Donald Trump Thought US Troops Were in Ukraine in 2017: Book

Fernapple comments on Mar 13, 2022:

Obviously did his homework well before the meeting. LOL But then he probably thought, that they went there in 1775 to keep control of the airports.

Even the camels are going on the warpath! What's next? The Alpaca's? [msn.com]

Fernapple comments on Mar 13, 2022:

Five hundred people each year, on average, are killed by donkeys. That compares very well with sharks. So is anybody interested in cloud funding a block buster film, about a little seaside town called Amityville, being terrorized by a killer ass. You know a pair of big ears are to be seen sticking up above the fence, and the music goes, bump bump bump bump bump bah bah BUMP.

Who Remembers?

Fernapple comments on Mar 13, 2022:

So. "Two wrongs do not make a right." And "The crimes of others do not excuse mine."

LOL. It's funny how some of you take what I write to be serious. Jesus fucking Christ.

Fernapple comments on Mar 13, 2022:

Try being British on a largely USA based site. Sometimes I think that I have stepped into an irony free alternate universe.

A friend lucked out and bought this poster at a garage sale in Oklahoma.

Fernapple comments on Mar 13, 2022:

There are a lot of people who think. "If only it could !!!" Me, it just makes me sleepy.

Hello.

Fernapple comments on Mar 13, 2022:

I think that it is better to not be too aggressive in the usage, since promoting a, them and us, attitude is even more damaging. So I would go with something more sympathetic, if still slightly disparaging, both to not promote division and to sell the usages message to third parties looking on from the side. So I would go with something like. "Echo chamber prisoner." Or " Sub-culture victim."

The joy and threat of seeing mountain goats.

Fernapple comments on Mar 13, 2022:

Great pictures.

Good morning everyone, I am going away for the weekend and where I am going I get no cellphone ...

Fernapple comments on Mar 12, 2022:

Enjoy and travel safely.

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

Fernapple comments on Mar 12, 2022:

Hello and welcome. Enjoy the site.

The cheek of of them all, unbelievable I say, unbelievable.

Fernapple comments on Mar 12, 2022:

Good for you.

Right-wing pastor attributes climate science to Satan and blames environmentalists for Ukraine ...

Fernapple comments on Mar 11, 2022:

Just tell him that pet cats cause alien visitations, if you see him, will you.

A little mold education I came across.

Fernapple comments on Mar 11, 2022:

Beautiful patterns.

Beauty is where you find it....or make it. You will never guess what this is a photo of.

Fernapple comments on Mar 11, 2022:

Lichen ?

Beauty is where you find it....or make it. You will never guess what this is a photo of.

Fernapple comments on Mar 11, 2022:

Rust on a metal plate ?

Never ask a person how their garden is doing, if it's bad, no need to embarrass them, if it's good, ...

Fernapple comments on Mar 10, 2022:

And never, never ask them about their compost heap, you will be there all day.

The caption of a low-life odyssey, Charles Bukowski, died on this day in 1994: “There's nothing ...

Fernapple comments on Mar 10, 2022:

I spent most of my life doing sex, drugs, junk food, drink and farting, but I will admit, that I did waste a little bit of it sleeping.

Breaking News...

Fernapple comments on Mar 10, 2022:

In Britain we have a different strategy. We will send a lot of aid, and weapons, but we will just wait until the war is over before we send it. Then when it gets to the French border, with the wrong papers of course, we will just let it sit there for ten months, and then say. "Well its not needed now anyway".

This logical contradiction has been around a long time but nobody wants to put their imaginary god ...

Fernapple comments on Mar 10, 2022:

Satan in the bible, up to and beyond the Gospels, hardly gets a mention, and the whole idea of hell is a later theological invention. Since, theologians have a problem, because when your house of cards begins to wobble, then, you need to adjust or take away some of the cards, as most people do. But if you have already declared your cards sacred, and your construction perfect, in order to big yourself up, and gain the maximum amount of fake authority, you can't do that. So your only answer is to prop the whole thing up by adding yet more cards, which in turn create more wobbles of their own, and so you go on adding yet more and more, until the least puff of logical wind, the tiniest hiccup, will bring the whole thing crashing down. So you have to say. "Keep your logic away from my cards will you, you nasty, burping atheist, you should not have eaten those chili beans, that is the fires of hell you are breathing out.".

