User talk:Jules.lt

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Hello, Jules.lt, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

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Contents

[edit] Anti-French sentiment

Hi there and welcome. Noticed you around various pages I edit. You may have noticed this on Anti-French sentiment in the United States and wondered if you wanted to have a go at it: User:Marskell/Anti-French sentiment. I'd like to make it ship-shape and comprehensive and replace A-F sentiment in the U.S. with it, probably under the title Francophobia. It needs: historic anti-French sentiment (Louis XIV, revolution, Napolean etc.) and colonial Anti-French sentiment. I think I can safely add stuff about Britain. Anyhow, you noted you were French(a la France ou Quebec?) and I thought you'd be interested. Marskell 13:30, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Hi and thanks :) I'm from France proper so I can easily correct mistakes about what France really is, but I didn't run into anti-Frenchism _knowingly, that is_ that much, so I don't know it that well: most of what I know is the few scenes of American anti-French extremists pouring wine into the gutter I saw on TV some time before the Iraq war/attack/fraud... Which is why I was really interested in the anti-French sentiment article and corrected a few minor things there.
The world media's sensationnalism made US anti-Frenchism a big thing, but I think this outbreak of anti-Frenchism is (was?) a temporary phenomenon and that the Americans will soon completely fall back to ordinary dislike for the French much like that of people in any other country. I think most of the anti-French sentiment in the United States" should be merged into Franco-American relations and the rest of the information should go into an Anti-French Sentiment (or suchlike) article. I don't think making the "anti-French sentiment" from "anti-French sentiment in the US" is good, though, because the latter's structure is entirely historical and the new one should, in my opinion, be sorted by type of anti-Frenchism, like those caused by colonialism/the revolution, the Iraq war's special case, the stereotypes and arrogance...

For the Anti-Frenchism article:

  • We should put in something about how arrogant and proud the French tend to be (although for the sake of NPOV we may have to put that this is just a "perception").
  • I think I read somewhere that a study asked people all over Europe how they would describe the people of each other European country. It appears the French got only negative adjectives from everyone, although not always the same ones. Also, the French and English gave each other nearly the same adjectives, all negative, again. I've got to find that study again...Jules LT 16:51, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
Just read through the anti-French sentiment in the US talk... I'm sorry I doubled up most of what you already sais, and I'm happy we agree on so many things :)
The main thing I'd add, though, is that I think Anti-French sentiment should be started anew. This way, most criticisms that are not peculiar to the US will naturally be deleted from the original article without anyone complaining and hopefully, as the info about the Franco-American relations get where they belong, the anti-French sentiment in the US will get closer to the size that in my opinion fits it best (a couple of pages at most).Jules LT 17:17, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Talk about Anti-French sentiment article creation was moved to the actual article

I asked another admin to speedy it yesterday and it was shortly done. Congrats. Notice that if you follow the link above three sections to requests for expansion on the page I have made a note there. Marskell 13:53, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 129.24.95.224's view on agnosticism

Historically (within its historical context), agnosticism was a reactionary movement against orthodox Christianity, which had been established for centuries (almost two thousand years) as the guiding force behind Western civilization. (If you do not believe that this is so, try removing Christianity as the guiding force, and see where [in which direction] Western civilization goes.) Far from being a mere intellectual enterprise, agnosticism was actually a revolutionary concept introduced into Western civilization at the time. Not all revolutionary ideas are good. Ideas can be dangerous. For instance, look at what happened during the French Revolution, when the French street masses, the uneducated poor people, evidently tried to copy the American Revolution at home. But, they did it without knowledge, without a plan. The furious French mobs ended up chopping the heads off of a large part of the educated French nobility, killing into the tens of thousands of people. For what? Did they (the street masses) have a better plan for the French people? If so, what was it? After they had guillotined all those people, did hunger and poverty go away?

My point is this: if you are going to do away with something (some long-established convention, such as God, or the monarchy, that has been accepted as a cornerstone of life for centuries, and has been guiding things), you had better think about it first. Any demagogue can lead people down the prim-rosed path. (Jesus said this about demagogues: "Let them alone. They are blind guides for the blind. Both will end up falling into a pit", or into "the Pit".) Before you blindly follow such revolutionary ideas as agnosticism, ask yourself questions such as these: do I have the wisdom to make these changes? Will mankind be better off if I follow this course (the utilitarian principle of reason)? Do I know what I'm talking about? (It seems inherently dangerous to me, to follow a person whose very doctrine is entitled, "I don't know". Why would you follow someone who is saying he "doesn't know" the way? [or, "the Way": Jesus said, "I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Light, or Life, and no man can come to the Father, God, but by, or through, Me." ]) Question: would you drive up to a party behind an agnostic, and ask him the way? Definition of an agnostic: he's telling you he doesn't know! More than that; the agnostic seems to be saying, "I don't know, and you can't possibly know, either." How does the agnostic "know" if someone else is experiencing God? [see David Hume, "knowledge is experience"] To know, in the Biblical sense, means, "to become intimately acquainted with": for example, "You shall know, and be known," (in Heaven). This concept is related to sexuality: knowing another person as intimately as possible ("He knew her, and she conceived", or, "the two shall become one flesh", or the opposite, "How can I give birth, when I have not known a man?"-Mary, to the angel Gabriel, about the coming miraculous virgin birth).

