Nope - gonna go for walking corpse!

Any rally led by by Beck is going to be a PR disaster one would hope, sadly there are people who eat up his crying on air antics.

"I am a simple American *cries* but like you *cries* I love my country *cries* however Obama is a racist pig who hates white culture and wants to destroy it!"

Home Secretary = Secretary for state I think (person in charge with domestic affairs)

"most of the aid was supplied to Islamist hardliner Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, now a senior Taliban leader and a supporter of al-Qaeda." - This is the famous aid provided by America and backed by the infamous Charlie Wilson

Can a religious person not be capable of reason and sense?

Newton, Einstein, Darwin etc were all religious and all were fairly sensible in my opinion.

Stephen Hawking refuses to rule out the existence of God though he accepts that Gods existence is not neccesary.

One US politician I really respect is Roosevelt, a man who showed a lot of sense yet he was a religious man.

Anyway I go off topic.

As long as a politician does not expect people to follow their religious viewpoint I am not sure it matters - that goes for atheist, Christian, Muslim etc I have met far more preachy narrow minded atheists in my life but I recognise the fact that preachy narrow minded theists also exist - as long as a candidate is willing to concede their belief might be wrong and dont force it on people I am fine with that.

Next question - why is being a "bad christian" so politically dangerous in US politics? 70% of couples no longer wed and their is a growing trend for Children to be born out of wedlock yet both these facts can be used as political ammunition against candidates. It seems to be a given that the candidate who is a "bad christian" will not be elected - we have never had an open atheist candidate to my knowledge in US politics but I assume it is because they fear it harming their campaign - why?

So far the opinion seems to be you would prefer an atheist

So what happens in the case of say McCain vs Obama or Kerry vs Bush where both candidates are overtly religious? Do you abstain from voting or just ignore religion and focus on policy?

Vast majority of people have no problem with America the country, its just most of our interaction with American people come via forums or xbox live - you can see why that would present a biased viewpoint

Wow Chris shall I find the articles authors address so you can go kill him for his viewpoint

On a total side note and I know its been flogged to death so many times but still - I wish America had shown half this much anti terror attitude during the 70s, 80s and 90s when they were paying Irish terrorists to blow up school children in England

Yes I will be accused of trolling and off topic for that comment but still, America only decided it hated terrorism once an attack on their country had been commited.

Unfortunatly the response has lead to the alienation of 1.1 billion Muslims in the world, invading Afghanistan was the right thing to do, Bin Laden WAS being sheltered by the Taliban. Invading Iraq was NOT the right thing to do - it has been proven so many times Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and that Saddam and Bin Laden actually despised each other to the point Bin Laden offered the assistance of Al Quieda to Saudi Arabia if they wished to destroy Iraq. America refused to condemn Israels war in Lebanon despite it being barbaric and now it is rattling the sabre with Iran.

The foreign policy of America post 9/11 clearly sends the message Muslim = Enemy.

Now by protesting against the building of a Mosque designed to spread understanding because it is within a couple of blocks of where a terror attack occured that happened to be perpetrated by Muslims is suggesting that America does not like the fact it has loyal American Muslims in its population.

If there is one thing that the American populous seems guilty of its an over simplification of things

Get Bin Laden and Al quieda fails
All Islamic fundamentalists are members of Al Quieda
Muslims are terrorists
All Muslims must get on and have the same agenda as they are Muslim

The world does not work this way.

> East wrote:

"also I think you will find that most muslims, while abiding the laws of the land they are in, would in fact support the implementation of sharia (not necessarily in the most harshest of its interpretations, but definatly some version of it), they just don't have the critical mass to do it because for now they still live in mostly non muslim societies"

Isnt this statement identical for any religious follower be they Christian, Jew, Sikh or Muslim. Most Western Nations laws are based on the original 10 commandments because most western nations were largely Christian based.

The coalition has attempted to place our legal system and idea of democracy on Iraq (a country unfamiliar with both) - those who are in power attempt to follow the laws and system that makes sense to them so of course if Islam was the largest religion in America it would have Islamic themed rules.

Cordoba became a shining example of Muslim, Jew and Christian living together and producing some of the greatest philosophical works of all three religions - maybe thats why they named it Cordoba rather then some convuluted conspiracy about conquest?

Kemp I hope you were talking about Douglas because I made a point of saying I did not think you were ignorant etc.

Back to the actual topic though, the cordoba Mosque was later converted to a Cathedral after a Christian Conquest - the name is not synonomous with Islamic victory.