How Europe colonized even the world of plants, and why we pay the price to this day.

MizJ comments on Nov 2, 2022:

[](http://)https://gardeningsolutions.ifas.ufl.edu/plants/trees-and-shrubs/trees/royal_poinciana.html These are all over central and south Florida, stunning when in bloom and native to Madagascar. I have a yellow one, not as showy but the bees love it. The worst example in the southern US is ...

Fernapple replies on Nov 3, 2022:

Yes, what happens of course, is that, when they imported the plants, they forgot to bring their pests and diseases with them. Which means that they often have an advantage over natve plants which have to combate a range of natural parasites.

TESTING LOGIC ON the basis that it is possible to test logical thinking and WITHOUT ...

Fernapple comments on Nov 1, 2022:

I agree that the expectant mother should always have the veto. But given that, I fail to see the point of involving the others at all, since their involvement would affect nothing. Indeed, there are only weak reasons for even informing them, and lots of good reasons for allowing the mother to keep ...

Fernapple replies on Nov 2, 2022:

@Mcflewster Parents and grandparents will generally have a say anyway. But you are making a false assumption that parents and grandparents inputs will always be useful and helpful. Sometimes they may well be highly toxic, if not immoral or criminal, and the women who wish to have their pregnancies kept secret to themselves, are the more likely to be the ones in need of that secrecy.

I never realized that telling a man he is "boring" is a personal attack.

AnneWimsey comments on Oct 31, 2022:

Sorry, he is boring To You, not intentionally boring you. Much kinder, and less judgemental, to say you find the subject(s) uninteresting & can we talk about something else?

Fernapple replies on Nov 1, 2022:

@Gwendolyn2018 There is nothing wrong with hating men, sometimes I feel like I do, and I am one. OK, sometimes I feel like I could hate women too, but I don't think that makes me a hateful person, after all, I never wanted to hate dogs.

I never realized that telling a man he is "boring" is a personal attack.

BitFlipper comments on Nov 1, 2022:

Yikes! No guy can afford to be boring if he's going to be dating. If he can't whip up some interesting stuff to talk about he should work on it till he's ready.

Fernapple replies on Nov 1, 2022:

It is often because, he has already worked too long on what he thinks should interest everyone else.

I never realized that telling a man he is "boring" is a personal attack.

AnneWimsey comments on Oct 31, 2022:

Sorry, he is boring To You, not intentionally boring you. Much kinder, and less judgemental, to say you find the subject(s) uninteresting & can we talk about something else?

Fernapple replies on Nov 1, 2022:

No sorry, it does not work. He just changes the subject and bores you about that. And often they just see it as a challenge to convert you, since a good bore can never understand how anyone else could not be as obsessed as he is..

On the arguing of facts...

nogod4me comments on Oct 30, 2022:

"The true-believer syndrome merits study by science. What is it that compels a person, past all reason, to believe the unbelievable. How can an otherwise sane individual become so enamored of a fantasy, an imposture, that even after it's exposed in the bright light of day he still clings to it - ...

Fernapple replies on Oct 31, 2022:

Ego, narcissism, may have a lot to do with it, not just the unwillingness to admit you may have been wrong. But even more if you choose to believe mainly just mainstream information, then there is nothing about that which makes you special. " I am someone special, therefore I believe something special. " That being different alone means that you are at the cutting edge, is an equally mistaken view which underlies many others.

Secular humanism is avowedly non-religious.

The-Krzyz comments on Oct 30, 2022:

I remember Kurtz fondly, especially his failed crusade promoting the use of that word: “eupraxsophy!” In the end, I still think he succeeded in spreading the ideas behind the word, even if the word itself remains little used.

Fernapple replies on Oct 31, 2022:

I never heard it before, but I am going to use it a lot now. Good word needs help.

By the way, I got a Covid booster last Thursday.

LiterateHiker comments on Oct 30, 2022:

I got a flu shot and the new COVID booster in early September. A week apart. Side effects for each vaccine were a low fever, headache and body aches for two days. No big deal. "Minor side effects are normal signs that the vaccines are working," the nurse said.

Fernapple replies on Oct 31, 2022:

That is about my experience.

I'm going to discuss being dead for a moment.

Fernapple comments on Oct 27, 2022:

I am sorry to disagree, but I do not think that there is any such thing as death, or any such state as being dead. There is merely life, and when that life ends there is no life, that is all. Human culture invents many words for things that do not exist, ( Not just dragons and gods. ) in part ...

Fernapple replies on Oct 28, 2022:

@Garban, @FvckY0u Yes there is much to be uncovered, and I have no idea about the higher levels of particle physics, and in that area there is I believe still much scope for conjecture. But the limits of my knowledge extend only to thermodynamics and atomic theory, so I do not go beyond that, since I do not care for conjecture except as game play. See my answer to Garban above.

I'm going to discuss being dead for a moment.

Fernapple comments on Oct 27, 2022:

I am sorry to disagree, but I do not think that there is any such thing as death, or any such state as being dead. There is merely life, and when that life ends there is no life, that is all. Human culture invents many words for things that do not exist, ( Not just dragons and gods. ) in part ...

Fernapple replies on Oct 28, 2022:

@Garban I know, but sadly I am one of those people who think that the search for objective truth has value, and can only be approached when all other complications such as the search for emotional reassurance are put aside. That is not to say that the search for emotional reassurance has no value itself, just that it must come second and fit within the established framework. And since we know, that even the very best evidence based searches for objective truth, with all the safeguards that science provides, often fall short are beset with pitfalls and usually lead to falsehoods more often than not. Then conjecture without any evidence or method, is at best no more than a fun game, and I do not belittle it as such, but it is no more than a game to amuse the mind in dull moments, I put it aside when thinking about things of practical import like my personal happiness. If FvckYou gains emotional support from a belief that harms nobody, and is a long way removed from organized religion and its corruptions, then that is great, and if he gains converts from organized religion, then that is a big leap forward. But it is not for me.

15,000 year old viruses found in melting Tibetan glaciers.

Marionville comments on Oct 26, 2022:

15,000 year old viruses being released from the permafrost….that sounds like the stuff of nightmares!

Fernapple replies on Oct 26, 2022:

Only perhaps to any mamoths who are still arround.

How do you respond to the question "Do you believe in God?

skado comments on Oct 24, 2022:

For me, it’s not a matter of belief. God’s existence is self-evident. No proof needed. My dictionary defines God as the supreme being. It defines supreme as the largest, ultimate, or most powerful. It defines being as something that exists. So already, God exists by definition....

Fernapple replies on Oct 25, 2022:

@Garban That is one of the most amusing disections of the simulation problem I have heard.

How do you respond to the question "Do you believe in God?

skado comments on Oct 24, 2022:

For me, it’s not a matter of belief. God’s existence is self-evident. No proof needed. My dictionary defines God as the supreme being. It defines supreme as the largest, ultimate, or most powerful. It defines being as something that exists. So already, God exists by definition....

