Illuminati Warning from Rev. G.W. Snyder

The Claim: George Washington was warned of the Illuminati of the New World Order conspiracy fame

The Reality: The Illuminati was a secret society founded in Bavaria in 1776, by Adam Weishaupt. This was group of intellectuals that espoused the ideals of the enlightenment. In fact Illuminati is the Latin plural of illuminatus, meaning "enlightened". In particular the illuminati espoused the enlightenment concept of Deism which had gained popularity among intellectuals of the time, which drew criticism and often resulted in vilification of them by religious leaders, and thus why it should come as no surprise that this correspondence to Washington was penned by a revered. The revered in his letter which you can find here:

http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/06-02-02-0435

...alleges that the Illuminati and the Jacobin (A group of French Revolutionaries) had infiltrated the Free Masons, a group that Washington himself was a member of, based on an account by John Robinson. Rev. Synder also warns that the tenets of the Illuminati, and of the Jacobin had spread into the U.S.

In response to this warning, Washington agrees that the Bavarian secret society of Illuminati and the Jacobin have harmful convictions, and that these convictions have spread to the United States, writing:

"It was not my intention to doubt that, the Doctrines of the Iluminati, and principles of Jacobinism had not spread in the United States. On the contrary, no one is more fully satisfied of this fact than I am."

However Washington denies the claim that the Free Masons had been infiltrated by Bavarian Illuminati or French Jacobins or their ideas, retorting that the Free Masons would never propagate the ideals of either group, writing:

"The idea I meant to convey, was, that I did not believe that the Lodges of Free Masons in this Country had, as Societies, endeavoured to propagate the diabolical tenets of the first {The Illuminati}, or the pernicious principles of the latter{The Jacobin}."

The main emphasis here being that the Illuminati, were not only a real group of real people, with a known set of beliefs, but was disbanded in 1787

Sources:
http://www.livescience.com/40048-what-is-the-illuminati.html
http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/06-02-02-0435

Do Dino Cells Prove Young Earth Creationism?

THE CLAIM: The discovery of dino blood cells proves dinosaurs lived very recently



THE REALITY: The discovery of what appear to be Osteocalcin and Hemoglobin fragments in a dinosaur fossil are an astounding discovery to be sure.

However, some Young Earth Creationists have heralded this find as evidence of  ~ 6,000 year old dinosaurs, however there are a number of problems with this interpretation. First, there are roughly 3,000 complete dinosaur skeletons and innumerable more incomplete sets, If dinosaur fossils were really as young as many creationists would like to believe, we'd expect to find surviving proteins in many of them. Yet most dinosaur fossils are fully permineralized. This find is significant insofar as it is literally the only example of what appear to be fragments of dinosaur proteins being preserved. It's clear that whatever process or set of conditions is responsible for preserving these organic compounds are exceptionally rare. The second problem is that the Schweitzer specimen (MOR 1125) was discovered in the Hell Creek Formation which consists of strata from the Upper Cretaceous and lower Paleocene. This indicates rather decisively that it is not the fossil that is young, but rather the organic fragments which are old.


Sources:

http://www.nature.com/news/molecular-analysis-supports-controversial-claim-for-dinosaur-cells-1.11637

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0016574

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2009/08/bone_dry.html

http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/pciesiel/gly3603c/fossils.html

http://www.fossilmuseum.net/fossilrecord/fossilization/fossilization.htm

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/paleo/fossils/permin.html

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/260238/Hell-Creek-Formation


-The Debunkist

Aluminum in Vaccines?

THE CLAIM: Vaccines contain aluminum which poses a health risk

THE REALITY: Trace metals occur naturally within the environment and and absorbed through the food we eat. The body contains dozens of different trace elements, the most well known of which are iron and zinc. Zinc aids cellular metabolism, and iron is used in blood hemoglobin. Likewise aluminum occurs naturally, and can be found in foods like spinach and potatoes. Most adults consume 1-10 mg aluminum daily from natural sources alone. Unlike Iron and zinc, aluminum doesn't serve any essential function in the body, however it isn't necessarily harmful either unless it accumulates to dangerous levels in the body which is generally true of almost any substance including iron or zinc. The body eliminates excess aluminum through urination.

