Skippy- you say "your country." Would you share what country you are from, and how it espouses/ embodies your ideals?

On one side the coin asks 'where will you spend eternity'. If you ran into a guy who had a gun and asked you that question, would you really think that's fluffy christian message of love and concern?

Your wilful ignorance of the motives of the Christian United States is typical. You are a christian state, you may not have been founded as one. But that is what you now are. A theocracy just as screwy as the theocracy of Iran or Isreal. Your money says 'in god we trust', your politicians swear an oath on the xtian bible rather than a copy of the constitution, your religious leaders bless the candidate for office. You couldn't possibly elect an honest athiest to the presidency, or any other political office. The mere suspicion of any affiliation with Islam is enough for some to damn Obama.

Who started the war in Iraq? The most Christian President of the usa and he was helped in the commission of that war crime by the many preachers who pounded their pulpits every sunday. Damn right I can blame the christians for starting this religious war. Who was it who stired up the religious nuts in the middle east? Another Christian President, Ronald Reagan, gave money, arms and training to the people who became Al-Quada when they were fighting another occupation of an Islamic country.

Your comments on other threads prove that you are indeed a chickenhawk, one who is in favour of sending other people to die in fights they're not willing to participate in.

You disgust me.

Skippy, there is NO THREAT! Implied or not! That is absolute nonesense, and what does that coin say anyway? "Jesus loves you" or some such other sentimental christian thing? How can you compare that in way shape or form to islam????

The US is not "christian" either in the same sense that areas of the middle east are muslim. You cannot blame "christians" for the war in iraq. How many muslims continue to kill each other over there? If Saddam fell without our help, do you think it would have been any different?

I am no chickenhawk, if it were up to me we never would have invaded iraq in the first place.

Those other sites? Would that be the 'highly reliable' Free Republic?

Handing out that coin when you have a gun in your hand is not a message of peace and hope for the other person's soul. It is a threat; convert or die. Considering the president of your country called it a crusade, why anyone is surpised by that soldier's behaviour is astounding. For you to argue that the usa is not organized when it murders over a million Iraqi's for their oil and their religious beliefs is proof of where your head lies; chickenhawk.

Islam, like Christianity or Judaism, is the worship of a sky god. A sky god who will make bad things happen to those you dislike. It's no more nor is it less delusional than any other cult. It's followers are no more nor are they any less murderous than any xtian or jew.

Skippy are you kidding me?? Where is the "convert or get shot" part? Its muslims today who are going that road, I don't see a single example in the world today of christians doing it in any organized way.

You "progressives" TRULY have your heads up your asses on the issue of islam. READ about it on other sites and learn something.

Excellent comment ~Nahida~, well put.

Death by starvation is still death. You still can get shot if you tell the wrong person that Jesus didn't save squat. Up until the 1800s you could be put to death in Europe or parts of North America for religious reasons. The Islamic countries just haven't caught up with the idea that it's better to leave the punnishment for blasphemy up to god.

Now back to the article, a guy with a gun hands out coins advocating you change your religious beliefs. Are you going to say that the message isn't convert or you could be shot?

Try for some empathy penny.

skippy, well, part of me doesn't have a problem if you say something that's meant to be offensive and you get your butt kicked. In this case, we are talking about marines handing out coins with a christian saying on them, not mocking mohammed (the pedophile terrorist, and false prophet that he was). There's a huge difference.

Of course you might be fired from a job for saying offensive things, even if the things said didn't offend your boss, they are responsible for the image of the business and so of course wouldn't want you venting your frustrations on the jews. This makes us like muslim countries, where you can be put to death for insulting islam???

Come on skippy.

Bad penny;
Go back to free republic. You really don't contribute much to these threads, other than an inflexable anti-muslim bias. Mocking Isreal costs you your job in most parts of the west. Telling a group of people in the states that Jesus Christ 'blows goats' will get you thumped, do it at your job and you'll be fired.

Skippy, israel is probably the most mocked and critisized country in the world. I don't see anyone being beheaded over insults to israel.

How could the reaction of mocking jesus ever be what it is to mocking mohammed, when mocking mohammed in many muslim countries carries the death penalty. How many non-christians are put to death in america for mocking jesus?

Bad Penny;
Try publically mocking Jesus in some parts of the usa. Funny that the reaction to that would be similar to mocking Mohammed. Better yet, try mocking Isreal publically in some parts of the western world.

Skippy, I can post videos on youtube mocking christians, I can write books mocking chrstians, and I can bitch and moan all day about christmas trees and nativity scenes without sanction.

Try publically mocking mohammed sometime, especially anyplace in the west other then the USA, and see what happens to you. That's REAL religious pressure, which is far more intense then a christian coming up and talking to you, who cares about that?

And yes, they banned me, and as I always do, I returned!

Returns, eh? Did you get banned somehow?

When have you ever known a muslim to shove their religion down your throat? xtians like you are far more willing to badger someone to convert. Every muslim I've ever known has said that they'd only ask a nonbeliever once to convert, and never more than once. But xtians, every thirty minutes at my last job the nutball was after my soul.

This has got to be a joke. Muslims are all over the western world, shoving their religion down our throats, and they complain about this?? And these guys might face discipline???

