Eastern Germany: the most godless place on Earth

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

The USSR was the first in space. The Chinese built a computer 1000 years ago. The Japanese convinced the US of the superiority of the aircraft carrier over the battleship with the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The USSR used Western scientist (German) for the most part as did the US. Face it, for standard of living, modern day inventions and conveniences it doesn't get any better than the West with maybe the exception of Japan. We improved on other cultures inventions. The Arabs had algebra and look at those countries today. Same with the Aztec, Mayans, Inca, and early Egyptian.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Where in the western world do they have an indoor skiing resort?

Edited September 23, 2012 by The Patriot

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

Where in the western world do they have an indoor skiing resort?

Or, architecture like this?

And plans for the future?

You must be new to this world. It's Western tech, engineers, and usually Western firms that build those things. Dubai, UAE, Singapore are prime examples. For a second there I thought I was debating Steven. I know you can do better than this.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

You must be new to this world. It's Western tech, engineers, and usually Western firms that build those things. Dubai, UAE, Singapore are prime examples. For a second there I thought I was debating Steven. I know you can do better than this.

Oh, I see. Asians and Africans are technologically incompetent. Good to know. Which western firm built the Three Gorges Dam? Why are bridges being constructed in the US with primarily prefabricated sections built in China?

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

Oh, I see. Asians and Africans are technologically incompetent. Good to know. Which western firm built the Three Gorges Dam? Why are bridges being constructed in the US with primarily prefabricated sections built in China?

And tell me more please about Chinese and Japanese steel. It's laminated which means it's porous as all get. So when you weld on it it's a nigh mare not to mention it's weak. You must have gotten cheap labor mixed up with actually technology. You have hear of the Bessemer process? That's where it began. Every culture out there today learned their iron work and steel foundry technology from the West, not from banana land.

Edited September 23, 2012 by Bad_Daddy

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

And tell me more please about Chinese and Japanese steel. It's laminated which means it's porous as all get. So when you weld on it it's a nigh mare not to mention it's weak. You must have gotten cheap labor mixed up with actually technology. You have hear of the Bessemer process? That's where it began. Every culture out there today learned their iron work and steel foundry technology from the West, not from banana land.

You don't think the Japanese understand steel?

BTW: The US stopped using the Bessemer method of steel manufacture in 1968.

Edited September 23, 2012 by The Patriot

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

You don't think the Japanese understand steel?

We aren't talking about Samurai swords here, we are talking about steel/iron technology and mass production. The UK led the way in that field followed by the Germans and the Russians and taken one step further by the Americans. Do you really think the Japanese just woke up one day and figured it all out by themselves? Not hardly. They got what they could from Western technology. It wasn't like they were finding Japanese Zero's and Toyota's out in the forest. Japan went Western before any other Asian country and they milked it for what they could. Mass production including...like the Germans, using Henry Ford's production line technology along with the UK in regards to ship building.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessemer_process

Bessemer process

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_welding

Arc welding

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

We aren't talking about Samurai swords here, we are talking about steel/iron technology and mass production. The UK led the way in that field followed by the Germans and the Russians and taken one step further by the Americans. Do you really think the Japanese just woke up one day and figured it all out by themselves? Not hardly. They got what they could from Western technology. It wasn't like they were finding Japanese Zero's and Toyota's out in the forest. Japan went Western before any other Asian country and they milked it for what they could. Mass production including...like the Germans, using Henry Ford's production line technology along with the UK in regards to ship building.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessemer_process

Bessemer process

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_welding

Arc welding

I know a bit about welding, ferrous metals, nonferrous metals, plastics, etc. I never welded on a pipeline, or a ship, but I have probably welded on just about everything else. I never had a problem welding on Chinese steel. Drilling was another story, as the metal was often inconsistent, but even Bethlehem steel had hard spots.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

I know a bit about welding, ferrous metals, nonferrous metals, plastics, etc. I never welded on a pipeline, or a ship, but I have probably welded on just about everything else. I never had a problem welding on Chinese steel. Drilling was another story, as the metal was often inconsistent, but even Bethlehem steel had hard spots.

Japanese and Chinese iron is laminated as in it's cheap junk but American companies buy it because profit comes before quality. When you laminate iron you get porosity which is the last thing you want when your welding.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Japanese and Chinese iron is laminated as in it's cheap junk but American companies buy it because profit comes before quality. When you laminate iron you get porosity which is the last thing you want when your welding.

If you are getting porosity in your welds, I wouldn't blame it on the steel.

And what do you mean by laminated iron? Sounds like you are getting some weird stuff. I have seen laminated extrusions, but that is done by design, for strength and corrosion resistance, not a defect in the material.