Fernapple replies on Oct 25, 2022:

@Garban Personally, I do not have a big serious problem with people saying that god is equivalent to the laws of physics. It is just my opinion that, if god is equal to the laws of physics, then it would be better to call "It" the laws of physics, just to avoid confusion. While if people want to say that the laws of physics are worthy of worship, then I would say, that it is better not to worship anything, but if you must, then the laws of physics (Biology chemistry etc.) are probably better than anything else I know of. But you have also to consider, that attemps to sow confusion may sometimes be deliberate, since confusion makes a good smoke screen for a hidden agenda, or an empty vault.

We may be getting the bison back in the United Kingdom, especially thanks to a new birth.

Julie808 comments on Oct 24, 2022:

Interesting! They seem to have a different physique for the forest than we have for the grasslands in US. Here on Kauai we have a bison ranch. In April of 2018 there were about 119 bison in the heard, when we had some massive flooding on the north shore and they were all washed down the river ...

Fernapple replies on Oct 24, 2022:

Great photo, beautiful.

Ring, ring.

Fernapple comments on Oct 22, 2022:

No, he would not have minded that, don't forget, that he gets fifty or sixty people every day, who are far ruder than you were. Other amusing methods include. Pretend to be a robot answering machine. Pretend that you do not speak English yourself. Start telling him about your complex and ...

Fernapple replies on Oct 23, 2022:

@Gwendolyn2018 You have to be very wary, there are of course some borderline scams out there, which are almost legal. There used to be one here where people phoned you pretending to offer help with your computer, they then talked you through a few simple basics, like deleting cookies and defraging, then they sent you a huge bill. Claiming of course that they had given you a real service, which to a degree they had, and which made it difficult for the international authorities to stop it. The one which almost got me, was one which offered to put my business on an online database. How they caught me was, that they used the details of another real business, which I did trade with, as their id.. It was of course the last company they had scammed, but it looked like a friend asking for real details for her company and rep's customers list. Then they started sending bills for inclusion in a business database, claiming that filling in my details was equivalent to agreeing a contract, and I got demands and threats to take me to court etc. for the dept. ( The database did not exist anyway, nor did the dept collection company which supposedly sent the letters.) I took advice and it seems that a lot of businesses got caught, but nobody paid, and nobody actually got taken to court or anything like it. Eventually the originators of the scam who claimed to be in Europe, but were actually in South America, gave up and sold the scam, and everyones details, to a gang in Africa, but by then it was all but dead, and they gave up after a short time. There are also several fake invoice scams which send false bills to companies. It is easy for me as a one man band to avoid these things, since I generally know all that happens in my business, and also the big corporations probably have security, but they could be very dangerous to medium sized firms, with say ten to fifty employees. Where several people order goods and services, and someone else pays the bills. A bill lands on the desk, and looks like it was something ordered by J. D. in, say, personal or dispatch , and it gets paid without a thought.

How is one supposed to deal with the irony of life? Examine it, or just laugh?

Fernapple comments on Oct 22, 2022:

Live ironically. Feel the force of the irony moving through you, and become the bald monkey you were meant to be.

Fernapple replies on Oct 23, 2022:

@BOBdammit Well there is another irony. We spend a fortune on covering the bald bits with clothes and hair pieces etc, and then another fortune shaving the one bit that does have fur.

We may be getting the bison back in the United Kingdom, especially thanks to a new birth.

Sticks48 comments on Oct 22, 2022:

I didn't know there was a European bison. Beautiful!

Fernapple replies on Oct 22, 2022:

That is how rare they became.

Ring, ring.

Fernapple comments on Oct 22, 2022:

No, he would not have minded that, don't forget, that he gets fifty or sixty people every day, who are far ruder than you were. Other amusing methods include. Pretend to be a robot answering machine. Pretend that you do not speak English yourself. Start telling him about your complex and ...

Fernapple replies on Oct 22, 2022:

@Gwendolyn2018 And selfishness for strength.

Ring, ring.

Fernapple comments on Oct 22, 2022:

No, he would not have minded that, don't forget, that he gets fifty or sixty people every day, who are far ruder than you were. Other amusing methods include. Pretend to be a robot answering machine. Pretend that you do not speak English yourself. Start telling him about your complex and ...

Fernapple replies on Oct 22, 2022:

@Gwendolyn2018 Well done.

“The most valuable of all talents is never using two words when one will do”………… Thomas...

Fernapple comments on Oct 21, 2022:

"Double you, double you, double you." Or. "World wide web. Why say nine syllables, when three, maybe four, will do ?

Fernapple replies on Oct 22, 2022:

@LenHazell53 There was once a TV series called, "Yes Minister" many years ago. It was very funny at the time, but now it just seems like a news programme.

Why are they called "C" clamps when, in reality, they are "D" clamps?

Fernapple comments on Oct 21, 2022:

In the UK, they are called "G" clamps.

Fernapple replies on Oct 22, 2022:

@PondartIncbendog You could use them that way, if that is what floats your boat, yes. Personally I use them to hold bits of wood together, perhaps because I am dull and unimaginative.

That might also account for the snake, too.

LenHazell53 comments on Oct 21, 2022:

speaking of serpents, it looks like she is standing on it

Fernapple replies on Oct 21, 2022:

I dont think the artist missed that one.

“The most valuable of all talents is never using two words when one will do”………… Thomas...

Mcflewster comments on Oct 21, 2022:

Briefness and simplicity yes, but never miss out a word of accuracy, clarity or explanation?

Fernapple replies on Oct 21, 2022:

Especially on this site.

God's word

Budgie comments on Oct 21, 2022:

Again this shows how the lack of knowledge about basic biology influenced how men decided to control women. Since men (at the time of writing the fairy tale) had no real idea of how women conceived it was felt that if a woman had slept with a man there was no way of knowing if the child she had ...

Fernapple replies on Oct 21, 2022:

That is true. Although fear of sexually transmitted disease may also have been a factor according to some people. But it may be that the biggest single factor, was simply the fear that mature and experienced women, presented a greater threat to the culture and the authority of its leaders, especially religious leaders, in a way that young girls, who would be easier to dominate and re-indoctrinate, would not. Certainly that reason is the one given in another passage by the Bible itself, where it says that foreign women should be killed, because they will teach the young men about foreign gods and foreign customs. You have to remember also that in those cultures, girls would often marry at twelve, fourteen or younger, and therefore those younger still, would still be quite small and weak, and easy therefore, to quite crudely just physically beat and abuse if they did not comply with their new culture. Also the immediate verses before. "Have ye saved all the women alive ? Behold these cause the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam to commit trespass against the Lord."

Why are they called "C" clamps when, in reality, they are "D" clamps?

skado comments on Oct 20, 2022:

I’m voting for G

Fernapple replies on Oct 21, 2022:

That is what they are called in the UK.

They're so quick to accuse us of being offended by their religion

Aaron70 comments on Oct 18, 2022:

I’m not offended by their religion so much as their bigoted ignorance and stupidity….🤠

Fernapple replies on Oct 19, 2022:

Religion is what you resort to when you want to prove, that which you can't prove by reason or evidence, and what you can't prove by reason or evidence is bigoted ignorance and stupidity.

