What experience and history teach is this, that peoples and governments have never learned anything ...

Fernapple comments on Nov 5, 2018:

It is very like the quote. "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat its mistakes." I do not know who said that, but even the slightest knowledge of history itself teaches you the truth of it. Which is why the worlds political establishments are so often opposed to the teaching of real, in depth, history, after all you would not want a well informed populace with an understanding of how the world works would you.

Ten characters

Fernapple comments on Nov 5, 2018:

Reminds me of school, and what a long time ago it was, but pleased to see that nothing has changed.

Skull-Shaped 'Halloween Asteroid' Will Zip by Earth Again This Month [space.com]

Fernapple comments on Nov 5, 2018:

The amazing human capacity to see faces in things, which is hard wired into our brains so strongly that three craters become, quite clearly, a skull, and of course Jesus appears on a slice of toast nearly every day. Just three dots can make a face, (check the emoticons ). Some people think that the talent it may date from our time in the wilds of Africa when if you did not see the face of, say a lion, however well hidden in the grass it was, then that fail could cost your life.

This site is calling me a MAN... I'm only 35. What the hell happened?

Fernapple comments on Nov 3, 2018:

Don't worry at my age all you young people under forty look alike anyway, so I can't tell you from all the others yet.

I guess if you like gardening this is the group to be in.

Fernapple comments on Nov 3, 2018:

Welcome.

O impotence of mind, in body strong! But what is strength without a double share of ...

Fernapple comments on Nov 2, 2018:

Strength without wisdom makes you a bully. But the trouble is you need wisdom to know that.

Non-religious communities

Fernapple comments on Nov 2, 2018:

Join an "interest group" instead, gardening, walking, chess, martial arts, travel club and especially natural history or science, whatever. (It needs to be something they can enjoy.) It does not have to be a support group as such if they are only well integrated into a social group, then they will in the end find the support they need from the people who care about them there, the important thing is to meet people who like the same things they do, and in the mean time they can have fun. And people who have interests are generally people who care and think.

What is the most underrated movie in your opinion?

Fernapple comments on Nov 2, 2018:

The footage of the last Thylacine. Link provided. It is only three mins. of your time, for something profoundly sad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnT5vNE7LMI

The Final Sermon I Should Have Preached

Fernapple comments on Nov 2, 2018:

I read a stat. somewhere, (perhaps someone can help me there I would love to re-find it) that atheists are more common among the clergy than in the population generally, because they are usually better educated in the history of religion, but most of them just keep it secret.

There are posts here about the recent shooting at the synagogue in pittsburgh.

Fernapple comments on Nov 1, 2018:

All lands are stolen, usually several times over, if you accept the idea of "race" and that a race can own land. Yet the idea of race is technically disproved by science, we are all one family more closely related and with less genetic diversity that the average family of chimps. And the Jewish race is even more removed from reality, since it is a Pseudo-race made up from many different peoples from many different places and cultures at many different times, who are only connected by a variable ideology.

When did you start drinking coffee and why?

Fernapple comments on Nov 1, 2018:

Must be a British thing most people here drink coffee from the earliest ages, so no one really has a starting date. Though mostly that is our mild and not very strong, (or very good) instant coffee, which may be why tea is so popular. I do remember however that when young my grandmother used to make a very bitter version, which she said was very good for children because it would help to keep you "regular", it did work and if you could stand the bitterness, (I think it was how she treated the hot milk.) then it had you running for the bathroom in under half an hour.

Happy Halloween! The Raven Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, ...

Fernapple comments on Nov 1, 2018:

Love the poem; but it is very bad press for the ravens who are lovely, loyal, intelligent, fun loving and in some ways kind creatures.

How a Jellyfish and a Sea Slug Illuminate the Mystery of the Self – Brain Pickings

Fernapple comments on Nov 1, 2018:

Our brains make a model of the world, which is only a model having no substance beyond its usefulness to help us function as the world requires, and that includes the collection of parts the brain can directly control. There is nothing more.

I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it ...

Fernapple comments on Oct 31, 2018:

Austerity does not work either. (Nice to put one in that our friends across the Atlantic may not get.)

Ok so let's hear how everyone thinks on this issue.