Edited September 24, 2012 by The Patriot

[spookyturtle 9,466]

Eastern Germany: the most godless place on Earth

East German atheism can be seen as a form of continuing political and regional identification – and a taste of the future

A woman dressed as an angel waves from a roof top near the German Reichstag on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Photograph: Andreas Rentz/Getty Images

They are sending missionaries to eastern Germany. A recent study called Beliefs About God Across Time and Countries found that 52.1% of people asked whether they believed in God identified themselves as atheists. This compared with only 10.3% in western Germany. Indeed, the survey was unable to find a single person under the age of 28 in eastern Germany who believed in God. Obviously there are some – I think I may have even met some once – but the survey was unable to find them. On the face of it this is an extraordinary finding and it is something that needs some careful explanation.

Different reasons are adduced for the absence of religion in the east. The first one that is usually brought out is the fact that that area was run by the Communist party from 1945 to 1990 and that its explicit hostility to religion meant that it was largely stamped out. However, this is not entirely the case. In fact, after initial hostilities in the first years of the GDR, the SED came to a relatively comfortable accommodation with what was called the Church in Socialism. The churches in the GDR were given a high degree of autonomy by SED standards and indeed became the organisational focus of the dissident movement of the 1990s, which was to some extent led by Protestant pastors.

In addition to an accommodation with religion, the party also deliberately created alternative poles of integration for the population. Young people were brought up in a highly ideological atmosphere and were required to undergo a so-called Jugendweihe – a sort of atheist confirmation. Interestingly, this ceremony has survived the end of communism and many young people still voluntarily enter into it. Equally, especially under Eric Honecker in the 1970s and 80s, an attempt was made to create a sort of "GDR patriotism", in which figures from Prussian history such as Frederick the Great were put back on their plinths in East Berlin and integrated into the Communist narrative of the forward march of history. Martin Luther, Thomas Münzer and other figures from the Reformation were also recruited into the party.

Another factor is that religion in eastern Germany is also overwhelmingly Protestant, both historically and in contemporary terms. Of the 25% who do identify themselves as religious, 21% of them are Protestants. The other 4% is made up of a small number of Catholics as well as Muslims and adherents of other new evangelical groups, new-age sects or alternative religions. The Protestant church is in steep decline with twice as many people leaving it every year as joining.

If we were to follow the Weberian line on this, then a highly Protestant area undergoing rapid modernisation would almost automatically experience a process of radical secularisation going hand-in-hand with industrialisation, a process which was only speeded up by the communist obsession with heavy industry.

When we look at western Germany however, we see that there Catholics are in a majority and indeed, political power in West Germany has traditionally been built on western-orientated Catholic support for the Christian Democratic Union in the south and west. Indeed, the first chancellor of postwar West Germany, Konrad Adenauer, had been mayor of Cologne in the 1930s and even then was in favour of the division of Germany and a "Rhineland Alliance" as a sort of precursor of the European Union.

What all of this means is that rather than simply just being an area that was occupied by the Soviet Union and their satraps in the East German Communist party, the eastern part of Germany has an identity which – almost a quarter of a century on – continues to make unification more difficult than expected. Religious confession, or rather the lack of it, plays an important role in this. This has led some to talk of East German atheism as a form of continuing political and regional identification. For example, in 2000 the Catholic theologian Eberhard Tiefensee identified what he called an "East German folk atheism" which could be argued to constitute a substantial part of a regional identity against West German Catholic domination.

Secularisation processes are under way throughout the continent and the role of religion and the church in modernity are being questioned everywhere, from gay marriage to women priests to abortion and on to whether the EU should identify itself as a Christian entity. The question should perhaps be whether it is actually folk atheism that represents the future of Europe.

http://www.guardian....P=FBCNETTXT9038

You should move there. You wouldn't have to be so concerned about trying to convince everyone there is no God. You could be in your comfort zone surrounded by non believers. Just think of how much time that would free up for you to do more important things than try to convince people on VJ who believe that they are wrong.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

If you are getting porosity in your welds, I wouldn't blame it on the steel.

And what do you mean by laminated iron? Sounds like you are getting some weird stuff. I have seen laminated extrusions, but that is done by design, for strength and corrosion resistance, not a defect in the material.

They laminate it to save on cost and when it's layered it's one air pocket after another. For what they pay in labor to weld that stuff you would think they would just buy American and call it good. There was a big to do here when the state used state money to purchase iron to make a bridge for the Alaska railroad. It was so bad that they called a strike until they got US steel for the job.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

They laminate it to save on cost and when it's layered it's one air pocket after another. For what they pay in labor to weld that stuff you would think they would just buy American and call it good. There was a big to do here when the state used state money to purchase iron to make a bridge for the Alaska railroad. It was so bad that they called a strike until they got US steel for the job.

There is no more American steel. US Steel, the largest producer in the United States, dropped to 13th place, world wide.

Edited September 24, 2012 by The Patriot

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

There is no more American steel.

I can think of three foundries just in the Seattle - Tacoma area. I used to work at one of them... "Atlas Foundry" in Tacoma.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

I can think of three foundries just in the Seattle - Tacoma area. I used to work at one of them... "Atlas Foundry" in Tacoma.

Didn't that place blow up in 2007?