ok... here we go. I'll try and keep this short.
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Originally Posted by boo boo
And these are the former kind of Christians I am talking about. They avoid what the bible clearly states, which is that killing human beings and homosexuality are sins.
I haven't read the Koran as a whole, because having read one boring religious text book is bad enough. I still have a fairly good idea of what Muslims generally believe, many of these beliefs arent too different from christians, only their beliefs about capital punishment and sin are much more strict and conservative.
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Its hard to get much more conservative than the Bible. The problem with the Bible (and likely the Qur'an) is that it is self contradicting, so it allows for any irrational moron to interpret it however they want. For example, the Bible says thou shalt not kill, but also lists 100 minor offenses for which people should be stoned. But we already have a thread for that, so I'll shut up.
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Originally Posted by boo boo
Yes, a Democracy, and religious influence on politics should have a limit, our GOP is for the most part bought and paid for by the Christian right, and they have quite a hold on congress, even now that the Democrats have taken over the HOR, the Senate still has many Christians on its payroll, and vice versa. The only branch of our goverment where evangelicals don't have a strong influence is the Judiciary (thank god). My main concern about our GOP is that America is not too far from becoming a Theocracy. And right now the Republican presidential candidates are doing the best they can to win back the Evangelical right.
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Obviously I agree. You just said that Christians (not Christianity) should have no influence on the government, so I was just giving you some crap.
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Originally Posted by boo boo
Thats not at all what I said, I'm saying that they have a strong religious bias, and this is what prevents democracy from working in the middle east, and this is a problem we're trying to solve in Iraq.
Muslims in the east have the right to govern themselves, but a lot of them don't know how democracy works, because they were born into theocracy, thats really all they know. And guess what? We're trying to show them how to do it in Iraq. I guess thats a really bad thing we're doing, right?
It didn't work because its still in the works, you're not even giving it a chance.
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By telling the Iraqis how they're supposed to govern themselves we aren't exactly allowing them to govern themselves. Saying that they need our help to govern themselves is pretty much saying that they can't govern themselves. There will never be a true democracy in Iraq while we occupy the country. Like how there have been accusations of the US fixing the elections in Iraq (which would make it even more reminiscent of Vietnam). Others boycotted the election because they believed it would not be fair with the US's involvement.
The first election was 2 and a half years ago and there was another one about a year after that. All the elections did was create the explosion of violence that everyone is now referring to as the "civil war." What is going to change if we wait another 2 and half years? How are our troops possibly going to inspire democracy in the Iraqis?
I completely agree that Iraq's histoy of theocracy is hardly conducive for democratic action, but I just don't see how are troops are changing anything.
Plus: "82 per cent of Iraqis are strongly opposed to the presence of US and other coalition troops and less than one per cent believe that the coalition troops are responsible for any improvement in security" Real democratic, eh?
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Originally Posted by boo boo
A Christian theocracy would never so bad to the point that they would have their policemen prevent young girls from leaving a burning schoolhouse because they don't have veils on.
Which is the case in Saudi Arabia. Can't you not at least try to see where I'm getting at?
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It depends on how the government interprets the Bible. Obviously an Islamic theocracy is horrible as well, I already mentioned that.
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Originally Posted by boo boo
Now you're just being ridiculous.
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ummm... I was joking. Just to let you know, those things
have happened though. The Patriot Act is competition with the Iraq War for the worst thing to happen under the Bush Administration. Oh, and that is the first time I have mentioned Bush. I never said that the Iraq war is solely Bush's fault. Neither is the Patriot Act.
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Originally Posted by boo boo
I see it getting even worse if we leave, because its gotten to the point where they are more at war with each other than with us. And if we leave they will have something new to get pissed off about, and it really will be with us. You expect them to automatically forgive us for invading if we leave? That if we leave its all gonna be strawberries and daisies when it comes to our relations with Iraq?
What I meant by that was our reputation with them, the extremists. If we leave now it will come back to bite us in the ass, I garantee it.
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lulz, the end reminded me of that guy from the Men's Warehouse or whatever.
I already quoted a survey that said the vast majority of Iraqis really want us out of there. Do you think that they will automatically forgive us for invading if we stay there? We made a mistake going in, and being too stubborn to recognize that isn't going to help them forgive us.
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Originally Posted by boo boo
Because worsening our reputation with middle eastern countries who are developing nuclear weapons like Iraq and Syria will put even more at risk.
Thats where you are completely wrong, in foreign affairs, reputation is everything. Everything.
Because our reputation influences what other countries think of us, and as a result it influences how these countries will treat us, and thats going to influence how we treat them, etc.
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Ok, maybe a reputation can be important, but the rest of the world wants us out of Iraq too. So how exactly is staying in there supposed to make them happy?
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Originally Posted by boo boo
Yeah, they're already here.
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Probably, and us staying in Iraq isn't stopping more from coming over here. I'd like to see anyone try to prove that.