>Yes you will find religious tolerance in the Arab world.

Yep, that has been my experience. The "Arab world" is not homogeneous. I loved the fact that in old Cairo there was a mosque, a synagogue, and a couple of churches all sharing foundations and walls and walkways.

--Do you read the newspaper? Those Coptic Churches were bombed just a ago or so, and this persecution has been going on for a very long time. The synagogue of which you speak is but a historic relic.

Have you ever a... read more

"Yes you will find religious tolerance in the Arab world."

--You mean like in Egypt? Where the Coptic Christian Church, which is the oldest Christian Church in existance, which has been in Egypt longer than Islam, is being hunted to the point of extinction? Christians are barely hanging on there and in Lebanon and Iraq. Religious tolerance in the Mid-East is a flame that has almost entirely flickered out and has been far eclipsed by the modern religious tolerance that we take for granted ... read more

Upfront, I'll disclose my bias. I am highly skeptical of the value of purely online friendships and the networks that create them.

But let me ask you, those of you with hundreds of on line friends you've never met. Those of you who spend many hours each day on line chatting with your on line friends instead of having real interactions with the people around you. Those of you whose real life friendships center around networks you have created on line, eschewing real life networks of family... read more