Wow, you really are a religious nutjob. You support Christian terrorism and you are no better than a Islamic fundamentalist who supports their jihadists.

Also, it's funny that you don't support policies that help the less fortunate. That's pretty much what Jesus teaches in the Bible. So not only are you a terrorist supporter, you are also a bad Christian.

The world will be a better place when you are gone.

If I believed it would have that effect, I could support that.
Unfortunately, I don't believe Americans would ever get off our swollen asses, turn off our TVs, and actually DO SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE, even while our country disintegrates around us.
And even if we could manage it, we are so fractured as a society, the end result at best would be somewhere between 4 and 50 new countries, most of them with despotic leaders and draconian theocracies, and all born from a devastating civil war. There no way in hell we could manage to have a revolution that ends with a single, unified country.

In reality, what's more likely to happen if he's elected is a few large protests that get broken up violently with many protesters 'disappearing', new harsh anti-protesting laws, and President for Life Trump will become the richest man in the world while we become a third world country, bringing the world economy into the toilet with us, which is what the Economist warned against when they just listed him in the top 15 most pressing dangers to the world, ranking a Trump presidency just as dangerous to the planet as fundamentalist terrorism.

1. Weed in the Park (Illegal act in public place) Fine, they deserve to be called out on it, but it's also something that the public at large doesn't care enough about to affect them long term.

2. Winter Solstice Ritual. Fine, they could be fired from one company, but it's pretty rare to have strict religious fundamentalists as employers. They'll find a job elsewhere and be able to sue the other company.

3. Prostitute. It's illegal, if they're caught, I'm assuming they met in public. It's something that society tends to forgive.

As far as your version of VoodooV being a crazy stalker, that's probably something that could be dealt with using anti-harassment laws.

Even the racist moron in this video will end up with another job eventually, we have some social safety nets that will help him survive until then. The people who choose to crusade about these things also tend to have a short attention span, there's always something new to be outraged about. So, the likelihood of an ongoing campaign to keep this guy unemployed is pretty low.

Also, there is nothing forcing these companies to fire them. They can keep them employed and accept the bad PR and any accompanying loss of business. It's their choice.

@HugeJerk come on man,now you're just engaging in semantics,while ignoring voodoos point.

ok,lets play the semantics game and change the scenario,and see how comfortable you are with those scenarios:

@VoodooV has a video of your family member smoking weed...in a park.

@VoodooV has a video of your family member participating in a winter solstice ritual and his companies owner is a strict,religious fundamentalist.

(and before you throw out that firing over religious reasons is illegal,understand that the companies boss is not an idiot.your family member will be fired for other reasons,but rest assured..he is GONE).

@VoodooV has a video of your family member meeting with a lady of the evening.

would you like me to continue?
because in every one of these scenarios NOBODY was harmed,yet each one of those activities could bring great harm to your family member.

smoking weed harms no one,but it is illegal still in many states and many companies have a strict "drug-free' policy.(which i think is retarded)

engaging in a religious ritual,conforming to your family members belief system,harms no one,but is in direct conflict with the religious practices of the person who signs his checks.this would likely result in termination..with predjudice..but wait,thats against the law!! damn..foiled again!
aaaaah,but what is this?
the boss could just use another reason for termination.
the argument has been made that the owner of the company can do what he pleases..it is his company after all and he views paganism as heretical and against the wishes and dictates of GOD.
so your family member can just kiss his job goodbye.

or how about prostitution?
nobody was harmed.
sex between consensual adults for the exchange of currency.
but..its illegal...so bye bye to job.

and if @VoodooV was a particularly venal and nasty human being ,who REALLY wanted to impose his will upon your family member.he could just send those tapes to every new job your family member may have the luck to get.send them to creditors.apartment managers.etc etc.

@VoodooV could literally destroy your family members life,just by sending a video with an implied threat.

"if you do not take action about this person,i will expose YOU"

most people do not have the temerity to stand up to that form of bullying.they have businesses to run,bills to pay and families to protect.

and it is also why this tactic is so effective,because it WORKS.browbeating with the intent to force submission to a set of moral ideals held by a select,self righteous few.

it is like the dark ages!! but with broadband and iphones!!

so you better behave.
better obey all laws,real and social.
or the focus could become YOU,and not some turdnugget that is easy to hate.

Shouldn't there be a circle outside the fundamentalist circle? I'd think the way she's talking she's outside that circle too. The sheer numbers in all the discussed circles is certainly something to be weary of, and I agree the issue needs to be addressed more by those outside the fundamentalist circle.