Fernapple comments on Oct 31, 2018:

It may be a British thing but it would be thought strange, even rude, to ask a guest to take their shoes off here, which is odd because most people wear socks anyway, and most use slippers in their own home. I think it is great that you at least have some variation, we can be very old fashioned and frankly dirty here, we could do with some mass immigration from Japan.

Why do you have to be a nonconformist like everybody else? James Thurber

Fernapple comments on Oct 31, 2018:

Most conformists think they are nonconformist, and most nonconformists think they are very conventional. It is perhaps human nature to undervalue what you have the most of, and only really value what you lack or find rare. It is also said that intelligent people tend to underrate their intelligence, while the stupid overestimate it. "Overestimate" is a word which means they think they know it all, I put that in in case there are any dumb people like me reading this.

If you support shutting down a site because it's members are allowed to promote anti-semitic views ...

Fernapple comments on Oct 30, 2018:

It should always be the last resort to stop people voicing whatever they wish, however evil it may be. Because if it is hateful, then let it be seen in the clear light of day, and let it be exposed to reasoned counter argument, you will not always win but you will some of the time, while forcing it underground and other unfair ways of winning the argument only loose you the moral high-ground. And those who can win the argument fairly will always keep talking, those who know they will loose the argument, especially unfairly, reach for weapons.

These Sumerian Clay Tablets Reveal the BIGGEST Secrets of the Solar System - YouTube

Fernapple comments on Oct 30, 2018:

The clay tablet was just the Email of those days, would you believe everything that is sent by email, would you ? The people even then did not value them, many of these clay tablets were found where people of that time used them for landfill and as foundation fillers for their buildings. It is a great mistake to revere writings just because they are old, in fact because they are old, we do not know who wrote them, when and where they were born, exactly when they wrote them, where they wrote, who copied them, who sold them, who paid for them, who the authors worked for, who their sources were, etc., or any of the things you would expect with a modern book. So I ask you how does that effect their credibility?

'Alien Invasion' Radio Broadcast Terrified Listeners 80 Years Ago.

Fernapple comments on Oct 30, 2018:

I do not think that it would cause panic today, people are more media aware. With real aliens it would really depend on what they intended, especially since to have crossed interstellar space they would have to be so much more advanced than us, that they could dictate the nature of the meeting anyway. There certainly would not be a war since if they had that level of technology, then they would certainly be able to kill us all before we even knew they were in the solar system. It is fun but totally unreal. I think that the film "The Day The Earth Stood Still" (first version), is a much better and more real plot anyway.

I hold it true, whate’er befall; I feel it when I sorrow most, ‘‘Tis better to have loved and ...

Fernapple comments on Oct 30, 2018:

Tennyson is our local poet here in Lincolnshire, I used to live just a few miles from his birthplace. In our local town you can still see the wall outside the school, where, as a school boy,he used to look out and gaze at the green weeds growing on the wall during boring lessons. And though it now has a blue plaque on it, the wall is still there and covered in wild flowers. You can still see his immortal stream, which though, "men may come and go" it still flows on to the sea, and of course his "high Wolds" are a beautiful as ever.

I hold it true, whate’er befall; I feel it when I sorrow most, ‘‘Tis better to have loved and ...

Fernapple comments on Oct 30, 2018:

My wife fell ill when we were engaged, we had to rush the wedding forward in case she died quickly; but fortunately she had a long period of remission, and was healthy enough to travel and visit people for some eight weeks. (I drove her round.) Then she went down fast at the end. The marriage only lasted three and a half months and ended in great pain, but I have never regretted it for one second.

Is there anyone here that values the teachings of the bible, but rejects it's supernatural elements?

Fernapple comments on Oct 30, 2018:

There is one all important teaching you can get from the bible, if not find in the bible, and that is. Don't base your whole life on just one book, if you do read more than one book make sure they are not all derived from one book, and if you can only read one book try to find a better one.

What Would You Tell Your 18-Year-Old Self?

Fernapple comments on Oct 30, 2018:

Make the most of everyone you meet, none of them will be here for ever and they all have something to give.

There's a few quotes I live by: Every man is my better in that I might learn from him.

