02-22-2006, 03:10 PM
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#1
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Guest
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Here, a pretty old (2004) but also highly accurate depiction of science in Arab/Muslim world
It's chokefull with statistics and many othe interesting aspects, such as
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Only 370 industrial patents were issued to people in Arab countries between 1980 and 2000. In South Korea during that same period, 16,000 industrial patents were issued
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or
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No more than 10,000 books were translated into Arabic over the entire past millennium, equivalent to the number translated into Spanish each year
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A very instructive reading, enjoy: http://chronicle.com/free/v50/i26/26a03601.htm
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02-22-2006, 03:14 PM
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#2
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Guest
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Quote:
CSense wrote
Here, a pretty old (2004) but also highly accurate depiction of science in Arab/Muslim world
It's chokefull with statistics and many othe interesting aspects, such as
Quote:
Only 370 industrial patents were issued to people in Arab countries between 1980 and 2000. In South Korea during that same period, 16,000 industrial patents were issued
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or
Quote:
No more than 10,000 books were translated into Arabic over the entire past millennium, equivalent to the number translated into Spanish each year
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A very instructive reading, enjoy: http://chronicle.com/free/v50/i26/26a03601.htm
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Considering that the Western world got picked out of the Dark Ages by the Middle East cats, that is pretty appalling. Guess they think they know it all, now.
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02-22-2006, 03:24 PM
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#3
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Guest
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Quote:
logarithm wrote
Considering that the Western world got picked out of the Dark Ages by the Middle East cats, that is pretty appalling.
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I wouldn't be so sure about that. To me, Islam is way worse than the Inquisition. And the so-called Dark Ages bare this name because little is known about those times, almost totally erased from history by Christian stupidity.
see more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages
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02-22-2006, 09:24 PM
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#4
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I Live Here
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: prick up your ears
Posts: 20,553
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well, the hamper heads seem pretty good at making bombs (or do they just buy them from haliburton?)
You can always turn tricks for a few extra bucks. If looks are an issue, there's the glory hole option, but don't expect more than ... tips.
~ Philiboid Studge
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02-23-2006, 04:10 AM
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#5
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Obsessed Member
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Oxford, UK.
Posts: 2,330
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Quote:
CSense wrote
Quote:
logarithm wrote
Considering that the Western world got picked out of the Dark Ages by the Middle East cats, that is pretty appalling.
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I wouldn't be so sure about that. To me, Islam is way worse than the Inquisition. And the so-called Dark Ages bare this name because little is known about those times, almost totally erased from history by Christian stupidity.
see more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages
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No, Loggy is pretty much right. The dark ages were a time of lowered literacy, lowered population and very poor economic circumstances (not all of which is due to Christianity - there appears to have been an agricultural collapse due to climactic fluctuations as well, for example). The high medieval period and the renaissance got a major intellectual kick off from the capture of the library of Toledo in 1085, during the reconquista, with its large collection of Greek and Islamic scientific and philosophical texts.
I'm not entirely surprised about the curent situation of science, but which is cause and which is effect? Does Islam have the hold it does because of lack of exposure to the scientific world view, or vice versa, or are they both caused by another factor? The chronicle article seems to be saying it's down to institutional, economic and political weaknesses rather than Islam.
"You care for nothing but shooting, dogs and rat-catching, and will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family"
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02-23-2006, 07:36 AM
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#6
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Guest
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Quote:
a different tim wrote
No, Loggy is pretty much right. The dark ages were a time of lowered literacy, lowered population and very poor economic circumstances (not all of which is due to Christianity - there appears to have been an agricultural collapse due to climactic fluctuations as well, for example). The high medieval period and the renaissance got a major intellectual kick off from the capture of the library of Toledo in 1085, during the reconquista, with its large collection of Greek and Islamic scientific and philosophical texts.
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ADT, have you read the above wikipedia link?
There are obviously other sources for detailed info on that period, but none to my knowledge seem to support what you say as a whole... "Lowered literacy, lowered population and very poor economic circumstances" are common even today in many places.
Damn Petrarch!
Quote:
a different tim wrote
I'm not entirely surprised about the curent situation of science, but which is cause and which is effect? Does Islam have the hold it does because of lack of exposure to the scientific world view, or vice versa, or are they both caused by another factor? The chronicle article seems to be saying it's down to institutional, economic and political weaknesses rather than Islam.
