For the ladies

Fernapple comments on Jul 8, 2019:

You do know that if you call your post "For the Ladies. " you are going to draw in every single male on this site, don't you ? PS silver grey is wonderful.

Just got done with my latest woodturning.

Fernapple comments on Jul 8, 2019:

That takes some doing, to keep the natural edges intact need a good touch, well done.

Well .

Fernapple comments on Jul 8, 2019:

And in your cartoon Jesus should then say. "And you see all those other children over there. Well they are the children he murdered who were not Christians, and they are going to hell. "

I love this! I need one for my front door.

Fernapple comments on Jul 7, 2019:

We could all do with one of those. I wonder if anyone is going door to door selling them ?

Nature is infinitely more wonderful than any religious concept. - Oliver Sacks

Fernapple comments on Jul 7, 2019:

True, though it is a little like morality, the religious will always try to claim it for their god. ( Like everything good really, when something does not exist it has no limits, so you can claim it did anything, therefore why not grab all the good bits.)

Is it possible to come up with a truly original thought?

Fernapple comments on Jul 6, 2019:

Every thought must have had a first originator just as every mountain had a first climber, but like finding new peaks it probably gets harder with time. Now it would be very rare, but it would not be uncommon to have a thought which was new to the person you are talking to, and perhaps that is good enough. Thinking about it maybe that is an original thought ?

A lot of miles.

Fernapple comments on Jul 6, 2019:

Yes but don't forget with the early ones you only get an outside seat.

10 facts about atheists | Pew Research Center

Fernapple comments on Jul 6, 2019:

Many of the may just be using atheist as a synonym for no religious alignment, and of course you have to be sure that the survey actually offered none religious as an option, in which case if it did not people have to pick the nearest they can. You also have to remember that some people faced with a survey will just give random answers.

In the Virgin Islands we've had a very dry year so far, but this area adjacent to my house is shady,...

Fernapple comments on Jul 6, 2019:

You must eat very well, fresh fruit is of course only a summer joy here. And stags horn fern just coming up naturally !

More bad news for coal: Wind and solar are getting cheaper [cnn.com]

Fernapple comments on Jul 5, 2019:

That was bound to happen as there gets to be more the price comes down.

So apparently 45 said that the the airforce (correction) won the Revolutionary War?

Fernapple comments on Jul 5, 2019:

You have three choices. Either he is speaking deeply metaphorically and trying to engage the young with a deep feeling of the commonality of all history, or he is a complete idiot with no sense of history, or he needs several drinks before he speaks.

My grandchildren recently started attending some sort or required class to become catholic.

Fernapple comments on Jul 5, 2019:

Set a good example of being a good person yourself, and encourage aways the asking of questions. Some here have said that it is not your place to preach any skeptical position, perhaps not, but you can and everyone always should push and propagate as hard as possible questioning. Some have said encourage science, but the real value of science, is in its philosophy of questioning and that is more important than any practical experimental outcomes. Introduce them to people of other faiths, and if they get on, ask them how they feel knowing that people they like will not get the same salvation they will. And you never know if you get lucky, one day they may ask you how you can be moral without god, then you can answer with all your heart.

Interesting article on the 'heat island' effect.

Fernapple comments on Jul 5, 2019:

Of course you could also put sun shades made of solar panels over the streets and turn the city into a solar farm ?

I was not raised in a religious environment.

Fernapple comments on Jul 4, 2019:

I too was not raised religious, but was exposed to it in my teens at school and college, which if they wanted to convert me, certainly was the worst time.

It rained hard enough today to bend my ornamental grass into the bee balm.

Fernapple comments on Jul 4, 2019:

Beautiful shot. Is bee balm the plant which is also know as Monarda ?

For the life of me i don't understand how in this day and age there are still, Flat Earthers, moon ...

Fernapple comments on Jul 3, 2019:

I think that a lot of flat earthers are simply indulging in an elaborate joke, some may be serious but not all. Here is quite a good overview of the history, if you forgive the annoying add at the start. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4l9Y5OHqpk

Donations to 'religion' declined $2 billion in 2018 after years of growth: study - The Christian ...

Fernapple comments on Jul 3, 2019:

Well the preachers will just have to get used to smaller private jets then.