Fernapple comments on Oct 30, 2018:

Yes I like that quote. It is very similar to, I think it came from Cicero. " There is no book however bad you can not learn something from it."

Is This Taboo?

Fernapple comments on Oct 29, 2018:

Even more strange is the fact that marriage is nearly the only contract you enter into, in which most of the people entering it have no say in the writing of its terms, because they are dictated by the church/state. And this is doubly odd, because it is perhaps the most personal of all contracts.

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Fernapple comments on Oct 29, 2018:

And it becomes even more so when you invest power in institutions, since then you have taken away even the small mitigation of personal conscience; so that caught in the collective self delusion it becomes perfectly possible even for basically good people, to believe that you are still being good, even altruistic, when in fact they have become just one of many greedy exploiters. Which is why the state so often fails so completely to provide the social justice it was empowered in order to deliver in the first place.

This is an old article, but still a good one imo. [smithsonianmag.com]

Fernapple comments on Oct 29, 2018:

Here's a wild thought. I wonder if they could have had a photosynthetic symbiosis with something, then they could have been effectively trees, which could explain why they needed to be so big? Just wild speculation don't quote me.

The Whole Saga of the Supercontinents - PBS Eons [youtube.com]

Fernapple comments on Oct 29, 2018:

Clearest story of the continents I have ever seen, could watch it again and again, thank you.

If you generalize when you are talking about people your exception can easily be one hundred ...

Fernapple comments on Oct 28, 2018:

"Generally" speaking people who do irony think they are being clever. (Sorry could not miss that one.) But seriously, "generally" we like to give people simplified labels because we are lazy and live in a crowded world, but when you look for the exceptions you usually have a lot more fun, and it shows that you care and are prepared to take trouble over your fellow humans.

What is Evident - AronRa [youtube.com]

Fernapple comments on Oct 27, 2018:

The best answer to the "Trees, sky and sea are so beautiful" argument comes I thing in the post by phxbillcee . Why Beautiful Things Make You Happy, in this group on the 24 Oct.

What makes/made you happy today?

Fernapple comments on Oct 26, 2018:

Everything, but especially my friend called to see if I would like to go into town with her.

If you could have any sci-fi gadget or technology, what would you choose?

Fernapple comments on Oct 26, 2018:

A teleporter, love travel hate airports.

Older People Are Worse Than Young People at Telling Fact from Opinion [theatlantic.com]

Fernapple comments on Oct 26, 2018:

If you were not a victim of the education system to start with and you will probably always be fine. But older people were taught badly and taught to respect that bad education too much. For a while things seemed to be getting better, yet life goes full circle and I now see a whole new wave of dogma engulfing the young.

God’s Intelligent Design?

Fernapple comments on Oct 26, 2018:

Number 4. "Juxtaposition of the food tube and the air tube and thus people can (and do) choke to death - " You could add that most other animals do not suffer from this feature. If he could get it right for them ?

Will We Ever Find Alien Life? | PBS Space Time [youtube.com]

Fernapple comments on Oct 26, 2018:

There need only be one doomsday technology yet to be discovered, whose fatal results can not be foreseen before it is developed, and then every technological culture is doomed even without evil intent. Also technology may lead to a slow decline of the species, our brains have certainly been shrinking since the agricultural revolution.

Maybe tRump's Health & Human Services people should read this! & maybe get an education & some ...

Fernapple comments on Oct 26, 2018:

He missed at least. You can also be male and female at the same time, as in a lot of plants. You can be one sex part of your life and the other later, many plants. You can be male, because a larger dominant female released hormones which made the smaller less dominant plants around her into suitable sermatazoid producers, some plant sexual stages. And you can be female with male organs hyenas.

What Exactly is Oumuamua? - John Michael Godier [youtube.com]

Fernapple comments on Oct 26, 2018:

Like this a lot this is just what you go to the web for. There are though other reasons things can appear to go faster, such as magnetism, minor collisions, human error in reading the early speed, etc. I am not at all knowledgeable about astronomy, though very interested, so that is just speculation, but it seems reasonable to accept that there could be other causes.

"We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we ...

