Isn't swearing a sin too? I don't know very much about this, but the most profane people I know are Christians. :p

In what situations has it failed?

But Kerry won three purple hearts! [url]www.jibjab.com[/url] for the people that havent seen the movies yet

Really, bible aside, I don't see why it's immoral if it doesn't hurt anyone.

blujay, would you be as ashamed of your children if they had premarital sex as you would if they were homosexual? what about if they lied? or sinned any of the other countless sins.

You were the only one to reply to it the first time as well, so I think "we" is inaccurate. The administration was certainly wrong about illegal weapons, and the links to al Qaeda and Zarqawi before the war were tenuous. If you're accusing Bush of lacking one single, unified reason for invading Iraq, I don't think anyone's going to argue. But I certainly did not claim he lied in the other thread and I do not see that he did now.

Saying he's failed to establish democracy before the scheduled elections is a little like saying a woman isn't pregnant until she's had her child. And even then, no one, especially not Bush, has claimed the transition from a dictatorship to a pluralistic republic would occur overnight. Not he, Iyad Allawi or anyone else can snap their fingers and instantly make Iraq into a modern state. Only the Iraqi people as a whole are capable of transforming their country into something better than the festering ****hole it's been for the past twenty years. Elections in January are a damn good start. Holding them to an absurd standard - now or never - is unreasonable and it is no help.

Romans 1:26-27

Matthew 5:27-28

Not committing the physical act is a good step, but wanting to is also a sin.



Luke 17:14

I think that's probably the best way to answer that. If, however, they don't repent...well, they need to.



Not everyone who claims to follow Christ actually does. One must judge that not only by words, but by actions also.



If you believe in the word of God, you can't put it aside. It must guide your every action and every thought.

I don't think it's appropriate to assign different degrees of shame for different sins. While we certainly feel on this earth that a sin like murder is worse than a sin like swearing, sin is sin. All sin should be avoided and repented of; all sin can be forgiven through Christ.

For Pete's sake blujay. You can't honestly tell me that I should be as ashamed of my child for lying as for murder. How in the hell aren't you locked up in a psychiatric ward yet? Just how?

Let's tone down the rhetoric or this thread is joining the graveyard.

He didn't tell you to do anyhting. He's stating his opinion on the matter

Queer Eye for the Straight Guys or whatever they are 08'

That's not what I said, nor is it what I meant.

I said that I will not list degrees of shame for different sins. It's natural for everyone to do that in their own mind, and I do not feel that it would be right for me to make such a list. I am not the judge of mankind. You can assign whatever amounts of shame for whatever sins you want.

But keep in mind that all sin should be avoided and repented of.

If you think I need to be locked up for the things I've said...maybe I'm not the one who needs to be locked up.

Calm the hell down.

Like Avenger said, he didn't tell you to do anything at all. He stated his opinion...

Sine: Alright.
What does that imply if not ulterior motives? The American public was informed that Iraq was a grave threat to our security because of proven ties to terrorists and enormous stockpiles of WMDs, all together demanding an immediate invasion. There was never any public suggestion of the goals you hold were primary. How is that not deception?

I'm sorry, isn't Blujay telling homosexuals that they can't get married, and that he would not support their efforts to get such marriage legalised? Is he not telling homosexuals that, not only is having gay sex a sin, but thinking about it is, too! What exactly are gay people supposed to do with themselves, then? "Become" straight? How? Even Raoul's ridiculous suggestion that gay people never have sex, ever, is better than Blujay's thoughtcrime sins.

Im not sure why you quoted mine and Avenger's posts??

We are talking about Freelancer saying that blujay told him that he should treat all sins the same, when infact he merely expressed his opinion that all sins should be treated the same.

Just let it go there. It's for the good.

It's only deception if it was done on purpose. If the Bsuh administration truly didn't know (I'm not saying one way or the other. I don't know) that there were no WMDs in Iraq then it wasn't deception. If not, it was deception.

Blujay is trying to say that that's just his opinion and no one else is forced to agree with them, but isn't he forcing them on others by not allowing gay marriage?

When it comes down to it, it's his right to voice his opinion in terms of voting, as it would be the right of people in support of gay marriage to voice theirs the same way.

I'm pro-life. Kerry is not -- not enough, anyways -- last I heard, he's being excommunicated from the Catholic Church for heresy.

There you go.

I don't think he's being excommunicated. That'd be big news.

http://www.zaman.com/?bl=hotnews&alt=&trh=20041020&hn=13174

Well they are at least calling for it...

Once again Kerry does whatever the left wingers want...I doubt he truly supports abortion but whatever, thats why he is being excommunicated.

"Turkish paper reports that some lawyer wants Kerry to be excommunicated" != "Kerry is getting excommunicated"

Wrong. If both candidates are bad, vote for a third party. Don't ever waste your vote on a person you don't believe will do a good job.

I think you missed the point, Avenger. Sine justifies the Iraq invasion in the context of a larger neocon agenda that the administration has never admitted suscribing to. The lie is using claims of WMDs or terrorist ties as fronts (regardless of their truth or untruth) to mask their less politically acceptable motivations, so that the American public would accept a war they would otherwise reject.

I understand perfectly and I stand by my last post. It can't be a lie if they honestly didn't know. I think you missed my point. I never said it was a lie/deception one way or the other. I merely said that for it to be a lie/deception the administration had to willingly mislead the public about WMDs and terrorist ties. We have no way of knowing if that's the case. If they did mislead the pubic about WMDs and terrorist ties, then there was deception/lying.

