“There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your ...

Fernapple comments on Apr 12, 2023:

I hope she is correct. Trying my best.

HIDDEN RINGS OF URANUS REVEALED IN IMAGES.

Fernapple comments on Apr 12, 2023:

When the first found it, they were going to call it George, really no kid.

I’d marry that woman!! ☺️ [yahoo.com]

Fernapple comments on Apr 12, 2023:

Fortunately. I don't think she would marry you, so no issue to worry about here. LOL

Yeah, you know who you are…

Fernapple comments on Apr 12, 2023:

Yep. As to the first one. I live in a small village, been there, done, that nearly every day.

Just be yourself.

Fernapple comments on Apr 12, 2023:

Yes I commented on a comment under your last post, that being yourself can often mean wanting to help and please others. We are social animals and being yourself often therefore means, filling the needs of others.

Mythicism means you can make a non-existent historical character into anything you want.

Fernapple comments on Apr 11, 2023:

Sadly you can interpret it to mean anything you like, but then say. "Yes but it is in my holy book, so it must be true." That is how the trick works.

What does the injunction, "Be yourself!" mean?

Fernapple comments on Apr 11, 2023:

As with so many things, I think that it is the path through the centre that is the best way. Take either extreme and you will cause harm.

Well ain’t that some shit!? Happy Easter y’all!!! 🤠

Fernapple comments on Apr 11, 2023:

She managed to keep the royal soap opera going, long past its sell by date. I don't think that the new lead will do quite as well.

Radical Leftist Ron DeSantis Vs Small Businesses - Shorts - YouTube

Fernapple comments on Apr 11, 2023:

Sorry the video does not play. Error message.

Sumbitches 😒 [axios.com]

Fernapple comments on Apr 11, 2023:

Sounds like good advice, charge at home, use your own charger in a socket or carry a battery.

I like this lady’s style. [futurism.com]

Fernapple comments on Apr 11, 2023:

Yep great. I await to hear for the bible belt, with its renewed and extra loud calls to defund NASA.

“The sensitivity of the poor to injustice is a trivial thing compared with that of the rich.

Fernapple comments on Apr 10, 2023:

“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.” Anatole France

Who knew!? 🤷‍♀️

Fernapple comments on Apr 10, 2023:

Groan.

So after an enjoyable day in the forest I came home and decided to run up to the grocery store for ...

Fernapple comments on Apr 10, 2023:

You were lucky that you made it to the forest. In this country, because nearly everyone gets a compulsory holiday at Easter, the roads get completely jammed by people trying to escape. You can't get anywhere.

5 reasons to suspect that Jesus never existed | Salon.com

Fernapple comments on Apr 10, 2023:

There are, and have been several different positions on the issue. Not just history or myth, but also pure fiction, garbled pro-Roman propaganda earlier Jewish texts reused etc. My own thought is that whatever theory people hold, given the almost complete lack of any real evidence, and what evidence there is badly garbled, it is a delusion to think that any theory could ever be provable. I have seen people make what seemed like really good cases for all of them, but nobody had a single bit of solid evidence.

I'm pretty convinced that cognitive laziness is the primary force behind the power of religion.

Fernapple comments on Apr 9, 2023:

Very true. Although the optimist in me, thinks that paganism, is often an early step on the road to becoming a "non" after people reject Christian dogma.

“I don’t wish to be without my brains, tho’ they doubtless interfere with a blind faith which...

Fernapple comments on Apr 9, 2023:

A mathematician, and said to have written the worlds first computer program.

A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there.

Fernapple comments on Apr 9, 2023:

But sadly when science says. "I felt carefully in that corner, and it was not there. " It then gets a kicking from the other two for presumption.

I posted this in FB, but it bears repeating: Happy Ostara .

Fernapple comments on Apr 9, 2023:

There is possibly an even more direct link between eggs and Easter as well as a metaphor for fertility. Since in the days before modern farming, many people harvested wild birds eggs for eating. While before modern selective breeding had improved their performance, and electric light had altered their day length artificially, even domestic hens probably stopped laying in the winter. So that eggs were a symbol of spring directly, because for most people, they were the first new food to appear after the hunger of winter, just as the preserved autumn harvest began to run out.

Do atheists experience cognitive dissonance in their life as it unfolds?

