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123everton | 18:20 Thu 27th Nov 2008 | Religion & Spirituality
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What good has atheism done for the world?
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Your measles assertion is skewed - The media took the results of one (ONE) now discredited, medical researcher and turned it into a moral panic.

When they were faced with opposition they refused to back down given that the public believe the media this snowballed and results in what we see today.

Religion aside the reason for the measles epidemic is as about as far from logic as any sensible person can get. If logic had been applied everyone would have had the MMR
Absolutely, Dave the Dog; it was a media scrum; the science was never credible from the off.
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As I stated before - You cannot prove what your saying.

Religion is its muse - So what about Galileo? After him how many did what they did and possibly hid what they were?

I can't prove this, apart from Galileo, but what was done in the name of religion cannot be taken as a belief in religion and as I said before its to broad a brush
I can't see what relevance the MMR argument has to this discussion anyway. What does that have to do with belief or non-belief in God?
Ask 123 he used to try and attack logic.
I am asking him.
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Sorry Naomi

no.k why so :-)
Galileo was a devout Catholic who tried to persuade the opinion of the Cardinals of the time. Galileo would have probably considered that his work was cohesion between science and religion, or Copernican science challenging Aristotelian science and that God had given him the brains to use. As he said himself, the Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go.
Galileo was an intelligent man do you not think that when he questioned the church he may not have questioned his existence?

The point I am making isn't if he was religious or not, its if something was done in the name of religion. There is no doubt that many, many works of art where inspired by and created because of religion, but to say that none of these creations were done by athiests is stupid.

Nobody could be non-conformist could they? and Galileo proves that point, who after him would in anyway say that they went against the church let alone god.


Perhaps non-conforming for their time, yes. Many of the early �scientists� were philosophers or doctors of theology, that challenged the Aristotlean theories, Averroism and the people who took the Bible so literally. I would guess that like many prior and many subsequent, it would have only been natural for Galileo to question his existence. But he was perhaps more perplexed with the clergy of the time, stifling his discoveries.

Natural philosophy was an independent field, separated from theology. It enjoyed a good deal of intellectual freedom as long as it was restricted to the natural world. Of course, if natural philosophers stepped outside the permitted limits there would be action, the Church�s disciplinary procedures were mainly aimed at theologians who were involved in a much more dangerous area. In general, there was religious support for natural science by the late Middle Ages and a recognition that it was an important element of learning, something which potentially lead to the new philosophy of the scientific revolution.

I am not really sure we could today imagine something as ground-breaking as those discoveries, but perhaps with a new theory that changed the accepted ideas of everything we know today we would probably have as many raised eyebrows as when David Icke declared himself the son of God.
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Happy to answer the question about the MMR Naomi, you espouse the "truths" of science, you laud it's independent scrutiny, which is fine and admirable, you decry religionists for being irrational, illogical and for cherry picking the bits they like.
But for all the so called truths you espouse you don't trust the MMR vaccine, which by definition makes you as bad as US!
Are you honest enough to admit to that?
Thanks all of you, Wiz - sleepless nights...........tell me about it.

Naomi - I know what you are trying to say and I do not want to change the subject of this question. But in Islam it is very easy as Quran is same word to word where ever in the world. Only problem (even that is not very severe) is interpretation of about 5% of Quran. Other 95% is straight forward. Of course lack of media and facilities made people depend upon people around them, and their interpretation. Now people can compare and listen to different scholars. If one of them just says that I say this and the other one says Quran says this and gives the reference where people can go and check then I would rather listen to him.

As far as suicide bombing is concerned then you will not find a single known scholar who would endorse a suicide attack where innocent people die. Where suicide attacks are against invading army or the forces that are oppressing your rights then few scholars do say that if the other party has gunship helicopter, daisy cutter, mother of all bombs etc and are using then the others have to use what they have. And in many cases they only have their bodies.
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There is a principled difference between perhaps the east and the west here, during WW2 we had many suicide missions but the term referred to the likelihood of survival or even extracation (St. Nazzaire springs to mind) with the suicide bomber death is the objective, within this sect of Islam often for political reasons a cult of death has risen up, a true martyr makes his own statement like the Buddhist monk in South Vietnam.
Everton, Not accurate. There is no correlation between the MMR vaccine and belief in God. The vaccine, unlike God, is tangible. We know without doubt that it exists - but it doesn't follow that those who prefer science over God are compelled to believe, or to put their faith in everything that science promotes. Science is not a religion, and that being so, it allows freedom of thought, constructive and critical debate, and personal choice.

