crwtom

The much more interesting question: Why They DO Believe in Christianity History is filled gazillions of scriptures, believes, tales, sects, cults, and religions. Why did the post-Judaic Abrahamic religions - that is, Christianity and Islam - become so popular. They are the two largest religions (33% and 21% of world pop, respectively) and spread far beyond their places of origin (e.g., South America and SE Asia respectively) Of course, much of it has to do with power politics. Emperor Constantin's conversions and his arrangement between western and eastern Roman empires were pivotal for the large scale rise of Christinanity. For Islam the Ottoman and other such empires played a similar role. I'm wondering if there are factors instrinsic to the preachings thoug - it is hard to do successful long term politics without a populance going along at least in parts. One reason given for the spread of early Christinanity is the message that "all are created equal". In some sense this was a precursor to what makes democracy popular and surprisingly stable. It was also very anti-establishment and populistic in the context of its time. So Christinanity in 100 AD probably had a similar appeal as communism or socialism had in 1900 AD. With Islam I believe it is no coincidence that radical Islam started its rise at the same time that communism died (or became quite unpopular in the Arab world due to Soviet invasions in Afghanistan) In some way it serves as an anit-establishment/revolutionary philosophy in similar ways and sort of replaces the role of communism. For example, the recent shift from Fatah to Hamas in Palestine is pretty good illustration of this. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

I think that one was a troll. it appears a pretty successful one ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

Thanks for mentioning - making 9/11 reposible for the recession in GWB admin is a big load of huey. Look at any SP500 chart. 9/11 created a short-term down-spike. A couple of weeks later SP 500 was back to almost the same level. The reasons for the down-spike were all temporary. NYSE closing, break down in communication lines and, most significantly, the fear that trader data from the previous day(s) was lost which would have been a bad situation. Fortunately, all the data was backed up and recovered a few days later, markets reopened and communications were restored. A little while later most stock losses had been recovered. (see any SP500) Edit: SP500 Chart (Pre and post 9/11 levels at around 1150 and holding steady until mid 2002 break in) For the next months the the trend mainly continued the gradual downwards trend that resulted from the dot-com bust a year or so earlier. The only somewhat longer term effect on the economy were the problems in the air line industry - since this actually involved a lot of people who didn't want to fly. (although the air line industry was hardly in healthy state to begin with) The really steep downslide in the economy happened in late summer of 2002 ... What happened then? Talk of an impending and unrelated war in Iraq - and threats of war tend to be even worse on stock markets than wars themselves. The persistence of the recession had to do with poor management of war and economic affairs of the admin than anything else. It is really bizarre to expect that taking out a few city blocks in a huge country like the US could cripple an entrie economy. If there was any merit to such a claim most wars in modern history would have ended within days and weeks and not dragged on for many years. 9/11 was economically a short-term scare, but in the long term not more than a ripple. Quite a bit of hate mongering. Yeah - let's go and bomb all muslims. Just to make the point. Suppose the "Army of God" or the "KKK" or some other US wacko terror group decide sto go big and global for theis causes and stages attacks in another country. Would you find it justfied if the other country would launch retaliatory airstrikes or missile attacks against US cities and monuments? Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

not to defend Hiroshima/Nagasaki but these were far from direct responses to Pearl Harbor. PH was the trigger for the US to enter Pacific War. That was an enterprise with well over 20 Mio dead people (most Chinese but also millions on the Japanese and Allies) At stake was control of half of the worls by either a Japanese empire, the "free world" or a communist Soviet Union that could have gained a lot more control over east Asia had the Pacific War lasted much longer. As bad as that sounds - compared to the Pacific War the "war on terror" is peanuts and hardly classifies as a war to being with. The US nukes were droppped to end the Pacific War not to retaliate for one single attack such as Pearl Harbor. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

It's a great time saver -- isn't it Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

every read the "Death of a Salesman" ... lotsa hoping in there but not a life for me ... Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

I don't particularly trust people who need to be commanded to be compasionate and considerate to others ... Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

proves that god's the better dope? Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

that this is still in place against most common sense tells you also something about how much special interest groups have this country under control - Cuban anti-Castro groups who are highly organized, and control voter groups in a swing state (Florida). A few thousand driving politics that impacts 300 Mio. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

plus it's superfluous. I can tell you right now what the polyp will turn out to be ... his head! (up his arse ) Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

Retaliate! Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

Here's a Picture Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

those doctors cannot be very smart. You are already a doctor with many trusting western patients who let you give them meciations and perform operations on them. And the best thing you can think of in order to harm them are car bombs ???? Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

the other question I have: Was the Marijuana organically grown? Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

FWIW, Shonda Rhimes , the exec producer of the series, is African American. You would think she was very involved in that decision and it'd be odd (though not impossible) to accuse her of racism. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

what a silly claim see also story Clinton is in fact below average in numbers among recent presidents - in several ways comparable to Ronald Reagan. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

The best environment to create an "underclass" is to keep people in a legal gray zone - no rights, constant fear, etc. After the do-nothing populists had their day this is what it will continue to be. Congrats! Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

If 26% of all Americans seriously believe I must be an inherently evil person only because I prefer imports - then, yes, I think would have a substantial problem with that. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

another disturbing poll results Scroll to Question 6 What IQ do you need to have to still believe that ... " ....Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq was directly involved in planning, financing, or carrying out the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001?" 41% fit that category - a number that has even gone up since last fall. It makes me think, what if this percentage was something more digestible like

so it''d be OK if those 25% were, for example, racist - just something you roll with? They were a few decades ago but many people wouldn't take it, and perceptions have changed a fair amount. Those changes didn't really require people to have a high IQ - just to listen up and get over their fears and hatred, as well as some courage and responsibility from those in society's leadership roles. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

Yeah - there are vigorous discussions here. But the believe held by a quarter of the population about atheists is deeply pesonal and insulting. Tellig someone here that he/she inherently must be a bad or immoral person without wrong doing (rather than that their philosophies are nonsense) would get you into trouble with the moderators here. You can also use that sort of phrase to shrug off racism and other ugly prejudice preceptions that someone must be a lower life form simply because of who/what they are. It hardly makes it an accepable situation. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

How's is it that these individual stories make the news, get widely circulated, discussed on snoopes etc. One thing that always comes to my mind when I hear them is the old journalism adage Dog bites man is not news -- Man bites dog is news Dog-bites-man-stories (such as domestic disputes between otherwise "law abiding" citicens or people being mugged at gun point with guns easily stolen from an abundance of "legal" guns) rarely get any attention on this sort of individual level. All you can practically do, due to sheer volume, is summarize them in statistics. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

So I am as bad as Stalin - thank you very much ... BTW, HItler and Mussolini believed in a Christian God. You want me to draw some conclusions from that ... ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

that would be the believe held by more than a quarter of Americans Poll - see Question 19 If 2/3 would reject me as a political candidate based only on my atheist view then this is depressing but not directly personal (as I don't plan on running for political office) However, that 80 Million Americans think I am automatically an immoral person is Salem witch hunt mentality and not too thinly spread in this country. UGLY! Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

There is nothing great about McDonalds burgers either. The success of the restaurant chain has nothing to do with superior quality but with comfort and certainty that it's not going to suck any worse than what you have been used to from previous experience. The comfort of familiarity and a (perceived!) guaranteed lower bar can go a long way. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true