Fernapple comments on Apr 8, 2023:

Yes I have moved from early literal belief in Christianity, which I adopted in early childhood despite not being raised as such. But being open to doubt and a natural Humanist, in later youth I accepted the extreme ecumenical relativist view, that all religion was a single stream of wisdom equally valid. But then when I discovered the folly of that view, in my late teens, and fell for and/or was then inducted into the cult of the metaphorical view of religion, of the sort Skado has published on this site, which is very popular in the clergy within the UK, and was the way I was expected to go following a Church of England schooling. But then seeing that for the the painted face of corruption, and hollow sham, that it is, I became in the end an agnostic at the deist end though gradually drifting more towards the atheist end as I aged.

ON COGNITIVE DISSONANCE (Thanks to racocn8 for initiating this important discussion: ...

Fernapple comments on Apr 8, 2023:

Yes That is why I love Skado so much, to have an almost perfect example of all those things at first hand for study is almost too good to be true. I do hope this is not a farewell message, for I am a long way from being bored.

Does religion hold a "power" over people, or do people enthusiastically throw themselves in to ...

Fernapple comments on Apr 8, 2023:

Both. That is why it persists things which are supported by more than one prop, tend to be enduring.

Some folks don’t have anything better to do but hate folks who are different from them?

Fernapple comments on Apr 8, 2023:

Pathetic, or a publicity stunt. Or actually a publicity stunt based on a someone else's publicity stunt. Which is even more pathetic. I don't think that I ever drank a Bud light, must give it a try.

Jesus carrying a cross to good friday [youtu.be]

Fernapple comments on Apr 8, 2023:

Old Christian saying. "We all choose our own cross." ( Which is odd if you think about it. Because surely according to Christian dogma, Jesus did the cross bit for all of us anyway ? )

No matter how bad a day I might be having, I always take solace in the fact that at least I don’t ...

Fernapple comments on Apr 8, 2023:

Yes you do.

One of the central tenets of liberalism, first proposed by John Stuart Mill, is the so-called harm ...

Fernapple comments on Apr 7, 2023:

No I do not accept the basic premise, that liberalism has abandoned the idea of the common good. Indeed I would say that the common good is central to it. What you are talking about is libertarianism, which is quite different from liberalism although related perhaps, if generally (wrongly ) regarded as always being on opposite political wings. "I can do whatever I like as long as I do not harm somebody. " Should perhaps be qualified with the word, "knowingly" because "not knowingly harm somebody", is the best, in a world controlled by chaos and the phenomena of unforeseen consequences that we can ever hope for. Though I would perhaps take knowingly as a given, since you would hardly need a degree in philosophy to appreciate that it should be included. And in part that shows a logical fault in the argument, since you could equally also add "not knowingly harm somebody." to the statement, "work for the common good". Since the same criticism, that I may unknowingly cause more harm than good, can equally be leveled at attempts to work for the common good. While it is also true. That if I do not attend to my own good to some degree, and try to ensure my own health and happiness. Then I may become a unhappy or broken person, who is less able to work effectively for the common good, and may even become a net burden on everyone else, due not to unavoidable misfortune which is forgivable, but to my neglect of the self, the first person I have a duty to care for. Indeed I would say that the core value of liberalism would be. "I should be free to do the best for my own self interest, as long as I try my best ( even though I may fail, ) to add net worth to the common good at the same time." I can well understand, that the idea that liberalism has abandoned the idea of the common good, and that it is just a synonym for libertarianism, may well be a commonality among anti-liberal propagandists. To the point even of becoming banal and unquestioned dogma. But wisdom is alway in the nuance, and the closed world of propagandists, is not a good place to go seeking it.

Thanks to Garban for directing my attention to this excellent article: Do Animals Have Culture ...

Fernapple comments on Apr 7, 2023:

Very good. And of course the fact that culture evolves faster than genes, explains why it is hard to have genetic tools with which to deal with any negative side effects that cultural phenomena may bring with them. The first great mismatch occurs, when language especially, enables a great leap forward in cultural complexity and its speed of evolution, long before the agricultural revolution brings civil life and the second great mismatch.

Why Aliens Have Never Visited Earth (that we know of) New Theory based on the Fermi Paradox:...

Fernapple comments on Apr 6, 2023:

Yes there only needs be one doomsday technology, whose dangers can not be understood by more primitive tech. waiting to be discovered, and everybody goes the same way.

What's so bad about bacon?

