Why do you assume that a Russian/Chinese offensive missile is free? It is not, and from our perspective you need to count the cost of the damage that can be avoided in your strategic calculus. When you consider how much damage a nuke can do, the defensive missile looks pretty cheap.

There is a fundamental difference in morality between 'I will prevent you from killing my people' and 'I will kill all of you.' Preventing someone from killing leaves a lot more options open than killing people. Who knows, we might want them for allies at some point. Like the only nation we actually have nuked, and another that we would have nuked, had we not already beat them in conventional warfare. (That is Japan and Germany, for the historically illiterate.) The idea is sow uncertainty in your enemy's mind about the value of the offensive missiles. Who knows, they might even pull some of the warheads off and turn them into defenses, which is a win for everyone.

It does work. That is why there is an issue. (facts here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-ballistic_missile) The Russians also have ABM systems for sale, which moves this from politics to economics.

Every defensive missile turns a ~95% certain kill of 20-30 million people into a chance they might live. Count me in on that. If I am forced to bet my life on something a slim chance is way better than no chance at all. The fact that no defense is perfect does not mean that we should abandon defenses. I would prefer to complicate any enemy calculus of military activity as much as possible. If we give someone something that is certain to work, we can guarantee that they will use it at some point. If there is uncertainty in all their military courses, they may choose a negotiation rather than genocide. Let them try to guess which of:

missiles,

stealth bombers,

conventional aircraft,

submarines,

air craft carriers,

stealthy helicopters,

heavy helicopters,

seal teams,

special ops HI/LO jumpers,

or

lying diplomats

we will respond with.

We could restore the balance by reducing our inventory of offensive weapons, to everyone's (I think) satisfaction. Thus we have defenses against the psycho-islamists without unduly alarming rational self-defenders.

That was the stated purpose of the plagues: Exodus 12:12

The man in question was never a Muslim, but since his parents were Muslim, he was convicted of apostasy. Facts here: http://www.sbcbaptistpress.org/BPnews.asp?ID=37246 The rights of non-Muslims under Sharia law does not include the right to property, and any action done by a Muslim male is justified and proper. You should do a bit of reading before assuming that some one is mixed up. A larger question would be why you think this is OK? Is it because he was a Christian that you think he deserves to die?

You are probably referring to the Inquisition conducted by the Catholic Church. Please remember that one of the 'crimes' that could get you death at the stake under the Inquisition was owning a bible. The bible is the most subversive document ever written.

We live at a time when more people are persecuted for their Christian faith than at any time in history. Muslim leadership does not need you to cover up their crimes.

I was being a little flip about the big band, but the truth is, quantum mechanics (Our best crack at understanding the universe), does not allow a particle to exist in less than it's wavelength. (simplified here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_singularity) At the singularity stage of the universe, no measurement is possible, so what existed at that point is 'nothing' in our time/space.

I notice that your defense of evolution consists of an ad hominem attack, and not a reasoned argument. Why?

I normally see a reference to: http://www.talkorigins.org/ at this point in the conversation, which is a delightful collection of all the fallacies in evolution. See if you can spot the error in each argument! (There are often more than one.)

That is an interesting view. What OT story shows this best?

The only problem with this idea is that all of the major themes in modern Christianity are laid out in the old testament. For instance the best ancient copy of Isaiah dates from 130-60 BC and contains, intact, the 53rd chapter, which was removed from later Jewish editions of Isaiah because one cannot read it without noticing the similarity to the events in the Gospels. By the way, the oldest references to the gospels date from the first and second century AD, and are indistinguishable from the modern texts. This is important because this was the period when it was death to be a believer in Christ, and the first church councils were a couple of hundred years in the future. I can better believe Muslims hacking up the torah and the gospels a thousand years later, then that a bunch of people running for their lives sat down to screw up the very thing they were dying for.

Christians are held to be infidels.

The Koran calls for the death of any person that denies any part of the Koran. When a Christian says that Jesus is the son of God (the foundational believe in Christianity), he earns a death sentence because either: a) he is worshiping some other God, or b) he is contradicting Mohammed. Either case is a death sentence.

Perhaps you think this is a thing of the past? There is a man in Iran condemned to death today for the crime of converting to Christianity.

You might consider the idea that each of the plagues was a judgement on one of the gods of Egypt, in which case there might well be a religious taboo or superstition related to each one of the plagues.

My point was that I disagree with killing the innocent. I also disagree with tyrants killing innocent people, and sometimes that means taking away their guns. By force. It would be more appropriate if you compared our kill-rate of innocent civs with Saddam's rate, or Bashirs, or The Talibans.

God has declared that you have a choice of communion with him or separation from him. His idea is for you to accept him on his terms, i.e. believe in Jesus. You have the choice not to.

The implication of your penultimate paragraph is that you know how to do this better than God. I think not.

The bible presents the idea that God redeeming us predates the creation of the universe (2nd Timothy, 1:9)

If he thinks it worth dying for, who am I to argue, especially seeing how imperfect I am.

Jesus made the sacrifice as an adult, willingly, and for the joy of seeing you accept him. The idea that there is nothing in the world worth dying for is really sad, and makes a mockery of the self-denial that is the highest of man's thoughts.

What Islam does not believe is what Christians do believe: Jesus is the son of God, (Allah has no son, by the way) Muslims burn bibles and kill Christians where ever they can. I am not sure where you got the idea that Muslims are OK with the bible. They are not.

I would take exception to your idea that evolution is cross-examined in the scientific literature. It is a dogma that will end your career if you question even the most specious argument. There is ample proof that evolution is impossible on its face, and the theory has been disproved by Darwin's own criteria.

(Yes, I have read Darwin.)

I will assume your last statement is the result of ignorance of the bible, because there have been all kinds of neat things discovered about the world because a statement in the bible piqued someone's curiosity. (Matthew Maury's mapping of ocean currents comes to mind.)

There are other possibilities as well, such as the idea of God 'stretching' the heavens. Is that why there is red shift? Big Bang theories have a problem:"First there was nothing, then it exploded" does not happen where we live.