Oliver Cromwell, good guy or bad guy?

Fernapple comments on Jul 3, 2019:

It is one of those cases where the more you know, the less likely you are to think the question answerable. Most people on both sides who think they do, are often using false information based on the widespread propaganda that all wars generate. And you also have to remember that times and people change, the man who in his dotage led a harsh despotic rule, was not no doubt the same man who N. Bonaparte thought the greatest military commander of all time. I have even heard so called serious historians try to belittle him by saying things like, 'he won all his victories from a position of numerical advantage'. Only if you ignore at least three battles, false facts, and anyway should it not be part of a talented commanders duty to insure a numerical advantage. And of course the intention and the outcome is not the same either, in many ways the Civil War came too early for a republican revolution, and the Restoration, was perhaps bound to happen. Who knows that if the truly evil rule of the Stuarts had continued another century, the reaction could well have meant that the UK would now be a true republic. In many ways it was impossible for people in the seventeenth century to rise above their, religious based mindset, there was no science to speak of, and the religious views were the only ones they had to work with. And the same applies in some ways, to the people who say that the civil war in general affected nothing and that it was irrelevant to wider history, because they miss a point. Which is that negative effects can be as important as positive ones. After two decades plus of religious conflict, which was still unresolved, the big looser was not the crown or the parliament, but faith. People were exhausted and had become cynical about religion, and the old witch and heretic burning absolute faith was in decline because of it. Could therefore the new age of the enlightenment, Newton, Wren, Boyle and the birth of science, not to mention the industrial revolution which followed, have happened in that old world of absolute belief ?

I am a 100% skeptic about all things supernatural! Do any of you hold on to any supernatural ...

Fernapple comments on Jul 3, 2019:

Still salute magpies, but only because I think that saluting magpies is fun, I'm certain it makes no difference. (must go now I just missed one, and I don't want to have a bad morning. )

HOW NOT TO FIND A PARTNER -Lessons from an old man I have a friend whose wife died a year ago.

Fernapple comments on Jul 3, 2019:

It may be well to tell your friend not to be so hasty anyway. I know that life is short and he is not young, but you are not yourself after loosing a partner for at least a year, ( The old idea of mourning for twelve months at least, had some wisdom. ) your judgment is very impaired by grief for a long time, and you can easily make silly mistakes.

I am a 100% skeptic about all things supernatural! Do any of you hold on to any supernatural ...

Fernapple comments on Jul 3, 2019:

When I was a student, I still used to think that there was something strange and unnatural living under my bed. Then we found out that it was a very old cheese sandwich.

To fellow scientists: How do you deal with people in social settings that speak with authority ...

Fernapple comments on Jul 3, 2019:

You have come to a largely crap free area here, you never know with luck you may find a friend or two. You don't really need that many, it is quality not numbers which count.

It has now been put to me that it is wrong to post the same article in multiple groups.

Fernapple comments on Jul 3, 2019:

I tend myself not to do it much, but if I have something really good to share which I think both groups will enjoy then yes I do it. For example if there is an interesting shot of the garden, which is also an interesting photo, why not post it in both the Photography and the Gardening groups. In any case there used to be a short cut/sharing button, ( or some such device, I always copy and paste anyway, ) to help you do it.

Spread or let nature take its course.

Fernapple comments on Jul 2, 2019:

There are a legion of immoralities in religion, so that looking for just one is a bit of a pointless task. But let me give you a favorite of mine for an example. Most religious texts are extremely vague, which means that they can be and are interpreted many different ways, as many as there are followers. This is what helps to make religions popular. The problem with that is, that when people interpret they are basically making things up as they go along. That of course is what we all do to some degree, but the problem comes when those who honestly admit their moral code is of human origin, enter debate with the religious, because the religious will then claim falsely that their moral code comes not from themselves but from a higher source. This not only distorts the debate unfairly but also because the religious do not feel that they have any need to address the opinions or the critical judgment of the rest of humanity, it easily becomes a way to justify any criminal or immoral conduct they wish to partake of. Which is in part, why it is used to justify the oppression of women and children, rape, multilation, torture, genocide, anti-environmentalism, anti birth control, class bias, anti -science, anti-medicine and hygienic misbehavior, among many other crimes.

if there is not God, I would like to know where did everything come from?

