As I mentioned before, I keep finding dead things on the sidewalk outside of the building where I work. Well, it has done it again. This time it's a bird that has mysteriously died in roughly the same location as several other small creatures. While not as spectacular as the impact spray from the possibly suicidal frog that appeared to have jumped off of the roof, it is still worth documenting here. You know, for science:
During my current documentary viewing phase I came across a very nice show on Heron of Alexandria. As the Wikipedia article states, "Hero was known for his mechanical ingenuity in the ancient world, to include his contributions in military technology and theater. He also created devices used in temples to instill faith by deceiving believers with 'magical acts of the gods.'"
Among his literally awe inspiring inventions used in the temples of the time were temple doors that automatically opened when a fire was lit on an altar, a priest controlled device to make a mechanical bird chirp as an answer to a yes/no question, and a coin operated holy water dispenser (perhaps history's first coin operated vending machine). All of these were seen as acts of the gods and instilled faith in the uninitiated.
This whole thing of duping people to strengthen their faith has always brought up some interesting questions for me. First, how could the duper remain a believer in any way? They've seen the way people make up reasons for the unexplained–things that trickster could easily explain. This leads to the issue of how could you even base your faith on the eye witness accounts of others? I read a great book on memory a few years ago called White Gloves that, if memory serves (har har), does an excellent job of explaining how the human memory is way too malleable to be trusted completely.
I saw another firsthand example of this many years ago. A friend of one of my brother's was an amateur magician. He had a trick where he would ask for a quarter and a cigarette. He'd then push the cigarette through the quarter and light it up. He then took a few puffs, removed the cigarette, and gave the quarter back.
The trick was done using a prop quarter that had a hole drilled through it. The hole was filled by the underside of a tiny hinged door to look like the back of a normal quarter. He'd palm the quarter he was given and then use his own to complete the trick. If you saw the heads side of the quarter you'd see the little door. Of course the tails side is the only side exposed because it's the side that doesn't vary, unless it's a bicentennial quarter. When asked about the trick people would swear that they saw both sides of the quarter because he turned it enough that you could see that the cigarette was penetrating the quarter. Their minds filled in the rest and convinced them that they had indeed seen both sides.
So given the unreliability of memory, eye witness accounts, and word of mouth, are all good magicians atheists (or at least agnostic)? Once you've seen enough people react to "magic" how could you ever believe in the accounts of 2000+ year old miracles? Regardless, the kind of critical thinking you begin to acquire after seeing how enough tricks are done leads me to think that stage magic should be required learning in high school or college.