About this site

These are my "Religion and Politics" pages - the topics you should not discuss in polite society. So I don't. Instead, I discuss them here. If you cannot stand robust discussion, then please do not enter.

Started in 1994 or 1995

This may be the oldest extant political blog in Ireland. I started a website in 1994. I started putting politics/religion material onto it in late 1994 or early 1995. I had politics/religion material here by 10 Jan 1995. As at 1999 my politics/religion site was here. Let me know if you know of a political blog in Ireland which is older.

There are surviving archive.org copies of my site from 2001. (There are no earlier archive.org copies because the servers it was on before this blocked spiders.) Here is my section on Islam before 9/11.

If offended, please do not read

These pages have grown slowly over the years, from a simple set of political links to detailed analysis explaining what I think.

Is it a bad idea to put my political/religious ideas online for the world to see? Maybe. Maybe not. You only live once.

If you're the kind of person who is going to be upset by other people's political and religious ideas, then go away. Please do not read any further. Just take it as read that Humphrys has political and religious ideas you don't agree with, and go away. Because so does everybody, if you really get to know them.

Why are people so emotional about Religion and Politics?

These are my "Religion and Politics" pages - the topics you should not discuss in polite society. Why? Because they are the areas of human thought governed most completely by meme competition.

• Religion - since it has no factual basis - is in fact nothing but meme competition.

• Politics is largely described by meme competition too.

As a result, these are the areas of human thought where humans are the most irrational, emotional and violent.

If you're not interested in my opinions on these matters, feel free to leave. On the other hand, if you like robust debate with your opponents, and you want to construct a logical argument, go ahead and engage.

This site is topic-sorted, not date-sorted

This site is topic-sorted (like Wikipedia), not date-sorted (the blog format). The blog format has two big advantages:

1. It is date-sorted. So you can drop in regularly and see exactly what is new since your last visit.
2. External links always work, because what you are reading are always recently-created external links.

The major disadvantage of blogs is it is hard to find similar material grouped together by topic. Once it has scrolled off the front page, it tends to be gone and forgotten, like last year's newspaper articles. Compare trying to understand, say, the Israeli conflict by going through articles for 20 years in the archives of a newspaper, versus reading a book with all the important material in one place.

I prefer to build up a "book" rather than a "newspaper". So, like Wikipedia, this is more a topic-sorted library than a date-sorted blog. This site is however similar to a blog in the sense that:

1. A lot (but not all) of it is about current events.
2. It's by an individual.
3. It's full of annotated links.
4. I add links regularly as I read new stuff.

However, it's different to a blog in that:

1. I add the new links all over the site in different topic areas.

The Blog is as close as this site comes to the date-sorted blog format. It lists the sections I have done major work on recently. However note:

1. Most of these sections will contain old links too.
2. It omits sections I have done minor work on recently.

Non-profit

This is a personal, non-profit site for political commentary and criticism.

First Amendment

This site is hosted in the USA and is protected by the First Amendment.

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If this site is ever down

If this site is ever down, temporary copies will be in the search engine caches:

1. Google cache (click on Drop-down arrow - "Cached")
2. Bing cache (click on Drop-down arrow - "Cached")

And permanent copies will be at the Internet Archive.
This entire site is being archived there:

1. Copies of home page (http)
2. Copies of all pages (http)

3. Copies of home page (https)
4. Copies of all pages (https)

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"General comment on arguing (with anyone about anything) - you almost never get the pleasure of seeing that you won the argument in real time. People just don't like to publicly change their minds. They change their minds in private."
- Sam Harris on why the Internet is great for politics and religion and all those topics that are unpleasant and uncomfortable to discuss in person.

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Politics      Religion      Since 1995.      New 250 G VPS server.