Fernapple comments on Apr 6, 2023:

Could well be true, i am not a biochemist, but there are no actual papers sited, and he does not say who pays for his "group".

The fossil fuel industry knew about their impact on climate as early as 1970

Fernapple comments on Apr 6, 2023:

I remember that it was about then, that the myth of a coming ice age became common in popular culture. Makes you wonder if oil money was not behind it.

None of This Garbage Is Important - In These Times

Fernapple comments on Apr 6, 2023:

We have a saying in the UK. "Goes to every dog hanging."

Spittin' Facts

Fernapple comments on Apr 6, 2023:

"Everything I tell people is positive and gives them hope !" Sorry fails at the first premise anyway.

Would it be unethical to wine and dine an accountant and whisper sweet nothings into his/her ear ...

Fernapple comments on Apr 6, 2023:

Yes but who would do our taxes next year ?

Modern Americans behave as if intelligence were some sort of hideous deformity. —  Frank Zappa

Fernapple comments on Apr 6, 2023:

Some do, but I still have hopes, it was not always so, and may not be so again.

Ultimately, any allocation or distribution (of goods or money or other resources) is always done by ...

Fernapple comments on Apr 6, 2023:

That is very true. I like it that you especially quote "making x-thousand dollars per month". Since of course even if the values in property etc. represented by dollars are real, which is arguable, dollars themselves certainly are merely a social construct made by government, as is all money. Even the original material basis is long gone in most cases, in my own country, if you go to the Bank Of England and give them a ten Pound Sterling note, you will no longer be given ten pounds of silver, nor is there even the promise that you would.

To be swigged, not sipped ...

Fernapple comments on Apr 4, 2023:

Or just put it on your bonfire and light a match.

“Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous ...

Fernapple comments on Apr 4, 2023:

I am not sure that you can have either one without the other, certainly you can not have what may be called "true knowledge" without integrity.

Russia abducting Ukrainian children.

Fernapple comments on Apr 4, 2023:

I have some sympathy for the Russians over this, in the one sense that. If they left the children in the war zone, then they would be accused of using them as human shields, but if they evacuate them, then they will be accused of abduction and brainwashing. Either way the they are in deep s##t. But I don't have a lot of sympathy, because they would not be in that fix, if they had not invaded in the first place.

Today, I visited Lyme Regis, the world-famous Jurassic Coast, Dorset, England.

Fernapple comments on Apr 4, 2023:

I used to collect them as a child in our local village stream. They were washed out of the banks and were quite common in the gravel, though I never found one much bigger than about 8cm, (3 inch) across. Sadly I lost them when I moved house.

“We must look beneath every stone, lest it conceal some politician ready to sting us.

Fernapple comments on Apr 4, 2023:

In those days they had democracy, so there were no politicians, orators was the closest they got.

My Sunday sermon.

Fernapple comments on Apr 3, 2023:

The God of the gaps is usually about finding a gap and then filling it with god. This sounds almost as though they have not so much found a gap, and put god in it, so much as invented a gap that did not exist, so that they could insert their god. When your narcissism is not getting its regular dose of hypocrisy, you have to work extra hard.

Yep, Grandparents, parents, husband, husband’s family, kids, daughter in law…runs in the family.

Fernapple comments on Apr 3, 2023:

Yep. Religion: synonym narcissism.

Madeira, Portugal

Fernapple comments on Apr 2, 2023:

Some of my photos.

Madeira, Portugal

Fernapple comments on Apr 2, 2023:

Not many flat places on Madeira. You certainly need one leg shorter that the other.

Canadian advice…

Fernapple comments on Apr 2, 2023:

If you think that things that make it easier to do stuff, won't make people do that stuff more. Then I would like to point out that, in the days before airplanes and steam ships, a few people had visited more than one continent, but not many.

Because who knew???

Fernapple comments on Apr 2, 2023:

Great words. But I don't know about not using them, I can't wait for my next Mamihlapinatapai for example.

Joseph Campbell on mythology…

Fernapple comments on Apr 2, 2023:

While not wrong, that has to be the most banal and obvious statement ever made.

Thanks! I guess I will sleep in...

Fernapple comments on Apr 2, 2023:

Sure. Your wife is sleeping with the pastor.

The biased reasoning is always the same: my conception of the Good influences my definition of the ...

Fernapple comments on Apr 2, 2023:

Paradox. I believe truth is good, therefore I do not hold belief to be good, therefore I can not believe truth is good.

