tuna_HP

Yes Bill you mentioned this before, that you met with Epstein to reach potential global health donors. I can just imagine all the conversations with the people you needed Epstein to reach. “Bill who? Never heard of you. And I only discuss charitable giving through my trusted advisor, the convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Good day Bill Bates or whatever your name is.”

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What a load of crap

One of the other reasons is that Swedish is such a small language that it is economically useless to them, they all have to speak english in order to participate in the global economy. All the developed countries with their own small language that nobody else speaks, speak perfect english. Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, and Czech Republic at least amongst the countries I've visited.

//I was just in Stockholm for the 1st time 2 weeks ago. Great city, but besides that it is no joke that the Swedish people are good looking. Seriously it was like I thought I was in the Truman Show. 95% of the people walking down the street look liked they had stepped out of a high fashion catalog. They all could have been models in their physical looks and their clothes, hair, makeup, etc. Even all the men.

I think there is a whole regulatory capture issue and a whole political issue that I would address before talking about throwing money at it. I mean really, multibillion dollar megacorporations should be the ones funding the government testing when they want to offer a new product to the market. Certification testing should be a profit center for the FAA.

Why do muslims seem to struggle so much to interpret their faith in non-literal and even non-traditional ways? Why does there not seem to be a thing called "muslim atheism" that kind of ties the spirit and morality of Islam with a rejection of the supernatural, tribal, and illiberal?

I am a jewish american who was raised in a secular jewish community and attended typical liberal jewish religious and educational commitments. For example, I went to a jewish preschool, I attended jewish religious classes 2-6 hours a week depending on age (at the youngest ages you only go on sundays for 2 hours, and then as you got a little older you would go after school on one weekday plus sundays, and then as you approach bar mitzvah age (13) you would go on 2 weekdays plus saturdays or sundays). So I was fully exposed and indoctrinated in a jewish worldview is my point.

However as I got to the older during this time it became more and more clear that I really didn't believe in any of the supernatural elements of religion. The moral lessons and other intellectual ideas that can be gleaned from religion I thought was one thing, but the idea that there were magical scientifically-unexplainable forces at work anywhere was something that I just thought and still think is stupid.

I started to identify as religiously atheist, as some of my friends in this same jewish community did, and there is absolutely no backlash- nobody bats an eye, nobody thinks twice, even people from the older generation who are more religiously observant just think that I'm being slightly foolish or naive, amongst most people there seems to be an acceptance that parts of religion are tough to swallow and a people who don't can't really be blamed. On the contrary many of the most accomplished jews that the jewish community holds up as our legacy and role models, like Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud, and even Israeli prime ministers, identified as jewish atheists. Nobody questions my jewish identity, its not considered ironic or hypocritical that I still participate in jewish holidays and religious services, etc.

The only time in my life my jewish identity was ever questioned was from a muslim coworker, who remarked "you're not even really jewish" on the topic of me eating bacon and not otherwise keeping kosher, and of me bringing up my atheism. Which kind of was an epiphany to me because I realized that the way my worldview understands religion and the way the muslim worldview understands religion must be different to some degree. There is something going on with muslims where part of their definition of religion is that it has to conform to some sort of prescribed interpretation. That if you not follow this interpretation then you are somehow not only not a muslim, but you are to be actively shunned from your community. Doesn't this suck for muslims and can't the mainstream muslim majority reform to become more accepting to varying levels of belief in magic and supernatural forces?

A reference to a Matt Damon cameo in 30 Rock.