playing devil's advocate here , but who's to say what is true and what isn't. Saying faith is pointless is a bit arrogant. Who are we to make a judgement on other people's beliefs.

Believe it or not some people are not afraid of death (not me per say being an atheist), but I've met old people while working in an retirement home that simply died happy with a smile on their faces. Being unafraid of death does not mean someone is looking for it. A truly religious person ( ex my brother) believes that we were given a gift of life for a reason and we should not waste it. It really is hard to fully understand that sort of argument, but I admit I kind of respect it and maybe even envy it a little. I've noticed that that kind of faith gives a tremendous amount of internal strength.

For the record I'm a Polish-Canadian atheist.
this was a series of rather shallow arguments:
1. "Muslims never winning a war unless fighting against each other" .. from the top of my head : history of Ottoman empire, fall of Constantinople, crusades etc etc..
2. Accepting God's will does not imply any sort of fatalist passive attitude in Islam or Christianity. Jihad in itself means striving to better oneself and our surroundings ie "God helps those who help themselves" attitude. You have a similar concept in Christianity, and in most major religions.
3. Islam never having a renascence: It had one when Europe was in the middle of dark ages. Medicine, Science, philosophy flourished.. just google "Islamic golden age" . Wikipedia has a good article on that. Which goes to show that Islam and science are not mutually exclusive.
4. As to Islam not moving on. I don't know how to respond to that .. what does "move on" even mean? Islam is made up of dozens internal branches that move in different directions progress at different speeds; some are more orthodox then others .. just like Christanity really. Similarly any moderate Christian is as hard to define as a moderate muslim. It all depends on your point of view.
5. You imply that all technology has western civilization as it source (Bit with the Turks and their cellphones). I won't even bother commenting on that.
6. Culture clashes are also the source of some of our greatest achievements and discoveries. If the Arabs didn't invade Europe we'd still be using Roman numerals. If the Romans didn't invade half the world, we wouldn't have the legal system we have now. If Cortes didn't invade Aztecs .. etc etc..
Personally I do not believe in higher power but have enough respect and insight to actually appreciate religion's contributions to science, philosophy and art. In an age when our moral development lags far behind technological one we could learn a lot from major religions even if we do not believe in God. There are many reasons to criticize religions for but if if you do at least do a bit of research beforehand. Otherwise you make us atheists look like unreasonable, uneducated zealots.

That may be .. my point is that arrogant assholes like that guy see an unemployed person (I was in that boat for a while few years ago) and often assume lack of skill/laziness etc, which really rubs me the wrong way.

Saying somebody's unemployed in IT therefore they must without skills is rude and idioitic. There are different people in different circumstances and there is a thousand reasons the guy could be unemployed (staring with illness). So yeah, in my book the the guy is an asshole.

wow .. you sir are an asshole

well seems to me in Singapure they give up some personal freedoms and get clean streets. In US they give up some personal freedoms and get... (definitely not clean streets)

Corporations are people. Stem cells are people. Therefore, by transitivity, corporations are stem cells

no .. because it's not our job.. he's the writer after all nobody is disputing the fact that it's hard... but if you compare him to ANY other writer of that format he comes out looking like an amateur. Look at erickson, sanderson, king .. they manage to write books of comparable size/quality on regular basis... The fact that each book does not have a story arc that stands on its own coupled with the fact that he takes forever is what really pisses me off. If he made his books be good enough to stand on their own merits, have a decent conclusions, maybe we wouldn't mind waiting so much ... That's in my opinion a mark of a great book: being a part of a bigger story but also being a complete story in itself... Anyways, maybe he doesn't owe us anything per se, but I still feel cheated.

ok ... we're screwed...

I second that .. that one blew me away ... I'd also recommend brett's painted man

if only we weren't there before ... he's been almost done for years now.... at this point if Martin told me sky was blue I'd go outside and check

I think of his books as shorter more concise versions of martin books: more action, faster pace but not as good world building. I also recommend peter brett and maybe brent weeks ( not as good as abercrombie though). ps. just finished Brandon Sanderson's way of kings and it simply blew me away.. liked it even more then Malazan empire books and that's saying something...

I agree that Martin was a better writer then Jordan .. I gave up reading WOT after book #9 (path of daggers), but I disagree that Martin was that much better. Some characters were amazing but some were just boooring. At this point I have a hard time motivating myself to care... I don't really remember what happened in the last book so I'm not sure I'll bother reading dance of dragons.. besides by now the bar is set higher with so many good new writers (Erickson, Lynch,Abercrombie etc) ps. now that Sanderson is finishing WOT I'm actually debating with myself whether I should finish reading the series ... If only I could skip books written by Jordan ...

truth is its own reward