Anyone????

Fernapple comments on Apr 2, 2023:

Snowwhite.

A literary observation.

Fernapple comments on Apr 1, 2023:

In other words. Most of what the English speaking world says, comes out of its ass.

First Aprils fool joke, video Spaghetti bush. [arstechnica.com]

Fernapple comments on Apr 1, 2023:

It is almost harder to believe, that people would go to all the trouble of cooking a flour based batter, into a shape which is almost impossible to eat. There are many grades of daft, and humans seem to manage them all.

The International order is changing rapidly.

Fernapple comments on Apr 1, 2023:

Yes that is great, but you have to worry about the underdeveloped countries of the world. China today is using exactly the same methods of colonization in the third world, that European powers did in the nineteenth century. If many underdeveloped countries in Asia, and America, but especially Africa are not careful, they will turn round in a few years, and find that they have been colonized all over again, and with the same sort of stealth.

Sounds lovely…

Fernapple comments on Apr 1, 2023:

Did you know that the alternate name, "hag", originally meant someone who lived outside the village.

Here's a question.

Fernapple comments on Mar 31, 2023:

Well the secret service could help protect the other prisoners from him ? After all he will soon start a, paint yourself orange and learn how to cheat at games cult. Then there will be an alternate cult and then a big fight, and before you know where you are people will be trying to break into prison, while wearing, "Make our prisons great again." hats.

"Prehensile", from the Latin prehendere, means an ability to grasp.

Fernapple comments on Mar 31, 2023:

Me before coffee. ( And actually ninety percent of the time, even after coffee. )

“Beauty is no quality in things themselves: it exists merely in the mind which contemplates them,...

Fernapple comments on Mar 31, 2023:

Actually the proof of which is that, what we find beautiful changes over our lifetimes with maturity and experience.

You gotta give it to Trump, he shatters glass ceilings.

Fernapple comments on Mar 31, 2023:

But he certainly does crash though every, glass floor.

“Beauty is no quality in things themselves: it exists merely in the mind which contemplates them,...

Fernapple comments on Mar 31, 2023:

Long way of saying. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But don't get me wrong I love D. H.

The meritocratic fallacy.

Fernapple comments on Mar 31, 2023:

You could even say, that the measure of success, is the ability to dictate what the world perceives as merit.

Biblical Computers

Fernapple comments on Mar 30, 2023:

Wow! I knew that Apple was old, but I did not know it went that far back.

I've made no secret of how I believe many people have been misled to think that "organic" is ...

Fernapple comments on Mar 30, 2023:

Another harm which the organic movement does, is that it acts as an information and debate block. Our food production methods are very important, nothing more so, and they need to be discussed widely and in the light of good detailed information. With each individual practice and its relations to all the others given the consideration it really deserves. The blanket mindless, one size fits all, slapping on of the organic label, kills that stone dead, and probably acts as a smoke screen as well to cover many practices which the buyer would not be happy with, within the organic movement. While in main stream farming there is often little public scrutiny or debate over practices, because the easy, lazy, buy an "organic" product, is offered as a, get out of thinking option. I do know that people are often busy, and maybe do not have time to think about study and debate, every mouthful of food they put in their mouths. But many of them seem to find time to debate and think about, what their neighbors daughters, are and are not allowed to put in and take out of their own vagina. Certainly I know that there have been animal welfare prosecutions, which resulted from "organic" farmers failing to give proper medical care to sick animals, because the vet's treatments did not fit the so called organic ethos. While some organic vineyards, now have soil in them, which is classified as toxic waste, because for a long time the organic movement in some countries allowed the use of heavy metals, especially copper, which certainly is not organic, but which was of course "traditional".

Nebraska school revamps security after uninvited preacher evangelizes in cafeteria Cringe-y ...

Fernapple comments on Mar 29, 2023:

Well that should be a new group of agnostic converts when they grow up then.

Cape Verde Islands, god forsaken place.

Fernapple comments on Mar 29, 2023:

Strange. I was always told that they were quite lovely.

I always get frustrated with the parental analogies about God.

Fernapple comments on Mar 29, 2023:

I don't know, the Christian god is a fairly good analog for an abusive narcissistic father. Who mistreats his children, subjects them to extreme abuse, imposes deviant sexual practices on them, and then tries to demand love and respect by force.

