Fernapple's Profile

Just want to run this by everyone.

Fernapple comments on Aug 19, 2019:

Could help.

The public "TRUST IN SCIENCE" is on the UPSWING; finally and keep the momentum.

Fernapple comments on Aug 18, 2019:

Have you any evidence for this ? A link would be nice.

Did promise a smiling picture when i hit level 9

Fernapple comments on Aug 18, 2019:

Well done. And you look quite human in that photo.

Whats the wrong thing about religion?

Fernapple comments on Aug 18, 2019:

Welcome and enjoy. There are so many answers to that, but one of my personal favorites is. That religions attempt to unbalance any debate on morality by claiming that their morality is better than and supersedes all others because it is divinely inspired. Secular morality comes from evolved human nature, supplemented by reason, knowledge of history and cultural inheritance; in other words from the same place as theirs. But it is modest, tries to move on, and 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 its up. Since there are in fact many different religious moralities, often deeply at odds with one another, following exactly the pattern you would expect from early pre-global communications cultures, while if they were inspired by a god they would all be the same, or at least as similar as the modern consensus seems to be. Therefore religious morality is a very strong proof that there is no god.

Do your kids want something of yours for sentimental reasons?

Fernapple comments on Aug 18, 2019:

Great you obviously have a good relationship. Learning to use a sowing machine is on the bucket list, I don't want to do anything fancy especially, just to know how. Though it is very hard to get good mens hankies in the UK these days, even if you pay designer prices, so that always seemed like a good simple starter project.

Public Service Announcement from the Mormons: [yahoo.com]

Fernapple comments on Aug 17, 2019:

Saw the video too. What is that building ? Is it a church or a theme park castle, the one Walt Disney rejected ?

Anyone else at work or working from home and just not motivated to do anything?

Fernapple comments on Aug 17, 2019:

Yes and it is hard to motivate yourself, especially with a site like this to distract you. But nearing retirement now so the pressure is off a bit. PS If you are self employed do you know that there is now a self employed group, could do with more members wanting to share experiences and ideas. https://agnostic.com/group/EntrepreneursSloggers

"The difference between Donald Trump and Greenland? Greenland is not sale." Amy Klobuchar

Fernapple comments on Aug 17, 2019:

Shame, I think that you could get a lot more for it.

IS IT JUST ME, OR IS ANYONE ELSE SURPRISED THERE HASNT BEEN A MORE VIOLENT REACTION TO DONALD TRUMP?

Fernapple comments on Aug 17, 2019:

Perhaps they are just waiting and hoping. Now if he gets reelected ?

An old favorite, the New-Age Bullshit Generator.

Fernapple comments on Aug 17, 2019:

I would love, (No that is wrong, quite enjoy, sort of. ) seeing the actual text you used.

I am a retired educator who taught at the high school and junior high levels, was a college ...

Fernapple comments on Aug 17, 2019:

A lot of people have reached the same conclusions, and though it is nice to have an expert opinion confirm it, I do not think that you have to be very well qualified to reach them. They more or less chime with mine, for example, and I completely failed at school. (Aspergers back in the day before such a thing was heard of, I left school at fifteen hardly able to write a sentence.)

The voice of the intelligence is drowned out by the roar of fear.

Fernapple comments on Aug 17, 2019:

True. Though sometimes desire and anger especially, can be better guides to action than poor reasoning, most of all because our reasoning is no more perfected than anything else we do.

I have had my Minolta 101 and 202 SRT cameras tuned up and ready for use (I will be using a 35-105 ...

Fernapple comments on Aug 16, 2019:

I used to do a lot of close up and micro photography when I used a SLR. Then had most of the important shots i had taken, converted to digital to work with a digital projector, and started using a digital bridge camera for all my photos. But though it has quite good macro for most things, the one thing that I have lost and miss, is the very close microscopic stuff. However I do enjoy using the bridge camera, so easy, but wondered about getting some film just now and again for close up work with my old set up which which I kept because it was very expensive , but then I would have to have it digitalized for use.

