Warsaw has denounced Lviv Oblast authorities' plans to honor the World War II-era Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and its military leader, Roman Shukhevych.
The move signals a fresh rift in the already strained Kyiv-Warsaw ties just days after President Volodymyr Zelensky said the relations had finally improved.
The council
Anna Lodyhina, a mother of a 5-year-old, spent many nights on the cold floor of Kyiv's metro, driven there — like many others — by relentless Russian attacks. As her child slept, she watched over him, exhausted by the constant threat and lack of sleep.
This is just
Britain's history has been trashed by ideologues with an agenda, undermining the nation’s patriotism and cohesion. It's time to tell a better story about Britain, say Nigel Biggar and Robert Tombs.
The post It’s Time to Tell a Better Story About Britain appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Carrie Berk
My 21st birthday party was packed with a dozen faces I half-knew. They all smiled as I blew out the candles and made a wish, yet I felt as if I were surrounded by strangers.
As I looked out into the crowd, I realized that most of my friendships were surface-level, rather than genuine connections. We talked about upcoming school assignments, trending TV shows, and our favorite restaurants, but I wanted more.
What was supposed to be a celebration turned into a rude awakening: Did these people even know me at all?
I've always been someone with many hobbies, which meant making friends across all walks of life. Although I'm lucky to have so many people in my corner, there came a point where it felt like I was collecting friendships like tokens rather than forming meaningful relationships.
The realization set in: I had tons of friends, but somehow, I was lonely.
Carrie Berk
Even years after graduating from college, I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd been collecting the wrong type of friendships.
I realized many of my relationships had been rooted in transactions or shared activities, which may explain why I was still feeling lonely.
Upon reflection, I noticed that the most genuine friendships I had involved some emotional depth and connection. I only have two of these in my life — one who lives close by, and another who is across the country.
Regardless of where they are, the empathy goes both ways — I share in their joys and sit with them through their struggles, and they do the same for me. We're not just shoulders for each other to cry on, but supportive pillars who help each other walk through life.
These were the friendships that fulfilled me most, and I needed to make more room in my life for them.
Carrie Berk
In order to do this, I needed to figure out what was holding me back. I came to the conclusion that, when it comes to friends, I'd kept many people at a distance, afraid that opening up would make me seem like "too much" or leave me hurt again.
I'd also been spreading myself too thin, trying to maintain too many relationships instead of investing in the ones that mattered most. For example, I felt like I rushed through dinners to mentally check a box that I was keeping up the relationship. Not only was that a waste of time, but it led to major emotional burnout.
Now, I focus on a handful of friends with whom I can build a deeper bond. Even though I only have time to see a select few people, I make sure the few hours we spend together are packed with thoughtful, not superficial, conversations.
Recently, I spent some time with a work colleague outside the office, and we discussed how fitness helped us during difficult points in our lives. We connected on something beyond our jobs, and for the first time in a long time, I felt less lonely.
Carrie Berk
At first, it was difficult to let go of my larger circle. There's nothing wrong with casual friendships, but they couldn't give me the depth I was craving.
Instead, the friends I need are the ones who will hold me up at my worst and cheer me on at my best without expecting anything in return — and I never think twice about doing the same for them. These connections take more time and care to develop, but are well worth the wait.
Once I started watering the friendships I truly valued, I noticed our moments together aren't rushed, and our connection is stronger now because of the care we put into each conversation.
This year, I'm thinking about having a birthday dinner with two or three close friends rather than a larger celebration. Ironically, when I began filtering superficial relationships out of my life, I felt less lonely — and that's all I could have ever wished for.
A trove of ancient coins has been unearthed at a construction site in Germany — after remaining hidden for more than 2,000 years.
The discovery, made at Singer Berg in the central German state of Thuringia, was announced recently by the Thuringian State Office for Monument Preservation and Archaeology (TLDA).
In a translated news release, officials said excavation director Ronny Krause discovered the coins while archaeologists were investigating a former sports field ahead of the construction of a new fire station.
