In the UK, many towns and cities, including mine, started supporting Ukraine by lighting up ...

Fernapple comments on Feb 25, 2022:

Hopefully they will not, most people if they attend carefully know that the Russian support for Putin and his actions is far from warm. And the few assholes who don't, probably could not tell a Russian from a Nigerian anyway.

Science does not always take the most direct route, but will get there eventually.

Fernapple comments on Feb 25, 2022:

Religion exists to justify things which can't be discovered by any known method, the more things discovered by any method, the smaller religion gets. I can hardly see it now.

75 years if counted in moons.

Fernapple comments on Feb 25, 2022:

Who knows, early Hebrew was very difficult to read, especially the number system which changed over time. Its like, the story teller said. " I used to know this really smart guy, called Noah. Who said. There is bound to be a flood one day. So he built a boat big enough for all his family and two each of all the farm animals." And the story tellers grandson said. " I used to know this really smart guy, called Noah. Who said. There is bound to be a flood one day. So he built a boat big enough for all his family and two each of all the animals." "Hey did he miss out the word 'farm' then ?" "Shut up will you ! I'm listening to the story."

Is Vladimir Putin the Joseph Stalin of his time?

Fernapple comments on Feb 25, 2022:

No I don't think so, Stalin was cynical and realistic to a criminal degree, where Putin is delusional, and almost certainly half believes his vision of his destiny.

“Anything can be interesting, as long as you access it from the right angle.

Fernapple comments on Feb 25, 2022:

Very like all those, if you are content with little then you are always rich, nuggets of wisdom that are so widespread. And since boredom is perhaps our worst and most harmful form of poverty, which does more to drive us to destroy the environment and the balance of our own lives than any other. This makes the point that the best function of education, should be to teach appreciation, not, how to slave hard to enrich your capitalists and political masters, because they promise that one day they will spare you enough wealth to buy your way out of boredom, as if that was even possible. Best of luck with that world.

Latest quilt . . . I am in love with it and would marry it if that were legal.

Fernapple comments on Feb 25, 2022:

Perfect.

As far as cosmology is concerned, I’m a thoroughgoing materialist.

Fernapple comments on Feb 24, 2022:

Nope. That is just the original sin fallacy, dressed up in fancy clothes.

As far as cosmology is concerned, I’m a thoroughgoing materialist.

Fernapple comments on Feb 24, 2022:

After an extensive and in depth search, I have failed to find any heavens, hells, god or demons in my psychological realm, and if I did, I would probably go to see a psychologist, (Because there is a clue in the name. ) and I would probably tell the doctor that the priest may have put them there.

Watching the 1920 silent film "Dr.

Fernapple comments on Feb 24, 2022:

Some people claim that churches are that, and some of the things that you see emerging from churches, well........

My question is,...

Fernapple comments on Feb 24, 2022:

When you get to my/their age, we all look like comic book villains.

Human life is the result of a glorious evolutionary accident. - Stephen Jay Gould

Fernapple comments on Feb 24, 2022:

So is all life. But to quote Dawkins. "To at least the first order of magnitude all life is extinct." And we are not especially privileged.

[arstechnica.com] Theory about dinosaur die off

Fernapple comments on Feb 23, 2022:

The seasonality of it was perhaps though always a factor, some of the survivors like bees for example had to be in hibernation at the time of impact, since if you depended on flowers for food, you would not have lasted long otherwise. And it had to be winter in at least one hemisphere.

The Dragonfly ( 2 videos ) ● The Insane Biology of: The Dragonfly [youtu.

Fernapple comments on Feb 23, 2022:

A year or two ago, I had the pleasure of making what was for me an original observation, though I am sure I am far from the first. I sat on the bank of a small river on Crete on a very hot afternoon. It was very busy with flying predators, both swifts and dragonflies, but one half of the river was in shade and the other in hot sun. And it was not hard to see, that they had divided the river between them, all the swifts, ( Maybe because they are hot blooded ?) were hunting along the shaded half, flying up and down the length, and all the dragonflies (Cold blooded ?) were doing the same on the sunlight side.

I live in the bible belt and it's getting worst being around those people who keep believing this is...

Fernapple comments on Feb 23, 2022:

Hello and welcome. You will find community here, if you are looking for it. But do not let that stop you spreading your search wider, you are certainly not alone if you are a sceptic, there are many more out there than it may seem at first glance.

“Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity himself, than ...

Fernapple comments on Feb 23, 2022:

The tragedy off the dishonest is that they can never truly learn anything or progress, since they always assume that everyone else is dishonest too. So that if anyone tells them a truth, especially one that is counter to their beliefs or intuition, they just dismiss it as fiction. And so they forever remain ignorant and infantile.

The other day, I bought a pair of pyjamas for a change.

Fernapple comments on Feb 23, 2022:

Well done. you just set transatlantic relations back fifty years.

In my continuing effort to understand why so many people who claim to prefer science over faith are ...

