I get a lip twitch when Christians or atheists downplay the Bible when comparing it to the Koran. The mistake is that people forget BOTH are weapons. The difference is that the view TODAY of the bible would be like a 22 vs the view of far to many in Islam as the Koran being an RPG.

At one time the Bible was viewed as absolute law by most Christian. It was as much of a Nuclear "all or nothing" book of law back then as Muslims view the Koran today. It is a mistake to say the bible is different. It is viewed differently today, but it's history is still rooted in the fact that the main character is still the absolute ruler, no different than the absolute ruler in Allah.

I most certainly take issue with anyone trying to say the books are different, when the motifs of the head characters of each are the same concept of dictators. Water it down all you want, the story plot is the same. If you believe, daddy will reward you. If you don't believe daddy will punish you.

There is absolutely NO democratic approach in the Bible, even the cop out Christians use, "Leave to Ceazar(sp)" doesn't change the fact that God has the final say as to who gets into his club and who gets burned forever, so the "wall" to god is merely window dressing which  god doesn't have to respect. It is merely lip service.

There is no such thing as a utopia. There isnt going to be a godless utopia or a god fearing utopia. There can be debate and a leaning towards reason. But our future as a species depends on common ground.

I'd like to see the natural, not forced via government, but the natural death of belief in superstitious crap, through self introspection and critical thinking.

But the reality is that 6 billion people will not always agree and in the end all we can do is marginalize barbarity by allowing blasphemy and dissent with the agreement of leaving it at words. We all like to bitch. We do, and they do. Barbarity wont end by demanding silence or submission. Barbarity ends when we accept that we don't like being physically harmed. They don't and we don't.

I think by doing such, we all can see ourselves as individuals.

In keeping with the original post, I don't know if it's so much fighting Islam as it is introducing the appeal of secularism as a much more reasonable alternative. Countries like Iran consist of largely secular populations, ruled by an Islamic elite. Not only that, but the insanity of Iraq (one couldn't call any of that a "religious" problem so much as a total chaos problem) is such that people are caught just trying to find a way to experience an enjoyable life.

Iran's film industry has rules just like we did in the 50s, when people were only allowed to kiss on screen for something like four seconds. So how did that get better, and how could oppressive countries learn the lesson of introducing civil rights and freedoms?

For one thing, the West would have to stop fucking the middle east over constantly. Fat chance of that happening while we all still use oil.

The monster is credulity in all it's forms. It is the same credulity that has created the fascism of North Korea and Iran. It is the monster that allows new superstitions to be be born like Sceintology. It is the monster that leads people to kill abortion doctors and blow up public transit. It is the monster that leads people to believe that the Transporter from Star Trec is a possibility. It is the monster that leads people to believe that Evis is alive and that their was a third man on the grassy knoll. The only cure for this monster is healthy and constant skepticism and questioning and demand for evidence.

I'm curious what your opinion is about what we should do militarily to defeat the Taliban, Al Qaeda and other militant Islamic groups. The top general in Afghanistan is saying we need 40,000 more troops to put down the Taliban and is threatening to quit if Obama doesn't give him this request.

Do we send whatever troops is necessary to crush them wherever they exist? Do we just try to contain the Taliban, keep them out of the big cities? Do we get completely out of the middle east and focus on homeland security?

I agree with the no military approuch. I think that all the money (or even half of it) going to kill people in the Iraq and Afganastan should go to public education teaching with a focus (aside from reading, writing, etc...) on tolerance and logic. Also, public libraries with free internet access would do wonders for people in poorer areas. For the price of a computer you get literally millions of online information (ok maybe not as much since many won't be able to read English but its still a lot). I think we can take the case of American (again) being far behind the rest of the industrialized world in education and have the least amount of social tolerance as evidence that liberal education leads to less violent and more understanding societies. I know this is basically propaganda, or perhaps a lighter word is more sufficient. That doesn't mean it isn't a good idea.

I also watched a TED talk (or it might have been somewhere else) about fundamentalist Islam. The speaker argued that it was not in the mosques where suicide bombers were born, but rather, when people are in their 20's the most important people to them are their friends. When one of the decides to become a suicide bomber they all support him and sometimes the rest follow. He argued that setting up soccer clubs would do more to stop terrorism than any war. If this is true then I think a system of public libraries/community centers where the staff draws people in for the sports and then encourages them to use the other facilities.

Moving a photon hardly constitutes being able to copy anything living or dead. You still have huge gap. I think you are conflating tangential lagit discoveries and projecting into the future.

I don't know what websites you are getting your info from, but it sounds more si fi conspiracy  than reality.

"cargo", lets take that an run with it. How exactly would this "real" transporter scan a table(not living)(cargo) and make copies of the millions of atoms and asemble them in the exact molecular structure down to the shape of the bolt and nails and wood grain and stain?

Don't get me wrong. I am still to this day in awe of technology in that grew up on land phones and am now on Skpe talking to Bob in Australia as if I was calling my neighbor.

You have brought this up before and I still fail to see how moving or copying anything living or dead in that manor is possible.

I think you've been watching "The Fly" too much.

Vaset, don't get me wrong. I am glad you don't buy the old myth crap. But I hold you to the same standard I do anyone else.

Technically ST transporters disassemble matter and shoot that same matter to a receiver in a 'compressed' stream.  So, it is 'your' matter that is reconstituted.

I can pull out my technical manuals if you want

Neither am I. After all, modern democracy developed by accident. The idea was never to give a middle class control over a nation. The democracy of the United States was based on the democracy of the Greeks: the "demos" was the male, fully enfranchised citizenry (as opposed to slaves, foreigners and women), a minority elite. Likewise, the American colonies were run by wealthy merchants who formed an elite, owned slaves, and wanted the status reserved for nobility. The Greeks provided them with the perfect pattern.

But then there was a middle class, and that elitist dream fell to a middle-class power base. In countries like Iran, the best possible thing that could happen is a power base in the hands of a middle-class majority. But the helplessness that must grip a nation when they know that their government can be overturned any time another country feels like it must be awful.