Can you prove to me the flying spaghetti monster isn’t a real creature, worthy of worship? There’s a real church surrounding such a creature, go look it up. It’s a paradoy religion, mocking all things religious, but when you get down to it, you could easily replace “flying spaghetti monster” with “Jesus”, “Zeus” or (if you pardon) “Allah” along with other elemtns of the mythos and you get the same sounding story.

LIke wise, I encourage you to go look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell’s_teapot
You can’t prove that there is no flying spaghetti monster or teapot between here and Mars (telescops aren’t powerful enough) just like I can’t prove there’s no afterlife or god.

About your friend: I’ve seen people go hysterical while on various drugs and it is a scary sight. If you have never seen such a display and are very religious it is easy to say that it must be a demonic possession because that is the most available explination. However, why would a demon respond to medical treatment? The doctor your friend went to may not have known what to do (cocaine, and presumably other drugs are not so common in Egypt).

Do you see why some of us are skeptical of your claims? You just assumed that you were witnessing a demon possession because that was the most readily available explination. But there were (and are) facts not known to you that could more easily and rationally explain what your friend went through.

I meant it more in that the government should fund education and offer the chance to anyone. As I hear it is rather prohibitively expensive in the US to get a higher education.

I just meant that governments should offer an education to everyone who wants it, not that they should force it on people.

While I agree that the president and his administration have a certain level of accountability when it comes to the economy, since their policies have a lot of affect on it, thus the poverty and unemployment comments are valid in my opinion.

However, I totally disagree on the education part. Education is an individual thing, you can’t MAKE people learn. The person who has the most affect on that, is those who have access to a child in their very early years. Ages 1 - 5, in my “unqualified to state this” opinion are some of the most important years in a person’s life. That is the time when they are building the foundation for who they will become.

Sure, they can work around that foundation in areas later, but it is much harder. If you instill into a young one, from those ages, a desire to learn and think, that will carry them for the rest of their lives.

It comes back to the parents for me, they have the biggest influence on their children at that age. I blame mom and pop (maybe an absent pop in a lot of cases). My mom read to me as a child, and she read for leisure. As a result, I had an interest in reading and, with her help, learned to read well before entering kindergarten. This has served me well, and to this day I am a huge reader. A side benefit of this is I spell well and have a good sense of grammar. Something all to often goes unappreciated on the internet, but It is a point of personal pride for me.

I just wish my mom had known to teach me the value of scholastic accomplishment and a college degree. I am a lazy person and thus skated by in school and never went to college. Yes, I did very well in subjects that were interesting to me, the others… not so much. I did just enough to get by. I have come to regret this.

This is a long winded way of saying, I feel it is the parent’s responsibility to teach their kids to think and learn. I know, if the parents are unwilling or unable, shouldn’t someone do it? I can understand that sentiment, but I am hesitant to allow the government TOO much control over the minutiae of our daily lives. I think we can all agree that once they get control they are very reluctant to give it up.

Just thought it was an interesting tit bit.

Cheers

Simon Bond

also, as blasph said, social unrest is normal, you can’t blame Bush for that, however much you’d like.

You can, however, blame Bush for the current poverty level, unemployment, lack of education etc. etc. etc.
How much of that blame really should be his is up for debate.