The wartime raid upon St Nazaire cannot be compared in any way to the mass slaughter on 9/11 or 7/7 - or indeed to the latest atrocity in Mumbai, or to any other act of cold-blooded murder carried out on a civilian population by Islamic extremists. The true Islamic martyr may well make his own statement eventually, but like anyone who adheres to a particular creed, he is initially influenced, and encouraged, by those who teach him.
Keyplus, so it seems you agree with me. Different teachers do teach differently. You say As far as suicide bombing is concerned then you will not find a single known scholar who would endorse a suicide attack where innocent people die. This, I suppose depends upon your interpretation of the words 'innocent people'. What do you say about Omar Bakri, Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal, or Abu Hamza, for example? They all consider ordinary citizens in the west to be fair game - along, it seems, with any Muslim going peacefully about his daily business who happens to be caught up in the mayhem. Perhaps you don't consider these men to be scholars in the true sense of the word, but that would be nit-picking, since they are certainly teachers who wield enormous influence and promote and encourage widespread slaughter of innocent civilians - few of whom are decision-making politicians, and few of whom, in the eyes of any rationally-minded person, have done anything whatsoever to deserve their fate.
I have had the 'Innocent People' debate with Keyplus before. It seems everyone is considered innocent, unless of course you are involved in any way at all in causing aggression in Islamic countries, or against Islam. That basically puts everyone in the US and UK in the frame as being non innocent, regardless of whether you object to the wars, simply because our country is 'at war with Islam'.
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Naomi, simple question do you trust MMR?
Yes or no?
If not then you cannot profess to possess the logic you espouse.
How different was 7/7 from the Birmingham bombings, suicide apart they're exactly the same.
Suicide missions, if you actually read what I said is that we did have suicide missions and many more besides, every spy was in effect a suicide mission, still not convinced? Then ask the families of Kubis and Gabcik.
The principled difference is that death is a defined outcome of the suicide bomber, whereas.... Do I have to repeat myself?
The weight of arms America and the west can bring to bear against any foe is so immense that traditional warfare would be useless.
Our enemies will bring their arms to bear in any way they can, the AK47 is the main firearm of irregular militias whereas the M16 and I think the SA80 are ours. The AK47 is an assault rifle, not particuarly accurate but rugged, the M16 and SA80 are very accurate, a simple analogy is Rorkes Drift Zulu Impis had Brown Bess muskets whereas we had Martini Henry's the Martini was acurate the musket was not that's why we had no deaths from muskettry.
What this means in the field is that a militia man has to make 2 sweeps to try and hit 1 target whereas the soldier can take cover engage targeted rapid fire and then advance in sections.
The oldest military logic is to attack an army where it's weakest, in Afghanistan and Iraq that means checkpoints etc.
I am not defending suicide bombing, but if you remember when we bombed Serbia we killed a train full of civilians, collateral damage Cook called it and then he said the Serbs would understand that Milosevic brought this upon them.
It's a sad fact of life that innocent people die in wars and we are at war
Everton, why do you persist in asking me questions when you already know the answer? It's no surprise that no.knowledge says that we, in R&S constantly repeat ourselves. Nevertheless, I will. Firstly I'll repeat that science is not a religion, and we are not obliged to take everything it says as 'gospel' unless proof positive is offered. To answer your question yet again, since I know a beautiful child who was perfectly healthy until developing severe autism shortly after receiving the triple vaccine, no, I do not trust MMR. Scientists saying 'there is no evidence to suggest....' does not mean 'this is positively safe'. They are two very different statements, and rather than gamble with any child's life, however small the risk may be, I, personally, choose to err on the side of caution. Having said that, what any of this has to do with belief in God, or otherwise, is still a mystery to me.

It seems you are defending suicide bombings Everton. This discussion is not about attacking armies - or military air strikes - or military warfare of any kind. It's about purposely and deliberately attacking and killing thousands of innocent civilians. No mistakes, stray bombs, or regrets there - and not a militarily strategic target in sight! If you conclude that this is war, then it's a one-sided war, since we offer no retaliation, but simply allow our 'enemies' to live and move freely among us. An odd war indeed!

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