Christian Gruber

Well documented The program was termed Operation Cyclone. The article on Wikipedia (I am not permitted to post links) is decent. The article nicely summarizes it, though don't take Wikipedia for it - check the references. Lots and lots of tasty reference, including briefing papers of governments, regional historians' examination of the period, etc.

Thank you. Great analysis.

Ugh. If I were a woman watching this, I'd not want to be a libertarian either - it completely trivializes women, forgetting the luminaries of the libertarian movement over history, the Emma Goldman's, Voltarine de Claire, and others who struggled against the state, who upheld freedom, and weren't the slaves to fashion that TokenLibertarianGirl seems to see.

"Where I stood" - a beautiful, aching song. Thank you for sharing this Myssie. You sang it beautifully.

Awesome. You're right. The bible is filled with bigotry against homosexuals. Thank you for helping me make my point more clearly and accurately.

The word isn't "hers" - but as I mention above, we all use it differently. And if you say things like "personal truth" you're using a different word than she is, even though they sound the same. We're free to use any words we like, but I think she's trying to re-define it so it's all clear. What you mean by "your truth" I would call "belief," "interpretation," or "opinion." That's not to diminish it, but merely to be clear about the subjective vs. objective.

It's worth noting that we're a social primate species. We evolved (for at least the last 5M years) in social groups. It seems plausible, then, that we evolved for social cohesion over individual rationality. If true, our drive to "share our belief" could simply be a manifestation of creating social bonds - of creating shared reality/context with the group. We all do feel more comfortable when others' beliefs validate our own. Not in contradiction to meme theory - just a thought about why.

I think the word "Faith" and "Belief" are overloaded words. And I think in opening with "I do not accept this idea that belief is a choice," upholds some of the ambiguity of the terms. I think I largely agree with what you're getting at, but only after unpacking your use of the terms faith and belief.

Belief may not be a choice, but it results from a choice of method by which one searches after truth. I prefer to hypothesize and test such vs. credence in conclusions unsupported by evidence.

So I love how all the ads for this sarcastic description of morality as "based on authority of the bible" and other "bad reasons" are all for biblical services, schools, etc. Sadly, Google's ads system has no sense of irony or sarcasm.