Did you order something, then realize you don't need it?

Fernapple comments on Aug 16, 2019:

Heck, I have often bought things in a store that were on my list, then driven home opened the cabinet and found I replaced them already last week. But on the other subject, try leaving out tomatoes too, there is a lot of new evidence that they cause and make a lot worse all sorts of inflammatory ailments, especially arthritis.

I love quotes, funny ones, inspiring ones, ironic ones.

Fernapple comments on Aug 16, 2019:

Yes that's me. Bye.

"Take man's most fantastic invention - God.

Fernapple comments on Aug 15, 2019:

Money is a measure. Just as, we use feet and centimeter for length, pints and litres for capacity etc. So we use money to measure life. If the shoemaker must spend eight hours of life making a pair of shoes, while the glove maker only takes four for a pair of gloves. Then the shoemaker expects, quite rightly, enough money to buy two pairs of gloves, for just one pair of shoes, and nobody will buy gloves if they do not feel that the "life enhancing" value, of gloves is not worth four hours of working life. Yet that breaks down when the rich become involved, especially those who control the money and sell it as a product, because their hours, however little their talent or effort, can be worth thousands of normal hours. And the reason for that is because, unlike all other measures which are legally regulated, money is not. If the tanner sells leather to the glover and the shoemaker, then the tanner uses the same ruler to measure it each time. Because if the tanner used a different inch or centimeter when selling the leather to different people, then there would be legal consequences, with fines and imprisonment perhaps. Yet money, which is used to measure the most vital of all things, is quite unregulated except by the near criminal elements who benefit most from its variability. While the shoemaker and the glover, they are stuck with it, like it or not, because they need it so much to facilitate their own trade with each other.

"Take man's most fantastic invention - God.

Fernapple comments on Aug 15, 2019:

God and money share one thing in common, which is that neither really exist in the material world. Both are just mental constructs of humans, which only have value because you can persuade other people into believing in them. And that is why they both have great power, because something which does not materially exist has no limits, it can be changed by those who control it into anything they like, and used by those who do the persuading of others to do anything.

Can you think of a 15 character or less atheist statement for my glasses arm?

Fernapple comments on Aug 15, 2019:

Holy Shit.

What would you do?

Fernapple comments on Aug 15, 2019:

Most of all be a good dad, nothing will help her to question religion half as much, as having the example of a good person who was not religious in her memories for her whole life. But don't wait to answer her question, the best time to answer a question is when it is asked, not doing so is evasive, and that can in a child's mind be mistaken for dishonesty.

Branches and......background.

Fernapple comments on Aug 15, 2019:

Like a Japanese water colour.

IS AMERICA RACIST AND SEXIST?

Fernapple comments on Aug 14, 2019:

There are no countries which are not sexist and racist to some degree, why should the US be any different ?

So being very under employed today, I thought that it would perhaps be a good idea to take a look at...

Fernapple comments on Aug 14, 2019:

Thank you all, its sorted now, I went from google and it worked fine. Don't know why the link failed.

I found reason just recently to block another participant here on this forum.

Fernapple comments on Aug 13, 2019:

I can understand why we need a block feature, and why some people feel the need to use it. Personally I seem to have been fortunate and have not needed to use it so far, though I have been blocked once I think, by someone after I told him he was boring. You would think that he would have been grateful for the advice. After all several people have told me that I am the expert on boring.

God(s) will is not the answer or the solution ever!!!

Fernapple comments on Aug 13, 2019:

"Man would have been too happy, if, limiting himself to the visible objects which interested him, he had employed, to perfect his real sciences, his laws, his morals, his education, one-half the efforts he has put into his researches on the Divinity." P.B. Shelley, agrees with you. Sorry about the hard English but he did live a long time ago.

Agnostic vs Atheist Sorry to rake up this seemingly old one up again but there have been so many ...