Fernapple comments on Feb 23, 2022:

1. It is not really a matter for science, it is an issue for history, and like the old saw goes. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat its mistakes. Looking to science alone, is mainly looking in the wrong place. 2. It would be strange if religion did not have some benefits, since that would make it the only major part of the human condition, which did not have a lot of, both benefits and debits. Life is complex and most things have complex origins and complex interactions with all the other aspects of life, people therefore who look for simple answers are doomed to life long misunderstanding. 3. Most atheists/agnostics, being mortal humans, are interested mainly in what religion is today and what it will become in the near, half knowable, future, since that is the age in which we and our immediate descendants will live. Times change and things which once had a net benefit may with time become, great evils. 3a. One of the greatest advances in human history probably came, when we first learned to use fire, to cook otherwise inedible food, and to warm us in cold climate, without fire we would probably never have become numerous, nor without its help developed technology and civilization. So in the lost distant past, when the first trails of smoke rose each night into the sky, they probably signaled a truly huge leap forwards for humans. But that does not mean that air pollution is a good and needful part of human life, today or forever. Nor does it mean that it would be a good thing, if everyone on the planet today went out and started cutting up and burning forests. 4. You say. "I have found no scholarly debates about whether religion is rooted in evolution, on the one hand, or just in common error or criminality, on the other." That is because, it would probably be impossible to find anyone with able to hold the title of scholar, at least with genuine zeal, who would imagine that it could be that simple, or even that evolution and error/criminality are mutually exclusive, and it is one or the other, which is a false dichotomy only the simple minded or criminally corrupt would accept. And even that the study of evolution and error/crime do not belong in the alternate spheres of science or history and social science anyway. 5. I also failed to find much science studying the relationship between politics and criminality, or news media work and criminality, probably because some things are not considered to be within the remit of science, though perhaps they should be. Which occurs because, politics, arts and news media are not usually considered by our culture as possibly criminal or anti social, and science fits within its parent culture. However I would be the first to suggest that that is a serious oversight. ...

Q: If the British call French fries "chips" and potato chips "crisps", then what do they call ...

Fernapple comments on Feb 22, 2022:

PS. Toad In The Hole, does not contain any dead or live toad, and it is not cooked in a hole.

Q: If the British call French fries "chips" and potato chips "crisps", then what do they call ...

Fernapple comments on Feb 22, 2022:

Someone seems to have eaten the potato.

Knowing that I would become a staunch atheist, god still created me to help others appreciate the ...

Fernapple comments on Feb 22, 2022:

"Doin' God's work brother."

Given good health, if you fool yourself into believing that the best years of your life are now ...

Fernapple comments on Feb 22, 2022:

Alternatively in my experience. If your life starts out nasty, then the only way is up.

Pastor Threatens To Purge His Church Of “Witches" - YouTube

Fernapple comments on Feb 21, 2022:

The audience have to be barking too to take that and cheer. You don't need much imagination to think of at least four alternate explanations, so what would you bet on ? 1. Six women in the congregation annoyed him, and he is taking revenge. ( Note. I don't mention the sex predator term, that's too easy a bet.) 2. He caught them doing something silly, but basically harmless, like reading the horoscope page in the paper. 3. He caught six women doing something clever and moral, like talking science. 4. The six women don't exist he just made them up, to look really smart in front of the brainwashed. 5. Other, your funniest idea.

Those were the days, my friend.🙂

Fernapple comments on Feb 21, 2022:

Done that, been there, but did not get the teeshirt.

Pastor Threatens To Purge His Church Of “Witches" - YouTube

Fernapple comments on Feb 21, 2022:

Sad an pathetic.

MURDER MOST FOWL Is it ethical to kill animals if you then eat them?

Fernapple comments on Feb 21, 2022:

All creatures must die, and of all the agents of death, humans are perhaps the only ones who have any concern, to lessen or minimize the suffering that dying brings with it. The symptoms of old age, disease, starvation, parasites, natural predators, and cancer etc., none of those care how much suffering they cause during the process of death. So that in many ways you could say that those who are killed by human hunters or slaughter-men, are the lucky ones, and that in all probability our killing reduces the overall amount of misery in the world. What is much more questionable, is the farming of livestock. It seems very doubtful that taking animals from their natural environments, and locking them in tiny cages, where they rub themselves sore on the bars, and spend most of their lives lying on their own waste, without contact with sunlight or normal social interactions with other members of their species, often prone to disease through mismanagement, and drugged to make them passive and faster growing, and bred with painfully distorted bodies, to enlarge the parts we like to eat, giving birth to unnaturally large offspring and litters and frequently intensionally terrified to make them obedient, really does not increase the net amount of misery and suffering in the world. You could make a good case not for veganism, but certainly for wild game and roadkill only.

“If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you.

Fernapple comments on Feb 21, 2022:

Thousands of years of effort have gone into finding ways, to make dogs like humans. Thousands of years of effort have gone into finding ways, to make humans hate humans.