They're so quick to accuse us of being offended by their religion

OldMetalHead comments on Oct 18, 2022:

Especially when they purposely misinterpret their scriptures to fit their modern agenda.

Fernapple replies on Oct 19, 2022:

Yes true. Althought they always misinterpreted their rules to fit their current agenda, it is not really a new idea. What made the Buy Babble popular in the first place, is that it is really vague and contradictory, so you can read anything you want into it, but then still claim holy authority backs your views.

“The weak can never forgive.

FrayedBear comments on Oct 18, 2022:

That's not what that supposedly poor man Jesus Christ said was it?

Fernapple replies on Oct 18, 2022:

The association of poverty with weakness is a doubtful one anyway.

Any takers

LenHazell53 comments on Oct 17, 2022:

Only is I run out of toilet paper and the situation is dire

Fernapple replies on Oct 17, 2022:

But remember to take the cover off and dump it before you get home.

Why are things best not dropped made slick as a greased fish?

AnonySchmoose comments on Oct 15, 2022:

why are medications you need impossibe to open ... vice grip did't help ... used exacto knife ...wrecked the lid ... had to transfer meds to new container after removing precrip label and putting it on the new bottle

Fernapple replies on Oct 16, 2022:

I have a friend who has weak hands and gets medication for exactly that. And you can guess the rest.....

Why are pseudosciences so appealing? [onlysky.media]

Gwendolyn2018 comments on Oct 15, 2022:

I didn't read the article, but pseudoscience is appealing because the theories--or fact, as people who buy into them would argue--are easier to understand. They also tend to be sensationalist, and people like sensationalism. My field is not science, but I have a passion for mythology. ...

Fernapple replies on Oct 16, 2022:

Actually the article is quite short, worth a read.

YARBOROUGH.

LenHazell53 comments on Oct 15, 2022:

Yarborough the town, has a name that comes from two medieval words Borough which originally meant a fortified area, such as an area within a city wall, the Mott of a mott and bailey town or a battlement of surrounding a Keep in a castle. (it later came to mean a town of the area surrounding a town,...

Fernapple replies on Oct 15, 2022:

@Marionville About ten miles, it is a suburb of Grimsby. Though there is also the Yarborough estate, which is the home of the earls of Yarborough, which is about twelve miles away, and famous for its forests.

Freya or Frigg is also the source of the name for Friday but let's just pretend that the Dead God on...

Gwendolyn2018 comments on Oct 13, 2022:

Monday: day of the moon Tuesday: Tyr's day, Norse god of war Wednesday: Woden's day, aka "Odin." Thursday/Friday: given above Saturday, Saturn's day Sunday: day of the sun, not "son" as Xtians would have people believe. We won't go into the names of the months, all named after ...

Fernapple replies on Oct 14, 2022:

@Dave375 That is what I thought, yep. And therefore Octavian made Julian the dinastic name, but I am not sure about which meaning of Julian he used for the calendar.

Researchers develop a paper-thin loudspeaker [freethink.com]

p-nullifidian comments on Oct 13, 2022:

As an amateur audiophile, I would be interested in the performance specs of speakers made with this technology.

Fernapple replies on Oct 14, 2022:

@Theresa_N Theory 1. Thin televisions are marketed so that they look neat hanging on the wall. Theory 2. Thin televisions are marketed as the industry standard, by any means possible, so that they seem cheap but people then have to spend extra money on speakers.

Freya or Frigg is also the source of the name for Friday but let's just pretend that the Dead God on...

Gwendolyn2018 comments on Oct 13, 2022:

Monday: day of the moon Tuesday: Tyr's day, Norse god of war Wednesday: Woden's day, aka "Odin." Thursday/Friday: given above Saturday, Saturn's day Sunday: day of the sun, not "son" as Xtians would have people believe. We won't go into the names of the months, all named after ...

Fernapple replies on Oct 14, 2022:

I may be wrong, but I thought that Augustus and Julius were the two names of one Caesar. Julian was the dinastic name following after Julius Caesar and Augustus the personal one. And it was of course called the Julian calendar because of his addition of the extra month. Our modern one is of course named Gregorian after the pope whose added the leap day every four years.

“O, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive”…………….

Fernapple comments on Oct 13, 2022:

"No man has a good enough memory, to be a successful liar." Abraham Lincoln.

Fernapple replies on Oct 13, 2022:

@Diogenes Some religions train people so well to accept cognitive disonance, that honesty becomes quite impossible to understand or appreciate.

Secularism and Nonreligion Journal Secularism and Nonreligion is the world's first journal ...

Fernapple comments on Oct 12, 2022:

Does not seem to have a lot of content yet, but that is only to be expected in a start up, I will try to remember to have another look in a few months.

Fernapple replies on Oct 12, 2022:

Correct that, I have worked out how the site works now, the main content is hidden in the front page image as pop ups.

Yay or nay?

Fernapple comments on Oct 7, 2022:

Would make a cool fish tank.

Fernapple replies on Oct 7, 2022:

@Julie808 No, I was thinking of it stood on a shelf in the living room.

My kind of circle of friends..

AnneWimsey comments on Oct 7, 2022:

They left out the wearing of mixed fibers, and shrimp.

Fernapple replies on Oct 7, 2022:

And short sightedness.

Questioning the Historicity of Christ There are several authors who debate that Christ was not an...

Flyingsaucesir comments on Oct 3, 2022:

It is probable that a philosopher/teacher named Jesus did indeed live in Galilee 2,000 years ago. There are contemporaneous Roman writings indicating this is so. This is not a big deal. It is silly to get hung up on that point.

Fernapple replies on Oct 4, 2022:

True. Though I ave also heard it said, by some scholars, that there are accounts of several different people called Jesus, and there is even some good evidence that the name was the BCC equivalent of John Doe and was probably used by many people to cover their real names.

Questioning the Historicity of Christ There are several authors who debate that Christ was not an...

SnowyOwl comments on Oct 3, 2022:

Even if he had existed in the past, would it really matter when you compare what Xstians do compared to what he supposedly taught? The closest I can get to the idea of a supreme creator being is an indifferent entity that cast forth seeds of life and never looked back to see if they took root or ...

Fernapple replies on Oct 4, 2022:

Very true. Although, I have heard a good case made by some expert textual historians, that the original Jesus, if he existed, was probably a extreme nationalist hate preacher, and that the liberal humane teachings were only added later by an early author. Who the unknown writers of the gosples then copied. We do know for a fact that perhaps the most humane of all the stories, that of the woman taken in adultery was not even added until the middle ages, a thousand years later.

" Arguments about false dichotomies are, at best, only one remove from statements of absolutes based...

Robecology comments on Sep 27, 2022:

Whenever I see or read about "debate" I refer to these rules; also known as "Graham's hierarchy of Debate.

Fernapple replies on Sep 27, 2022:

Looks interesting but I can not read the print on my screen, sorry.

A proponent of a Middle-Eastern religion once asked me, as an agnostic, what book I read to guide me...