Fernapple comments on Aug 13, 2019:

I don't basically disagree with you but I think that the "Where are the scissors Darling?" analogue is not a good one. The real equivalent should be. "There are no scissors in an unknown draw somewhere perhaps on a distant planet." Which is the real meaning of you can not prove a negative, it does not refer to specific cases, but only to generalized negatives, using only logic not evidence.

How do you feel about this?

Fernapple comments on Aug 13, 2019:

In the UK this would be laughed at as something far too banal to be worth notice, by children of that age. How can there be excitement about something so trivial ?

Evangelicals have let the Wolves in.

Fernapple comments on Aug 13, 2019:

Jesus in the bible took a whip to the traders outside the temple, many of whom were only trying to sell the temple goers the things they needed for sacrifice and worship, and some of whom may have been poor and desperate. It was his only really significant political act. How can anyone say that christianity was not violent from the start,or that Jesus did not begin it therefore. And what is really significant about the story, if true, (big IF ), is that it was an act of enforcing religious dogma, just the sort the story of the good Samaritan is said to teach against. Yet it is perhaps the most likely to be the one literally true story in the New Testament, since it was the one significant act which would get a small town preacher noticed, and start people asking questions about him, and It chimes with the image of a small town fundamentalist on his first trip to the big temple in the city, who found to his shock that it disappointed his expectations. If there was a real person behind the gospels, what other part of the New Testament is most likely to be the original to which the other stories attach ?

You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar..........Benjamin Franklin.

Fernapple comments on Aug 13, 2019:

Very true, and funny you should quote that, I have just come from trying that myself, though perhaps not well. https://agnostic.com/post/388142/about-muffins-i-see-that-the-issue-of-atheist-agnostic-has-been-rearing-its-head-again-as-it-does

Eucalyptus at the beach

Fernapple comments on Aug 12, 2019:

Wonderful shot. And they do often look nice, but sadly they can be an ecological menace away from their native Australia, being very invasive and encouraging forest fires, which help them to suppress other tree species, so that in the end they become the dominant species across huge areas.

Is it normal to dislike other people’s children?

Fernapple comments on Aug 11, 2019:

A friend once asked me. "Do you like children ?" "I don't know, do you like adults ?"

Photographer.

Fernapple comments on Aug 11, 2019:

The snapper snapped the snapper as the snapper snapped the snap. Snap.

Agnostic and More

Fernapple comments on Aug 11, 2019:

Most people on this site are atheist in practice, but most are not too bothered about labels, because when once you leave behind religion and its dogma, you realize that no god is going to punish you for spelling mistakes, even if you spell atheist, agnostic, skeptic, humanist, or twenty other ways even deist. Also most people on this site are happy with, and familiar with the philosophy of science, and the general assumption it makes, that it is alway good to technically allow the possibility of error, no matter how certain you are of something. And given the fact that all of the worthwhile knowledge and understanding in the world, has been generated by that philosophy, it is perhaps no bad thing to show it a little nod of respect, even if it is trivial and without real meaning.

I've noticed a big decline in the amount of bees I see in my yard over the last few years.

Fernapple comments on Aug 10, 2019:

Its the same in the UK, I think that the small help that we gardeners can give them, is no compensation for the damage the pesticides are doing. Most pollinating insects fly long distances, and there only needs to be one treated field in their flight path and they are gone, dead long before they get near your garden.

Do we not still do the official greeter thing anymore?

Fernapple comments on Aug 10, 2019:

Yes I still get a few. But maybe they go away if I am the first person they meet. Seriously though, I think you may not get 'dating' members if you are signed up for the community, and most of the new members may be dating members and they may also come and go quickly.

Wind Chimes! Best $30 I have spent in a while for enjoyment.

Fernapple comments on Aug 10, 2019:

I got really fed up with electric door bells, that were so unreliable, flat batteries, wet getting in etc. So I hung one from a chain inside the door, attached a pull handle on the outside and it has worked perfectly for years. Plus it tinkles slightly if I have the door open in summer..