Studies say atheists, believers both do good, but for different reasons - The Washington Post

Fernapple comments on Feb 21, 2022:

Only in America would the question even be asked.

In 20 words or less, can you define the symmetry here?

Fernapple comments on Feb 21, 2022:

Yes. The size of the buttocks, is in inverse proportion to that of the brain.

Why I walked away from the faith of my youth, by Dan Foster. [link.medium.com]

Fernapple comments on Feb 20, 2022:

Wow, that is one long list. Especially given that any one of those should be enough.

Quality of life and community values

Fernapple comments on Feb 20, 2022:

The world is full of things that nearly everyone agrees on, but everybody thinks someone else should be putting it right.

i see lots of posts depicting belief, believers, religion etc.

Fernapple comments on Feb 20, 2022:

A lot of anti-religion posts are made by new members, who are often looking for affirmation, reassurance and community. So they make obvious statements about religion in order to reassure themselves that they are in the right place, and in the hope that that will earn them credit with the new community they are joining. It is best to just give a little encouragement if you can, even if you have read identical things hundreds of times before, or if you can't be bothered with that, ( and there are days when I can't ) then you can just ignore them, there is plenty of other stuff on here. (Though sometimes I think that there is a little too much provincial politics.) And the same goes for the few smart ass old blokes, whose hight of intellectual attainment is bashing the other lot. Just be kind to dumb animals, or ignore them. I can assure you from personal experience, that we dumb ass old blokes are quite used to being ignored.

Lesson Number for this week.

Fernapple comments on Feb 20, 2022:

Far two many mushroom farmers out there, harvesting their crop every Sunday.

The thing predictable about this life is.

Fernapple comments on Feb 20, 2022:

Yep very true. Though there are really two truths there. The one about chaos and its effect on life, and the one about moral value judgments based on financial success. They would perhaps have made two even better posts if posted apart.

So I was checking my emails and I saw one with knock, knock in the subject line.

Fernapple comments on Feb 20, 2022:

Costs even less than the really cheap, third rate paper, they print their leaflets on.

So that's why it takes so long.

Fernapple comments on Feb 20, 2022:

I wonder if he is the same one who carries the, transfer funds to your bank account messages ?

The one bucket list item I figure I'll never really get done, would be to go to China.

Fernapple comments on Feb 20, 2022:

Don't dream it, do it.

Freethinkers = deists?

Fernapple comments on Feb 20, 2022:

Most of what is said below is perfectly good. So I will just add a short funny one. A deist is someone who rejects belief in religion but not god. A freethinker is someone who rejects belief in everything except thought.

I am enjoying these facts today.

Fernapple comments on Feb 19, 2022:

You would need six files, at least.

I was once and naive enough to think our legal system in the US was a good system that had a few ...

Fernapple comments on Feb 19, 2022:

To be a bit cynical. Being the most "inefficient, corrupt, biased system in the world" is a big ask. There are that I know of no legal systems which are not all of those things, in fact, I am pretty sure that to have one that is not, would be impossible.

Because it's been in the news lately, whether Jewish is a race, culture, religion or ethnicity.

Fernapple comments on Feb 19, 2022:

1. Biologically there are no human races, race is not a scientific usage, the idea of it only exists in folklore. ( So nobody belongs to any race.) 2. Of the traditional folklore races, the Jewish belief spans nearly all of them, and so it could only be called a multiracial belief, even if races existed. 3. However, a large part of the Jewish traditional religion originates from a time when race was believed in, and a large part of the religion is concerned with the idea that being Jewish is racial. Another thing that religion got wrong. 4. There is however a small ultra orthodox sect called the Samaritans, (Yes, the ones in the story supposedly told by the Jesus character.) who claim to be the only true Jews, and to have maintained racial purity by strict marriage and sex laws. Which is why the other Jews traditionally got annoyed with them. As you may guess they are now highly inbred, have low fertility and other birth defects, and there are only a few thousand left. But yes, they alone could perhaps claim to be racial Jews, if that term had meaning. Are you more confused now ? So is everyone, and so especially are most believers, including those who filled in your marriage papers. For them it may be forgivable ignorance, for your state to still include the question, especially without a qualifier like , "traditional" or "self defined" is not forgivable.

Because…..Ignorance is my downfall?!?!?

Fernapple comments on Feb 18, 2022:

Against sober thought, it works very well.

when did it start?

Fernapple comments on Feb 18, 2022:

Thank you. I never heard of him.

I am actually wordywalt, but somehow I cannot gain access on my original account.