The animals may be adapting quicker to global climate change than we expected ...

Fernapple comments on Mar 10, 2022:

One of the biggest problems is that faced by land animals and plants. Who in the past when climate changed, as it sometimes did, could simply shift their range to another area, where the weather suited them better. But now they live in an environment, which is carved up into many islands, by urban developments, farmland, roads and dams etc. And many are already struggling, due to having their populations carved up into small inbred pockets, or just because of lack of enough environmental space in simple terms. For many it will be just one blow too many.

Unbelievers. Are there any moral flaws in Jesus?

Fernapple comments on Mar 9, 2022:

The question does not seem to be very clearly put, since you list at least five Jesus persons: the biblical, the Roman, the Gnostic, the one who is identical to Yahweh and the possible original one behind the myth. Does the question in the first line refer to all of them, or only one ? As to the biblical Jesus of the textual account, which is the one which interests me the most, I would say yes, quite a few moral flaws: the promotion of racism, (It is better to give food to dogs, etc.) the promotion of belief in inherited original sin, the promotion of the idea of making no investment because of the immediate world ending, the idea of thought crime (Thinking of adultery is committing it.) the promotion of violence ( Cleansing the temple.) and several others. Do I think that on balance the Jesus of the text was more morally good than bad, especially in the effects of his legacy on the following ages ? Yes, in the later Roman empire, the dark ages an the middle ages, perhaps, after that, into modern times, perhaps not, and into the future almost certainly not.

“Nature is a mixture of opposites… it is beautiful and dangerous, constant and inconstant, ...

Fernapple comments on Mar 9, 2022:

But it does not judge you. There are often many ways in which the cold indifference of nature, is much to be preferred, and is much more worthy of love, than the deliberate cruelty of human inventions, like gods.

Outside my window on Sunday morning ...and I shot this with my cell phone?

Fernapple comments on Mar 9, 2022:

Beautiful, you are so lucky.

7 Humane Cat traps arrived from the R.

Fernapple comments on Mar 9, 2022:

For your biggest pest, a simple pitfall trap works best. You know a big deep hole in the ground covered in leaves or something like that. You need to make it quite big, big enough say to catch a donkey, which is why its generally called the ass hole.

I have finally decided to block frayed bear.

Fernapple comments on Mar 8, 2022:

Its your account, you engage with whom you wish. But for my part I think he has just got too silly to be worth the bother.

Attack of the sex toy!! 😂😂 [deadstate.org]

Fernapple comments on Mar 8, 2022:

So he insulted the members of his own church, by accusing them of what in their culture is regarded as a moral crime. Probably without any real evidence but just hypothetically as a shock jockey tactic, to stir up mindless ire. And now he is surprised that he is getting come back. Is he the stupidest evangelical of the lot, or do you know of a more brain dead one.

Ain't No Rabbits in the Burgess Shale MP3 Song Download by The Galapagos Mountain Boys (Darwin, Darn...

Fernapple comments on Mar 8, 2022:

Great song, and every word clearly heard.

Where's your god now?

Fernapple comments on Mar 7, 2022:

In the next cubical you hope. LOL

Here is an old piece I wrote a couple of years ago.

Fernapple comments on Mar 7, 2022:

Yes I agree with that. ( See my comment on your last post. ) Though it should be pointed out that he was a largely failed and unsuccessful salesman and entrepreneur, who turned to politics to give himself a second chance.

A little knowledge: " When would you estimate the "dumbing down” of America began?

Fernapple comments on Mar 7, 2022:

No. I think that that may contribute to the Dunning-Kruger effect, and may make ignorance more bold and visible, but it does not add to the sum total of it. I think that it really begins when those who control power and wealth, began to lose faith in education, as a generator of more power and wealth for themselves. In the nineteenth century, many with power and wealth thought that education was an unalloyed good, which would make for a more effective workforce, eager to buy more goods, which education would lead them to want. But over the years it was realized that education in fact makes people self reliant, and teaches them discernment. So that those who had the wealth and power, began to doubt that earlier view, and especially they began to think that well educated people would have little interest in buying the goods and services they could easily produce. It would be harder to produce the goods demanded by those with discernment, and the fewer goods would reduce profits. The discerning and self reliant would not want to pay for shallow sermons on Sundays, junk food on weekdays, or canned entertainment on Saturdays. So that education (True education not just schooling.) became a low priority, for industry, church and government, since they thought that they could see, that too much of it was not in their best interests.

