Heathen,
Just so you know, I really enjoy a respectful and lively debate, and in no way am I trying to provoke you. I am just curious where you are coming from, okay?
I agree that the people in government have the right to believe what they want about religion but I think they go too far by imposing a belief that this is a christian nation and is being invisibly run by God thru the politicians .
If I am understanding you correctly, what you are trying to say is that you think this high ranking military official had no business sharing his beliefs with his audience, right? If yes, then in what way do you think he was "imposing" his beliefs on anyone? The way I see it, he was speaking to a church group that obviously felt the same way, so I don't see how he was imposing his beliefs on any of the people he was speaking to anymore than you and I "impose" our beliefs that JWdom is - shall we say - not nice, on people in this forum . By virtue of being in this forum, we are creating an audience for one another. And we choose to come together because we share a common belief about the WT. So we can safely assume that if you were to rant about how terrible you think the WT is (as the majority of us in here do), it would never occur to me that you were trying to "impose" this belief on me, because I wouldn't be in here if I didn't agree with you in the first place! In other words, no one can "impose" a belief on someone who already holds that same belief! I feel pretty confident that the people at these churches in which this guy spoke already believed that our nation is being "invisibly run by God", whether it is through the politicians or through divine intervention. I don't think anyone who was intended to hear that particular message felt imposed upon, rather; most likely it reinforced their own beliefs already in place before this guy began to speak.
What is your opinion on the following statements:
1. Since some people may personally disagree with the beliefs of others, and/or don't want to be "identified" with someone who makes claims which do not represent their personal beliefs, people should not be allowed to speak publicly about them - especially - if they are some type of a representative of our government.
2. There are some American citizens who should not be entitled to all the rights and protections of the US Constitution.
3. American citizens are required to practice the same religion and have the same political beliefs as whichever President is in office at any given time.
4. American citizens should be tolerant of other's beliefs, whether they are the same, or different from their own.
5. American citizens are denied the freedom to make up their own minds about statements made by others regarding political, religious or other individual beliefs.
6. People who oppose another's message enough to wish to restrict that individual's right to freedom of speech as afforded by the US Constitution, despite having the freedom of make up their own mind about the material presented, are actually demonstrating intolerance to views which are different from their own.
Now they are trying to implement a system of government in other countries thru force based on their beliefs
This is a misnomer. If we were in the habit of implementing a system of government based on our beliefs, neither Germany nor Japan, countries we occupied for 5 and 7 years respectively, would have the type of government they do today. People seem to forget that a truly violent dictator ran Iraq - and they also forget about how happy the Iraqi people were to be freed from the tyrrany. Do they like that we are there now? It appears as though most don't, but there are good reasons for still being there and I'm going to share one of them with you.
As we know, the American military was in Afghanistan in the 80's to help them fight the occupation of the Soviet Union. When the Soviets gave up the idea of creating a new communist nation, the US said "Hooray! Now we can get outta here!" and despite the fact that the Afghani government was in a shambles, we left them to fend for themselves - just as it appears most opposers to our occupation of Iraq would have us do now. But nature loves a vacuum, and history shows us that the "strongest" always fills the gap. The strongest doesn't have to be the majority, just the one with the most ammo and/or power to maintain their stay at the top. (Look at Saddam Hussein! Only 5% of the Iraqi people were Baath party members!) So guess who filled the vacuum in Afghanistan? The Taliban - which did nothing to improve their nation's infrastructure after the war, encouraged and harbored terrorists, and decried that women should be worth no more than dog droppings stuck to a sandal. In fact, when we were trying to line up a coalition with the Northern Alliance of Afghanistan, they told us they would only do it on the condition that we stay and help to keep the peace and rebuild the infrastructure after the war. They also told us that they held us - the USA - responsible for the Taliban coming into power - because if we had stayed after the Soviets left, they never would have made it to the top of the heap. They were not happy with us because they felt that their lives could have been very different if we would just have stayed. And they would have been. Japan and Germany are just two examples of the importance of stability following a war - today, both of them are major world powers! They could have suffered the same fate as Afghanistan after the Soviet occupation if we hadn't stayed. The same goes for Iraq. The evil dictator is gone - but do these people who lived under the oppression of Saddam Hussein deserve to succumb to yet another dictator - which could be much worse? We are not trying to implement western beliefs in Iraq, we are just trying to lend stability to the nation until an election can be held, a new government formed, and things are running smoothly. They are not making it any easier on themselves, or shortening the amount of time it will take by constantly shooting at our troops. We won't leave until stability is established. If they'd stop shooting themselves in the foot, the process could be sped up!
The moslem population in the middle east has been told that the western ways are evil for centuries , I don't see how the US can change their point of view by force .
I don't think we are capable of changing their minds, by force or otherwise, and as stated above, that isn't why we are still there.
I do hope to hear back from you, Heathen!
imallgrowedup
