Yep, so he was involved in the deaths of individuals. End of story really. There's parrallels to be seen in their stories, as I had suggested from the outset.

Some similarities, yes. McGuinnes is a good negotiator. But a hell of a lot of differences. Too many. I dont think McGuinnes will achieve worldwide reknown.

Woww

I have to read these again later.

I don't see many to be honest with you: two individuals fighting in the name of their people by any means necessary. There's degrees of bloodletting, violence and death to you when fighting for an ideal? Not to me. Mandela has admitted to being involved with one bombing that killed many lives after you had said previously that he had no power over the organization after being imprisoned. That proves to me that he still had a huge influence on their strategies. He was their leader and founder for feck sake.

I wanted to raise the issue of Mandela just to illustrate how history is viewed differently by so many, even when these two men fought for exactly the same reasons, motivated by a need to defend their people and attack their oppressors when necessary. Whether you believe these wars were justified or not is irrelevent; their motivations and objectives were the same.

Murder is murder - whatever the so-called political cause. No one has the right to kill others for a cause they believe in! Never justified!

I just think it is atrocious that people who murdered others (whether directly or otherwise) are allowed to become polititians and represent their party. It just makes a joke of the whole political process!

Your perspective changes according to where you're sitting.

Not if you are a Christian it does not.




If you look at the vast majority of political change over the last 500 years it has come about successfully by peaceful methods. That is what works and is lasting.

McGuinness is a deranged psychopath.
He constantly smiles on camera but secretly co-ordinates attacks on Protestant homes.

It isn't or shouldn't be about religion. It is about normal human decency and value for the sanctity of life!

Agree that peaceful methods are the only true and lasting way of achieving political change! It is like people arguing on a chat show - who takes those that shout the loudest seriously - it is the calm, rational people that you listen to!

It wasn't really about religion though, it was about our country being invaded and our people being murdered and forced to speak another language

I do agree with you and the IRA are no more. But don't forget that the IRA were a reaction to an action not the other way around

I didn't mean that - I was responding to LCs comment that the perspectives of Christians didn't change according to where they were sitting!

Apologies then. Though I have to say Christians weren't very innocent in the "not killing people" game!

Hence why I am not religious - more murder has been committed in the name of religion than any other cause - which makes a complete mockery of religion fullstop!

Absolutely, That's the crazy thing that I can never understand, you have all these loving guidelines on the one hand and then people killing other people in the name of God on the other, it makes no sense at all

wrong

the people to whom you refer were not Christians

they were murderers who called themselves Christians. Christianity is measured against the life and teachings of Jesus.

Do not mark Christianity against the fallen ways of man.

That statement simply underscores how little you understand religion.

Many serial killers say God told them to do it but no one takes that seriously. Killing people full stop is against God's command and so if you do this (and are Christian) you are

1. Not a Christian
2. Are not doing it in the name of religion

You are doing it for evil fallen earthly reasons. The whole point of say being a Christian is the cross and why Jesus dies for us.

Killers give many reasons why they kill but rarely if at all is the real reason put forth...

I am not talking about serial killers - I'm talking about all the religious conflicts in the world - past and present.

and neither was I

I was giving you an extreme comparable to illustrate how your claim was not correct.

Can you tell me what parts of the New testament or teachings of Jesus that one could use to justify murder?

LT You know what she means though, don't play dumb! These people may not have been "real" Christians in your eyes but they were fighting under the name of Christians in Gods name!

Then blame the individuals and not religion. simple.

Muslims and Jews killing each other, Catholics and Protestants killing each other, Christians and Catholics killing each other etc - people of varying religious persuassions killing people of other religious persuassions - that is what I am talking about. History is full of it. It is still occuring in many parts of the world. Religion is supposed to be about peace and valuing human life - instead they kill each other because they disagree. I will never take it seriously. People just use religion to control others!

In any gathering of men you will find murder and oppression. Man's violent nature creeps into all gatherings of men under any banner.

It would be more correct to state just how many more lives have been saved by religion over the past centuries, by the teachings of Jesus.

http://net-burst.net/hot/war.htm


As a History Professor at a Junior college I challenge my classes to comment on the following statement:

Organized religion has caused more suffering, wars and violence than any other cause.

Almost all the students raise their hands in agreement. I then demand that they provide dead bodies as evidence. They usually mention the Crusades and one or two other religious wars they might have heard of but in none of their examples can they come up with a million deaths. (Some scholars used to teach that the Thirty Years’ War in Germany resulted in 8 million deaths, but modern scholars have demonstrated it was more like 200 thousand and in fact the population of Germany actually increased during that war.) I then point out that most of the people who have died as a result of war, have done so in the Twentieth Century and that most of the killing was done in the name of secular ideologies. I then ask them who is the “baddest” of them all. Most guess Hitler. I then tell them that he is rated #3. Some then guess Stalin and I inform them that most scholars place him at #2 with 20 million killed. Almost no one gets #1 who, of course, is Mao who starts with an estimated 40 million. I then point out that the top two were Communists and Hitler was a radical proponent of Social Darwinism. All of these ideologies are based on atheistic systems.

And in the same way you could argue that this was because of good individuals not not down to Jesus