I think we should slowly start to dismantle religion in europe. It is largely unfair that the majority of us should pay for some old farts who still want to go to church. I admit, they were more or less brainwashed to believe and they can't help it but still. You can preserve the buildings but for me that's all.

In any case, there are to few priest or followers anyway so it will come to an end sooner or later. Also note how they don't scare kids anymore with stories of heaven and hell.

er...

I would vote for both atheists and non atheists. It depends on what I think that person will do with his power.

lol,

to my shame I never heard about it before. Looked it up in Wikipedia. What is the reason you speak it? Are your parents from the Philippines?

@east:
continue with German and Chinese. Some villages in the US speak Chinese for centuries. In some of them, only one guy know how to speak/write English to fill in the papers.

"Asking what European languages are and pointing out that some are widespread completely misses the point."
No it does not. It partly explains why europeans don't know much languages that does not also occur in EU borders. This is relevant for his statement -also in the initial post- that europeans don't know languages not from the EU.

"The initial post inquired about Europeans here and the languages they speak."
We know.

"That Dutch is also spoken in X, Y, and Z former colonies has nothing to do with it."
I have the same reaction as above.

"And asking for clarification of what is a European language, off-topic as it is, is additionally ridiculous."
No it is not. It is a question for clarifying his initial statement, and a way to point something out.

"So now you know what I meant, as well as that it was figurative"
I got the picture. My English is maybe the worse of all forum posters here, but not that bad.

rofl!

lol

and I am the man!

@godwin:
"This seems like a disastrous case of "nobody is using the same definitions."
I said as much, but they prefer to ignore that fact.

i.m.o. America was a superpower in WW1. Not the same as later on but it was at least economically speaking a superpower. Many people underestimate the importance of economy.

For al other things, I think it is largely unpredictable. One thing that passed my mind is, if you lived at that time, you could impossibly have guessed the future. Even if you were very educated, you wouldn't have guessed the way nazi's bring down France so fast. Not even after how they finished off Poland. Unless you had extensive knowledge of the German army and there new tactics and even then.

The effect of not letting them build it should not be underestimated as well. Its a stupid thing really but there simply isn't a good option.