Fernapple comments on Jul 2, 2019:

Not all questions can be answered, but because there is no proven answer that does not mean that any answer that someone can imagine, like god for example, is therefore by default the correct one. And since there are tens of thousands of such invented answers, it would be a very long shot to pick the right one, even if one of them was right.

Garden i have back corner of my property, my lil escape.

Fernapple comments on Jul 2, 2019:

And I see you have the perfect lil friend to escape with.

Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of ...

Fernapple comments on Jul 2, 2019:

So they want the impossible then, that's a good money spinner, the churches made a fortune out of that one.

CDC issues warning on 'crypto' fecal parasite that can live for days in swimming pools [cnn.com]

Fernapple comments on Jul 1, 2019:

Talking to the converted, I have carefully avoided swimming pools for fifty years, but I do now have yet another good reason.

Like me funny

Fernapple comments on Jul 1, 2019:

Best funny this month.

Interested lmao

Fernapple comments on Jul 1, 2019:

This differs from every other couples therapist how?

Dierama Wandflowers I have mentioned before I like unusual plants.

Fernapple comments on Jul 1, 2019:

Lovely things, but sadly not hardy with me in this part of the UK.

Atheist in the western world.

Fernapple comments on Jul 1, 2019:

In addition to most of the things others have mentioned. Most European countries have state churches, therefore without the separation of church and state, the church becomes seen as merely another arm of the state, and is therefore despised because of that. (It tends to be the state churches who have lost most.) And secondly much of Christian roots are in Europe, people are therefore more aware of its true history.

I detest the expression, "I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

Fernapple comments on Jul 1, 2019:

I could not think at first why it could be thought "smug", but yes it can be, because it can be a way of saying. "This issue may seem important to you, but I have more important things to do than continue our conversation." Not perhaps every time, but certainly sometimes.

I detest the expression, "I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

Fernapple comments on Jun 30, 2019:

For some it is also a good conversation ender, when they see that they are going to loose the argument in the end.

Ark Encounter founder warns ‘kids of all ages’ that libraries are becoming dangerous - New York ...

Fernapple comments on Jun 30, 2019:

Sadly it just says this website is not available in most European countries.

How has learning science affected your life?

Fernapple comments on Jun 30, 2019:

I learned to accept that I don't have or need to have all the answers, that if I do need an answer then hard work is the best perhaps only way to get it, and anyone offering easy answers is trying to fool you.

I went off to a 40's & 50's singles group yesterday afternoon.

Fernapple comments on Jun 30, 2019:

Small talk helps to fill small minds.

Good resources on learning evolution?

Fernapple comments on Jun 30, 2019:

Try Richard Dawkins, especially 'The Blind Watchmaker' his sense of fun lightens every page.

I went off to a 40's & 50's singles group yesterday afternoon.

Fernapple comments on Jun 30, 2019:

Beach is the usual hang out for boring people, to find interesting ones climb a mountain.

Compassion is the basis of morality.......Arthur Schopenhauer.

Fernapple comments on Jun 30, 2019:

So many people seem to think it an old book, and not even one of the best old books.

WARNING! WARNING! DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER! So I had a desperate thought today.

Fernapple comments on Jun 30, 2019:

The churches will always have the advantage of ready made community, at least until there is a Humanist coffee shop on every high street. And sadly that will not happen, since most of sceptical people are only linked to each other by a negative view. (Not a Humanist myself.) There are in most parts of the world the range of local clubs, from ramblers to art groups, but nature groups and charity shops are perhaps the best because they give you the chance to do something positive as well.

“Culture – the way we express ourselves and understand each other – can bind us together as ...

Fernapple comments on Jun 30, 2019:

Love the music, but can't agree with the headline. It is culture which more than anything drives people apart.

Maybe I'm looking for the impossible.

Fernapple comments on Jun 29, 2019:

There are I think two things to keep in mind. The first being that it may be a mistake to ask for a simple understanding, biological evolution is a run away self feeding cascade, with nothing to limit its complexity, therefore even at the most basic level there may be no simple answers. And the second is that at least according to my limited reading, this is still very much work in progress, and therefore your only route to greater understanding will be to read original papers as they are published, though there is no promise that that will help. I found that The book 'Life Asending' by Nick Lane contained a very short but lucid account of our understanding to date, especially abiogenisis and the RNA first theory.