According to the rules of English, the first person singular is I.

Fernapple comments on Mar 29, 2023:

You can use "they" as a singular, and it has always been so. Though I usually refer to god as "it", when making references to non existent beings such as Bigfoot etc..

Christian Nationalists use that book to justify their so-called morality.

Fernapple comments on Mar 29, 2023:

It is the fact that it can be used to justify almost anything, that is the source of its popularity. Whatever you want to justify, you can find help there, because it is so muddled as to have no consistent meaning, and therefore it is the book for everyone, especially the evil of intent.

In between, we garden.

Fernapple comments on Mar 29, 2023:

There was once an old East European, Slavic, custom. In spring you dig a small hole in the ground, and you say thank you to the earth and then fill it in again.

Biases and the Fundamental Beliefs on Which They Might Be Based:

Fernapple comments on Mar 28, 2023:

That is very true yes.

Science fact

Fernapple comments on Mar 28, 2023:

Actually I could probably get more factual information from sniffing a dogs ass. (I am not planning on doing either in the immediate future though. For much the same reasons. )

The Statue of David

Fernapple comments on Mar 28, 2023:

Check out the Donatello, he makes the Michelangelo look quite tame. Certainly he intends to flirt, with the flora hat, the BDSM boots, the curls and the very trans bottom. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_(Donatello)

I am drinking heavily tonight.

Fernapple comments on Mar 27, 2023:

I hope all goes well for you. Keep us posted.

@Glennlab! somebody who follows(?

Fernapple comments on Mar 27, 2023:

That is strange actually, I never thought about it before, but I often interact with Glennlab and appreciate his comments, usually on other peoples or my posts. Yet I hardly ever see one of his posts, I assumed that he did not post much, but your question made me look and I find that he does. This site is really odd.

Biden has started his re-election campaign.

Fernapple comments on Mar 26, 2023:

Don't worry its not just an American thing, its the same all over the world. One of the first principles of politics. "If you can't fix things at home, blame foreigners." And the more inept the government at home, the more likely they are to go to war.

Folding a fitted sheet

Fernapple comments on Mar 26, 2023:

People fold sheets ? And why ?

6 years from leaving church.

Fernapple comments on Mar 26, 2023:

I don't think there are many here who are not in tune with that..

Yet another proof that Republican America is trying to rival fundamentalist Muslim states in ...

Fernapple comments on Mar 25, 2023:

Good job it was not Donatello's, David, then. Now that is getting quite ripe with suggestion, I love the posture, the hat and the BDSM boots. Michelangelo's is quite tame, by comparison. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_(Donatello)

Am I correct that just allowing one's curser to wander over to the right of a post, so that ...

Fernapple comments on Mar 25, 2023:

Yes that does happen. Even worse blocks of annoying text, which are hard to get rid of sometimes pop up. It always has been like that on this site, you have to be really careful where you park your mouse. It may not be a problem on a mobile, but there are a lot of ways in which the site, which is almost certainly designed for use on a PC, does not work well on a phone, most of the complaints about difficulties using it seem to come from phone users, and never happen to me on a PC.

This works for me. [theguardian.com]

Fernapple comments on Mar 24, 2023:

Actually the things which are commonplace and do not change, are the really profound things, that mater most and an appreciation of those is the deepest of all understanding. So yes his argument is very meaningful. It is one of the reasons why religions do so well, out of promoting rituals, which directly address the principle facts of life, and why we need some much to establish a secular culture, with its own rituals.

One of the symptoms of the "age of narcissism" (Christopher Lasch, 1979) is that today everyone ...

Fernapple comments on Mar 24, 2023:

Pride like all words has no real meaning, but multiple usages, a short search on line turned up just one encyclopedia which gave seven or eight. Including. 1. satisfaction derived from one's own achievements 2. consciousness of one's own dignity 3. the quality of having an excessively high opinion of oneself or one's importance The first I think is the one you are using. The second the one the people you are talking about are using, and which is perhaps best described as the state of not being ashamed of who you are, the negative of shame. While the third is of course the negative form of pride itself, usual called the sin of pride, and a synonym for hubris or narcissism. And we probably do live in an age of narcissism, since in part we live in a religious or post religious age, and religions main role in human life was always to promote narcissism. " You are so special: you will live forever, you have a special super powerful friend, you are given special understandings of the universe, not given to members of other groups, etc. etc. " Which of course they traditionally did, because if you over inflate something like narcissism then it becomes a fragile bubble of empty pride, which has to be constantly protected, and inflated over and over again. Nobody is therefore needier than a narcissist, and nobody therefore keeps coming back for more, more reliably.

