Posts Tagged ‘religion’

ag•nos•tic -noun

Definition from Dictionary.com:

1.	a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.

2.	a person who denies or doubts the possibility of ultimate knowledge in some area of study

Word History: An agnostic does not deny the existence of God and heaven but holds that one cannot know for certain whether or not they exist. The term agnostic was fittingly coined by the 19th-century British scientist Thomas H. Huxley, who believed that only material phenomena were objects of exact knowledge. He made up the word from the prefix a-, meaning “without, not,” as in amoral, and the noun Gnostic. Gnostic is related to the Greek word gn?sis, “knowledge,” which was used by early Christian writers to mean “higher, esoteric knowledge of spiritual things”; hence, Gnostic referred to those with such knowledge. In coining the term agnostic, Huxley was considering as “Gnostics” a group of his fellow intellectuals—”ists,” as he called them—who had eagerly embraced various doctrines or theories that explained the world to their satisfaction. Because he was a “man without a rag of a label to cover himself with,” Huxley coined the term agnostic for himself, its first published use being in 1870.

(more…)

Fuck you, you bigotted, tiny-brained, hate-mongering, criminal bastard.

“America, the criminal, trespassing crusader, continues to be the same as ever, so we must continue to harm it, in order for it to come to its senses,” Zawahri said, addressing Muslims across the world.

“Its criminal, expansionist crusader project in your lands has only been neutralized by the sacrifices of your sons, the mujahideen,” he said in an audio recording.

Zawahri urged Islamists fighting U.S. forces and those of the Shi’ite-led Iraqi government to stay the course, saying that U.S.-led forces were being routed.

“The American people, by electing Obama, declared their anxiety and fear about the future toward which the policy of the likes of Bush was leading them, and so they decided to support someone calling for withdrawal from Iraq.”

In a similar message to Islamists fighting Ethiopian and government forces in Somalia, Zawahri urged them not to stop.

“America is gathering its wounds in Iraq, and Ethiopia is looking for a way out…don’t put down your weapons before the mujahid state of Islam has been set up in Somalia.”

-excerpted from “Qaeda scorns Obama, urges attacks on United States” on the Reuters website

(more…)