We shouldn't be in iraq in the first place, pretending to be all "sensitive" about it doesn't change a thing.

Not crazy, just has his arse covered so well that nothing gets out thru there... (evil grin)

China Skip. I mean where else, what do we make? They even put the holes in the Cheerios, ___ child labor.

I fear C/A is crazy.

ca;
english please, or french. Giberish is not a language I understand.

They don't call it 'Force Ministries' for nada

Kem;
Was the factory that made the actual coins in the usa, or china?

Kellogs cereal factory made them Sue. They come free in a $4.50 box of Cheerios with an invitation to visit a Seventh Day Adventist church.

I want to know where these "coins" came from ... I've seen no information regarding who minted them or where, much less who paid for them ...

Inquiring minds ....

Mike,
Know Jesus, no peace.
No Jesus, Know peace.

DR-
and those cliches are? and understanding the roots of this invasion impacts my comments how? Mmmm, name calling feels good... and makes me feel important and strong.

Religion and jingoism, tools for control.

Yes those women and children in the marketplaces are aiders and abetters, definitely.

Just like all those "little Eichmanns" in the World Trade Center, right?

I'm guessing it doesn't say "Love your enemies" on there anywhere.

When the heck are these people gonna realize we are there .to bring them truth, justice, and the freedom to vote for whoever we want

Troops who desecrate things that are sacred to other religions should be punished severely. But, like Christians, Muslims are obsessed with externals rather than spiritual things. Both should live by the teachings of their prophets rather than worshiping a book.

Blame for Bush's policies, all of which have been bad or disasterous, falls not on him or his renigade supporters.. Instead it falls onthe moron/apathetic voters who helped them steal two elections, our legislators who have defaulted their duties by allowing these outrages, and the five Supreme Court Justices who betrayed their oaths by planting this inept zealot in office.

" criticalthinktank May 29th, 2008 2:17 pm

The CRUSADES continue! No surprise…soldiers for Christ and of course the holiest of substances..OIL.

Military men are brainwashed by the clergy that infiltrates their ranks as well."

NO, military men are not brainwashed by the clergy, for the problem surely began in young childhood, with parenting that was extremely negligent, to say the least, in terms of the need to provide critically sound, health education. Once in the military, they are already and very brainwashed from before entering, and their 'dumb animal' stupidity and psychopathy keeps them on the same path, mentally and behaviourally.

I despise the Bush-Cheney cabal for launching their extension of their sort of Crusades (Roman Empire Crusades) on other parts of our world on Earth, but they really aren't to blame for all of the MANY U.S. citizens and others around the world who supported and continue to support all of this evil. Each person is to be accountable before God as far as true Christians and Muslims, as well as Jews, are concerned anyway; and it's crucial to NEVER neglect the primordial importance of personal, individual responsibility, just as it's irrefutably true that ["individual conscience is primordial"]. All of these many horrifying supporters of evil are to blame because they refuse to cease remaining the 'dumb animals' of extreme savageness that they are, gleeful as pigs in their own shit they are about their lusting for evil and supporting it.

The clergy of that same nature are, for true Christians, going to suffer more; given Jesus explicitly condemned the many FALSE prophets (which or who include prophets among the laity) long ago, forewarning to be always vigilant about these [predators] of humans souls and minds, and lives. But he never said that the disciples were not to be [responsible]; he said to be responsibly attentive, vigilant, always. Of course he did not mean to be paranoid; calm vigilance is needed, while also needing to become active when there is real cause for alarm and action.

That is wholly about the [individual], and far from only Christians understand this. The First Nations Peoples against whom the Canadian govt and churches continue their genocides strongly speak of the crucial need to be ever vigilant and ready to act when action is needed, f.e. I provide links to good Canadian resources on this latter matter, of the continuing, ongoing genocides.

We don't have to look at what the West is warring overseas for in order to understand that it is not only about OIL, but the Earth's natural resources that human pigs capitalise on. It's principally why the Roman Crusading of state-and-(Romanised)-church continues to exercise [genocides] against Canadian First Nations; and enough of the same is or has been happening in the USA.

Doom n Gloom would definitely be far more informative than I can presently be on the cases in the USA, for I've read some, but nowhere as much as I should know about.

Americans, MOST, always seem to have to look at why the USA and much of the rest of the West is warring overseas in order to understand that the Crusading is ongoing, when we can and should learn from what's going on right here in North America while we're kept very ignorant of what's going on; or only get "tidbits" of information.

Rev. Annett's and Cynthia McKinney's articles linked in my above post provide excellent statements, urgent in the case of Rev. Annett, and very good on Ms McKinney's part; going well together, complementary. She addresses the continuing crimes against the Native Americans, or American Indians, whichever is the right way to refer to them (its FN in Canada).

Turtle Island, which I finally learned yesterday is all of So. and No. America, in Canadian FN terminology anyway, is in serious troubles; the Crusading happening "all over the place" here.

It's just that we don't have the aerial bombing and U.S. military's (and those of criminal and 'dumb animal' allies) acting here, so we have this difference. The rest is pretty much all the same; conquest and domination, and key are the natural resources belonging ... definitely not to the elites of these Crusades. Scales vary, but the underlying motives, so thematics, are the same.

