No. I would shoot it down with logic.

Edit: whether he was joking or half joking isn't the issue. The issue is his complete ignorance of reality and his insistence that a man he has never met is the world's greatest evil.

And as for you, would you allow gay people to get married?

*clutches chest*

Oh, I felt that OANST. And not in the pleasurable way.

Ok, ok, sorry for saying that. But I'm shooting for a weird quote someone can use as a sig. Gotta help the masses.

If I ran the world, and if I was the supreme dictator of the world, I would strongly disaggree with gay marriage, but not illegalize it. God gave people free will, and I will support free will, but I won't go out and promote gay marriage.
...and you probably just caught me in my own words, didn't you...

As long as people are happy

I don't know Saddam, thats true easily, but there is numerous evidence that he was an evil man. There are the reports of almost every Iraqi citizen, on how Saddam was having a reign of terror. Theres the conditions of the citizens, compared the conditions of the government people in charge. There is also the amount of people still being killed by the insurgents. All the insurgents want the government the same way as before, and are killing innocents for it.

To get this topic back on track, do you think that when the muslim religion was created, do you think that Muhammad intended people to go kamikaze for this belief? Or do you think is was more along the lines of something else?

I dunno, but so many people are killing themselves, you gotta think there must be SOME proof that they can guaruntee '20 virgins' after you die, or they wouldn't have been able to convince so many people to die.

I was talking about Bush. Not Saddam.

Oh. Okay.

*ahem*

No comment.

:D

Is that a serious statement? Please tell me that's a joke.

Geez! if that is what they are driving for, no wonder people are goin' kamikaze!

Dude, how could you be wrong when THAT'S waiting for you when you're dead!?

And yes, OANST, I was kidding. Just throwing in some comic-relief.

If what you say is true and you would allow them every single one of the freedoms that you have then I owe you an apology. If this is true then I jumped to the wrong conclusion, thought ill of you, and did wrong by you. I apologize (this is rare, so enjoy it).

However, When you can vote and you see gay marriage on the ballot you had better be as good as your word and allow them that right.

thank you for the apology and I'm sorry for jumping at you as well.
Also, I'm not old enough to vote yet, and I'm not too interested in polotics.
But, I would allow them that freedom yes, if I voted.

Nope. He wanted to find an outlet for making everyone think like him, ala Borg. The religion was merely a tool, constructed from his imagination and from ripping off Judeo-Christian and pagan traditions.

Ah... okay. thank you. I was just wondering aloud... (and it's a great way to get topics back on track...)

*Yawns, scritches his head, drinks a cup of coffee and goes trough the replies*

Okay lets see here...

Fair point, if you have the slightest bit of self cntroll you can choose who you have sex with. But going back to the basics of liking your own gender, you can't choose to be gay. You choose to be gay for five minutes, see if you can do that. Or choose to be gay for an entire day. I bet you can't do it, and not only from a religious standpoint.

Like Mitsur pointed out, I would if I could. But on to the point.
Let me explain to you why I believe what I believe. This entire thing started with 9/11. So we go to Afghanistan to find Bin Laden and kick his ass. Fair enough, even though he keeps yelling he didn't do it, we're still gonna find him and kick his ass. Bout a year into Afghanistan, we suddenly rush all the troops into Iraq because... why again? How did Iraq relate to 9/11 at all? Oh yea wait, we went in there to disarm 'The Weapons of Mass Destruction'. Here we have a country that barely had an army. They barely have running water! Their entire military is busy enough with their own crime, Iraq is the last place you will find a nuclear missle silo!
'Yes but Bush also went in to liberate Iraq of a dictator!'
Okay so Bush just suddenly had a change of heart? "Yea lets spend a few billion, a few thousand troops and our entire reputation to do these people a favor, just because I'm in a good mood today!"
You don't carpet bomb a country and spend a few billion on the entire war if they couldn't have gotten something out of it. Things like this are calculated into the smallest detail. Are a few thousand casualties and a billion dollars worth the effort in getting control over the oil that is worth billions more? Ofcourse it is! The entire goverment would have said no to the entire war if there wasn't something incredibly valuable to gain there. They even told the UN to go f*ck themselfs just so they could go there.
And have they found any weapons of mass destruction yet? No, absolutely not. Not a SINGLE one of them. All America got out of Iraq was a crapload of embaresments. And that is why it is in my opinion that it was primarily for the oil.

