I would like to start a four way religous debate with Myself, Kix, melchizedek22, and Zou.

The rules

1. Any Christian topic (I narrowed it down because of my limited knowledge of other religons.)
2. No direct insults or personal attacks.
3. Keep on topic
4. ignore all other posters
5. If you quote a Bible passage give it's address. ie: "Jesus Wept" John 11:35 This is a site that can help you http://www.biblegateway.com/
6. If you post an article or something that is not yours but helps your debate either post a link or give the book/article name and author if at all possible.

Since I started this thread I will let some one else pick the first topic.

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People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp92vkXcC0w

AYFR - Your post is dated 9/11 and I'm just now finding it a week later. I wish you'd sent out invitations or something. It might not have taken so long to get here.

Anyway, not sure what there is to debate. I don't think we disagree on too awful much. At least not any of the important stuff. Perhaps if you get the others over here, they'll be able to come up with a good topic.

I'll be watching for an update.

Was the Pope justified in making the statements against Mohammed that were recently made?

The Pope should have known better that to use those quotes. He is a smart person and making a simple mistake like that just sounds fishy.

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People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp92vkXcC0w

Fishy? In what way? Do you think he was trying to incite the peace loving muslims?????

For the record, I am not Catholic and do not agree with much of what the Catholics believe. Neither do I follow the Pope and will admit that this is one of the few times I have even paid attention to what he had to say.

With that said here is where I stand on the issue;

I firmly believe that in telling the Pope or anyone else that they need to never say anything that might offend a Muslim, or Mohammad, or Islam is setting a precedence that the world will pay a heavy price for. It is to demand that all people throughout the world submit to sharia law or face the sort of violent reaction that we have witnessed with the cartoon fiasco and now this matter with the Pope.

Such a demand is totally unacceptable and I would face death before I would ever agree to it.

God gave mankind free will to choose what he believes. Jesus gave man instructions to go out into the world, share God's word and teach the truth. God did NOT give anyone the right to take that free will away or abolish Jesus' instructions, and that's exactly what these people are attempting to do when they respond to violence every time they are "offended" by something someone says or puts on paper. What this is leading up to is them telling the world that they are also offended by Christians who evangelize and so it too must stop all over the world just as they have put an end to it in countries where sharia law governs.

I guarantee you will not stop witnessing to the lost just because they don't like it. Likewise, I will not stop telling the truth about Islam; and I don't care how many fits they throw or what they burn down.

If they cannot control their tempers then it is they who should be answering to the world, not someone who simply speaks the truth. If they burn enough, they may well build their own lake of fire in the Middle East.

I honestly can not answer you nathan. It just seem taht a man as smart as the Pope would know better.

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People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp92vkXcC0w

Who said the pope was smart???...This is one of the stupidities of the human race. We bow down and prostrate ourselfs, to people are no better than you. So why the hell do we do it? We only have one whom we should bow down to and that my friends is YHWH...Jesus said no man is greater than his brother.

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To be Is to be. The truth is always worth fighting for

No one said anything about better. But I would bet anything that the Pope would destroy anyone here in a theological debate. He may not be 'smart' when it comes to discussing physics with Stephen Hawking, but he is an expert in theological matters particularly dealing with Christianity. It is his job. Anybody can speak on matters of Christianity, but not just anyone has his credentials. He has every right and the duty to speak about Christianity and if 'Christians' out there actually had the ability to understand his words you would actually realize what he was saying. He was saying that violence is contrary to religion and God and that we (Chistianity included with Islam) have went away from reason in this issue.

Instead of debating if he had the right to say it, which he obviously does as the leader of the largest Christian denomination in the world, why doesn't someone actually debate his words.

I did not say that he did not have the right to say them. I said that he should have known better unless he planned on saying them for a reason.

__________________
People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp92vkXcC0w