This works for me. [theguardian.com]

Fernapple comments on Mar 23, 2023:

Repeat: this is not boring. Repeat: this is not boring. Repeat: this is not boring. Repeat: this is not boring. Repeat: this is not boring. Repeat: this is not boring. Repeat: this is not boring.

Top Reasons For Joining The Church Choir - You're running out of clean clothes and the robe ...

Fernapple comments on Mar 23, 2023:

Yes, but just don't OK. Outside the birds are singing, the air is fresh and while the Christians are all in church, you can cook the babies without being caught.

One of the great problems of contemporary democracies is that the highest stage of identity has ...

Fernapple comments on Mar 23, 2023:

I think that is true yes, but of a lot of people. I would be wary of making it a generation divide, I know many people, perhaps most people, in my generation who are exactly like that.

“A Little Bit of Logic” Who is Donald Trump?

Fernapple comments on Mar 23, 2023:

If you buy into the culture, you are likely to buy its products. That is almost certainly true, both literally and metaphorically.

The Bible made easy

Fernapple comments on Mar 22, 2023:

Here you go for real. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67Vg9EYy4c0

Are the days of "American exceptionalism" over?

Fernapple comments on Mar 22, 2023:

Every country is exceptional in some ways, but every country thinks that it was even more exceptional in the past. In fact the past was just grim everywhere. These are the exceptional times, enjoy them before they fade, and start to resemble the glorious past, when most people died before they were forty, and most people had never seen a book, let alone read one.

Imagine that, with regards to a given question / problem, two kinds of reality are on a collision ...

Fernapple comments on Mar 22, 2023:

There are not two kinds of reality, objective and subjective, there is only one reality, objective and subjective are not realities, merely methods used to try to reach that reality. And reaching that, is very hard by both methods, so that it is not only a case of, is objective or subjective correct, but also a case of, is either of them correct ? Since there is also the highly likely possible, that both could be wrong. ( Or both correct and the apparent difference is the mistake. ) Indeed to a degree, both are almost certainly wrong all of the time, since perfect modeling of reality by the human brain, like everything else in the human sphere, is not, possible. Especially as we do not have much chance of perfection with only our limited senses and cognitive powers. ( Perhaps arguably the basics of mathematics, only.) That however, is not an argument for relativism, since while perfect modeling of reality may not be possible, that does not mean that some models are not more truthful than others. Indeed it would be a form of perfection if all models were exactly equally in error. And in any case, relativism is only the frauds escape route, when they wish to avoid challenges, or not put in the work, it is by nature anti-progress and anti-learning and therefore leads nowhere. Therefore if you find that your subjective view and your objective view are in conflict, you can not say that one should by nature trump the other. Rather you should say that you need to put a lot more work and effort in, (Objective is often better, only because people sometimes put more work and self sacrifice into it. ) and if that gets you nowhere, then you have to learn to accept the third way, not subjective, or objective, but. "I don't know."

"It seems to me that if you have psychopathic tendencies and you are born to a poor family you’re ...

Fernapple comments on Mar 21, 2023:

Also though, if you are born to a rich family, you will never get medical help, just followers.

It's Boulder Season

Fernapple comments on Mar 21, 2023:

Cones are good. I remember driving in Turkey, something had not landed on the road, but half the road had collapsed and fallen down the hill. There was clear drop of several hundred feet, with just enough surface left for a small car to inch round, between the solid rocks on one side and the drop on the other. Some kind local person had come out and tried to mark it, though they did not have any cones, so they had just tipped a barrow load of earth at either end of the drop. It was lucky we were not traveling at night, because the earth was hardly visible, and one small barrow load would not have stopped a car going over.

This is a follow on from my post on progression For those who like definitions .

Fernapple comments on Mar 20, 2023:

That is because that is a bad definition of progressivism. Although it also has to be said that you are not really using a very good definition of politics either, which should embrace all of human relations including family and business, as long as they are within the body politic, which means everyone not living alone on a desert island.

We are on the very cusp of the Astronomical start of spring, unless you're an Aussie, eagerly ...