The same circles can be applied to Christians as well. The inner circle includes people like that guy who killed those at the Planned Parenthood. The next Islamist circle would be mostly the Tea Party type Christians, those that want to force one type of Christian view on others via political action. The Fundamentalist include fundamentalist Christians, those that think gay marriage is a sin and should be outlawed. Now beyond that inner circle, most of Christianity has outgrown it's radical violent past... though their support of the death penalty and stand your ground and murder somebody for stealing your TV sort of suggests they haven't... They criticize Muslim support for chopping off hands of thieves as barbaric, but believe in stand your ground for theft... And those in the fundamentalist circle and further to the center are the ones who do all the speaking for Christianity. There was no outpouring from Christians after the Planned Parenthood terrorist attack about how he doesn't represent Christianity. There is no mass outpouring from the majority of Christians who have no issue with gay marriage to stand up for those who sin differently than them, instead letting the fundamentalist rule the show and present their views as the dominant Christian view, which appears to be that it is worth judging homosexuality as a far worse sin than the ones that they committing... The same arguments she's making for the moderate Muslims to be standing up against fundamentalist to Jihadist Muslims should be applied to Christians as well... no, they radicalized Christians generally aren't as big a threat in terms of violence, but the growing public image of Christians as being bigoted, self-righteous, feeling repressed demigods is a real problem for Christianity as well, and is in large part to blame for its shrinking numbers.

Violence and war against Islam though helps grow the radical elements. As much as Christians love to play the "help help we're being opposed" card, Muslims are increasingly more able to play that card with legit purpose. Trump's call to stop them all from even visiting the US, to register all US Muslims into a database and track them is an open invitation to radicalize more, to move more of them from moderate to fundamentalist and to move fundamentalist towards jihadist... and if it was just one radical idiot like Trump that would be one thing, but he has a huge swath of support, which makes it again easier to radicalize more as they can point out that their faith is under a real and legit attack... which proves their faith is the one true faith as the enemy is working so hard to attack it... this is an argument made by Christians all the time with the we are being oppressed cries, that prove that Christianity is the one true faith, because the devil is working so hard to push Christianity down, yet they don't recognize their attempts to push Islam down proves the exact same point to the Muslims...

I think they all show that religion does far more harm than good.

Eh, your own links points to that article being linked to his statements. Anyway the general point is there are nuts in every country. Some of them happen to be religious fundamentalist nuts. Some of those are going to be Islamist.

I think the point you should be focusing on is that Trump routinely throws out assertions that turn out to be false or half truths. Not that in fact checking those assertions, some news organisations missed that while his statement was generally wrong, if you rephrased it, it was kinda right.

Meh. False balance. For a long time, people have been trying to make this case and point out how clever they are for seeing it... I never see it. Hitch, Harris and Dawkins can be wrong and headstrong dicks about it, certainly... but they're not fundamentalists.

Could you explain why you thought my previous post proposed a false dichotomy? It seems sound to me, even after looking at it a second time.

I don't disagree with your analyses of the underlying causes for the current version of the Palestinian conflict. History has shat on them and they're still stuck in it. Although I will nitpick that the tactic of suicide bombing is probably employed on account of specific Islamic beliefs, as relatively few such attacks are carried out by non-Muslims.

The IRA comparison is an interesting one with some meat on it, and I may meander a bit here as I explore my thoughts on it. The Northern Irish conflict, at its core, was not about religion, it was about sovereignty and independence. I don't doubt that both sides attempted to use the bible as a weapon. The very fact that the attempt was unable to create a sect that spread like wildfire across Christendom is a form of evidence that is it less applicable as a weapon. Certainly not proof, but I would count it a point in my favour, not yours.

Note that I'm not saying that there's nothing awful in the Bible, only that it is acknowledged that we don't take most of those parts of it seriously. Any attempt to do so would generate a chorus of condemnation throughout Christian majority countries the world over. Just look at how the we view the Westboro Baptists; they're a farce. Until the Muslim world is willing and able to do the same thing to it's fundamentals and fundamentalists it is not only fair to criticize it, it is important to do so. And when I say criticize 'it' I mean those beliefs that lead to bad shit.

If every terrorist act is predicated on worldly concerns, how do you rationalize the perpetrators of the Charlie hebdo massacre? How do you rationalize the absurd reactions to the shitty anti-Muslim movie that was made? How about the Danish cartoonist incident? The list goes on and on. These are acts that didn't significantly affect the 'injured' parties in any but a religious way. Their responses are explicitly and overtly for religious reasons, while being completely in line with a straightforward and insufficiently fringe interpretation of their religion.

I'm on the fence of the issue myself. I can see their point, but I can also see the point of what many others in the Liberal movement, including many New Atheist, point out that they are responding to here.
For example we have
*related=http://videosift.com/video/Its-Not-the-Radical-Shaykh-its-Islam which seems to indicate that Dawkins, Harris and the like are correct, but then again, that may equally apply at many if not most Christians, not just modern fundamentalist which seems to have been taken over by Christian Reconstructionism, wither they admit to it or not.

