This is good news. The more we know about people the harder it is to whip up hatred and stupid wars.

Ditto, nnmns. Good news indeed.

mnms has written much in these pages.
Using his words, alone, it is justifiable to say he is confused. Because here, judging solely by his writings, the slogan that it would seem mnms more likely would use, is the following;
“The more I know about people, the more I love my dog”.
mnms is ironic, unless mnms is anti-Christian to the point of using yet another slogan; “My enemies enemy is my friend”. Muslims have beliefs, just as powerful as any, that leave no room for atheist views.
No posting for YOU, my “friend”, on Muslim belief sites!
The audacity of duplicity.

One should judge people individually and not collectively. I don’t know where this survey came from but most people I have to have concerns about sleeper cells and the next terrorist attack on our soil from Muslim extremist. Where ever there is a culture within a culture and it holds itself exclusive and secretively then people tend to feel uneasy about the entire culture.

I find it hilarious that American Christians, who are constantly bawling about the lack of respect shown their beliefs, would be so adamant in denying the religious freedom of another group. Actually, it was funny the first couple of times, but now it’s kind of a cliche, like jokes about airline food.
Please, GC, tell me how violent and dangerous the Muslims are. Pull some random verse out of the Quran that calls for the death of this or that person. I’ll be happy to point you to a corresponding verse in the Bible.

GC you don’t read at all well. I said it was good we are losing our bigotry against them so we’d be less likely to go to war against some of them for no good reason, like we did under the Republicans to our great and continuing disadvantage.
I did not say I’m for people becoming Muslims. In fact I’m at least as much against that as I am against them becoming Christians or Jews, for instance.
But it’s nice to see someone is paying attention, as best they can.

So, you suppose we went to war because of bigotry?
That will be big news to every family, loved one and friend of every 9-11 victim out here in the big wide world.
Liberal “thought” produces little but waste and an occasional amusing idea.
Like the above.
When you have no truth to base your judgments on, they will be unsound at best, dangerous at worst.
All truth is God’s truth.
Atheists deny God.
Atheists deny truth.
So no need to take this discussion any further.
I suppose some atheists will be leaving now?

We invaded Afghanistan because of 9/11; I never denied that. We invaded Iraq for no good reason but part of the reason Bush was able to generate that war was our bigotry against Muslims. Or weren’t you paying attention those years?

Bush had 10 long months to present his case. While so doing NOT ONCE did Bush stir bigotry. The country was united in mutual support (I grieve the passing) and few had any argument to the contrary; that Iraq had WMD’s. But, this was still only one major point among several; violations of UN mandates, Iraq’s own claims of owning WMD’s, no clear evidence that Iraq had discontinued it’s WMD programs or completely destroyed it’s stocks from the Iran/Iraq war, overseas intelligence universally indicted Iraq for possession of WMD and other political points concerning that now-dead dictator. I do remember.
Just not the whipped up frenzy of bigotry.
I believe, had we met and talked 9-12-01 and anytime up until it became necessary to choose up sides again because of pending elections, we would not have had this discussion.
I believe we both love this country.
That’s politics.

Yes, I also believe we love this country.
But it’s easiest to whip a country up into a war if the people think the enemy isn’t “human”, or at least is quite different than them. Since Iraq was not a credible threat to us, and the secular Saddam was not in league with the religious Osama, it was doubly hard. But many Americans’ willingness to think all Muslims were quite different than us the same as those that attacked us made it a lot easier.

“”…But many Americans’ willingness to think all Muslims were quite different than us the same as those that attacked us made it a lot easier…”"
Well, that was the case. America was in shock. This is no excuse for marching off to war, but it must be considered. Other, more concrete, considerations were; Saddam’s fund for the families of terrorists who blew themselves up in Israel; his political support of Israel’s enemies; Iraq denied having WMD in a taunting way that denied all evidence and intelligence; Iraq was poised to dominate the region militarily and politically; Saddam had violated or ignored an arm’s-length list of UN mandates, diplomacy was failing; it really appeared at that time that Afghanistan was neutralized and Iraq had become the threat; there was virtually no political opposition to invading Iraq, neither here nor overseas. I am certain there is more, but this is the easy to remember stuff.
War is never the answer – if the entire world is under one authority. War with Iraq was the last thing anyone wished for, but because of the above points (and then some), it was understandable.
But believe me when I tell you my heart sank when the invasion started. I was very sad. As the war progressed, there was no clear victory, even after the government had been toppled, Saddam caught and up to this very day. My heart still aches that it happened. But, I understand how it did.
It simply was not the evil plot of a couple of people in the White House. Bush et al may have been happy for the circumstances that lead to war, but they could never have created them.
Peace.

“”…neither here nor overseas…”"
Yes, opposition was strong overseas. Mostly, however, it was to stretch a little more time out for diplomacy and not because the other points were false.
Sorry for my error.