Just in case you run across a religio-nazi who uses old English, here is a little gem I created for ...

Fernapple comments on Aug 10, 2019:

Reminds me of R. Dawkins, on why the book of Mormon is obviously a phony. It was written in the nineteenth century, but it is written in seventeenth century English. " No one spoke like that then." And of course you have to ask if it is written by god, then why can't an all knowing god keep his English up to date. LOL.

Can you logically be both a White Supremacist and a Christian?

Fernapple comments on Aug 10, 2019:

You can't logically be either, let alone both.

Do you capitalize the g in god? I don't.

Fernapple comments on Aug 10, 2019:

Sometimes do, sometimes don't, depends on the sentence and which god, but mostly I just use 'it' wherever I can.

Isn’t there clear evidence that the supreme something that created the universe is an unjust ...

Fernapple comments on Aug 10, 2019:

No I don't think that it exists. But even if it did then the evidence does not really support the idea of evil, or that it is evil, the idea of evil is just a human made up illusion just as much as god and the devil. And in any case there is a third possible which seems to fit the evidence more closely, which is not good or evil, but just sublime majestic and cold indifference, which sees us and our feelings as not even important, much like nature really. And it is also important not to take too simplistic a view of our sufferings. Pain in many ways is a gift from evolution/nature and is a good thing. If I put my hand on the hot stove it hurts, yes, but if it did not hurt, then I would possibly leave my hand there until it was badly damaged, which would not be good. So how is that pain bad for me ? And the same rule applies to even more complex pain. Perhaps I feel lonely, that hurts, yet how is it good for me not to engage with others like me and the community ? Pain and pleasure are the carrot and stick which nature uses to make us run. The idea of evil is a primitive idea, to try and explain them, from the days of the bronze age, when things like evolution and its meaning were not understood.

Happy to have this account. I'm a newly opened atheist.

Fernapple comments on Aug 9, 2019:

Enjoy, and if you come with jokes you will be double welcome.

Iowa Religious Extremist Who Burned Library Books Faces The Law [au.

Fernapple comments on Aug 9, 2019:

Interesting, in the UK it is almost always the case that the fine should be ten times the value of the items destroyed.

Maybe one should explain to those Christians who praise god for surviving the recent massacres that ...

Fernapple comments on Aug 8, 2019:

If it does not exist, then you can give it any properties you like, and change them as often as you like, even mid sentence. The ultimate DIY dream.

When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you..........Sir Winston Churchill.

Fernapple comments on Aug 8, 2019:

Ah yes, but how often is there no enemy within ? And the ultimate enemy is those who want to tell you there are enemies, because they think that they can profit from you if you are fearful.

The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot.........Walter Bagehot.

Fernapple comments on Aug 7, 2019:

Especially as you get older.

Ever have to turn someone away?

Fernapple comments on Aug 7, 2019:

Yes I always found that, especially when you are offering a personal service, such as building, gardening, decorating, you are doing something that is very intimate. Almost more so, than hairdressing or something like that, people are rightly very serious about things like house and garden. If therefore, you and they do not have a spark, I do not think that either of you will end up happy at the end of the day. I wish in some ways that I had said no to more, it is better to have a little quality work, that you will do well and pays well, ( happy customers pay best, ) than a lot of work that you will have to rush and therefore not do your best at. I had one customer once who I never felt easy with and who always had to have a deal. You know. "Can you knock me something off if I let you take the ten tons of spare topsoil." It was not that he could not pay, just that as with some people you meet in business, ' having a deal ' seems to be an obsession with them, eventually I gave him up, I just could not waste time and effort on long debates about terms and prices, plus finding uses for all the so called extras. Shortly after that he went broke, dealing is no substitute for having a good product and giving good service, however clever it seems in the short term. Fun story. When young, just out of education, to help get extra income while I built a landscaping and garden design business, I bought a grass mowing round off an old gardener. I soon gave it up, all the lawns seemed so hard to cut, with big slopes, lots of obstructions, difficult edges etc. it took a lot of time and when you worked out the time it did not pay that well. I started to wonder why I had no flat easy lawns on my round. Then one day I saw a home owner happily mowing his beautiful flat square plot of grass himself, and felt envious. Then the penny dropped as they say.

