MPJ

Let me ask you a hypothetical question. What would you first type into time machine if you had one? Would it be some date in the past or in distant future? Would you go to meet neanderthals or perhaps to take a photo of a T-Rex family from the distance? Or perhaps you'd go to see some historically relevant times to meet famous people from the past? Well, there is no doubt for me - one of my first time travels would definitely be 33AD, April 1st. The time of Christ and his last days, the time of the last supper, his death and resurrection. I have no idea how would I be able to hide my Nikon and smartphone but I am sure I would find a way. Every tourist trip requires a camera, doesn't it? However there would be other challenges, and in this case, even if I would try to dress accordingly and mingled into crowd, understanding old Aramaic which was spoken by most of Jesus followers or old Hebrew, Latin or Greek used officially among Jewish people or within Roman administration and a

Let me start this story with remarkable opening of the Michael D. Gordin's book named "The Pseudoscience Wars". The full quote is this: "No one in the history of the world has ever self-identified as a pseudoscientist. There is no person who wakes up in the morning and thinks to himself - I’ll just head into my pseudolaboratory and perform some pseudoexperiments to try to confirm my pseudotheories with pseudofacts". And this is the ultimate truth - there is no pseudoscience. It's not the real thing. You can, with more or less enthusiasm, add adjective "pseudo" to anything you like and get yourself the bad or opposite meaning of the original word. But in the world we are currently living in and with, for example, TV shows like " Ancient Aliens " being vastly popular than attending lectures or reading published scientific papers by professional archaeologists and historians, pseudo combined with science are now recognized word in almost

Have you ever been in situation to answer somebody's question with 'Yes and No'? Well, it is definitely one of those answers they are teaching politicians to answer every time they need to use some evasive maneuvers in order to avoid discussions they don't want to get into. But in this case, the answer to the question from the title, or expanded a little with: "Are you really behind the wheel of your body?" is really 'Yes and No'. And nothing could be closer to the truth. The keyword is of course Parasitology, a very complex scientific research that is trying to understand properly all the macro and micro organisms who can't live without other living beings and usually do that without their consent and rather use them to live their entire or partial life which in most cases leads to host's malfunction, to use raw mechanical word. They only leave hosts in case of their death or if the host's environment is exploited to the level of uselessne

Couple of weeks ago, we went out for usual supermarket shopping. The routine that everybody loves and what we people from big cities, from the time when first mall was invented, consider as a sort of entertainment. Thankfully we have one big supermarket just close by so that rainy day we stopped by again for the umpteenth time. I left my son in the toys department and checked my wife at the other part of the store, and found her pretty happy and busy with browsing for, well something, probably important we ran out from our home supplies. I didn't know what else to do so I decided to check couple of book shelves they like to call 'Bookshop and Entertainment'. Genesis, the first book of Moses Well, I surly don't have to describe in details what I have seen in there. The majority of book covers were designed with pastel colors, pretty girls and tender flowers of all sorts. Just for fun, I randomly opened one of the novels and read something like this " Her lip

Couple of centuries after Christ, Constantine was very popular name. Especially among soldiers in Roman and Bysantine empires along with Greeks during their Macedonian age. Within latin Cōnstantīnus and greek Κωνσταντῖνος (Kōnstantînos) name literally means the one who's constant and steadfast especially within military properties related to strength and stamina. In those times the land of my current location was called "Moesia Superior" with the city of Naissus in the role of its main trade center and biggest military outpost for Roman army. Today's name of the city is "Niš", the largest city of southern Serbia and also the city where I was born and where I live ever since. Serbian usage of the name is "Konstantin" and even though it is not related to military anymore, the name is fairly popular nowadays among young Serbians. It was third on my list when my son was born simply because I really like names with strong inner "adjectivity"

I am now sure that I made a mistake. Due to many professional challenges and lack of free time several years ago I decided to watch “The Da Vinci Code” and “Angels & Demons” instead of reading the books. I have no regrets though as the movies and Tom Hanks, being one of my favorite actors, in a leading role behind Robert Langdon’s brilliant mind, were perfect as well as the script and directing. However, with probably few exceptions, not even the best film out there can replace the book it was based on. Everybody knows that, so this time I didn't let myself to continue with excuses and bought remaining two "Robert Langdon" books, “The Lost Symbol” and new novel premiered just couple of months ago by the intriguing name “Inferno”. This vacation I read them both in a row. After last page I hate myself even more for not reading first two books in the first place. Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon Nevertheless, I feel that I need to say something about Dan Brown’s bril

There is no doubt that this comparison or question if you will is as old as humanity itself. Perhaps the basic idea of invisible forces driving human beings and everything around started to occupy human mind ever since it evolved beyond simple survival or in those prehistorical times when our ancestors started thinking about things not always related to eating, sleeping and populating the planet. It definitely originated way back in the time when people started to paint the cave walls. In the time when human mind started to use the most powerful feature other species still waiting to emerge. The power of imagination. The birth of superstition and religion didn't wait much longer after humans started daydreaming. What did I do?* I am always getting back and reading lots of articles out there trying to find the best explanation of what is the main difference between superstition and religion. There are lots of philosopher's, religious or even scientific thoughts trying to

Indeed, this should be a provocative post because of it's oxymoron in title. Surely I will not going to try to comprehend what I can't explain myself, just to put couple of thoughts on paper. So let's start from the word itself. God. What could it be?  There is one widespread theological simple explanation where all nowadays religions and the ones extinct in the past define this divine being(s) as extra powerful entity(ies) capable of the creation of everything. The mighty one(s) if you will. The history of God in all religions are more or less the same. It is full of wonders and love but also violence especially when two cultures collided or shared the same habitat with each other. Good thing today the habitat now is the whole planet and there are no big crusades any more, just small sparks here and there, but the danger of big explosion is always in the air and it is everywhere, Europe, Middle East, Far East, Americas.. The Creation of Adam, Michelangelo The big

What separates me from being an atheist and keep me into looking the world with skeptical eyes is the unknown and yet-not-explained phenomenons. Among all of them, the top mystery around us, is life itself, self-awareness, consciousness mind, brain functionality and prayer. Yes, prayer. Let me put it this way - unless we live in a delusional world where major population on Earth is doing their religious rituals in vain on daily bases, this topic deserves proper research in regards to brain functionality and social influences to life as we know it. Prayer itself should not be seen and studied as a ritual connected only to religious behavior. If you dismiss all super-divine entities and misusing prayer for questionable reasons to ask for favors, such as health, salvation, fame, victory or winning lottery numbers and transfer it into form of meditation, perhaps we should start understanding how everything works, even a little bit could be a threshold of breakthrough in scientific r