Why is the label African Americans used to describe black Americans

Fernapple comments on Oct 24, 2018:

New words for many things come along all the time, they start as newly fashionable with those who consider themselves “elete” , spread to become mainstream, and last are adopted by those who use them negatively. They then become tainted, go out of fashion and are forgotten only to be readopted as polite again. The terms for the races are perfect examples since just about every one has gone through the full cycle sometimes twice. It was I think one of the few things G. Orwell got wrong, (Nineteen Eighty Four), words can not change society, because it is society which changes infinitely malleable words without limit all the time.

Debate: Hovind vs Ra - pt1 [youtube.com]

Fernapple comments on Oct 23, 2018:

If you can believe that you and you alone have a special understanding of an invisible friend in the sky, then believing you won a debate whatever happened is a small delusion. The sad thing is when you are trying to sow delusion in the minds of others.

Shipwreck found in Black Sea is 'world's oldest intact A Greek merchant ship dating back more ...

Fernapple comments on Oct 23, 2018:

Wow. The classical era Greek ships are so important in history, yet very little has been known about them except for vase paintings, it really is a big find, i guess we will hear more over the next few years. I wonder if they will try to lift and preserve it. Thank you for sharing it.

The silliest woman can manage a clever man; but it needs a very clever woman to manage a ...

Fernapple comments on Oct 23, 2018:

While on the subject of Kipling, and as you seem have given permission to be sexist, I am sure that everyone knows his famous line. "The female of the species is more deadly than the male." But perhaps some people may be amused to know what the "species" was he was talking about when he first used the line? ( Answer: it was the "hunting, shooting and fishing bore".)

The silliest woman can manage a clever man; but it needs a very clever woman to manage a ...

Fernapple comments on Oct 23, 2018:

It says that you are a realist, and a sensitive humanist. (Oh. I hope that does not sound too much like a complement.)

Steven Anderson, and The Stupidest Thing He's Ever Heard - BionicDance [youtube.com]

Fernapple comments on Oct 23, 2018:

What a way to waste your life.

Does anyone have any experience with moss?

Fernapple comments on Oct 23, 2018:

Different mosses need different conditions, without becoming a moss expert it is best to find moss to use which is growing in the sort of place you want it to grow. Not all mosses like it really damp for example, and if you look you will see that many grow in quite dry places and that they are quite different from the mosses which grow in marshes. The shred it and mix with yogurt as recommended by Cast1es really does work well.

I'm sure this question must have been asked here before.

Fernapple comments on Oct 22, 2018:

Not at any time really. Like you I grew up in the UK, and like many here I had no specific religion given me except school R.E. . I looked at many religions but none seemed to offer much to me. Then while wondering if I was somehow strange in not needing religion, it occurred that if as they all claimed, all religions offered salvation and spiritual knowledge only to insiders, then most people except the chosen few would be left out, or at least be left believing the wrong things. That seemed such a poor, silly and unfair way for god to behave, it could not be squared with the idea of a god of goodness, or one with enough wisdom to frame the physical laws of the universe, which still fill me with wonder. Then I realized that if there was a higher intelligence behind the universe, it chose not to communicate via religion, or any other means I can see, and then it occurred that if the intelligence did not communicate, it either did not exist or it intended us to live as if it did not exist, therefore its existence or not was irrelevant to life as we live it. And from that source of agnosticism the final step to atheism was only a small one.

Anybody else getting tired of seeing my avatar to the left there?

Fernapple comments on Oct 21, 2018:

Tried it and it worked! Will try to keep doing more.

Anybody else getting tired of seeing my avatar to the left there?

Fernapple comments on Oct 21, 2018:

Yes but you do it so well.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it ...

Fernapple comments on Oct 21, 2018:

Thank you for quoting E. Fitzgerald and Omar Khayyam, they are among the best early agnostic literature and lovely. I always like to think of this as. "Its behind you." But I wonder how many people today "get" the biblical reference.