Fernapple comments on Mar 20, 2023:

Here you go, a weather forecast just for you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mV9q_KdtQfc

What do you think of this idea: Any "ideology" (in the broadest sense) that fulfills the following...

Fernapple comments on Mar 20, 2023:

No. I would not say that none is a religion, because I would add another point to the list of things that you need before you can claim something as a religion. And that is that to be a religion, something has to make a claim of authority. ( Though it is true that the authority does not have to come from a god.) Which since getting nones to agree, has often been described as herding cats, "none" clearly does not make claims to have an authority. And I am sure that many other people could think of many other criteria to add to the list. So this is a case of T. I. Burton, making your list of evidence required, to fit your intended outcome.

For reasons of my own, to do with science I like to look for patterns in my own behavior as well as ...

Fernapple comments on Mar 20, 2023:

If you know in which direction you are progressing, or even think you know which direction should be called progressive. Then are you really progressing, or are you just moving on rails ? Personally I have learned a lot from members here, especially the ones who I don't always agree with. If learning equals progress, then yes, this site is progressive.

Well that clears that up.

Fernapple comments on Mar 20, 2023:

"We are all atheists, about the vast majority of gods that people ever believed in. It is just that some of us go one god more. "

Putin went to Ukraine and no one took him out?? What a missed opportunity.

Fernapple comments on Mar 20, 2023:

No, not a good idea, that would only give him martyrdom, let his supporters rewrite history in his favour, and provide a justification to continue the war. He has to be taken out by his close circle in a coup. So that they can then rebrand him as a bad apple, which will almost certainly happen sooner or later, because that is the normal way for Russian leaders to go.

The Brights' Net - Who are The Brights?

Fernapple comments on Mar 20, 2023:

It was an attempt to rebrand skeptics/atheists/agnostics, like most rebranding it did not get very far, which is perhaps no bad thing. "A rose by any other name." May smell just as sweet, but too many words just add to the confusion.

Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it. Christopher Hitchens

Fernapple comments on Mar 20, 2023:

Obvious though true. Hello and welcome to the site.

If someone asked you, as an atheist or agnostic, if you feel that everything is just random not with...

Fernapple comments on Mar 19, 2023:

The fact that there are no big, overarching, or god given purposes, does not mean that there are no purposes. The two are not mutually exclusive. To think that it is so, is a bad example of absolutist thinking, either A. or B. no third alternative and nothing between. Absolutism is a fallacy which believers are trained to think in terms of, because it sets them up to be vulnerable to a lot of other fallacies, such as. "If science can not answer it, then it must be god." But if I go to make my friend a cup of tea, because she likes tea, then I have a purpose, of making my friend happy for a short while, albeit a small purpose. But when you remove the big purposes, then you can see how important the small ones really are. Suppose there is, a hypothetical, creator god looking down. Then what do you think is most likely to meet with its approval; that I pray to it for a place in a better world, which I believe I am owed because I am important, and its spoiled creation is not good enough for me, or that I show full appreciation for that part of its creation which is my friend, by thinking it worth while to make her a cup of tea, and thinking that one of her smallest joys is important ? ( Now forget the hypothetical god, it has served its purpose. LOL )

Are you an absurdist?

Fernapple comments on Mar 19, 2023:

I think that there is little new in the world of philosophy, it is certainly true that Absurdism, is "a philosophical stance closely related to existentialism and nihilism," as you say. But it also has a lot in common with Epicurism, which is as old as the hill nearly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HkQTbJcgBk Its a bit long, you can skip the first ten mins. as they are only a sales pitch for the videos.

A post suggested that the Old Testament 10 Commandments came from injunctions within the Egyptian ...

Fernapple comments on Mar 19, 2023:

I personally suspect that the Exodus did not take place, but there certainly was an exodus of a kind. There was, and we know this because there are historic records, an almost continuing exodus all the time. Since the semi-desert lands of the Sinai to the East of Egypt, were the almost inevitable destination for all escaping criminals and runaway slaves, coming out of Egypt, there would have been an almost endless flow of such people all of the time. It was therefore inevitable that the people, living in the deserts to the east would have come, in the end, to believe that everyone had once come out of Egypt, and would eventually forget that there were originally some natives who had always lived there. Then as always happens, in myths and story telling, most of the real events would fade from memory, and only a single notable event, perhaps not even the biggest, centered on a mythical hero figure, who may have been made up out of the stories of several people, would remain.