TheMiddleWay comments on Sep 19, 2022:

I would look at you the same way. I've studied anatomy extensively and I've never come across an "inner compass" as an separate organ nor as a part of the brain. 😏 Thing is no body is born with innate morality. Nobody IS evil or IS good. Everyone LEARNS evil and LEARNS good and then through ...

Fernapple replies on Sep 27, 2022:

@TheMiddleWay Yes but that does not mean, that as with all good philosophy it should not start from and accomodate the best of scientific understanding.

Can you say “nut job”!?! 🤗 [yahoo.com]

Beowulfsfriend comments on Sep 26, 2022:

Russian orthodox catholic church is deeper in the middle ages than the roman catholic one.

Fernapple replies on Sep 27, 2022:

It is still the middle ages in some places. Most countries in the world including mine, the UK, have not moved out of the middle ages fully yet, even given five hundred year of trying. While Marx dreamed that one day communism would overthrow western capitalism, but it never happened. The developed world moved into socialism as its alternative to capital, and the only places totalitarian communism triumphed were medieval agricultural states like Russia, Cuba and China, perhaps because the rigid hierarchical structures were little different, and it was really a very little change.

" Arguments about false dichotomies are, at best, only one remove from statements of absolutes based...

racocn8 comments on Sep 26, 2022:

Interesting if true. I'd be curious as to examples to illustrate the observation.

Fernapple replies on Sep 27, 2022:

I can not share the current one I am involved in, because it involves another and is on going. But the old; males and females should have which given roles in life debates, which ignores the fact that most real people are on a spectrum with the majority somewhere in the middle, and only a few showing extreme male or female behavioral tendencies.

A proponent of a Middle-Eastern religion once asked me, as an agnostic, what book I read to guide me...

TheMiddleWay comments on Sep 19, 2022:

I would look at you the same way. I've studied anatomy extensively and I've never come across an "inner compass" as an separate organ nor as a part of the brain. 😏 Thing is no body is born with innate morality. Nobody IS evil or IS good. Everyone LEARNS evil and LEARNS good and then through ...

Fernapple replies on Sep 27, 2022:

@TheMiddleWay Morality is not a science subject, but a social and philosophical one. Nature and nurture do work perfectly well in a science such as medicine, I would never dispute that. Nor have I at any time said that. But it is a false anology to think that because they work in a science such as medicine, you can take them out of that context and treat philosophy, behaviorism, and moral philosophy the same. While even in medicine, the nature nurture model is hardly ever seen as of much value except where it leads to understandings of the interactions between the two, most medical models of the more complex diseases and symptoms that I have read, use language such as "both genetic and environmental factors".

A proponent of a Middle-Eastern religion once asked me, as an agnostic, what book I read to guide me...

TheMiddleWay comments on Sep 19, 2022:

I would look at you the same way. I've studied anatomy extensively and I've never come across an "inner compass" as an separate organ nor as a part of the brain. 😏 Thing is no body is born with innate morality. Nobody IS evil or IS good. Everyone LEARNS evil and LEARNS good and then through ...

Fernapple replies on Sep 26, 2022:

@TheMiddleWay Yes but that is an over simplified dichotomy again, you know full well, that there is a whole, almost infinite spectrum of levels of detail and understanding, between simplistic arguments about false dichotomies and hypothetical predictions based on knowledge of every atoms positions and movement. ( Which is impossible even at a theoretical level. ) Arguments about false dichotomies are, at best, only one remove from statements of absolutes, based on dogma, which I would have thought that you as a relativist would have known the failings of well enough. I do know with some certainty though, that when I hear simple dichotomies being raised in arguments by whichever side, and not only in the nurture nature debate, then I am almost certainly in the presence of a charlatan. Who is trying to avoid any nuance because nuance could throw light on the shaky foundations of whatever he is pedalling, and is probably just trying to raise a smoke screen of fake debate to avoid the appearance of unsupported dogma; even though there is small difference between them. I do not know who sold you on the idea of the nature ver. nurture idea, but you would do well to question their motives, judgement and commitment to honesty.

A proponent of a Middle-Eastern religion once asked me, as an agnostic, what book I read to guide me...

TheMiddleWay comments on Sep 19, 2022:

I would look at you the same way. I've studied anatomy extensively and I've never come across an "inner compass" as an separate organ nor as a part of the brain. 😏 Thing is no body is born with innate morality. Nobody IS evil or IS good. Everyone LEARNS evil and LEARNS good and then through ...

Fernapple replies on Sep 26, 2022:

@TheMiddleWay There is some truth in that, but I do accept that culture exists, as a special emergent property, ( In the Emergence Theory meaning. ) still part of nature, but born only when you apply reason and the extra levels of knowledge and understanding gained from communication by abstract language and art, to the understanding of the universe, including and especially, human nature. But since the remaining entirety of that universe and humans is nature, then culture is only an expression of our attempts to understand that nature, and without nature there is simply no reason to develop culture. Since without hard wired needs there is no need for anything, without hunger and taste, no need to eat and so no cuisine or hospitality; without pain, no need to avoid harm, and so no medicine or justice systems; without empathy no need to socialize, without curiosity no need to learn. Nothing comes from nothing, even by way of reason and language. Indeed without our hard wiring, of pains and pleasures, there would not only be no need for culture, but no need for anything, (Or any possible meaning to life. ) and the most logical thing to do would be for us all, to sit down and starve to death, which we easily could do, since we then would feel no hunger. Which at least then would mean that we could leave the world perhaps, to some other creatures who could perhaps find meaning in life. Fortunately perhaps though we are not like that. ( Though maybe it would be better for the planet if we were. ) As to the whole nature ver. nurture debate, I would not even care to take a part in that, since I think that the whole thing is in complete error on both sides, and a vast over simplification, to the point of being inane, and that no truth or use can be found in it. Like all vast over simplifications it is either driven by people who wish to mislead others and are therefore setting up false premises to avoid addressing real issues. Which they do in this case, by dividing the world up into two crude and chunks, or as often happens it is motivated by laziness, and a cowardly wish for easy answers, which drives a lot of poor thinking. Probably both, since the two are often mutually reinforcing. (Laziness being another piece of hard wiring by evolution, which deeply affects the way culture is designed. )

A proponent of a Middle-Eastern religion once asked me, as an agnostic, what book I read to guide me...

TheMiddleWay comments on Sep 19, 2022:

I would look at you the same way. I've studied anatomy extensively and I've never come across an "inner compass" as an separate organ nor as a part of the brain. 😏 Thing is no body is born with innate morality. Nobody IS evil or IS good. Everyone LEARNS evil and LEARNS good and then through ...

Fernapple replies on Sep 25, 2022:

@TheMiddleWay I can't believe you thought through. "If you are stating that nature can't do it and nurture can't either, then you are stating that neither can do it, not that you need both." So I will spare you the embarrassment of answering that.

Have you seen the movie "Operation Mincemeat" on Netflix? An extrordinary true story.

Fernapple comments on Sep 25, 2022:

You may also love this documentary, which tell the true story, but with a great sense of fun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bh2e6sE6YXA

Fernapple replies on Sep 25, 2022:

@LiterateHiker I loved the ladies tell their stories first hand, and the rich collection of eccentrics.

