"It is good to have civil and intellectual discussions about deeper matters than Joes with others who share our hobby!"
Well technically its still about Joes, in their way they keep America a place where you can believe what you want, they are after all soldiers
But yeah, falling into an argument about religion is about as productive as holding your hand over your head when its pouring down rain. Everybody has their own thoughts and feelings about it, and especially something loaded as religion which believers of any faith take very personally (which they should!).
Something that I see almost every time is that people forget that irony or sarcasm is harder to read then to hear when someone is talking about something, so discussions such as this tend to fall out because of some "off" comments. (Thus I usually over-use smileys/emoticons etc to show my mood/playfulness).
I am very thankful that people here are pretty aware of such things and go out of their way to keep this a nice place (and its nice for a change to be ruled by somewhat of an iron hand by GS
That is a compliment btw, not meant in any negative form, its good to see moderators take responsibility seriously!
)
On a side not about the Christening (is that the word?) of Norway. The did do it by sword, but on the other hand they also brought the country together and made it almost what it is today. A few things that still is part of our culture is that you get initiated into the state church if you don't come from a family of a different belief system - which means you get born into it! You can always go out of it, but in the papers it says Christian even though you might not be. Other parts of our culture here is swearing is closely tied to Christianity (I won't mention examples, but its the usual about him up there and the other dude below there, the place below there etc.), and even non-Christians use those just because its such a big part of normal life here. Also its normal to be baptized and "confirmated" (I can't remember the English word here... Someone help me out) even though you might be a non-believer.
Alright enough of my blabbering! Most will probably scroll past this and go look at the pretty pictures instead (I know that is my next thing on my to-do list!)