Violating my own principles against mixing religion, politics, and programming, I wonder whether Jesus would say you were right. He never said “War is the answer”, and in fact, it could be argued that he seemed to lean in the opposite direction.

I agree that the BBC is a much better source for news from a non-U.S. centric point of view. I think it is important for all to at least try to see the view from the other side, which I think Jesus would encourage.

The French are perceived as snooty because they disagree with us, the Chinese force down our plane because they think (rightly so) that we are spying (the only disagreement was whether we were just inside or just outside their air space), so I don’t think those are great examples of American ‘tolerance’.

I would agree that there is a place for war, but maybe it should be as a last resort when all other options have been tried. The current American policy of pre-emptive strikes is hard for me to support and I doubt if we would tolerate it from anyone else. Can you imagine our response if Russia decided to invade XXX because they thought it was a dangerous situation.

FWIW, I am the Baptist son of a Southern Baptist minister raised in Texas, but I would rather our country spent more of its resources (money, people, etc) on the world’s “widows and orphans”, which I think Jesus would agree with.

Sign me…
Often mistaken, never unsure.

As for the BBC, I had to stop reading their articles, mostly because they tend to get so much wrong, so often. I’m always amazed by the English when they think that they understand Americans. They don’t; anymore than I understand them… or any other culture that I am not a part of. They only understand their own perception of Americans (Mostly, what they see from Hollywood I’m sad to say.)

As far as war goes. The bumper sticker said, “War is not the answer.” My comment was, “Doesn’t that depend on the question?”. How could you possibly disagree with that statement, my Anonymous friend? It would be fine to say that “War is not always the answer.” How could anything always be or not be the answer? When the French are snooty, we don’t go to war; when China forces a single US plane to land, we don’t go to war; their are a great many things that war is not an appropriate answer. The point of my comment is that, their are times in history where war is the appropriate and correct response to the situation at hand. Only a fool of a country would remove military action as an available responce… We can disagree over the specifics of this most recent war to stop Saddam Hussein and liberate Iraq’s people, but even surely you can agree that their are times where war is indeed the answer. Merry Christmas!