Know what pisses me off?

Fernapple comments on Mar 7, 2022:

If you care you suffer, that is life, sadly. But at the same time, even if we make mistakes, the chances are that if we truly care, then we will still end our lives in the credit side of the balance sheet. And to die hurts no creature, it is the living who suffer, so i think that the religious moral judgment,which says that we can not kill, even in mercy, is as mindless as all other religious judgments, but the legacy of it still lingers in our culture and makes us feel guilty even when we are kind. But kindness is never wrong.

“It’s not enough to win a war; it is more important to organise the ...

Fernapple comments on Mar 7, 2022:

You have not won the war, until you have organized the peace, anyway.

There Is No Way Back {Part 1)

Fernapple comments on Mar 7, 2022:

Would we now be having a war in the Ukraine, if the West and the world as a whole, had stood up to Putin in Syria ? And if not Syria or the Ukraine then where next ? But of course the place where winning the war really matters, is in Russia. The Russians have a long tradition for the of disposal on longer useful leaders. It does not involve voting them out of office, its a lot more brutal than that, but it does happen, and no doubt a lot of powerful people are getting very unhappy with Putin now. Who knows what the future may bring ?

STFU.

Fernapple comments on Mar 7, 2022:

True. But still I wonder, if the wholesale price of gas only equals about one percent of my total monthly gas bill. Why is it that when the wholesale price of gas goes up by half, my bill goes up by nearer to fifty percent, than by half of one percent ? Actually I also wonder why I am paying one hundred times the wholesale price of the product in the first place. Yes I know they have to maintain the pipes, and there is a cost in posting my bill each month, but even so, that is one hell of a big mark up. But no, I would happily see my gas bill doubled, if it meant that some journalist, would not have to take just one more photo of a cold frightened parent, carrying a baby round piles of debris, while the grandparents try to drag spare clothes and baby food behind, with no certainty of where they were going.

I notice that Pepsi-co and McDonalds are still operating in Russia.

Fernapple comments on Mar 6, 2022:

The food industry, is not worried who rules the Ukraine, or who runs Russia or even America for that matter, because it knows that it rules the whole world, and even the superpowers are just pathetic little bit part players by comparison.

Religions survive mainly because they brainwash the young. - A.C. Grayling

Fernapple comments on Mar 6, 2022:

That is quite true. Although I think that they also survive, because they tell people including the young, that they need not bother thinking things through, be critical, or look for anything more. Nice to be lazy, great if you don't even have to bother trying.

“The most confused you will ever get is when you try to convince your heart and spirit of ...

Fernapple comments on Mar 6, 2022:

Practice helps a lot, many who hold to beliefs which require high levels of cognitive dissonance, get to be very good at fooling themselves. Which eventually becomes a problem that extends far beyond the initial, acceptance of the doctrine around religious belief uncritically, which is why religion often has such a corrosive effect on the personality, when once you have trained yourself to accept one big idea uncritically then all others become easy. And when once religion then racism, class, toxic nationalism etc. etc. all fall into line easily.

Did you know, the boy who cried "wolf" was also involved in archeological forgeries?

Fernapple comments on Mar 5, 2022:

Extra big groan.

I now know what American life during the Holocaust was like.

Fernapple comments on Mar 5, 2022:

True, and seeing only your own self absorbed interests as the only thing that matters, is a sad limit to vision and understanding. But it is also true that a few more cents on a gallon will cost lives. Because across a world where population is in billions, there will be a lot of pensioners and poor people, for whom the economic down turn he is causing, will be just enough to push them over the edge. Especially in Russia itself. Somewhere this week there will be a few among the poor and the old, who will decide that the extra cost, is just too much to afford that trip to the doctors, where they would have got a life saving diagnosis, or they will decide that this week they will have to manage without the expensive pills, or can't afford the donation to the charity which provides, clean life saving water equipment, to children in the third world. The death toll spreads out, slowly and widely, but ever so inexorably, far beyond the Ukraine, like ripples in a pond, and the economic impact is a major one of those ripples.

