Free Republic

"The point is that if we have more than the Bible we have too much. If we have less than the Bible, we don't have enough."

Is every word that Christ spoke while he was on earth recorded in the Bible? Is the entire text of the Sermon on the Mount available for us to examine? Surely you're not suggesting that the words that Jesus spoke (and were not recorded in the Bible) are somehow less important than what remains today. I'm sorry, but the Bible without the church is absolutely meaningless.

I wonder what Maher would have to say about some of the greatest thinkers of all time: Anselm, Augustine, Aquinas, and Boethius. Actually, I wonder if he's ever even heard of them at all. He's just a want-to-be-intellectual spouting off the typical moronic idiocy (no different than Ward Churchill in this regard). As has been pointed out, I doubt he has the guts to make such disparaging remarks about the Dalai Lama or Martin Luther King or Jesse Jackson or Malcolm X for that matter. Of course he wouldn't, he wouldn't dare offend these liberal religious icons!

I wonder if Maher knows who first proposed the idea of a "Big Bang." He is the unenlightened one; I feel sorry for him.

Let's get something straight. In combat there is no prohibition against killing an unarmed enemy combatant. He can be unarmed, fleeing, wounded, sleeping...doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that he is an enemy combatant. And as far as this guy being "surrendered"--I've seen the video, and he doesn't appear to be surrendering to me.

The terrorists we are fighting in places like Fallujah are "unlawful combatants" and as such should not be afforded any of the protections extended by international law to "lawful combatants." I think it was a mistake for the Bush administration to extend such protections in circumstances that clearly did not warrant them. This young marine's case is just the latest example of why this misguided policy is a bad idea.

Simply put, "lawful combatants" are members of organized armed forces who are entitled under international law to certain protections. "Unlawful combatants," by contrast, are members of armed criminal gangs rather than members of a regular army, and they do not qualify for the same treatment. For example, to be protected under the Geneva Conventions, a soldier must belong to an organized military force. To qualify for protection, this force must have a chain of command, wear a recognizable uniform, follow the laws of war (which means, among other things, not targeting civilians), and must carry their arms openly. Clearly, the criminals we are fighting in Iraq fail each of these tests miserably.

The senior military and civilian leadership had better stand up and support this young marine. For it was they that put him in the untenable situation of having to fight an enemy that does not even pretend to adhere to the internationally accepted laws of land warfare.