Sunday School

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

The decline of white evangelical Christians continues to trend downwards. Good, because many of them want to take over every level of government.

I have been eating Ramen all week to help my friend win his discrimination case. Now we can toss our colanders up in the air! Radio interview here.

American Atheists call for ending religious Denial of Care by Christians to the neighbors they don’t love or care about.

World of Woo: People are getting stupider more!

Environment: All the ways the most common bit of climate misinformation is wrong.

I forgot to mention last week that Satan wants you!

What is life? Scientists still can’t agree. Is that because physical reality at its deepest level could be so profound that its elucidation would have to await posthuman species? Or maybe we should consider that the there was a Universe before the Big Bang?

Who was Traute Lafrenz? 6-minute interview.

Long Reads:  An atheist, a Mormon and a Muslim walk into a bar to discuss Christian privilege.  In praise of combative and cantankerous instruction.  America is a liberal nation with a democracy problem. What the new GPT-4 AI can do but is current AI actually stupid? Are human lives worth living? And, if so, is life worth living unconditionally? (see also TED video below).

Sunday Book Club: Sentience. The invention of consciousness.

Podcasts: Strange Customs with Sasha Sagan and Is the Universe fine-tuned for life?

Some photographs taken last week.  British Wildlife Photography Awards.

While you are waiting for the kettle to boil……

Coffee Break Video:  Game theory can explain humanity’s biggest problem. 100 million years of Earth history. The secret to a happy life — lessons from 8 decades of research.

[NoelParticipant]

Thanks Reg

Non Religious on the graph in the “The decline of white evangelical Christians continues to trend downwards,” shows that it is larger compared to any one religious denomination. Great news.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Yes Noel, it is great news. I think most of them know it and are staging a last-ditch attempt at seeming relevant. The vitriol and hatred they spew forth is disgusting. Not just to us but also to many of their children too.   They are a domestic threat to democracy.

Have a great week everyone!

 

[—Participant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

I forgot to mention last week that Satan wants you!

Good. I’ve been listening to devil music and playing D&D for years now trying to get his attention. It’s not really about Satan per se. Sometimes it’s just nice to feel wanted, y’know?

It looks like an interesting documentary. I feel like the internet has radically altered the memetic epidemiology of paranoid bullshit. You’d think the hyper-accelerated spread of information would make us less susceptible, but I think it mostly makes us more likely to lock down and entrench ourselves deeper in our biases.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

When I played D&D my character was a chaotic-evil spell-caster called Spliffo 🙂

I have been playing Eldin Ring on the PS5. It is set in a massive open world and beautifully rendered.

Years ago my neighbors complained that they hated the “regret” lyrics in this song….so I turned it up….to 11, of course.

[StregaModerator]

Lovely, thanks Reg!

[—Participant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

I have been playing Eldin Ring on the PS5. It is set in a massive open world and beautifully rendered.

I considered Elden Ring because the world and the aesthetic are right up my alley. But I’ve never really been able to get into soulslike games. I like the concept, but I don’t like spending that much time in combat. Once I have the attack patterns down for a given phase, I lose interest even though the fight is usually still far from over. Even in Horizon Forbidden West—a fairly easy game on its default setting—, I switched to story mode on the final fight because I was bored of fighting consecutive battles and just wanted to advance the story and start a New Game+.

[_Robert_Participant]

We keep seeing data that says religiosity is declining, however that seems to be with the younger folks. In contrast, I feel that the US is codifying more religious bullshit now…than I can ever remember.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

I considered Elden Ring because the world and the aesthetic are right up my alley. But I’ve never really been able to get into soulslike games.

I never took to the Dark Souls games. I found the first one too repetitive but did appreciate the difference it brought to the genre. But ER is different. The more I play it the more it grows on me.  The creators are D&D heads, for sure.

[—Participant]

My understanding is they hired G.R.R. Martin for much of the world building. I don’t know that much about the rest of the game design.

It’s curious how much D&D influenced video games in terms of mechanics and aesthetic, especially when so much of the original lore was ripped straight from material such as LotR, which in turn borrowed heavily from existing mythology. It would be interesting to see a map of how everything connects from music to film to books/ graphic novels to games to religion.

[—Participant]

_Robert_ wrote:

In contrast, I feel that the US is codifying more religious bullshit now…than I can ever remember.

There is a wave of strong polarization sweeping many nations around the world. It’s almost like there is a given concentration of religiosity that has to be present in the overall population at all times. As more people shed their share of religion, instead of dissipating into the air, it concentrates in the remaining believers until it’s exploding out their asses.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

@autumn – As more people shed their share of religion, instead of dissipating into the air, it concentrates in the remaining believers until it’s exploding out their asses.

That reminds me of the Hitchens quote about Jerry Falwell;

“If you gave [Jerry] Falwell an enema he could be buried in a matchbox.”

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Reg,

Normally, I don’t get into news stories consisting entirely of Twitter feeds, but this one below that I came across on the SmartNews app was just breathtaking and fantastic!

Before anyone gets rhapsodic and verklempt at the mention of the word “Democracy,” here is an example of what unlimited Democracy really means…and one brave man successfully calling off the vote that was made at his expense:

“15 Cowards Lose to a Man”: Fans React as Anonymous Man Goes ‘Full Mike Tyson’ in Viral Video
Published 03/19/2023, 10:17 AM EDT
By
AGRIM SHARMA
https://www.essentiallysports.com/boxing-news-fifteen-cowards-lose-to-a-man-fans-react-as-anonymous-man-goes-full-mike-tyson-in-viral-video/

🥊😁👍

What the man did was a wonderful job in it’s own right! Now, had he been armed, the video would have been much shorter. One center-mass shot to the leader of this wolfpack and the rest of these mangy rabid curs would have tucked their tail in and scattered even sooner!

Resistance is never futile!

• This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: A change of phrasing

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