Achilleez

cubbingcarol, Common, the world isn't run on parental philosophy. Terrorism is a very real and very dangerous threat. Terrorist operations occur all over the world and they don't worry over what Joe-Westerner thinks about them being in a country that isn't theirs. So in order to effectively counteract it, one must be equally ruthless and brutal and smart and pre-emptive and not be controlled by the fact that fuzzy-hearted people don't think they should be invading the privacy of others. America cannot confine its anti-terrorist efforts to within its own borders when most terrorist operations occur outside of it. But its too big to handle alone by a long shot. There simply isn't enough military power in any one country to make an effective defence against it.

"They must face these ugly truths: 1) the terrorist threat is real, 2) it is a long-term problem, and 3) Europe is as much a target as America. " That is exactly correct and exactly the point. America needs to work with Europe and Asia against terrorism, not separately from. "The power of the U.S. military will not dissolve that threat." Yet the power of the U.S. military has already successfully dissolved, much of the power and influence of terrorist operatives in Afghanistan. I beleive the entire point of Bush's campaign against terrorism IS to use the U.S. military in exactly that fashion. It's not opportunistic to ally yourself against a common enemy and have military influence in as wide an area as possible, it's merely good strategy. "Bush is simply being smart about how we distribute our military resources." What percentage of the U.S. military occupies the Middle East do you think?

Rooster7, I would have thought that you of all people might be able to see past the political mud to the real issue, that is, the reduction of the U.S.'s capability to counteract terrorist operations. What does it matter whether it was Republicans, Democrats, or the Communist Party of America who does it? You can forget all the people who still like to say the U.S. is imperialistic and trying to force assimillation because it's all political bull****. OGE, I have seen plenty of TV coverage about Punta Gorda not to mention it covering the front page of the Kitchener-Waterloo Record for several days. I don't know how much aid was sent by Parliament itself, but I do know several people who volunteered to attend a MCC (Mennonite Church Canada)service trip down there and I contributed personally to a releif fund being held by my church. ($50) Canadian peacekeeping troops have been present in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Yugoslovia, Germany, France, Israel, North Korea and many more still have been the recipient of our foriegn aid. But what does that have to do with anything? You all seem to want to turn this into another foreign political insult to America when I am stating a strategic falacy in your foreign relations plan. How will the war of terror benefit from it?

OldGreyEagle, It isn't a popularity contest. If you are aiming to effectively counteract terrorism then a global network of allies and military presence is necessary. Should the unpopularity of the war in Iraq force a decision on a matter like this?

By Ronald D. Asmus Harry Truman must be turning over in his grave. The planned withdrawal of U.S. troops from Europe and Asia that U.S. President George W. Bush announced last week, if allowed to stand, could lead to the demise of the United States' key allieances across the globe, including the one that Truman considered his greatest foreign accomplishment: NATO. Bush proposes something that generations of U.S. diplomats and soldiers fought to prevent and that its adversaries sought and unsuccessfully to achieve: radical reduction of U.S. political and military influence on the European and Asian continents. The Bush message, delivered at a campaign rally, also smells of politial opportunism. Under pressure but unable to withdraw troops from Iraq, the president has instead reached for what his advisers hope is the next best thing politically - a pledge to bring the boys home from Europe and Asia. Whether this is good or bad politics remains to be seen. But there is little doubt that it is bad strategy and bad diplomacy, for which the United States is likely to pay a heavy price. The reasons are fairly simple. In Europe after the Cold War, the United States decided to significantly reduce its former troop levels but to leave sufficient military forces on the ground to accomplish three objectives: help ensure that peace and stability on the continent would endure; have the capacity to support NATO and European Union expansion and project the communities of the democracies eastward; and provide the political and military glue to enable U.S. allies to reorient themselves militarily and prepare, together with the United States, to address new conflicts beyond the continents borders. Each of these remains important. Each will be undercut by the president's plan. With transatlantic relations badly frayed, Russia turning away from democracy and the United States facing the challenge of projecting stability from the Balkans to the Black Sea, Washington should be putting forward a plan to repair the transatlantic alliance, not ruin it. In Asia, the stakes are just as high and the challenges perhaps greater. There the United States facecs the long-term challenge of managing the rise of China as a great power. North Korea's eventual collapse and the unification of Korea will raise the question of that country's future geopolitical orientation. Such seismic events will undoubtedly have a considerable impact on the evolution of Japan's role and orientation as well. U.S. diplomats will have their hands full over the next decade or two trying to win the war on terrorism and help manage the multiple strategic transitions - and will need every ounce of U.S. political and military leverage and muscle if they are to get it right. In an act of diplomatic hara-kiri, the president proposes to destroy one of the key pillars of U.S. influence just when this kind of leverage is likely to be needed the most. The president's plan is, unfortunately, further evidence of the strategic myopia that has afflices this administration and is undercutting the United States' standing in the world. At a time when the U.S. should be mobilizing and reinvigorating its alliances in Europe and Asia, it is dismantling them. Instead of creating multilateral structures to mobilize the world in a common struggle agains terrorism and new anti-Western ideologies and movements, the U.S. opts for a unilateral course that leaves it with fewer friends. As opposed to balancing the political and military requirements of a new era and coming up with a new troop deployment plan that meets both needs, the administration allows the Pentagon to ride roughshod over broader U.S. strategy and diplomacy and destroy the work of generations of diplomats and soldiers. -Washington Post(This message has been edited by Achilleez)

Jason, Please cry me a lake and then drown in it

Sitting in the seat of God entails only that you talk alot like you know what your talking about. Anything past that becomes irrelevant.