I'm thinking of adding a series of political questions to profiles and want to get your suggestions ...

Fernapple comments on Oct 20, 2018:

Don't ask do you consider yourself to be left or right wing, but do ask do you think there are such thing as left and right, or are those two lumping groups too crude to be useful.

Spiritual but not Religious, WHATS THAT

Fernapple comments on Oct 20, 2018:

Yes. spiritual has nothing to do with spiritualism, just as naturalist has nothing to do with naturist, though the two are not mutually exclusive. In fact the second two sound like quite fun together, but I would leave the first two if I was You.

My eyes! my brain!

Fernapple comments on Oct 20, 2018:

LOL It is a bit like the old one where you write on one side of a paper. "The text on the other side is false." Then on the other side you write. "The text on the other side is true." Then you get people to turn it over as many times as they like. I always thought that it should be compulsory reading for anyone who thinks texts/books (Bible, Koran, etc.) are proof of anything.

Are You A Freethinker Or A Follower?

Fernapple comments on Oct 20, 2018:

I do not think it is a question you can answer, since I do not think you can ever know where the dividing line is.

The Evil Amoral Atheist - BionicDance [youtube.com]

Fernapple comments on Oct 20, 2018:

Religion pedals the idea that morality is a gift of religion because that helps to sell religion, just as the coffee shop gives out loyalty cards, it is just a marketing ploy. So that most believers come to swallow that idea without thinking, and never realize that all social animals (including even humans sometimes) are inherently moral, and it is that inherent morality which infected religion not the other way round. The proof of which is that early religions did not have any interest in morality, as usually the theist thinks of his religion as all religion and can not see the whole picture. (And before anyone says it, yes early societies did have morality.)

The Evil Amoral Atheist - BionicDance [youtube.com]

Fernapple comments on Oct 20, 2018:

The more value you place on fantasy figures like god the less you place on real humans, you can not share yourself everywhere.

SHOULD WE RESPECT RELIGION? [barbara.smoker.freeuk.com]

Fernapple comments on Oct 20, 2018:

Give respect where it is earned and deserved, if you give it to groups just because they have wealth, power, and followers you devalue the truth of the respect you give to those who really deserve it.

Men and Christians experience higher amounts of discrimination than other groups, Trump voters claim...

Fernapple comments on Oct 19, 2018:

I think that he must be talking about himself and that fact that, especially, rich, Christian males, have no right to whine. But then it is a whine so that must be wrong...!?

What is the evolutionary strategy for religion?

Fernapple comments on Oct 19, 2018:

I do not think it is entirely a case of religion having an evolutionary strategy, (though it does), so much as evolution not having a strategy for religion. Evolution only works retrospectively, if you survive the challenge of a change in your environment at all, then you get better at meeting the challenge over time, but natural selection can not foresee the challenges beforehand. And no animal ever met quite such a big change in their environment quite so quickly as humans did when they invented, first language and then culture. We have therefore no evolved tools from nature to deal with these things, and are thus ready made victims for anyone, (religious, political or commercial) who can manipulate language and culture.

Which one would you prefer in your life; catch up in person or mainly social media?

Fernapple comments on Oct 18, 2018:

In person is always better of course, BUT, if I sit back for a second and just think what a wonderful thing the digital world is. Not long ago, (phrase used only by very old people), the idea that ordinary people like me would ever be able to afford even to make the occasional phone call across the Atlantic at less than great cost, would have seemed a outrageous piece of science fiction. (Look at the communications in the film 2001.) Yet just over a quarter century into the digital revolution I sit here, talking, exchanging texts, photos, videos and even trivia with people all across the world every day via a site like this, and think it normal. Amazing!

A Proof That The Square Root of Two Is Irrational - DONG [youtube.com]

Fernapple comments on Oct 17, 2018:

Wonderful, the things you can find on this site.

