Can you imagine a government job more disturbing than being an FDA Inspector who spends their careers testing the efficacy of Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop product lines? Imagine the tests they'd have to run, the data they'd need to parse. A life spent. Doing that.

Yikes. Plan accordingly folks. I don't think governments are going to save us. This is going to come down to our choices. What we use, what changes we make, and how we invest.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65000182

In my 15 years of living in the US, this is the only article I've read that really nails the problem of our broken democracy.

https://onlysky.media/alee/america-is-a-liberal-nation-with-a-democracy-problem/

@Ulf As always, the difficulty is that one of those layers lies on the bottom or the outside.

@LiberalLibrarian If it's any consolation, Alice Roberts became an even nicer person after her work on Coast.

@LiberalLibrarian Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I really enjoyed his Coast program. I've got the box sets.

Just another example of the modern era where we find ourselves having to reckon with separating the art from the artist. Seems to happen a lot these days.

@grapho I'm over the other side at Lime Ridge open space. It's a bit soggy and we've had some land slides and erosion, but I'll take it over the past few years of drought.

It’s no wonder that for the victims, it can be a less painful path to consider the existence of Christ and an afterlife in the context of the null hypothesis. That is, to live your life assuming that there is no afterlife until presented with sufficient evidence to merit belief in one. To push for justice in this life and to make the best of what all available evidence suggests is our one shot at life, and make it shine as best we can for ourselves and those around us.

Deep down, I think this may be why theists commonly assume that atheists actually do believe in god and they’re just angry with him. Maybe they settle on this conclusion because they can see the flaws in the system. Perhaps they can imagine themselves in the same state if Jesus did the dirty on them too. But until that day comes, they just need to keep on keeping on. After all, Jesus still evidently loves them more than that child rape victim.

If they are real, then it means that the gritty rape you endured as a child wasn’t a dealbreaker for Christ. Nothing could be. For Christ, your trauma wasn’t in the consideration of whether your rapist deserved an eternity in heaven. Your feelings don’t even merit a veto on the basis of how awkward hanging around with your rapist would make your afterlife. No, for Christ it was enough that your rapist pledged his love to him. That’s all that really matters. You just need to get over yourself.

Now imagine being the childhood victim of a rapist who becomes a born again Christian before he dies. Imagine knowing that without so much as a nod of recognition to what that rapist has done to you, your rapist will be there waiting for you in heaven. It must really make the afterlife a less appealing prospect than pastors imagine it does. Surely it must bring victims to the point of wondering whether Jesus or heaven are even real.

The recent "He gets us" adverts for Christianity are problematic. However, even trickier for Christianity than the problem of evil is the problem of forgiveness of sin through Christ. The new testament teaches that all sin can be forgiven by belief in Christ and that belief in Christ is the one path to an eternity in heaven. That’s it. That’s all that’s required. No restitution for the damages inflicted upon victims.

I feel like my rather dour view of J K Rowling developed during the first Scottish independence referendum and so I preceded the world's condemnation of her as a shitty person by about 6 years. The emergence of her awfulness was a deep jolt to her many adoring fans.

With this in mind, I'd just like to advise the rest of the world to prepare their burning hatred for Neil Oliver. Trust me. You're going to want to get a run up to this one. The man's a total dick.

@Lulz4l1f3 @DrFaustus @th3j35t3r For humanity's sake, please don't intervene when people are acting in a way which will remove them from the gene pool.

@JeffreyMHebert what if the world isn't filled with joy and donut turns out to be some awful tortured workplace mnemonic related to compliance reporting?

I hope it is just time to enjoy a donut though.

Time lends a patina of established legitimacy to conspiracy theories.

Judaism
Christianity
Islam
Mormonism
Scientology
Protocols of the elders of Zion
911 Truthers
Birtherism
Anti-vaxers
Election denial.

None are based on a falsifiable hypothesis and evidence. We really need to do better as a species.

Linguistic Rorschach Test:
A person is asked to read the sentence, "Can you see things changing?" - we can probably tell a lot about someone by which words they'd stress.

Can *you* see things changing?
Can you see *things changing?*"

The first calls to your pessimism.
The second calls to your hope in humans to organize into societies.

Well played, sir!
https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/if-iowa-passes-a-voucher-bill-this-guy-says-hell-open-up-a-satanic-school/