The really simple guide to Humanism is a new online learning resource that has been created to help the wider public understand humanism. The interactive website has already had over 1500 visitors since its launch and offers simple answers to the most frequently asked questions about Humanism. The website also features videos of humanists including writers Sue Blackmore, Zoe Margolis and David Nobbs, neurobiologist Colin Blakemore, comedians Ed Byrne and Lucy Porter, philosopher A C Grayling [Auther of The Good Book - a secularist/humanist bible], and journalist Polly Toynbee.

You can visit the website at: www.simpleguidetohumanism.org.uk

World Community Grid.

I was thinking of ways to volunteer for charity but being a bit lazy I didn’t get round to it. Instead I remembered that I had participated in the distributed computing initiative organised by the World Community Grid where you install some software on your computer that utilizes your free CPU cycles when you’re not using them. I had been given a computer that I thought would be good utilize for this task so I stuck a new hard drive in it, installed the latest version of Fedora Linux (15) and got the BOINC software up and running.

Being a little obsessive I decided to install the software on our Windows XP machine, a notebook running Linux and another Laptop (Quad Core i7, 8GB RAM!) too. I now sit back, very satisfied of all this number crunching that I’m doing for various projects such as:

Fight Aids at home.
Childhood Cure For Cancer.
Help Cure Muscular Dystrophy
Human Proteome Folding (whatever that is!)
Computing For Clean Water

I strongly recommend you offering up your free CPU cycles for such worthy causes. You can create an account and get the software here:

http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/

If you’ve not already found the wonderful website www.ted.com please take a look at one the the example videos you can find there:

As mentioned in the above video you can and should have a look at www.AuthenticHappiness.com  

Psychologists found memories of painful emotional experiences linger far longer than those involving physical pain.

They quizzed volunteers about painful events over the previous five years.

Writing in the journal Psychological Science, they said evolutionary brain changes which allow us to work better in groups or societies could be key.

The cerebral cortex may also have had an unintended effect of allowing humans to relive, re-experience and suffer from social pain
Zhansheng Chen
Purdue University

The volunteers, all students, were asked to write about painful experiences, both physical and emotional, then given a difficult mental test shortly afterwards.

The principle was that the more painful the recalled experience, the less well the person would perform in the tests.

Test scores were consistently higher in those recalling physical rather than “social” pain.

Psychological scoring tests revealed that memories of emotional pain were far more vivid.

Social evolution

Researcher Zhansheng Chen, from Purdue University in Indiana, said that it was much harder to “re-live” physical pain than to recall social pain.

He said the evolution of a part of the brain called the cerebral cortex, which processes complex thinking, perception and language, might be responsible.

He said: “It certainly improved the ability of human beings to create and adapt, to function in and with groups, communities and cultures, and to respond to pain associated with social interactions.

“However, the cerebral cortex may also have had an unintended effect of allowing humans to relive, re-experience and suffer from social pain.”

The researchers now plan to repeat the experiment in older people, who are more likely to have experienced chronic pain.

Michael Hughesman, a child psychologist based in Germany, agreed that it was likely that emotional pain was handled in a different part of the brain from physical pain, and likely to be longer-lasting.

He said: “There is something very intangible about emotional damage – with physical pain, you can see the bruise, but in emotional abuse there is often fear and anxiety which remains.

“If someone tells you in the playground that they are going to get you after school, then you tend to be anxious and afraid about it far more than if someone just punches you there and then.”

As a therapist and a human being I have first-hand experience of both physical and emotional pain – as we all have. Both can be completely debilitating but once the physical pain has subsided there is a feeling of elation and relief.

How many people can say they have had the same relief from emotional pain? Losing your child in a supermarket brings about an emotional pain that relief can be given but how about emotional pain from incidents that occurred previously?

Through this-life regression therapy I have experienced emotionally charged memories can be re-programmed and relief can be gained. You may not think about this emotional incident all the time but what if you’re walking across a busy road when the memory suddenly enters your consciousness? Your attention may be temporarily diverted and you could be run over by a bus!

Many people (typically men – myself included) don’t believe that their emotional baggage shapes who they are but learning to face these incidents and dealing with them can give you so much strength. It’s only when you’ve dealt with such past incidents that you realise how much they affect you.

News article originally from the BBC here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7587780.stm

“You have two choices…”

When people ask me about choices and decision making, this is always the story I tell. They love it!

Read it, see what you think and make your own choice!

Jerry is the manager of a restaurant. He is always in a good mood. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would always reply,

“If I were any better, I would be twins!”

Many of the waiters at his restaurant quit their jobs when he changed jobs, so they could follow him around from restaurant to restaurant… Why?

Because Jerry was a natural motivator.

If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was always there, telling them how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Jerry and asked him:

“I don’t get it! No one can be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?”

Jerry replied, “Each morning I wake up and say to myself, I have two choices today. I can choose to be in a good mood or I can choose to be in a bad mood.

I always choose to be in a good mood.

Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I always choose to learn from it.

Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life.

I always choose the positive side of life.”

“But it’s not always that easy”, I protested.

“Yes it is”, Jerry said.

“Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the

junk every situation is a choice.

You choose how you react to situations.

You choose how people will affect your mood.

You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood.

It’s your choice how you live your life.”

Several years later, I heard that Jerry accidentally did something you are never supposed to do in the restaurant business.

He left the back door of his restaurant open, and then…

…In the morning, he was robbed by three armed men.

While Jerry was trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination.

The robbers panicked and shot him! Luckily, Jerry was found quickly and rushed to hospital. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullet still in his body.

I saw Jerry about 6 months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, “If I were any better, I’d be twins. Want to see my scars?” I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place.

“The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door” Jerry replied.

“Then, after they shot me, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or I could choose to die. I chose to live”

“Weren’t you scared?” I asked

Jerry continued, “The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the Emergency room and I saw the expression on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read ‘He’s a dead man!’ I knew I needed to take action.”

“What did you do?” I asked

“Well, there was a big nurse shouting questions at me – she asked if I was allergic to anything, the doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, ‘Bullets!!’ Over their laughter I told them, ‘I am choosing to live. Please operate on me as if I am alive, not dead”

Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude.

I learned from him that every day you have the choice to either enjoy your life or to hate it.

The only thing that is truly yours – that no one can control or take from you – is your attitude, so if you can take care of that, everything else in life becomes much easier.