Sirona

A question like that deserves it's own thread

Although religion and morality are not synonymous, religion and inconsistency sure seem to be synonymous.

Sounds like they make charming partners then

That kind of manipulation and scheming seems like hard work

Why must we complicate matters further by redefining the term 'religion', it's unnecessary and confusing. Forgiveness and acceptance comes from being a half decent person, regardless of whether you're religious or not. We shouldn't have to redefine the usage and meaning of the word 'religion' and be PC about it because some don't understand that religion and morality are not synonymous; why must we make excuses for ignorance?

Good for you, mate. It's very inspiring to hear success stories like yours and although I've never been a smoker, my grandmother died a few years ago of Emphysema. I assume it's more difficult to change your habits as you get older too. It's very positive to see that overall the rates of smoking have decreased in Australia for both males and females. The rate fell from 27% in 2001 to 20% in 2011 in males and from 21% to 16% in females. That's a fairly significant decrease over a decade. However, the change occurred in the 18-44 years age group (males and females), remained largely unchanged for women over 55 but with a 3-5% decrease in men over 55. The figures have continued to steadily decrease over the last 50 years. Education is an important factor obviously, however, in Australia the cost of cigarettes has gone up significantly and there is significant data which shows a correlation between increase in taxes and price of tobacco and decreased consumption of tobacco. Sources: http://www.tobaccoinaustralia.org.au/13-5-impact-of-price-increases-on-tobacco-consumpt http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4125.0main+features3320Jan%202013

Hm, to automate, or not to automate... I'd choose lying in bed with a good book over cleaning and cooking for myself any day. Now, if only I could automate my job too.

+ 1 Hypochondria is more likely than the tap water actually making you ill. It's reasonably common, occurring in 4-6% of the population and is 3-4 times more likely to affect women. Hypochondria has three common presentations and it seems you may have a bodily preoccupation; in this case individuals report having multiple somatic symptoms and believe it is due to some serious disease and become anxious and fearful, often doubting doctors and believing something was missed in the diagnosis. I generally don't like the idea of people asking for medical advice online for a number of reasons: 1. You're more than likely going to get a wrong diagnosis because we're either unqualified or we don't have enough data through physical examination and tests to give you a diagnosis. 2. It's likely that you're going to stress more over the possible diagnosis. 3. If your problem turns out to be real and not psychosomatic then you're delaying treatment. Seek a third of fourth professional opinion if necessary to alleviate your concern, but asking people for medical advice online is just going to make you assume the worst in most cases and it's not going to achieve anything other than further fear and anxiety.

I've always been in the same position and feel there is little point into delving too much thought into religion for that reason. Sure, it's theoretically possible if we lived in a simulated reality. How likely is that? I don't even think there is a point in asking because it's not particularly useful? It's too philosophical. I personally don't ponder too deeply about things there is no good evidence of.

Sure, good point. Though, sometimes news articles aren't false due to journalists trying to get information to the public as soon as possible and reporting events as they are occurring. At times they can be be purely careless, hear something and report on it without any preliminary research and not just on news stories but feature articles too. There is little excuse to have a completely false feature article since they're supposed to be well researched and take a greater deal of time to put together. However, sometimes a journalists motivation is pure narcissism and they simply want to get their name on anything. An example was the series of 'Blonde Extinction' articles from BBC news, ABC, CNN, and the Daily mail (No surprise at all from these guys). Here is one of the articles: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2284783.stm If you read it, you'll notice that it's very vague using terms like 'A study by experts in Germany' (Who are they? What was the study about? Where is the data/findings from the study?), 'Finland will be the birthplace of the last blonde' (How do they know this?). This is also a straight out lie, 'A study by the World Health Organisation found that natural blonds are likely to be extinct within 200 years because there are too few people carrying the blond gene. According to the WHO study, the last natural blond is likely to be born in Finland during 2202.' There was no WHO study found to support this and the 'German experts' cannot be named. The Washington Post found that after doing some research, the story was snapped up from from a women's magazine named 'Allegra'. http://jclass.umd.edu/archive/newshoax/casestudies/scimed/SciBlondWP.html It just goes to show that referencing and sources, unless they're specific with citations and links are not reliable either. In this case, journalists had the time to research the blonde gene and there was no urgency to get these articles to the public. It would have made no difference whether they published this article in an hour, one day or a month as it's not something the public needed to be informed about right away. It just highlights the carelessness and narcissism which unfortunately is a bit part of journalism.

I honestly don't understand what it is about me that offends some of you so. Do I not have a right to be feminine? Do I not have the right of being confident and comfortable enough to reveal myself? Do I need to self censor myself even when I'm not breaking any rules to hide who and what I am? I've not asked for upvotes or popularity; this is your choice to give me positive reputation. I've never claimed to be knowledgeable and I don't believe I lack humility or modesty. However, I can be confident and proud of who and what I am and have the freedom to exert this without the degradation. If you disagree with my posts, feel I am breaking the rules or you find me unhelpful and a poor contributor then by all means vote me down because I don't want or expect preferential treatment. If majority feel that I've somehow brought about unpleasantness, then I will gladly leave. However, if is not the case, you can expect me to stay and continue to be myself. This is who and what I am and if you find me offensive and unlikeable then you do your best to ignore me because you can't expect to like and get along with everyone in life and that can be transferred to online.

