to support a theory, conclusion, or opinion. For example, one might argue that the government is out to enslave its citizens. They may offer several facts to support that argument including the facts that the government can imprison people, the government has imprisoned people, and the government has no plans to stop imprisoning people. No reasonable person would dispute those facts, but that doesn't mean that the facts adequately support the argument or claim.Very little information we consume is straight fact. We consume opinion, commentary, satire, gossip, conspiracy theories, marketing copy, and other forms of non-facts. Even when we are given facts, it can be done in such way to mislead, deceive, and manipulate where we are led to develop a false sense of confidence in our conclusions based on these facts.Oh, by the way, "alternative facts," are falsehoods.In this book, we will go over important concepts that will help you to become a more responsible consumer of information including: - Important terms such as fake news site, click bait, echo chamber, and more. - How our cognitive biases get in the way when it comes to accepting reality. - How to quickly evaluate any information source. - How to ask the right questions when deciding how much weight to give information. - How to spot when you are being misled, deceived, manipulated, or outright lied to.We may not have a legal obligation when it comes to being a responsible consumer of information. But one can easily argue that we do have a moral obligation. A society is only as good as its citizens, and our intellectual contributions or lack thereof have far-reaching effects. While this short course is unlikely to make you a master of parsing information, it's a heck of a good start!