VitalSpark

Sleuth I actually found mildly terrifying. It's a murder mystery you have to solve, but if you're not quick enough you may end up as one of the victims. Where in the World is Carmen Sandiago? Tetris Prince of Persia 1 and 2 SimCity Monkey Island Transylvania Adventure Nibbles and Gorillas

I'm not sure which practices you are referring to. If you're talking about, say, not believing in any divine power, but practising prayer, that would be strange, yes. Though I've heard some do... I believe they claim that vocalisation helps them clarify exactly what their hopes and desires are; helps them think more clearly about them; and ultimately helps them go about achieving their aims. (As a programmer, I can attest to the common debugging technique of explaining your problem in great detail to a teddy bear. Just putting a problem into words and saying them out loud seems to help you see the solution about 80% of the time.) So maybe this is a bad example. OK, so if you're talking about, say, not believing in god, but going to churches, that would be strange, yes. But on the other hand, I myself have visited many nice churches. St Paul's Cathedral in London, Notre Dame and Sacré-Cœur in Paris, St Peter's in the Vatican, Winchester Cathedral in... errr... Winchester obviously, and Sagrada Família in Barcelona are some of the ones I've been too. I've been to holy buildings of other religions too - a mosque in Turkey and the Pantheon in Rome spring to mind. These buildings were all inspiring places - they show what beautiful things we can create. Weddings? How about weddings? The religious like to claim some sort of monopoly on weddings. "How dare gay people get married?! I don't have a problem with them living together, but marriage is a religious concept, so you cannot have a wedding which would upset the baby Jesus!" Wrong! Marriage is a truly ancient practice that predates Christianity by a very long way. The Chinese were getting married in 200 BC. The Egyptians were getting married in 3000 BC. Marriage predates Judaism. Marriage predates written records. Some super-fundamentalist Christians believe the world was created in around 5500 BC. Marriage is probably older than they think the entire world is. In Christianity, marriage didn't start being treated as a religious ceremony until the 12th century. Until then, it was an entirely secular affair that the church merely recognised. I'm an atheist, and I'm married. Why shouldn't I be? My marriage has nothing to do with any gods or goddesses. (Unless you count my wife as a goddess, but I think even she would agree that that's probably going a bit far.) There are of course also plenty of entirely secular activities which religious groups have kick-started, but make perfect sense to partake in regardless of your religion of lack thereof. Jewish people invented the bagel, but you don't need to be Jewish to eat them. The Lydians invented coins, but they seemed to be a good idea, so the Greeks, and then the Romans, and then everyone else who came after them kept using them. Doesn't mean we have to keep following weird Lydian religious beliefs. Roman pagans started Saturnalia, but that doesn't stop billions of Christians from celebrating it. (Even if they did feel the need to rename it to "Christmas". I prefer the old name.) So please do tell me what religious practices you think it's interesting I keep using.

Because Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is broadly accepted as fact by the scientific community. It is pretty much as widely accepted as Isaac Newton's theory of universal gravitation. Newton got some details wrong of course, and his ideas have been updated and shaped ever since, most notably Einstein's theory of general relativity was an important update and a change to the way scientists think about gravity. There are still things we don't know about gravity, such as how it is "transmitted", and how it relates to the other three fundamental forces of nature, and why it's so weak compared to them. One day we might discover some of the answers to those questions, but Newton's ideas are likely to remain broadly correct, and a useful (albeit perhaps simplistic) way of thinking about gravity. There is plenty of debate about evolution in scientific circles, but it's the same kind of debate that happens with gravity. Scientists might debate the exact relationship between birds and dinosaurs (are birds evolved from dinosaurs, or are they more like close cousins?) or the role of horizontal genetic transfer in the evolution of micro-organisms, but the fact that evolution happened and is still happening is not debated. It's not because scientists are closed-minded, or afraid to accept competing theories, but rather because evolution is so strongly supported by the fossil record, and has been demonstrated both in the wild, and in laboratory settings. Biologists don't cling onto evolution out of tradition, but because it is the theory that best explains what they observe in nature and in their labs.

When I was about... ooohh... nine years old perhaps(?) I had four moles removed. One on my upper back, two on my lower back, one on my head. Done under general anaesthetic. A few weeks later I was at gymnastics, the stitches opened up on one of the wounds of my lower back, and I bled profusely. (Not entirely sure why I'd been allowed to go to gymnastics with stitches in the first place.) I had to be taken to my GP urgently to have the wound re-stitched without any anaesthetic. It was the most intense physical pain I'd felt in my life up until then, and come to think of it, is probably still so. The other three wounds healed nicely, but I've still got that scar on my lower back 25 years later.

My son likes My Little Pony and was telling me all about the pony he would be if he were a pony. I drew this picture using the pony creator software, but I'm sure you can do better! I've written up some details of the character's personality and back story in the OC database. The character is Nightmare Star. So if you've got some time, please draw interesting pictures of Nightmare Star and post them here. (Nothing too scary because he's only 4.) I'll show them to him and let you know his reactions. Thanks!

Granted, but they're growing out of the inside of your mouth and keep waving at people when you try to talk. I wish I didn't have a cold.

Hey, I was wondering if you could please draw me an Equestria Girls style half-pony, half-human version of my OC Vital Spark. Here's a pony generator picture of her as a pony: And here's a rough idea of how she might look fully human. (OK, so it's just a retouched Applebloom.)

Granted, but you end up being held captive at Wayne Sleep's house. I wish to have lunch. A nice lunch.

Not getting out of bed today!

Tesco own-brand fake Cheerios. Does Miss Cheerilee eat Cheerios?

I would like to, but my arms are still full.

At the end of A Canterlot Wedding Cadence says that her love will restore Shining Armor's powers. You dismiss it as a ridiculous sentiment. Shining Armor: No! My power is useless now. I don't have the strength to repel them. Princess Cadance: My love will give you strength. Queen Chrysalis: [chuckling] What a lovely but absolutely ridiculous sentiment. Yet you derive all your power from feeding on other ponies' love, so surely you must have known that this was a legitimate threat to you? Or were you bluffing?

And never let go!