Debbie Reynolds in 1952 and her daughter Carrie Fisher from the 1980's

Fernapple comments on Sep 12, 2020:

Well they look healthy and happy.

Hello, everyone! I was an active member back in 2017/2018 but had a very bad experience through ...

Fernapple comments on Sep 12, 2020:

Don't perhaps judge the site by one bad experience. All human life is here, and sometimes humans can be A##h##es. You just have to take the good with the bad, and often the bad move on anyway.

Absolutely perfect

Fernapple comments on Sep 12, 2020:

I suspect you are. But saying so in public is generally considered sexist.

Here's an unresolved argument. Did Jesus really exist?

Fernapple comments on Sep 12, 2020:

Most likely there were several of him. That is how most myths grow, because people remember stories better than names. So that often two stories, about two different people, get attached to the same name. Then that name becomes more famous because it has two stories attached, so that when someone forgets name that goes with a third story, they are more likely to attach that to the most famous name, and so on. Though it would be unwise to think with any certainty that it is pure myth, since it is quite possible that most of it may just be a fiction. Perhaps, or perhaps not, borrowing just a name or a couple of vernacular stories from popular myth. Though I have heard that some scholars say, that many of the contradictions in, and styles of the new testament, clearly indicate two figures, who can be divided leaving two logically consistent persons. One an old testament style prophet, preaching hard Judaism, and the other a later fictional addition delivering the liberal teachings. The one thing that you can say for certain, is that after all this time and with such doubtful evidence, then any one who thinks they can say anything at all with even half certainty, is deluded or dishonest.

S.

Fernapple comments on Sep 12, 2020:

Groan.

Random thought over lunch.... after making bread. 🤔

Fernapple comments on Sep 12, 2020:

People I know, tell me that I have always been revolting.

Atheists, agnostics sleep better than Catholics, Baptists

Fernapple comments on Sep 12, 2020:

When we go to sleep, we may never wake up. They may wake up in hell. LOL

The many beautiful stages of a Double Delight

Fernapple comments on Sep 12, 2020:

Beautiful. Is the dew natural or did you add it ?

Given the Machiavellian tendencies of governments do you think that they will miss the opportunity ...

Fernapple comments on Sep 12, 2020:

Given the incompetence of governments, do you think that they are capable of creating and managing a plan like that ?

The thing that gets me the most about religious people who keep saying Thank you Jesus, for all they...

Fernapple comments on Sep 12, 2020:

Jesus said that giving the message of god to none Jews, meaning inherited Judaism thought the traditional female line, was like giving the children's food to swine, (could have been dogs, memory fails a little.). It was st Paul and later converts who went against that and accepted gentiles. So you could say that all the followers of Jesus today would not be recognized by him, and are false converts.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a community in the uk of freethinkers that supported each other like a ...

Fernapple comments on Sep 12, 2020:

Not even a good Humanist group near me. Out in the sticks.

interesting little tidbit....thoughts?

Fernapple comments on Sep 12, 2020:

I don't know where the meme came from, but it is not exactly a new idea, people have been drawing that parallel since at least the nineteenth century. The meme certainly makes it very striking though.

The sky has turned brown with an orange glow. The air stinks. I'm coughing inside the house. WTF?

Fernapple comments on Sep 12, 2020:

Stay safe, try not to breath the smoke if you can, I have read that wood smoke is at least twenty times more dangerous than cigar smoke.

HEY!! Got my shirt today! Hey hey!!

Fernapple comments on Sep 12, 2020:

You can go out now.

“Say what you will about the ten commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that...

Fernapple comments on Sep 12, 2020:

Unless you use the King James, where they added an extra one.

KGW-TV THE WORST AIR IN THE WORLD IS ON THE WEST COAST TODAY.

Fernapple comments on Sep 11, 2020:

Stay safe, I have read that wood smoke is at least twenty times more dangerous than cigar smoke. So try not to breath it, if you can.

This fawn looks so tired 😪

Fernapple comments on Sep 11, 2020:

Maybe its got the Phlox. (Sorry could not resist that one.)

“The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living differ from the ...

Fernapple comments on Sep 11, 2020:

Those willing to learn from those unwilling. Perhaps, is closer.