A proponent of a Middle-Eastern religion once asked me, as an agnostic, what book I read to guide me...

TheMiddleWay comments on Sep 19, 2022:

I would look at you the same way. I've studied anatomy extensively and I've never come across an "inner compass" as an separate organ nor as a part of the brain. 😏 Thing is no body is born with innate morality. Nobody IS evil or IS good. Everyone LEARNS evil and LEARNS good and then through ...

Fernapple replies on Sep 25, 2022:

@TheMiddleWay Not at all, because the trolley problem only exists because of nature. If you resort to pure reason then the trolley problem is a simple maths problem, solved by an equation, if your science tells you that the world is underpopulated then you pull the leaver, if overpopulated you don't. The only thing which make it a real problem, are the fact that things like guilt and intention complicate it, and they only exist as hard wired or even chemical reactions in human brains, which are planted there by evolution by natural selection. Things like guilt, intention and the illusion of free will, are not part of reality, but only illusions built into wiring of our brains, without those we do not even have any need for a morality, any more than a clock needs a morality to make it tell the time.

A proponent of a Middle-Eastern religion once asked me, as an agnostic, what book I read to guide me...

TheMiddleWay comments on Sep 19, 2022:

I would look at you the same way. I've studied anatomy extensively and I've never come across an "inner compass" as an separate organ nor as a part of the brain. 😏 Thing is no body is born with innate morality. Nobody IS evil or IS good. Everyone LEARNS evil and LEARNS good and then through ...

Fernapple replies on Sep 25, 2022:

@TheMiddleWay Yes nature can not tell us what is right and wrong, but my point is nurture can't either, you need both.

A proponent of a Middle-Eastern religion once asked me, as an agnostic, what book I read to guide me...

TheMiddleWay comments on Sep 19, 2022:

I would look at you the same way. I've studied anatomy extensively and I've never come across an "inner compass" as an separate organ nor as a part of the brain. 😏 Thing is no body is born with innate morality. Nobody IS evil or IS good. Everyone LEARNS evil and LEARNS good and then through ...

Fernapple replies on Sep 24, 2022:

@TheMiddleWay Yes, of course it is society and human culture which tells us if monarchy or democracy is better for society, but that does not mean that democracy, monarch and society as a whole, are not designed by us to serve hard wired needs, nor does it prove it wrong, that if we had different hard wired needs we would have a different society.

Posting to aid in the debate over what is socialist exactly?

ChestRockfield comments on Sep 23, 2022:

USA 1. ✅️ 2. ✅️ 3. ✅️ 4. ✅️ 5. ✅️ 6. 7. ✅️ 8. ✅️ 9. ✅️ 10. ✅️ 11. ? 12. ✅️ 13. ✅️ 14. ?

Fernapple replies on Sep 24, 2022:

@puff 14. if people, especially from certain areas and ethnic groups, have to line for hours in the sun inorder to cast their votes.

'Once you've introduced a socialist program, like a national health service, you are on the path to ...

Fernapple comments on Sep 23, 2022:

Australia, New Zealand ?

Fernapple replies on Sep 23, 2022:

@Ryo1 Well it is a fun game, and I love the snap sound that nits make when you pick them.

A proponent of a Middle-Eastern religion once asked me, as an agnostic, what book I read to guide me...

TheMiddleWay comments on Sep 19, 2022:

I would look at you the same way. I've studied anatomy extensively and I've never come across an "inner compass" as an separate organ nor as a part of the brain. 😏 Thing is no body is born with innate morality. Nobody IS evil or IS good. Everyone LEARNS evil and LEARNS good and then through ...

Fernapple replies on Sep 23, 2022:

@TheMiddleWay Which answers your own question you raised in the comment above. fernapple "Why invent human culture at all, all of it not just the moral, if we do not have inherent hard wired motivations that require fulfillment ?" TheMiddleWay "I don't know how to answer this. All I know is that we humans are prone to anthropomorphizing everything around us, in it's ultimate form leading to god's. Hence when we start assigning consciousness to rocks and morality to animals, I feel that that consciousness or morality is not inherent to those objects but just a projection of how we understand the world on two other things." In that, at the bottom of human culture are evolved emotions and instincts, which create needs that have to be fulfilled, determine to a large extent the design of culture, and without which there would be no need for any human culture at all. Culture, including morallity, being an emergent thing which stems from the interactions of evolved hard wired emotions and instincts, reason and communication, since we only reason and commmunicate because our animal drives compel us. They are the engine of the cultural vehicle, just as language is the wheels, art the transmission and reason the steering. And as I said at the beginning it is complex. Soryy if I stuck to this a while, but it matters to me. Now, if you like, we can move on to the question of anthropomophic interpretations of animal behavior, which seems to interest you more.

'Once you've introduced a socialist program, like a national health service, you are on the path to ...

Fernapple comments on Sep 23, 2022:

Australia, New Zealand ?

Fernapple replies on Sep 23, 2022:

@puff Yes that too.

A proponent of a Middle-Eastern religion once asked me, as an agnostic, what book I read to guide me...

TheMiddleWay comments on Sep 19, 2022:

I would look at you the same way. I've studied anatomy extensively and I've never come across an "inner compass" as an separate organ nor as a part of the brain. 😏 Thing is no body is born with innate morality. Nobody IS evil or IS good. Everyone LEARNS evil and LEARNS good and then through ...

Fernapple replies on Sep 23, 2022:

@TheMiddleWay Good, and what benefit does society, and/or its members, hope to get from developing and enforcing codified rules, since it must be a practice with some costs involved so there should be a benefit, is it an increase in pleasure and happiness, a decrease in pain and fear, or both ?

A proponent of a Middle-Eastern religion once asked me, as an agnostic, what book I read to guide me...

TheMiddleWay comments on Sep 19, 2022:

I would look at you the same way. I've studied anatomy extensively and I've never come across an "inner compass" as an separate organ nor as a part of the brain. 😏 Thing is no body is born with innate morality. Nobody IS evil or IS good. Everyone LEARNS evil and LEARNS good and then through ...

Fernapple replies on Sep 22, 2022:

@TheMiddleWay Please try to confirm, we are getting near the end now.

A proponent of a Middle-Eastern religion once asked me, as an agnostic, what book I read to guide me...

TheMiddleWay comments on Sep 19, 2022:

I would look at you the same way. I've studied anatomy extensively and I've never come across an "inner compass" as an separate organ nor as a part of the brain. 😏 Thing is no body is born with innate morality. Nobody IS evil or IS good. Everyone LEARNS evil and LEARNS good and then through ...

Fernapple replies on Sep 22, 2022:

@TheMiddleWay Yes, but this is not where I am going with this, or what I am intersted in. All I wanted to know, which you seem to have confirmed since you have made two refences to it, was. Whether you believe that there is such a thing as society, and if you thought that codified rules were to its benefit ?

A proponent of a Middle-Eastern religion once asked me, as an agnostic, what book I read to guide me...

