Steve Benson by Steve Benson

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  1. NoFearPup

    NoFearPupGenius_badge said, 18 days ago

    That’s what they and the Libs are hoping…

  2. Ken Warren

    Ken Warren said, 18 days ago

    The only change I would make to this cartoon is to cross out MUSLIM and put in RELIGIOUS.

    Religion is an important part of life, we all need guideposts for what we do and how we live, but Religion is a danger if you try to impose your beliefs on others.

    All Religions teach that they are link between you and God, they may use and show differnet paths, but they want you take on their beliefs as your beliefs.

    If you have people who believe they are doing Gods work then there is no room for discussion, to compomise is to go against Gods will.

    As the cartoon shows True Believers will destroy freedom and liberty, but not just Muslims.

    Keep God in your heart, but out of politics.

  3. Loco80

    Loco80 said, 18 days ago

    Um, Ken? The word Muslim does NOT appear in this cartoon. And actually, there is a difference in religions. Islam says you go into the home of an infidel, and say reform or die. Jesus said, if you are not welcome in a home, wipe their dust from your feet and move on. I see a significant difference.

  4. oldlegodad

    oldlegodadGenius_badge said, 18 days ago

    Islam spread by the sword. Convert, pay homage or die. The new tactic is submit to us or we will out breed you and use your democratic ideals to subvert you, INFIDELS.

  5. Ken Warren

    Ken Warren said, 18 days ago

    Loco80 You’re right about word Muslim, I went by the tag at the bottom of the cartoon.

    But my point is still that we must keep religion out of politics. When you read some of the post that occur in these comment sections you see how some (and throughout history many) turn their views into the right to hate.

  6. motivemagus

    motivemagus said, 18 days ago

    Loco, oldlegodad, read much history? St. Olaf “converted” Norway by killing anyone who wouldn’t convert. (At least the Icelanders voted on it!) The Crusaders went to exterminate the Islamic rulers of “the Holy Land” and were essentially pre-approved by the then-Popes for mass murder. Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain were able to fund Columbus because they had just driven out all the Moors – the 15th century equivalent of Hitler driving out all the smart Jews, with similar impact over the long term. When Shakespeare wrote The Merchant of Venice there were *no* Jews in England (at least, not openly), because they, too, had been driven out. Not to mention the bloody conflicts between Protestants and Catholics in Tudor England, the winners depending on who was monarch. More recently, heavily Catholic Croatia collaborated with Hitler in exterminating the Jews. And of course there’s Ireland…
    Before you point out the speck in your brother’s eye, as Jesus said…

  7. NoFearPup

    NoFearPupGenius_badge said, 18 days ago

    Uh, the Crusades were a REACTION to the spread of Islam by the sword…Besides that, we are in the middle of a conflict precipitated by the same oppressive and xenophobic Islamic religion. We are not a “Christian” nation by the estimation of your own Messiah. So what more can we do?
    I don’t know about you; but I think we Western Christians have been overly tolerant of a group of spurious immigrants who have no regard for ALL of our values, and continue to side with their extremists over their peaceful neighbors who bear them no harm. If you do not like the West, Motive and Ken Warren go somewhere else. Somewhere that the last 400 years of citizens(including CHRISTIANS of all stripes) haven’t given their lives to maintain for over 400 years -Those forebears built a Christian Society that makes room for everybody, including sodomists - a Democratic-Republic created through the blood,sweat, and tears of men and women who were no doubt more righteous than you, toiling in the face of chaos and destruction. I think I’ll side with the hard-liners of the past rather than the pot-smoking, freeloving, anti-Christ, wannabe-genuises of the morally-debased Left.

  8. Loco80

    Loco80 said, 18 days ago

    moti, so I should go back in time and change history? My, that would be some feat! If others have not followed the correct path (believe it or not, that MIGHT have happened throughout history) does that make it right for us, in present time, to do the same? Magus, either join us in the present, and try to do right, or go away and SHUT UP!

  9. oldlegodad

    oldlegodadGenius_badge said, 18 days ago

    Like my new portrait??

  10. NeoconMan

    NeoconMan said, 18 days ago

    No. You’re ugly.

  11. Ronshua

    RonshuaGenius_badge said, 18 days ago

    “keep religion out of politics” have I read that or a paraphrase thereof before ? Sounds like a great Ideologue .

    How say you “morality” or “human morality” or even “Religious morality”excluded or not ?

    The regression of human morality is at a place in time that . Barbecue Restaurants connected to abortion clinics would not surprises this one . “It’s” just a piece of meat , right ?

