Ripley's Believe It or Not by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! for August 15, 2015

Re: brain size. Must make child birth a little less painful.

Bet the Clays’ dental bill was over the top.

So in the 1830’s, we were as bad as Russia is now

Yahoo! Mountain dew!

Booze must have been cheaper…. no need to advertise I guess.

In the 1890s a great number of Ameicans were addicted to cocaine. Pemberton, who devised the Coca-Cola formula, sold it as a headache remedy.

So the reason we tolerate the Republicans and Democrats is due to shrunken brain?

And what was the average life expectancy for males in 1830?

Re: Shrunken BrainsThat explains so much!

Thank God I’m an atheist.

I like the new layout of Ripley’s. You put one fact in the panel (lower left), which explains a trend (lower right), and then you give an example (top).

@Bandusia15 said:

“(…) People are wising up to the idiocy, intolerance, hatred and misogyny that is religion.”

Now, if they’d just wise up to the idiocy, intolerance, hatred and misogyny that is big government.

@MaxSJones Now that’s a view Max Jones, Starman, would’ve seen. "Oh, no, not a space warp. That’s a silly term … " while folding the Solar Union Day scarf to put Mars & Jupiter within stepping distance.

That shrinking brain thing tells a lot about the current intelligence of the average American voter. How else to explain the Reps success?

Back in John Adams’ days, and the following two generations, his siblings and grandchildren who were drunkards died in their twenties or thirties. One grandson by John Quincy, George Washington Adams, died from alcoholism when he was 27. Franklin Pierce, our fourteenth president, died from cirrhosis of the liver due to alcoholism; he never recovered from the deaths of his three sons, all under 12 years old.

@prof’s hubbieOne thing I despise about Gocomics is the near-inability to edit a post once it has been made (I am a proofreader by trade, TYVM).

That aside…I have dealt with sanctimonious religious zealots all my life and have kept quiet for far too much of it. I am coming to the conclusion that religion is, indeed, a form of mental disease. (The “thank God” is a delicious bit of irony I assumed you had spotted.)

I am curious, though…my comment is ungrammatical and “poorly spelt”? I see ONE misspelled word (my computer insists that “woudl” is correct). I see no grammar errors.

But I am always looking to improve myself to remain at the top of my field so I do appreciate this feedback…now as to your “analysis”:

Insular? I grew up around religious Jews until I was well into my 20s.

Rude? Call it honest and outspoken.

And I think, honestly, that hatred has gotten a bad rap. I hate the religious wrong, conservatives in general, warmongers, the greedy, most rich people, corporations, polluters, etc. I don’t think that is such a bad thing. I often say that social change was never enacted by people who DIDN’T hate some type of injustice.

I hope that clarifies my positions. (And kudos to you for offering your daughters a choice. Most religions do not.)