If you are going to replace something, certainly something as important as God, then, have a care! Please think about what you are going to replace Him with. (with nothing? creating a gigantic vacuum; and what is going to move in to fill this huge, empty space?) One of the very first proverbs (recorded ancient wisdom in the Bible) is this: "the fool says in his heart, 'there is no God!'" (The Biblical definition of a "fool" is one who loses his own soul.) If you are going to divorce yourself from God, intellectually or otherwise, then whom are you going to turn to, to fulfill your needs? (I notice that, in times of distaster, even most agnostics will say, "God, help me!" (not, "Darwin help me"). Whom is going to become the care-taker of your soul? (Ned-Sept.)

Even now, I'm not sure what your point is, but let me correct a few things for you:
  • For one thing, I agree with you. Ideas can be dangerous. Take Christianity, for example: as the guiding force behind Western culture it triggered wars, massacres, intolerance and helped keep peasants calm for centuries while they were being exploited by the aristocracy and clergy.
  • The French Revolution was not antireligious, it was anticlerical. It was mostly carried out by people who believed in God and were quite educated, by the way. The street masses were going about their business, being angry and hungry, and were led by these people.
  • There are evident links between the American and French Revolution. For example, most of the ideas of the American Revolution came from European (especially French) intellecuals. The American Revolution could never have been succesful without the help of the French and, prominent among them, Lafayette, who later became one of the leaders of the French Revolution. Of course, the revolt of the Americans came as some kind of trigger that accelerated the events in Europe, but the series of revolutions that happened there (the French Revolution, although it was the major, leading one, was but one among many) were fundamentally different in that they were the uprising of the people of the "Third Estate" against the other two Estates that formed the feudal system, and that kept a power that no longer reflected what the ideas and realities of the time implied. The American revolution a war between the people of a colony against the metropolis, initially to prevent it from taking their wealth with nothing in return. The ideals that were common among the intellectuals of the time on both sides of the ocean were experimentated there first. The relationship is extremely complex and putting it as "the French Revolution, when the French street masses, the uneducated poor people, evidently tried to copy the American Revolution at home" is grossly incorrect and biased.
  • The French Revolution was NO prim-rosed path, and many a demagogue lost his head then because he tried to lead people where they didn't want to go.
  • It seems inherently dangerous, to me, to follow a person whose thinks he holds the one absolute truth. For one thing, he's bound to be wrong on many things, because the human mind is simply never perfect, and since he's so sure he's bound to go to extremes to defend that truth, ranging from simple mild bad faith all the way to mass slaughter. Robespierre had very firm beliefs,even if they were not traditional Christian ones.
The wise man knows that he doesn't know. Still, he acts. That's why he will accept criticism and make his appreciation more just from this. That's why he will learn more each day, revise his judgement and grow wiser each day.
  • It's funny you should mention Hume, because I really love his view on the world. Hume fundamentally says that you can know nothing. Still, you have to act. Experience is the only source of information you have, so you have to trust it and learn from it, in the knowledge that it can be misleading. Now, you've got to learn to see when your sensations are misleading, and it seems quite clear to me that the human mind is a marvelous thing that can attribute the data the senses provide it with to a variety of sources, and can often be wrong. For example, when you have a spiritual experience you can attribute it to the strange mushrooms you just had, the conflict you never resolved with your father that such or such thing got you to remember, or the touch of God that you've been waiting for forever.
  • When you stop believing in an infinite thing, it doesn't leave you with an infinite hole anywhere. It leaves you with the freedom to see which ideals you want to follow. You lose a Fatherly figure and you can now reflect on what you think one such should be. Of course, you're a bit lost. Like Plato as he goes out of the cavern or Neo using his eyes for the first time, whichever you like, but then you can see things clearer. They might look less pleasant, but at least you're closer to seeing them for what they are. My soul, if there is such a thing, needs no other caretaker than myself. If a God was to be so self-centered as to care about my worshipping Him, he wouldn't deserve such worship.
  • Oh, and that desperate, traumatized people sometimes come to belief in times of disasters is clearly not an argument here. Especially as in the US it's mostly a figure of speech: plain common language. And do please note how often people lose faith during disasters...

