Cynicism is the last refuge of the idealist

More on the notion that the ancient home of odysseus has been found

More on the notion that the ancient home of odysseus has been found

More on the notion that the ancient home of odysseus has been found

More on the notion that the ancient home of odysseus has been found

Archaeologosists are claiming to have found the long-lost tomb of Odysseus in Homeric Ithaca.

The one drawback has always been that Ithaca is a barren island and has never been shown to have any bronze age archaeology on it.

Recent excavations however have found a tomb which seems to contain royal remains on nearby Paros.

All interesting stuff

From The Times - a survey seems to suggest that religgious belief is bad for the overall health of sociey

It compares the social peformance of relatively secular countries, such as Britain, with the US, where the majority believes in a creator rather than the theory of evolution. Many conservative evangelicals in the US consider Darwinism to be a social evil, believing that it inspires atheism and amorality< …>

Many liberal Christians and believers of other faiths hold that religious belief is socially beneficial, believing that it helps to lower rates of violent crime, murder, suicide, sexual promiscuity and abortion. The benefits of religious belief to a society have been described as its “spiritual capital”. But the study claims that the devotion of many in the US may actually contribute to its ills.
“In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.

“The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so.”

Now tell me something I don’t know.

To poke my oar in the water: There’s nothing wrong with faith per se, it’s just that montheistic religions are arranged in a pyramidal fashion with God at the top with a tier of priesthood above the commoners telling them what to think.

It seems to me that all forms of priesthood are inherently bigotted, narrowminded and fail to stand up for what makes the religion wonderful in the first place.

And the one thing that most of these intecessionary religions have is that they restrict access to the afterlife, telling people they are damned and going to Hell for whatever reason suits the priesthood

And it doesn’t matter what religion you come from - there is as much potential for vile bigotry in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, even Buddhism.

It’s not the message that’s wrong, it’s the people who claim for themselves the right to declare themselves messengers.

Let me be clear, I have met wonderful people filled with beautiful faith from all branches of reliogious belief and it can be a beautiful thing. It’s just when you get people commanding what can or can’t be taught in schools, whether it is the theory of evolution; sex education or just racial and cultural tolerance you know society is in trouble

New Plant Finds In Andes Foretell Of Ancient Climate Change

Lonnie thompson, a glaciologist has returned from Peru with samples of plants which were formerly covered by glaciers which seem to show that the andes are warmer now than they have been for many thousands of years

In 2002, he first stumbled across some non-fossilized plants exposed by the steadily retreating Quelccaya ice cap. Carbon dating showed that plant material was at least 5,000 years old.

Then in 2004, Thompson found additional plant beds revealed by the continued retreat of the melting ice and when tested, these proved to be carbon-free, suggesting that they might date back more than 50,000 years. If true, that would suggest that the climate in that region may not have been as warm as it is today in more than 500 centuries.

and yet those arrogant bastards still deny that the global climate is getting warmer and disaster approaching