My daughter's adopted child is 12 years old.

Fernapple comments on Sep 11, 2020:

When she is over the initial grief, it would be a good time to tell her that conventional Christian doctrine says that animals don't have souls, and therefore can't go to heaven. That millions of christians believed that for centuries, and that it is still used in some countries to justify animal cruelty, since it is held by many christian sects, that animals don't therefore really have feelings. Generally an eye opener that one.

One of the great mysteries to people who use the space between their ears for thinking is why do ...

Fernapple comments on Sep 11, 2020:

Then they are badly in error and short of vision, (not that surprising really, ) because "white, Anglo saxon, European, Christians" are the dominant tribe only in North America, and they may not be aware of it, but there is a big old world out there.

Mythology creature. Eyes that hides a thousands stories ☺

Fernapple comments on Sep 11, 2020:

Great photo, such a bright orange.

The question was asked why people continue supporting Trump no matter what he does.

Fernapple comments on Sep 11, 2020:

In many ways the right wing movements are based in the class struggle, for those of the working and lower middle class at least, and the reasons for their split with liberalism is not just one sided. Modern liberals began back in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in many ways as champions of the working and lower middle classes, and at that time the very idea of an extreme anti- liberal working class movement, would have been unthinkable. But liberals rose to gain a share of power, and a section of liberal thinkers, namely the liberal political establishment, needed to divorce themselves from many working class values in consequence, because some of those values, such as racism on the bad side, and contempt for fake elitist pretensions on the good side, just would not work in the political world. In consequence they stopped talking to the working classes, and that lack of conversation soon became viewed as, and often really was, contempt, which bred hatred in reply. And the more the working class refused to provide the liberal political establishment with a justification for their growing power and wealth, by refusing to play victims; and the more they accepted the fake promises of the capitalist pushers of consumer goods, telling them that they could buy their way to happiness and fulfillment, the more stark became the failing of the liberals to provide the good education promoting real understanding, which is the natural way out of the consumer trap, and one of the main promises they made. While the deeper and more obvious that failing became, the more embarrassing it was for the liberal political establishment, so that they wanted to distance themselves ever more from embarrassment of their educational failing, and the people involved in it. All of which of course made the working class contempt, for those who were still willing to seek liberal political support, even deeper. Fueling racist and nationalist hatred, even simply hatred of weakness and the need for any help, other than that provided by their home grown support systems like the churches. And so the multi-channel feed back loops, each lending more fuel to the other, began to ever deepen the split between the liberals and the working right, while making the middle ground became increasingly untenable, forcing those on it choose community or liberal values and morality.

Time for a little fun, locate where you live.

Fernapple comments on Sep 10, 2020:

I come from the eastern half of the UK. And I think I would be arrested if I put my finger on it in public.

A tiger doesn't lose sleep over the opinion of sheep.☺

Fernapple comments on Sep 10, 2020:

Great photo.

How do pandemics usually end? And how will this one finish? [abc.net.au]

Fernapple comments on Sep 10, 2020:

I don't think that any two ever end the same way. In the past, when people did not perhaps keep such good records, many like Black Death, Spanish Flu and Leprosy, just disappeared quietly when nobody was paying attention any more. But of course some never do, seasonal flu has been with us now for thousands of years, many STDs still linger on, others like measles are come back kings which pop up here and there at random, while others like polio are still there but only in small pockets where religious leaders oppose vaccination.

Pastor called a "prophet" and a "man of God" murders his wife while she's in the process of ...

Fernapple comments on Sep 10, 2020:

You have to hire Jesuses mum to do it for you. Because, since she is without sin, she is legally entitled to throw stones.

This just makes the world right for a minute! Mei Ziang leaves baby to get some bamboo to snack on.

Fernapple comments on Sep 10, 2020:

Nah! Wombats. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG66GM_LrIA

South Korea’s Christians losing faith amid coronavirus outbreaks linked to churches, pastors say

Fernapple comments on Sep 10, 2020:

How sad.

Nora Ephron ,a atheist, stated in her autobiography the thing she regretted leaving behind when she ...

Fernapple comments on Sep 10, 2020:

Soft night air on a warm summers evening, when you can sit outside.

