Right on!

Submitted by Paul Rhoads (France), Sep 15, 2004 at 06:16

As an American living in France, I can tell you that this strikes a chord.

I was made aware of this article by a French-Arab group horrified by the role France is playing in the world today.

There are several courageous French politicians who dare to stand up to the government and the media: Madelin and Lelouche in particular.

I would add that the fundamental problem is cultural and religious. The West, with the exception of the George Bush-Zell Miller folks, has forgotten what we are. The left is hopeless, but the anti-Christian conservatives in particular are missing the crucial fact.

Our liberty, including our separation of church and state, is a fundamentally Christian phenomenon. ... Naturally, at the deepest level, we are dealing with pure human passions, namely love and hate, willingness to cooperate and lust to dominate. Man is, at the basic level, free. But what is man? Why choose love over hate? Choosing love is not necessarilly in one's 'self interest'. It is not in the self interest of young Americans to die in Iraq. It is, likewise, not in the self-interest of suicide bombers to do what they do. The materialist explanation explains nothing, and human beings are not as independent of metaphysical realities as they would often like to believe.

Sooner or later, if we are to win the war on terror, we are going to have to start seeing it more in the way the people who started it see it; a Christian heresy against Christianity. There have been such wars before...

Sincerely,

Paul Rhoads

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