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Crusades. Witch Burnings. The Spanish Inquisition.

The Albigensian crusade, where the 'wonderful' quote "Kill them all - God will recognize his own" comes from.

Slavery justified in the name of God.

You misunderstand the problem, which is that any totalitarian regime cannot tolerate any independent thinking as this is a threath to the power structure of said society. Thus independent or "different" thinkers get Gulag'ed, jailed, burned, tortured to confess, what have you.

Or they get Guantamoed.

Yeah, you were on the right track when you invaded Afghanistan, I was cheering your guys from the sideline and crossing my fingers that you'd get the bastards - I was damn happy when my government sent the special forces contigents US Command asked for. I was a bit concerned when your government started dragging people halfway around the world for the express purpose of violating the Geneva Convention on the treatment of captives.

The US Army deserves better. They're the good guys, for crying out loud!

And what's with letting the CIA near people in Abu Ghraib? The Army ought to have smacked the civilian spooks into next week and let their own intelligence people handle it - you know, the real military professionals.

I think a lot of your problem stems from having civilans at the top who think Chain of Command is an inconvenience and somehting they can safely ignore, instead of doing it the right way which is to tell the Pentagon the desired result and let them work out how to do it without stupid-ass interference from civilians on battefield tactics and strategy.

Damn, I'm rambling today - and off topic to boot. Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound.

You're not at the point of Guantamoing internal dissidents, and (most of) the people currently held there probably aren't lily-white innocents. I'm just a tad concerned that the USA seems to be violating their own values in the face of an attack on those very values. The more you become like your despotic and tyrannical enemies, the more you let them win. I really hope you guys step back from the brink on this one - I'd hate to see you waste the greatness of the USA in response to the terrible things done to you that day. If you do, the terrorists will have won - and I really hope you'll see their attack and stop reorganizing along the lines they want you to.

Because I think the Guantanamo prison is perhaps the most insidious attack on your culture and nation since the internment camps of WWII - if I had my tinfoil hat with me I'd star wondering just who it was who suggested that it was a good idea in the first place. Because no matter who wins the battle, you lose the war if people start thinking that it's okay to "deal with" the enemies of the State outside of the legal framework.

And man, I will be weeping for you all if that gets to become an acceptable way to deal with people under the War on Terror.

"...there seem to be very few from the Bush supporters and it's anyone's guess why."

The Internet is where the godless go to view child porn. Once you find Jesus, you'll vote for Bush and quit using the Internet.

ANY religous practice handed down from generations ago teaches peace, compassion and civility, manners, morals and ethics toward fellow citizen

Your error is in attributing this to religion. It has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with the human tendancy to form communities. Religion does not shape human nature. Human nature shapes religion. A culture's religion tends to express the moral outlook of that culture, whatever it may be. Religions can be just as divisive and nasty as any other movement. It's just that the ones that are like that tend not to survive as long, because the ones that teach community-building tend to result in strong groups that can withstand attack.

I do agree that purging religion would be an attrocity, but not because religion itself has any worth to it. The forceful purging of any type of thought would be an attrocity because the methods necessary to do so would be, as you say, akin to Stalinist purges.

If you want to see what the results of a godless America would be, read the history books. How many tens (upwards of hundreds) of millions of people did Josef Stalin kill in the Gulags of Soviet Russia in the name of atheism? How about communist/atheist Cuba, where people are even to this day imprisoned or executed (often in front of their families) for deviating from the status quo? And how the Cubans try desparately every day to get into this country? How about godless China, where the government executed thousands of innocent students for doing nothing more than protesting in the name of democracy? The absence of a belief in God drives people to do awful, horrific things.

So you may want your godless society but I'm sorry to say that you will not get it, so long as the majority of people in this country fear and support God and as long as we have a second ammendment. This is one nation under God.

burn flamebait, burn!!!

And if we're wrong about it, we're in the same boat as you - stone cold dead. But if you're wrong, well......

It's called freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. Just because you don't buy into it doesn't mean millions more of us don't either.

This gets modded "Interesting?" Freaks.
...of course, this will get modded "Troll." (peers up for his score...wait for it...wait for it...)

A large part of the great success of the US comes directly from freedom to practice religion - many immigrants came here from Russia, England, Germany because they were persecuted for their beliefs. The only way to accomplish what the original poster wished for, a "god-less" US, would be to establish a prosecution that would make the ss and kgb look like a boy scout troup. There are *many* free worshippers here, and nothing short of a Stalanist purge will change that.

The problem many of the contemporary faithful have is with the increasing involvement of government in our daily lives, which cannot promote this or that particular religious expression since it is funded from the taxes of all (we cannot allow nativity scenes on public town squares paid for by taxes confiscated from practicing Muslims, for example).

ANY religous practice handed down from generations ago teaches peace, compassion and civility, manners, morals and ethics toward fellow citizens, and there are those who seek the commanality of beliefs of all faiths, and other who exaggerate the differences and end up wanting to slaughter aliens cultures they just don't understand.

Reducing humanity to a herd of biological cattle you can feed into effecient scientific slaughterhouses whenever they get too numerous is about the worst of all possible views of humanity.

Claiming that god-less society was responsible for the ills of the communist block is like filling a bathtub with acid for aunt Jane, and then blaming the bathtub for her death. The problem was blind following of ideology. Be it the one party ideology or "don't you dare to question the president" ideology or god "instructed me to strike at Saddam" ideology. Nobody really speaks directly to god, yet in a religious society there are always people who claim that "god said this and god condemns that". This is not a problem if spoken by a peasant in a remote village, but if spoken by a person who has the proverbial finger on a nuclear strike button, it is very troublesome.

This has essentially nothing to do with your propostion, which seems to be that the only basis for a compassionate or reasonable society is religion. And that capitalism is somehow tied to religious practices. You think if you take America, get rid of religion, then you end up with the Soviet Union? You think the only basis for morality and ethics is religion? There are so many mistakes in your post I wouldn't even know where to begin.

Sure, look what it did for the formerly officially atheist Soviet Union. No problem at all.

Scientific socialism to the rescue!

What problems will it solve? A Crazed Nut will still be a crazed no matter what. Except for knocking at your door asking to join their religion they will knock at the door asking you to join their political party. Or other methods of forcing their own personal phelsopy on you. We will still fight wars, we will still have issues to fight for. Beliefe in God actually tends to moderate these people (Because a lot of the Extram Religious people tend not to think for them selfs on what is right and wrong, they just do what a book tells them to do).

it would be even better if you killed yourself!!! how's that for witty?

A wonderful idea, mein Fuhrer! Sieg heil!

But only the American Godzilla will become godless.

Personally I'd be a lot happier if America would become God-less. It would solve a whole lot of problems.

those godless communist bastards are preying on our innocent capitalism aryan heros like 50 cent, eminem, and britney... think of the children!!!

Actually, even though the artists you mention are being sold in Russia, a lot of the bootlegs are artists from the European countries; Finland, Sweden, Norway etc. These are artists who wouldn't sell a hundredth of a percent of what britneys and eminems sell anyway, but they are good business because tourists have much more money than Russians.

those godless communist bastards are preying on our innocent capitalism aryan heros like 50 cent, eminem, and britney... think of the children!!!

those godless communist bastards are preying on our innocent capitalism aryan heros like 50 cent, eminem, and britney... think of the children!!!