Sarcasm is a chasm we all fall into ... sometimes ... [agnostic.com]

Fernapple comments on Sep 10, 2020:

Sadly the higher levels of stupid do not understand sarcasm. Its best to go for irony, then they think you are being nice to them, and you can make your escape while they are still thinking about it.

My lemongrass bushes are sad looking.

Fernapple comments on Sep 10, 2020:

Hopefully all your hard work will pay off. I grew some one year, from the shoots I bought in the supermarket, but sadly they are not hardy in the UK even in a greenhouse.

Like the numbers expected to die from C19 an arithmetical miscalculation?

Fernapple comments on Sep 9, 2020:

Yep, no surprise there.

Astronomers find no signs of alien tech after scanning over 10 million stars An Australian ...

Fernapple comments on Sep 9, 2020:

Yes we may be quite alone. And very soon we may have killed our own planet, then it will be a very empty universe, and the stars will cycle on towards a last gasp of entropy, fading into cold over thought free billions of years, unobserved and unloved.

Mythological creature.

Fernapple comments on Sep 9, 2020:

Beautiful animals, I think that a couple of the shots are fake, but who cares.

Donald Trump nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

Fernapple comments on Sep 9, 2020:

Someone on this site made a post today, about the Spanish having a laugh at Americans. I have heard that they have a sense of humour in Norway too.

[dailymail.co.uk] That is funny

Fernapple comments on Sep 9, 2020:

I get an email every week telling me that I have been nominated for a prize, a business award no less. All I have to do is send them a registration fee.

How are you all?

Fernapple comments on Sep 9, 2020:

Fine thank you, good weather here, soon be time for beer. How are you doing ?

Do you think these people have the slightest clue what they're singing about in this "modern ...

Fernapple comments on Sep 9, 2020:

Bring back the throwing up emoji.

[sciencealert.com] what is the effect of too much CO2 on trees?

Fernapple comments on Sep 9, 2020:

I have also read that the idea of planting trees as a carbon sink will never work anyway, because the amount of carbon they take up is too small to be significant. At best they would only help a tiny little bit.

What is the source of non-religious prudishness or disgust at nudity or sexuality?

Fernapple comments on Sep 9, 2020:

Since attitudes to nudity vary so much, it is clearly a cultural phenomena, not one which is hard wired. It is also clear that it really begins only with the onset of civilization, since most of the societies that are completely accepting of nudity are hunter gatherer societies living in extended families or small tribes. In such groups there is probably a natural meritocracy, in that it does not mater much that grandfather is ugly, if he is kind strong and wise, he will be loved and honoured anyway. With the agricultural revolution population explodes however, and society therefore becomes bigger and values shallow, obvious in short term qualities more, including appearance. People in such societies will therefore almost certainly dress up to impress and maintain status. If that is true, then we would expect to see that the more meritocratic a society, and the more local democracy it possesses, the more accepting of nudity it would be. And anecdotal that seems to be the case. The ancient Greeks for example, regarded their accepting attitude to nudity as a sign of their freedom, and the covering up of their neighbours, in the imperial states around them, as a sign of repression and a rigid stratified class based society. ( So this is not a new thought.) And still in the classical world, Rome started out as a society widely accepting of nudity, but became increasing one where covering up was the norm, as its democracy failed and it became increasingly imperial. And when once the norm of dressing up is established, then those who do not do so are considered exceptional and attract notice, especially sexual attention if attractive, or revulsion if poor or ugly, and so it self perpetuates. Sadly for the political nudists, this probably means that any dream of creating a fair society by promoting nudity, is just that, a dream, since acceptance of nudity probably follows from being a fair meritocratic society, not the other way round.

Another Former Creation Museum Staffer Speaks Out About Ken Ham’s Toxic Empire | Hemant Mehta | ...

Fernapple comments on Sep 8, 2020:

Amazing, who would have guessed that one of the worlds greatest con-men and hypocrites, would not be a good employer.

UNLIKELY SOURCES DEPT.

Fernapple comments on Sep 8, 2020:

Yep , and we will continue to spread the toxic paint, because although the door is open most of us just don't want to escape our culture.