Fernapple comments on Feb 18, 2022:

Somewhere you will have a page shot of your password, or a bit of paper with all your passwords on it. Preferably both ? One easy way to think of these things is just keep saying "passwords" over and over. If you do not like to record passwords, this may be worth thinking about for the future, the best way to get strong ones that you can easily remember, is to use a basic chunk of password which is the same for all sites, and is strong like say Mmud?/"2flump, and then add a simple code to each one based on the site name. Such as say the second and third letters backwards. So your bank would be "na", and Agnostic would be "ng", plus perhaps a time code for each year like, add five, so that 2022 would be 2027 that way you only have one password to remember plus a simple code, or two. I know that is no help now, but worth thinking about.

I have several Facebook friends who are constantly proselytizing.

Fernapple comments on Feb 18, 2022:

Yes. You can be anybody you want online, but if they have two faces which are different, then you have to question just how good a friends they are, at the very least for reliability.

Gorillas and God: Evolutionary Roots of Religion by Dr.

Fernapple comments on Feb 18, 2022:

Interesting talk, though a lot was not that new. I am inclined to think that there is a little more genetic determinism in the origins of religion than she does, and her conclusion at the end that religion is a almost entirely cultural emergence, is a little too strong. But my differences with her on that point are very slight and nuanced, and well within the range of tolerance, so that I would not want to disagree enough to put my none specialist status to the test. Though I do think, that her compounding in one or two places in the talk however, of religion with morality, show a preconception, derived from what is probably her own religious culture, which is not strictly justified. Speaking in several places of, empathy for example, as associated with religion. Which means of course that if you want to claim as she does that, empathy is associated with religion, and is mainly a cultural thing, then you have to deny that it has genetic origin, which I think may well be the reason she is forced to distance herself from genetic determinism, to a degree not really reasonable.

Do we need religion to create a moral society? - Ask A Bitchface II

Fernapple comments on Feb 18, 2022:

Good. One thousand and seventy five years, I wonder if we will ever see a Catholic priest get that ? Sadly the only legal difference observable, between a religion and a cult, is only how many voters a religion can control.

Two four-year-olds, a boy and a girl, compare their bodies.

Fernapple comments on Feb 17, 2022:

Two four-year-olds, a boy and a girl, compare their bodies. Says the boy as he lowers his pants, “Ha ha, I have this and I bet you don’t!” Replies the little girl as she lowers hers. “I bet, you never knew that Catholics and Protestants were this different !”

"It is curious that while good people go to great length to spare their children from suffering, few...

Fernapple comments on Feb 17, 2022:

Could not agree more. And as the good party times for the human race are almost certainly coming to an end, and the future is probably bleak to a degree we have never seen before. That is more true than ever.

These are pictures of my SadieBaby. I don’t have children, just dogs.✌️🤟😊

Fernapple comments on Feb 17, 2022:

Hello and welcome. We like dogs here.

Gorillas and God: Evolutionary Roots of Religion by Dr.

Fernapple comments on Feb 17, 2022:

Sorry it may be interesting, but the pay wall is just too much.

[youtu.

Fernapple comments on Feb 17, 2022:

Great, one of the best short satires we had in a long time. Would it be possible you could post a text of the lyrics ?

I don't find it lonely at all but I suppose some people do and for those people there is church.

Fernapple comments on Feb 17, 2022:

The thousand year lead that the churches have in building, is a big asset to them yes. But it will go, take heart from what has happened over the last century in places like England. We now have vast numbers of empty churches, which are no longer used, and are now shops and houses, while more people spend more time in helping in secular charity shops, and at events in libraries, village and town halls, than ever go to churches. While very soon if trends continue, secular charities will be performing the majority of weddings and funerals.

Happiness - YouTube

Fernapple comments on Feb 17, 2022:

Ah the American Nightmare. Funny, I am sure I heard that phrase somewhere before.

Skeptics have been around for centuries!

Fernapple comments on Feb 17, 2022:

And that is all you really need to know.

What’s the difference between “ misinformation “ and “lie”?

Fernapple comments on Feb 16, 2022:

Intention ?

Do you shop at WalMart and if so does it bother you or do you think it is just capitalism at work?

Fernapple comments on Feb 16, 2022:

We have a local shop in the village, and he goes to the discount store to buy products and then puts them on the shelves. Because the discount stores are often cheaper than the wholesalers he can use. So if you do go to the local store, you may still be buying stuff from the conglomerates.

“Every myth is psychologically symbolic.

Fernapple comments on Feb 16, 2022:

