Secular Café Archive

I have a simple point. Since the Donald was elected, we know there are no aliens. Does anyone, for a moment, think that he’d be able to resist blurting out something like that.

[quote=""lpetrich""]I think that it's an unwarranted jump, from the possibility of extraterrestrial origin to concluding that that's how it happened. Much of what they describe could also happen in icy environments on our planet.[/quote] Actually, I misread it. The point was more...

Just read this. WHile it's quite convincing evidence that life developed off world, I'm unsure that the conclusion of the paper, that life is common across the universe, is warranted. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171218154925.htm A theory that has been gaining credence over the last...

[quote=""Hermit""]OK, OK. How about I'll go all porno on you? [/quote]

Pics or it didn't happen

[quote=""DrZoidberg""] What makes you believe the people who wrote the bible knew God? It's a package deal. One can't believe that the God that is described in the Bible without the Bible, because he is introduced to you by that same Bible. I'm not going to say it works for every...

Not really. While everything seems to be about binding phenomena this week I was still surprised to discover that I got mild effects across the board. I guess if it works it's cool, if it doesn't it's a waste of time.

https://cityss.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/fo ... 69EJ6TKmKV

Then, of course, discuss.

Touché! We are given an "evening subject" and that evening, it was "critical thinking." I had four groups of 15 teenagers, a total of 60 kids. I exposed to them the "fine tuned universe" of the Intelligent Design then asked them, in groups of three of four, to think of ...

Personally I think the study is junk either way. The fact is that the statistic is generated by asking the question, and I quote: First, the NTDS questionnaire included only a single item about suicidal behavior that asked, “Have you ever attempted suicide?” with dichotomized responses of Yes/No. Wo...

It's just morbid curiosity, but I distinctly remember you blaming God for having kept you in the closet for so long when you came out as trans. Now you have come out as a Christian, what happens?

[quote=""Michel""]Thank you for your answer, Ozymandias. You then confirm why, when explaining this, all my interlocutors look like question marks! :D But, from what I understand, Intelligent Design is not objecting the 13.8 billion years of the universe. Only the so-called Young...

[quote=""DrZoidberg""] Oh, and can you remind me of the Swedish word for strawberries and cream? Borgwilanderedberg? "Gräddjordgubbar". But you can't say "strawberries with cream", and keep it just a word. The above is more "creamy strawberries" or p...

[quote=""ruby sparks""]

subsymbolic;680596 wrote:Oh, and can you remind me of the Swedish word for strawberries and cream?

Borgwilanderedberg?[/QUOTE]

Not what I had in mind. It must be finnish then, One of the nordic languages is rewardingly silly

I was trying to explain just how deep, rich and ubiquitous Russian attempts to manipulate voters could be. While trying to explain how we are at the point at which we can work up a rich psychological profile of literally everyone and then test our hypothesis about them in real time, by nudging them ...

I disagree twice.

1 portmanteau

2 when I can’t think of a word, I merely describe it. Swedish may be more compact, but both have infinite generative grammars.

Oh, and can you remind me of the Swedish word for strawberries and cream?

I disagree twice.

1 portmanteau

2 when I can’t think of a word, I merely describe it. Swedish may be more compact, but both have infinite generative grammars.

I think we did this to death last time.

Not Gavagai.

[quote=""BWE""]O It was the same deal with the Eskimos having 50 words for snow. They don't. lol But the mystical English really do have well over a hundred distinct words for mud. Meanwhile, back at groundhog day, the fact is that either two conceptual schemes have bridging rule...

[quote=""lpetrich""] Modern research turns out that all languages are equally expressive. It was the same deal with the Eskimos having 50 words for snow. They don't. What they have is words for different kinds of snow, much like speakers of other languages who live in snowy areas...

[quote=""Hermit""] It was the same deal with the Eskimos having 50 words for snow. They don't. lol [/QUOTE] But the mystical English really do have well over a hundred distinct words for mud. Meanwhile, back at groundhog day, the fact is that either two conceptual schemes have br...

[quote=""BWE""] Harassment is really just where one person makes the other feel uncomfortable in a work context. That can be sexual but needn't always be. I was once accused of "harassment" for making a student solve a physics problem on the chalk board in front of her ...

[quote=""Ozymandias""] Might this help? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7Nii5w2FaI British enough for you? Not really. There is a lot more to harassment than just sexual consent. For example, it is harassment (in particular circumstances) to ask if someone wants sex, irrespectiv...

Might this help?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7Nii5w2FaI

British enough for you?

It's really lucky that we can cleanly divide East and West, that philosophers in general fall neatly into neat convenient hierarchies and that there was no sharing of ideas across the ancient world. A perfect example would be to compare the arguments of Ibn Sina with those of Avicenna. While both, b...

I still think that her 'sceptical feminist' is one of the finest bit of post Rawlsian philosophy in action I know, but her husband is even better.