Grigory

Sun and moon unite, briefly leaving the world dark. Make sure to wear shades.

My pleasure.

I did read it. Did you? The only relevant part of that article still does not explain your assertion that female suicide bombers' reasons are "greatly different" (your words, not mine) from their male counterparts. Here is what wikipedia says: "The report further stated that female suicide bombers often were "grieving the loss of family members [and] seeking revenge against those they feel are responsible for the loss, unable to produce children, [and/or] dishonored through sexual indiscretion."[34] Female suicide bombers are predominantly presented as being motivated by non-political factors, as opposed to their male counterparts." Unless you have access to that report and know exactly what it says about those "greatly different" reasons, have the courage to admit that you were just making things up for the sake of the pompous narrative. Or list those "greatly different" reasons. Either/or.

Not watching - just listening. Maroon 5's "Woman" - the rare version recorded for Spide-Man-2. Don't knock it until you listen to it.

See, that there is one of the main reasons America screws up so much, which in turn causes hatred. I am not objecting to your first statement. I am wondering about the validity of the second one. (I even made it bold the first time I quoted - apparently that wasn't obvious enough...) Do provide some sort of citation that female suicide bombers have greatly different reasons from male ones. Male suicide bombers do it for religious reasons, political reasons or to avenge the deaths of their friends and relatives. What's so different about female bombers? Are they doing it to protest Western fashion choices?

I'm glad you liked it.

If World War I taught us anything, it's that a lot of chemical attacks backfire and hit you instead of your enemy. O_o

Citation needed.

I tried the vegan diet once, but after a week of coke and Oreos I had to call it quits.

What if the animal died of natural causes, in comfort, surrounded by its loved ones? Furthermore, veganism bans not just meat, but milk and eggs too. Cows always produce milk and birds lay unfertilized eggs all the time. If you don't milk the cow, it'll hurt. If you don't eat that egg, it'll rot.

Hmm. At first I thought this was yet another conspiracy theory, but looks like it was real: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra Although the article is horrifying, this part made me chuckle: "As the experimentation progressed, a point was reached where outsiders were drugged with no explanation whatsoever and surprise acid trips became something of an occupational hazard among CIA operatives. Adverse reactions often occurred, for example an operative who had received the drug in his morning coffee, became psychotic and ran across Washington, seeing a monster in every car that passed him. Incidents like that reaffirmed that LSD is a dangerous weapon but that only made them more enthusiastic." Reminds me of that Archer show... This just goes to show you that there were never good guys or bad guys in the Cold War - only shades of grey. I guess it's true what they say about absolute power.

Just when I thought there were no message boards on Taoism... Good to know I was wrong! I'm not much of a Taoist (nor a bum, though in this economy - who knows?), but I do my best to keep things simple whenever I can. Been interested in this topic for a while now... I even wrote a wee Kindle book about it. Who knows, one of these days I might even start a blog and try to get the word out. Don't know if it's just me, but it seems like a lot of people could use a break and some Tao Te Ching while they're at it. I guess this is the obligatory part where I write about myself? 26, male, proud owner of a malfunctioning improbability field, a bit of an entrepreneur and it looks like I'm cursed to wander the world until I meet The One. (So far, it's been Siberia - Seattle - Reno - Omaha - Las Vegas - Texas. O_o ) I'm still trying to wrestle my profile into letting me change the user settings... Either you guys have a particularly peculiar set of defenses against spammers, or technology has moved on while I wasn't looking. Looking forward to hanging out with y'all, Grigory (rhymes with "story")

A couple of strong punches in the gut can kill you. In fact, that's what happened to Harry Houdini.

I don't disagree with you. We both agree that fundamentalism is bad. Who knows what they taught Stalin at the seminary... I distrust any places that want to teach impressionable young adults and decorate their walls with crucifixes. (Cult of torture much?) How many atheists are anti-theist?

Congratulations, you've stumbled on several militant atheists and didn't even notice all the other atheists who were just minding their business. Here, have a cookie. Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal.

Citation needed.

In a way. It's also oddly close to Russian in many respects - more so than it rightfully should be. It's kind of like the case of distant cousins who look alike. Languages are funny like that. The funny thing about Japanese is that it's not directly related to any other language in the world. They're still trying to figure that one out hahaha. I've heard that its structure is kinda-sorta-not-really similar to Turkish due to the giant Black Sea migration east a few thousand years ago, but who knows.