Whether religion is metaphorical or literal, is completely beside the point as to whether it is a good thing or not. When your holy book tells you that you should kick sleeping prostitutes to wake them. It does not matter if you read that literally, and go around looking for sleeping prostitutes to apply the toe of your boot to. Or if you read it to mean, metaphorically, that sex workers are a lesser form of sub-human life, to be treated with far less humanity and respect than other people. It is still a nasty idea. The main trouble (there are others ) with the metaphorical view of religion, is that, when people like Campbell go down the metaphorical route. They naturally look for metaphors which match with their own preconceived idea of wisdom, mainly in order to prove that the metaphorical view is true. But in so doing they fail to notice, that they are thereby, by default, cherry picking, and the the wisdom they find thereby has a built in confirmation bias, because if you look for wisdom wisdom is what you will find. Which not only confirms to them the truth of the metaphorical view, but also leads to the delusion that the whole metaphorical view of their sources is good and wise, or leads to understanding. Which is not true, a lot of metaphorical interpretation of ancient myth which is possible, can be both bad and evil. Perhaps even more of it than is good. While a lot of ancient myth is probably just random and meaningless dross, which accumulated by accident between the meaningful bits, whether they are literal history or metaphorical originally. And the main problem with using ancient myth, ( Except perhaps for a few bits, cherry picked because they bring a deeper understanding of psychology, rather than moral wisdom. Which some bits do, though it is often an unhappy view of psychology.) is that it always submits to interpretation, and the metaphorical view leads to an even greater level of interpretation. Indeed a whole other level of interpretation. Which compounds the problems of trying to use what was often just random, meaningless and contradictory clutter, in a search for truth. The main one of which is that anyone can, and they usually do, place any interpretation they want on to it, and then make the claim that their interpretation is a privileged truth, having greater authority than others, because it is supported by either, deep metaphor, or literal sacred truth. Well sorry but only criminals and tyrants have a use for privileged truth.

My next project.

Fernapple comments on Feb 16, 2022:

And they followed the colour wheel series as well.

Why, yes we will.

Fernapple comments on Feb 16, 2022:

Well I would hope to survive long enough, to view a few more pretty ladies in tight vests before I kick the bucket. Are you not going to post a photo of you modeling it for us ?

How to correct the map location?

Fernapple comments on Feb 16, 2022:

No idea. It may though not be just a problem with this site. The site may be using algorithms and servers from the outside to locate you, and they are far from infallible. Even the almighty Google and Microsoft have between them, decided that I live about a hundred miles from my actual location. Despite me trying to put them right. It is thought by some that the power of digital media, via the net, to do things like locate you exactly, and know all about you, is some sort of threat, in my limited experience it is not much of a threat, because even the biggest and best of them are completely incompetent anyway.

Was Jesus created by man?

Fernapple comments on Feb 14, 2022:

No. There are some really neat theories out there though, everything from literally true, metaphorically true, may have been a real person with lots of myths attached , may have been a real person with lots of fiction attached, complete fiction, some myth some fiction and some truth, may have been several people merged together with or without fiction as well, may be a much older story retold with new names and times, political propaganda invented by the Romans, etc. All of them had some believers who made really good sounding cases, until you start to look for real evidence, of which there is none, and all the theories equally therefore stand on thin air. But people have a lot of fun with speculation, and as long as you realize it is only speculation for fun, there seems little harm in it. But sadly some people will take it seriously, and then it can be really dangerous. I have enjoyed the three Jesus theory recently. Many scholars have pointed out that there seem to be two contradictory persons in the text. One, who was a hard line fundamentalist rabbi who preached against foreign ideas and wanted hard line law, and the liberal pacifist who preached brotherhood etc.. The theory goes that the first was a real historic person, who became part of folklore, and the second is a fictional invention, tacked on to the name and reputation of the first later, by authors with a different agenda. It then goes on that there was then a third famous person, whose only claim to fame was that he survived being crucified, probably simply because he was taken down too early while still alive, and who may or may not have shared a name with the other two, ( It was a very common name. ) who then got into the mix by mistake or intention to deceive. The whole concoction is complete crap of course, but it is fun and just as likely to be true as any of the other theories.

Can you choose what to believe?

Fernapple comments on Feb 14, 2022:

At best, you can only choose from the selection offered to you by your brain via your own experiences, and those ideas offered to you by your own culture. Which means that the ideas of cultures you have no contact with, and ideas which no one including yourself have ever thought of, are forever off the menu. Which may well be many fundamental truths about the universe. Another big factor is, that humans are basically lazy. Which is an evolved survival strategy that once helped us to save time and energy, in the days when food was hard to come by, and hunting time consuming. And cowardly, we fear doubt and uncertainty. But those factors mean that, we tend naturally therefore, to prefer short simple answers lacking in nuance and complications. Yet the universe is we know, complicated and filled with important detail, which means that our in built bias, in favour of simple answers, may well be a bias leading us away from truth and understanding. Even worse we may tend to choose to believe lies rather than truths, because lies can be made up and deliberately engineered to be simple and easy, in order to be favoured by that bias. Being able to choose may not always be helpful. (I like this, may well post it. Thanks for the inspiration.)

How can I do my settings so I can see both males and females that live near me or near my friends?

Fernapple comments on Feb 14, 2022:

If you look under search members, you can find a map page and zoom in on your area. The map feature is a bit hard to find, but it works well when you get there, except that it does tend to list a lot of old members who joined looked and never came back again.

Chicago skyline summer and winter sunset from nw Indiana lakeshore

Fernapple comments on Feb 14, 2022:

Great photos, really manage to make the skyline seem important and yet far away.

