Sunday School

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Legislators have no business practicing medicine on the floor of the House or Senate based upon their religious beliefs.

About 40% of Canadians want their children to be taught religious BS in school.

MAGA state superintendent backs chaplains in public schools – but not from all religions.

Afghan activist who was ‘erased’ by Taliban reveals how women are ‘suffering’ in Iran.

Inside the Christian TV show rallying Trump superfans with apocalyptic warnings.

World of Woo: Chelation therapy for heart disease.

Environment: Microplastics

Religion is not about a sense of the Divine; it’s about what tribe you associate with and what kind of cable news you consume.

Apollonius of Tyana, the other Jesus Christ.

Anthropologist’s research sheds light on the growing population of non-religious Moroccans.

Unravelling life’s origin: five key breakthroughs from the past five years.

Am I the Asshole? Philosophy tries to understand how normal people think about morality.

New theory of gravity solves accelerating universe.

What makes rational people believe irrational things?

Podcast: Why some descendants of Holocaust survivors choose to replicate a loved one’s Auschwitz tattoo.

Long Reads: The battle for your attention. How ‘feelings about thinking’ help us navigate our world.

Sunday Book Club: The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality.

Some photographs taken last week.

While you are waiting for the kettle to boil……

Coffee Break Videos:  10 minutes of Religion being pulled apart by Michael Shermer. Tucker Out on Evolution with AronRa. Daniel Dennett – Philosophy of Free Will. A deepfake porn victim confronts the pain of having her likeness stolen and vandalised.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Have a great week everyone. I am going to the local church parking lot to do the Barbara Rhubarb.

[StregaModerator]

Thanks, Reg.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Reg and Fellow Unbelievers,

The Pro-Hamas crowd is getting off real easy just getting their campus Gaza-Villes torn down and getting three hots and a cot in jail.

Terrorized Jewish students could have got nostalgic for their predecessors in Sobibor, Lódz, Partizan Belarus, and early Israel and started carrying shop-made knives, axes, Lugers, Mausers, Lee-Enfields, MAC-10 “grease-guns” and anything else somebody could sell or give them to keep their lives and get their freedom.

Am I The Asshole for having such possibilities in my wheel-house?

[_Robert_Participant]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Reg and Fellow Unbelievers, The Pro-Hamas crowd is getting off real easy just getting their campus Gaza-Villes torn down and getting three hots and a cot in jail. Terrorized Jewish students could have got nostalgic for their predecessors in Sobibor, Lódz, Partizan Belarus, and early Israel and started carrying shop-made knives, axes, Lugers, Mausers, Lee-Enfields, MAC-10 “grease-guns” and anything else somebody could sell or give them to keep their lives and get their freedom. Am I The Asshole for having such possibilities in my wheel-house?

Years ago, an old Lee Enfield rifle (with a huge bayonet attached) fell into my lap, so to speak. A 1917 Lithgow SMLE that might have seen Gallipoli. I have some acreage, so I loaded a .303 round, put it in a clamp and fired it from behind a tree with a string on the trigger. It is still a very smooth action after more than a hundred years and not too much recoil.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Robert,

That is a very resourceful and ingenius way to test a sketchy gun! Glad to hear that your Enfield stands up after all those years and all that it was no doubt put through in World War II. In these “interesting times,” people may need more guns like that.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

It is still a very smooth action after more than a hundred years and not too much recoil.

I shot 12 .303 rounds from one and had a sore and bruised shoulder the following day. Not tucked in tightly enough but all shots on target at 150M

[_Robert_Participant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

It is still a very smooth action after more than a hundred years and not too much recoil. I shot 12 .303 rounds from one and had a sore and bruised shoulder the following day. Not tucked in tightly enough but all shots on target at 150M

I also inherited a Nazi K98 Mauser that was captured by the Soviets. They picked many thousands of them up from the field, painted all the metal parts with a thin black coat (mixing them all up so the numbers don’t match), stained the stocks red with varnish, punched/scraped all the Nazi markings down, reassembled them and force matched a new number onto all the parts with an electro-pencil. After decades they sold them to exporters. I think that thing has a bit more kick than the Enfield, but that comes down to the ammo loading, I guess.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

I think Ukraine may have found a few rifles today 🙂

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

Am I the Asshole? Philosophy tries to understand how normal people think about morality.

This article is super-interesting – reporting on actual morality as it is actually carried out – and a devastating critique of traditional utilitarianism “as given”.

Traditional utilitarianism is a classic example of “if you can’t figure it out, it doesn’t exist”.  Specifically, utilitarians can’t figure out how to include relational context, so they act as if it doesn’t exist.  Peter Singer advocates treating unknown strangers as well as your own children, because (besides being a psychopath devoid of normal human feeling) he can’t figure out how to make room for relationships and the context they give our interpersonal actions.

Utilitarianism, charitably, says that every person concerned is to receive the maximum benefit and minimum harm.  This is semi-realistic.  To make it realistic, we have to extend it to include “… available”.  This then takes account of any relational context.

 

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