Samuel Weiss's page

I find religion abhorrent. I think it is a weakness of the imagination, and a shackle for the mind. Part of the reason for my take on religion is the intolerance and bigotry that seems to accompany it. The previous poster claimed that he has a gay mentor, who is precious to him, but that he cannot condone the man's sexuality? WTF? I will not post on this thread again. Just know that there are people out there who find your twisted Judeo-Christian take on human potential as perverse and twisted as you seem to hold gays to be. I have more gay friends than Christian friends. They are just far more pleasant to be around.

As opposed to the intolerance and bigotry that seem to accompany secular philosophy? Oh yes, that is so much better. You object to someone who cannot condone someone else's sexuality, but you seem to have worse issues condoning your "Christian" friends' faith. You should take a good long stare into the abyss because it most definitely has looked back into you and smirked a hello at its reflection.

Just because you should tolerate something does not mean you have to approve it, support it, or promote it. Nor is is necessary to tolerate everything and anything in a spirit of universal acceptance, particularly when you have no demonstrate such little toleration of religion and religious people when it comes time for you to be accepting.

HMMM I guess i am homophobic. Not a crime i guess. In todays enlightened society it seems hip to ridicule anyone with any kind of moral center or religious belief.

A very neat non-sequiter there.

If you are afraid of homosexuals then accept it. Do not try to blame it on moral or religious belief.
If instead you want to hold up your morals and religious beliefs as the source of an overt hatred of homosexuality, then do that. Do not try and hedge it.

As for judging people, you have used rather loaded language repeatedly. So again, either stand up and say you want to judge people or deal with being called on demanding people bow and scrape to your theocratically correct self.

If you are not sure what I meant about this whole thing is the fault of the Britons; well, they drew the maps dividing up the land of that whole region after WW2 and were good to their friends and allies and vindictive to thier enemies; the Palastinians, for example, supported the Nazis and in punishment, and therefore did not get a country while the Israelies, on the other hand, whom everyone felt the blow of the atrocities done to them, ended up with the best, most fertile land in the region.

Apparently you have never heard of Jordan. It is a Palestinian state formed from a majority of the original Palestine Mandate.

And apparently you have never heard of the Partition Of Palestine, from which a Palestinian state was created. The parts of that state that were not on the Israeli side of the armistice line were occupied by Jordan and Egypt, neither of which allowed an independent Palestinian state to be created.
And apparently you have never heard of (pre-Saudi) Arabia or Iraq, both of which were created by the British to reward allies. (Such as they were.)
You apparently have also never heard that most all of the Arabs of the Middle East supported the Nazis, not just the Mufti of Jerusalem.
And you apparently have never heard that most of the land Israel received in the Partition of Palestine was the wasteland of the Negev.
And you apparently are unaware that even after a White Paper advised admitting Jewish refugees to Palestine for humanitarian reasons, the British government refused to do so.
And apparently you are also unaware that the French were heavily involved in dividing up the Middle East after World War I. That is why Syria and Lebanon exist.

OK: my rather radical stance on the subject of Israel:

Personally, I believe that the United States should sever ties with any country that gets into as much s!~*e as Israel does. PERIOD. Israel is like the little brother that always drags you into their fights with the neighborhood gang.

Can you name one war the US has sent troops to help Israel fight?

The answer is of course, "No."
The Us has never committed troops to any war that Israel has fought, or even any of the extended anti-terrorist sweeps Israel has engaged in.
Israel though has put itself on the line to support wars the US has fought, refraining from retaliating against Iraq during the first Gulf War.

So to begin with, the entire basis for this concept is invalid. Israel drags the US into nothing.

However, let us compare two related issues:

First, the US has sold arms to Israel, including during these wars and anti-terrorist sweeps. This is the justification used for hating the US to the point of carrying out terrorist attacks on the US.
The thing is, those nations using this justification have in either been at war with Israel, sold arms to nations or groups at war with Israel, and supported the terrorist groups attacking Israel. A reasonable equivalence justifies full Israeli, and Us for that matter, intervention against those countries.

Second, if we are to compare nations that drag other nations into their problems, then we should look first and foremost to Europe. Aside from the "easy" ones of the two world wars, let us not forget that the US got involved in Viet Nam to support the French.
So should the US be severing all ties with Europe?
Then let us consider that bastion of responsibility, the UN. To quote from a movie, "Does anyone remember a little thing a few years ago known as the Korean Conflict?" Then there was Lebanon, Somalia, and all the other regional gang conflicts the UN loves to draw people into.
Mind you, I think the US should indeed withdraw from both NATO and the UN, but of course we are supposed to be surrendering our national sovereignty to such international organizations, not that anyone else is rushing to do so.