How someone can respect a religion while simultaneously thinking that every single person in it is fundamentally wrong and is going to hell is something I may never understand.

"Maybe the atheist can do better than much of the hypocritical behavior of many true believers, but this is irrelevant. BSA requires duty to God and reverence which still excludes the atheist." That is the exact issue Hunt was questioning when the thread began.

I never attempted to make an argument against God's existence. The knowledge of right and wrong is something I think that EVERY human possesses. And that beleif is not upheld by religious or scientific criteria, I just believe it. There are however other variables than can change what people see as right. Your argument also runs in circles around itself. You claim that athiests have nothing to guide them, no sense of morals or ethics and that they act entirely out of self-interest. Yet you also claim that human decency and common sense are traits instilled by God onto ALL humans. "Without God, what moral imperative demands that I even care about a collective community? Why shouldnt I focus all of my attention on myself and myself alone? If there is no God demanding that my heart comfort to His and tend to the needs of others, why would I?" Helping others is right. Selfishness is wrong. A world where people help eachother makes a better place for everyone. Do you need further proof? "They have no foundation for anything else." They have the belief in humanity and what is right and wrong and what will help everyone's life to be better. "Can an atheist show love for another? I believe he can. But without God, I think that love has little hope of being sustained and/or without the overcast of ones self-interest." My love for my wife, my son, my brothers and parents in unshakable. To say that it has little hope of being sustained is ignorant not to mention quite rude. Rooster, you continually make large and innaccurate assumptions about what all athiests are and do based either on your experiences with a small number of them (not good) or simply what you have heard about them (even worse).

"Possibly, but lets clarify something. An atheist has a belief about God. He is not someone who is undecided on faith as a whole. An atheist denies the existence of God. And in my experience, they usually do so just as confidently as I proclaim His existence." Not all athiests would fit into that boat. True, some are as concrete in their beleif that no supernatural power exists similarily to the way you are sure one does. However, me and my ilk form what I have grown to know as the much larger pool of what are often labelled athiests. I guess you could call me "Man who doesn't have faith in specific religious dogmas and is unsure about 'Gods' existence at all and thus refuses to commit himself to any one religion due to skepticism", but athiest just makes it shorter. To call me an agnostic is untrue as well because I have found most agnostics to be the ones who put no thought into it at all and just get blown around by the winds of society and social pressure. Perhaps you can come up with a more fitting term. "If his morals are not rooted in a creed and/or an example given by God what stable (unchanging/unyielding) force sustains the moral values of an atheist?" First off I could throw that exact same argument back at you due to incredibly differing values of Christianity over the centuries, but I think NJ says it pretty well. In answer to your question, I would say that common sense, human decency and the knowledge of right and wrong that every human possesses would be the force of which you speak. Experience has taught me that it is the creeds of specific doctrines themselves and the conclusions people often draw from them that throw people off their own moral guages. (ie, God wants Americans to die, God wants us to hate blacks / homosexuals / athiests) My conclusion has been that if there is a God and he does want us doing specific things, than he hasn't done a very good job of making those things clear to humanity, due to the observable evidence of varying interpretations on his word.

"If a boy believes in a false god, then we can safely conclude these things: 1) This boy believes in a power and authority greater then humanity. 2) While his faith is not placed in the true God, he understands that our existence goes beyond the physical world. 3) His morals beliefs do not rely on the stability of an individual or an institution. 4) As long as hes examining the world spiritual and physical, there is hope that he will open his heart to the true God." Ok, lets take a look at number 4) here. I would wager quite a bit (from my own experiences) that a boy who has committed himself fully to a religion or belief in a specific God is much LESS likely to open his heart to a new one than a boy who is yet undecided on faith as a whole. Secondly, I would also safely conclude that all four of your conclusions could also be applied to many many athiests.

ed, "So you think you can live a life of sin & still go to heaven?" I never said anything remotely close to that. What I said was that I don't believe it to be fact those who don't repent 'sins' will spend the rest of eternity in hell. I can't tell you what I think happens to people after death because I have absolutely no idea, and neither I think do you. Infact my original quarrel was with the comment about athiests going to hell simply because they were athiests, as if that implied immorality and wickedness.

FOG, That's correct. I as an individual don't want to due to a lack of the required traits already listed. evmori, No it isn't!

Bob White, It is my understanding that there is still a great deal of debating and defending of beliefs within Scouting (within this forum anyway)regardless of a common value like recognition of God. However, how often do issues like this actually affect real Scouting? When asked, my son told me that religion and beleifs almost never came up. Do Scouts have real concern with the beliefs of other Scouts? Isn't respecting others beliefs a requirement of Scouts as well? You apparently think that no, a non-believer who benefits from Scouting is NOT worth it. In my opinion, positive values are well placed wherever placed they may be. FOG, If I had the time, ambition, funds, knowledge and management skills to do so, maybe I would. However no such organization exists, at least none equal to Scouting. evmori, No, it's not fact. Boy this could get tedious....