    That’s extreme , ok is it alright to unplug your Grandma ? Even if her prognoses was for 4 or 5 more years of life ?
    Add that she is “worth” nothing on one hand and $3 billion on the other . Human Morality , I know our Government has very little .

  12. ahab

    ahabGenius_badge said, 18 days ago

    PUP, Republicans don’t own God or Christianity or morality. Despite what they spout.

  13. akibono

    akibono said, 18 days ago

    At a tender age I played with Muslim, Hindi and tribal African friends in the Africa of my origins. We were just kids having a blast. I was welcome in their homes as they were in mine.

    As adults, could we still be my friends today, in this world?

  14. oldlegodad

    oldlegodadGenius_badge said, 18 days ago

    aakibono, sadly no, in most of the world. But you could here, IF you wanted to give up the fear and hate of your old country and be (unhyphenated) American. It worked for 200 years, but now I’m afraid, Very afraid..

    UPURs Neo.

  15. Ken Warren

    Ken Warren said, 18 days ago

    Yes – If you’re still you, and if they are still they, religion doesn’t matter between friends.

    Religion only matters if you don”t have enough faith in your beliefs to let others have faith in theirs.

  16. petergrt

    petergrt said, 17 days ago

    Islam is not a religion - it is a cult.

    All religions started out as cults, but they were reformed and refined over centuries.

    Islam has not changed, for it is arguably the most effective tool of population control and warfare, thus far invented.

  17. charliekane

    charliekane said, 17 days ago

    One man’s cult is another man’s salvation.

    Or, as presented by Pink Floyd:

    Us and Them
    And after all we’re only ordinary men
    Me, and you
    God only knows it’s not what we would choose to do
    Forward he cried from the rear
    And the front rank died
    And the General sat, as the lines on the map
    Moved from side to side.

  18. 4uk4ata

    4uk4ata said, 17 days ago

    Nice, peter. Very nice. Of course, you can say that about a great many religions, not just Islam.

    Puppysaurus, actually the Crusades themselves were not a direct reaction to Islamic conquests, but of the request the Byzantine emperor at the time, Alexius Comnenus, who had asked for volunteers to fight the Turks in Asia Minor. Before he had called the pope for aid, there wasn’t a great push to trek all across Europa and the near East. Those who wanted to fight the heathens - no doubt such men existed - could do it much closer to home, in the Reconquista. Their number was quite small, though.

    The pope probably saw it a way to solve several problems, but the spread of Islam was probably not HIS greatest worry (unlike in Constantinople - the Byzantines were in a pretty bad positions in Anatolia, which is why they asked for help from Rome in the first place). Jerusalem itself had been held by Muslims for several centuries, after all.

    There may be some truth in the claims that the local Christians were persecuted. However, they had lived there for centuries. It was not that they were living under muslims, it was exactly who those muslims were - the Turks who conquered the region in the 1070s imposed a harsher rule than the Fatimids before them. I wonder if the differences in religion played a role - the Fatimids were Shi’ites, while the Turks were Sunni.

  19. wbr

    wbr said, 17 days ago

    4uk you just flunked history the 1st crusade was a reaction to pilgrams being killed or enslaved

  20. charliekane

    charliekane said, 17 days ago

    FYI, for First Crusade enthusiasts:

    http://www.the-orb.net/textbooks/nelson/first_crusade.html

  21. jkshaw

    jkshaw said, 17 days ago

    What a wonderful world we live in.

  22. dtroutma

    dtroutma said, 17 days ago

    The Quran, and even the Taliban, do NOT scorn other religions. Christians are really ticked off because Islam only regards Jesus as a prophet, and not “God”.

    Fundamentalist nut cases, of ANY and ALL stripes, are the “dangerous” ones. From Jews murdering their neighbors throughout the Old Testament, to Jesuits killing South American natives to “save” their souls, to Protestant missionaries on the islands of the Pacific doing the same, extremists have proven extremely deadly, to individuals, and whole societies.

    Any time “religion” or “faith” is used to bring suffering to others, it is false, or falsely applied.

  23. petergrt

    petergrt said, 17 days ago

    Quran encompasses 114 chapters, writen over 22-years.

    The later the chapter, the greater the weight / importance.

    While it is true that in the early chapters Quran pays homage to Judaism, recognizes Christ as a prophet, and etc., as they were dictated at the time Mohammad hoped to become a Jewish, or a Christian Prophet.