A favorite at the front step, my Painted Lady ferns return each year to skirt a fresh Gartenmeister ...

Fernapple comments on Jun 29, 2019:

Very unusual pairing, but it certainly works, well done.

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. - Henry David Thoreau

Fernapple comments on Jun 29, 2019:

Well, he seemed to have got his wish, at least he certainly did not get much of the other three sadly.

Good morning fellow gardeners!

Fernapple comments on Jun 28, 2019:

Both can be nice, and maybe in this case not greedy.

On living by your principles:[brainpickings.org]

Fernapple comments on Jun 27, 2019:

Very true, and it is very similar to another post which made the point that all human disagreements are not about fundamentals, about which we mainly agree, but mainly about not taking enough interest to try and understand someone else's nuances.

Hello to all my Agnostics friends.

Fernapple comments on Jun 27, 2019:

Have a great day, well done for keeping your interest going.

Lao-Tzu, from the Tao Te Ching Translated by Stephen Mitchell We join spokes together in a ...

Fernapple comments on Jun 27, 2019:

Every quarry is a cathedral in the negative. ( I like quarries. )

Gardening is so relaxing.

Fernapple comments on Jun 27, 2019:

The best advice is. If a plant does not do well, don't worry about it, just treat it as a chance to try something else. Easy.

Who ever came up with the Grim Reaper?

Fernapple comments on Jun 26, 2019:

I do not know specifically, but pale horseman of the book of Revelation, could be a good start. On the bigger issue, the christian church has of course done all it can to promote the fear of death. If your big sell is that of immortality, then everything you can do to prop up and exaggerate that fear, is bound to seem good, even if it means creating a cartoon horror figure. The classical worlds. "Why fear death, since I shall not be there to feel it." Had to become the world of the 'god/death fearing christian'. Hence we now live in a world where the final mercy that vets can offer to their animal patients, is denied to humans however great their suffering.

Religion has done little to prevent war, famine, crime, oppression, misery, and unhappiness

Fernapple comments on Jun 26, 2019:

Human culture has both caused and prevented all of those things at times, religion is not a thing of itself but only a part of human culture and it therefore partakes of all the prejudices and follies of the wider culture. The claim that religion stems from an outside source like god, is not one that I think any on this site would subscribe to. Therefore it has no special role in the growth of human thinking, except that by claiming to have 'given' truth, it does, (and by its nature must,) act to support ultra conservative views, so that it can if you wish be seen as a brake on human thinking. If that is good or not depends on how conservative your views are.

Is the universe infinite?

Fernapple comments on Jun 26, 2019:

The correct answer and the one which truly separates the rational from the theist is. 'Don't know.' Almost all cosmologists accept these ideas only at the level of hypothesis not theory, and all of them are considered to be highly speculative. There is no written promise which says that the human brain has to be able to understand everything. The human brain evolved as a survival tool on the plains of Africa, that we can understand more than we need just to survive is mere accident, and another thing we do not know is the limits of what we can understand. You made a really nice summing of our current understanding, but the use of Occam's Razor is not appropriate in this situation, and the usage is a popular misunderstanding of it not the original.

Name Something Christians say when they know they are losing an argument with an atheist.

Fernapple comments on Jun 25, 2019:

You don't understand it.

Name Something Christians say when they know they are losing an argument with an atheist.

Fernapple comments on Jun 25, 2019:

So you think that you should be able to just go round killing and raping and doing whatever you please.

Name Something Christians say when they know they are losing an argument with an atheist.

Fernapple comments on Jun 25, 2019:

Your belief is just as irrational and unsupported by any more evidence than mine, so go on prove there is no god.

We in the US seem to be having a bitter fight over the issue of the separation of church and state, ...

Fernapple comments on Jun 25, 2019:

It is also to be noted that in many European countries the state religion often has the weakest hold on people. The reason for both is because, the best way to kill religion, if that is your intention, is to give it state approval. Religion like everything else in the cultural market place has to find a niche product to sell, and it's best is as an alternative to the state, ( perhaps I would say its only real use.). Make it part of the state and not only does it loose that role, and that of giving voice to those down trodden by the state, but it also becomes tainted in peoples minds with every crime and abuse the state commits, as well as its own crimes. Double trouble.

those eyes

Fernapple comments on Jun 25, 2019:

And the small fur mittens.