With all the book banning, I saw one counter measure that worked at one board meeting - ask if ...

Fernapple comments on Mar 4, 2022:

Or where a pimp lets his girlfriend be gang raped until she dies, and then kicks her dead body for dying on him. After which he cuts her up into pieces and sends them to people.

I hate when people hide behind religion think it all about love, which it all about control

Fernapple comments on Mar 4, 2022:

hello and welcome, enjoy the site. And we are completely out of control, welcome to the anarchy.

I'd like to suggest a new feature.

Fernapple comments on Mar 4, 2022:

Maybe a good idea. What the site actually does is, it displays them only in landscape. Which means that, in the mean time, there are at least three things you can do. One is to turn your camera landscape before you shoot, especially if shooting with this site in mind. The second is, if you do not need all of the photo, then crop it down in size removing the top and/or bottom to make it wider than high, and the third is to use a photo editor to put a longer than high frame around it, with a blank space on each side.

Praise to the almighty Deer God...

Fernapple comments on Mar 4, 2022:

Witness: " No they bought the antlers quite cheaply second hand."

Past CIA expert warns not to simplify Putin as a madman.

Fernapple comments on Mar 4, 2022:

You can lose your grip on reality completely yet not be mad. Putin spent his whole working life in the echo chamber of the KGB, and he now surrounds himself with people who tell him what they think he wants to hear, by repute he has never even visited the internet, and he does not read newspapers. It is perfectly possible to lose all contact with reality, not only, because you have lost the ability to grasp it, but also because you have pushed it so far away that you can no longer touch it.

Ukraine is offering money to Russian soldiers to surrender. [youtu.be]

Fernapple comments on Mar 4, 2022:

I think that the take up will be quite small, not because there is no wish for the money and freedom, but because fear of Putin and fear of being forever parted from their family would prevent it.

Putin is losing. [youtu.be]

Fernapple comments on Mar 4, 2022:

Beau, is always very good, but I think that here he could be over-stretching a bit. The future is rarely that certain, strange and unexpected things often happen in world history. That is perhaps a best case view, and it would be nice to think he is correct, but who really knows what the next few months will bring.

“Putin has become the world’s most toxic man,” Howard W.

Fernapple comments on Mar 4, 2022:

"Some parts of Poland hold German speaking people, therefore Poland is part of Germany." A. Hitler. "Some parts of the Ukraine hold Russian speaking people, therefore the Ukraine is part of Russia." V. Putin. No further comment from me needed.

Was that turtle flying under its' own power or did somebody toss it in order for it to take flight?

Fernapple comments on Mar 4, 2022:

Birds of prey, especially eagles, have been known to drop turtles from hight, in order to break the shells. Whether that happened in this case it is hard to say, but it is also hard to think of another plausible explanation.

I just beat my Rubik's cube!!! With a hammer.

Fernapple comments on Mar 3, 2022:

Sadly that method is not new.

New first-of-its-kind map reveals ‘whale superhighways’ throughout the oceans

Fernapple comments on Mar 3, 2022:

Yes very interesting. If you remember in Moby Dick, captain Ahab claimed to have just such a map, but it was only fantasy then.

“What concerns me is that man, unable to articulate, to express himself adequately, reverts to ...

Fernapple comments on Mar 3, 2022:

People reach for their guns, when they know they can not win the argument. ( Can't remember who first said that. )

Meta-analysis of 83 studies produces 'very strong' evidence for a negative relationship between ...

Fernapple comments on Mar 3, 2022:

That of course probably means measuring intelligence mainly in terms of IQ, scores. But real working intelligence, of the sort which matters in the complex human world, depends much more upon many qualities of character, besides just paper problem solving ability. Such as honesty, setting high standards, being prepared to put effort in, being willing to change even when it hurts, and patience, I would like to bet that if you could find a way to measure those too, the results would be even stronger.

That’s all he got.

Fernapple comments on Mar 3, 2022:

Maybe not, there is good evidence that he was gay and had a long term lover.

Why people trust in God?

Fernapple comments on Mar 3, 2022:

Because they want to waste their lives and then get a free pass ?

Meta-analysis of 83 studies produces 'very strong' evidence for a negative relationship between ...