Fernapple comments on Oct 25, 2018:

We should not respect it as much, his view of his wife and children may be an illusion, but he is not (I hope), trying to sell them to the rest of the world.

Why Beautiful Things Make us Happy – Beauty Explained - Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell ...

Fernapple comments on Oct 25, 2018:

Heritage. There are no things could, so much enduring give, As fragile things, that swiftly die; and live. Those ageless hosts, who many lived and died. That with nature, might, in us provide. The fragments of the ancient life and woe, Which are every feeling, that we know. Accept then the wisdom of three billion years. That comes to us with human joys and tears. As is appreciate, the brightest grace, Ancient nature gives our human race.

What is the funniest gift you have received?

Fernapple comments on Oct 24, 2018:

Not perhaps funny ha-ha but funny kind of sad. An old lady gave me a copy of the New English Bible, because she though that an atheist/agnostic, was someone who had difficulty with the old fashioned language in the King James version.

@terrylove mentioned something he reads every day as an inspiration.

Fernapple comments on Oct 24, 2018:

I read something on a coffee shop wall nearly every week. But I especially like. Come, fill the cup, and in the fire of spring ,/ The winter garment of repentance fling: / The bird of time has but a little way, / To fly - and Lo! the bird is on the wing. E. Fitzgerald.

Why is the label African Americans used to describe black Americans

Fernapple comments on Oct 24, 2018:

New words for many things come along all the time, they start as newly fashionable with those who consider themselves “elete” , spread to become mainstream, and last are adopted by those who use them negatively. They then become tainted, go out of fashion and are forgotten only to be readopted as polite again. The terms for the races are perfect examples since just about every one has gone through the full cycle sometimes twice. It was I think one of the few things G. Orwell got wrong, (Nineteen Eighty Four), words can not change society, because it is society which changes infinitely malleable words without limit all the time.

Debate: Hovind vs Ra - pt1 [youtube.com]

Fernapple comments on Oct 23, 2018:

If you can believe that you and you alone have a special understanding of an invisible friend in the sky, then believing you won a debate whatever happened is a small delusion. The sad thing is when you are trying to sow delusion in the minds of others.

Shipwreck found in Black Sea is 'world's oldest intact A Greek merchant ship dating back more ...

Fernapple comments on Oct 23, 2018:

Wow. The classical era Greek ships are so important in history, yet very little has been known about them except for vase paintings, it really is a big find, i guess we will hear more over the next few years. I wonder if they will try to lift and preserve it. Thank you for sharing it.

The silliest woman can manage a clever man; but it needs a very clever woman to manage a ...

Fernapple comments on Oct 23, 2018:

While on the subject of Kipling, and as you seem have given permission to be sexist, I am sure that everyone knows his famous line. "The female of the species is more deadly than the male." But perhaps some people may be amused to know what the "species" was he was talking about when he first used the line? ( Answer: it was the "hunting, shooting and fishing bore".)

The silliest woman can manage a clever man; but it needs a very clever woman to manage a ...

Fernapple comments on Oct 23, 2018:

It says that you are a realist, and a sensitive humanist. (Oh. I hope that does not sound too much like a complement.)

Steven Anderson, and The Stupidest Thing He's Ever Heard - BionicDance [youtube.com]

Fernapple comments on Oct 23, 2018:

What a way to waste your life.

Does anyone have any experience with moss?

Fernapple comments on Oct 23, 2018:

Different mosses need different conditions, without becoming a moss expert it is best to find moss to use which is growing in the sort of place you want it to grow. Not all mosses like it really damp for example, and if you look you will see that many grow in quite dry places and that they are quite different from the mosses which grow in marshes. The shred it and mix with yogurt as recommended by Cast1es really does work well.

I'm sure this question must have been asked here before.

Fernapple comments on Oct 22, 2018:

Not at any time really. Like you I grew up in the UK, and like many here I had no specific religion given me except school R.E. . I looked at many religions but none seemed to offer much to me. Then while wondering if I was somehow strange in not needing religion, it occurred that if as they all claimed, all religions offered salvation and spiritual knowledge only to insiders, then most people except the chosen few would be left out, or at least be left believing the wrong things. That seemed such a poor, silly and unfair way for god to behave, it could not be squared with the idea of a god of goodness, or one with enough wisdom to frame the physical laws of the universe, which still fill me with wonder. Then I realized that if there was a higher intelligence behind the universe, it chose not to communicate via religion, or any other means I can see, and then it occurred that if the intelligence did not communicate, it either did not exist or it intended us to live as if it did not exist, therefore its existence or not was irrelevant to life as we live it. And from that source of agnosticism the final step to atheism was only a small one.