I know you won't change your view one bit for that, since your beliefs are so strong and reliable, but it still felt good writing it. Jules LT 00:26, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a forum. This page is for discussion of specific edits to the article, not a place for evangelism. Banno 00:38, September 12, 2005 (UTC)
Sorry about that, I got a bit carried out. I moved my "contribution" to my talk page. Jules LT 04:15, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pardon my French

Hi. I realized that I probably should have started the discussion at Talk:Francophobia so I copied the section over to there. Thanks for the reply. I agree and was glad to see there was some support for keeping them separate. - Tεxτurε 19:11, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Agnosticism, etc.

Not a problem. Hopefully the entire situation can be resolved amicably and without resorting to administrative procedures. You both seem to have useful contributions to make here.—chris.lawson (talk) 20:50, 23 September 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Injoined User

The user user:Adrigo who has been editing articles related to theism, atheism, and agnosticism, is Donald Alford (AKA DotSix) who has been injoined by the Arb Committee from editing any page except the evidence page for his Arb Hearing [1] and his own user pages. Please revert EVERY edit he makes to any other page, including talk pages, with a simple comment that he is injoined. Please do not argue with him. Doing so just feeds a troll. Thank you. --Nate Ladd 01:42, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for supporting the Arb Comm action. But please remember that he can read anything you post including tips on how to recognize him. We don't want to make it easier for him to disguise his identity in the future. --Nate Ladd 23:49, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Apparently he's been doing this to people all over the net for a long time (search for "Donald"). His real name may be Mark Richardson, who attended the University of Tasmania and has posted many times under the pen name of "Donald." This is a cached link relating the two names (search for "Richardson"). If you want a little background on Mr. Richardson, here is a link to how he became an atheist. (Aww...) I find it kinda funny that he writes the following:

"So I think what unites most atheists is the desire not to be decieved [sic] - we prefer truth to being happilly [sic] deluded."

It's funny because all he does is delude and misrepresent himself and the issues. Of course, he couldn't spell back then either... I imagine it's the revenge of the inferior in his psyche that causes this (kinda like the animal-abuser who is extremely proactive with PETA). If you want a picture, this may or may not be him (same name, same atheism, but not quite sure about the location, so it's very possible I'm wrong on this). (Again search "Richardson"). Finally, if I'm right about the name -- he's been harassing people on this topic for a LOOOOOOOOONG time, as this thread shows.
I think it's important we deal strictly with facts, and prefer truth to being happily deluded. :) Cheers. --Michael 22:22, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Forget the entire last two paragraphs. Mark Richardson is a long-time debater of Donald, I misread the link connecting the two. (Apologies to Mark if he should ever run across this). --Michael 19:53, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Advice taken (just needed a train ride home to chill out). Thanks. --Michael 23:18, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I've restored DotSix's latest edits to Talk:Agnosticism, in hopes that his overwhelming display of sockpuppetry there will be just one more length of rope he needs to hang himself. Besides, being aware of the situation, it was just funny. :) (Good work on nuking the rest of his trolling, though.)--chris.lawson 13:52, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Final decision

The arbitration committee has reached a final decision in the Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/DotSix case. →Raul654 01:26, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] illegible pages

Please don't insert 'big' tags in pages. It will temporarily make them easier to read, but will likely cause them to screw up when TidyHTML is fixed once more. Radiant_>|< 23:30, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Philosophy (navigation) RfC

We have a content dispute issue. Please comment on the talk page. This message is being sent out to everyone who didn't vote Delete in the last TfD of the template, ie: User:SimonP User:Jules.lt User:Pjacobi User:thames User:Michael User:Christopherparham User:FranksValli User:Silence User:Andymussell User:Moosh88 User:Rick Norwood User:Izehar

[edit] Still here?

Notice you made an edit today after a couple of months. Do you want to take another look at Francophobia? I have removed the stereotypes section from the end but I have been a touch unilateral and wanted to see if you agree. Marskell 10:06, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] June Meetup in New York

Hi, I noticed you are characterized as a New Yorker or someone living in New York City so perhaps you might be in the NYC area in June. If you are interested we are having a meetup for Wikipedians in June in NYC. Take a peek at this and please tell any other Wikipedians that you think might be interested in participating about this event. Thanks. Alex756 02:25, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] AfD Nomination: Agnostic theism

An article that you have been involved in editing, Agnostic theism, has been listed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Agnostic theism. Please look there to see why this is, if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you.

[edit] TfD nomination of Template:Bsm

Template:Bsm has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you.

Also, similarly for {{esm}}.

You will especially notice this when you look at your quotes page. — Kevinkor2 16:45, 20 March 2007 (UTC)