1914 & All That

Happy holidays, and let me apologize here for my absence (in case anyone is actually reading....is that crickets I hear?).  I've been spending 2014 learning a lot about 1914, military history buff that I am.  I've been watching things on the History Channel, listening to podcasts, looking at maps....sort of how I followed the 150th anniversary of the US Civil War for a minute, until it became exceedingly dull.  Now the sesquicentennial of Lincoln's death is approaching and I'm all, zzzzzzz...I'm sure it'll be interesting again in April.

But the centennial of the Great War is completely fresh, as of July anyway.

Things People Never Really Believed

This post occurred to me because I've been thinking a lot about an upcoming post on religion and the state, or specifically, Islam and the state.  This has brought me head on into the claims, by jihadis, non-muslims, talking birds and probably spacemen, that one of the hallmarks of Islam is "conversion by the sword".   I can't believe that average people of average intelligence and average sanity, anywhere in the world, speaking any language, practicing any faith, could ever really believe that you can change someone's mind by threatening to kill them.

Looking around for information on that got me thinking, how many other dumb things do we believe about other cultures or historic beliefs?