War and Christianity

How about we make a deal Hiro. I will not pretend to know what is in your heart and you will not pretend to know what is in mine. I said it before and will again. I have no bitterness for anyone, Muslim, Jew, Christian, whatever. Do I agree with the teachings of Mohammed? No. Do I have bitterness toward Islam? No. It really doesn’t matter how many times you say different. It still is not true.



Maybe you forgot what you said so I will remind you.


Did you REALLY expect that what you said would not be challenged, especially since it isn’t true? You claim that it was I who hijacked your thread… well… if you didn’t want to talk about it YOU should not have done so. After that I simply responded to statements that were made.

Your accusation is not true and uncalled for.


I already answered this in my first post. This is a war on terror, not Muslims. If it were a war on Muslims we would be at war with ALL Muslims in this country and out. We are not.


I am still trying to figure out what you are saying here. Enlighten me if you will by expanding on this.


I totally agree Hiro with the exception that these are to be tried first. There are times where war is necessary. If we are to not believe this then we certainly would not be speaking English in this country and would not be free.


War on terror… war on terrorists… same thing.




If this is NOT the place then why are you talking about it? Do you really expect to make a statement and not allow anyone to challenge what you said. Have some constraint man… if you don’t want to talk about it then don’t.

Nowhere did I even come close to saying that this war was just like WWII. This was a statement that YOU said:

This was my response:

Now I am saying this was is like WWII. Where did you get that from?


I respect your opinion Hiro, we were all touched by what happened on 9/11.

I apologize if I was not clear on this. The Koran does have verses that speak of love and peace. I did not intend to imply that it was ALL about the verses I referred to.

All religions have some redeeming qualities that I respect and appreciate. Judaism gave the world a basis for law and justice and righteousness. They have a profound ethical system. Buddhism has wonderful ways of bringing peace and harmony to inner conflicts. Hinduism has an openness to all forms of truth wherever they are found. The New Age movement has great respect for the earth and a commitment to care for it. And yes, Islam has a strict adherence to their laws are to be admired in the sense that they are committed to following them. Islam has great devotion to prayer. Which also should be admired.

I admire these qualities but that in no way means I agree with all that they believe.


As stated earlier the Koran does say that Jews and Christians should be killed but the difference is that the Sunni’s, 80% of Muslims, believe that the time for that has not arrived. Furthermore, I do not believe that ALL Muslims are evil. There are many who are good, decent people but I will say that I believe that much of what the Koran says about Christians and Jews is evil.


No, to be more clear, I do not admire what they believe, I admire their devotion to their faith. Too many Christians do not share the same type of devotion and have become lax in their faith.


Yes, excellent question. I will try to pass along what I believe here.

War is a last resort but not something that is forbidden. Time and time in the Old Testament the Jews defended themselves through war. Had they not, there would not be any Jews left. God not only was ok with war, he blessed the Jewish nation and helped them conquer many foes. To say that God would not support war in any circumstance is not supported by the Old Testament.

With regard to this war, we have been attacked many times already by the terrorists but the difference now is that 9/11 brought it to our soil. Maybe it should have been addressed way before this but we are where we are. We will continue to be attacked if we do nothing and God does not expect us to sit back, be killed and conquered.

It was stated earlier in this thread that Jesus was a pacifist. Yes, but even he had his limits. He cleared out the temple with violence when it had been taken over by tax collectors and merchants. Violence should always be a last resort and in my opinion the terrorists have demonstrated time and time again that they will continue attacking us unless we do something to stop them.

War is an ugly thing and nobody likes it but we have to defend ourselves and the best way to do that is to take the fight to them. Sitting back and waiting for more people to die is not wise. Is there any doubt that if they could the terrorists would set off nuclear devices in every major city in the US? As a Christian I support this war and our President.

Have we done everything right? No, of course not. The same can be said of practically every major conflict in the history of mankind. I believe that President Bush is doing the best he can and has made some mistakes too. We cannot expect him to be perfect, nobody is. Hindsight is always 20/20 too.

It is easy to sit back after the fact and say that this, this and this were bad decisions but unfortunately decisions have to be made ahead of time. History will sort out what the “ideal” decision would have been but we have to play the cards we are dealt and hope for the best.

Indeed. What were Saddam Hussein's ties to Osama Bin Laden again?



'Cause, y'know, all those brown people are alike anyway.



Well sure, except THE TERRORISTS WE'RE ATTACKING DON'T HAVE ANY NUCLEAR DEVICES. The world's been sitting on Iraq for ages. You think they were pissed off before? Oooooohhh boy they better not get their hands on ANY weapon now.

*

I think Christianity is beside the point. In my opinion it's just another distraction that Bush exploits and will exploit again and again. I don't see how your being a Christian would make you support this war other than the fact that Bush is a Christian too, and frequently makes references to being Christian and doing Christian things. I don't enjoy the fact that each religion seems to think that they're morally superior to everyone else. I'm not anti-religious whatsoever. I'm not even agnostic or aetheist (I guess you could call me a spiritual agnostic). I think it's just hard for some people to separate what they're being told from what they're seeing.

WAR IS PEACE. HATE IS LOVE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.