Fernapple comments on Mar 3, 2022:

Site is down sorry.

Bob Dylan said that you don't need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows, and Trump wafts in...

Fernapple comments on Mar 3, 2022:

Maybe Putin canceled his payments.

I used to try to figure out the cost per sheet.Now I just buy the kind that feels good.

Fernapple comments on Mar 3, 2022:

I just grab the nearest big pack. Sorry, I must be a toilet paper selection fail. Can you get evening classes in toilet paper management ?

Mornington Crescent anyone?

Fernapple comments on Mar 3, 2022:

Kew. (Without the gardens. See if you can get round that one smart ass.)

Why yes I have on many occasions, can I get an Atheist Amen? :)

Fernapple comments on Mar 2, 2022:

Altogether now bothers and sisters. "Amen".

I know I love my kitties as if they were my children.

Fernapple comments on Mar 2, 2022:

If the presidents of more countries were people like him, we would not be in this trouble in the first place.

The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for. Will Rogers.

Fernapple comments on Mar 2, 2022:

Yes but waiting in line gets to be less of a problem too, because you realize as you get older that you never had anything really important to do anyway. At least not more important than standing relaxing and talking to strangers.

Putin’s mind… [youtu.be] .

Fernapple comments on Mar 1, 2022:

A good thoughtful video. I remember reading some time ago a stat. that well over half of Russians believe that Russia's economic difficulties, are mainly to be blamed on foreign agents working on Russian soil. Putin is perhaps not alone in the delusion that Russia is under constant attack, by foreign powers trying to destroy it economically and politically. Just how much, that parity with wider public opinion, is due to the Kremlin exporting propaganda to cover its failings by blaming foreigners, as failed governments often do, and just how much Putin and the government just themselves reflect a naturally widespread attitude, is difficult to say, without a much more in depth knowledge of Russia. But it certainly was not helped by western triumphalism at the end of the cold war, treating it as almost a victory, as though the western powers had won a real shooting war. Without being a little more thoughtful about how that would play in a very paranoid, ( In the popular sense of the word. ) population of Russia who already saw themselves as victims.

James O'Brien: Vladimir Putin has made a 'massive miscalculation' in Ukraine | LBC [youtu.be]

Fernapple comments on Mar 1, 2022:

In part at least, though I am sure it is more complex than this, the answer to "that question" is. That the author of the video is a journalist, and he has therefore, because of the world in which he operates, which could be called, the media bubble and its own echo chamber, an exaggerated view of the power and scope of the media and journalism. Just as Putin in his own political bubble and echo chamber, achieved an exaggerated view of what his plots and propaganda were achieving. That of course, in part, is what in the end pushes all tyrants over the edge into madness, because no one lives more completely in an echo chamber, so utterly divorced from reality and and evidence of the real world, than political leaders, especially dictators.

I'm back. Able to get into my account for the first time in a week,

Fernapple comments on Mar 1, 2022:

Welcome.

In 2021, atheists made up only 0.1% of the federal prison population

Fernapple comments on Feb 28, 2022:

I have to say though that I have read those sort of stats before, and they may always be skewed. Since prisoners come under a lot of pressure to sign up to religion, both from the parole system, and also from just plain boredom. Plus atheists generally come from higher earning and higher education groups, who are less likely to be pushed into crime. While I think that atheist are likely to be generally more honest, the figures for at least those who go into prison, probably are not quite as extreme as that.

You bet your ass it’s harder to love! This murderer hides behind power and his own fears.

Fernapple comments on Feb 28, 2022:

Most narcissists are haunted by doubt, and are therefore driven to keep proving themselves, because no level of achievement is ever enough to squash that little nagging feeling, that they are really just a small person after all. So it is no surprise that all this comes just after Putin was ill, there was an economic dip in Russia, and some senior Russians were asking questions if the Putin was still up to it. What is worse of course, is that, because nothing is ever enough to silence that inner nag, every new venture for the narcissist has to be bigger, better, grander, and more risky than the last. So that even if he were to succeed in Ukraine, the next venture would have to be even more silly, until at last he goes too far and crashes and burns. But it is the collateral damage that matters.

Gypsies captured the BMP of the Russian Federation and are taking it somewhere on a tractor ...