TheMiddleWay comments on Sep 19, 2022:

I would look at you the same way. I've studied anatomy extensively and I've never come across an "inner compass" as an separate organ nor as a part of the brain. 😏 Thing is no body is born with innate morality. Nobody IS evil or IS good. Everyone LEARNS evil and LEARNS good and then through ...

Fernapple replies on Sep 22, 2022:

@TheMiddleWay Yes I agree, but can we agree that the only other thing besides the obvious value of having codified rules, that they are available for reference, ( Which I should have included though I thought we had already agreed that. ) is that they add the idea of a larger society which is invested in those rules. And that to be truly moral an act has to be in the interests of that society alone, and of, at best slight, indirect benefit to the actor. You yourself just used the idea of society shunning. ( Though I do have to say that it is well documented that many social animals, including monkeys do shun group members who behave too selfishly, but that is beside the point. )

Welcome to my world folks!!! 🤠

Fernapple comments on Sep 22, 2022:

You are welcome to it.

Fernapple replies on Sep 22, 2022:

@Buck You are welcome to them as well. Actually though we have bred a few more since then, and I was thinking, since you still have quite a lot of space............

A proponent of a Middle-Eastern religion once asked me, as an agnostic, what book I read to guide me...

TheMiddleWay comments on Sep 19, 2022:

I would look at you the same way. I've studied anatomy extensively and I've never come across an "inner compass" as an separate organ nor as a part of the brain. 😏 Thing is no body is born with innate morality. Nobody IS evil or IS good. Everyone LEARNS evil and LEARNS good and then through ...

Fernapple replies on Sep 22, 2022:

@TheMiddleWay So in that case it would follow, that the main if not the only thing added to human behaviour by the codified cultural morality, is the idea of true total altruism. That we should make some investments and effort, without any expectation of at least direct reward for ourselves or indirectly for our immediate relatives and social group ?

A proponent of a Middle-Eastern religion once asked me, as an agnostic, what book I read to guide me...

TheMiddleWay comments on Sep 19, 2022:

I would look at you the same way. I've studied anatomy extensively and I've never come across an "inner compass" as an separate organ nor as a part of the brain. 😏 Thing is no body is born with innate morality. Nobody IS evil or IS good. Everyone LEARNS evil and LEARNS good and then through ...

Fernapple replies on Sep 21, 2022:

@TheMiddleWay I have not got to the convoluted bit yet. Do you agree that the ape in the example is not being moral, but is just making an investment, spending some of its present pleasure and happiness in the hopes of reaping greater rewards in the future ?

A proponent of a Middle-Eastern religion once asked me, as an agnostic, what book I read to guide me...

TheMiddleWay comments on Sep 19, 2022:

I would look at you the same way. I've studied anatomy extensively and I've never come across an "inner compass" as an separate organ nor as a part of the brain. 😏 Thing is no body is born with innate morality. Nobody IS evil or IS good. Everyone LEARNS evil and LEARNS good and then through ...

Fernapple replies on Sep 21, 2022:

@TheMiddleWay To your first I have to take a more convoluted route, and I may not be able to get back to you with the final part for twenty four hours, since I shall be working, I hope you will stick with it because you should find it interesting. But to begin. Let us suppose that a male ape, ( not human, ) shares his food with a female. ( Which does happen and is well documented.) I would say, that you would state that case that it is not an example of moral behaviour since: firstly, most of, (I say most of, note the rough rule of thumb again. ) the females he is in contact with, are likely to be relatives with the same genes, two, he may be trying to win social credits in the group in the hope he will get fed when he is in hunger, and three, being kind to a female may make her more inclined to choose him for invited mating. So that you could say that he would have very good selfish reasons, whether instinctive or rational, for what he does, and that evolution would favour such actions therefore. And that you would not call such actions therefore moral ?

A proponent of a Middle-Eastern religion once asked me, as an agnostic, what book I read to guide me...

TheMiddleWay comments on Sep 19, 2022:

I would look at you the same way. I've studied anatomy extensively and I've never come across an "inner compass" as an separate organ nor as a part of the brain. 😏 Thing is no body is born with innate morality. Nobody IS evil or IS good. Everyone LEARNS evil and LEARNS good and then through ...

Fernapple replies on Sep 21, 2022:

@TheMiddleWay Taking your second first. No, nature is never exact, all that nature does is to provide flexible rule of thumb guidelines, for everything. If that was not so, then all humans would eat the same diet, and would never have left Africa, because we would not have found the same food plants and animals on the other continents. Evolution by natural selection rarely has time before the environment changes to adapt species to just single forms of food, and where it does, those species live precariously on the edge of extinction, the food species goes extinct and so does the animal the more perfectly they are adapted the more likely it will happen. Likewise it does not provide exact methods for things like childcare, or even child recognition. Just rules of thumb which work most of the time. Such as if it looks like a baby, and especially if I know it personally, then instinct says feed and care for it, because there is a high possibility that it is the infant of a close relative with the same genes. Which is why the system often breaks down and you get animals which accidentally adopt strange babies to which they are not related, and why brood parasites are able to get away with their trickery. But it would be unwise to think that the guidelines are not there, or of importance, since if we did not enjoy caring for children in the past, long before cultural learning gave us a logical, though a very questionable logical, reason to do so. Then we would have gone extinct long before we developed culture.

I don't see why Lauren Bobert's such a big problem in America.

Gwendolyn2018 comments on Sep 19, 2022:

Ya know, I could pass such a test with higher scores than most Xtians.

Fernapple replies on Sep 21, 2022:

@Gwendolyn2018 No you did not offend at all, in fact I find your habit of sometimes missing the irony quite charming.

A proponent of a Middle-Eastern religion once asked me, as an agnostic, what book I read to guide me...

TheMiddleWay comments on Sep 19, 2022:

I would look at you the same way. I've studied anatomy extensively and I've never come across an "inner compass" as an separate organ nor as a part of the brain. 😏 Thing is no body is born with innate morality. Nobody IS evil or IS good. Everyone LEARNS evil and LEARNS good and then through ...

Fernapple replies on Sep 21, 2022:

@TheMiddleWay It is also a completely false argument since human culture is almost infinitely flexible, not all human cultures regard rape, ( To use your not very good if cherry picked example.) as immoral, many celebrated it. The only reason why some cultures, such as our post Christian one, could come to the conclusion that rape is immoral, is because we have found that regarding rape as immoral, makes for a society which better fits with our desire for happiness, which like all desires is inherent and part of our nature.

A proponent of a Middle-Eastern religion once asked me, as an agnostic, what book I read to guide me...

TheMiddleWay comments on Sep 19, 2022:

I would look at you the same way. I've studied anatomy extensively and I've never come across an "inner compass" as an separate organ nor as a part of the brain. 😏 Thing is no body is born with innate morality. Nobody IS evil or IS good. Everyone LEARNS evil and LEARNS good and then through ...

Fernapple replies on Sep 21, 2022:

@TheMiddleWay All of which is beside the point, since it does not address the basic question of. Why invent human culture at all, all of it not just the moral, if we do not have inherent hard wired motivations that require fulfillment ?

I don't see why Lauren Bobert's such a big problem in America.