I concede that I made a blanket statement and shouldn’t have but it is widely known that the majority of academia are liberal atheists. My point was that college textbooks are hardly un-bias and that you are basing your view of Christianity and Islam on the views of someone with most likely no faith at all. I certainly agree that religious doctrine is bias too. Objectivity is a hard thing to come by when everyone seems to have an opinion… lol.

Religion is based on much more than faith. I have seen and felt many things that indeed prove the existence of God. I submit that proof is out there, just as much or more than there is proof for His existence than most of the widely accepted historical figures in most of our textbooks. For some people it is easier to accept the existence of historical people than God/Jesus despite huge disparity in ancient text supporting it. Not one historical fact in the Bible for instance has been proven wrong through discoveries but many many things have been verified to be accurate.

Follow the money



I didn’t realize you were a racist. What a horrible thing to say.



It would sure be nice if we all lived in a utopian world but as much as you want to cover your eyes and pretend that the bad guys do not exist… they do.



I do not agree that Christianity has anything to do with it as I stated in my first post.


I was simply answering a question that I was asked. I see no need to restate why, as a Christian, I support the war.

Such as?

Exactly; Outside of faith, you cannot prove a high power DOES'NT exist. At the same time, outside of faith, you can't prove a higher power DOES exist either. So, basically, you can't say that a higher power/god DOES'NT exist... because there is no proof. (also vice versa)


I dont know... human life (outside of the war and disease) seems too convenient to me to just say "there is no such thing as a god".

Then again, as someone posted before me, there is plenty of historical evidence supporting Christianity...

To me, God seems way too convenient an explanation for human life.

To each his own... but it would'nt be any more convenient to say that the human race/universe just "happened".

Edit: Then again, what is existence?

It didn't just 'happen'. It took billions of years to get where we are today.

But what im saying is how did it all start? There's really no... feasible explination for that one.

I've always been fascinated by the historic details of religion, especially Christianity. I believe a lot of the people existed and a lot of the events took place, but none of that is proof of a god.

Take, for example, Noah's Ark. Great story... unfortunately, it is not possible as told. Most likely, it was a story founded from an ancient great flood that occured in the Black Sea.

Absolutely. History does indeed prove that Christianity exists

What's wrong with the truth... we don't know. Why must we take the leap directly from the unkown to claiming it was some sort of magic?

This article quotes a Gallup poll:



-Ghoti

There are a few plausible theories - including creationism. I am very doubtful in creationism, as the most well-known version has life springing forth in an extremely short amount of time and fails to take into account the fossil record, etc.

Republicans, church-goers, Southerners, and those with a high school diploma or less.

I ponder the same thing. But as you said, since we dont know, the possibilities are endless. We also dont know whats necessarily magic and whats *normal* for a higher power. This higher power could have created us knowing full well we would never find out the truth. Whats billions of years to a god anyways? 7 days? We dont know...

It's a mighty far leap from "we don't know" to the unseen hand of a supreme being. Way too far for me.

I look at it as the unseen hand of a supreme being COMPARED TO US or anything that was/is on Earth. Not much of a leap, just an extended train of thought rather.

Personally, I think it's more of a leap, as Chip stated, being that there is not other evidence to even try to support the unseen hand idea.

There are mountains of scientific evidence covering evolution of the species and how organisms can be created out of what would be seen as lifeless elements. While they have not yet pinpointed the exact process or time (though they do have a general timeframe), they're dealing with a mystery that is several billion years in the making. Give them a little time, they'll solve it.

I don't see any reason to anthropomorphize the unknown.

That is SO my next character on SL... an unknownmorph. I wonder what it would look like...

hehehe. Maybe a big lumpy amorphous blob with a magic wand sticking out of it

If you play follow the money you will see that much of the cash flow came from American coffers and those of our "friends" such as the Saudi's. Bush's family has strong ties to the Bin Ladens, much stronger ties than most are willing to admit; MM barely scratched the surface. The US government has a history of supporting terrorist factions by calling them freedom fighters or revolutionaries, that is untill they are strong enough to take us on and then they are terrorist of someone elses making. The US also likes seating and deposing warlords at a whim when things like fancy little pipelines need to run through "enemy territory" and we need approval. The enemy says no and we say to hell with them we'll just blow them up, seat a marrionette king and have our way.

The promotion of religion in this manner is a scam used to gain support from the neocon religious right...sorta a you scratch my back I'll scratch yours. This war has nothing to do with protecting freedoms, freedoms have been sacrificed at an alarming rate since the war began; it has nothing to do with religion, though they will use any means possible to garner support even if it means putting god on their side; it has nothing to do with a threat as other countries pose far greater threats to the wellfare of the world...This war is for oil, bottom line, just like Desert Storm. They can candy coat it to suit everyones little agenda, they can piggy back reforms which strip Amercan Freedoms but in the end it comes down to greed and cupidity...which last time I checked were in the Mt Sanai 10 ten list of things not to do if you want the VIP pass through the pearly gates.

In the territory of war god is a pawn used by those who wish to justify their behavior or make mass murder somehow holy. If anything Bush has further discredited Christianity in my eyes as he seems to present himself as the poster child for godly life yet he freely and without remorse spilled the blood of husbands, wives, sons and daughters of many countries for oil.