Anybody else getting tired of seeing my avatar to the left there?

Fernapple comments on Oct 21, 2018:

Tried it and it worked! Will try to keep doing more.

Anybody else getting tired of seeing my avatar to the left there?

Fernapple comments on Oct 21, 2018:

Yes but you do it so well.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it ...

Fernapple comments on Oct 21, 2018:

Thank you for quoting E. Fitzgerald and Omar Khayyam, they are among the best early agnostic literature and lovely. I always like to think of this as. "Its behind you." But I wonder how many people today "get" the biblical reference.

I'm thinking of adding a series of political questions to profiles and want to get your suggestions ...

Fernapple comments on Oct 20, 2018:

Don't ask do you consider yourself to be left or right wing, but do ask do you think there are such thing as left and right, or are those two lumping groups too crude to be useful.

Spiritual but not Religious, WHATS THAT

Fernapple comments on Oct 20, 2018:

Yes. spiritual has nothing to do with spiritualism, just as naturalist has nothing to do with naturist, though the two are not mutually exclusive. In fact the second two sound like quite fun together, but I would leave the first two if I was You.

My eyes! my brain!

Fernapple comments on Oct 20, 2018:

LOL It is a bit like the old one where you write on one side of a paper. "The text on the other side is false." Then on the other side you write. "The text on the other side is true." Then you get people to turn it over as many times as they like. I always thought that it should be compulsory reading for anyone who thinks texts/books (Bible, Koran, etc.) are proof of anything.

Are You A Freethinker Or A Follower?

Fernapple comments on Oct 20, 2018:

I do not think it is a question you can answer, since I do not think you can ever know where the dividing line is.

The Evil Amoral Atheist - BionicDance [youtube.com]

Fernapple comments on Oct 20, 2018:

Religion pedals the idea that morality is a gift of religion because that helps to sell religion, just as the coffee shop gives out loyalty cards, it is just a marketing ploy. So that most believers come to swallow that idea without thinking, and never realize that all social animals (including even humans sometimes) are inherently moral, and it is that inherent morality which infected religion not the other way round. The proof of which is that early religions did not have any interest in morality, as usually the theist thinks of his religion as all religion and can not see the whole picture. (And before anyone says it, yes early societies did have morality.)

The Evil Amoral Atheist - BionicDance [youtube.com]

Fernapple comments on Oct 20, 2018:

The more value you place on fantasy figures like god the less you place on real humans, you can not share yourself everywhere.

SHOULD WE RESPECT RELIGION? [barbara.smoker.freeuk.com]

Fernapple comments on Oct 20, 2018:

Give respect where it is earned and deserved, if you give it to groups just because they have wealth, power, and followers you devalue the truth of the respect you give to those who really deserve it.

Men and Christians experience higher amounts of discrimination than other groups, Trump voters claim...

Fernapple comments on Oct 19, 2018:

I think that he must be talking about himself and that fact that, especially, rich, Christian males, have no right to whine. But then it is a whine so that must be wrong...!?

What is the evolutionary strategy for religion?

Fernapple comments on Oct 19, 2018:

I do not think it is entirely a case of religion having an evolutionary strategy, (though it does), so much as evolution not having a strategy for religion. Evolution only works retrospectively, if you survive the challenge of a change in your environment at all, then you get better at meeting the challenge over time, but natural selection can not foresee the challenges beforehand. And no animal ever met quite such a big change in their environment quite so quickly as humans did when they invented, first language and then culture. We have therefore no evolved tools from nature to deal with these things, and are thus ready made victims for anyone, (religious, political or commercial) who can manipulate language and culture.

Which one would you prefer in your life; catch up in person or mainly social media?

