A religious president like Huckabee is the worst thing for this country right now.

Good arguments - I knew my logic was a little wobbly when I posted this debate, I guess it was an emotional response to seeing Huckabee with that smile on his face after winning Iowa. But nevertheless, I will further assert my points and refute yours. You have a lot of points, and I will deal with them systematically and logically. 1) I agree with you, that my assumption that Huckabee will pull through to the end is not a good one, and after listening to some political analysis on the subject, I see that was a premature posture. My main point, in this argument, is that a religious person like Huckabee for president is a bad idea, and that does nothing to weaken my stance. 2) I believe you have got me again. My candidate, Mike Gravel, is the ONLY one of our presidential nominees that is not somewhat religious. Since he is not going anywhere, I guess you could say the Democrats are ready to put a religious person in there as well. Again, my main argument is not affected by this, but my emotional ranting is getting me into trouble here. 3) I do not support Kucinich, and I have nothing to defend about him. I fail to see why you concentrate on him when all of the democrats have espoused religion save gravel, but that is beside the point I guess. 4) yes, there are many christians in our gov't and that would help explain why there are many laws based on christian ideology. My goal here is to show that Christianity's hold on our politics is very real and very strong, and we need to work on disentangling Christianity from politics, one law at a time. up until this point, I argue that my main points have not been addressed in any way, therefore my argument still stands. You DO address my main points ahead: "I identify 2 main points in your argument - first, that congress passes laws that are dependent on and reflect a Christian ideology, and second, that this constitutes the establishment of Christianity as a national religion." I will accept your paraphrasement of my main points, with a little bit of refinement. The executive and judicial branches are just as important as congress in this matter. You refute my first point by saying that, and correct me if I am wrong, since most people in the US are Christians, then why is it so wrong that Christianity's mark is made on our legal system? My answer is that, while majority rules is what our voting system is based on, our laws are meant to reflect justice, not religion, or anything else for that matter. Our constitution is a set of rules that must be followed in order for our legal system to remain just. If most of our citizens liked the color red, they could all vote to make it mandatory that the color red be worn at all times. This is similar to the logic I find with Christian politics: we christians believe sodomy is immoral (even though there is no inherent immorality involved), so let's make sodomy illegal and punish offenders with 20 years in prison. You next attempt to define morality. You say it is a result of biological tendencies, and rests upon social contract theory. If I refute this, then we will never get anywhere, because philosophers have been dealing with morality for thousands of years and you and I are not going to resolve it in two and a half rounds of online debate. I would ask that we settle on a general, impartial definition of morality: the state which is achieved by just actions. "just" simply means fair, there are no strings attached to my definition, and I will continue to use it unless you cannot accept it. You then say that our constitution is simply trying to prevent religious persecution, and that as long as we don't offend another religion, we are right to pass religious laws. I think this argument is as black and white as it can be. If you pass laws that reflect christian ideology, that are immoral, and that aren't shared by non-christians, then how are you NOT persecuting other religions? How is another religion supposed to be able to take hold if there are laws being passed by Christians that force them, at the end of a gun, to do things that are Christian? I believe that Christian politicians are ignoring the implications of their actions when they pass these laws. I will define some laws for you, and anyone else who at this point is in the dark as to what I mean by laws that are "based on Christian ideology, immoral, and generally not reflected among non-christians". 1) Sodomy laws - sodomy is practiced by incredibly large amounts of our population. Anyone of you reading this message, who has ever had oral sex, has performed sodomy. Strict religious interpretations, correct me if I am wrong, define sodomy as "any sexual position other than missionary". I am not 100% sure about that last sentence, but here is a Georgia statute, ruled unconstitutional in 2003 (I consider this too recent for comfort) - sodomy is defined as when the reproductive organs of one person touch the lips or anus of another person - sodomy shall be punishable by no less than, and no more than 20 years in prison 2) gay marriage laws - again, there is an incredible population of homosexuals in our country, and it is predominantly the Christians who stand in their way of equality. I understand that Christians are scared that homosexuality will continue to increase if they don't put it in check, but their is no way to address that concern without supreme injustice. 3)the War on Drugs - let me put a scenario to you. A man smokes marijuana, in the privacy of his own home. A police officer walks by, smells it, and enters his home with probable cause and arrests him. This scenario is completely unjust, and I believe it is predominantly Christians who stand in the way of our abilities to quell this situation. It is not a strictly Christian subject- there is probably no part of the bible that addresses it (I could be wrong), but it is not a conincidence that most people who are pro-drug war are also devout christians. 4) The war on terror - there are plenty of christians that are against the war. There would have to be, because most of our country IS against the war. But we are still in the war.... why is this? What is the most basic argument for us to stay in the war? WMD? no, that was determined to be a lie a long time ago. Oil? no, our economy has suffered greatly from this war, and there would be no reason to stay for Oil. Spreading freedom? well, if you are talking about Christian freedom I guess you could say yes. The reason we are over there is RELIGION. The only arguments left to stay there is that Islamic fundamentalists are evil and we should be taking it to them before they reach us. I argue that this is an essentially religious argument. I know I am going to get a comments section full of Christians refuting this paragraph, but before you post, please list why exactly we are in Iraq right now. I will successfully refute every one of your points, except one: Islamic terrorists. Islamic terrorism is a religious concern, they are over there fighting over religion, and we bring ours right in and get right in the middle. Why we are prolonging their civil war, I can't explain, but I know that it is predominantly Christian Republicans like Bush, Huckabee, Romney, and McCain that are fighting to keep us exactly where we are in this war. I think that their religious pride is telling them that since Islam is morally wrong, that we have the right to occupy their country and keep them oppressed. A religious president is less likely to be in a scandal? Please elaborate. I would love for you to tell me why... As for your final sentence, I simply believe that a Christian president will not help our country in terms of the environment, the war on drugs, the war on terror, the war on homosexuals.... these are issues that are important to me. Are they important to you?