Sergeant Thorne wrote:You first paragraph isn't worth my time. Maybe you need to read the Bible before you make statements about the character of the one it presents. Jesus regularly cast out devils, and he also taught his disciples to do so, and there's nothing in modern science except extreme skepticism to disprove a spiritual aspect to life, and plenty of things in favor of it.
My reference to science wasn't about spirituality in general, but about the topic of homosexuality in particular. Your statements on said topic make it blatantly clear that you're operating from a woefully ignorant position.
TopGun wrote:But again, it's not their place to be taken to task over this. Blame the people actually committing the crimes, and leave it at that.
Maybe you don't understand that 20 dead is 20 too many. If all of the people who pulled the trigger at this protest are locked up, it would happen much the same way at the next one. No reasonable person with any exposure to the issue would deny that. Islam is violence, when someone speaks against their religion. I'm talking about a demand, by the authorities, that the Muslims take steps
themselves to see this behavior stopped. If violence and murder is inherent in their religion then it damn well is their place to be taken to task over this, and if it must be inseparable from their religion, then maybe they all need to die. Being the dummy that you are, you probably think I just indicated that I wish all Muslims would be killed. What I wish is that anyone who thinks that others need to die to satisfy their indignation or their pride would themselves be killed first!
So you really believe that "Islam is violence" in some inherent fashion? Hmm, let me look around...are the people at the mosques in my area burning flags and shouting "Death to America!"? Nope, doesn't look like it. Maybe it's some other reason, then. Maybe, oh, I don't know, centuries of colonialism and warfare and despots and oppression and abject poverty have created an environment in which radical interpretations of a certain religion can foster, in which the masses can be exploited to conflate their very real problems with the scapegoat of a "great Satan." But nah, let's just say that all Muslims are evil and need to be exterminated. That doesn't require any troublesome little facts, does it?
TopGun wrote:This same preacher threatened to do exactly what he did some time last year, but he backed down after heavy intervention from political and religious organizations around the world. Apparently he was too much of a dumbass to take it to heart, because he wound up actually doing it this time.
But that's not what you said, you said...
TopGun wrote:But the fact remains that this guy in Florida knew full-well that they would react this way, since he himself caused a very similar reaction a year ago.
That's...exactly what I said. This guy threatened to burn a Koran on September 11 last year, and a lot of people in the Middle East got very pissed. He got talked out of it by much wiser heads, but then he decides to actually go ahead and do it this year. And hey, look, a lot of people in the Middle East are getting very pissed. Hmm, I sense a pattern here.
Sergeant Thorne wrote:By the way, are you so stupid that you would accept the idea that Jesus spent his time with "lepers and prostitutes" just so that they could continue to be lepers and prostitutes? You think he had a thing for diseases and loose women, huh? The Bible says that he came not to call the "righteous" but sinner to repentance. It also says that he went about healing all who were afflicted by the Devil. You think "go and sin no more" was just a message for that one woman caught in adultery? The Bible says that he did not come to condemn the world, but so that the world, through him, might be saved. It also says that he will come a second time for judgment. I don't know where you get your grasp of scripture, but its pretty weak.
And I for one would like to know where you got your grasp of behavioral biology. Or are you really going to stand here and assert that people who happen to be homosexual are making some sort of "lifestyle choice" that you consider "sinful"? I hate to tell you, but that ship sailed years ago, and it ain't coming back. I'm just incredibly thankful that medieval opinions such as yours are on their way out the door as time passes. Modern society continues to improve how it treats its own members, even if there are those who will always desperately cling to outmoded hurtful ways.