Today, it's been sixty-five years since Winston Churchill made the insensitive and bellicose speech to the House of Commons to which I referred in this parody:

What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour."

A "Christian civilization"? We can't have hate talk like that--string him up.

Actually, I've always been bothered by rhetoric like that which assumes that "Western" = "Christian". One can be a secular non-Christian, yet still believe in Western values, reason, and individual rights.

To the extent that contemporary religious conservatives speak that way, they alienate pro-American, pro-Western, pro-free market non-Christians such as myself. Not that I would vote for a leftist, but they shouldn't take my vote for granted.

Actually, I agree, Paul. My point was that this was common parlance not that long ago, and it wasn't in any way representative of religious intolerance.

What bothers me is the hypocricy of many on the left, who denounce such talk only when it involves Christians, but can find no words of censure for the spouting of much more extreme views by people of other religions (like the one we're apparently not allowed to criticize in any way, even with parodies that don't mention them, lest we have Fatwas issued against us).

Actually Paul when he made that speech the west WAS for all intents and purposes CHRISTIAN. Even people who didn't attend church regularly, said that they prayed for victory over the Axis and for all the troops.

Churchill was correct at the time voicing it that way. There were few Moslem, Buddhists or any other religion in the west at the time. Hitler had the Jews in camps and had people watching what was being preached in the Christian churches in the countries he conquered.

Having said that, when we did win the war, and we did it by killing and bombing our enemies into submission, people who were no-sectarian, like you, also got to keep on living the lives they wanted to live. There was no mandate to attend a church because Churchill referred to a Christian civilization. Do you think Hitler would have been so giving and open minded? The only place where this wasn't so was behind the Iron Curtain. And we ultimately defeated the Communists in Europe too.

Christians very conservative as well as very liberal want every one to believe what they believe. Its what will ensure everlasting life and a trip to heaven, by their doctrine.

I've talked to Moslem, Jews, Buddhists, Daoists, Shintoists and Animists and guess what they ALL have in common? They all believe that they are the true believers and followers of the real way to the ultimate reward. They say that if you don't belive like them, you won't get to Heaven, Nirvana, Valhalla or whatever they deem to be that ultimate reward.

Now on to todays little war, the one about terror.

We are referred to by the Moslem Extremists, as Infidels. Which, for them, means, someone who doesn't believe what they believe. Sounds kinda familiar huh, Paul? When this war is over, I still doubt you will be made to attend any services, unless the Taliban or Al-Queda win. Because when they win, they do impose religious doctrine, at the point of a gun. Look up how they treated the people of Afghanistan after they took over.

By the way, just for the tally books, the one war we did lose, Viet Nam, was won by the enemy because we left, due to public opinion, after we won most of the battles.

That war was started after WWII by the Communists. When the French gave up we stepped in and tried to win. It was Democrats who got us into Viet Nam, and Republicans who got us out. Even when we lost, the government didn't try to get non-sectarians to join churches to pray to God to keep us safe from communism. However, the Communists did kill plenty of religious people there and in Cambodia. They shut down all religious centers and killed the leaders.

Thats history, Paul. The problem comes in when the "all inclusive, Liberal, nutbugers want us to be "one world people" by POINTING OUT all our diffenerces.

Your non-sectarian life is safe here Paul, so long as we keep winning the wars.

By the way its freedom of religion, NOT freedom from religion.

They say that if you don't belive like them, you won't get to Heaven, Nirvana, Valhalla or whatever they deem to be that ultimate reward.

You heard this from a Jew? Really?

Your non-sectarian life is safe here Paul, so long as we keep winning the wars.

By the way its freedom of religion, NOT freedom from religion.

How are these non-contradictory?

Hm - allow me to put a 'non-confrontational tone' marker on the last question. I'm curious, as 'non-sectarian' appears to require 'freedom from religion', but I may be thinking of different meanings, here.

"Freedom FROM religion", to me, implies that you do not have to be subjected to, witness to, or have to see any form of religion or religious expression whatsoever. Meaning that you wouldn't have to see churches, synagogues, mosques, or any other religious symbol anywhere you went.

However, "freedom of religion" means that anyone and everyone is free to practice their religion as long as it doesn't interfere with the rights of others. You're free to not be religious, just as others are free to build churches, and you need to respect that as their right under the constitution.

Freedom from religion would require the abolition of religion in any particular country, which you can't do here, as long as the First Amendment to the Constitution stands.

Pfffft... Churchill. Young Mr Winston Churchill was a soldier in the Boer War, you know, the one where the British ran concentration camps.

He did a lot of good in WWII, but he also enlarged the rift between the French and the UK, after they had managed to be close allies in WWI. Two steps forward and one backwards.

There is also the minor point that England has an established state religion, the Church of England, which is christian.
Makes a difference.