Pastor holds “ol’ fashioned” book burning to destroy “witchcraft” items [wildhunt.org]

Fernapple comments on Feb 13, 2022:

What a wonderful human being. Makes me thankful for the Atlantic.

When was God born?

Fernapple comments on Feb 13, 2022:

Probably quite late, in that most early religion was animistic and gave personality to things, but did not conceive of gods as distinct form the things themselves. Gods as such, probably came on to the scene only at about the same time a collective cultures on a large scale appeared. While the idea of a monotheist god did not even exist in, for example, the earliest versions of the Old Testament, much before five or six hundred BCE. If you read the OT you can still find traces of the earlier polytheism, such as references to, our god, as though he was still one of many. Which is also about the same time that the polytheistic Greeks and Romans began to speculate about a philosophical metaphorical mono-god behind the polytheism, as an ideal.

What happened to the nonbelief channel at Patheos?

Fernapple comments on Feb 13, 2022:

Nothing like a good bit of healthy negativity. That's What I say.

I think it was posed not 'shopped but awesome either way

Fernapple comments on Feb 13, 2022:

Newton's laws do not apply equally everywhere.

I have been saying this for years! Old people have a harder time remembering things because we have ...

Fernapple comments on Feb 13, 2022:

Yes fortunately, I hope, I have always been good a forgetting.

Excuse me while I throw up.

Fernapple comments on Feb 13, 2022:

I did not know who she was. So I Googled her. And I usually avoid saying things like this on this site, where USA is the main population base. But you Americans are just weird, weird, weird, weird, WEIRD, weird !?!?!?! OK I said it now. Now here is a link to a page with some photos and videos of, your very own, female curling team in the winter games. Just chill with them for a minute, rethink what you think female charm should be, and we will all feel a lot better. https://www.nbcsports.com/philadelphia/beijing-2022-winter-olympics/us-womens-curling-triumphs-over-denmark-winter-olympics

Religions inclusiveness/exclusiveness in eastern vs western religions.

Fernapple comments on Feb 13, 2022:

No, I think that as a westerner, it is easy to be naive about eastern religion, because all we tend to see is the smiling face of the missionary advancing to greet us. There is a long and whole series of violent conflict between Hindu sects and castes, Hindu and Buddhism, Buddhism and Toa, Shinto and Buddhism, Tao an confucianism and widespread intolerance of many philosophies. Religion certainly reflects the wider societies within which it finds itself, and so western and Arab religion may reflect western/Arab empires and their aggressive imperial traditions. While the monotheist religions may also reflect the patrician traditions of the nomadic desert tribes who started them. ( In the simple environment of the desert, there are no alternate lifestyles, only the absolute following of the flock and the, usually, man who owns it. ) So that the western monotheist religions may have a slightly deeper darkness than most, but it would be unwise to think they are alone in their evils.

It just blows my mind that after thousands of years of evolution and intellectual advancement, ...

Fernapple comments on Feb 13, 2022:

Evolution needs millions of years, or at least tens of thousands, sadly. While we have only been doing intellectually advancement for a few centuries at most, and really significant intellectual advancement in only a small part of the world for a few tens of decades. We may never get there anyway but it certainly has not had much time yet.

It just blows my mind that after thousands of years of evolution and intellectual advancement, ...

Fernapple comments on Feb 13, 2022:

Sadly our nature makes us readily accept everything our cultures tell us. We are hard wired to accept cultural input without question. But human culture in which we place so much faith, itself is almost completely pliable, and can be bent and shaped at will by those who control it, to say almost anything they wish, and it often says just random things which we inherit and no one controls, whose meaning is lost. So we place all our faith in something which often has no substance, or even makes any attempt at objective truth, a nebulous cloud reshaped by the merest puffs of wind. Like sailors trying to navigate by clouds rather than by the stars and the compass needle. Yet in that there is also a contradiction, and a hope, because that means that we can also readily create counter cultures, like science, philosophy and history. Which do attempt to justify themselves by working hard to find objective testable truth, even if they can not succeed completely. And then it is just a matter of promoting those counter cultures well enough, a question of mere quantity rather than type.

Did religion give an advantage to pre-industrial revolution societies?

Fernapple comments on Feb 13, 2022:

Some religions may have, some may have been harmful and a few may have totally destroyed their societies. Societies, states and cultures, in the past especially, were many and varied, as were religions. Some say that for example, ( It is debatable. ) the ecology of Easter Island was destroyed, and with it the means to support a large population, by the addiction to making spirit statues of the ancestors, causing too much tree felling. That the Inca religious belief that their empire would only last ninety years, and that it would end with a visit from the gods, made them easy victims for the conquistadors. While on the opposite side, it is said that complex Buddhist marriage laws, may have helped restrict population growth among some cultures in the Himalayas, and thus made for a sustainable way of life. And certainly many early empires only survived because of the belief in holy god kings. It is all very complex. You can only really ask the question with the qualifier, "overall" and I am not sure that you can even give a good answer to that, without a lot of subjective value judgments, or that the answer would be useful if you could. Sorry to be a bummer.