"Hero-worship is strongest where there is least regard for human freedom." - Herbert Spencer

Fernapple comments on Sep 8, 2020:

Yes where people do not want to take responsibility for or think for themselves, then they look for a leader with ready made answers. It was sad that the Russians hero worshiped Putin, and were not grown up enough to manage without a father figure to guide them. But now I see a lot of Americans worshiping Trump, which is a whole other league of giving up.

An interesting list; 20 most prosperous countries (as of 2019) [insider.

Fernapple comments on Sep 8, 2020:

I have read that one of the best things that a government can do for an economy, is to introduce a high minimum wage, in part because the spending power of large numbers raised out of poverty lifts the economy far more than the spending of rich people, which is slower and less likely to stay within the country.

Amazing how the things work out.

Fernapple comments on Sep 8, 2020:

Welcome to the blocked club, well done. Never heard of him though.

4 Essential Elements of Agnosticism

Fernapple comments on Sep 8, 2020:

My wife was a believer, but divorced. So we married in a civil ritual arranged through the town hall, and then went to the chapel to have a church blessing service. ( It amazes me the nit picking that religions will go to. They won't perform a marriage, but will do a blessing service, which is exactly the same ritual.) But I was happy to go along with it, since it made my wife happy, and it meant nothing to me. Since all religion is meaningless, there is no reason why I should not go through any ritual, pray, or be blessed, it has no meaning. The only possible harm done is that by adding a little to the size of the congregation, and thereby I may add a little to religions prestige, but one grump in the corner, who puts little or no money on the plate, will make little difference that way, but attending may be very important to my loved ones, so you go with it.

Add some guilt to your sadness by feeling bad about not speaking to the imaginary sky daddy enough ...

Fernapple comments on Sep 8, 2020:

Sad but true.

It really really saddens me knowing that many children were raised in a household where religion was...

Fernapple comments on Sep 8, 2020:

Passing on cultural heritage may be inevitable, but there is no reason why cultural heritage can not include a sceptical view. To those who would say that indoctrination is not child abuse, I would say that one of the symptoms of child abuse, is that the abused are often made to feel life long guilt, for imaginary sins on their part. Now if you wish to tell me that religion is not abusive, persuade me that people only follow extreme physically harmful penitence if they are adult converts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMoeCWyLhaQ

Have you seen glacial flour?

Fernapple comments on Sep 8, 2020:

Snow melt can often produce some beautiful colours too, because it is too cold for alga to grow amongst other things. I saw this beautiful azure blue river, with perhaps a hint of milk, in Turkey a couple of years ago.

Anyone else here listen to podcasts?

Fernapple comments on Sep 8, 2020:

No I have not found that one, thank you for the eyes up.

Happy Labor Day to All!

Fernapple comments on Sep 7, 2020:

Have a good day.

Weirdest Passages You've Read?

Fernapple comments on Sep 7, 2020:

Balaam’s Donkey Numbers 22:21-39

All our fruit trees were bare this year.

Fernapple comments on Sep 7, 2020:

Gardeners just have to learn to go with the flow I think. But that is the best thing about growing a big range, not only is it more fun, but you are much less likely to lose everything.

Happy Labor Day everyone!

Fernapple comments on Sep 7, 2020:

Have a great day.

It's starting to feel like Dr Doolittle's house here.

Fernapple comments on Sep 7, 2020:

A sparrow. I love them they are wonderful. I know people in the states are not all that happy about them, but they are charming little rogues.

So many conservative people bemoan the children of today and their lack of respect.

Fernapple comments on Sep 7, 2020:

Think there may be a word or two missing from your title. recommend an edit, I know what you mean but it does not read well.

These are my grandfather's medals from WWI; they are 100 years old.

Fernapple comments on Sep 7, 2020:

There is no better judge than history. And soon Trump will be sharing it with those he disparaged, the long perspective is not kind to the untruthful.

“The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.

Fernapple comments on Sep 7, 2020:

No I don't agree with that, very often political power clashes with the ruling intellectual force.

coffeetime☕

Fernapple comments on Sep 7, 2020:

My place or yours ?

Racism among white Christians is higher than among the nonreligious. That's no coincidence.

Fernapple comments on Sep 7, 2020:

If you can believe one really stupid half baked lie, you won't find it hard to believe half a dozen.

