FIONA
I'll try to tone down my 'passion' just a tad to seek your serious and considered opinion on the matters of Afghanistan and Iraq.

1/ Afghanistan. What is your view in regard to the position that the Insurgents/Taliban are fighting more for a haven of Islamic terror training and a launching pad for 'world jihad/kill the great Satan (USA)', than they are for a simple 'leave us alone to run our lives as quiet and peaceful muslims' ?

If you agree with this assessment of the true motivation of the Taliban, what is your (realistic/proven) solution to this ?
If you dont agree, then what is your take on the place ?

2/ Iraq. Do you in fact support the cutting out of tongues, the slow carving off of heads, the gouging out of eyes, the torture of ones children in front of you, the mis-spending of available resources on (yet more) palaces, while blaming the suffering of the Iraqi people on 'Western Sanctions', the arbitrary rape of mens wives by Sadaams sons, the mass slaughter of Shia's and Kurds simply for 'being different'?
If you don't support this, do you believe the UN was/is able to put an end to these things ? If you don't support it, why condemn the US for combining self interest with social justice ?

3/ Has the UN "ever" proved itself capable of actually preventing genocides ?

Reasonable questions. How about some considered and reasonable answers ?

Last time I looked around, I noticed that life is not a checkerboard on which everyone must walk either on the white squares or black squares but never cross between the two on different issues, nor is it a place without shade, nuance, subtlety or greyness.

Questions posited on the basis that "If you oppose 'X' then you must defend 'Y'", are not reasonable, they're just silly.

So, for a game of one-eyed combat, boazdavid, try someone else.

Spanish Inquisition, the crusades, witch burning, paedophilia, ku-klux klan and I'm not really trying all that hard to think of extreme christian activity.

BD - stop villifying those who believe differently to you - it only discredits you.

And, furthermore, your posts simply prove the truth of Waleed Aly's article that Bogus assumptions are indeed made about western Muslims.

Just lately, it seems, every thread I read has you BD, attempting to discredit either muslims in particular or non christians in general.

WHY? What do you hope to achieve from fostering further prejudice?

Trinity,
I am asking where in the life of the founder of the Christian faith did he use or teach the practises of those in your list? How can they clain to follow Christ? They followed more in the actions and teachings of Mahomet who both taught and practised the terrible acts of torture and death. We are not defending a religion we are defending a principle.

"Spanish Inquisition, the crusades, witch burning, paedophilia, ku-klux klan and I'm not really trying all that hard to think of extreme christian activity".

Leaked No 10 dossier reveals
"AL-QAEDA is secretly recruiting affluent, middle-class Muslims in British universities and colleges to carry out terrorist attacks in England. "A network of "extremist recruiters" is circulating on campuses targeting people with "technical and professional qualifications", particularly engineering and IT degrees.

The London bombings were sophisticated - all the devices detonating on the Underground within 50 seconds. Police believe they may be home-grown British terrorists with no criminal backgrounds and possessing technical expertise. A joint Home Office and Foreign Office dossier - Young Muslims and Extremism, said Britain might be harbouring thousands of Al-Qaeda sympathisers. Lord Stevens, former Metropolitan police chief, revealed that up to 3,000 British-born or British-based people had passed through Osama Bin Laden's training camps. The Whitehall dossier, ordered by Tony Blair following last year's train bombings in Madrid, says: "Extremists are known to target schools and colleges where young people may be more susceptible to extremist reasoning/ arguments."

Drawing on information from MI5, it concludes: "Intelligence indicates that the number of British Muslims actively engaged in terrorist activity, whether at home or abroad or supporting such activity, is extremely small and estimated at less than 1%."
This equates to fewer than 16,000 potential terrorists and supporters out of a Muslim population of almost 1.6m. The dossier also estimates that 10,000 have attended extremist conferences. The security services believe that the number who are prepared to commit terrorist attacks may run into hundreds. Most of the Al-Qaeda recruits tend to be loners "attracted to university clubs based on ethnicity or religion" because of "disillusionment with their current existence". British-based terrorists are made up of different ethnic groups. "They range from foreign nationals now naturalised and resident in the UK, arriving mainly from north Africa and the Middle East, to second and third generation British citizens whose forebears mainly originate from Pakistan or Kashmir. "In addition . . . a significant number come from liberal, non-religious Muslim backgrounds or (are) only converted to Islam in adulthood. These converts include white British nationals and those of West Indian extraction." ......
At http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1688261,00.html

No wonder this thread deals with McCarthyism and nutbags….

Still: All Christians (and Muslims for that matter) – None of you have* answered my question:
Does Ghandi get saved, even though he was not a follower of Christ (or Allah)? Simple question really.

* Fellow_Human excluded. He has. Thanks. I assume you meant, yes, he’s worthy of the Lords grace?