I am new on here so I just wanted to say hello:) You are all beautiful:) Fun joke.

Fernapple comments on Aug 7, 2019:

Welcome, especially if you come bearing jokes.

A self set fennel that has done better than any I planted - waiting to collect seed and will spread ...

Fernapple comments on Aug 7, 2019:

You can just lay the stalks over and under anything you are roasting, and it will impart its flavor, in a very delicate way.

Politics , sports, and religion the most corrupt institutions in the world.

Fernapple comments on Aug 6, 2019:

Yep, that's true. Spoiled my coffee thinking about it, but true.

I hate that you need a certain amount of points for some groups in here.

Fernapple comments on Aug 6, 2019:

Sorry but the slight slow entry to the site does seem to serve a purpose, in that it helps (not always) to keep people safe, from trolls and others. You would not after all want to join the chat group and find yourself with a stalker.

How about banning the sale of the rounds and the components to reload the .

Fernapple comments on Aug 6, 2019:

How about the simple fact that if you want to hunt, defend your crops or practice marksmanship, you only need one round at a time.

What is more important: your genetic genome or your nutrition?

Fernapple comments on Aug 6, 2019:

DNA, lifestyle, and nutrition are linked in many complex ways, which are certainly not fully understood yet. Though it is certainly true that nutrition and lifestyle can have profound effects on the way genes behave, anyone who tells you that they fully understand it, is a prophet not a scientist.

Advertising atheism.

Fernapple comments on Aug 6, 2019:

Don't really bother, in the UK nobody gives a D.

Why Archaeologists and Volcanologists Are Clashing Over Excavations at Pompeii ...

Fernapple comments on Aug 6, 2019:

Sad when people are too busy to talk to one another, especially so in science, where history shows that some of the greatest advances have often been made by people who did cross fertilize across the boundaries.

"Our blackberries are doing well!" She says.

Fernapple comments on Aug 5, 2019:

If you ever owned a dog, you would know that it has three names, our dog, my dog, your dog. Needs walking, needs loving, has been really bad.

Do you think taking yourself out to eat alone is weird?

Fernapple comments on Aug 5, 2019:

Always check a new place out alone, and if I really like it then I take my friends.

Atheist friendly communities or countries

Fernapple comments on Aug 5, 2019:

Visit first. Then move if you want to, but the world has five habitable continents, no one who can, should not see a little of all of them, and when you do travel aboard, the place you will learn most about is the place you come from.

The pointlessness of happy-clappy atheism - UnHerd

Fernapple comments on Aug 5, 2019:

Seem that most of it is addressed to churches rather than atheists, and it is the usual advice of, 'target the weak and unhappy.'

Fixer upper on the Road to Perdition

Fernapple comments on Aug 5, 2019:

Looks nice, but here is one with a balcony, and not far from the sea. Only two beds, so nice starter home for young couple on a budget.

Some photos of Rome...

Fernapple comments on Aug 5, 2019:

Who are the statues in the third photo please ?

Shelley! Insightful, ahead of his time. Ozymandias is far and away my favorite poem.

Fernapple comments on Aug 4, 2019:

Must look that up, sounds like an interesting book/essay.

BBC - Future - Tomorrow’s Gods: What is the future of religion?