Yeah suspicious

Fernapple comments on Sep 7, 2020:

Its not finished yet, watch this space.

Are you a humanist?

Fernapple comments on Sep 7, 2020:

OK quite good, it seems honest if a little banal. Very often with these things you will find that they give you a 'correct' or 'good' score, no mater what answers you give, since they are just click bait to draw you in. So I ran it twice, the first time giving honest answers, and the second time making half my answers random. The first time it said, yes you are a Humanist and the second time, "Its not for you." So it would seem to be for once and rarely an honest quiz.

Retired Major General sounds off on Trump

Fernapple comments on Sep 7, 2020:

How sad that someone has to say something like that. You would hope that, even if a countries leader is not patriotic, they would at least have a brain big enough to see that belittling their fellow citizens is stupid, unkind and counter productive.

Hi , why isn't it possible to browse currently online members?

Fernapple comments on Sep 7, 2020:

You can go to members and look for the ones with the green dot. It is a bit harder than having a specific list, but not much.

I like to read logic, science, history, linguistics. Site looks nice!

Fernapple comments on Sep 7, 2020:

Hello and welcome, enjoy the site, and do check out the groups if you have time, there is something for everyone.

I desire to make an observation that has intrigued me since joining this site.

Fernapple comments on Sep 7, 2020:

"Its a shallow approach to evaluating another's worth" Very true, perhaps you should tell them that it is a shallow world in which we live, and that if they want to live in a world where individuals are truly valued for their deep personal qualities, then there are still a few hunter gatherer societies remaining where they could go and live in an extended family. Assuming they can get in in the first place.

Jebus H.

Fernapple comments on Sep 7, 2020:

I think that it is very unlikely that Zuckbook has trained his bots. to understand quotation mark, or that he even cares. Pity you did not quote Goebbels, I think that Zuckbook is using him as a model.

Cat meets shrew (2nd kill of the week).

Fernapple comments on Sep 7, 2020:

Great face shot, getting a cat to look into the lens well done.

During the geography class on the Eastern Mediterranean, the teacher asked Little Johnny, "What are ...

Fernapple comments on Sep 6, 2020:

Venetian. The Phoenicians were noted for inventing phones.

Is America really the richest country in the world? Yes and no! [swedishnomad.com]

Fernapple comments on Sep 6, 2020:

Even if you take out the city states, and the oil states. America is still behind Ireland, Switzerland.

Religion observations

Fernapple comments on Sep 6, 2020:

Amazingly it was once considered very important, the church flip flopped for many years over the issue of Adam and Eves belly buttons, and in the middle ages artists who portrayed them the wrong way, according to the then fashion, could be charged as criminals. Many used sprays of foliage and the like, painted over the areas to avoid the problem.

That's disturbing.

Fernapple comments on Sep 6, 2020:

Big flowery hats, like they wear to church, that's way beyond passive aggressive.

I'm kind of curious about why women do strange things to their bodies: waxes, tummy tucks, face make...

Fernapple comments on Sep 6, 2020:

Good smart appearance is not just for what you get out of it, but also like not displaying your dustbins on the street, a kindness to everyone else. But of course it can go too far, and many people fall for the, more is better trap, as sold by consumerist industry and advertising, the simple truth that just because someone is selling it, it does not mean it is good, has not dawned on many. (Especially the starkly grotesque cosmetic surgery victims you see everywhere.) Just as not leaving your bin out is good taste, so is not decorating your front garden with a large pimped truck, and a pink plastic hot tub. And there is no reason to think that taste, sense and the ability to resist indoctrination, are likely to be more common in the realm of personal appearance, than housing. With regard to men of course, men are just a push over, we are so hard wired by nature to like women, that we are dead easy to manipulate. It is about status and hoping, almost certainly in vain, that you can get a 'better' mate by so doing. Though from a womans point of view, you only have to give it a seconds thought to realize that it is actually far more likely to get you a far worse mate, if he is shallow enough to be fooled, well, you can work it out. But of course appearance is not about attracting the opposite sex, that is easy. Most birds sing and have bright feathers, not to attract, but mainly to daunt their own sex, it is about passive aggression not attraction. And happily for you if you are not an aggressive woman, then perhaps it is to your credit that you can not see the point of it.

