This is not their day.

We are better than those who did this. This is not their day.

The Thinking Atheist · 128,185 like this

7 minutes ago · 

• We look at the horrors of Boston today, and we're again shaken to our core. 
  
  Throughout our history, there have always been monsters among us, their terrible deeds searing us with confusion and pain. They've peppered our history books and our headlines with terrible acts done for terrible reasons, and they will always be among us. 
  
  But I will not give them this day.
  
  I give today to those who could have run from the chaotic scene, but instead broke through barriers and rushed to the sides of total strangers in pain. I give today to the paramedics, police, firefighters and physicians who worked to heal what another had so horribly hurt. I give today to the communities, both physical and online, working to find avenues that might provide financial and emotional support to the wounded and grieving. I give today to the best of us.
  
  It is a terrible day. But when I look at humankind, I will not define it by the anonymous cowards bent on destruction and chaos. I will define it by so many more who demonstrated something beautiful in the face of so much ugliness.
  
  To the good, the compassionate, the brave, the helpful, the kind, the loving and the generous...I give the day to you.
  
  -Seth

Intellectual Collapse of Islam... and US?

From 800 to 1100 AD, the Arabic world was the center of knowledge in the world.  Mathmatics as we know it today was developed, the stars were named as navigation and astronomy were refined.  We’d be speaking Arabic today but for one thing.  Around 1100 AD, a Muslim scholar, Hamid Al-Ghazali, declared that mathematics was the work of the devil.  That was the beginning of the end of the 300 year Arabic renaissance and intellectual domination.  Today, out of the billions of Muslims on the planet, only two are Nobel prize winners.  Out of only 15 million Jews, one quarter of the prizes have been given to Jews.  Significant scientific discovery by the Muslim world ended in 1100.   Is the US headed in the same direction?  The religious right and social conservatives seem to be trying to drag us into the dark ages.

http://youtu.be/Fl1nJC3lvFs

Facebook rant:

The 2014 Obama NASA budget proposal. Essentially unchanged from 2012 and 2013. It should be doubled. Where is this out of control spending I keep hearing blather about? IT SHOULD BE DOUBLED! This country is going down the tubes, heading the same way the Arab world went in 1100AD, the moral religious right got it in their heads that math was the devils work and now the Arab greatest accomplishments (algebra, math, astronomy, navigation) are from 900 years ago and they are still beheading and stoning people. Without investment, research, and exploration, we will follow the Arab world. Fuck the Tea Party.