Fernapple comments on Aug 2, 2019:

If gods and the supernatural do not exist, then like anything that does not exist, they are blank unwritten tablets. Therefore you can write on them anything you wish, and they can pretend to fulfill any need you wish, and they are because of that limitless in scope and variation, and can be endlessly reinvented, and so also can most of human culture. Is it therefore any wonder, they can be so easily and cheaply made and marketed by pretenders ? In the novel Moby Dick, the cabin boy falls over the side of the boat and is left floating in the empty ocean for several hours, without sight of land or ship. When he is found it is discovered that several hours without being able to touch anything solid, locate himself, know where anything else is or which way he is facing, have sent him quite mad. This is a good a metaphor for humans trapped in the cultures which they make for themselves. Like spiders caught in their own webs they can not touch the sides or escape, or find contact with objective reality. Which is why the anti-cultural element of science is so valuable, it main defining feature and perhaps our only hope.

The Media’s 10 Rules of Hate | Washington Spectator

Fernapple comments on Aug 2, 2019:

Sad and coming everywhere not just the US.

It’s not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.

Fernapple comments on Aug 2, 2019:

Depends if you equate love with passion or not, if you see love as equating to friendship then no. This is one of those where you would really need to have it in the original language, and know the language well.

As we mature most of us come to believe that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” or more ...

Fernapple comments on Aug 2, 2019:

No, because that is like saying that to be sensitive is religious, why stick the label religious on such experiences at all. If you think there is worth in such experiences, why not call them, 'spiritual' and if you don't call them 'Woo', or to be realistic just, 'unexplained subjective experiences'. Sticking the religious label on them is no more justified than sticking the religious label on morality, which religions like to claim is theirs alone.. My random dreams often feature my dead parents, that does not mean that my parents are alive; if subjective aesthetic experiences feature images from dead religions, that does not mean that those religions are the source of them.

Respect to all you grandmas and grandpas babysitting or raising your grandchildren or great ...

Fernapple comments on Aug 2, 2019:

Through 99.9 per cent of human history, grandparents took the greater role in raising children. So much so that some people think that humans evolved their long life expectancy, compared to other vertebrates of similar size, mainly for that purpose. It is therefore the most natural thing we do. Sorry answer to jerk further down, but did not want to give him a subpost.

Had some great light today.

Fernapple comments on Aug 2, 2019:

Almost like taking a walk round the garden with you.

Y'all this is to hysterical to not share.

Fernapple comments on Aug 1, 2019:

Sorry it does not work. My foreskin is certainly the bit with the most wrinkles, and I have a lot of wrinkles.

Tarrentino's Latest Nonsense Film Honestly, I don't know what I find more disgusting: My ...

Fernapple comments on Aug 1, 2019:

Hollywood does not sell films, it sells tickets and viewings, and that is all about its real product 'hype'. If people come out of the cinema saying. "That was rubbish." It makes no difference to the film industry.

Red garnets in Heather Lake. Heat exhaustion.

Fernapple comments on Aug 1, 2019:

Good story of a day out. I wish more people would put a narrative element into their posts, it adds a lot to the pleasure of reading them.

Hummingbird Clearwing Moth Mulberry Wing Skipper Monarch egg on Common Milkweed Red Spotted ...

Fernapple comments on Jul 31, 2019:

Does the Hummingbird Clear Wing hover in front of flowers just like a hummingbird ?

Ahead Of 2020 Summer Olympics, A Building Boom In Kyoto Is Yielding Ancient Artifacts...

Fernapple comments on Jul 30, 2019:

Really interesting wonderful finds, but then it says. "To accommodate tourism and business demands, some of the city's majestic temples and traditional wooden machiya town houses are coming down, and hotels and office buildings are springing up. " What exactly do the authorities think the tourists are coming to see, and if they are worried about the crowds, surely they need as many tourist hot spots as possible to disperse them.

.

Fernapple comments on Jul 30, 2019:

So Moses went of into the hills for a few days without food or water, Jesus went into the desert for a few days without food or water, Mohammed went to live in a cave for a few days probably without food or water, the Budha sat down by a river bank for a long time without food or water. There is a common theme here somewhere.

If you were going to invest in your future best self, where would you put your time?

Fernapple comments on Jul 30, 2019:

Great talk, thank you.

