A measured look at a difficult situation

I'd say so, yes. Anti-atheist laws don't appear to be what is preventing atheists holding public office in the USA nor are they either prolific, actioned or capable of being actioned. We sorted that one out with some reasonable discussion. (But it would be sensible to remove them anyway, if only to prevent the religious nutters shouting about them.)As for the 'troubles,' it's beginning to look like there's real progress being made although there's still a huge sense hurt in the communities. It's also very localised now - confined to NI and only small parts of it. A far bigger problem for us now is the threat from fundamental Islam.

Next week the United States of Islam successfully invades the USA, do you then accept Sharia law as legitimate?

The question was whether you would consider it legitimate, not whether you'd be forced to comply with it. But the question was rhetorical, of course you wouldn't think it legitimate.

Exactly, you would see it as unfair and you would feel you couldn't comply with it.

We can abandon the circularity of a law being legitimate because it's a law - that's rather silly. For a law to have legitimacy it must be moral and supported by its population; law imposed on populations by dictatorships are neither moral, nor legitimate. Or perhaps you consider the law of imprisoning jews simply for being a jew was legitimate?

Of course you wouldn't. That's all that's being said - if the victor's laws were the same as the loser's you would have no problem, if they weren't you likely would. you would regard one as legitimate and the other as not.

I'm going to have one last shot at this, then I'll give up.Forget the idea that law is legitimate if it's imposed by a reigning power. That's tautologous - it takes no account of whether the law is fair, moral or just plain evil.You have already accepted that if the reigning power was a dictatorship, imposing it's immoral law - such as imprisoning Jews - through force against the will of the people, it would be illegitimate. That's all you need to grasp. You would not regard that law as legitimate - you would not feel obligated to comply with it.

Just another irritating aside here Faith.You've now added Irish history to the long list of stuff you know nothing at all about, but are nevertheless convinced you are right about. Nothing particularly new here I suppose, after all you know more than all the world's scientists about geology, biology, molecular biology, evolutionary theory, palaeontology, physics and astronomy. To name only the few I can remember.Also from memory, there ain't an awful lot in the bible about Irish history so it's a bit puzzling to an amused observer why the hell you bother to make such a damn fool of yourself. You do know that protestants are human too? Of course you do, you're an expert on everything.Also, you should look up how many people were guillotined in the UK and Ireland. Ever. Just a detail but it does rather give away your cluelessness.

Obviously, but you say it anyway. Just for information, it's none. That's because you're confusing France with Ireland. And you want us to take you seriously? Faith, I didn't think this was possible but you know more about geology that Irish history.