The male peacock tail was selected because it pleased the ladies of the species. It's no adaptation to nothing out there. At best a beautiful tail implies the male can feed itself decently enough to maintain the huge piece, and may perhaps become a better provider for its female... but it'd be an even better provider without this huge tail slowing it down... — Olivier5

The concept of quasicrystals — along with the term — was first introduced in 1984 by Steinhardt and Dov Levine, both then at the University of Pennsylvania. — Wikipedia: Icosahedrite

They realized that by drawing parallel lines on a Penrose tiling, they could prove that the tiles are arranged quasiperiodically, producing five-fold symmetry. This was the breakthrough they needed. The leap to three dimensions produced Steinhardt’s long-imagined icosahedral quasicrystal. — Quasicrystals: The Thrill of the Chase

Accordingly, take note that a self- interested person is not necessarily self-conserving, and vice versa. — unenlightened

I responded with a jokular joke to another previous joke. — god must be atheist

What's PUI? — god must be atheist

The notion that genes are selfish is an analogy. — unenlightened

But look at nature and see if you can find a rule. The only one I can think of is 'don't destroy the environment you depend on.' — unenlightened

Pope Francis, in the new Catechism's teaching that capital punishment is evil, has done what he has to do to curb the violence of Christians. Christians are always whinning that they are persecuted, but they are persecuted because they are trolls. — Gregory

I should never had revived this thread. — Noble Dust

If pedia is child and encyclius is circularity then the meaning is a child going is circles, as though lost in the woods of knowledge. — praxis

In Ancient Greek the word praxis (πρᾶξις) referred to activity engaged in by free people. — Wikipedia: Praxis

There are four reasons why the Cynics are so named. First because of the indifference of their way of life, for they make a cult of indifference and, like dogs, eat and make love in public, go barefoot, and sleep in tubs and at crossroads. The second reason is that the dog is a shameless animal, and they make a cult of shamelessness, not as being beneath modesty, but as superior to it. The third reason is that the dog is a good guard, and they guard the tenets of their philosophy. The fourth reason is that the dog is a discriminating animal which can distinguish between its friends and enemies. So do they recognize as friends those who are suited to philosophy, and receive them kindly, while those unfitted they drive away, like dogs, by barking at them.[8] — Wikipedia: Cynicism (philosophy)

Of course it will be like this, nobody wants a life that does not have a perennial meaning, therefore that it is meaningless. — bcccampello

Jersey Flight was considered as a contemporary, liberal version of Nietzsche. He was an iconoclast against all forms of cultural superstition, including elitism and academia. His intellectual interests included, defining and expanding the psychological qualities that account for advanced thinking, as well as collaborating a method for its culturation. He had repeatedly challenged intellectuals to transcend theory and fulfill their social responsibility to engage culture through polemics. His writing style was consciously concise; an anti-scholastic, he tried to communicate complex ideas in simple prose. He had written multiple volumes of philosophy that are yet been released to the public. He is was one of the founders of The New School of Polemics. — Jersey Flight from a Third Person Point of View

"Our thought cannot grasp the One as long as any other image remains active in the soul. To this end, you must set free your soul from all outward things and turn wholly within yourself, with no more leaning to what lies outside, and lay your mind bare of ideal forms, as before of the objects of sense, and forget even yourself, and so come within sight of that One." — Gus Lamarch's Plotinus

Does it have a male or female presence. Would theists be open to the idea that God is entirely female? — Gregory

Despite her association with Yahweh in extra-biblical sources[citation needed], Deuteronomy 12 has Yahweh commanding the destruction of her shrines so as to maintain purity of his worship. — Wikipedia:Asherah

The word "Satanism" was adopted into English from the French satanisme.[14] The terms "Satanism" and "Satanist" are first recorded as appearing in the English and French languages during the sixteenth century, when they were used by Christian groups to attack other, rival Christian groups.[15] In a Roman Catholic tract of 1565, the author condemns the "heresies, blasphemies, and sathanismes [sic]" of the Protestants.[14] In an Anglican work of 1559, Anabaptists and other Protestant sects are condemned as "swarmes of Satanistes [sic]".[14] As used in this manner, the term "Satanism" was not used to claim that people literally worshipped Satan, but rather presented the view that through deviating from what the speaker or writer regarded as the true variant of Christianity, they were regarded as being essentially in league with the devil. — Wikipedia: Satanism

I can see it being a rational choice (but by no means an obligatory one) to pick option 2. — Pfhorrest

If one believes there is no actual life after death, and everyone dies eventually, then all that survives anyone is their legacy, so dying sooner rather than later in exchange for a greater rather than lesser legacy makes a kind of rational sense. — Pfhorrest

The West dismisses its own adage, "As above, so below." as mere superstition, but the self-sameness at different levels of fractals falls out of the mathematics of self- referential definition and reiteration (change). — unenlightened