They are THREAT to ALL of humanity, not only to peoples overseas. And they are threat to Nature, Earth's Nature, also. We have more than enough [concrete] proof of this.

In the military, the most guilty are NOT the sick, wicked clergy, but the high-ranking officers commanding along with the Bush-Cheney cabal and likely enough the next presidential administration, unless Cynthia McKinney or Ralph Nader are elected and don't wind up ... eliminated. The military officers know the laws and lust for killing and destroying; their psychopaths in and of themselves. It's just that if we had true democracy and real state leadership, then these psychopaths would either not be able to act as they do, or they'd be indicted and ... incarcerated for life, and fast. The Congress and the Senate are also more guilty than the Bush-Cheney cabal, imo; because they've had the authority from the start to stop all of these crimes and quickly so.

Bush isn't brainwashed by religious preachers, but by a psychopathic family, parents, grandfather, and so on. They don't need to act out the violent, that is, the physically violent, aspects of their psychopathy in order to be psychopathically violent; their commands are psychopathically violent in and of themselves.

F.e., and in Canada anyway, it is treated as criminal to only state a threat against another person. On that basis, which is law that I agree with, there isn't much that the Bush-Cheney cabal and the Israeli govt leadership have said that is not criminal; nearly everytime they speak they are committing only more crimes. Just stating what they have said against Iran is criminal, so the sanctions imposed make this all the more criminal; very much more. Launching war on Iran, whether it's following yet another false flag attack on the USA or some other U.S. "assets" or "interests" or not, will be climaxing criminality. But just stating threats, bullying Iran is already and very criminal.

In the computer professions, perhaps especially programming jobs and studies, there is the KISS principle and it only says to "keep it simple stupid(!)". It's how I prefer to treat everything; instead of treating anything as more complicated and/or complex than the subject really is, I prefer to understand and treat it for what it is. It of course means to not oversimplify to the point of becoming negligent and mistaken. So we only need to understand the subject at hand for what it is and fully; just not overcomplicating, adding complications that are not part of the subject matter to begin with.

Hence, KISS applies or is applicable in universal terms, and even primitive living peoples KNOW this already; it's NOT rocket science, but only sound sense. And it fits with commonsense and healthy intuitiveness.

So, applying KISS, we cannot justly fault the SICK clergy of false Christian prophet nature in the U.S. military as guilty without also including the military officers and the idiot soldiers who clearly don't make any effort to really think for themselves. That is required in order to be vigilant, for we must NEVER follow blindly. We cannot be vigilant unless with think for ourselves too, and Jesus commanded to be ever vigilant, including against making mistakes, ourselves.

Like can be read in some articles at the excellent MNN, www.MohawkNationNews.com , the above is really due to Natural Law; our ability to be able to critically think for ourselves. We can be ignorant of very much, but if we have inherent intelligence, which is the only way we could ever come to acquire and become sort of masters of certain knowledge, and this is combined with naturally caring senses, then we can be very ignorant and still be able to discern the difference between Right and Wrong.

Sound principles do NOT require rocketscience studies to be accomplished at all; the only thing that academia provides is the opportunity to learn and explore, to become exposed to subjects, and to get a piece of paper that says we've learned what books contain; and which people can pick up and read without needing to enroll in academic studies concluding with paper degrees provided to many "frankenstein" humans.

We find real, true intelligence among primitive living people who've never received a single day of academic education! The deep-jungle Pygmies illustrate real intelligence and intuitiveness; only when evil Crusading predators come along, then the primitive living peoples had no prior awareness of such humans and were fooled by the forked tongues of evil doers. They quickly learned though, and it again did not require any academic education.

Academia usually provides NONE of this as far as probably most students are concerned. Few courses would get into this, and the author of the book entitled something like, "What Harvard Can't Teach" or "Doesn't Teach", and which is commonsense, the sound kind anyway, is wholly right; because academia usually cares about not humanity, but $$$$$$ and false prestige. It's not always wholly false; some very, strongly welcome people have high academic achievements and speak out well in defence of human rights and dignity; just that they're far too few, and far apart.

Similarly, the churches have good ministers, only they coward before the imperialist elites, "fathers", of the chuches; too often do, that is. Definitely NOT those like Rev. Annett though.

INDIVIDUAL CONSCIENCE IS PRIMORDIAL, and we are to be held individually accountable; IMO.

And there goes (comes) another essay piece.

littlebrother:

Your question is ludicrous!

bamabanjo:

Instead of stupidly rehashing idiotic, tired old cliches, why not do something wild and crazy for a change, like say, research the origins of this american terroristic invasion...

" skippyagogo41 May 29th, 2008 6:33 pm

Mike Corbeil;

I have yet to see any proof of the existance of any christian. Kinda like you never meet a 'real' communist, the ideas are nice. But the practice of either philosophy isn't."

WELL then, you know FAR less than you pretend. Let me help to illustrate.