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You kind of shot your foot with that last phrase, sorry.
We're talking Islamic states here, right?
Well, Islam is institutional, economical and political...
Since ages.
The thing is, one cannot escape Islam and its influence in any Islamic state, otherwise than physically getting out of there. It's the biggest refugee camp of them all. And proud of it...
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02-23-2006, 10:06 AM
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#7
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I Live Here
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Chandler- Arizona
Posts: 14,227
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All things ( with lots of EVIDENCE) points towards Christ-psychosis to have initiated the Dark Ages. It is a FACT that while Christian Europe ( 11th Century) languished in Christ-psychosis induced ignorance, superstition, intolerance, immorality,intellectual stagnation, those countries under Islam FLOURISHED ( Including Spain)...and those Islamic countries had JEWISH populations that had EQUAL rights as those of the Muslims. These semitic people were merchants, traders and if it weren't for their respective beliefs systems they were NOT descriminated upon like in Christian Europe where they were viewed as Satanic and Christ-killers!!
When the Crusaders of Dark Ages Europe (excluding Spain) invaded Nutty Land in 1095 ce, they acted worst than the terrorists of today, and after 270 years of occupying those lands they brought back to Europe Muslim/Jewish SCIENCE and HEALTHY way of life, piercing Europe Dark Ages allowing a little light to seep in. The returning crusaders and the new ideas they brought with them were RESPONSIBLE for the Renaissance. The Christian retards so much fond of DARK AGES and intellectual stagnation IMPOSSED these "virtues" to Spain in 1492 when Boabdil surrendered granada to the demented, immoral, perverted, ignorant, and stupid Ferdinand and schizophrenic Isabella ( mental illness is obvious in her family, Juana la LOCA was her daughter and mother of Charles V)...then we have the IMMORAL, psychopathic pervert Christ-psychotic Columbus!.
Alas, the Muslims did not conquered America impossing their intolerance and perverted christ-psychosis on them. I do not see Muslims, going all over the world IMPOSSING their mental illness on others? Hmm, is there an Islamic Inquisition? Is there an Islamic Vatican where each Iman MUST go and convert everyone in the world to their psychosis? Do we have Islamic Children's fund where the QURAN is shoved on everyone's throats? Do we have Muslims MASSACRING natives of ANY country stablishing MISSIONS? Do we have Muslims going door to door IMPOSSING their beliefs on others?....
Do we see Arab Muslim Countries INVADING America or any other Christ-psychosis infected country IMPOSSING their values on everyone?..but we see Christ-psychotic America going to places they do not belong impossing their VALUES, their disgusting IMMORAL christ-psychosis, way of life, way of government on others!! What's wrong with this picture?..then when other try to do it, they cry foul!!..Hipocrites.
There is no more VILE, perverted, immoral and DELUSIONAL religious psychosis as that of Christianity. It is the mental illness sine qua non! The historical record is there for ALL to see!...
Christians and other folks infected with delusional beliefs think and reason like schizophrenics or temporal lobe epileptics. Their morality is dictated by an invisible friend called Jesus.
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02-23-2006, 11:21 AM
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#8
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Obsessed Member
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Oxford, UK.
Posts: 2,330
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Quote:
CSense wrote
Quote:
a different tim wrote
No, Loggy is pretty much right. The dark ages were a time of lowered literacy, lowered population and very poor economic circumstances (not all of which is due to Christianity - there appears to have been an agricultural collapse due to climactic fluctuations as well, for example). The high medieval period and the renaissance got a major intellectual kick off from the capture of the library of Toledo in 1085, during the reconquista, with its large collection of Greek and Islamic scientific and philosophical texts.
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ADT, have you read the above wikipedia link?
There are obviously other sources for detailed info on that period, but none to my knowledge seem to support what you say as a whole... "Lowered literacy, lowered population and very poor economic circumstances" are common even today in many places.
Damn Petrarch!
Quote:
a different tim wrote
I'm not entirely surprised about the curent situation of science, but which is cause and which is effect? Does Islam have the hold it does because of lack of exposure to the scientific world view, or vice versa, or are they both caused by another factor? The chronicle article seems to be saying it's down to institutional, economic and political weaknesses rather than Islam.
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You kind of shot your foot with that last phrase, sorry.
We're talking Islamic states here, right?
Well, Islam is institutional, economical and political...
Since ages.