No, I said that for all I care, the Europian union can roll down the streets of Washington and surround the white house. I never said anything about blowing up a Starbucks Cafe while they were on their way. Do whatever it takes to get that guy out of the huge white building before it will be to late to do it.

Have you ever met Hitler? Has anyone on this forum ever met Hitler? Has anyone in the USA ever met Hitler? No? Then why do we all agree that he was the greatest evil?
Okay look.
If 1 person tells me: Bush is an idiot and dangrous. Then I go, pff yea sure.
If 10 persons tell me: Bush is an idiot and dangrous. Then I go... Hm.... whatever.
If half my country tells me: Bush is an idiot and dangrous. Then I start looking into why everyone is thinking that.
But if half of the world f*cking population says: Bush is an idiot and dangrous. Then he's an idiot and dangrous!
People are saying it in all languages available! Chinese, Russian, Polish, German, African, Zwahili, whatever. If half the f*cking world has a problem with you, then it might just actualy be true!
Bush had the guts to ignore the UN's orders to stand down to Iraq, and that made him officialy a threat to the rest of the world. France has nukes as well, are they going to be attack for having them?

I think it says in the Koran that anyone denying His existance shall be killed by any means. Or something along those lines. Ofcourse a lot of people, as usual, are taking that out of context.

And you were there to make sure that it didn't happen the other way around?
Funny thing is... since most religions out there only allow for one god and only support the existance of one god, then at least on the religions must be false.
God or Allah, one or the other doesn't exist. There's no real denying that.

Okay, let's discuss this. Never once. Not one single time has anyone claimed that we went into Iraq because of 9/11. There had been speculation within the administration as to whether Saddam had helped Bin Laden but they soon discovered that he did not. We and a LARGE GROUP OF OTHER COUNTRIES received intelligence that told us that Iraq was hiding nuclear and chemical weapons (which they have done in the past). So we AND A LARGE GROUP OF OTHER COUNTRIES went in there to a. find these weapons so that they may not be used against us. b. to remove this dictator from power so that we and his own people wouldn't have to fear his insanity any more. You speak as if we made all these decisions and did all these things on our own. You also speak as if every american is blissfuly sitting around saying "Well, gee. Didn't we do a bang up job over there. Everybody loves us and has no reason to be angry with us." This war has been a huge point of contention in our country just as it has been in others.

This is what I find hilarious about your posts. You condemn Bush and America for going into Iraq and removing Saddam from power (even though we didn't do this alone) and then you say that you would like to see an army march into washington and remove Bush from power. Your upset that a madman who willfuly and intentionaly murdered tens of thousands of people was forcibly removed from power but your gung ho about forcibly removing an incompetent proselitizing asshole who will be unable to continue as president in two years, anyway. Either you're extremely stupid or you're a hypocrite. I'm gonna go with the two combined.

On a final note. You claimed that because a group of religious fanatics murdered thousands of people we should have said to ourselves "Well, my goodness. These gentleman must have had an honest grivience. I mean, who blows themselves up without a good reason?" Let me answer that for you. Everyone. Everyone who has ever blown themself up did so for no reason other than they are insane. And you have to be the dumbest person alive if you think that these people have something to say that is worth hearing. You have shown yourself to be a fool who believes the words of madmen and buys into every piece of anti-american propoganda you hear. You don't like America. That's fine. Cause I'm an American and I don't like you.

But what exactly is in about being gay that is morally wrong? Is it the basic "yuk" factor everyone who is not gay feels about someone whose sexual orientation and object of love are different from the observer's? Is is the fact that it cannot lead to procreation? Is it plain ignorance on the part of the observer? Or is it that is seems to go against some text in a too-often translated book?