A lot of you guys appear to mix the "strong" (or militant) atheism (which turns into anti-theism in the most extreme cases) and the "weak," non-militant atheism. At its essence, atheism is a-theism: a(bsence of religion)-theism. I'm an atheist. Hell, I've even written a book about it. I don't spend all my time thinking how much I don't believe in Yahweh, Allah, etc. I just don't care. (Call me "apatheist" if you want.) Likewise, I neither believe in nor care about unicorns, Bigfoot and the Easter Bunny. Let's say you don't believe in leprechauns. (How many adults do, really?) Would you call yourself an aleprechaunist? Would it be okay for the Irish to demand your death because you're an evil, evil aleprechaunist and clearly want to destroy the Irish cultural legacy? Would it make sense for people to start threads about Aggressive Evangelical Aleprechaunism simply because a couple of immature people with nothing better to do occasionally troll the people who believe in leprechauns? Yeah, I didn't think so.

Did you survey all the atheists in the world? Or is your experience based on limited interactions with a handful of atheists? If so, how many? Did you get a diverse demographic sample with a moderate margin of error? What methodology did you use to compile the data? How large is that "large portion"? Please cite your sources. I am not aware of any peer-reviewed studies that measure the percentage of atheists who insult other people's faiths. Please, enlighten me. EDIT: And you still haven't answered my question. Name at least one current event where hundreds of thousands of atheist formed a mob and demanded to lynch religious bloggers. That just happened a few weeks ago, only it was Muslims who wanted to lynch atheist bloggers, not the other way around. Take your time. I'll wait.

1. Maoism and Stalinism (and it is these names that ought to be forever branded with the gigantic crimes committed, and not "atheism") were not ideologies of mere non-theism. When you find a dictatorship based entirely on atheism, let me know. 2. Actually, Stalin spent 5 years studying at the Georgian Orthodox Tiflis Spiritual Seminary in Tbilisi. One can just as easily make an argument that it was the seminary that turned him into a homicidal maniac. 3. Anti-theism is not the same as atheism.

Society sucks, but it's still better than all the other sucky options.

