(September 7, 2014 at 1:39 pm)ManMachine Wrote: [quote='Diablo' pid='745452' dateline='1410105457']
I'm glad you're not anti-science.
Religion and its structures cerainly improved the lives of some people, and killed lots of others. Crusades anyone?
You said 'belief' has a positive effect on people. Does that include the gay men who have been and still are being demonised and persecuted, or the christians in Saudi, or the women in any muslim country? The safest places to be are in the secular democracries of western Europe where the the level of religion is the lowest.
That's the point I was making: we don't have to believe in a god so we don't have to kill in his name. There are people who are sometimes vicious but we no longer accept that they can act in that fashion, and we punish them when they do, unlike in religious wars.
Neither science nor religion kill anyone, people do. Whatever the reason they use to justify their behaviour is driven by their needs.
I'm not comparing scientific endeavour to the Abrahamic religions or any other religions, that would be meaningless. It is important to understand what my debate is, that scientific endeavour meets the same human needs as any other religion. The particular dogmas of other religions are not relevant.
Whatever part religion plays in war you cannot argue that, as I pointed out, knowledge and technology brought about by scientific endeavour has played no part because it has. That you choose to ignore this is part of the deception we play upon ourselves.
MM
You certainly choose to ignore most of the argument. OK, I'll address yours. IS are killing people in the ME precisely because their version of their religion tells them to do so, just as Christians and other religions have done over the years. No part of science tells people to kill anyone.
Scientific endeavour seeks to explain the physical universe and create solutions for the good of mankind. That includes keeping me alive , by the way. Religion does no such thing: it's a form of crown control as everyone knows. That is not the same thing.
Everyone knows that guns kill people; but the overwhelming effect of science has been for the betterment of mankind.