It's not like this is a new thing. For millions of years (or thousands, if you are orientated that way :rolleyes:) animals have also behaved homosexually. Not that I am justifying the actions of humans with those of non-human organisms, especially to people predisposed to see some kind of generalistic distinction.

EDIT: Didn't see this page, would've mademore sense at the bottom of page 4. Dang. And it was a generic reply, I wasn't pointing at anyone in particular.

Did you read the part about the UN I wrote? They strictly prohibited the US to attack Iraq. No-one wanted to help them. All the countries now helping out joined later on when the UN just went, well bugger now we're already there we might as well help out.
Not France, not Germany, not Britain and not The Netherlands joined into the initial attack on Iraq, so get your fact straight before saying stuff. The inteligence might have come from them, but those would have been rumors at best. Because if they would have confirmed that Iraq had the weapons, they would also have known were they were at down to the centimeter and they could have gone in and got them and got out.

That's because thats exactly what happened...

And I am not condemming anyone for removing that bastard from power. It needed to happen yes, but not with the underlying motives that the US goverment had for it.

For your sake I hope that will happen. But if Bush is America's Dictator in 5 years, don't come running to me. It wouldn't be the first time a president uses a war to stay in the white house a few more years.

Maybe you should try to read my posts more carefull, and unless you are a 100% sure that the stuff I'm saying isn't true then I suggest you google for it before dismissing the idea that America isn't so perfect.

I don't know about the honest part, but not even a brainwashed terrorist would bomb a building because he loves you so much. There is a reason these people are being trained to hijack planes and fly them into buildings. Reasons I can't quite honestly give you, but you certainly did something to piss them off because the USA has had the biggest number of terrorist attacks in history. Oklahoma City Bombing, '93 attack on the WTC, now 9/11. These people realy hate your country for one reason or another. No, I couldn't tell you why, but they surely arn't doing it just because they can. They are doing it to make a point, but obviously it isn't realy working.

There is nothing wrong with being gay. I have no intention of watching two men have sex because I think I would find the sight slightly vomitous but I also feel that way about sushi. Doesn't make it wrong.

Terrorism has never worked. It has a 100 percent failure rate. It merely strengthens the things it is trying to destroy. And of course they hate us. We are the face of the west and they hate the west. Every move we make whether domesticaly or not is publicized much more widely than any other country. We are the wealthiest nation in the world. That is going to draw hatred to it.

Now is that the extent of it? No. Obviously it isn't. A great portion of their hatred for us comes from our friendship and support of Israel. Who they hate even more than us, by the way.

Oh......and you're wrong. We were not forbidden to go to war with Iraq. The U.N. voted not to go and therefor didn't sanction the war. This did not include expressly forbidding anyone to do it.

And again......you're wrong. We already had a coalition of about 15 countries ready and willing to go into Iraq before we ever attacked. The reason that the first assault was done by America alone is that we had received intelligence that we decided to act upon and we didn't have time to coordinate with our allies.

And as for your allusion to the idea that I think America is just the center of perfection I have already answered this. Of course we have problems. Of course we are flawed. But you are claiming that we are the worlds greatest evil and that we are so arrogant that we can't admit any wrongs. This just isn't true.

They're the same deity, Havoc. Not that I'm one to pick holes in posts or anything :spin:

But I know the point you were trying to make.

Unfortunately, Britain and Australia helped the bane of the world.

Of course, the best way to prvent war is to make everyone happy, ala Pretties, in which all adults are surgically made superbeautiful and super deliriously happy, so there are never any wars. They get everything they want from nanofabrication machines and other advanced tech. Of course, this series ends badly with the pretties waking up, so scratch that.