Ok today's minor feature.

Fernapple comments on Jun 25, 2019:

I see antifred is fairly high on my list, bet a few more of you have got him too ? There you go antifred.

I had to look twice at this!

Fernapple comments on Jun 25, 2019:

No sorry I think even IKEA have more taste. LOL

Keep your face to the sun and you will never see the shadows.....Helen Keller.

Fernapple comments on Jun 25, 2019:

No don't agree with that one, that way lies folly, the danger, interest, humanity, and wisdom is often hidden in the shadows. To work with the metaphor. Keep your face to the sun, and you will trip over the kerb.

Does being an atheist go hand in hand with liberal politics or are some of you Tory voters ?

Fernapple comments on Jun 25, 2019:

Being a sceptic first means not believing in none evidence based ideas, or over simplified none nuanced ideas. Therefore I tend not to believe in the political spectrum anyway. For example as a rough guide I find that my views are aprox. thirty percent left, sixty centralist and ten right, in other words generally liberal. And I think that you will find that most sceptics do not fit well onto the spectrum either. However since not all atheist/agnostics are sceptical, a very few will accept some ideas on blind faith, and will therefore buy into the prejudices of either the hard right or the extreme left. Look for only a little while on this site and you will find them.

And you think THIS site has problems enforcing its standards? [theverge.com]

Fernapple comments on Jun 24, 2019:

Delete your Facebook account, its ugly, slow, ramshackle, dull, banal, untrustworthy, and MZ wants to be world dictator. (PS. if you want social media there is a quite nice one called 'agnostic.com' or something like that, you will find it after a very short search.)

My wish for all y’all.

Fernapple comments on Jun 24, 2019:

Love that, here's another from the 'Gipsy Benediction'. "The faerybeam upon you- The stars to glisten on you- A moon of light In the noon of night Till the firedrake hath o'er gone you ! The wheel of fortune guide you ! The boy with the bow beside you; Run aye in the way, Till the bird of day, And the luckier lot, betide you." Clue ; you have to think for a second about who the boy with the bow could be.

We can all live without God, but what is one thing you can't live without?

Fernapple comments on Jun 24, 2019:

Something to do, can't sit still.

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest......Benjamin Franklin.

Fernapple comments on Jun 24, 2019:

And is the most fun.

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and ...

Fernapple comments on Jun 24, 2019:

Would not want to get things right, then they would be out of a job.

Canada.

Fernapple comments on Jun 23, 2019:

Therefore you can not wear your 'agnostic.com' tee shirt.

Canada.

Fernapple comments on Jun 23, 2019:

To my mind oppressive if true. And likely to fuel rather than reduce religious belief, religion thrives under oppression.

From your personal experience, are some people simply not wired (say, neurologically or ...

Fernapple comments on Jun 23, 2019:

Yes but is it that some people are hard wired for belief, or is it that some people lack the wiring for skeptical thinking. Until language came along, (Quite late in evolutionary terms.) we could have had virtually no culture, why therefore would we have any evolved traits to deal with the consequences of culture, especially its abilities to manipulate us ?

Two Questions??

Fernapple comments on Jun 23, 2019:

Want to die in the forest so that the animals can eat, if not, compost. Same for my pets.

What do you think about Deism?

Fernapple comments on Jun 23, 2019:

A god who hides, is from a practical point of view, exactly the same as one who does not exist; therefore its a none issue.

2015 Taken from Marin County side.

Fernapple comments on Jun 23, 2019:

Best view of it I have seen.

Who? Me prejudiced? FYI. All countries. [curiosity.com]?

Fernapple comments on Jun 23, 2019:

It does not help of course that if you are old, you are often old/mature enough to not give a dam anyway.

Every time we think we know something, we find there's more to learn! A new species of 'cat fox' ...