A complaint I have since adopting an agnostic position is that too much of the atheist/agnostic ...

Fernapple comments on Oct 17, 2018:

Firstly, that we are given just half a century of adult life perhaps to enjoy and learn to appreciate all the wonders that nature gives. Only fifty chances to watch the seasons with all their natural and cultural significance for one, a hundred sciences to learn about, and if you want any more ideas just browse the list of groups on this site. Secondly, that when I reach the end of life I will have the comfort of knowing that I have done the best I can for as many other people as I can, there is still a lot of help needed in the world.

Why does Agnostic.com only have less than 51,000 members ?

Fernapple comments on Oct 16, 2018:

Not everyone who likes a drink likes to drink in a bar, and if they all used the same bar it would be too crowded for anyone to get a drink.

What are you really good at that you wouldn't put on your C. V?

Fernapple comments on Oct 16, 2018:

Putting on weight.

“The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.

Fernapple comments on Oct 16, 2018:

I usually think that the best thing about science is that some of it is not true, but it is trying to get better. Where religion is taking your first guess, and refusing to admit you could get it wrong. Because of course you are one of the few special chosen ones. (Which is why religion has to be divisive or it has nothing to offer.)

What Would Happen If Everyone Truly Believed Everything Is One? - Scientific American Blog Network

Fernapple comments on Oct 15, 2018:

It would be very still very quiet, and totally boring.

Consciousness may be the brain's way of dealing w/ entropy. [ibtimes.com]

Fernapple comments on Oct 14, 2018:

Please enlarge.

I Removed my big lemongrass from its original spot (it was overwhelming my dwarf roses).

Fernapple comments on Oct 14, 2018:

Very jealous, lemon grass won't even grow through the winter here in a greenhouse, and it is lovely.

Has anyone else had a religious friend ask where your sense of morality comes from?

Fernapple comments on Oct 13, 2018:

I have had the bad misfortune in life to have sat by several death beds, and the only thing that I can think of that will bring any comfort as you lie there staring at the ceiling, is the thought that you have done your best for everyone else. That's where my morality comes from.

Whenever you egaged in an angry altercation with someone else, haven't you invariably thought that ...

Fernapple comments on Oct 13, 2018:

If you recognized that the other person was at least in part right, you would change your mind, at least in part, and would then see your new slightly adjusted position as right, therefore it is not possible to believe anything else.

Validity of a theory

Fernapple comments on Oct 13, 2018:

Science is basically the philosophy of humility, admit that we are not certain and can always improve, especially if we work at it. Religion is the philosophy of arrogance, we are gifted with absolute truth because we are special and chosen.

Desire of knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with the acquisition of ...

Fernapple comments on Oct 13, 2018:

It reminds me of A. Pope's well known. " A little learning is a dangerous thing, Drink deep or taste not the Perian spring:" Which I always though must refer especially to those who think that one book, and sadly rarely a good one, could answer all questions.

Are there any special purpose in our life other than eating, drinking, sleeping, making merry, ...

Fernapple comments on Oct 12, 2018:

Yes we can choose to be useful to others and try to make the world happier.

Why are humans so slow to learn?

Fernapple comments on Oct 12, 2018:

Sorry to say that we may have peaked now anyway, there is good evidence that the human brain has now started to shrink due to the effects of civilization and especially since the advent of agriculture. There are now strong pressures favouring low IQ, such as celibacy, contraception and cultural distractions from breeding, while the dangers and threats which created our brains on the plains of Africa are now gone, we just don't need them anymore. While many of the dangers inherent in having a violent nature are minimized by medicine yet the advantages remain, and the need for social cooperation is less as technology takes over many of its roles. So we will become more violent and antisocial as well, until in the end without society or intelligence, we are total dependent on technology to survive, but can no longer repair the technology we inherit, and then we go extinct.

Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, ...

