Trump's order on immigration and the wacko liberal response

So that he can shun the awful suffering of those fleeing war and destruction, whilst keeping those in the privileged, rich Western world secure in their relative luxury and comfort ?Must be a different fellow to the one I've heard about Faith.

Presumably he was misquoted in Matthew 5:47 then:"And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?"

"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations"Seems to me Jesus was expecting nations to behave very much like individual believers - in fact as disciples, the very best of individual believers.

If there were a Satan, then one of his crowning achievements was clearly the horror inflicted on the Jewish people, and other persecuted people by the Nazis in the 1930s and 40s.I visited the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin last year - a visit which everyone should make if they have the chance. It is the most profoundly moving experience, and brings a stunning mixture of anger, revulsion, despair, sadness - and also astonishment at the survival of a tiny core of humanity and strength in the face of an evil of unfathomable depth.It shows you how the evil grew and was nurtured by ordinary people, gradually being carried into blackness by a populist regime, which promised what they wanted, but delivered the most disgusting suffering on innocent people, whom the populace had been taught to fear and hate.The parallels have been pointed out many times before, but their starkness is very apparent if you have visited something like the memorial, and seen and heard and read.If there is some hope that this can be avoided again, it's in the protests and the voices of those who reject any hint of this selfish evil, the shoots of which we are again beginning to see. There were fewer and far quieter voices in the 30s. We should keep shouting loud.I'll leave the last word to Primo Levi, an Auschwitz survivor - I've quoted them before and I'm sure I will again:"It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say. It can happen, and it can happen everywhere."Primo Levi Quotes (Author of Survival in Auschwitz)

I suspect he isn't aware of it - and possibly not of the true extent and nature of the Holocaust itself - but who knows.And yes, the Germans were (and are) pretty concerned about Neo Nazis defacing the memorial - I would need to check the shooting dead business though.

You're right - apologies - I'm half asleep :-)

You may not yet have been able to read the linked article, but the case law referred to in it confirms that that is the correct reading. You are on a complete hiding to nothing on this one I'm afraid Faith. (Is that an expression in the States ?)

It's fairly widespread here as an expression - though more among us of a certain age... It means you're trying something you can't succeed in.http://www.phrases.org.guk/...gs/on-a-hiding-to-nothing.htmlIt's a good natured thing to say though - if you said it to someone, you would usually expect it to be received as a bit of helpful input - there's generally no mockery or insult attached to it.Edited by vimesey, : More info

Ezekiel 9:5 "Then I heard the LORD say to the other men, "Follow him through the city and kill everyone whose forehead is not marked. Show no mercy; have no pity!"

Really ? My reading is that it's at the very least carte blanche to kill non-Christians - and as much as a requirement to do so - after all, why include the story in the Bible otherwise ? There must be purpose to doing so. It's to encourage the reader to kill non-believers.And if your interpretation is different, why should I believe you ? You told us earlier that we shouldn't believe Muslims about their own faith, so I see no reason to believe Christians about theirs. After all, it's not as if we don't have scads of evidence for Christians torturing and murdering non-believers through the ages.(I never tried demonising a faith before - amazing how easy it is).

Please do. I have looked. My views are based on my reading of the source material (or more accurately, on translations of it).

Let me try another approach.In the Bible, it states that God decrees that the punishment for working on the Sabbath is being stoned to death. That's pretty clear - there's no confusion apparent in the verse - you work on a Sunday, you're dead, end of story.There's no verse that explicitly states that that requirement is repealed. I'm a lawyer, and I can tell you that I would need a lot more clarity before I advised a client to work on a Sabbath, if we were governed by biblical law. Their relatives would sue the pants off me if I did.Now I know that you and other Christians believe that Jesus wiped away that law - and I'm extremely happy you do. But the basis upon which you believe that is very convoluted. It involves interpretations and references to history and practice, and above all an appeal to belief. You turn to scholarly debate and interpretation, because the language is completely nonspecific and vague and open to interpretation.So when we point out that the Bible advocates this brutal practice, you tell us that a proper Christian interpretation is that this is an incorrect view.And that is precisely what the vast majority of Muslims do when it comes to the Quran. They explain why their religion does not in fact include following the more outrageous and brutal things that people can cherry pick if they're minded to.So you're allowing yourself to explain away the brutal aspects of the Bible, but not allowing Muslims to explain away the brutal aspects of the Quran.There's the basic problem. (And the double standard is not explained by the lying thing - the vast majority of Muslims take the relevant passages (which are pretty broad, and don't say what you've been told they say) to mean they can lie about being a Muslim to save themselves from being killed etc., not as a nefarious method of taking over the world).And of course there are extremist fundamentalist Muslims who are vile specimens of humanity - just as there are extremist fundamentalist believers of other faiths. But they are in the overall minority - most people of faith in my experience are broadly kind, attentive and peace-loving.So apply the same standards - either admit that the Bible is a brutal, warmongering, tribal handbook, or do what you want us to do with you, and listen to what actual Muslims actually say about their faith.

If Christianity can change Christ's birthday from Spring to the middle of winter, it won't bat an eyelid about moving the sabbath a day forward ;-)

I read that Elizabeth Warren was silenced in the Senate for reading out a letter by the widow of Martin Luther King Jr : Elizabeth Warren silenced over US Senate criticism of Sessions - BBC NewsI guess the right wing's protestations about freedom of speech only apply when the person in question is from the right, and wants to spout racist and misogynistic drivel.

Yeah, they're delicate little flowers aren't they ;-)It's just the Senate coughing up some weird Senate rule to stifle criticism and debate. Politics in action, in all its admirable glory.