February, 2013, and beyond - Post of the Month

When considering this history, it would be, well, odd to consider an outbreak of typhus in a particular city in France as somehow presenting a challenge to our image of history because it was not recorded in a different city in Italy. To further claim that this occurrence ("intrusion") of typhus ("lava") into the records of the French town was not part of history ("the geological column") would also be odd, to say the least.

Muslim extremists, Christian extremists. No difference. Except the West has far more experience keeping the Christian extremists in check.

It was totally pointless and taught nothing. It is as stupid as a Search for Moderate Islam or moderate Christianity or moderate Buddhism. It seems pointless but it might employ a few folk and so that may be a saving grace.

You're the fifth most active participant in this thread and all you can say now is that the topic is stupid?

Someone needed to say it. The idea of searching for moderate Islam has got to be one of the silliest threads yet.Moderate Islam, like moderate Christianity or moderate Buddhism or moderate Sikhism is everywhere. It is all the Muslims that do not make the news, the florists and grocers and lawyers and doctors and teachers and firemen and policemen and Imams and bankers and cab drivers and almost all the Muslims in the US and in the world. It's all the Muslims that just want to feed their families, not get killed, educate their sons and daughters and maybe even buy a new car for the wife to drive.

I'm just an atheist. I do not believe in god(s). No one has knowledge of god, we only know whether we belief in god or not. The term agnostic is therefore redundant and misleading.

Even in this thread, people talk about science as if it's synonymous with reality, or that it's self-evident that it's the only source of knowledge worth considering. If scientists like Dawkins and Krauss tell us we're nothing but gene machines or cosmic pollution, then dammit, that's all we are. If there were anything unique or meaningful about human existence, the story goes, science would have detected it by now! The audience for this sort of cheerleading has been groomed by a culture where gadgetry is more important than the arts or humanities, and where our view of what constitutes empirical inquiry is de-historicized and philosophically shallow.

If you think being a bag of chemicals is bad, well, guess what? You're also an ape! That's right. You're a bag of chemicals and an ape! You're a bunch of chemicals in an ape bag!