"First Nations: Why an Apology is Wrong, and Deceptive: Bringing Humanity to Bear on the Residential School Atrocity

by Rev. Kevin Annett

Global Research, May 25, 2008
www.mohawknationnews.com " (MNN)

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9066

Rev. Annett's own website is www.hiddenFromHistory.org and its very important information that he provides. I will only add that everyone who truly cares about human rights and dignity, the Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans, Africans, Haitians, South Americans, ... all of these many victims of the West's imperialism and so on, can't be really true about that caring, unless they pay a serious visit to Rev. Annett's website.

MNN is also a very important resource, providing a lot of news and history that is not wholly but still much enough about stories of different nature than what Rev. Annett's website is about, or mostly anyway. His is about the church-and-state genocide of many tens of thousands of First Nations children who were forcibly taken away from their families and put into, really qualifiable as incarcerated in state-church Residential Schools; where an estimated 50,000 to 80,000 FN children were tortured, young girls rendered unable to ever bear children, other forms of horrible mistreatment, and murdered over the past 100 years, up to 1970, or else into the 1970s. 28 mass graves have been discovered and need to be secured so that the church-state doesn't move in and remove the remains of these many children, whose parents were never told that their children were dead, and the children never given any kind of respectable burial whatsoever; a very serious offence in itself, alone, for the FN Peoples.

And the church-state or state-church, whichever, isn't finished committing their crimes. As Rev. Annett states in his above article, PM Harper will be committing another in this long series of crimes on June 11th, when he's scheduled to provide a white-washing speech. I guess it should be easy for him to do after these past few years of giving white-washing bs about partnering in the criminal war on Afghanistan; among other crimes he's committed or minimally complicit in.

Okay, so Rev. Annett is not American; there still are some real Christians in the USA. F.e., the St Patrick's Four, who were (I believe) all married and were jailed for several months after they, in their protest against the war on Iraq, entered a military recruting office and spread some of their own blood around, so of like the nuns were were arrested after they had spread some of their own blood on U.S. military missiles or nuclear missiles (whichever type they were). There's the founder or a co-founder of SOA Watch, which leads protests against the hellish School of Americas, now known as WHINSEC to try to cover up the true nature of this "school". There's Fr John Dear who does pretty well; even if I don't always agree with him absolutely 100%. I believe Dorothy Day is another, and definitely was the nun who graciously and charitably offered her moral-support service to victims of the 9-11 fallout in NYC after the WTC Towers collapsed, having worked there for some weeks to try to bring whatever help she could to the many victims, of whom she was one and died over the past few years, due to having stayed too long in this toxic-air environment.

There's a Cardinal in the U.S. and I wish I had caught his name, but overheard him on I believe CBC radio a few years ago, and his words were great and refreshing. He was condemning members of the church and who were born into RC families, scoldingly telling them that they need to realise that they or we really have NO credit in being Christian or RC, given we were born in and indoctrinated (fortunately none of which happened in my family, but which tragically happens in many other RC and yet-other Christian families). That's good of him, but provides superficial justice for the Cardinal's words, for what he purpose was was to condemn the religious bigotry, completing his words by saying that if we had been born and raised in families of other religious faiths (and that of course must include atheism, a non-adherence to any known or defined theism), then we'd be like these people are and, therefore, not Christian; except for a relatively small proportion of us, who might convert. He said that those who have any real credit in being Christians are people who convert to it out of their own will and therefore when old enough to be able to understand the choice being made.

All of these people cause me to remember the elderly Franciscan monk who graciously provided me with some mentoring for several years back in the 1980s; having helped me a little with some questions on religious faith, including parts of the original Scripture that the RCC "fathers" apparently struck out, being parts that are antithetical to church imperialism, and so on, instead being true to the nature of what Jesus likely would have said. That's a parable on discernment and the conclusion is that we only know to possess and exercise true discernment when we can perceive the presence of God in others, regardless of what their religious faiths are; while the perception is not about something physical, but simply to understand that God loves [all] humans and wants Good for all of us, only we have too many diabolically selfish, ... fiends among humans too.

Like Francis Assisi said of Muslims, they are our brothers and sisters! And I don't discriminate on any terms whatsoever, although hate hate, the evil kind, and all or everything related and/or due to it. The same therefore applies with bigotry, of every kind.

Ignorance thy has bestowed upon us. Time to get considerably informed, instead of only pretending to be; JUNIOR!

An article that is complementary enough, or more, to the above one by Rev. Annett is the following.

"I Declared My Independence.
Cynthia McKinney's Speech: Al Nakba Rally, NYC", May 16, 2008

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19958.htm

What we have done in Iraq is so damned criminal and the fact that no one is doing anything about it is beyond my imagination. It isn't unbelievable because it happened and continues on every day with no end in sight. It is madness.

Addendum to my 12:17 am post:
.....and a pregnant, unmarried Iraqi teen on every corner.

Actually ~BIGLOT~, you don't understnd why God allowed that. Christ died on the cross and took our sins upon himself and if you only believe in him and believe he is the son of God you will have everlasting life.

The Christian churches have corrupted his life and words and primarily to make money. It is not as complicated as they preach. Go by the words of Jesus and you will be Okay. Most of these preachers are Bible thumping hyprocital bastards and they will pay for it someday.

Also, I have always had serious doubts abut any religion whose ritual focus is an instrument of torture and execution by exposure.

