We have won the lottery of life by being born with an American passport and that is the culture we should celebrate. I for one haven’t lost anything worth going back for anywhere else in the World.

Anyway, I appreciate the update, my BP was indeed rising. It’s the typical leftist maneuver — go find the worst example out there and present it as the norm.

And most people don’t understand about the Christian Crusades, just in case one of these cretins goes there. Islam had converted at the point of the sword or killed every non-Muslim from the Bahgdad to southern Europe. They were harrassing, robbing and killing Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land at the time. The Crusades were originallly designed to allow Christians from Europe safe passage to visit Jerusalem and return home.

Now, they became something else later, as things like that do, but in no way were they any kind of religious “jihad” or Holy war against Islam. It’s muslim fanatics who do that. IMHO, once a “religion” starts killing people who don’t convert, it has lost all claim to being a bona fide “religion.” We are the most religiously tolerant country in the world, but we draw the line a “honor killings” “jihad” and all the rest of that 5th century hogwash…

Why don’t you pay attention or go home, idiot?

“In the fight against AIDS, abstinence-based programs that focus on changing behaviors rather than handing out condoms simply work better, says an AIDS expert…Take the well-known case of Uganda, where the prevalence rate dropped from 15% in 1991 to a little over 5% in 2001. Behavior change was so thorough in Uganda that by the mid-1990s, 95% of adults in that country said they had only one partner or none at all. But it is not only Uganda…Where this kind of behavior change has not taken place, HIV incidence has remained high. This is the case in South Africa, which has been a vigorous promoter of condoms, but rather silent about the need for a more profound modification of behavior, specifically multiple partnerships.” Matthew Hanley — HIV/AIDS technical adviser at CRS for the last seven years and the author of the forthcoming book “Avoiding Risk, Affirming Life: Science, Love, and AIDS

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And the Indian practice of suttee was stopped by the British Indian Army almost two hundred years ago.

Here is the law’s actual wording by Lord William Cavendish Bentinck (1774-1839), the Governor General of India from 1828 to 1835…

Sati Regulation XVII, A. D. 1829 of the Bengal Code: 4 December 1829

I. A regulation for declaring the practice of suttee, or of burning or burying alive the widows of Hindus, illegal, and punishable by the criminal courts. Passed by the governor-general in council on the 4th December 1829, corresponding with the loth Aughun 1236 Bengal era; . . .
II. The practice of suttee, or of burning or burying alive the widows of Hindus, is hereby declared illegal, and punishable by the criminal courts.

Now, you two idiots can go peddle your lies someplace else…

Not only does Christianity spout good intentions, but those intentions are translated into kind deeds in millions of ways everyday. I could give you a “War and Peace” length novel reciting good deeds done for my family and many others that I have witnessed. Fear of God may motivate at first, but then it’s just a part of living the good news and loving. You may wish that people didn’t need God as a motivation, yet somehow your fellow atheists aren’t contributing as much time and energy to charities that the motivated are. Oh… maybe a little motivation can be a good thing??

The examples you give of Christians doing heinous acts are very few and mostly crazies (many times mixing other rituals into Christianity, that didn’t originate there.) These bad actors are separated from what 99.9% of Christians believe.

Meanwhile, I gave you an example of an atheist using his godless world view to justify murder and you tell me that “not all of the millions were killed for their religious beliefs.” Huh? Guess what, your teammate’s 100′s of thousands of religious killings beat your handful of examples from the believer team.. Also, while it is definitionally difficult for a non-believer to kill for his beliefs Stalin and Mao’s other 10′s of millions of victims were definitely killed to get them out of the way of those “men”‘s beliefs in the superiority of their godless system.. Some atheist belief systems suck, to a level that even the most destructive religion has yet to achieve.

Add in there the fact that nations with Christian founders have provided more tolerance, justice and well-being to their citizens than any other religion or non-belief has been able to provide, I think I’d be willing to be a fan, even if I weren’t absolutely convinced of Jesus Christ’s divinity.

So my only point, which I would love to see you be intellectually honest enough to concede, is that some religions do not, in fact, suck. Maybe it’s scary to you to not be superior to the believers….

“Do not let your hatred of a people incite you to aggression.” (5:2)

“O mankind! We created you from a male and a female and made you into nations and tribes that you may know and honor each other (not that you should despise one another). Indeed the most honorable of you in the sight of God is the most righteous.” (49:13)

“All God’s creatures are His family; and he or she is the most beloved of God who tries to do most good to God’s creatures.”

The first two quotations are from the Koran. The last was supposedly spoken by Muhammad. There are some ugly quotations from the Koran, but that goes for the Bible, too, especially the Old Testament.

As for Stalin, that guy was a monster, and if there is a hell, he certainly deserves to be there. I’d like to clarify something you said, though. Not all of those millions were killed because of their religion. Many were killed because they were educated. Others were killed because they were deemed a threat to Stalin’s power.

A point I’d like to make is that we shouldn’t need religion. We should be better than this. If the only reason people are good is because they’re afraid of the punishment waiting for them, then people are more messed up than I realized. The fact that people that people allow themselves to be led into doing heinous acts because of their beliefs is unforgivable. Religion doesn’t have the monopoly on this kind of behavior, but it sure has its share.

I’d also like to point out that there are a lot of people who believe in God, but are not religious. My girlfriend’s mom is an example.