Fernapple comments on Oct 18, 2018:

In person is always better of course, BUT, if I sit back for a second and just think what a wonderful thing the digital world is. Not long ago, (phrase used only by very old people), the idea that ordinary people like me would ever be able to afford even to make the occasional phone call across the Atlantic at less than great cost, would have seemed a outrageous piece of science fiction. (Look at the communications in the film 2001.) Yet just over a quarter century into the digital revolution I sit here, talking, exchanging texts, photos, videos and even trivia with people all across the world every day via a site like this, and think it normal. Amazing!

A Proof That The Square Root of Two Is Irrational - DONG [youtube.com]

Fernapple comments on Oct 17, 2018:

Wonderful, the things you can find on this site.

A complaint I have since adopting an agnostic position is that too much of the atheist/agnostic ...

Fernapple comments on Oct 17, 2018:

Firstly, that we are given just half a century of adult life perhaps to enjoy and learn to appreciate all the wonders that nature gives. Only fifty chances to watch the seasons with all their natural and cultural significance for one, a hundred sciences to learn about, and if you want any more ideas just browse the list of groups on this site. Secondly, that when I reach the end of life I will have the comfort of knowing that I have done the best I can for as many other people as I can, there is still a lot of help needed in the world.

Why does Agnostic.com only have less than 51,000 members ?

Fernapple comments on Oct 16, 2018:

Not everyone who likes a drink likes to drink in a bar, and if they all used the same bar it would be too crowded for anyone to get a drink.

What are you really good at that you wouldn't put on your C. V?

Fernapple comments on Oct 16, 2018:

Putting on weight.

“The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.

Fernapple comments on Oct 16, 2018:

I usually think that the best thing about science is that some of it is not true, but it is trying to get better. Where religion is taking your first guess, and refusing to admit you could get it wrong. Because of course you are one of the few special chosen ones. (Which is why religion has to be divisive or it has nothing to offer.)

What Would Happen If Everyone Truly Believed Everything Is One? - Scientific American Blog Network

Fernapple comments on Oct 15, 2018:

It would be very still very quiet, and totally boring.

Consciousness may be the brain's way of dealing w/ entropy. [ibtimes.com]

Fernapple comments on Oct 14, 2018:

Please enlarge.

I Removed my big lemongrass from its original spot (it was overwhelming my dwarf roses).

Fernapple comments on Oct 14, 2018:

Very jealous, lemon grass won't even grow through the winter here in a greenhouse, and it is lovely.

Has anyone else had a religious friend ask where your sense of morality comes from?

Fernapple comments on Oct 13, 2018:

I have had the bad misfortune in life to have sat by several death beds, and the only thing that I can think of that will bring any comfort as you lie there staring at the ceiling, is the thought that you have done your best for everyone else. That's where my morality comes from.

Whenever you egaged in an angry altercation with someone else, haven't you invariably thought that ...

Fernapple comments on Oct 13, 2018:

If you recognized that the other person was at least in part right, you would change your mind, at least in part, and would then see your new slightly adjusted position as right, therefore it is not possible to believe anything else.

Validity of a theory

Fernapple comments on Oct 13, 2018:

Science is basically the philosophy of humility, admit that we are not certain and can always improve, especially if we work at it. Religion is the philosophy of arrogance, we are gifted with absolute truth because we are special and chosen.

Desire of knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with the acquisition of ...

Fernapple comments on Oct 13, 2018:

It reminds me of A. Pope's well known. " A little learning is a dangerous thing, Drink deep or taste not the Perian spring:" Which I always though must refer especially to those who think that one book, and sadly rarely a good one, could answer all questions.

Are there any special purpose in our life other than eating, drinking, sleeping, making merry, ...

Fernapple comments on Oct 12, 2018:

Yes we can choose to be useful to others and try to make the world happier.

Why are humans so slow to learn?

Fernapple comments on Oct 12, 2018:

Sorry to say that we may have peaked now anyway, there is good evidence that the human brain has now started to shrink due to the effects of civilization and especially since the advent of agriculture. There are now strong pressures favouring low IQ, such as celibacy, contraception and cultural distractions from breeding, while the dangers and threats which created our brains on the plains of Africa are now gone, we just don't need them anymore. While many of the dangers inherent in having a violent nature are minimized by medicine yet the advantages remain, and the need for social cooperation is less as technology takes over many of its roles. So we will become more violent and antisocial as well, until in the end without society or intelligence, we are total dependent on technology to survive, but can no longer repair the technology we inherit, and then we go extinct.

Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, ...

Fernapple comments on Oct 12, 2018:

Best quote I heard for a long time, being on the wrong side of the ocean I do not know a lot about T.Jefferson, obviously I mssed a lot.

For atheists - what makes you believe no deity exists?

Fernapple comments on Oct 11, 2018:

I am happy to be agnostic thanks to reason, and atheist by belief, and I do not find the two at odds. But it all depends how you define the words, and I am not interested if anyone else wants to redefine my words for me.

Fellow agnostics, how do you feel about believers joining?

Fernapple comments on Oct 11, 2018:

Why not let them hear a worthwhile idea or two, as long as they are not rude to others and don't waste peoples time. And I am sorry to disagree, but I have changed my opinions on several thing since I was twenty, (long time ago) and hope I always will, that is what keeps you alive and moving forward.

Unpopular Opinions I know you got 'em, what are they?

Fernapple comments on Oct 11, 2018:

Please also add 'Organic', the idea that if something is untested for safety in a lab to proper safety standards, it is therefore safer than something that has been. Especially if it has been used since the days when people poisoned themselves to death by thirty by boiling their wine in lead containers, and took carcinogens to expel worms. Mindless technophobia or what.

I'm hoping that people here are more open minded than self described atheists.

Fernapple comments on Oct 11, 2018:

I said this before but, the big division is between holding groundless belief or not, the niceties within scepticism are tiny and unimportant compared with that. Some may think that they are on a higher rung of the ladder than others, and that may be true, but the really important thing is to have looked up and started the climb out of the cesspit of ignorance and prejudice which is blind unquestioning faith, looking at the light and not swimming nose down among the sludge where the users want to keep you. Therefore it is cruel and unfair to despise those who use a different ladder or can not climb quite as fast, and for that reason I always call myself a 'Broard Church Sceptic.'

God-like beliefs?

Fernapple comments on Oct 9, 2018:

I would throw in Karma and Art with a capital 'A'.

Did the Bible make you an Atheist?

Fernapple comments on Oct 9, 2018:

No arrogant theists, and especially some of my school teachers made me an Atheist. (Including one who tried to teach his pupils that animals had no feelings or emotions, only mechanical behaviour which just seemed to replicate human emotion, and that therefore it was wrong to feel empathy for them. Which made me realize that:- One, if you go down the religious route you will end up accepting any rubbish to make it fit your theology. And. Two, being a complete psychopath is a big help in a teaching career.)

What is your Definition of:

Fernapple comments on Oct 9, 2018:

Atheist: I believe there is no supernatural. Agnostic: Knowing that I can not prove the none existence of something outside of reality, even if I'm sure its bull. Spiritual: Smoke-screen used by some to hide their belief in things outside of reality.

There are two things to aim at in life: First, to get what you want; and after that to enjoy it.

Fernapple comments on Oct 8, 2018:

Perhaps there is only one thing to aim for in life, and that is to want and enjoy what you get.

"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't...

Fernapple comments on Oct 7, 2018:

Just love that it is such a neat quote.

I just left Christianity, and they talk a lot about this "darkness" that Jesus delivered them from.

Fernapple comments on Oct 7, 2018:

Sadly, I think it is us.

For one word a man is often deemed to be wise, and for one word he is often deemed to be foolish.

Fernapple comments on Oct 5, 2018:

True. (1)

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.

Fernapple comments on Oct 4, 2018:

Very true. After necessity, the next old trite argument to be trotted out is the invariably. “Only wrongdoers have to fear new laws.” Which is the most evilly wrong statement ever made, since good people have at least four things to deeply fear from every new law. Firstly, every law will always cause some wrongful convictions of the innocent. (And writing as someone who has served on juries twice, I can say that anyone who believe that the courts, of even the best governed nations, can ever truly sort the guilty from the innocent, is simply a fool.) Secondly, the keeping and enforcement of every law has to be paid for either by higher taxes or by talking from other things. Thirdly, every law imposes some bureaucratic burden which makes life and endeavour more difficult/costly. And fourthly, even the business of being accused and tried can and has often destroyed the lives of even those found innocent. All civilizations which fall, fail to some degree due to an excess of law.