Fernapple comments on Oct 12, 2018:

Best quote I heard for a long time, being on the wrong side of the ocean I do not know a lot about T.Jefferson, obviously I mssed a lot.

For atheists - what makes you believe no deity exists?

Fernapple comments on Oct 11, 2018:

I am happy to be agnostic thanks to reason, and atheist by belief, and I do not find the two at odds. But it all depends how you define the words, and I am not interested if anyone else wants to redefine my words for me.

Fellow agnostics, how do you feel about believers joining?

Fernapple comments on Oct 11, 2018:

Why not let them hear a worthwhile idea or two, as long as they are not rude to others and don't waste peoples time. And I am sorry to disagree, but I have changed my opinions on several thing since I was twenty, (long time ago) and hope I always will, that is what keeps you alive and moving forward.

Unpopular Opinions I know you got 'em, what are they?

Fernapple comments on Oct 11, 2018:

Please also add 'Organic', the idea that if something is untested for safety in a lab to proper safety standards, it is therefore safer than something that has been. Especially if it has been used since the days when people poisoned themselves to death by thirty by boiling their wine in lead containers, and took carcinogens to expel worms. Mindless technophobia or what.

I'm hoping that people here are more open minded than self described atheists.

Fernapple comments on Oct 11, 2018:

I said this before but, the big division is between holding groundless belief or not, the niceties within scepticism are tiny and unimportant compared with that. Some may think that they are on a higher rung of the ladder than others, and that may be true, but the really important thing is to have looked up and started the climb out of the cesspit of ignorance and prejudice which is blind unquestioning faith, looking at the light and not swimming nose down among the sludge where the users want to keep you. Therefore it is cruel and unfair to despise those who use a different ladder or can not climb quite as fast, and for that reason I always call myself a 'Broard Church Sceptic.'

God-like beliefs?

Fernapple comments on Oct 9, 2018:

I would throw in Karma and Art with a capital 'A'.

Did the Bible make you an Atheist?

Fernapple comments on Oct 9, 2018:

No arrogant theists, and especially some of my school teachers made me an Atheist. (Including one who tried to teach his pupils that animals had no feelings or emotions, only mechanical behaviour which just seemed to replicate human emotion, and that therefore it was wrong to feel empathy for them. Which made me realize that:- One, if you go down the religious route you will end up accepting any rubbish to make it fit your theology. And. Two, being a complete psychopath is a big help in a teaching career.)

What is your Definition of:

Fernapple comments on Oct 9, 2018:

Atheist: I believe there is no supernatural. Agnostic: Knowing that I can not prove the none existence of something outside of reality, even if I'm sure its bull. Spiritual: Smoke-screen used by some to hide their belief in things outside of reality.

There are two things to aim at in life: First, to get what you want; and after that to enjoy it.

Fernapple comments on Oct 8, 2018:

Perhaps there is only one thing to aim for in life, and that is to want and enjoy what you get.

"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't...

Fernapple comments on Oct 7, 2018:

Just love that it is such a neat quote.

I just left Christianity, and they talk a lot about this "darkness" that Jesus delivered them from.

Fernapple comments on Oct 7, 2018:

Sadly, I think it is us.

For one word a man is often deemed to be wise, and for one word he is often deemed to be foolish.

Fernapple comments on Oct 5, 2018:

True. (1)

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.

Fernapple comments on Oct 4, 2018:

Very true. After necessity, the next old trite argument to be trotted out is the invariably. “Only wrongdoers have to fear new laws.” Which is the most evilly wrong statement ever made, since good people have at least four things to deeply fear from every new law. Firstly, every law will always cause some wrongful convictions of the innocent. (And writing as someone who has served on juries twice, I can say that anyone who believe that the courts, of even the best governed nations, can ever truly sort the guilty from the innocent, is simply a fool.) Secondly, the keeping and enforcement of every law has to be paid for either by higher taxes or by talking from other things. Thirdly, every law imposes some bureaucratic burden which makes life and endeavour more difficult/costly. And fourthly, even the business of being accused and tried can and has often destroyed the lives of even those found innocent. All civilizations which fall, fail to some degree due to an excess of law.