The thing is, one cannot escape Islam and its influence in any Islamic state, otherwise than physically getting out of there. It's the biggest refugee camp of them all. And proud of it...
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Well, I'm recalling from my uni course here, so I can't quote you chapter and verse. I have some stuff in old lecture notes but can't find anything on line right now to support it. I will try to do so especially re the demographics which I think are pretty key (anyone esle have anything on the demographics of Europe from say 400 ce through 1200 or so?). I did read the Wiki, and am aware of this interpretation, I have to say that I have never been convinced by it. I think it's a piece of revisionism that will not stand. When we dug into it I seem to remember a lot of evidence of population and economic decline. The decline in literacy between the fall of the western Roman empire (when, let us remember, common soldiers could read and write - their letters have been found at Hadrian's wall!) and the Renaissance is not disputed even in Wikipedia as far as I know (although what learning there was, Cal, was kept alive by monks). The collapse of the villa system and its replacement by less efficient feudal agriculture, and climate shift, meant that Europe was simply unable to sustain the economic and cultural level of former and later times.
This is the best I could find online, not too good as most stuff concentrates on the little ice age later on, and this rather unclear graph covers a large time scale. Notice dip from about 500 through to 1000 or so though, and definite average during the dark ages way lower than during the Roman period. From here. Other supporting evidence for a warm Roman period is the existence of Roman vineyards in the UK Midlands, which are still not really a grape growing area even after a bit of global warming (althogh the Wroxeter vineyard is open it mainly seems to exist on novelty value).
The Chronicle article specifically mentions structural weaknesses in, for example, the appointment of university presidents, which have very little to do with Islam as far as I can see. Also mentioned is poverty (in the substantial sectors of society which do not see any oil money). Saying that because the people in those countries are Muslim, that everthing that is wrong with them is due to Islam, does not make it so. Shortsightedness and lack of university investment are not exclusive to Muslims.
There are many things wrong with Islam, but the Chronicle article you cited does not say this is one of those things, nor does it suggest it. We are not solely talking about "Islamic" (i.e. theocratic) states. Syria for example, which is specifically mentioned has a Ba'athist regime not an Islamist one.
I think we're on dangerous ground if we critique whole religions based on their social effects. These are and have been variable. Modern fundamentalism is hostile to science, but the church before Galileo fostered it, for example. I'm an atheist because of what religion is (blind faith) rather than because of what religious societies may or may not do, although I will admit to being both appalled and insulted by fundamentalism. I would like the world to be atheist because I think it's true, but am sceptical about any percieved societal gains.
"You care for nothing but shooting, dogs and rat-catching, and will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family"
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02-23-2006, 02:03 PM
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#9
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Guest
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Quote:
a different tim wrote
I think we're on dangerous ground if we critique whole religions based on their social effects.
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"Today two out of every three Ph.D.s earned in Saudi Arabia are in Islamic studies. Doctorates are only very rarely granted in computer sciences, engineering, and other worldly vocations. Younger Saudis are being educated to take part in a world that will exist only if the Wahhabi jihadists succeed in turning back the clock not just a few decades but a few centuries."
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200305/baer/2
Hmmmm. I wonder how much value their expertise in Islam will bring them when the oil money runs out.
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02-23-2006, 02:08 PM
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#10
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I Live Here
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: prick up your ears
Posts: 20,553
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Don't forget Tim Islamic Studies requirtes a sound knowledge of the chemistry of explosives, aerodynamics of large aircraft, engineering of tall buildings and so on, so it is a bit technical.
death to America (Islamic equivalent of "smell you later")
You can always turn tricks for a few extra bucks. If looks are an issue, there's the glory hole option, but don't expect more than ... tips.
~ Philiboid Studge
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02-23-2006, 02:14 PM
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#11
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Guest
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Quote:
Choobus wrote
Don't forget Tim Islamic Studies requirtes a sound knowledge of the chemistry of explosives, aerodynamics of large aircraft, engineering of tall buildings and so on, so it is a bit technical.
death to America (Islamic equivalent of "smell you later")
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:)
I love the joke, but of course those explosives were purchased abroad by the old regime and looted after the US invasion, and the Saudi hijackers had to come to the US to learn how to fly.
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02-23-2006, 03:27 PM
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#12
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Obsessed Member
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Oxford, UK.
Posts: 2,330
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Quote:
Tim the Enchanter wrote
Quote:
a different tim wrote
I think we're on dangerous ground if we critique whole religions based on their social effects.