7,000-YEAR-OLD BONES UNCOVERED AT CONSTRUCTION SITE IN STARTLING FIND
Archaeologists conducted follow-up excavations at the site in August 2026 — and confirmed that the 11 coins dated back to the first century B.C.
The hoard represented the largest known Celtic coin hoard from that period ever found in Thuringia.
The 11 coins, dating back to the first century B.C., were identified as a type of ancient Celtic currency known as Prague-type quinarii.
"Until now, only about 80 examples of these quinarii had been identified throughout Thuringia, underscoring the significance of the Singen hoard," the translated statement said.
WORKERS RENOVATING MAJOR CITY STREET STUMBLE ON ANCIENT DISCOVERY BURIED 20 FEET BELOW
"The mint responsible for producing the coins is believed to have been located in the Gotha region, to the northwest."
The Celts were groups of ancient people who lived across much of Europe during the Iron Age, with Celtic languages and traditions surviving today in places such as Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
The coins were originally buried together in a container made of organic material that has since decomposed, archaeologists believe. The coins were found scattered across an area measuring roughly 19 feet by 5 feet — likely a result of plowing.
Officials described the discovery as a "closed find," suggesting that all the coins originally buried together were recovered.
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While just 11 coins may seem like a modest haul to some, archaeologists consider the discovery a treasure trove of information about the ancient world.
"Through the ongoing mapping of discoveries from the same period and cultural background, researchers can draw conclusions about ancient trade routes and production centers," the translated statement added.
"The Singen treasure hoard has significantly expanded our existing knowledge in this area."
Archaeologists also found an ancient Roman coin and a medieval glass bead — as well as a knife fragment, another silver coin and a Prussian uniform button from the 19th or 20th century.
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Officials also emphasized the broader significance of the discovery and the importance of proper archaeological practices.
"This once again demonstrates the importance of preserving the archaeological context of discoveries, in contrast to isolated metal finds recovered, for example, through improper or illegal metal detecting without documentation of their original locations," the statement concluded.
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Metal detectorists have made headlines for uncovering other ancient treasures across Europe.
Recently, a man using a metal detector in a German field discovered 934 ancient Roman silver coins dating back nearly 2,000 years.
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In Finland, a metal detectorist recently uncovered a massive Viking Age silver hoard containing an estimated 4,000 coins, along with jewelry and other artifacts.
10/21/1919: Abrams v. United States argued.
The post Today in Supreme Court History: October 21, 1919 appeared first on Reason Magazine.
Darwin wasn’t an agnostic by conviction – he was an atheist who rejected Christianity as immoral.
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Friends were surprised when I described Darwin as the only major scientist who was unequivocally an atheist, given that he considered himself an agnostic. I confess that I tend to erase this label in my memory, because the formal distinction presumed by it—to wit, the idea that an agnostic does not know whether God exists, while an atheist knows that God does not—does not correspond to reality. I am not aware of a single prominent atheist who claims to be able to prove the non-existence of the divine. Even Dawkins, the most stereotypical atheist in the media, does not suggest that this is possible. In The God Delusion (Chapter 2), he describes himself as a de facto atheist, defined by the following stance: “I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.” Thus, if we apply the traditional distinction, the world’s most famous atheist is not an atheist, but an agnostic.
Bertrand Russell held a similar position, as illustrated by his famous “celestial teapot” analogy. Can we prove that there is a teapot orbiting the planet? No. But we have no reason to believe that such a teapot exists. God is like that teapot: while it is impossible to prove that he does not exist, it is not reasonable to believe that he does. For this reason, Russell considered himself an agnostic in theory and an atheist in practice.