Do you believe that a cure for cancer exists, but it's not available to the public because medical ...

Fernapple comments on Oct 3, 2018:

There will never be 'A' cure for cancer because cancer comes in many different forms and is many different things, the need therefore is to find many different cures not just one, some of which we have.

Unpopular Opinions I know you got 'em, what are they?

Fernapple comments on Oct 3, 2018:

Belief in art with a capital 'A' is another form of religion and does many of the same sort of harms. It stems from the arrogance of humans who believed that they were set apart from and above the rest of the animal world, and that therefore, the creations of our hands had a special 'spiritual' worth that the doings of other animals do not. It is arrogant, speciesist, causes pollution, diminishes our ability to appreciate the natural world and is used to lend a misleading 'spiritual' authority to many dreadful ideologies and no atheist or agnostic should beleive in it.. P.S. I love all the arts, being an atheist does not mean you can not admire the church spire just not accept what it means.

Unpopular Opinions I know you got 'em, what are they?

Fernapple comments on Oct 3, 2018:

I hate the way that cafes/restaurants pass soup though their blenders, and especially then put cream on top which adds nothing to the dish, today. I blame the trendy chefs who should all be made to stay in their kitchens and of the TV etc. anyway. In my day, (Grumpy old man phrase.) soup had lumps in it and texture, it was an interesting dish, and not just a boring way to get your customers to eat the leftovers.

Hi everyone.

Fernapple comments on Oct 3, 2018:

Not just the USA, largely secular tollerant western Europe is a very small enclave in a very big and bigoted world. Do not forget just how small we are.

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it......Voltaire.

Fernapple comments on Oct 1, 2018:

So true. If one person looses freedom of speach we all do, because we are then in the hands of whoever decides to appoint themselves to the post of choosing who shall speak and who not, and those who do not get to speak are usually the oppressed who need their voice most.

What are your favorite proofs against the Bible?

Fernapple comments on Sep 30, 2018:

The fact that Jesus called gentiles 'dogs' not worthy of feeding, yet saint Paul makes them his ministry. (Sorry I see that's in there, posted first and read second, but it is still vital.)

Tell me what grammar mistakes get under your skin.

Fernapple comments on Sep 30, 2018:

I could not care less I only care about what you are trying to say. (And it should be 'grammatical',) Sorry only kidding.

At what age did you stop believing in traditional love as perpetuated in music / movies / mainstream...

Fernapple comments on Sep 30, 2018:

I do not think there ever was just one kind of love, even in music films, etc., the secret of making it work is not to expect too much before hand, and to understand that not everyone is going to get a great big romance every time. But that is true of everything in life, and it is also true that the media as a whole falsely raise our expectations of everything in life, if we measure any part of our lives against the fairy-tales used by those who are trying to sell us something then we will always be disappointed

There is no agnostic vs. atheist! The peeve I have...

Fernapple comments on Sep 27, 2018:

The big division which really counts, is between holding groundless belief or not, the niceties within scepticism are tiny and unimportant compared with that. Some may think that they are on a higher rung of the ladder than others, and that may be true, but the really important thing is to have looked up and started the climb out of the cesspit of ignorance and prejudice which is blind unquestioning , looking at the light and not swimming nose down among the sludge where the users want to keep you. Therefore it is cruel and unfair to despise those who can not climb quite as fast, or use a different ladder, and for that reason I always call myself a 'Broard Church Sceptic.'

I care not whether a man is good or evil; all that I care is whether he is a wise man or a fool.

Fernapple comments on Sep 26, 2018:

Most people are I my experience at least good by nature. Therefore it follows that most of the aviodable harm in the world is caused by folly or laziness and not ill intent.

The value of life is not the end of it, but the use we make of it....Moliere.