Nope, they ain't. Hell, even one man's God is a different one from the other. Allah is different from the Deist God who is different from the Christian God who is different from the Wiccan God(des). The only God's directly one and the same are the Jewish and Christian one. They make a direct, non contradictary link, unlike Allah, who in the Qur'an would be contradicting himself if he was Yahweh, as Allah says it was Judas who got crucified, which kind of kills the whole damn point of Christianity

Just in the same way as the fundamentals of christianity kill the whole damn point of Judaism, what with the whole non-corporeal god (3), disbelief in jesus as spokesman or prophet (7), disbelief in the new testament (8 & 9) among other issues. (Numbers referring to Maimonides' Thirteen Principles of Jewish Faith)

This happens almost everywhere, and it has normaly got nothing to do with religion. Look at Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Catholisim vs. Protestantism has been the excuss for around 200 years at this stage.

Patrick Vykkers
Allah and God are the same person. Using the Kor'an and Bible to show the differences won't work, since even within christianity there are fundamental belief differences {protestants read a passage in the bible to say "I tell thee, this day you will be with me in heaven". Catholics read it as "I tell thee this day, you will be with me in heaven". The difference is whether or not that brance believes in purgatory or not.}

One of those countries was Afganistan. They were in no possition to fight. I believe another was Iceland, or some other small country with virtualy no army.

As for how you know that everyone in the East {or at least the ones getting killed} hate everyone in the West, I've no idea. I am aware that this is what G.W.Bush keeps spouting out of his mouth, and no doubt other politicians, but in my experiance he's been wrong before {like when he said "we've found the weapons of mass destruction"}

No, there are three abramaic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Judaism (I believe, please correct me if I'm wrong, Nate) has Moses as the primary prophet, with Abraham before him. Christianity has them and Jesus, who is the important one, and at some point had divinity written into his story, rather than keep him as the man and prophet he was supposed to be. Islam has them all, but believs that Mahummed was the only prophet that conveyed the message correctly and without distortion from man.

They all have the same God, just different prophets and ways of worship. This makes them different religions, as opposed to different "denominations".

(One of those countries was Afganistan. They were in no possition to fight. I believe another was Iceland, or some other small country with virtualy no army.) QUOTE BY ADDER

As for how you know that everyone in the East {or at least the ones getting killed} hate everyone in the West, I've no idea. I am aware that this is what G.W.Bush keeps spouting out of his mouth, and no doubt other politicians, but in my experiance he's been wrong before {like when he said "we've found the weapons of mass destruction"}[/QUOTE]

Afghanistan was not considered part of the coalition. Don't be stupid. And does Iceland having a small army mean that Britain also has a small army? I guess I don't understand what you are trying to say there. How is one country having a small army relevant to the size and strength of the entire coalition?

And I never once said that EVERYONE in the east hates EVERYONE in the west. Again, you're being stupid. The extremists hate the western world because of what it stands for. The way we live our lives is an affront to their God. And I didn't get this from George Bush. I got this from the very mouths of their religious and political leaders. Islamic extremists hate the west. Fucking fact.

You people act like I am all for the war and think it's really just a great thing. Exactly the opposite. I think it was ill conceived, ill planned, and poorly executed. But some of you have some extremely stupid views on the war that are neither backed up by fact or common sense. If you wish to go on a rant about how stupid someone is then you might want to at least make an attempt to sound slightly more intelligent than they are.

Some coalition they got there.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita..._coalition.htm
130,000 troops in Iraq versus the Coalition's 20,000. A number that will shrink as Poland and S.Korea bail. 15 countries have already stopped giving military personnel both in Iraq and in theater and have dropped aid. Quite frankly this Coalition blows ass.
I really liked the plan the Democrats produced to solve this war problem.
NOT STARTING THE WAR IN THE FIRST PLACE!

That would have been nice. I want to point out that Statick has shown you people the appropriate way to bitch. He didn't add in a lot of distorted rhetoric about how evil this person or this nation is. He merely spoke truth. This shit sucks. And on that I think we all can agree.

I think you'll find that the Yahweh is One, and no-where in the old Testament or any of the Jewish Scriptures will you find the concept of the Trinity or the mention of Jesus.