Fernapple comments on Feb 28, 2022:

Business is business, and war or not, this is illegally parked.

What's your reason?

Fernapple comments on Feb 28, 2022:

"Shocked and horrified by what religion does to people." Is missing.

The behavior of the American political right demonstrates demagogic utter hypocrisy.

Fernapple comments on Feb 28, 2022:

I try to avoid politics on here, because it is mostly American, and I don't think a foreigner's comments are always welcome. But that was a good well expressed rant, clear and concise.

Not a quote sorry, but here goes.

Fernapple comments on Feb 28, 2022:

The rule I was taught at school was. Use "an" when the word starts with a vowel, or with a "h" if that "h" is followed by a soft vowel, So. He lived in "an" hotel with "a" hot host, who he found very sexy.

"My way of joking is to tell the truth.

Fernapple comments on Feb 27, 2022:

He certainly managed both, to a high level..

Yes, Inability to Do Math Results in Being Deeply Religious

Fernapple comments on Feb 27, 2022:

I don't know about religion but it certainly make you easily taken in by things like gambling, and if you are foolish enough to fall for that, are you really fit, to say, vote in an election ?

Should Vladimir Putin have both of his knees shot out with a Kalashnikov rifle?

Fernapple comments on Feb 27, 2022:

You never know you may get your wish. Soon, unless the war ends very quickly in a sweeping victory for Putin, ( note I don't say Russia, ) there will be a lot of angry people in Russia. The Russian oligarchs, who have seen fortunes wiped of their stocks, and who control the corrupt generals, a lot of angry grandmothers and grandfathers, who have lost grandchildren in a speculative and and mainly pointless foreign war, and a lot of hungry generals and politicians, whose questioning of whether Putin was really still up to the job, triggered him into trying to prove himself with a foreign adventure in the first place. Don't know who I would be most frightened of if I was in his shoes, especially if they band together. But maybe he, for all his shallow smart ass cleverness, is not quite clever enough to see real threats coming.

I've been a nutrition geek for 20+ years, in the sense that I've read quite a bit and become a ...

Fernapple comments on Feb 27, 2022:

I have long felt, even as a layman with little more than school level biology, that a lot of nutrition advice, was just frankly rubbish. Even from creditable sources like the government, ( UK ) talking about things like " a portion ". What the f### sort of a measurement is a portion ? Let alone, when such a lot of it is not even that, but just second hand journalistic reports, on the whims of self styled gurus. But a lot of the blame perhaps has to be laid at the feet of the sugar industry, who back in the forties and fifties, when diet first became a political issue, quite deliberately funded, (Follow the money.) a lot of research into the possible bad effects of just about every food known, except of course the best known questionable additive of all. This was a deliberate ploy of course to muddy the water and create distractions, and it worked not just at the time, but even to this day. Because it created a tradition that a lot more institutions than were ever really needed to do the job, including many that were not really competent, became involved in nutrition research and continue to be so, in a tradition of low standards, to this day.

Time for a reality check.

Fernapple comments on Feb 27, 2022:

Yes, you are not alone in any of that.

Local Bar Stops Selling Russian Vodka Over Ukraine Invasion

Fernapple comments on Feb 27, 2022:

A few bottles of cheap vodka, are of course not a bad price to pay for great publicity all over the internet. (Wonder if anyone thought of that.)

Local Bar Stops Selling Russian Vodka Over Ukraine Invasion

Fernapple comments on Feb 27, 2022:

Polish vodka is far better anyway.

Lets see where the agnostic/atheist community stands.

Fernapple comments on Feb 26, 2022:

Be sure not to ask loaded questions wont you. LOL

In order to survive and flourish, a society needs to have either a central authority which everybody...

