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We’ve all seen images of saints and martyrs who rise above their torments, but is it really possible to find transcendence on the rack? In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Julie and I look into the connections between physical pain and religious experience. Are our tales of smiling martyrs merely fictions, or do they reveal inspiring and troubling properties of the human mind?
The Hippocratic oath is based on the notion that physicians will above all else do no harm to others. It is explicitly stated that this concept is first, and everything else follows that. Don’t subject prisoners of warm to hypothermia and hyperbaric experiments. Don’t vivisect thieves or debtors to better understand anatomy. Don’t separate twins to study genetics. But what if the people who employ a physician do harm to others; what role does a doctor play then?
When the philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg sought mechanical explanations for nature, he found himself struggling with his faith as he searched for evidence of the human soul. But what happened next? Tune in and learn more in this podcast.
The fight or flight response in the sympathetic nervous system has a fairly specific function. It arouses the individual to run, run away as fast as you can to a happy place where no one ever cries or to take a stab at beating the tar out of the aggressor. Also acceptable is taking a stab at stabbing the aggressor, which still technically falls into the fight category. There is no real third option; it’s pretty much limited to fighting or fleeing.
Homosexuals Tortured and Killed in Iraq
by Charles W. Bryant | August 17, 2009
Just when you thought Iraq was making some genuine progress toward a free society comes this story from CNN.com about the torturing and killing of suspected homosexual men in Iraq. They report that hundreds of men have been victim to such treatment in recent months.
What’s even more troubling is that the new government in Iraq seems to be turning a blind eye to this travesty of human rights. While government officials claim to be against this kind of thing, they’re quick to accept any responsibility, saying that they are unable to provide special protection for them. Four anonymous victims were interviewed for the piece and they relate stories about how the violence against them has increased in recent months.
There’s a very dark core located somewhere deep within each of us. For, say, Henry Lee Lucas, it was much closer to the surface. For Shirley Temple, perhaps a little more repressed (although there was the one unpleasant incident no one talks about with the drifter). This dark core has a tendency to be nurtured and brought to the surface by the dark cores of other people. It’s the mob mentality; it’s groupthink at its worst. It’s the reason soccer riots happen (that’s right, I said soccer). It’s the reason the Salem Witchcraft Trials happened. And the tacit understanding that it lies in each of us is the reason the Germany as a nation wasn’t dismantled and its entire population separated and shipped to other nations for deprogramming as a stipulation of the Marshall Plan.
Ever since joining the podcast, I’ve grown more sympathetic towards people who flub their history a little in public statements. As a writer, I try to diligently fact-check everything before it gets published, but in conversation that gets recorded, it’s easier to slip up and say something inaccurate. Luckily, our fans are quick to help us out and let us know whenever this happens. Unfortunately for the president, he’s held up to a higher bar and gets scrutinized by every expert historian. And, he’s made some significant errors that they won’t let him forget.
Back in February, when a podcast listener brought it to my attention, I posted on Obama’s mistake about who invented the car. Recently, Obama has come under fire for a comment about Winston Churchill’s opinion on torture. An article from the Times Online discusses how Obama doesn’t have a great record when it comes to World War II history.
U.S. Used Water Boarding 266 Times on Two Detainees
by Robert Lamb | April 20, 2009
So, last week we learned that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency had 10 favorite means of forcibly extracting said intelligence from detainees in the war on terror. Widely condemned as a checklist of U.S.-approved torture techniques, the list included water boarding. Now news has broken that a 2005 CIA memo states that water boarding was used 266 times on two detainees.
For those unfamiliar with the practice, water boarding involves pouring water over a victim’s face to simulate the sensation of drowning — a terrifying and anxiety-ridden experience to say the least. If you need a more visual idea of what this entails, click to view the full post and watch the video clip from Amnesty International. WARNING: Features a disturbing recreation of torture.
In May of 2007, the US military found drawings believed to be part of an Al-Qaida torture manual. However, the seminal manuals on torture are believed to be the work of the CIA. Check out our HowStuffWorks article to learn more about torture manuals.
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