Allah, Yahweh, God etc. are all One. This is the one essential message that was preached by all the prophets, from Abraham to Moses to Jesus to Mohammad (peace be upon them all). No where in the Qur'an does it say Judas was crucified in place of Jesus, it just simply says that the Jews did not kill Jesus nor did they crucify him, it was only made to appear so to them.

As for suicide bombers and terrorists, God places great sanctity on human life in the Qur'an;

In Islam war is permitted for defensive purposes, but even so there are rules which must be abided by;

• Women must not be harmed
• Children must not be harmed
• Non combatants must not be harmed
• Animals must not be harmed
• Plants/Trees should not be cut down

Any sane person could see from those verses that fighting is only permitted against those who fight against the muslims and if the enemy wishes for peace then the muslim should also want peace. The taking of innocent life has no place during war time never mind during times of peace.

I suggest to all hear to actually learn the truth about Islam from it's primary source (the Qur'an) rather than relying upon hearsay evidence like the following;

There is no such verse anywhere in the Qur'an.

I tried reading the book. Really I did. Gave it the good old community college try. But I couldn't get through it because it was so repetitive and boring. It has to be one of the worst written pieces of literature EVER.

Then try "The Koran for Dummies"... although the "for Dummies" range has a few really badly written books, like "diabeties for dummies" and "transendance for dummies"

Most religious books are boring.

Depends who they're written by. I'm read several very interesting books by some good authors. And I've read a lot of shite books by crappy authors. And I've read the odd religious book that sounds very interesting until you actually analyse what they're saying and realise that they really don't know what they're talking about (God must exist because the universe is expanding and I'm going to selectively quote Einstein to prove my point...).

Don't you hate it when people quote Einstein to find proof for their beliefs?

Firstly, it's bogus (using it as evidence, I mean), and secondly, what sort of religious person is so insecure about their beliefs that they must find evidence to back it up?

Besides, proving faith denies the purpose of it. You can't have faith if you have the evidence to back it up. Then it's theory.

QFT!

Anyway, I have another little question I have been pondering about for a little while. Not to bash, not to harm and not to insult but... if a christian person claims to have seen god or jezus, and if god or jezus told him to kill a guy by throwing him off the empire state building, why is that person convicted for murder by a court that asks you to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you GOD? Given that that little sentance implies that the court takes faith in religion for the truthfullness of one's testimony (sp), why does the court not accept the idea that the defendand actualy saw god and that god actualy told him to kill the guy?
In other words, why are other christians immediatly calling people who claim to have seen god crazy? The only reason I can think off is because deep down they know that what they believe in is a big pile of BS. However, I would like to hear other reasons for this strange behavior because I don't realy get the point in praying for something, and then proceed to say that it's impossible for someone to see god.

Ummm... because the concept of swearing in a court is an ancient, outmoded and ultimately meaningless custom that probably should be scrapped?

It's not about backing up their own beliefs. It's about defending them to people who try to argue that religion is implausible. Too bad 90% of religious people are unable to conceive an atheistic point of view so they can't construct a coherent argument.

Which, for some reason, tends to leave agnostic little me defending religion. Not sure why I bother.

Well obviously. If I would have to testify to an American court...
Do you swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you god? No... I don't believe in god so I can't swear to him.
Then I get arrested for being a hostile witness and we can all have a big laugh at the American justice system.

Anyhoo, thinking outside a courtroom. From time to time you read these stories about people claiming to having seen god, jezus or holy virgin Maria. Yet, even in a country where god sits next to the president, people say that the person is crazy and should go see a shrink. WTF is up with that? So, you all claim god exists, you kill people to make a point that he exists, you pray to him every day and you go to church every week, but when someone claims to have actualy talked to him we all go OMGWTFBBQ THAT CAN'T BE! YOU MUST BE CRAZY! OFF TO THE MENTAL HOSPITAL WITH YOU!
Am I the only one seeing the irony in that or...?

If you don't believe in god, they don't make you swear on a bible. They just make you swear to tell the truth in the knowledge that if you lie it's perjury and you'll go to jail.