    The later chapters,and are thus the final word, were dictated after he was not recognized as a prophet, and it calls for total and unconditional conversion of all into Islam, or death to the infidels, amongst some other fun inducing commands.

  24. motivemagus

    motivemagus said, 17 days ago

    My, loco, aren’t we being tolerant and Christian today? I’m pointing out that Christians are not immune to being violent, ignorant, and vicious to others who don’t share the exact same beliefs. Are you judging Islam by its most vicious members? Would you judge Christianity by the Aryan Nations? There are many peaceful members of Islam, and there are violent fundamentalists. As there are with us. I *am* trying to do right, by considering the human beings on both sides, rather than demonizing someone because of an inadequate understanding of their beliefs. As indeed you have with me.
    And Puppy, I suggest reading charliekane’s link. I think the ambitions of land-hungry nobles in Europe were probably a larger element than atrocities against the Christians – especially since that latter fits so nicely into propaganda. Christians, Jews, and Muslims have lived together well in some areas of the world in history – I don’t think a violent conflict must be inevitable.

  25. petergrt

    petergrt said, 17 days ago

    “I’m pointing out that Christians are not immune to being violent, ignorant, and vicious to others who don’t share the exact same beliefs.”

    When was the last time a Christian, or any religious fanatic for that matter, other than a Muslim, sent their child as a living bomb, to kill and maim as many people as possible?

    The moral equivalence argument is fundamentally amoral.

  26. 4uk4ata

    4uk4ata said, 17 days ago

    wbr, I think my ignorance in history has been greatly exaggerated. Were you seriously taught that the plight of the pilgrims alone was why Pope Urban II called for one of the greatest military enterprises in history?

    Look at it in perspective: pilgrims were being killed and harassed for a long time, especially in the two decades of Turkish rule of the Holy Lands before the Crusades. Yet there were no major proclamations about their oppression when Jerusalem fell, nor in the over twenty years until 1095. When the Byzantine Empire called for help, it took barely more than half a year for Pope Urban II to gather a huge assembly of bishops from all over Europe and launch the crusade movement. The pilgrims were probably a factor - but far from the only, or most important, one.

    There is no direct, reliable account of what the Pope actually said when he proclaimed the Crusade (the best we have are his letters, much less what he meant. The safety of the pilgrims was probably mentioned, as was the infamy of Christian knights fighting their brothers in faith (and there was a lot of that going on in 11th century Europe) and the shame of having infidels trouble Christians. It is entirely possible that the Pope had more political goals in mind as well - this was only decades after the Great Schism, and it is believed that the Pope specifically mentioned helping the Orthodox Christians* against the Turks.

    *: In his letter to the Flemish, Urban II speaks of “liberate the eastern churches.” While this could refer to the Christians in nowaday Israel and Lebanon, this period saw the rapid conquest of (then) Christian Asia Minor, and thus enslaving of much more, and previously free, Christian lands.

  27. motivemagus

    motivemagus said, 17 days ago

    petergrt - You picked a very specific example. But it was “Christians” who assassinated an abortion doctor, and attacked women going to clinics – even if they weren’t getting abortions. The IRA sent any number of bombs after people. Whether they put bombs on kids or not, they were certainly willing to kill many innocents.

    I am NOT making a moral equivalence argument. I am saying that you cannot have a blanket condemnation all members of Islam, any more than you can promise that all Christians are going to heaven. And that, my friends, is a fundamental tenet of Christian belief. Unless you belong to certain sects.

  28. NoFearPup

    NoFearPupGenius_badge said, 17 days ago

    Thanks 4uk4ata, for making my point:
    “but of the request the Byzantine emperor at the time, Alexius Comnenus, who had asked for volunteers to fight the Turks in Asia Minor.”
    Also , keywords to look for in Lib Phraseology in dealing with controversial topics like evolution, global warming, religious freedom, etc.: “probably,” “There may be. ” This should alert the reader to the fact that a tenured Lib-professor somewhere has brought it on himself to re-write history for the sake of his ego and prestige…

  29. NoFearPup

    NoFearPupGenius_badge said, 16 days ago

    This is true. I believe it may be time for conservatives on this forum to link together and consider whether or not certain Lib-posters should be shunned for the TROLLS that they are… The best way to deal with intractable trolls is to flag the post and ignore the poster. If the content isn’t “objectionable” by gocomics standards at least we will be able to cut the aforementioned trolls off at the knees, and limit their impact. I’m tired of being name-called, verbally cajoled and heckled by fakes and frauds with vested interests.