Aluminum has been used in vaccinations for nearly 70 years to stimulate immune response, and there have been no reports of aluminum toxicity from vaccines. The quantity of aluminum is much too small, and the elimination of aluminum via urination too frequent to pose any significant health risk. In medical science there is a saying "The dosage makes the poison", and groups that wish to stoke the fires of fear and paranoia often fail to distinguish safe and unsafe levels of various substances.

Sources:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11259180

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1490425

http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Health+Myths+Unmasking+sources+aluminum+diets/8090675/story.html

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/adjuvants.html

-The Debunkist

Food Craving Myth

Some of you may have come across this image recently from Stepintomygreenworld.com or other similar claims made on other websites.

THE CLAIM: Food cravings indicate a nutritional deficiency, that can be met by eating healthier alternatives.

THE REALITY: While this may seem at first glance to be a perfectly plausible claim, there are a few things that should raise suspicion. But first let's talk about what food cravings are and we will get back to that. A food craving is a spontaneous intense desire for a highly specific food. This is most commonly experienced by women, particularly during pregnancy, but can occur to anyone at any time.

The claim that a specific desire for a twixt candy bar at 2am, for instance, can be satiated by eating "fruits & Veggies", while it may be appealing to those wishing to live a healthier lifestyle, the notion that such a specific desire can be met with such non-specific categories as fruits and vegetables as if all had the same nutritional qualities should be met with a grain of salt (figuratively of course).

A 2005 article in Scientific American by Dr. Peter Pressman and Dr. Roger Clemens notes "These yearnings, and those associated with nonfoodstuffs such as pagophagia (the practice of consuming ice) and geophagia (literally, earth-eating), are not linked to any obvious nutrient insufficiency. In some individuals food cravings and dietary restriction may be related; however, these observations are inconsistent with the majority of published studies."

This raises the question, if not nutritional deficiency then what does cause cravings? Well? There may be an answer for this as well. The article continues "Researchers have employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to explore the neural basis of cravings and the imaging data suggest that components of the amygdala, anterior cingulate, orbital frontal cortex, insula, hippocampus, caudate and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex are activated during periods of pining for food. It appears that there may be a network of neural regions that is involved with the emotion, memory and chemosensory stimuli of food craving."

The evidence points to a neurological rather than nutritional cause for cravings. These seem to be related to the hormones and stress levels that a person is experiencing which may go to explain why cravings are most common during pregnancy.

But for those who wish to combat these cravings, all hope is not lost. According to a 2010 press release from the Association for Psychological Science "Many research studies suggest that mental imagery may be a key component of food cravings — when people crave a specific food, they have vivid images of that food. Results of one study showed that the strength of participants’ cravings was linked to how vividly they imagined the food. Mental imagery (imagining food or anything else) takes up cognitive resources, or brain power. Studies have shown that when subjects are imagining something, they have a hard time completing various cognitive tasks."

...

"New research findings suggest that that this relationship may work in the opposite direction as well: It may be possible to use cognitive tasks to reduce food cravings. The results of one experiment revealed that volunteers who had been craving a food reported reduced food cravings after they formed images of common sights (for example, they were asked to imagine the appearance of a rainbow) or smells (they were asked to imagine the smell of eucalyptus). In another experiment, volunteers who were craving a food watched a flickering pattern of black and white dots on a monitor (similar to an untuned television set). After viewing the pattern, they reported a decrease in the vividness of their craved-food images as well as a reduction in their cravings."


Both links can be found below:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-food-cravings-the-bod/

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/the-psychology-of-food-cravings.html


-The Debunkist