Do you believe that a cure for cancer exists, but it's not available to the public because medical ...

Fernapple comments on Oct 3, 2018:

There will never be 'A' cure for cancer because cancer comes in many different forms and is many different things, the need therefore is to find many different cures not just one, some of which we have.

Unpopular Opinions I know you got 'em, what are they?

Fernapple comments on Oct 3, 2018:

Belief in art with a capital 'A' is another form of religion and does many of the same sort of harms. It stems from the arrogance of humans who believed that they were set apart from and above the rest of the animal world, and that therefore, the creations of our hands had a special 'spiritual' worth that the doings of other animals do not. It is arrogant, speciesist, causes pollution, diminishes our ability to appreciate the natural world and is used to lend a misleading 'spiritual' authority to many dreadful ideologies and no atheist or agnostic should beleive in it.. P.S. I love all the arts, being an atheist does not mean you can not admire the church spire just not accept what it means.

Unpopular Opinions I know you got 'em, what are they?

Fernapple comments on Oct 3, 2018:

I hate the way that cafes/restaurants pass soup though their blenders, and especially then put cream on top which adds nothing to the dish, today. I blame the trendy chefs who should all be made to stay in their kitchens and of the TV etc. anyway. In my day, (Grumpy old man phrase.) soup had lumps in it and texture, it was an interesting dish, and not just a boring way to get your customers to eat the leftovers.

Hi everyone.

Fernapple comments on Oct 3, 2018:

Not just the USA, largely secular tollerant western Europe is a very small enclave in a very big and bigoted world. Do not forget just how small we are.

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it......Voltaire.

Fernapple comments on Oct 1, 2018:

So true. If one person looses freedom of speach we all do, because we are then in the hands of whoever decides to appoint themselves to the post of choosing who shall speak and who not, and those who do not get to speak are usually the oppressed who need their voice most.

What are your favorite proofs against the Bible?

Fernapple comments on Sep 30, 2018:

The fact that Jesus called gentiles 'dogs' not worthy of feeding, yet saint Paul makes them his ministry. (Sorry I see that's in there, posted first and read second, but it is still vital.)

Tell me what grammar mistakes get under your skin.

Fernapple comments on Sep 30, 2018:

I could not care less I only care about what you are trying to say. (And it should be 'grammatical',) Sorry only kidding.

At what age did you stop believing in traditional love as perpetuated in music / movies / mainstream...

Fernapple comments on Sep 30, 2018:

I do not think there ever was just one kind of love, even in music films, etc., the secret of making it work is not to expect too much before hand, and to understand that not everyone is going to get a great big romance every time. But that is true of everything in life, and it is also true that the media as a whole falsely raise our expectations of everything in life, if we measure any part of our lives against the fairy-tales used by those who are trying to sell us something then we will always be disappointed

There is no agnostic vs. atheist! The peeve I have...

Fernapple comments on Sep 27, 2018:

The big division which really counts, is between holding groundless belief or not, the niceties within scepticism are tiny and unimportant compared with that. Some may think that they are on a higher rung of the ladder than others, and that may be true, but the really important thing is to have looked up and started the climb out of the cesspit of ignorance and prejudice which is blind unquestioning , looking at the light and not swimming nose down among the sludge where the users want to keep you. Therefore it is cruel and unfair to despise those who can not climb quite as fast, or use a different ladder, and for that reason I always call myself a 'Broard Church Sceptic.'

I care not whether a man is good or evil; all that I care is whether he is a wise man or a fool.

Fernapple comments on Sep 26, 2018:

Most people are I my experience at least good by nature. Therefore it follows that most of the aviodable harm in the world is caused by folly or laziness and not ill intent.

The value of life is not the end of it, but the use we make of it....Moliere.

Fernapple comments on Sep 25, 2018:

Very true, and the contribution we did our best to make to the world is the best comfort we have when facing mortality.