Gwendolyn2018 comments on Sep 19, 2022:

Ya know, I could pass such a test with higher scores than most Xtians.

Fernapple replies on Sep 21, 2022:

@Gwendolyn2018 Sorry its called irony, I know that I should not use it on a site with an American majority appologies.

A proponent of a Middle-Eastern religion once asked me, as an agnostic, what book I read to guide me...

TheMiddleWay comments on Sep 19, 2022:

I would look at you the same way. I've studied anatomy extensively and I've never come across an "inner compass" as an separate organ nor as a part of the brain. 😏 Thing is no body is born with innate morality. Nobody IS evil or IS good. Everyone LEARNS evil and LEARNS good and then through ...

Fernapple replies on Sep 20, 2022:

@TheMiddleWay 1. Now you are contraditing yourself, because you just told us that nature tells us that it is good to increase the chances of propagating our genes by rape and seeking better willing mates. 2. There can not be any such thing as a pure human cultural product, since human culture only exists within a physical and biological environment, and if those environments do not present needs and drives, then there is no reason for human culture to exist.

A proponent of a Middle-Eastern religion once asked me, as an agnostic, what book I read to guide me...

TheMiddleWay comments on Sep 19, 2022:

I would look at you the same way. I've studied anatomy extensively and I've never come across an "inner compass" as an separate organ nor as a part of the brain. 😏 Thing is no body is born with innate morality. Nobody IS evil or IS good. Everyone LEARNS evil and LEARNS good and then through ...

Fernapple replies on Sep 20, 2022:

1. No, that is a gross over simplification, since, you do not get your morality from learning or entirely from inherited natural instinct. Morality like nearly everything else in the human world is an emergent property which needs a complex interaction between both those things to appear. 2. The inner compass is called a metaphor, no one is saying that it is an anatomical structure. Metaphors are often used in human culture, to express ideas about things which are not yet determined fully by reductionist methods. There are a large numbers of such structures, like consciousness in the human mental sphere, which are not yet fully explained by reductionist methods, and are therefore commonly addressed by metaphors.

I would not normally do this but I am so sickened by a comment made in answer to one of my comments ...

Diaco comments on Sep 20, 2022:

I'd Echo my reply there under his comment : ----- In which animal raping is a desirable thing?! even the most stupid animals try hard to attract another one to mating. you claim: " There is no genetic or physical component to the concepts of empathy and altruism. " If so, pls. ...

Fernapple replies on Sep 20, 2022:

@FearlessFly Humans evolved language long ago which made it much easier to communicate ideas like. "Help I am in distress." We therefore have to rely much less on empathy for such communications, so that the evolutionary pressures to possess it are much weaker, and it is possible therefore that there has been long enough, for our instincts of empathy and intuitive understanding to have declined a lot, relative to most social animals.

I don't see why Lauren Bobert's such a big problem in America.

Gwendolyn2018 comments on Sep 19, 2022:

Ya know, I could pass such a test with higher scores than most Xtians.

Fernapple replies on Sep 20, 2022:

@Gwendolyn2018 Yes I am aware of all that.

just a storage issue my ass

Fernapple comments on Sep 16, 2022:

Some very good ones this time.

Fernapple replies on Sep 20, 2022:

@whiskywoman You don't fall far short.

I would not normally do this but I am so sickened by a comment made in answer to one of my comments ...

Diaco comments on Sep 20, 2022:

I'd Echo my reply there under his comment : ----- In which animal raping is a desirable thing?! even the most stupid animals try hard to attract another one to mating. you claim: " There is no genetic or physical component to the concepts of empathy and altruism. " If so, pls. ...

Fernapple replies on Sep 20, 2022:

@Diaco Thank you.

I would not normally do this but I am so sickened by a comment made in answer to one of my comments ...

Diaco comments on Sep 20, 2022:

I'd Echo my reply there under his comment : ----- In which animal raping is a desirable thing?! even the most stupid animals try hard to attract another one to mating. you claim: " There is no genetic or physical component to the concepts of empathy and altruism. " If so, pls. ...

Fernapple replies on Sep 20, 2022:

@Diaco Or try rats. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyolz2Qf1ms

I would not normally do this but I am so sickened by a comment made in answer to one of my comments ...

Diaco comments on Sep 20, 2022:

I'd Echo my reply there under his comment : ----- In which animal raping is a desirable thing?! even the most stupid animals try hard to attract another one to mating. you claim: " There is no genetic or physical component to the concepts of empathy and altruism. " If so, pls. ...

Fernapple replies on Sep 20, 2022:

Do you have a link to the thread ?

I don't see why Lauren Bobert's such a big problem in America.

Gwendolyn2018 comments on Sep 19, 2022:

Ya know, I could pass such a test with higher scores than most Xtians.

Fernapple replies on Sep 20, 2022:

Yes it is generally the case that biblical knowledge is higher among atheists/agnostics, than practicing Christians. ( Why does the spell checker on this site make me use a capital for Christian, but lower case for atheist and agnostic ? Sorry, just thinking out loud. )

One of the many reasons..

AnneWimsey comments on Sep 19, 2022:

I did that when recovering from knee replacement you judgemental fool, as have several of my friends with orthopedic problems...I bet somebody in Europe has done it too.....

Fernapple replies on Sep 20, 2022:

Yes it happens here.

I beg to differ.

KKGator comments on Sep 19, 2022:

I wish he'd have a stroke and just die already.

Fernapple replies on Sep 19, 2022:

No he has to face justice, no slipping the leash though early death.

If the evidence for an Abrahamic god is confined to a book of fairy tales then what is the logical ...

Fernapple comments on Sep 19, 2022:

1. Agnosticism comes in several forms, it is not therefore possible to answer that question without you first define the form of agnosticism you which to address. 2. Agnosticism generally, does not just apply to the Abrahamic god, but to all gods, including the deist. Especially so in the form ...

Fernapple replies on Sep 19, 2022:

@waitingforgodo It depends on the degree of uncertainty. I for one, am an acting atheist in effect. But I am also honest, I hope, and therefore my honesty forces me to admit that I do not have any evidence to disprove either the Easter Bunny, or Santa, therefore to that degree, and only to that degree, I am agnostic about those and about god as well. That does not mean that I have any belief in them, only that I do not have Santas body to prove that he is not here any longer. And I am happy with that, because, in a tactical sense, I do not therefore give any leaverage to the theist appologists who ask, for proof of the none existence of god from hard atheists. Which leaves the burden of proof where it should be, with the believer. Which is good, if for no other reason than that I have neither the time, nor interest to debate such silly points with faith fools. I am an atheist but I am happy to be agnostic as well because the two are not mutually exclusive, since one is about knowledge and the other about belief, and defending the hard atheist possition seems to me to be a waste of time. And my degree to which I credit any idea with the likelyhood of being true, is dependent on the quality of the evidence in its favour as well as that against. So that I assess the evidence for, humans usually having two legs as quite extremely high, the evidence for evolution by natural sellection as very high, the evidence that seeing a bus shelter means there could be a bus, as quite good, the evidence for the Yeti very poor, and for god and Santa extremely poor, and not therefore liable even to make me consider their existence. It is a sliding scale and not a matter of absolutes, the evidence for absolutes being itself very poor.

