There will be a Total World War between the Judo-Christian and Islam worlds within the century.

My opponent has seemingly ignored or "done away" with several of my key points. As such, I will first go through his counterarguments, then highlight argument he has failed to respond to. [quote]My opponent claims that because this is the twenty first century horrendous things like this can't happen because we have progressed.[quote] No, horrible things can still happen in the 21st century. The September 11 attacks are an obvious example. However, to say an transcontinental war between two religions will happen amongst practically all, if not most, of the world powers, is pushing it. I'm simply saying that people living in the 21st century are much more tolerant, open-minded, and knowledgeable. While there are many fanatics in the world, the amount of people who are at least tolerant of religion outweighs it much MUCH more. ========== The Zeitgeist can quickly "slip back" into "atrociousness" ========== [quote]People are all too eager to give up their rights, or their morals, if they think it will soon improve things for them. Look at Julius Caesar, Stalin, Mussolini, Castro, Pinochet, and many others. America and the whole democratic world are in a crisis. The recent recession is now starting to be considered a depression.[quote] There are several problems with this argument: 1. The examples you listed are of dictators or those with great power over their respective nations. America, on the other hand, is a republic democracy. One of it's foundations, the Constitution, was created based on the idea of compromise. Similarly so, many European countries who you have listed to be among the Judeo-Christian worlds are also based on a democratic government. It will be very hard for all of these countries to wage war against "the Muslims" than for Stalin or Castro. You are making a fallacious analogy due to the fact that the Judeo-Christian worlds (which I will not refer to as JD worlds) are built on the idea of making change slow. If people wanted a war, it will be very hard to get it pass. On a transcontinental scale? Much more impossible. 2. How exactly will the recession call people into war? I'm not a historian, but last I checked, the Great Depression of 1929 did NOT make people want to wage war - certainly not against a particular religion. Sure, America did go into war around time, but that was because we were bombed by the Japanese. [quote]Just like the Romans, the Chileans, the Italians, we look to Obama as a savior. This has historically led to dictatorship. I'm not saying Obama will become a dictator, and I'm aware of the checks and balances in government that Bush did his best to get rid of. All I'm saying is the prerequisites are there and we're heading toward some form of major conflict.[quote] We certainly don't look to Obama as a "savior", but rather as a good president (depending on who you support, obviously). However, even if we were fanatically in love with him, checks and balances will keep him in place. More importantly, you have no evidence or reason to say that Obama will want to wage war against Islam. For someone who originally wanted to leave Iraq by 2011, I highly doubt he would want a World War 3. ========== Religious moderates can become extremists easily, and fast ========== [quote]However, add a fanatical leader into the mix and everyone turns a blind eye or even supports it.[quote] Which proves my point - we have checks and balances to prevent "fanatical leaders" in government from going crazy with power. [quote]Indeed, we're already on our way. We could easily see, with no stretch of the imagination, how things could be different in twenty, forty, eighty years.[quote] If you're arguing this war will happen in the distant future, then this debate is pointless. Neither of us can give a barely accurate assessment of what history will be like in 20-80 years, except fuzzy pictures. [quote]Muslims already don't desire peace, as my opponent has conceded.[quote] Well of course some Muslims don't desire peace, but that's not the point. The point is that only an extreme minority of Islam are jihads or fanatics. Secondly, you deliberatley ignore my point that the Muslim extremists, including the Taliban and bin Laden, don't plan to stage a military CAMPAIGN against Western powers, but a MOVEMENT. The September 11 attacks were tragic, but they were in no way a tactical win for the terrorists (actually a loss, since we responded by attacking and wiping out large numbers of terrorists). ========================================================================== ========================================================================== ========================================================================== I will now list the many arguments and points my opponent has either completely ignored or failed to refute: 1. He fails to realize the extremists plan - they don't want a full-scale war (they know they will lose against Western might). Rather, they want a movement. Quite different from WORLD WAR 3. 2. He fails to respond to my question of why the Muslims would even attempt to wage war against Western powers when they know the military might of Western powers are much greater. Even if they were to suddenly shut off foreign oil supplies, this can be seen as an act of war already. 3. He says my question of "how do you know every country will be part of it" is SEMANTICS. This is categorically wrong. It is certainly not a "semantics argument", and my opponent shouldn't abuse the term. It's clear and explicit: how do you know every country you have listed will be part of it? Such a complete and large collaboration would take a tremendous event; the magnitude of that which has never been witnessed in mankind's history. I suspect that such a burden for my opponent was too much, so he decided to somehow "dismiss it". ========== Conclusion ========== My opponent has failed to respond to many arguments, and his new points are barely convincing. He is constantly over exaggerating the divisiveness of religion, and until his argument become even close to convincing, the clear winner is CON.