This sounds familiar. When the invaders/imperialists came to N America, the original inhabitants of the land were forced to give up their religion and turn to Christianity. A lot of good it did them. They were killed, their land taken, and were isolated onto concentration camps (reservations). That was their reward for becoming Christians.

What next? McDonald's in every Iraqi neighborhood, then obesity to follow. Gotta Americanize .... er, civilize these savages, ya know.

It's fanatic crap like this that make me happy to be a neo-pagan.

"God so loved the world ... he nailed his only begotten to a cross"

I don't know about anybody else, but this is too friggin' bizarre for me. And people set their lives by it. Oy?

The US Air Force Academy is rife with Armageddonist Christians.

Many of those serving in the US armed forces are blindly faithful Christians who take what their pastors/ministers/reverends say without applying critical thinking, or even reading the bible for themselves to see where their religious instructors are cherry picking the scripture.

Now this.

I guess this just adds to my suspicions that the Bush junta and it's corporate/intelligence service backers are deliberately TRYING to bring about their fanatically desired 'end of days'.

There is no Truth higher than 'Warchild' by Tull.

Typical American tactic conquer then subdue, British Monarchy and Catholic church teamed up in 1553 did the same to the british people kept them as poor uneducated sheep and for centuries, same as what americans are trying this way they won't loose control of that texas tea. Ya in God we trust right, it should say In Oil we trust
Philly

Here's Earl -- they should be glad they aren't being treated like the heathens of meso-America.
You mean there's a difference between plucking the still beating heart from a sacrifice to promote the possibility of good rains to come and sending in young soldiers to die to enhance the possibility of controlling future oil?
I'll bet is has something to do with Peace With Honor.

Perhaps the Iraqi's could produce a coin to hand to their occupiers: "Woe to you, hypocrites! You honour God only with lip service, while your hearts are far from God." Or maybe: "if God so loved the world, why the hell are you killing us?" It's obscene to link Jesus with killing.

There is no God higher than Truth. The Mahatma

And they see themselves as protected under the Free Exercise of Religion, thereby admitting that they are using the Machinery of State in furtherance of their individual personal interests. To me, that is of the same character as sending the military in, on a contrivance, to fill the pocket of your personal cronies. Spending our children's lives and our treasure to gain control of future oil, spilling their blood for a sour black ooze. Future ooze, yielding $300 per barrel to the middleman, of it's $400 cost to Exxon.
Violating their oath of office and committing a sort of basic treason upon the people they represent. But who has the right to decide it.

Hey, Earl Simmins,

I dare you to go to Iraq and have those comments translated to a man who has lost his family to some trigger-happy 'good Christian boy'.

China well, of course, yes.

But what organization/agency was responsible for getting these into the troops pockets?

Are troops allowed to distribute anything like that without having permission to do so? I think not.

Who gave the order to distribute this christian bribe or is this just a few rogue soldiers?

Where else? Made in China.

They should be glad they are not being treated like the heahtens of pre Columbian Meso-America
You gotta fry a couple of eggs to make an omlette.

Your poem should be required reading at every senate session ~NAHIDA~.

They who love Christianity more than truth and fairness, will end up loving themselves and loving no one else.

Where minted might be important as well as by what means transported to Iraq.

The intent of the coin is not surprising.

I sure would like to know who minted and distributed those coins to the soldies. They didn't make them for themselves? Who's the supplier?

Need I say more:

U.S. reassigns Marine for passing out Bible verses to Muslims
By Leila Fadel and Jamal Naji | McClatchy Newspapers

BAGHDAD, Iraq — The U.S. military confirmed Thursday that a Marine in Fallujah passed out coins with a Gospel verse on them to Sunni Muslims, a military spokesman in the Iraqi city said. The man was immediately removed from the checkpoint and reassigned.......

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/38870.html

Great posts: HAZMAT, CRITICAL THINK TANK, NIETSCHZE, LILLULU & THE LORAX.

The key points are: 1. The TEACHINGS of Jesus are antithetical to the activities of war, the initiative in particular of pre-emptive war 2. When people are brainwashed into thinking that the PAIN they are causing others is necessary to some DIVINE plan or GOD'S will, they think it erases all standards of LAWFUL behavior.

The connection between these 2 opposing influences causes GREAT interior, as in mental, chaos. Those who cannot think for themselves are much more prone to follow the bidding of others, in this case of deranged leaders.

When I was a young child my parents were separated and I was left in the care of maids and housekeepers. One African American maid in particular loved to listen to religious (Southern Baptist) radio. I was a little sponge, but intelligent enough to subliminally USE what I was hearing on the playground. I was very good at getting kids to jump off swings when the swings were going high, or jump down from the top of staircases by coaching them "God wants you to do it." If I was very sincere in this request, children responded by OBEYING.

I was 5 or 6 years old and didn't understand what I was actually doing. It was some kind of unconscious experiment based on USING what I heard on the radio. Indeed ALL through history people have been able and willing to do UNSPEAKABLE things to others IF they believed, or were deceptively convinced, that SUCH ACTION constituted a HIGHER will or plan.