Fernapple comments on Jun 23, 2019:

It is only a few years since even here in the UK, which has to be one of the most closely recorded places on earth, that we discovered that our commonest bat, was not one, as alway thought, but two species. Even now, we have very poor knowledge of even the large animals and plants, and only the faintest idea about the small things, every few square miles of forest destroyed, not only could, but at the smallest level undoubtedly does, contain things never recorded and never to be seen again.

A interesting walk on the beach

Fernapple comments on Jun 22, 2019:

That's what they want you to think !

You're....

Fernapple comments on Jun 22, 2019:

Normal. (Most people have no problem doing it.)

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.

Fernapple comments on Jun 22, 2019:

The Brontes certainly had plenty of experience of life's shortness. It sounds very much like Charlotte, who was the hard headed and business like sister, and who virtually invented the posthumous celebrity persona of Emily, and outlived her siblings to be the first one to build a life away from the tight closed village community.

I’ve been claiming to be Agnostic for over a year and a half now, but I’m leaning more towards ...

Fernapple comments on Jun 22, 2019:

A lot of people have taken that route before you, you are far from alone. I always regard myself as an agnostic atheist, since I can not prove that something supernatural does not exist, therefore atheism is a belief. But it is not hard to prove that the god of the bible or any other religious dogma does not exist, so I also call myself a ' broad church skeptic ' , since any god which does not communicate, is for all practical purposes, no different to no god at all, and therefore the really big important thing is to have left dogma behind, the rest is small stuff.

We have just reached the top of the analemma.

Fernapple comments on Jun 21, 2019:

Speed at which day length changes.

To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with......Mark Twain.

Fernapple comments on Jun 21, 2019:

Sharing is perhaps the only thing which stops joys fading with age, and in the end you learn it is perhaps the only real one there ever was.

"Hyenas Roamed The Arctic During The Last Ice Age Modern hyenas stalk the savannas of Asia and ...

Fernapple comments on Jun 21, 2019:

Hyena remains have been found in caves in Yorkshire England along with the bones etc which they dragged in to what must have been their den.

Latest on Tory leadership contest .

Fernapple comments on Jun 20, 2019:

Come on, I come to this site to escape the news about these sad b-------s. Having said which maybe all the anti Boris will get behind Gove.

Over the years I have realised that my motivations are more philanthropic than for material ...

Fernapple comments on Jun 20, 2019:

It could be the limits of our ability to see. I used to work for a big corporation and it seemed utterly pointless. Then I set up my own business, and have been a sole trader for more than thirty years, my whole working life revolves around serving my customers and since there is only me, (plus one other for a while,) the one to one relationship I have with them. It maybe that when I worked for the company, my positive contribution to the world and the wellbeing of its people was greater than it is now, but it did not seem so.

Love my cute little freaky ferns - yes, ferns! And I do so wish I had been more careful in recording...

Fernapple comments on Jun 20, 2019:

I think that the one on the left is maybe not a fern but a Saxifrage.

Humility is the ability to give up your pride and still retain your dignity.

Fernapple comments on Jun 20, 2019:

You could even say, 'and win greater dignity'.

I am wondering to what extent people decide to be atheist/agnostic or just grow out of religion

Fernapple comments on Jun 20, 2019:

Was not raised to be religious in any meaningful sense, and so I grew up knowing little of it, but always assumed that the religious were basically good people with basically good philosophies. Then in my later years in education, I met with theist teachers and found that they were opposed to everything that I thought valuable and beautiful, and that they were often the most arrogant, self absorbed and shallow people who stood against every thing that seemed good in the world, for entirely selfish and greedy reasons, the shock of that has never left me.

New Mars Curiosity Rover Pictures [youtube.com]

Fernapple comments on Jun 19, 2019:

Beautiful, not almost Earth like, just Earth like. Pity about the poisonous atmosphere, the radiation, and the extreme cold, but some people think that London makes a good holiday destination, so that does not put them off.

Fascinating article! California scientists unravel genetic mysteries of world’s tallest trees ...

Fernapple comments on Jun 19, 2019:

The only slight problem I can see with that is that if humans actively start to manage the trees at a genetic level, only planting trees of certain genetic types in certain places. Then there could be a threat to the trees genetic diversity, surely it would be best to use the knowledge to replant as wide a range as possible everywhere possible, and then leave it to nature, (natural selection) to sort them out.