🤠😋🤗🙃😊🤠😋🤗🙃😊

Apunzelle comments on Sep 18, 2022:

I see a Reese’s peanut cup trend. Yum.

Fernapple replies on Sep 19, 2022:

@Buck Turn your phone on its side before you snap.

"The best things in life are free.

MizJ comments on Sep 19, 2022:

The cost is one aspect, quality is more important. Now I am thinking about "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Pirsig. Fabulous book.

Fernapple replies on Sep 19, 2022:

Yes, the remark also means, the worst things are often the most expensive.

"The best things in life are free.

Buttercup comments on Sep 18, 2022:

I first heard it attributed to native Hawaiin , "The best things in life aren't things"

Fernapple replies on Sep 19, 2022:

That is a really good form of it, yes.

I really love Alice Roberts humour, and wondered if this is a purely British thing, or can the ...

DenoPenno comments on Sep 18, 2022:

Morals without religion. Lots of people seem obsessed with this idea. Personally I have not given morals too much of a thought. Most of us do what works for us and what pleases us.

Fernapple replies on Sep 18, 2022:

I think that morals come perfectly naturally to humans, except when your culture skrews them arround, especially for evil purposes. The reason why many sceptics are thinking a lot about the idea, is of course because there is a need to counter the quite false argument of religious appologists, that you can't have morals without religion. Even though it is of course ironically the religious who most like to skrew morals arround. Though actually A. Roberts video is not really about that subject, but just a slightly funny autobiography of a humanist.

Anton Petrov - Did Advanced Civilizations Exist Before Humans?

AnneWimsey comments on Sep 17, 2022:

Without listening to it, I bet it has more "what if", "possible" "perhaps" & other qualifiers per sentence than times drump pleaded the 5th...

Fernapple replies on Sep 18, 2022:

@AnneWimsey Yes that is very true.

Go meat free….

barjoe comments on Sep 18, 2022:

I was a vegetation (vegetarian lol) years ago, and then I broke up with my girlfriend. The first thing I did was run to get a cheesesteak. Boy it tasted good. I'll never give up my meat. It made me happy. Healthy? You gotta die of something.

Fernapple replies on Sep 18, 2022:

Nice to know you were a vegetation, presumably in a former life, were you a forest, a grassland, or a bunch of seaweed ?

A man steals $100 from a store then he buys $70 worth of goods from that same store using the $100 ...

Garban comments on Sep 17, 2022:

$100 was stolen. The rest of the story is a distraction.

Fernapple replies on Sep 18, 2022:

No, it depends on whether the man would have gone back to the store had he not stolen the money. Because if the store makes an 'extra' sale it is to be assumed, unless the man blocked a parking space, and prevented someone else from going in. Which means that whatever the percentage of the seventy which is pure profit the store got back. If however the man would have gone into the store and made the same purchse using unstolen money anyway, then the stores loss is one hundred.

Anton Petrov - Did Advanced Civilizations Exist Before Humans?

AnneWimsey comments on Sep 17, 2022:

Without listening to it, I bet it has more "what if", "possible" "perhaps" & other qualifiers per sentence than times drump pleaded the 5th...

Fernapple replies on Sep 18, 2022:

It is perhaps though, the people who don't use qualifiers that you should be most wary of.

It is a very heavy year for fruit this Autumn.

FrayedBear comments on Sep 18, 2022:

What do you make with them?

Fernapple replies on Sep 18, 2022:

Sometimes I make pies, they are not a type that you can eat raw.

Atheists didn’t finish the job (yet), so God’s Not Dead 5 will come out in 2023

skado comments on Sep 14, 2022:

People who think atheists should, would, or ever could finish God off are people who don’t know where the God idea comes from. The wish to see God gone is a deathwish, because the God concept is an integral part of the human species. When it goes, we go. No worry. We’ll probably be gone ...

Fernapple replies on Sep 17, 2022:

If that is true, how come millions of people survived for thousands of years with pretheistic religions ?

It is a very heavy year for fruit this Autumn.

KateOahu comments on Sep 17, 2022:

I wasn’t familiar with Rowanberries, so went looking. Found the page interesting, where I learned that you shouldn’t harvest them until after a frost…or several. Just one thing, if you decide to use them to cast a magic spell on me, please make it a pleasant one. ...

Fernapple replies on Sep 17, 2022:

Your most delightful dream shall be made reality.

It is a very heavy year for fruit this Autumn.

OldGoat43 comments on Sep 17, 2022:

Do you ever harvest them for juices or cider?

Fernapple replies on Sep 17, 2022:

One day if I get time, I retire this year.

Vor mehr als 70 Jahren wurde erstmals nachgewiesen, dass langes Sitzen unserer Gesundheit schadet.

Fernapple comments on Sep 17, 2022:

Hey folk, in case you don't do German, this appears to be a sales pitch for office equipment. lol

Fernapple replies on Sep 17, 2022:

@p-nullifidian No I use Google translate. Why a German language should come out of China is hard to know, unless you assume that amy77 is s a sales pitch robot.

It is a very heavy year for fruit this Autumn.

Garban comments on Sep 17, 2022:

Looks healthy for a drought season. Irrigation or the power of prayer?😉

Fernapple replies on Sep 17, 2022:

Not either, strangely it may just be the trees response to the dought stress possibly, that is what I thought was so interesting about it.

Tell us 😆😂🤣

Organist1 comments on Sep 16, 2022:

We had a Hepatitis A outbreak in our school, spread by the lunch lady.

Fernapple replies on Sep 17, 2022:

@Organist1 Rats in the kitchen at night running arround treating it as a playground, and urinating on all the equipment. The school kitchen was closed down for several weeks and refitted after that. I missed it sadly, and the bought it take-aways, because I was one of the victims, at home in bed, but I was allowed to take a lunch box for the remaining years, which was great because the school food like that in most British schools then was inedible anyway.

Tell us 😆😂🤣

Organist1 comments on Sep 16, 2022:

We had a Hepatitis A outbreak in our school, spread by the lunch lady.

Fernapple replies on Sep 16, 2022:

Ditto.

Hypothesis: Religious behavior a consequence of autism.

Fernapple comments on Sep 16, 2022:

Slight problem with the last one, there is no evidence that men are more likely to follow religion. Its a better fit with immaturity.

Fernapple replies on Sep 16, 2022:

@yvilletom I know of none. There are a few like Quakerism, which do seem to be egalitarian, but it is not a religion. Just a sub-sect of the very hierarcical Christian religion, which respects an imaginary, male god, male leader, male prophets, male writers of holy books, and male apologists.

Hypothesis: Religious behavior a consequence of autism.

Fernapple comments on Sep 16, 2022:

Slight problem with the last one, there is no evidence that men are more likely to follow religion. Its a better fit with immaturity.

Fernapple replies on Sep 16, 2022:

@yvilletom Yes but that would be religious leadership and not religion. We autistic people like to be exact.