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"Today two out of every three Ph.D.s earned in Saudi Arabia are in Islamic studies. Doctorates are only very rarely granted in computer sciences, engineering, and other worldly vocations. Younger Saudis are being educated to take part in a world that will exist only if the Wahhabi jihadists succeed in turning back the clock not just a few decades but a few centuries."
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200305/baer/2
Hmmmm. I wonder how much value their expertise in Islam will bring them when the oil money runs out.
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On the other hand, Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country in the world, awarded about 34,000 natural science, social science and engineering degrees in the most recent year statistics were gathered. This is low for an asian country as percentage of population (compare neighbouring Malaysia for example) but so is percentage with degrees in general (including, presumably, Islamic studies). A look at 24 year olds seems to show it's up on the previous years as a percentage of degrees awarded and as a percentage of population.
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind9...c2/at02-01.xls
So maybe it's a cultural as well as a religious thing. I accept the two are intertwined, but they are not identical. For example, most of us have been brought up in a western culture that is heavily influenced by Christianity, but we are not Christians. The Arab states have this problem, while the Indonesians do not, and indeed seem to be boosting the number of science/engineering grads they turn out.
In general I suspect that one factor is that people turn to religion in the kind of way that fundies do when they are missing out on some promise of secular society. For example, the appeal of fundamentalism in poor areas of the US is well known, and most of those arabs never see the oil money, though they are aware that their alleged govenors have it. Crudely put, as far as these people can see science and/or secular democracy have not helped them, and indeed they have missed out on its benefits, so they turn to religion. So I postulate that the religious revival in Arab states is a result of the general corruption and incompetence that seems to prevail there, not the cause of it. If your leaders are corrupt, dictatorial, and rolling in cash, while you are poor, a religion that promises a return to some kind of moral purity has powerful appeal.
And reading that Atlantic article, the Saudi situation is down to special political circumstances affecting the house of Saud. This is the context of the quote:
"But because in recent years the Saudi education system has been largely entrusted to Wahhabi fundamentalists, as a form of appeasement that many in the royal family hope will direct the fundamentalists' animus at foreign targets, its products are generally ill prepared to compete in a technological age or a global economy. Today two out of three PhDs...."
The article in general is about the corruption of the Saudi royal house and Prince Abdullah's atempts to reform it. It puts the blame squarely on political institutions. The tone of it is that if the Saudi royal house was less corrupt, they wouldn't have these issues, or would be able to control them.
"You care for nothing but shooting, dogs and rat-catching, and will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family"
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02-23-2006, 03:56 PM
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#13
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I Live Here
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: prick up your ears
Posts: 20,553
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Quote:
Tim the Enchanter wrote
Quote:
Choobus wrote
Don't forget Tim Islamic Studies requirtes a sound knowledge of the chemistry of explosives, aerodynamics of large aircraft, engineering of tall buildings and so on, so it is a bit technical.
death to America (Islamic equivalent of "smell you later")
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:)
I love the joke, but of course those explosives were purchased abroad by the old regime and looted after the US invasion, and the Saudi hijackers had to come to the US to learn how to fly.
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that's because they did not have doctorates in Islamic studies........
You can always turn tricks for a few extra bucks. If looks are an issue, there's the glory hole option, but don't expect more than ... tips.
~ Philiboid Studge
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02-23-2006, 03:57 PM
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#14
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Guest
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Different Tim (how appropriate)-
You make a lot of good points, and I knew when I posted that I had to be careful about generalizing from the example of Saudi Arabia. I still have to wonder, though, about the limits of what "moral purity" in and of itself can bring you in modern society. I wonder even more when an impoverished nation's "leaders are corrupt, dictatorial, and rolling in cash," and those leaders claim follow to the same brand of moral purity that supposedly offers salvation to the disenfranchised.
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02-24-2006, 10:11 AM
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#15
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Guest
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How the hell can you get a PhD in 'Islamic Studies'? Don't you have to extend the field with your doctoral thesis to get the degree? What's your thesis going to be on?
Here are some doctoral ideas:
How the royal family is butt fucking the population with it's corrupt policies.
The new dark ages: How Islam is destroying its believers.
The new terrorism: Using your enemy's infrastructure as a weapon.
Theocracy, it CAN work if we lobotomize everybody.
... I suppose it's no stupider than getting a PhD in 'Christian Studies', but those all come from diploma mills.
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