As Iodine said, it depends because in some cases genetics may play a much more significant factor. It seems that environmental factors plays a significant role in human immune variation based on twin study. A Stanford study led by Mark Davis, discovered that exposure to a single chronic, viral infection could have a significant effect on the system’s composition and responsiveness. It seems that non genetic influences, especially microbes, play a large part in driving immune variation.

Here is an interesting story of how dodgy TGA regulations can be and how health supplement manufacturers can bypass the regulations. https://theconversation.com/supplement-regulation-by-tga-is-completely-cactus-13451 Furthermore, a lot of herbal supplements don't contain much of those substances and some not at all and are bulked with rice powder and wheat. A New York Times article found that several herbal supplements sold in Target: ginkgo biloba, St John's wort and valerian root did not have any of the herbal ingredients listed on the label. Instead they found powdered vegetables: rice, peas and carrots. http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/well/2015/02/03/sidebar-whats-in-those-supplements/?referer= There is a lot of fraud in the industry as there is a lot of money to be made from feeding people's insecurities and hypochondria.

Your brilliance, Charon is enough to stimulate the mind and senses for a lifetime

Hah, and eating less sugar will in turn make you crave less sugar; no need to buy untested or regulated supplements which cost a fortune.

I think it's the black and white photograph that makes her look sirenesque.

Your post sounds like an ad. Currently there is no clinical evidence that Candida can treat any legitimate medical condition. There are plenty of 'unrecognised' illnesses to market and sell health products to treat nonexistent problems. Your decrease in sugar cravings was most likely a placebo effect.

I stopped reading after seeing 'God' and 'Angels' because when you said 'world changing organisation' I thought you were referring to a real organisation. Or at least one that could exist at some point in the future.

The best example is probably the News International Phone Hacking Scandal and how News of the World violated the Computer Misuse Act 1990 by unethically and illegally gaining access to the confidential phone calls of celebrities, hence violating rights to privacy by misuse of power. For what reason? To expose celebrities for their 'sinful' acts because that's what average people enjoy reading and what sells. It's this 'busybody' nature I find particularly concerning. I am not sure about the US as I am Australian, however, if you ask most Australians to tell you something about Bill Clinton I can almost certainly say that they will mention Monica Lewinski. Never mind about Kosovo, welfare reform or Iraq sanctions, he had an affair! He cheated on his wife! Can you believe it?

That avatar is cut too low to receive only intellectual merit, Junky! Maybe if I move my camera back a little in my next picture 1/2 my posts will receive a rep instead of 1/3 She's out of his league!

Sure, that's true but you could also just skim through daily news and read news analysis for a better researched, informative and in-depth analysis. There are news magazines/journals which have weekly articles and the reporters are not only more experienced but have less pressure to spit out a story as fast as possible. Unfortunately people enjoy tabloids, especially in a nation of busybodies who are more interested in gossip than news. Take the Sydney Morning Herald for example, you only need to read the comments section to know the paper is aiming at the average Joe.

Jessica rabbit, although extremely asthetically pleasing to the senses is a wee bit too obvious and sultry. My pixel girl crush would have to be Daphne Blake who is a delightful mixture of intelligence and sophistication and leaves just enough for the imagination. I'm glad I wasn't around for Swansont's Connery avatar, he was my least favourite Bond. I'm not a Scottishist, I would just prefer not being slapped around once rescued.

That's true. Most news stories contain very little facts in general. I would say that 'pure fiction' is an exaggeration too. Sometimes those stories can be extremely useful because although they may contain very little facts, they give you a lot of information about intent and motivation. One thing I find particularly annoying is the lack of referencing even in my 'trusted' news sources. References would would ensure a lot more validity and accountablity.

Who is this 'world changing organisation'? How will they help? What are they changing exactly? Can you be specific? What creates change? Communication, ideas, tolerance, education, responsibility. You claim you've made this your life's work, but what exactly needs to change? And more importantly, how do you propose it will happen? Identifying a problem is only the first step. Your picture and post remind me of the poem 'This lime tree bower my prison', look around you and there is beauty everywhere; this is purely perspective. Analyse the facts I've given you in previous posts, the world is becoming less violent and more tolerant despite your 'gut' feeling.

Often it's not even about being intentionally misleading, dishonest or misrepresenting facts though, but having a different slant. For example, I read both the Conversation and Quadrant; both news sources I find relatively reliable. The Conversation is somewhat leftist, however, Quadrant is more conservative. I read them both for comparison and generally find that although they're generally both factual and attempt to be transparent, there are different emphasis even on the same story. They'll each highlight different facts, or particular quotes, leave out data that they believe is unimportant, the choice of language. it doesn't necessarily make them dishonest or misleading but they have different perspectives. I don't think any news source is reliable on it's own, i have a handful of online news sources which I 'trust' and after reading about the same story 3-4 times from different perspectives, I form my own opinion. I'm not conservative, but will read them anyway for comparison.