Okay, so it's not a spontaneous and challenging interview but rather a soapbox for his philosophical meanderings.

And that makes him wrong how..?

A lot of the stuff he says is bang on the money, particular as it regards America's actions and stances. Iran is a perfect example. It wouldn't be climbing back from being a fundamentalist state if the US hadn't deposed the democratically elected leader and installed the Shah all those years ago. Which eventually precipitated Ayatollah Khomeni's rise to power as a fundamentalist leader by overthrowing the Shah... Now Israel, and ergo the US, rail against Iran being able to have nuclear power because they are a rogue state, but they are only a rogue state because of western interventionism.

You might not think much of the guy (I don't personally), but you can assess the truth of his words for yourself can't you? He's saying things that plenty of people think or understand, but few care to actually speak out about it. Yup, it's borderline propaganda, so approach it with a critical eye, but a lot of what he talks about is bang on.

When I got to the party
They gave me a 40
And I must have been thirsty
'Cuz I drank it so quickly

When I got to the bedroom
There was somebody waiting
And it isn't my fault
That the barbarian raped me

When I went to get tested
I brought along my best friend
Melissa Mahoney
who had once been molested
And she knew how to get there
She knew all the nurses
They were all really friendly
But the test came up positive

(Chorus)
Uh-oh
I've seen better days
But I don't care
Oh I just sent a letter in the mail

When I got my abortion
I brought along my boyfriend
We got there an hour
Before the appointment
And outside the building
Were all these annoying fundamentalist Christians
We tried to ignore them

(Chorus)
Uh-oh
I've had better days
But I don't care
Oasis got my letter in the mail

(Up-Beat Break)

When vacation was over
The word was all over
That I was a crack whore
Melissa had told them
And do now we're not talking
Except we have tickets to see 'Blue in October'
And I think we're still going

(Chorus)
Uh-Oh
I've seen better days
But I don't care
Oh I just got a letter in the mail
Oasis and a photograph
It's autographed and everything
Melissa's gonna wet herself I swear

Someone could have said Beetlejuice three times and it would have had about as much meaning.
Bill's right though, it's nonsense but the politicians and the pundits know that the best way to capture viewers and votes is to convince them that their way of life is under attack. That or it's radical fundamentalist Christians, in which case, yeah you're under attack.

My point was that all religions, when read honestly and fully, tell their followers to kill infidels/non-believers/improper worshipers. The bible is quite clear about it. I'm less certain about the Tora, but since it's allegedly the basis for the old testament, it certainly seems so.
That's where my fundamentalist argument comes in, there are more fundamentalists in power, or feeling powerful, in the Muslim culture today than other religions, but that's just today. Given enough time and influence, any other religion could or has been as bad or worse when taken completely literally, like fundamentalists do.

@newtboy @ChaosEngine --

I think there are a LOT of political/geographical influences that exacerbate underlying problems, like ChaosEngine is saying. But, a lot of the underlying problems can be traced to the religions themselves too. And while extremists / fundamentalists in Christianity and Islam are both very very bad, I don't necessarily think that both religions are "indistinguishable" in terms of generating those extremists.

Bill thinks that Islam is worse about generating those people than Christianity and other religions. That's where the "motherlode of bad ideas" thing comes from. I tend to think he's at least partially right -- but social/political/economic/geographic issues are certainly a very big influence that he doesn't usually touch on. And in the video Fareed makes a very good point about many Muslim countries NOT having high rates of extremist incidents that tends to support the importance of those other factors that aren't directly tied to religion.

Bill might come across as anti-Islam more frequently (especially of late), but I think he's really quite equal opportunity anti-religion in general. But one of the ways that he perceives Islam being worse than Christianity is that if you make fun of the pope, or suggest that he's a pedophile or something, you're a lot less likely to end up dead than if you say something critical about Mohammed.

As shitty as Christianity is / may be, in the west we've progressed far enough that at least we can criticize its faults without (too much) fear of being killed for pointing them out. And THAT has been very helpful in the rapid diminishing of Christianity in Europe and the UK, even though we haven't caught up in the US yet. I think that is where Bill makes a fair point, and something that potentially counters Fareed's seemingly more rational / steady Eddie take on the issue.

I have to agree with Bill that Islam DOES instruct it's followers to spread the religion with the sword....but I must also say he has recently ignored that ALL religions do the same. The difference with Islam these days is the fundamentalists have taken control in many Islamic countries...but a fundamentalist Christian just introduced a bill in America to allow people to shoot homosexuals based on the bible, so lets not pretend hate and murder is just an Islamic thing.
Xenophobia is a religious thing, not just an Islamic thing. I wish Bill would remember that, it might have kept the PC police from starting their latest campaign against him.