It is almost unthinkable that mankind could have passed through so much history, seen so much depravity, studied it and exposed at least SOME of it in social studies classes and STILL see the same lies used for the SAME insane, amoral outcomes. Maybe one of the masters will show up to correct the folly. It would seem that the hierarchy must be quite aware of the blood bath being rendered of the Middle East, birth place of the "3 great (patriarchal) religions." The FACT that religions are leading the way to a destruction of THE CREATION is itself the quintessential blasphmey. For what individual destroys that which CREATOR bestowed to them? And the FACT that that it's the RIGHT WING/fundamentalits of all THREE religions who are causing this wound to humanity that may yet have further lethal repurcusions asks ALL of us to really question WHAT IS RELIGION FOR? Is it serving the LIVING GOD? Or is it just a rationale to kill and maim and spit upon the HOLY creation that has extended the gift of life, and YES, with different values--the GREAT TURNING, another story, one beyond MARS RULES--this planet for its bountiful Eden qualities COULD be the great garden, the great gift. Human beings by cleaving to hatred, by allowing false leaders to convince them that their holiness exists in bringing pain to others only succeed in inviting the SAME to themselves. The LAW of karma is inviolate. I feel shame and pain for the madness that has enveloped too many and allowed things to come to this DARK AGE redux/Crusade. It doesn't seem real or possible that such ignorance, hatred and depravity could be given so much room to express... but the FACT that the US has invested in war and weapons and become ARMS MERCHANT to a world itself victimized by numerous unjust causes is like playing the role of mafia hit man, at the least, accessory to crimes against humanity. To then put Jesus' name on this behavior? My GOD, it is beyond the pale...

Mike Corbeil;

I have yet to see any proof of the existance of any christian. Kinda like you never meet a 'real' communist, the ideas are nice. But the practice of either philosophy isn't.

ps. I don't capitalise the name/title of christ for the same reason I don't capitalise the title of the usa, bush or other names/titles I wish to disrespect.

I also wonder if the coins have any silver content. If so shouldn't they hand out thirty pieces of them to each Iraqi?

marines pushing christianity! Jesus must be rolling in his grave. This association between murderers and a man murdered is absurd...are the marines preaching love thy neighbour?

The word crusade is apt, and like those first crusaders, they only embarrass the religion they claim to represent.

'Out of fear, he accepted it, Anad said. When he was inside the city, the college student said, he looked at one side of the coin. "Where will you spend eternity?" it asked.'

All this calls to mind a sci fi story title : 'The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World'

Wait until Sistani declares Jihad (the religious war variety), along with the rest of the world's Muslims. There are already rumors of him writing fatwas against US occupation.) The US thinks it sees resistance now?!

The US has been saying it isn't a war on Islam -- but that's going to be hard to argue against now. There are over 1 1/2 billion Muslims worldwide, to 300 million Americans (of all religious systems). This is utter idiocy.

Are You Washed in the Blood of the Lamb? :?:

Onward Christian soldier. Disgusting Crusaders.

Bush in 2001: "This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while."

I think most of the world assumed that Bush was simply revealing his ignorance of history, specifically the crusades. Most of the west, with the notable exception of America, now see religious wars as a bad thing. Bush also is betraying his idiocy here. How can you have a war on a crime?

But there have been too many incidents: urinating on holy books, destroying cultural museums and mosques, now they are proselytizing at gunpoint.

Maybe we should have taken Bush literally? It was just that at the time, I for one couldn't believe that anyone could be so stupid as to believe what the neocons were saying. I assumed that they simply wanted to profit from their access to power and with regards to Iraq, to control the oil. I guess that is all still true but we have to add the perversion of Christianity to the missions tasked to the US military.

The American military is full of Christian's that enlisted because they think that Iraq and terrorism (not in any way connected) are part of a religious war. This propaganda was spread by Bush when he was making references to his religious duties in reference to the Iraq campaign and his fight against terrorism (so much for the separation of church and state). Most of the fundamentalists that have joined the war have heard this sort of nonsense preached from the pulpit at local churches. There are still a few religious miscreants wanting to bring about the" end of times" in any middle east conflict. There have even been complaints by enlisted men concerning overt pressure from Christian groups within the military for some time now. Money from private Christian organizations have found its way to Christian organizations within the military.

Christian organizations, not satisfied with the direction the country was headed started to infiltrate politics over 20 years ago. The Republican party having the most of the Christian infiltrators (and most of the moral offenders) have been pushing this Christian propaganda for the last 5 presidential campaigns.

Think tanks that advised the administration on Iraq were Christian Neocons.

Contractors (the most profitable) are Christian led Neocons (ie Blackwater).

Of course this is a Christian campaign. Operation Iraqi Freedom was to free the Iraqi people from the bonds of Muhammad and of Islam. This was an obvious undercurrent concerning this war for oil and control of the region with Israel.

I thought all of this was fairly obvious. Haven't you ever heard the phrase "onward Christian soldiers"? Fundamentalists don't have the capacity for the complexities of literacy, they read a phrase and interpret it literally. I guess in a sense that would make them illiterate or ill-literate to some degree.

Jesus save us from your followers...