Darwin
If the term “agnostic” serves any purpose, it is to describe individuals who truly live in a state of doubt regarding the existence of God. Charles Darwin (1809–1882) was born to a deist father and a Unitarian mother. Deism entails the rejection of all institutionalized religion and the assertion that God exists, but takes no interest in humanity. As an 18th-century Englishman, Darwin’s father most likely believed in the Great Architect of Newton and the Freemasons. Unitarianism is a new flavor of Arianism, as it denies the divinity of Jesus, viewing him instead as a great moral reformer—comparable to Socrates. Unitarians took control of Harvard in the 19th century, and Newton was, in fact, a secret Arian. We might say, then, that Darwin did not grow up in a strictly Christian home; yet, he seriously considered becoming an Anglican priest and married a devout Christian woman. Undoubtedly, Darwin experienced crises of faith, which rendered him an agnostic, in the sense that the term describes a psychological state.
As far as we know, the first time he described himself as an agnostic was in 1879, at the age of 70, in a private letter to John Fordyce. According to some accounts, in 1881 he told a group of freethinkers that he had not abandoned Christianity until he was forty (which would have been in 1849). Did he abandon Christianity, adopt his father’s beliefs, and then eventually abandon those as well? I do not know the answer, but it is a vital question for Darwin’s scientific trajectory, since, by today’s labels, Newton would be a creationist or an intelligent design advocate.
The most illuminating account is found in his autobiography, written between 1876 and 1881 for his family. I quote James Moore from “Myth 16: That Evolution Destroyed Darwin’s Faith in Christianity—until He Reconverted on His Deathbed”: “Unwilling to give up Christianity, he had tried to ‘invent evidence’ to confirm the Gospels, which prolonged his indecision. Just as his clerical career had died a slow ‘natural death,’ so his faith withered gradually. But there was no turning back once the deathblow struck. His dithering crystallized into a moral conviction so strict that he could not see how anyone—even [his wife] Emma—‘ought to wish Christianity to be true.’ For if it were, ‘the plain language’ of the New Testament ‘seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.’ In later years, the residual theism evident in the Origin of Species became worn down, and now with ‘no assured and ever present belief in the existence of a personal God or of a future existence with retribution and reward,’ Darwin felt he must be ‘content to remain an Agnostic.’” Darwin’s father, a pivotal figure in his crisis of faith, died in 1848, a year before Darwin himself turned forty.
Darwin did not die in a state of indecision; he died firmly convinced that Christianity was immoral because it would condemn his loved ones to hell. If the term “agnosticism” applies here, it denotes a state of unknowing that follows the rejection of God as understood within the Abrahamic religions. Darwin knows that the Bible is wrong and that its God does not exist. But as for what God actually is, or what the truth may be—that, he does not know. Certainly, determining Darwin’s final state of mind is not enough to uncover the impact that his shifting religious convictions had on his thinking, given that the writing of On the Origin of Species (1859) spanned two decades.
The origin of the term “agnosticism”
No less than thirty years passed between the onset of Darwin’s disbelief and his first self-identification as an agnostic. A simple reason why he did not use this term earlier is that it had not yet been invented. It is rarely mentioned, but “agnosticism” is a term with a specific inventor and date of origin: in 1869, when Darwin was already 60 years old, Thomas Henry Huxley (known as “Darwin’s Bulldog,” and grandfather to both Aldous, the writer who advocated for opening the mind through drugs, and Julian, the eugenicist who founded the WWF and served as the first head of UNESCO) coined the term during a meeting of the Metaphysical Society, a somewhat secretive group open only to invited members. Darwin was not a member. The aforementioned Bertrand Russell had a deist relative who was a member: Lord Arthur Russell, nephew of Earl John Russell (Bertrand’s grandfather). Arthur Balfour, of the Balfour Declaration, was also a member. I could not have been there because I had not yet been born, but the Encyclopædia Britannica states that the term was coined under these circumstances, so I take believe it.
