of course the moral relativist hate people to point out right from wrong. Usually they take up great 'moral' causes like the gw relgion. Just ask Cate Blanchett.

Dear Phanto,

The bone is indeed too large for either of us, but I have not swallowed this bone - I am vegetarian!

I have not asked to share a society with that many people of different basic values - I believe in smaller societies where membership is based on common or similar values rather than on happening to reside within some particularly large territory.

Thinkabit:

"This is wrong. Many scholars of the Jewish/Moslem/Christian religions (and probably other religions- I don't know much about others) spend countless hours applying logic and reason to justify their beliefs."

Why would they do this? If all that ultimately matters is having faith then why would you need to justify it? Either you have it or you don’t. If you can justify it then it is no longer a matter of faith but a matter of reason.

I can see what you are saying about science being initially based on faith. Of course you have to have some hunch and you hope eventually it will be proven correct but it would be silly to base your action on that hunch especially if your life depended on it. I am sure those who first experimented with electricity did not trust their safety to a hunch that could have killed them if they got it wrong. You wait until something is proven before you take risks or expect others to take risks.

People who claim religious faith not only risk their own lives and happiness but want to risk everyone else’s as well. Blowing you self to bits and dozens of others as well on the hunch that it will all work itself out in heaven is not the same as patiently working towards proving a theory to be fact.

Yuyutsu:

“The bone is indeed too large for either of us, but I have not swallowed this bone”
Well you should have said that in the first place. An apology would be more appropriate than some kind of smart alec piece of denial. Still you have no right to speak for me as to what I am capable of.

Dear Phanto,

In doing scientific experiments one is not always aware of the risks.

Marie Curie won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics and the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Her achievements included a theory of radioactivity (a term that she coined), techniques for isolating radioactive isotopes, and the discovery of two elements, polonium and radium. Under her direction, the world's first studies were conducted into the treatment of neoplasms, using radioactive isotopes. She founded the Curie Institutes in Paris and in Warsaw, which remain major centres of medical research today. During World War I, she established the first military field radiological centres.

She died in 1934 at the sanatorium of Sancellemoz (Haute-Savoie), France, due to aplastic anemia brought on by exposure to radiation – including carrying test tubes of radium in her pockets during research and her service during World War I in mobile X-ray units created by her.

There are other examples of scientists losing health and life as a result of their work.

A very well argued and timely article.

phanto
your simplistic misrepresentation of the relationship between religion, faith and science is a good example of the author’s concern that silencing those we disagree with makes it possible for us to “write off vast swathes of our countrymen and women as blind and bigoted”.

David f
I agree that free speech is not uniquely a left or right issue. There are those on both left and right who would happily silence dissenting views, and there are parts of both that vigorously champion free speech. But it seems to me that many of the more forceful and aggressive attempts to stifle unwelcome opinions of late have bee led by the left – witness the article by Tanya Cohen that Natasha links to (which I thought had to be a spoof when I first read it), or the attempts to silence Colonel Richard Kemp’s talk at ANU.
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2015/03/17/4199255.htm

“No platform” is most commonly a leftist slogan.

There is quite a lot of debate within the left itself about the growing shift against free speech. This article has some quite interesting views on the decline in support of free speech by the left, from within the left:

http://fredrikdeboer.com/2014/03/24/is-the-social-justice-left-really-abandoning-free-speech/

Locking people up for saying words really is a left wing thing, I've never heard a right winger calling for other people to be fined or incarcerated for saying things which rubbed them the wrong way.
The Left and the Human Rights crowd don't have any valid points to make so it's no skin of the right wingers's nose to have them screech into the void and make fools of themselves day in day out.
There are already laws to deal with incitement to violence (which in the political context again always comes from the left) and if a person makes a nuisance of themselves in public they can be dealt with under public order laws or local ordinances.
Apart from being a bunch of overly sensitive wowsers the Left love to play the man and not the ball, they always distort and misrepresent the words said by people they don't like or who may have upset them.
It's impossible to argue with someone who goes of on a tangent and never comes back, constantly moves the goal posts or who creates what they think is an unfalsifiable position, like so: http://goo.gl/jn3CrG
How do you argue with that? The Left approach every issue with "It doesn't matter what you said or what you meant,it only matters what I think you said and what I think you meant...and any way shut up because you're making me upset".
This article pokes much fun at the Left's collective personality disorders, can you "be brave" (#sobrave), take the test and look into your soul?
http://goo.gl/RW1kj0