I wonder if the Left-Wingers in Europe commented similarly as their government cowtowed to Muslim demands and their culture was irrevocably damaged...
Say what? Most of the European Muslim population just wants to live as best they can and not be confused with a handful of suicidal, homicidal nutjobs. I'm frankly much more concerned by the drift toward a demagogical right wing that is observed in several European countries.
Not to mention the many Christian women who were involved in the suffrage movement.
When's the last time a fundamentalist Muslim was outspoken about women's rights?
Aren't you missing your own point here? The former are Christian women, the latter fundamentalist Muslims. Believe it or not, male (moderate) Muslims who support women's rights exist. On the other hand, the most common female Christian fundie types quoted on this board are the Stepford wife and the gender-haters (one of these Über-mysoginists for example wishes that abortion would be made illegal so the women die with their baby when they try to have an illegal abortion...)
Freedom to own guns? Are Christians trying to stop this, or would that be the secularists?
From what I understand, there are people for and against it on both side of the religious barrier. I have yet to see the good in letting people own and carry tools designed for the express purpose of killing other people in a modern society: I can understand it during the Far West era, when hunting sometimes was a necessity bears, and mountain lions, outlaw gangs and Indian warbands were a real possibility, but there is a difference between a sheriff of these times and a modern police department, or between the famously late cavalry and a riot squad (better communications and transportations comme to mind). The need for civilians to possess one (nevermind several) firearm is long gone, and though I must admit I don't have statistics I'm willing to bet that there is a significant difference in guns-related violences, deaths and accidents between the US and European countries with stricter gun laws, as well as a difference in the type of firearms (here in France, civilians getting access to military-grade weaponry is almost unheard of. Can you say the same thing?)
Not to mention the many Christian churches helping people around the country and world.
You mean like Mother "convert if you want to eat" Theresa?
BTW Zipperback: I love how you get to define the tenants of Christianity. The only tenants of Christianity are belief in the One True God, Jesus, God's One and only son, and his atoning death and resurrection, and in the Holy Spirit.
Quite a few people would add several other things they consider essential to your list, I believe. Anyway the whole "God sacrificing himself to himself so that he would forgive his creation (that he created flawed even though he's omniscient and omnipotent) for a sin God allowed to happen, and then resurrecting and going back to himself, thus nullifying said sacrifice" doesn't really make sense to me, and neither does the Holy Spook: he's supposed to be God, but he really seems like a simple gopher, or perhaps a C3PO-like protocol droid if you consider the whole Pentecost thing. I guess that would make God the Anakin of the OT, and Jesus the Luke of the NT, with C3PO/Spooky bringing the Holy Semen to Padme/Mary to have her artificially inseminated. Well, except for all the foreshadowing for the next trilogy being pretty much absent in the OT. The Holy Droid doesn't even appear in it, AFAIK... [/Star Bible rant]
As you surely know, the laws of western civization are based upon the Ten Commandments and other Biblical teachings and traditions. Only lately has secular humanism infected our country and culture through activist courts and liberal politicians.
Ooooh, this should be good. Let's see:
You shall have no other gods before Me.
Let's see... Uh, no, only a law in theocracies and divine right monarchies, where it makes sense to enforce a given religion since God is supposed to be the source of the ruler's authority/legitimacy.
You shall not make for yourself an idol
Even the Church doesn't respect this one (crucifix, statues of Mary and the Saints,...), nevermind the legal code.
You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God
GOD, SERIOUS BUSINESS! Once again, only in theocratic regimes.
Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy...
When was the last time someone was stoned for working on the Sabbath? Once again, a ritual to show the importance of God.
Honor your father and your mother
Once again, quite logical in a patriarcal society. You wouldn't want the worker you bred yourself to start to think about telling you to fuck off and leaving, would you? After all, you need him to care for you in your old age, better make sure he's well obedience-trained. Funny thing is, in modern law the parents do have a measure of authority over their children until they're ready to leave the nest, but mainly they have a lot of duties, and limits to what they can do to/with their kids. Respect has to be earned...
You shall not murder.
Good idea, a society where undiscriminate murder is allowed tends to crumble pretty quickly. Which is why pretty much every society banned it, or at the very least imposed rules and restrictions governing when murder can be allowed.
You shall not commit adultery.
Another thing that tends not to be looked favorably in some society, particularly when matters of legitimacy and inheritage are concerned, and/or when women are considered propriety, which provides a nice transition to...
