JoeWeber

The parties of God long ago gave up any claim to political neutrality. It's not a question of anything else other than right and wrong. And it is damn wrong that they don't pay tax on their properties and income. Yes they do some good and should be applauded when they do but Tabernacles and huge Glass Churches aren't things the non-religious or others of different faiths should be paying for.

Like the moon landing? NASA needed to spend 1/3 of their 10 year budget on Webb and that was only 11 Billion Dollars. For all the public was aware it might have as well been secret. Just imagine if we were secretly spending several billions a year on a destroyer rocket to send Slim Pickens into outer space to save the world, if necessary, and that was discovered by FOX News. Right. I have a better solution: hope it doesn't happen for at least 20 years.

It never goes that way. We're in aggregation mode now. China has a big head start. India is huge but a disaster. The US/EU aggregation isn't really a thing in context. Everyone else are fodder.

That's the misunderstanding about Meteor impacts, even big ones. The full effects take time. Compared to how long Humans have dominated the landscape, a lot of time. I'm not suggesting we're a species on the cusp of extinction at all, well in the near term that is. But how we organize ourselves as competing societies is most certainly in a change mode. Frankly, I don't see how democracy can survive in nodes larger than 400 million.

So true and laudable, but it won't change the trajectory of things, I fear. It's not what I want but it is what it is and from my perch I'm seeing that it's all over but the crying. The world ahead will be anything but kinder and gentler. If I had kids I'd be preparing them for success in that world not the one we fumbled away.

For many years I've said it's all about the number of rats on the rock. The next generations are in for rude awakenings, I'm thinking. All of the stuff we claim as our luxuries, like recycling bottles and hammering Brent, will be forgotten as the next generations look to navigate to a place of stability in an increasingly unstable and autocratic world. Humanity is the latest meteoric grade impact on the planet and, like actual meteor impacts, the time from event to extinction is a slow roll. Truly one of the most true statements ever made was "the end is nigh".

The url was a more interesting thing, but thanks. Any chance you could post some pics of your friends?

I hear you, brother, for sure. I do think the valuable lessons are in reverse order, however, which sort of negates the new second valuable lesson. At least I hope so.

Is that how she explained it when you were 8 or later on when she felt bad? My dear Ma' had a much more concise and, then understandable, way of 'splaining why I was going.

Yep. I had a wry sense of humor even as a wee one.

I'm not sure we're ready for TransBlack as a race. But you go, girl.

I chose Edward as my Confirmation name at the Church of the Transfiguration in San Jose, CA. In accordance with the deal with my Mother, and enforced by my Father, once confirmed I could quit. I never set foot inside again. But it's ever been thus: religion comes on your mothers knee or at the point of a spear (or a cuff on the ear). It wasn't without valuable lessons, however. I was especially inspired, and very much took to heart, the concept of the collection plate. I just decided to ask for a minimum donation of $23 before each service.

Just another computer virus. They're endemic now, you know.

There's always the long game of staying relevant. People don't often quit religion, or change their faith system, because their current faith angered them. Mostly they just scoff, hang in there, and do what religionists have ever done: cherry pick what they like and enjoy the camaraderie. Don't forget that Catholic pretzel twisters are the same happy bunch that jailed Galileo, shunned Darwin and now teach that evolution is compatible with the bible.

I agree that the Catholic Pope, certainly there is no shortage of Popes, is simply pandering. Like the Southern Baptists, Presbyterians and all other politicians he needs a voter base to keep his party in power.

Okay.... so sometimes things accelerate too slowly to perceive. It's still reasonable, before you hit the lamp post, to hit the brakes, right?

Sure but today and now isn't then and your experience. The book banning and school curricula problems today are reality and manifest, just look at Texas. Todays evangelicals may not want Muslims deported, I'll take your analysis, but they want them marginalized as they do LGBTQ folks. And, the active opposition to abortion issue is nontrivial enough to be a stand alone reason. It's the fundamental tenets of the beliefs that pervade the religious culture that are the problem, not the individual believers who often as not have no clue what their participation emboldens.

That is the rub, I'm thinking. Even when religious adherents are benignly passing out food baskets and rebuilding our barns they are too often still pursuing a broad agenda that includes the diminution of rights for certain people, controlling the contents of our libraries and school curriculua and, lately, the filling of our emergency rooms with the unvaccinated. There is much more, for sure. Yes, we atheists shouldn't get a free pass to be jerks at every opportunity but we also shouldn't be chided for taking exception to certain irrational impositions that do affect our lives and the lives of those we hold dear. Maybe while we're calming down a bit and searching for ways of understanding the religious can look for ways to understand why the entire construct of their "culture" can be a real life problem for others.

1000 likes here and 10 bucks gets you a beer most anywhere.

Nope. I've just been along for the ride all these years.

The real "God Particle" will explain how gravity works. On that happy day they'll change the name of the Large Hadron Collider to the Large Hardon Collider and all believers on both sides will go home happy.

Sure, every Sunday on the hour starting at 9:00AM.

Most predictions of the collapse of democracy in America lately are focused on 2030-2050. Seems to me that the only way for that to be wrong is to advance the date a little. I don't know but I believe In President AOC Sound off.......

We'll see. How do you suppose he'd fare against an AOC-Jayapal ticket?

I'm good. Your push back is sufficient.