Since we're forcing them into Diebold Democracy and Corporate Capitalism, it's no surprise that we want to convert them to Xtianity too. I guess next up we'll be sending our Pop Stars over there to convert them to our 'culture'.

Enough posts in this page illustrate very clearly that a lot of U.S. assholes still at home instead of being killed or extremely injured in Iraq, which should be today's reality, pervertedly enjoy spewing their "sons of the father of lies and murder" bs upon us all.

None of these assholes can ever speak for [true] Christianity, of which there's extremely little in the West, and which the person who posted a quote of Gandhi above clearly refers to.

"hazmat May 29th, 2008 1:50 pm

"i do not like your christians. they are so unlike your christ."
—m.k. gandhi"

I FULLY AGREE; it's not the assholes who posted above who represent any true Christian qualities AT ALL, not in the remotest slightness. I should know; having had an excellent teacher and more than enough commonsense.

Best thing to do is for real, non-treasonous Americans to give these asshole "neighbour" types are solid "taste" of the bs they like to "dish out" against innocent people; innocent and extremely defenceless, which is the way these assholes lust for their victims to be. Like SATAN does!

He's their real father; Jesus having condemned them all around 2,000 years ago, for extras. But sons of the father of lies do little other than LIE their lives and souls away; and pervertedly enjoy it. It's not unlikely anyway, for Scripture couldn't be clearer about the condemnation of all who falsely profess to be disciples of Jesus.

The love to try to fool us all though; just that the lies don't pass for anything else with me.

Seaweed-
Yes those women and children in the marketplaces are aiders and abetters, definitely.

Purvis-
Nothing I said supported converting Muslims, but yes I do think there are Iraqis that would rather have Americans on their side than face the viciousness of the "resistance" led by non-Iraqis. Anbar case in point.

bamabanjo

I couldn't agree with you more. Iraqi public support for American troops may even be higher than Bush's approval rating. And I just know these heathens are dying to be converted to the One True Way. After all, look at all the good it's done them already.

bamabanjo-
If foreign soldiers were running loose over your beautiful America pushing Islam and Jihad, what would you do to the American traitors who aided and abetted those assholes who oocupied your land? Most Bush die-hards keep their sparse supply of brains where the sun never shines. One good fart and they actually believe they had blown their minds.

" skippyagogo41 May 29th, 2008 12:47 pm

The marines aren't doing much to prevent an outbreak of more fighting if they're pushing fundy coins on the people they occupy.

It's more and more evident that this 'war' isn't; it's a crusade for christ! ..."

NOPE, you're very short-sighted, don't think far, or else know little; or both.

It's not "a crusade for (the) Christ" (it's not a name, but only a title, dummy!), but anti-Christ(ian), more of these demented, lying, ... false prophet types, whom Christ [condemned] long ago. Scripture is wherein this is said and explicitly so; therefore, you evidently can't read, let alone being short-sighted.

It's for evangelicals, but they're not evangelising except falsely in the name of the Christ, while his name was known as Jesus of Nazareth, which, btw, is NOT Rome; in case you also forgot that fact.

Entirely not of his discipleship are these idiots, and may the Iraqis's anger or wratch cause the earth to shake so hard beneath the feet and vehicles of these U.S. soldiers, who are also triators of the USA and its international obligations, that the earth opens up and "swallows" all of these jackasses up whole; chomp chomp and gulp being heard from Earth for after-effect. Maybe a big burp of gas into the atmosphere, to fart the toxic gases caused by these idiots.

Bible fact check- "Thou shalt not MURDER"
There's plenty of killing...
But as long as you're going to criticize killing, why not criticize the daily bombings, maimings, tortures, etc. of Iraqis by other Iraqis?
Sounds like a bs story to me anyway- psy-ops jiu-jitsu by Iraqis wanting to undermine Iraqi public support for American troops.

Now religious rot will join military and political rot in Iraq. America's biggest export: rot.

Ann Coulter's face - I'm laughing hysterically just thinking of all the places it should and shouldn't be.

Maybe that is her face on the front of the quarter. On the back it says, "In God We Lust".

Ken Nuti
Medford, MA

My fantasy world is better than your fantasy world! You'll find out when you die! Hordes of pitchfork toting demons are waiting for you unless you convert now. I know because I read it in a book. I have secured my place in paradise even though I can't explain exactly what 'paradise' is.
And "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son" well, not really since Jesus rose up from the dead and didn't really die. But he's the one! Ask any of the great religious leaders; Jim Jones, David Khoresh, or Marshall Applewhite!
Remember that good Christians support local community organizations like the NRA and the KKK. Get a gun and get onboard now! We'll tell you how to live!

Ah, I couldn't help but think of our good friend Ann Coulter's famous quote:

"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."

Perhaps her face should be on one side of the coin.

Doesn't it say in the Christian Bible's Ten Commandments "Thou Shalt Not Kill" ?? So what are these Christian soldiers doing in Iraq killing people?

Why is it Christians always put pressure on people to join their religion? Why can't the U.S. just leave people alone to live in peace. No foreign country attacked America on 9/11. The U.S. needs to get out of Iraq but refuses to since there is oil in Iraq.

At the beginning of this "war" a friend who's one of those who worship bush, said it was the crusades, and the only way it's going to be over, is when there isn't anyone left living on the other side.