Forget the symbolism of martyrdom and righteous devotion to blind faith, do you not find it utterly ...

Fernapple comments on Feb 13, 2022:

For a long time there was debate among historians over whether people were tied or nailed to the cross. It is now mainly thought that it was both, because if you just fasten them with rope their arms and legs shrink as the circulation declines and then slip out, while nails can and will pull through. Also after a while, hanging from the ropes becomes painful, and the victim finds it hard work to breath, they could however, and did attempt to ease this by moving, which they could only do by using the nails to raise their weight, which is also painful, but it prolongs the suffering by helping breathing. The constant need to try and find ease between the pain of the ropes and the nails therefore kept the victim constantly squirming, which was regarded by the Romans as the main horror of that form of death. After a while, fluid builds up around the lungs and this could stop breathing, causing a quicker death. So it is thought that the practice of pushing a spear point into the side under the ribs, to let off the fluid, and thus further prolong suffering, grew up. By giving hydration in the form of water made unpleasant with vinegar, the victim could be kept squirming for three or four days. I do not know if telling them this will make any difference, but you could try it. ( Some people have speculated that the idea that Jesus was lowered from the cross early after barely three days , much sooner than usual, thanks to Joseph bribing the guard. Was a sign that maybe he was not truly dead when brought down. Which could explain a lot. )

Forget the symbolism of martyrdom and righteous devotion to blind faith, do you not find it utterly ...

Fernapple comments on Feb 13, 2022:

I don't know, I live in the UK and you hardly ever see that here.

I said what I said 🙌🙌🦇🦇😂 [vm.tiktok.com]

Fernapple comments on Feb 13, 2022:

You just know that he tried a dog, and that did not work well either.

God is irresponsible!!! Just kidding...he doesn't exist.

Fernapple comments on Feb 12, 2022:

If he does not exist then he is certainly not responsible, best excuse ever.

Religion is Not about God [agnostic.com] .

Fernapple comments on Feb 12, 2022:

Nope. There are far worse things than that in a lot of them.

Okay Peoples, who's for the Challenge?

Fernapple comments on Feb 12, 2022:

Never have drunk alcohol on any of those days, except a small one on the 29th every few years, so I am well ahead of the game. Maybe I can have an extra drink or two ?

You need to regret the same thing as many times as it takes for you to eventually realize it is ...

Fernapple comments on Feb 12, 2022:

Hello and welcome. Yes , while it is true that it is better if you regret nothing, that does work as a second best, and does drum home the lessons of life's experiences so that you don't forget them.

When you don't know shit

Fernapple comments on Feb 11, 2022:

Yes but a horse , a cow and a deer don't all eat the same stuff.

• X-Men is about civil rights.

Fernapple comments on Feb 11, 2022:

Perhaps the very earliest, Superman, started out fighting the Nazis during the war, and the joke was of course that he was supposed to also be an ironic stab at the Nazi ideal of the racial superman and master race. So that an alien master race was set against a false master race. That enabled quite a nice set of ironic twisted jokes to be hidden in the subtext, so the the stories could be read at several different levels by people of different understandings. Quite clever in lots of ways. Nothing to do with your point, but just a little facto I thought you would like.

Is morality objective or subjective?

Fernapple comments on Feb 11, 2022:

I think that morality is subjective, until you have determined the objective or purpose to which you intend to put it. As in, a saw is just a piece of metal until you decide to cut some wood, then it becomes a wood saw. So morality is both subjective and objective, depending on whether you view it from the perspective of someone with a purpose in mind, or you see there as being no purpose for morality to serve.

Washington State Senate OKs ban on sales of gun ammunition magazines with more than 10 rounds.

Fernapple comments on Feb 11, 2022:

We have never allowed automatics in the UK and even revolvers and semi-automatics are virtually banded, while the law requires that guns must be licensed and kept at all times in locked safes, (which have to be examined and approved by the police, ) when the guns are not openly in hand. That to continue to hold a license you must prove a genuine use, like hunting, be at least eighteen and buy ammunition regularly to prove that you are still active. And guess what ? We have very healthy hunting and marksmanship subcultures.

Bright future

Fernapple comments on Feb 11, 2022:

Hello and welcome. It is certainly a sunny day here.

Looking for friends

Fernapple comments on Feb 11, 2022:

Hello and welcome. Enjoy the site. You will certain find pen-friends here at the very least, and if you like that idea, then the site will be a great source of joy. Unfortunately though we are a bit spread out, and so actual physical contact is rare, though quite a few have managed to get withing hugging range over the years I am told.

I can't stand Bible thumpers trying to save so called souls.

Fernapple comments on Feb 11, 2022:

It is hard to hold on to your fantasies in a world which asks questions. Therefore questioning must be suppressed, even if that means converting and suppressing questioners.