Fernapple comments on Feb 26, 2022:

True, sometimes a unity of direction is a good thing, even if it is the wrong direction, at the very least it stops dangerous divisions developing. In modern America today we see that happening along lines of race, class, and politics, but the divisions are perhaps made even worse, by the fact that, the same fault line which divides the nation along those lines, is exactly the same fault line which divides those who get their understanding and morals from religion, and those who get their understanding and morals from secular education. In the end if you want to avoid violent and destructive civil strife, there is something to be said for promoting a single moral direction, perhaps not to the degree of becoming oppressive, but certainly to the point where most people hold enough of an affection for most of it, that they can reach compromise on most things. And if you are going to promote a single set of values, as the main if not the only, direction for your society. Then unfortunately you are forced to pick one and one only, because the point of directions is that you can never go in two at once. And if you are going to pick one, then I would choose the best one if you can, which to my mind means the ideals of reason, which are philosophy, scepticism, secular education and science. Looking at it from an outsiders perspective. It may well be, though only in part, an unforeseen consequence of your separation of church and state, which is probably on the whole a good thing , and I would not fault it out of hand. But if it means that by doing so, you create a world in which one part of the community gets their understanding and ethics from education, and the other part gets their understanding and ethics, from unregulated religion. So that, since that divide almost exactly fits with the main political fault line as well, it only creates another force pushing the plates apart, and what then happens is that, any chance to agree on common ethics falls down the ever widening canyon. It seems therefore, though I could be wrong since I look on from a distance, that you have a major tectonic rift valley running through the centre of your society, and having two different sources for your ethics does not, as ethics do in many countries, help to bridge the gap. While in the UK where we have many of the same divisions, except for being largely secular, we had nothing like the same strife over anti virus measures, and most of that which we did have was imported across the Atlantic via the international nature of the media. It is another sad consequence of religion, and another reason why as the stats repeatedly show, secular countries are generally happier.

São Tomé and Príncipe: Possibly the last country on Earth never to have been visited by a working...

Fernapple comments on Feb 26, 2022:

Knew next to nothing of the geography let alone the history, interesting post.

Once they got you believing You need fixing They got you right were they need you

Fernapple comments on Feb 26, 2022:

The J. W.s said that they had come to help me solve the biggest of all questions, but they would not even get up on the garage roof, let alone look for the leak.

VOX●●● has an interesting peice-" how conservatives went against vaccines" WOW ...

Fernapple comments on Feb 26, 2022:

Link would be nice.

What might be similar and/or different in the psychologies of individuals from polytheistic and ...

Fernapple comments on Feb 26, 2022:

Monotheism was, perhaps, there maybe a lot more to it besides, an attempt to resolve the problem of polytheism. That with many different gods, all with different agendas, it was not possible to resolve religion down to a single moral and political ideology. Monotheism appears at more or less the same time, that a single written text is also chosen to be a basis for belief, perhaps to force a single narrative. Monotheism and monotexturalism (Love it when I get to invent a word, though I bet some a#####e got there first. ) of course failed to achieve that, because they did not allow for interpretation. They may indeed have chosen a text with the greatest possible range of interpretations available, so as not to restrict themselves, but still give themselves, the controllers of the text, maximum power to use its apparent authority to coerce others. But that is beside my main point. ( Note to self. Don't ramble. ) I doubt therefore that there is a deeply different psychology, humans being humans everywhere. But monotheism may be an expression of the desire for single simple answers, which is a common human trait. So that therefore you could say that is is the expression of at least the two common psychological traits of, laziness and fear of uncertainty.

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

Fernapple comments on Feb 25, 2022:

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

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

Fernapple comments on Feb 25, 2022:

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

75 years if counted in moons.

Fernapple comments on Feb 25, 2022:

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

Is Vladimir Putin the Joseph Stalin of his time?

Fernapple comments on Feb 25, 2022:

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

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

Fernapple comments on Feb 25, 2022:

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

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

Fernapple comments on Feb 25, 2022:

Perfect.

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

Fernapple comments on Feb 24, 2022:

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

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

Fernapple comments on Feb 24, 2022:

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

Watching the 1920 silent film "Dr.

Fernapple comments on Feb 24, 2022:

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

My question is,...

Fernapple comments on Feb 24, 2022:

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

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

Fernapple comments on Feb 24, 2022:

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

[arstechnica.com] Theory about dinosaur die off

Fernapple comments on Feb 23, 2022:

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

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

Fernapple comments on Feb 23, 2022:

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

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

Fernapple comments on Feb 23, 2022:

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

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

Fernapple comments on Feb 23, 2022:

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

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

Fernapple comments on Feb 23, 2022:

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

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

Fernapple comments on Feb 23, 2022:

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

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

Fernapple comments on Feb 22, 2022:

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