Ah, what the hell - I figured I'll just dump the rest of my favorites here:\ “We are afraid of the known and afraid of the unknown. That is our daily life and in that there is no hope, and therefore every form of philosophy, every form of theological concept, is merely an escape from the actual reality of what is. All outward forms of change brought about by wars, revolutions, reformations, laws and ideologies have failed completely to change the basic nature of man and therefore of society.” Thomas Jefferson "The way to live a long time — oh, a thousand years or more — is something between the way a child does it and the way a mature man does it. Give the future enough thought to be ready for it — but don’t worry about it. Live each day as if you were to die next sunrise. Then face each sunrise as a fresh creation and live for it, joyously. And never think about the past. No regrets, ever.” Robert Heinlein "Markets are living things with bi-polar personalities prone to enormous temper tantrums, but in the end, they always come to their senses. All they need is time-out. But whatever we do, don’t lose faith in them, we’re warned. Their wrath will rival a vengeful God." Rudolf Kerkhoven "Most people overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in ten." Nigel Marsh "He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it." Douglas Adams "I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?" Ernest Hemingway “A thorough reading and understanding of the Bible is the surest path to atheism” Donald Morgan "I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." Stephen Roberts "War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." Ambrose Bierce "We are a fountain of shimmering contradictions, most of us. Beautiful in the concept, if we're lucky, but frequently tedious or regrettable as we flesh ourselves out." — Gregory Maguire "I am very optimistic about humanity, and very pessimistic about humans." Rudolph Henkel “So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important. This is because they’re chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.” Morrie Schwartz "I knew a man who gave up smoking, drinking, sex, and rich food. He was healthy right up to the day he killed himself." Johnny Carson "The first man to raise a fist is the man who's run out of ideas". H.G. Wells "The greatest tragedy in life is to spend your whole life fishing only to discover that it was not fish you were after." Henry David Thoreau "Why do we try to define people as simply good or evil? Because no one wants to admit that compassion and cruelty can live side by side in one heart, and that anyone is capable of anything." Anonymous "A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it." GK Chesterton "Everyone has a right to be an idiot. Some people abuse the privilege." Joseph Stalin "If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments." Earl Wilson “I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.” Jerome K. Jerome "Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals." Oscar Wilde "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society." Mark Twain "Money is not the most important thing in the world. Love is. Fortunately, I love money." Jackie Mason "Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd little waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like." Daniel Handler "Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without hell." Frank Borman "As a group, lemmings have a rotten image, but no individual lemming has ever received bad press." Warren Buffett "Modern man drives a mortgaged car over a bond-financed highway on credit-card gas." Earl Wilson "At what age do you tell a highway it was adopted?" Zach Galifianakis "If you're falling off a cliff, you might as well try to fly." Anonymous "Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." Oscar Wilde “There’s nothing to match curling up with a good book when there’s a repair job to be done around the house.” Joe Ryan "Some people would rather die than think. In fact, they do." Bertrand Russell "Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right." Isaac Asimov "There are very few jobs that actually require a penis or vagina. All other jobs should be open to everybody." Florynce Kennedy "Man’s mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions." Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. “The human foot is a work of art and a masterpiece of engineering.” Leonardo Da Vinci "The boldness of asking deep questions may require unforeseen flexibility if we are to accept the answers." Brian Greene "I asked a Burmese why women, after centuries of following their men, now walk ahead. He said there were many unexploded land mines since the war." Robert Mueller “Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes. Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.” Henry Miller “The belief that there is only one truth, and that oneself is in possession of it, is the root of all evil in the world.” Max Born “Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.” Albert Einstein "If you want to make enemies, try to change something." Woodrow Wilson “I shall not commit the fashionable stupidity of regarding everything I cannot explain as a fraud.” C.G.Jung "The only reason I survive is because of the common folk superstition that it's bad luck to kill a journalist. Walking under ladders, breaking mirrors, killing journalists - all very bad luck." Robert Stacy McCain “People find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than for being right.” J.K. Rowling "Being broke is a very efficient educational agency." Edwin Lefevre "Power doesn't have to show off. Power is confident, self-assuring, self-starting, and self-stopping, self warming and self-justifying. When you have it, you know it" Ralph Ellison "It's the simple things in life that are extraordinary; only wise men are able to understand them" Paul Coelho “Nothing, to my way of thinking, is a better proof of a well ordered mind than a man’s ability to stop just where he is and pass some time in his own company.” Seneca "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." Albert Einstein "When others demand that we become the person they want us to be, they force us to destroy the person we really are. It's a subtle kind of murder. The most loving parents and relatives commit this murder with smiles on their faces." Jim Morrison "Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack." George Patton "I find television very educating. Every time someone turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book." Groucho Marx "Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in a world they have been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact; It is an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration; It is a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing." Richard Bullock "If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done." Peter Ustinov “The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 pm on some idle Tuesday.” Kurt Vonnegut “Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those, who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear, which is inherent in a human condition” Graham Greene “The human brain is a wonderful organ. It starts to work as soon as you are born and doesn't stop until you get up to deliver a speech.” George Jessel “You are the same today that you are going to be in five years from now except for two things: the people with whom you associate and the books you read.” Charles Jones "Think wrongly, if it pleases you, but in all cases think for yourself" Doris Lessing "The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it." Ernest Hemingway "The best intelligence test is what we do with our leisure time." Laurence J. Peter "Never confuse movement with action." Ernest Hemingway "People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life... I think that what we're really seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our innermost being and reality, so that we can actually feel the rapture of being alive." Joseph Campbell "You become what you think about." Earl Nightingale "Every man's memory is his private literature." Aldous Huxley "The really tough choices ... don't center upon right versus wrong. They are genuine dilemmas precisely because each side is firmly rooted in one of our basic, core values." Rushworth Kidder "We're fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance." Japanese proverb "I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them. If I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do." Robert A. Heinlein

Actually, Spanish is ridiculously close to Russian in terms of grammar and pronunciation. Even some of the words are the same! ("Biblioteca" and "y," for example.) I stopped studying it after one year because it was so easy that it felt like cheating... Took a few years of Japanese instead. Really easy language in terms of pronunciation and fairly easy to conjugate, but ye gods - the whole kanji thing is ridiculous! You need to know at least 2,000 of those tiny buggers just to get around, and ~5,000 to be fluent. That was the point where I quit...

I used to be an alien once... Then I got my citizenship.