Furthermore, Sine is saying why he supports US actions in Iraq regardless of whatt he government said it's justifications were.

Psychotic. Regardless whether or not the "lies" were true or not? And phantom allegations of "less acceptable motivations"? Where do you get these crazy notions?

I'd call it a lie if they didn't care enough to find out first. It's like in a debate, pro side is the one that needs all the evidence. If you want to mobilize the troops you'd better be sure your big reason for war is sound.

No, I haven't read the thread. :p

Kerry getting excommunicated would make him a martyr. He would become more powerful than you can possibly imagine at that point.

I believe Bush and his administration has said basically the same thing that Sine has: that a free Iraq will build the kind of lives for its citizens that will foster independence and give them lives of their own so they won't feel the need to lash out at the USA. And it will also serve as an example of the kind of free nation that can exist in that part of the world. I believe Bush, and at least Rumsfeld too, have said just that.

He never said that before the war. Then, all it was was "WMDs! WMDs! Terrorists!". Now that none of that has proven to be a legitimate justification for war, he's trying to push this democratic agenda on the rest of the world. It was an afterthought; an excuse for the failed justifications and lies.

To be fair, he gave all three of those reasons before the war.

Also, if Bush had pushed the democracy reason before the war, some people would probably have said, "Well, why aren't you doing the same for every non-democratic country?" And that's a point, but I don't think that would be practical or right either.

He'd become a glowing after-image of himself, hating the fact that everyone recognizes him for his least-favorite project?

That's outstanding.

Avenger: No. It doesn't matter if the administration thought WMDs and terrorist ties existed. If they had the motivations Sine says they had and never informed the American public, they were lying to each and every one of us.

Wookie: First, I personally think the general liberal fixation on neocon conspiracies is a bit ridiculous. That said, read Sine's post. He lays out quite eloquently a standard neocon justification for the war in Iraq. If you'll notice, none of his reasons involve WMDs or terrorist ties, but rather the reengineering of the region to protect US interests. Simply, if the administration started this war to reengineer the region, they lied to American people by never revealing their real intentions.

blujay: Read the section of Sine's post I quoted.

Fair enough.

First, you'll probably understand why I haven't read his post. This thread is freakin' huge! However, from your well worded post I'm sure I got the jist of it.

Second, I seem to remember the President giving several reasons to oust Saddam. Personally I think they were all legitimate.

Lastly, I disagree that the war was about "reengineering" the region however I do believe that it will be a positive side effect of our actions. That being said, I don't believe it will be foreign forces doing the reengeneering but the citizens of the countries of the region themselves as they all begin to feel the winds of change.

Fair enough, although some of those motivations really shouldn't need explaining. It should be painfully obvious that the US was going to install some sort of democratic system, but maybe I'm expecting too much.

I'm a few posts behind in this, I haven't been around the past few days. But I'm going to jump back into this mess anyway.

blujay, it's obvious that you are against homosexuals 110%. I'm with you on this, I personally believe that homosexuality isn't right and is a sin. I also happen to be a pretty big homophobe to be honest, they freak me out.

However, my beliefs shouldn't govern the rest of America. While I believe that homosexuality is wrong, I also oppose the amendment to ban gay marriage. Is this hypicritical? No. Why? Because our government is guided by the constitution, which 1, through the first amendment guarentees religous freedom to everybody, and 2, seperates church and state.

This is the way I see this gay issue. Usually your opinion on whether homosexuality is wrong or right depends on your religous beliefs. This is true for me, I'm a Baptist, and I believe that is wrong. But our government isn't supposed to be influenced by religion, thus I don't think that it should have any say so at all on homosexuality.

Marriage is a religous event, and the church governs over the cerimony. If I'm correct, the government just legalizes a religous cerimony, making it offical. Now if a certain church marries a homosexual couple, and the government refuses to legalize it, is that not combining church and state? To me, it looks like someones religous belief is getting in the way of there government position.

I'm not saying that government officials should be athiest, or that homosexuality is right. What I'm saying is that I believe in full seperation of church and state. I don't mind government officials having their decisions influenced by their religion, I think that it is great that their faith helps guide them. However, when one groups beliefs infringes on the beliefs of another group, thats when its gone too far.

And whos to say that homosexuals won't start their own religion? I honestly don't know what required to get a new religion recognized enough to where the government will legalize marriages, but I believe that its possible that they could start one. And if its a big enough religion and they approve of gay marriages and performs the cerimony, who's place is to tell them "Sorry, we don't agree with what you're doing, so we aren't going to let you proceed. And the constitutional rights of freedom of religion and seperation of church and state don't apply here, you're a speical case"? Homosexuals or not, they are still Americans, which means that they are granted rights under the constitution.

blujay I may be completely wrong about you, but you seem to come off as strongly supporting the amendment to ban gay marriage and that you just oppose gay rights in general. If this is the case, how can you back it up constituionally, when the document that governs our country says that we have seperation of church and state and freedom of religion? If I'm wrong about you, I apologize.

One last note, I believe you said in several spots that homosexuality was morally wrong, and used Bible qoutes to back yourself up. While you make a very good point, I'm afraid that I disagree with you here as well. To be honest I don't remember exactly where in the Bible it says this, but I'm fairly sure that the Bible says that we are not to judge other people, and to leave the judging to him. This is why I try not to say that homosexuality is "wrong", I just try to say that I don't agree with it.

Sorry if some of that is choppy and clear as mud, but I'm tired and worn out. I'll probably come back later to clarify some of it.

Even if you believe that, is that a good enough reason to Vote Kerry? We need to stop abortion NOW.