Bert's Place Courtyard, Eastern Market, Detroit.

Fernapple comments on Jul 30, 2019:

That should go on the gardening group page too.

Fuck you, 14 mm mower blade bolt.

Fernapple comments on Jul 28, 2019:

Good plan, and don't forget to switch off and (belt and braces ) take the lead off the spark plug first.

Since most small business people have a story to tell, which is usually very interesting, it may be ...

Fernapple comments on Jul 28, 2019:

Sorry yes, life story, especially your working life. From the Latin, curriculum vitae, meaning the course of your life, or what you have learned from life.

More dishonourable things happening in the US.

Fernapple comments on Jul 28, 2019:

Sounds like C. Dickens 'Bleak House'.

One has to wonder...

Fernapple comments on Jul 28, 2019:

The first three are not really that difficult.

What gives your life meaning? Why keep going? (just curious)

Fernapple comments on Jul 28, 2019:

Well passed life's half way stage now, therefore I shall not be a burden to the planet or the other people on it much longer anyway. But meanwhile there is still a lot to be curious about, a lot to appreciate and lots of chances to make a contribution which may help others to be happier. Curiosity. The most important thing to have, is an appreciation of what you learn, and the greatest aid to learning is appreciation, and learning is the best way to appreciation.

Hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing to do. - Oscar Wilde

Fernapple comments on Jul 27, 2019:

"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." I think that came from another Irishman G. B. Shaw.

Not A True Atheist -- We mostly see this with Xtians, saying "you're not really atheist, you're just...

Fernapple comments on Jul 27, 2019:

What they think they know of atheists/agnostics, is what the preacher told them, most 'nones' do not wear a label saying so, and so they assume that everyone they know who treats them well is a Christian ,because the preacher also said that only Christians treat people kindly. And since they have never met any 'nones' they can only know about them through what the preacher says.

Look at these beauties! They look like miniature orchids.

Fernapple comments on Jul 27, 2019:

It looks like the perennial sweet pea, it is not a native wild flower here in the UK, but it grows beautifully for me in the garden, though sadly the scent is not as good as the annual types. But it does come up every year without any work on my part.

@Admin Please tell me the difference between humanist dot com and agnostic dot com.

Fernapple comments on Jul 25, 2019:

I have read this before, and so I visited what I assume to be the mirror site Humanist dot com but could not find any common content. If this is so what am i doing wrong ?

Googly Eyes on God

Fernapple comments on Jul 25, 2019:

To be short. Religion is anthropomorphisim of nature. True to a degree. And it leaves me with the image of John Cleese, breaking the branch of a tree to beat his broken down car with. And then turning round and using the same branch to beat himself, for his 'sin', of caring too much about reaching his destination, because he sees his feelings as something separate from himself, and something he can manipulate. Sadly that is all too true, and still the main activity of religions.

What does it mean when men say they are god-fearing men?

Fernapple comments on Jul 25, 2019:

It is only of passing interest, but the term 'God Fearing', was originally put into Christian theology back in Roman times to answer the classical pagan philosophical argument that. 'If god is all good, then those who try their best to be good, have nothing to fear from god.' Christian philosophy was defined as being different because it included the idea that a believer, should accept that god could ask you to do bad things, and do bad things to you. The short term for that idea was 'God Fearing' and being such was seen as the main difference between Christian and pagan belief.

Lots (and lots) of newly discovered Ancient finds - wow! [cnn.com]

Fernapple comments on Jul 25, 2019:

That was really good, I spent a happy half hour over breakfast with those slides, thanks.

Wandered by the tomato forest and found a few ready to toss into a large chef's salad for dinner.

Fernapple comments on Jul 24, 2019:

Well composed still life.

Indian ghost pipe plant. Taken during my Sunday hike.

Fernapple comments on Jul 23, 2019:

I wonder if that is related to what we call Toothworts here in the UK ?

I agree that making fun or otherwise criticizing someone's religion is in bad taste and can be ...