You shall not steal.
Once again, basically a good idea (when you don't extend it to make people property), otherwise the strong would simply take what they want. Once again, pretty much every society has/had such a rule.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
Pretty specific, much more than "you shall not lie". Since an epidemic of slander and false denunciations would hurt the social fabric and innocent people, this is another good one. And I suppose that attaching a negative value to deception helps to maintain the modicum of honesty necessary for a society to work. So let's say slander, libel, false denunciations, swindling, fraud, breach of contract and so on: all of those universally condemned.
You shall not covet your neighbor's wife/house
Condemning what leads to adultery, theft, murder, false accusations, etc... Present in most moral codes, but in few if any legal code: law punishes acts, not thoughts.
And let's not go into the Ritual Decalogue: I know of no country where you are obliged by law to avoid mixing sacrificial blood with leavened bread or cooking a goat in its mother's milk, or to sacrifice the best first fruits or firstborn male animals to Yahweh.
Right to an education: Many Christians are fighting to have Intelligent Design (not creationism, though you no doubt see the two as identical) taught IN ADDITION TO evolution, and to have evolution taught as a theory subject to criticism--not as dogma, the way it's currently taught.
BWAHAHAHAHA! Are you seriously telling us that attempting to have baseless Diet Creationism taught as a valid alternative to a solid scientific theory is not violating children's right to an education? Schools are places of teaching, leave the preaching for the church/mosque/synagogue/place of worship.
Freedom of Sexual choice: "let's not go into what fundies want to do with gays, bisexuals, transexuals, etc." Do you mean what all the fundamentalis pastors preach about how we should take all the gays and put them on the rack and then disembowel them until they scream "mercy!" like they did to William Wallace at the end of Braveheart? Yeah, I hear my pastor preach that all the time.
Hang around a few days, or go through the archive and see if you can still claim that. We have fundies advocating murdering gays, putting them in concentration camps or at least having them reeducated in ways that would make a Soviet political officer turn white pretty much every day.
Oh, please! Christians want to treat gays by leaving them alone and letting them do whatever they want to do *in the privacy of their own homes* and not in our faces. And not with children. Give me a big fat stinkin' break!
Give me a freakin' break! Gays =/= child molesters, is it that hard to understand? And why shouldn't two guys be allowed to kiss in public, when we have ten times as many heterosexual teens cuddling or swapping spit in front of everybody?
Instead, you're trying to enshrine atheism as the official religion of our country by kicking all reference to God, the Bible, and Christianity out of the public square.
Atheism. Is. Not. A. Religion! Is is simply the absence of belief in a supreme being, is that so hard to understand? And Christianity is perfectly allowed on the public square, just not in the government related part of said square, or with government funds or endorsement. It's either that or endorsing and funding Christianity, but also Judaism, Islam, Pastafarism, Voodoo, Norse and Greco-Roman gods worship, Maya sacrifices,... So, which one will it be, nobody or everybody?
Ummmm... somehow I missed this jewel right at the start of the conversation. I am going to go on a limb and assume Malott speaks of France here. Well, given that I am far closer to France than Malott is, and that I can take a look instead of trusting Fox and the creationist sources, I will call this a lie as well. Yes, France has had a few problems with the young unemployed force descendent from inmigrants (over a year ago now, and over lack of employment, which is a valid reason for protests that were unfortunately marred by poor execution by going berserk), but I have to say that France's culture is perfectly well. Indeed, if anything, it is the muslim culture that is under attack by Malott-equivalents that object to girls wearing muslim dresses to (non-uniformed) schools.
And as one of the resident French, I'll add my two cents on the situation: we've had protests against reforms that would have made young people even more disposable and vulnerable to exploitation from their employers in March 2006, and we've had three weeks of riots in October and November 2005. These riots were started by the death of two teens who were electrocuted in a power transformer, apparently hiding from the police (the details of what happened remain controversial), followed shortly after by a police issue tear gas grenade being thrown at a mosque during Ramadan. The anger behind these riots came from police brutality and contempt toward youths of poor suburbs, particularly those of Arab and African descent, as well as a latent, more general anger against the many forms of discrimination they suffer. It wasn't so much a Muslim movement as the cristallization of the anger and hopelessness of a class of disadvantaged and poorly integrated youths who were tired of being treated like trash or criminals on a daily basis.