Simon Paynton
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic Annie and Andy get your gun! in the forum Politics 9 months, 2 weeks ago
Unseen wrote:
Unless things change, Simon, he has the currently dominant political party (especially on the state level) working for him. So, it’s no time to be complacent.I know he’s acting dangerously, but I think the dynamics are different from other fascist or would-be fascist regimes. Trump’s glory is in Trump only, since everyone al…[Read more]
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic Sunday School August 31st 2025 in the forum
Sunday School 9 months, 2 weeks agoUnseen wrote:
That’s right, Trump’s electoral strength—and his staying power—have been buoyed, above all, by Americans with authoritarian inclinations.I’ve heard that before. Also that Trump supporters tend to think in a very group-oriented way, they think that groups have to compete, and that their group has to win.
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic Annie and Andy get your gun! in the forum Politics 9 months, 3 weeks ago
I know Trump would like the USA to be a dictatorship, because that would please his “ego the size of a planet”. But he’s probably not able to pull it off in the United States of America, because its defences are too strong. It remains a democracy, albeit he is busy politicising the machinery of government in his favour.
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Simon Paynton posted a new activity comment 9 months, 3 weeks ago
I see what you mean. Do Isis believe in hell? They obviously don’t think it’s a sin to kill infidels.
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Simon Paynton posted a new activity comment 9 months, 3 weeks ago
I think it varies across belief systems, but after controlling for everything else, it’s the threat of hell and not the promise of heaven that keeps people in line.
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Simon Paynton posted an update 9 months, 3 weeks ago
According to Joseph Henrich (“The Weirdest People in the World”):
The higher the percentage of people who believe in a contingent afterlife (hell and heaven) in a country, the lower the murder rate. By contrast, the greater the percentage of people who believe only in heaven, the higher the murder rate. That’s right, believing only in heaven…[Read more]
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Simon Paynton posted an update 9 months, 3 weeks ago
I’m currently reading “The Weirdest People in the World” by Joseph Henrich. It’s very interesting on the formation of religions and why people in the West are so individualist.
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic Sunday School August 17th 2025 in the forum
Sunday School 10 months agoSimon Paynton wrote:
The pressure to heal bones is the same pressure that pushes us to attain benefits and achieve goals.Or rather, it has the same evolutionary origin.
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic Sunday School August 17th 2025 in the forum
Sunday School 10 months agoReg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
Not sure what you mean Simon. If I was in a bad car wreck and broke my leg…..I wake up from a coma 3 months later. My bone is fully reset as it was a ‘clean break’ and to the point that I have no awareness that it was ever even broken.I had zero input into its healing.
That’s what I mean – your conscious mind could…[Read more]
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic Sunday School August 17th 2025 in the forum
Sunday School 10 months agoReg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
The body will heal itselfThat sounds like your own personal higher power, that you have a relationship with.
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic Sunday School August 17th 2025 in the forum
Sunday School 10 months agoReg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
“I don’t believe in a higher power. I believe in higher reasoning.” – me.Yes, but can you reason your way out of a broken leg? Who or what does the work, in the end, of healing a broken bone? The doctors, nurses, hospital, etc. only help it along.
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic Sunday School August 10th 2025 in the forum
Sunday School 10 months agoThat’s super-interesting, Enco. That’s why I love the history of languages, they’re a way into the ancient past movements of people.
According to the internet, Aquatinian was the tribal language of the Aquatini tribe or clan or whatever, in the Pyrenees. It’s a Paleohispanic and Vasconic language. Around where I live, we had the Iceni tr…[Read more]
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic Sunday School August 10th 2025 in the forum
Sunday School 10 months agoEnco, wasn’t it Noam Chomsky who said that the human brain is biologically primed to learn languages? Any functioning human language.
I’m sure there is a story to why the various language families write left to right or right to left. I believe the Russian Cyrillic alphabet was made as a Russian version of the Greek alphabet, by St Cyril (…[Read more]
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic Sunday School August 10th 2025 in the forum
Sunday School 10 months agoReg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
English two is from the exact same ancestor,We have two, twin, twine, between, etc.
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic Sunday School August 10th 2025 in the forum
Sunday School 10 months agoWell, I seem to have got that all wrong. Sc- words are from the latin caedere, meaning cut, str- words are from the Pali Indo-European root
strenk – “tight, narrow; pull tight, twist” (see string (n.))
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic Sunday School August 10th 2025 in the forum
Sunday School 10 months agoJake,
I just checked and English and Arabic don’t belong to the same family, so they are put together very differently. English and Hindi are in the same family.
The root system sounds a lot like Sanskrit. Many of the Sanskrit roots exist in English, like the sc- sound for cutting, e.g., scar, scythe, scissors; and str- for long thin things l…[Read more]
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic Sunday School August 10th 2025 in the forum
Sunday School 10 months agoJake – ruby, rust, russet. In Europe we’re surrounded by a bunch of related languages, all with the same roots.
Apparently though Finnish is a strange outlier that doesn’t bear any relation to the other European languages. According to Wikipedia it’s Uralic rather than Indo-European in its family. I went to Norway for 10 days once, and they se…[Read more]
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic Sunday School August 10th 2025 in the forum
Sunday School 10 months agoJake – yes, Rus, rose, rouge, red, etc.
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic Sunday School August 10th 2025 in the forum
Sunday School 10 months agojakelafort wrote:
Vikings went all the way into RussiaApparently Russia is named after the red hair of the vikings.
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic Sunday School August 10th 2025 in the forum
Sunday School 10 months, 1 week agoReg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
each state must ensure its own survival.They also need to work together to ensure their own and each other’s survival.
We can argue about how Putin’s perception of this ‘threat’ being irrational or morally wrong but from Moscow’s standpoint, ignoring such a development would be irrational.
What is irrational about P…[Read more]
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Interesting. Does the sociological sampling include organizations like ISIS/ISIL, or would one’s belief in “contingent afterlife” vary across belief systems?
I’m not arguing against the premise in general, because I think it makes sense. But since the ultimate judge is most commonly considered to be God, then what people consider God/Allah to want…[Read more]
(OMG [sic], and what about the views of atheistic Jews?)
Atheistic Jews? Why Jews? Why not atheistic Greeks? Or atheists? Do Jews have to be singled out as nonhumans in every way possible?
Side-note, have to wonder if Trump considers virgins to be a perk (kinda rhymes with perp) in an afterlife.
I think it varies across belief systems, but after controlling for everything else, it’s the threat of hell and not the promise of heaven that keeps people in line.
I see what you mean. Do Isis believe in hell? They obviously don’t think it’s a sin to kill infidels.