Quinthane I might have to make one of those drawing my avatar. Hope you don't mind.

You mean those documentaries about sranc life/society? Yeah I saw part of one.... cannot un-see....

They aren't? I was under the impression that they worshiped between the gods because they were damned. Because in that case, it makes perfect sense that the human schoolmen adopted their theology, otherwise its questionable.

I'm glad for the further distinction between the two. I agree that Anime has moved me far more than any other animated show. Also, I can't agree more about  watching english dubbed versions. So much is either lost or removed that it takes out the whole soul. I know one vivid example. My favorite episode of Bleach, what I originally watched subbed, much later came out as the dubbed version. I wanted to re-watch it in English, and I was so disappointed. All the emotion/feeling was stipped out, all the prose and quality acting was gone, and all that was left was some silly lines and a mediocre fight scene. I've not watched any englished dubbed anime since.

btw, In your opinion, is  "Avatar: The Last Air Bender" an anime?

I watch the science channel almost continuously when I'm at home. Or discovery, or national geographic, or history... you get the point. I know its not even close to intellectual reading, but I can't help but listen to the sultry base tones of Morgan Freeman's voice explaining to me the vast wonders of the universe (he hosts a show called Through the Wormhole). Thats enough "science" for me.

There are others here that are more versed in language then myself, but I'll give it a try anyway. It will probably be more confusing after I'm done 

I think this sentence is mostly just a play on words so that it would sound cool when read (in english) and reflect the title
Break it into its two parts

1) It is only after that we understand what has come before
2) Then we understand nothing


First part:
"What has come before" is just a phrase used to describe the past. So it means the same thing as:

"It is only after that we understand the past"
This sentence basically states that you can only fully understand the past after it has happened.

That is saying that while you can predict probable outcomes very accurately, you can never be 100% sure what will happen until after it has happened. The general idea is that nothing is certain with 100% probability. After all, the probability that you will win the lottery is essentially 0, and yet people do still win.

The second part:
"Then we understand nothing"

This can be taken with the first half to generally say that there are times that something occurs that is unpredictable or unlikely. There was no way to forecast that an unlikely event would take place before it happened.



You could then re-write the old sentence to say something like this:

"The future cannot be predicted with absolute certainly, it is only upon reflecting on the past that events can truly be predicted (up until the present). But, since you are only reading history rather than predicting it, you are forecasting nothing, and thus you understand nothing."

I doubt this will be much help but I tried   

Wow those are some amazing drawings, thanks guys.

Quinthane: I particularly like the one of the Wizard (it is Achamian right? Or just some other crazy schoolman)

Somnambulist: Thats got the right melancholy feel to it. btw I thought that the face/head was inside of the clam shaped skull? Though that would make for a really lame side view. Looks good regardless.

Its for whatever you want it to be for. It has no affect on anything in particular.

Originally it was just a simple +/- but Madness changed it to Redemption/Damnation so that it would fit in better with the whole theme.

Thats as far as my knowledge on that subject goes. If you like someone's post, hit the "+" ... or the "-" I guess, whatever floats your boat.