Simon Paynton

My latest tarot reading, which I have transcribed, continues to come true to a T.  Put it this way, the items that she gave me are accurate, but incomplete, but not essentially so.  For 2019, it only runs up to September, and ends on the Star of Hope, which is about right.  I think that for a tarot reading to work, you have to be there, and ma…[Read more]

There is no way 1st aid kit are from Sweden, LOL

Sweden is one of the homes of pop music!  They have a knack for it.

The one time I knew I was going to find £10, to help someone with, I found it within half an hour.

Here’s a forgotten classic:

Yes, but a hyena is large, and your sofa is small.  The hyena is therefore very easy to find.

What if you were searching for something that didn’t leave much apparent evidence, such as the fossil/archaeological record?  How can we find out the ways that ancient humans behaved socially?

There is a paucity of available evidence for some answers w…[Read more]

Ivy wrote:

“The absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence….”

There are some fields where evidence is hard to come by, for example, evolutionary anthropology.  Also, looking for extra-terrestrial life.

Strega wrote:

Simon, are you playing with words or making a point?. If it’s the latter, please try again

I just think it’s a bit of a tautology: “extraordinary claims require evidence of extraordinary claims”.  Just like any other assertion.  The form of evidence itself doesn’t have to be anything special.

What if if I told you I actually ride a unicorn to get about?

But if you rode up to my house on a unicorn, that wouldn’t be extraordinary evidence, it would just be a visual sighting?  It would be evidence of something we find extraordinary.

How does that compare to the statement, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence?”

I don’t think that’s necessarily true.  “Extraordinary” is a very elastic concept, and basically means “previously unknown” or “fantastic”, which depends on what is already known.  It’s also anthropomorphic – based on somebody’s opinion of “extr…[Read more]

In my mind, it’s a truism.  I do think that evidence is a whole picture, and sometimes a bit of it can be missing.

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

Did they know the nature of God or were they just guessing?

You’d have to listen to find out.

Krishna’s in it.

This is a very interesting programme on BBC Radio 4: “The Nature of God”.  At time of posting it’s still on air for another 7 minutes.  After that it should be available on listen again.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00082dt

She’s got an unusual accent.  I’m guessing Edinburgh with a bit of Irish.

I’ll wait for proof that the universe was created instead of just happened.

That’s basically impossible, either way, for the foreseeable future.

If “God” is a force and not a being, then that’s basically an atheist explanation in a nutshell,

Maybe you’re right.

But @Ivy maintains that doubt and faith go together.  I agree that the others are mutually exclusive.

I think I can see her point: we all need to use our brains when deciding what to believe in.  People differ in the conclusions they come to.

There was a very interesting article in last week’s Sunday School about evolutionary psychology, which t…[Read more]

Leftfield are grrrrreat, and I love Die Antwoord’s “Enter the ninja“.

This is also a sadly underrated classic.