Happened this afternoon (06th of September) at North Point, in the North Eastern part of Hong Kong ...

Fernapple comments on Sep 6, 2020:

If beautiful women can still be so beautiful even wearing a mask, what is all the fuss about. ?

Why isn't there a better word for "miracle" that doesn't have religious connotations?

Fernapple comments on Sep 6, 2020:

Yes I do not think that there is a neat single word. I always have to resort to phrases like. "Wonderful good fortune." Which is not very satisfactory. I think that AmytheBruce below comes up with the closest, 'serendipity' though that is not perfect since its has slightly trivial associations. Why not invent one yourself, and persuade this site to begin promoting it ? How about something like an, "incredibility".

“Evil isn’t the real threat to the world.

Fernapple comments on Sep 6, 2020:

Stupid, and sometimes just the effect of unforeseen consequences, when even the most intelligent could not be expected to understand what they truly did.

Default to Atheism - The Catholic Thing

Fernapple comments on Sep 6, 2020:

If atheism succeeds, I do not think that will be "the end of civilization as we know it". If civilizations does end it will most likely be mainly brought about by forces beyond our control, aided by religious science and reason denial. But all of that is beside the point, it would not make any difference if the whole world could be saved, climate change reversed and every form of crime abolished forever, by just one more person believing in god, that still would not magic god into existence. I do not think that the article though is a particularly stark example of class condescension in religion, speaking as a life long member of the lower orders, I have encountered far worse than that. Indeed one of the main reasons for leaving religion was the arrogant snobbery of the religious system. Where working class boys, ( probably the same for girls I don't know directly,) could be stood against the wall and be used as punch bags by religious teachers, (for their own good ) but children with high earning parents were immune from such treatment.

Saturday I picked beans...

Fernapple comments on Sep 6, 2020:

Great harvest, lovely colours.

So, if we placed a satellite six hundred billion miles out in space (tenth of a light year)focused ...

Fernapple comments on Sep 6, 2020:

If It focused its camera on the microwave background radiation, nearly to the big bang. If it focused it on earth, one tenth of a year for light to reach it, and one tenth of a year for the message to come back to us therefore about seventy days. But since it would have to journey to its position at lower than light speed, that would still be a time after the launch day. Now, have I done enough to earn the laugh, when you tell me the silly reason why I am wrong.

The first rule of fight club is no damned fight club. Who's with me?

Fernapple comments on Sep 6, 2020:

The first rule of life is. If you have time to watch trashy Holywood productions, you haven't got a life.

“I am an Agnostic because I am not afraid to think.

Fernapple comments on Sep 6, 2020:

That will do well enough. Hello and welcome to the site. Do check out the groups if you have time, there is something for everyone.

I constantly watch/listen to this at least once a week.

Fernapple comments on Sep 6, 2020:

She needs the sceptic community badly. Its a pity we can't send her a message about sites like this.

"Orgasm on a plate." Laughing at the Farmer's Market.

Fernapple comments on Sep 6, 2020:

I just love markets, even if I don't buy anything. Just meeting people who made or grew what they are selling, and watching people just wandering around enjoying the fresh air and the social interactions, instead of trying to fill their trolley faster than everyone else.

Are you conditioned? If so in what ways? Please share. [quotes.justdharma.]

Fernapple comments on Sep 6, 2020:

Why would I not wish to be controlled by circumstances ? I am here to live, and to interact with the world in which I live.

Is there anything that can be done about people who post things multiple times in the same group?

Fernapple comments on Sep 5, 2020:

I don't know, when once I did it by accident, I got a warning message, saying. You have posted this already. Or something like that.

Having moved away from the Co-operative bank as i lived too far away, I’m thinking about moving ...

Fernapple comments on Sep 5, 2020:

Really good information thank you. I am thinking of putting money into a credit union so that sub-page about those is really useful. PS. I did not realize that we are quite near neighbours, at least in global terms.

The Lie and The Truth

Fernapple comments on Sep 5, 2020:

There is a lovely old painting too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_Coming_Out_of_Her_Well

Multiple times now I have written private messages only to have them disappear when I hit send.

Fernapple comments on Sep 5, 2020:

No, but the site does seem to be geared for a PC rather than a mobile device, nearly all the problem reports do come from people using mobile devices.