After over a decade of mostly ignoring, shutting down, or being more than a little combative in the ...

Fernapple comments on Jun 19, 2019:

Always good to talk and even better not to have expectations.

Can Humanism Overcome Hate? - TheHumanist.com

Fernapple comments on Jun 19, 2019:

No hate is an inherent human instinct and it must find an outlet. Someone once said that, if you could ever get the whole world to accept just one philosophy as true and to agree on it, then it would have to immediately split into the orthodox and the reformed movement, who would immediately start hating and fighting each other. What you could do however is to change the nature of the combat, you could change the moral frame of the whole world to a point where physical violence is completely unacceptable, and hatred can only be expressed by perhaps say some form of token humiliation, that would theoretically be possible, I think. However unless we take some form of active genetic managing of the human genome, then we are still subject to evolution, and at this time, since the technology of medicine etc. has, at least in the developed world, removed a lot of the cost and danger of violence without affecting the benefits, it seems likely that we will become increasingly violent with time and less socially functional. Also perhaps more sexually dimorphic, ( A big yob who repeatedly rapes his multiple girlfriends, and the passive girlfriends who put up with it, produce more babies. ) until perhaps we go extinct, because some perhaps small problem arises and we no longer have the intelligence or social cohesion to deal with it.

Do you suspect there is an evangelical arm of atheism that wants to convert religious practitioners ...

Fernapple comments on Jun 19, 2019:

What is religious thinking ? Is it, "I must be nice to people and the planet because it would be wrong to offend against the gentle spirit." or is it, "We have to kill all who do not conform to our rightful doctrine, because god tells us that even allowing their existence is a stain on our souls." ? What sort of religion? Because if you evangelize against the first then you are wasting time and are intolerant, and if you do not evangelize against the second, then you share the guilt of those who stand by silent and thereby condone crimes with their silence. The question is the sort of over simplified, 'either or' duality beloved of appologists who want to put a stop to thinking.

A question I have pondering upon for some time.

Fernapple comments on Jun 19, 2019:

Deeply sorry for your loss. In many ways there is no such thing as death, at least not a state of being dead, there is only life which is finite and like all finite things it has two ends. What matters, is not how long you live, because none of us live more than a blink, but what you do with the time, and most of all, how much joy you bring while you are here. In grief too, and it may not work for you, though it works for me, trying to make a contribution and bringing joy into the world yourself is often the best comfort, because then you give your daughter a living legacy, and if nothing else keeping yourself busy helps.

Call me Mr Stupid if you like but I am even more confused about Brexit than I have been before! ...

Fernapple comments on Jun 19, 2019:

I am not pro-brexit particularly, but I do have to say that it was a sad day for democracy when the vote was passed, since it was plain that it would never happen. The political establishment had too much invested in Europe, plus too much corruption to be uncovered. My thought at the time was that, they will argue and fudge and complicate endlessly, until everyone has lost every thread, and then produce something out of the mess that no one, not even they, can understand, but which is designed to look like brexit without really being brexit. And guess what is happening.

I wholeheartedly endorse this: "I was born with a reading list I will never finish.

Fernapple comments on Jun 19, 2019:

Too many books, too many gardens, too many mountains, too many charming villages, too many sea front cafes, too many pubs.

What are your favorite song lyrics?

Fernapple comments on Jun 18, 2019:

Yesterday. Makes me sad every time I hear it, then I get a lift.

Conservative Christian Activist Warns Masturbation Is Gay Sex | Michael Stone

Fernapple comments on Jun 18, 2019:

Perhaps he is so ignorant of his holy book that he does not realize that it forbids masturbation anyway. They forbid every other form of sex, does he really think they missed that one.

"As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields.

Fernapple comments on Jun 18, 2019:

Love Tolstoy quotes, he seemed to be completely out of step with the century he lived in.

“If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities“ — Voltaire (1694-1778) ...

Fernapple comments on Jun 18, 2019:

True, but sadly a lot of the time it does happen.

Thinking about a recent post by Freethinkingxx, it occurred to me that there should be local ...

Fernapple comments on Jun 18, 2019:

There is a UK group already and a couple more I think, but half the fun is communicating with people everywhere, especially, as being a gardener, I love to hear about gardening and wildlife in other climes.