Fernapple comments on Sep 25, 2018:

Very true, and the contribution we did our best to make to the world is the best comfort we have when facing mortality.

“Never trust a man who reads only one book.

Fernapple comments on Sep 22, 2018:

If they can only read one book, why do they always have to choose the worst ones? And if you were going to recommend a second book which would it be? Mine would be H. G. Wells, 'The Outline Of History', It has its faults but at least t encourages thinking, looks at the big issues without blushing and its fun to read.

Has anyone else had a religious friend ask where your sense of morality comes from?

Fernapple comments on Sep 20, 2018:

I would tell them, from evolved human nature, supplemented by reason, knowledge of history and cultural inheritance; in other words from the same place as yours. Only mine is modest, tries to move on, adapt and keep up with the times, it does not pretend to be perfect, to have finally answered every question or to do so by claiming a false divine authority which keeps it ill adapted and only suited to a distant primitive past. Religious morality is only secular morality trying to big itself up with extra authority, which in the end only makes it harshly inhuman an inflexible. I would then like to point out that the fact that as there are so many different religious moralities, often deeply at odds with one another, they surely follow exactly the pattern I would expect from early pre-global communications cultures, if they were in fact secular moralities, and that if they were inspired by god they would all be the same, or at least as similar as the modern consensus seem to be. Therefore religious morality is a very strong proof that there is no god!

Are we all basically selfish apes?

Fernapple comments on Sep 18, 2018:

It is very complicated, evolution and the nature of life provides that humans may be motivated in many ways. We may be selfish, family/group altruistic, wish to appear altruistic even when we are not for selfish or group gain, be truly altruistic which may be an error, or seek simple mutual benefit, while a lot of our actions may just be neutral, motivated by unthinking habit for example, and all of these motives are not exclusive but usually overlap and reinforce each other. Moreover while what is selfish may appear altruistic, it is also true that what is altruistic may often seem selfish in the eyes of others; and you must not forget the great power of self delusion, that we are capable of believing we are acting for one reason when our real motivations are quite else, it is not just others who may mistake our motives. This is why ideologies such as Christianity and Marxism, which claim to be totally altruistic, always come in the end to produce the greatest social injustices where the religious and political establishments enrich themselves at the expense of the poor while still claiming, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, to act for the greatest good of all; since of course they do not allow for any of this. Such are the things which make human politics so difficult or interesting however you choose to see it.

Do you think that living in a foreign country for a long period of time changes people?

Fernapple comments on Sep 18, 2018:

If you have an open mind to start with it can not open more, if you have a closed mind it can not be forced open, but the people in the middle gain a lot. P. S. Old saying. "It was traveling away from it which taught me the most about my own country."

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once ...

Fernapple comments on Sep 16, 2018:

What a shame that most of Epicurus is lost, he seems like the perfect thinker for today. Does anyone know any more good quotes from him?

(English) Public schools are the nurseries of all vice and immorality.

Fernapple comments on Sep 12, 2018:

I do not think that the churches and the schools in many countries including the uk are really two different things anyway. Many public schools in the past (and still) were run by churchs, and many state schools to this day are still in the church system. It is only now a few years since T. Blair tried to push schools even deeper into the church and mosque by enabling the 'Faith Schools' and a more retrograde step was I think never taken by anyone in modern times. What else would you do this for except to undermine all attempts at true education?

"Science doesn't know Everything.

Fernapple comments on Sep 11, 2018:

Science admits what it does not know because science is basically just honesty organized. Religion does not have any more evidence than science, but does not have any shame about dishonest claims either.

When to switch primarily identifying as an Agnostic to Atheist?

Fernapple comments on Sep 9, 2018:

I sometimes call myself a 'broard church' skeptic, because I think that the biggest split do not forget is between belief and none belief, compared with leaving groundless faith behind the other divisions are tiny, and the most important thing have left behind with that faith is dogma.