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Read Tacitus campaigns in Germania. The Christmas tree is an old tradition imported to Britain by Prince Albert in victorian times, I think, from his native Germany. In Germany, as Tacitus noted, the custom has been around for a LONG time. I mean, you guys can say WHY you think you're...

By independent thought I mean thoughts arrived at independently through a self-actualised process of examination, research and awareness. It's not a "label" for some sort of esoteric cult or new age sect. Regarding drug use. I would encourage my kids to form their own opinions, making them...

Whether I'm blind or not makes no odds, does it, if what I'm looking for cannot be seen!? No. I will not behave. I will not conform. I will not believe simply because of the threatened punishment. I was there, I reached out and I found nothing. If a lifetime of blind obedience is what it...

Yes - I believe the Jesuits said "Give me a boy from birth until the age of seven and I will have him for life." I find it interesting that independent thought is considered a one way ticket to Hell. Another student of Saint Augustine, eh?

Nothing wrong with wanting to be happy - how can you understand love until you've experienced it. Even if you went to heaven when you died, I still think you'd have a richer afterlife for having lived down here longer. Otherwise the goal would simply be to die as quickly as possible!

Raising children in the principles of independent thought is a duty that all parents should embrace. Until you've taught them how to think for themselves, you've not finished raising them - even if they get to be forty. :) My father, for example, is a confirmed hard atheist. He's convinced that...

Of course there's no biblical context for any of this! That's because it's a pagan holiday marked by pagan rites in the same manner that our pagan ancestors have since time immemorial. They just slapped the word Christ on top of it.

I have to agree - I felt often the echo of old power in the churches, but I never felt anything within me personally. When I become acclimated to the wonderful feeling of walking into an old church and began wondering why that was the only time I felt like that, I dug a little deeper. I never...

The swastika goes a ways back further than that - it was used by the Indus Valley civilisation first, I believe. From there it even spread out to the Amerindians, the Aryan's in general too. Old, old symbol - and very benign. Until it was reversed into the Hakkekreuz. Same with the Pentagram -...

Y'all have a Cool Yule while you're at it. ;)

That's fine, Didasko, you don't have to remember why you observe them - so long as they're observed.

Oh don't forget the other Yule Tree. The Germanics used to decorate a tree with the entrails of their foes as an offering to the spirits of the Forest. Where else did you think Tinsel came from?

But then this can be said of a LOT of western traditions. At our heart we are a heathen people and the traditions of a middle eastern sect sit only lightly on our hearts. At the end of the day, blood still sings to blood.

Can I add my 2c in support of Gen here? I personally believe that the ToS is ridiculously strict on this board and that this limits the expression of ideas and stifles debate - I'd rather see it relaxed so that people feel they can express themselves, and a warning provided to those who get...

Theoretically, if you brought your son up correctly and never mentioned Christianity to him, he would still find it of his own accord or it would find him - isn't that what you believe?

Nahhh... He means Cheques! :P (Nota Bene: Checks are Cheques and Cheques are Checks. The two words mean the same thing, but both are "right".)

Why would you be forbidden a fantasy? Hello - thought police! Acting on a fantasy that is immoral, on the other hand, would be a very bad thing.

The criteria for further education has to be your preparedness academically. Nothing more or less. If Christian courses are not teaching the facts then they cannot be accredited and if they're not accredited then you don't get in. We can't have one benchmark for one set of students and another...

Look up hard versus soft atheism. DV is a soft atheist - that is, he has seen insufficient evidence to convince him that there is a god. This is opposed to a hard atheist who believes there is no god. A subtle difference, I'll grant you, but a very real one.

Nobody is suckering anybody into anything. The minute you have a discussion that proceeds from scientific principles it is clear that one system fits the evidence we have to date and one system does not. The minute somebody starts talking about a theory that is consistent, plausible and...