Going to kinda free write this, and none of this will qualify as "required reading" so if anybody ...

Fernapple comments on Sep 5, 2020:

Hello and welcome. Enjoy the site, and if you have time do check the groups, there is something for everyone. But posting on one page is generally enough, it will still show on the front page.

Hello Heathens, Just joined a few hours ago.

Fernapple comments on Sep 5, 2020:

Hello and welcome. Enjoy the site, and if you have time do check the groups, there is something for everyone.

Do new members get free Coffee? TeeHee

Fernapple comments on Sep 5, 2020:

Hello and welcome. Good members get a T shirt, but for free coffee you need to go somewhere where they take money off you for other things, like a church for example. Enjoy the site, and if you have time do check the groups, there is something for everyone.

Hello I’m new.

Fernapple comments on Sep 5, 2020:

Hello and welcome. Enjoy the site, and if you have time do check the groups, there is something for everyone.

[livescience.com] some vikings believed in a mirror world

Fernapple comments on Sep 5, 2020:

I have heard that the legend of El Dorado, and the city of gold that the Spanish spent such effort chasing in South America, back in the sixteenth century. May well have arisen out of a simple misunderstanding. Because in many native cultures it was believed, that the spirit world was what you saw when you looked at reflections, and most mirrors were made of gold. Therefore the man and city of gold, were just the native name for heaven or at least the equivalent of the Christian 'Pearly Gates', which could be viewed quite literally in mirrors, or on the bright surface of the sun.

I have access to 4 or more browsers on my computers.

Fernapple comments on Sep 4, 2020:

Try updating Firefox, the latest one shows your most visited sites on the home page with icons, by default.

Do you care?

Fernapple comments on Sep 4, 2020:

Knowledge is power and understanding, that's why good governments try to spread it, and bad ones suppress it.

Which are you? ;)

Fernapple comments on Sep 4, 2020:

Complexity and truth are two different qualities, which do not relate to one another. That's why the modern common misunderstanding of Occam's razor is false, though the original was useful. Quality of evidence needs to be considered as well as quantity. But at the same time it is generally better to hold something to be true, if it is supported by multiple sources of evidence, rather than one, if the evidence is all of the same quality.

.

Fernapple comments on Sep 4, 2020:

Secular charities are far bigger overall in Europe than the Christian ones, (I suspect that may be true even in the US.) and they are by default none religious. To paraphrase the old saw. Agnostics and Atheists are not organizations or movements, in the same way that not playing golf is a sport.

Comparative evaluations are accurate .. [agnostic.com]

Fernapple comments on Sep 4, 2020:

Scientist. "I think we should measure the level carefully before we make statements." Pedant. "It all depends on the size of the glass, and are we measuring in litres or pints." Realist "It does not mater, a part full glass, even of piss, is more useful than an empty one." Socialist. "Its better everyone has half a glass, than one person has two glasses full and another has none." Capitalist. "Its my glass therefore I own the piss, whoever made it." Feminist. "I bet a man did that." Opportunist. "Great its nearly time for another round."

When should you decide to engage in civil discourse?

Fernapple comments on Sep 4, 2020:

Don't start to debate, just state your position in a positive way, in other words don't say. "No I do not agree with that." Instead say. "I am finding that the freedom, and positive personal growth that I gain from not engaging with astrology right now are too valuable to loose." Then leave it to them to start the debate if they want to, which they probably won't, but by the time they have heard you say something like that several times, they may just start to question for themselves with out you having to do anything. Example wins more converts than debate.

Can an atheist be a proud Secular Christian?

Fernapple comments on Sep 3, 2020:

Since there are so many different forms of Christianity, it is a virtually meaningless term and can therefore be anything you want it to be. So that if someone, like everyone else, wanted to cherry pick out the bits they like and then call that Christianity, then they are no different from anyone else, and are perfectly entitled to call themselves a Christian if they wish. Personally if they believed in "love your enemies", "turn the other cheek", and "take care of others outside your tribe (good Samaritan) " I would probably call them simply a, good person instead, because I think that they are better than that religion. Or even better than Jesus who if we take the New Testament as half true, also said some really horrible things.