The "christians" who're involved are pushing for armageddon, and think the more people they can pull into their christianity, the better their chances will be when facing JUDGEMENT DAY.

Sounds like typical right wing behavior to me. The Crusaders, on their way to Jerusalem, upon finding Eastern Orthodox Christians in Turkey, agreed that these were not the kind of Christians they knew anything about. Just to be on the safe side they decided to "Kill them all. God will know his own."

Standard US Christian behavior too: xenophobic, ignorant, insensitive, arrogant. Falwell has left us and Robertson and Bauer are getting old. Not to worry, Parsley, Haigee and van Impe to the rescue! Stupidity is not going to die out anytime soon.

Why don't we see Stephen Mitchell, Karen Armstrong, Elaine Pagles, Sam Harris on TV. Is having a brain a disqualification?

KaneJeeves-

Yep.

Everybody in the Middle East, and most of the people on entire planet for that matter, use the term "occupation" to describe continuing US military presence in Iraq, with the notable exception of the media, the politicians, and other opinion/perception shapers inside of the United States. Only by consistently and repeatedly calling it a "war" can Bush and McCain and the other hawks babble on about "victory", "winning", or about "retreat", or "surrender". Change the terminology, and you suddenly change the whole tone and substance of the public policy debate.

Interesting, too, that most Arabs and other Muslims similarly refer to the Israelis routinely as an "occupation" force on Palestinian lands. Up until Little George took office, every single President since Truman recognized how dumb and politically counterproductive it would be to US national interests to be perceived as overtly joined at the hip with Zionism. But of course that was then, this is now, and the 21st Century GOP neo-cons assuredly know best.

As to the fundy coins being passed out by the Marines at the Fallujah checkpoints, my reaction is pretty much like my reaction was to part of the Abu Ghraib scandal.

If you really, genuinely wanted to find out who promulgated and implemented the official policy, go trace back who requisitioned and distributed all those pairs of womens' undies to the detainees inside a maximum security military prison.

If you really, genuinely want to find out who authorized or turned their head to the proselytizing, all you gotta due is follow the money back to its source.

I'll bet you my last dinar the Pentagon blames it on them bad apples that are always down at the bottom of the barrell.

Kudos once again to the McClatchy News service, a continuing beacon of hope in the increasingly bland wilderness of American print journalism.

Bill from Saginaw

Killing and converting in the name of christianity is nothing new. It's been going on for over 2000 years.

Will the Iraqi's overstrike these crusader buttons in Hebrew?

The CRUSADES continue! No surprise...soldiers for Christ and of course the holiest of substances..OIL.

Military men are brainwashed by the clergy that infiltrates their ranks as well. How can you be a clergyman or woman and be in the military service which sanctions killing of another human being? Doesn't that go against the ten commandments....'Thou shall not kill'? No Christian can justify killing. They have to want to murder in order to be drawn to the service.

Our country is NUTS!

Believe it or not, United States Army Instructions for American Servicemen in Iraq during World War II actually stresses treating Iraqis with respect and due consideration-- and in no uncertain terms, explicitly cautions servicemen against spontaneously pursuing religious matters.

Boy, the military sure was dumb and chickenshit back then, eh?

"i do not like your christians. they are so unlike your christ."
---m.k. gandhi

This is really stupid and if it is investigated and proves true, the responsible parties should be arrested, removed to the US and do some time at the minimum.

Do you notice whenever Iraqis refer to the US it's "occupiers". Funny how that never seems to make it into the MSM.

And of course this once again has nothing to do with religion....right.

This is not news. The US military has become a crusading force under the Bush regime, just like the crusaders of the dark ages.

This article failed to mention that most Christians living in Saddam's secular Iraq left Iraq after the US occupation started.

woundedduck;
Check out the stories about the treasures of Iraq being smuggled out of the country by US forces, the plunder of the Iraqi National Museam, the burning of their library - books which survived the Mongol invasion in the middle ages were burnt after the invasion... Your army has already being raping and pillaging...

Using the Koran for target practice, evangelical coins, what's next? The only offenses left for U.S. forces to make are, literally, raping and pillaging. Oh wait, didn't we make Iraqis rape each other at Abu Ghraib? Well, we have pillaging left, and I'm sure some half-witted company commander is figuring out how to make that work, too.

2 FUN E
BUT WHERE IS THE JOURNALISM ON THE MODERN HISTORY OF FALLUJA

the 2003 demonstration by a school that violently put down by THE OCCUPATION

which is the catalyst for the BLACKWATER DEBACLE

The marines aren't doing much to prevent an outbreak of more fighting if they're pushing fundy coins on the people they occupy.

It's more and more evident that this 'war' isn't; it's a crusade for christ! How does bush react to the fallen, the faithful soldier gets delivered to his creator; the enemy and the atheist in damned to hell presumably.

Giving out that sort of coin is a bit more stupid than most fundy's think. In Islam the guy the christians call god is a prophet, he's human, not a god. The muslims argue that the christian is a heritic because they worship a human being as if he were god. This sort of shit reminds people in the middle east of the things that King Richard's army did at Acre and Jerusalem.