Scientism is defined as the view that science and scientific method are the best or only objective ...

Fernapple comments on Feb 11, 2022:

Well if you like to be open minded, then there are other ways of looking at that too. For example you can take the historical view. That once almost all of human culture was religious. Which is to say that, all culture was received wisdom or folly handed down traditionally and only justified by tradition. Indeed the original Roman word "religio" meant exactly the same thing as the term, "our culture" would today. But by about the sixth century BCE it was becoming clear to many people in different parts of the world, that merely accepting traditional untested handed down knowledge without question, was not working very well, especially as technology and politics advanced, and people started to have contact with many more cultures, whose religion often, openly, contradicted their own. So at about that time, the idea that tradition alone was enough justification to be certain of the truth of an idea, began to be questioned. And in several parts of the world: India, China and especially Greece, people openly questioned it, and began to ask if improved methods of refining thought could not be found. They found that testing ideas against the filters of free debate, mathematics and the logical rules of epistemology which they invented based on maths, helped a lot, and philosophy was born, in an attempt to refine knowledge and grade out the rubbish. It soon however became obvious that a lot of things in nature were so complex and often counter intuitive, that merely thinking and debating alone was not enough to justify, or even discover, a lot of things and ideas. And so several philosophers, ( In legend beginning with Aristotle. ) decided that observation was also a useful part of discovering which ideas were the best, and so the branch called natural philosophy was born. As the world gradually came out of the MIddle Ages natural philosophy grew in power and importance, relative to the older type, and it was soon found that for many things undisciplined observation, could easily lead to errors, and was not in itself enough of a filter to keep them out. So that through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries further refinements were added, four especially: The experimental method; repeatablity; ( Everyone should be able to get the same results from an experiment.) the idea that nothing is ever totally proved, and that within natural philosophy everything can be reviewed in the light of new evidence; and following that, the value scale of hypothesis, experimental proof and theory. ( Which last does not mean hypothesis as in popular culture, but a whole body of evidence pointing to the same conclusion. ) And so the new even more improved version of natural philosophy eventually moved on so far, that it got a new name, "science". But at the ...

Soo, if you won the lottery, how would you spend the money?

Fernapple comments on Feb 10, 2022:

Travel and the local nature trust.

Jesus of Nazareth hung out with 12 other men, and the Catholic sect of the God Mob in Australia ...

Fernapple comments on Feb 10, 2022:

Given that Greek culture at the time honoured and celebrated homosexually relationships, as special and as a major benefit to society. And given that Greek culture was at that time becoming by far the most important and dominant culture in the Eastern Roman Empire. That the philosophy of Jesus is clearly a reaction to incoming Greek ideas. That he used metaphors like "brothers", "brotherly love", etc. That there was a fashion among the Jews of the time for imitating the Greek culture, so much so that you could actually get a reverse circumcision, so that you could pose as Greek in the public baths, and for other things. Jesus and his twelve, if they existed, or the authors who invented them, if they did not. (Authors who wrote in Greek.) Had to have been aware of that, and of the fact that, the dominant culture in their world, would not merely see them as homosexual, but would actually expect them to be gay. Probably the only reason it is not thought worthy of mention in the bible, is that at that time it would have seemed so obvious that it was not worth a comment.

‘The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of ...

Fernapple comments on Feb 10, 2022:

I always thought that the main danger actually comes from just simple incompetence. As in the old one about. "Never ascribe to malice, that which can be accounted for by simple stupidity."

How did the Incas build those walls?

Fernapple comments on Feb 10, 2022:

Or it could just have been used as a rubbing paste, which is a common mason's tech to this day.

The Insane Biology of: The Octopus. [youtube.com]

Fernapple comments on Feb 10, 2022:

Great post. I can well recommend the book 'Other Minds' by Peter Godfrey-Smith a great easy read which covers much the same subjects.

At work I've got the ear of my boss... I'm still not convinced we should pay the ransom.

Fernapple comments on Feb 9, 2022:

Tell them that you want half as a show of good will, and then you will pay them for the other half.

Which of these do you believe the Earth to be?

Fernapple comments on Feb 9, 2022:

Sadly only the first two are mutually exclusive.

“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.

Fernapple comments on Feb 9, 2022:

A great truism. Word salad hides smelly fish.

At least it’s a wireless connection.

Fernapple comments on Feb 9, 2022:

I once had a rat emerge for ours. It must have got in the sewer and dived under the water lock to get out.

Significant dates in your evolution.

Fernapple comments on Feb 9, 2022:

A good summing up.

What is your fantasy wedding spot, if you were ever to get married or renew your vows?

Fernapple comments on Feb 9, 2022:

I think that I would lean on a competent organizer, like yourself, I could not do better than that. Though this spot on a nature reserve in Turkey, would be a good second best. ( My friend and traveling companion in the foreground.)