A public definition of agnosticism by the grandpa Huxley was first presented to the public in 1889, in the magazine Popular Science (or Pop Science), which still exists today. It reads as follows: “Agnosticism, in fact, is not a creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous application of a single principle. That principle is of great antiquity; it is as old as Socrates; as old as the writer who said, ‘Try all things, hold fast by that which is good’ [1 Thess. 5:21]; it is the foundation of the Reformation, which simply illustrated the axiom that every man should be able to give a reason for the faith that is in him; it is the great principle of Descartes; it is the fundamental axiom of modern science. Positively the principle may be expressed: In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable. That I take to be the agnostic faith, which if a man keep whole and undefiled, he shall not be ashamed to look the universe in the face, whatever the future may have in store for him.”
Based on this definition, there is no obvious connection to a stance regarding the question of divine existence; however, the text as a whole implies a negative position: throughout, Huxley distinguishes himself from Comte, and agnosticism from the Comtian “Religion of Humanity.” He finds it necessary to differentiate himself because they share a disbelief in an Abrahamic God, an adherence to scientism, and a triumphalism akin to the “End of History.” The differences are that Comte and the positivists were mediocre scientists who created a church with a structure inspired by Catholicism, whereas the 19th-century English agnostics were brilliant and had no intention of founding a church.
It is worth noting the Unitarian flavor of this rhetoric, which seeks to trace a rationalist and contrarian lineage—beginning with Socrates, running through the Bible, and reaching its pinnacle in the present day—stripped of any supernatural elements. Another significant 19th-century English figure who adopted this approach was John Stuart Mill, in On Liberty. His wife and collaborator was a Unitarian.
And, of course, we see here an opposition—perhaps historically unprecedented—between possessing a scientific spirit and believing in God. We can say that Darwin’s Bulldog, during Darwin’s lifetime, ostracized Deism from science, since Evolution was presented as a refutation the Newtonian Architect’s existence.
A Matter of Terminology
Ultimately, Thomas Huxley was what we would today call an atheist—as was likely Darwin, given that he chose the term coined by his friend to describe his own position. Curiously, even Comte did not call himself an atheist. It seems that the spirit of atheism and scientism was widespread among the 19th-century intelligentsia, yet the willingness to embrace the label was confined to radicals such as Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx (whose 1841 dissertation focused on Democritus and Epicurus, the fathers of materialism), and Mikhail Bakunin. In that era, the distinction between the terms “atheist” and “agnostic” likely amounted to little more than one’s willingness to shock society. Neither the French positivists nor the English evolutionists sought to shock; the communists and anarchists, however, did.
Over time, by the 21st century, being an atheist no longer shocks anyone; in more intellectual circles, it is the norm. Hence the tendency to discard the term “agnostic,” or to reserve it exclusively for those who are in a state of genuine doubt. Another semantic issue concerns what we mean by “God.” Some people say things like, “For me, God is energy”—which leads one to wonder: does it make sense to claim that God is the very same thing that makes my electric fan spin and subsequently shows up on my utility bill? In the United States, one of the few Western nations where declaring oneself an atheist can still cause a stir, it is common for people to label themselves “spiritual, but not religious.” Such individuals often gravitate toward esoteric practices—crystals, horoscopes, Zen meditation, gurus who are as ugly as they are hungry for sex, and so on—without committing to any specific religion. This is likely a legacy of deism; after all, Freemasonry played a significant role in the nation’s founding and is rooted in deism. It is no coincidence that this 21st-century deism can, much like its Renaissance precedents, the libertins, become blurred with atheism. Sam Harris himself, for instance, is an atheist who embraces New Age ideas.
It is a historical irony, then, that one of the coiners of the term “psychedelia” (Greek for “revelation of the mind”) happens to be the grandson of the man who coined the term “agnosticism.” It seems that a segment of humanity cannot relinquish the pursuit of ecstatic experiences and revelations, even after abandoning the notion of divine transcendence—leading them, instead, to seek such experiences within the material realm. The distinction between a “sober” atheist and a New Age atheist appears to be more a matter of temperament than of philosophy—much like the distinction between an atheist and an agnostic in the 19th century.
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