Wow, chris6137, I hadn’t even posted here and you are already directing comments to me. I will avoid the temptation to beat you over the head with this one, but your question is itself biased, perhaps because you are not being exposed to a representative sample of Christianity. Perhaps that is why you are inclined to express the term as “Christians” in quotes, as you yourself doubt the authenticity of the faith of the unique group of individuals to which you refer. I can’t evaluate that, as I haven’t met the people forming the basis of your conclusion.
I would suggest there is probably a greater diversity of belief within Christianity than Islam (as most of Islam requires stricter orthodoxy and homogenous doctrine than most of Christianity) and thus it is inherently inaccurate for you to make the conclusion asserted in your question (as usual, your “question” indicates there is little question in your mind). Your apparent desire to create an equivalency between Christians and the extremism of Islamic fascism and Islamic fundamentalism (Islamic fascism and fundamentalism are not necessarily the same) is offensive to many Christians. As desberg notes, the modern world contains no examples I am aware of where Christianity seeks to exterminate through force the existence of non-Christianity, while much of the Muslim world actively seeks the destruction of non-Islam through jihad. It’s easy for Westerners to conclude Islam is anti-Christian and anti-Semitic, but if you examine the history and practice of Islam, you’ll find you secularists, humanists and intellectuals will be far worse off in an Islamic society than Christians and Jews, who at least qualify as People of the Book.
While the teachings of Christ repeatedly reject the use of force, the teachings of Mohammed repeatedly advocate the use of force. Jihad is the sixth pillar of Islam. While Christ refused to use force, resulting in his own death, Mohammed lead his followers into battle against infidels, and personally killed his opposition or sold them into slavery. In this regard, the use of force, Christianity has far more in common with Buddhism than Islam.
Your predicate statement that the war was based on lies is itself an opinion, not an underlying fact, thus the conclusions based upon that predicate cannot be logically reliable. Your statement that “right wing radio,” presumably Limbaugh, Hannity and their ilk, use words like tyranny, fascism and socialism is interesting, as I hear those terms far more frequently used on “left wing radio,” whether the hard-to-find and apparently unpopular and commercially unsuccessful Air America or the taxpayer-funded NPR.
While I support your right to hold the opinions you do, chris, might I point out you are looking in the wrong direction for fascism? In America, you have the freedom to call our government fascist. You have the freedom to personally insult religious and government leaders. Citizens of Islamic countries do not have that right. If you feel subject to fascism here, I suggest a vacation in Saudi Arabia might give you a taste of real oppression. First, the term “fascist” is misused. To use it accurately, the greatest threat in the world today to the subversion of individual rights to the state is no longer Communism, but rather fundamentalist Islam. What you must understand is that in orthodox Islam, there is absolutely no distinction between the religious and political world, and all individual rights are subject to “the will of Allah” as expressed through the religious leadership. Flutherians have expressed great concern over the “separation of church and state.” That concept is debated here, it is practically nonexistent in the Islamic world. My perception and personal belief is there is no greater threat to freedom than Islam as it is practiced by a majority of the Islamic world.
As to Ron Paul? Some of his asserted positions, as you have noted previously chris, are concurrent with my own beliefs, but I believe that to be largely coincidental, the arrival at the same conclusions by vastly different paths. Mr. Paul, however, seems to have an amazingly delusional grasp of history, an erratic and downright false (not the same as wrong) grasp of the Constitution, a poor grasp of basic economics, and an occasionally infirm grasp of his own mental lucidity. I believe he would be a very dangerous person to be President.
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