nicknamenick,

I was referring to your response to me:

“As WWI did not end all wars so mobilising mass rejection will not end extreme allegiances and may well be extremism itself.” (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=17910#317527)

Anyway, I gave you Dawkins’ more palatable “consciousness raising” to show that my main point, with regards to why bad ideas need to be countered, was still valid.

As for your crime stats, they’re quite cherry-picked. The vast majority of data shows a strong correlation between religiosity and poor societal health:

http://moses.creighton.edu/jrs/2005/2005-11.pdf
http://www.skepticmoney.com/tabular-relationship-of-religion-and-iq-poverty-murder-theft-divorce-giving-and-health/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdtwTeBPYQA

While this may not prove that religion is bad for societies, it certainly debunks runner’s claim that a move away from religiosity is the cause of society's ills.

Jayb,

I have no idea what the point is that you’re trying to make.

Joe,

I thought the fact that Mother Teresa was actually a cruel and cynical fraud and phony was common knowledge now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4nCaxHN-cY

.

Dear Peter/Sells,

.

You ask :

« Why do I get the feeling that I could as well publish a page from the telephone directory and I would get the same discussion driven by the same people on this thread? »

I am delighted to respond to your call for comments on your article :
.

You wrote :

« While it is popular to say, in an intended peace-making turn, that Christianity, and Islam believe in the one God, it is apparent from close inspection that this is not true. When Christians talk about God they talk about the triune identity. This is non-negotiable. »

Judaism, Christianity and Islam all claim theological lineage to Abraham as their patriarch.

However, Christianity distinguished themself from Judaism and Islam when the Councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, and Ephesus in the 4th and 5th centuries AD elaborated and adopted the doctrine of the trinity.

As a result, Judaism and Islam both consider that Trinitarian Christianity is not monotheistic religion. Perhaps it could better be described as “pluriform” monotheism.

But not all Christian denominations are Trinitarian. Many are not “pluriform” monotheistic but “exclusively” monotheistic like Judaism and Islam.

Wikipedia indicates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_in_Islam) :

[ The identification of God both in Islam and in Christianity with the God of Abraham has been used to argue for a limited amount of mutual recognition among the Abrahamic religions on the part of Ludovico Marracci, the confessor of Pope Innocent XI, who wrote in 1734:

“That both Mohammed and those among his followers who are reckoned orthodox, had and continue to have just and true notions of God and His attributes, appears so plain from the Koran itself and all the Muslim laws, that it would be loss of time to refute those who suppose the God of Mohammed to be different from the true God”.]

Why, then, should the "triune identity" be "non-negotiable" if the "God of Mohammed" is no different from the "true God" ?

Hasn't Christianity considered that the identity of the "true God" is modifiable ?

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AJ
"cherry picked".
You selected Scandinavia and Japan and so I googled and got different ( opposite) results.
Your site has this quote, which shows the simple theory is astray. There would be other factors in US such as race and economic imbalance.

'The especially low rates in the more Catholic European states are statistical noise due to yearly fluctuations incidental to this

sample, and are not consistently present in other similar tabulations (Barcley and Tavares).

Despite a significant decline from a recent peak in the 1980s (Rosenfeld), the U.S. is the only prosperous democracy that retains high homicide rates, making it a strong outlier in this regard

(Beeghley; Doyle, 2000). Similarly, theistic Portugal also has rates of homicides well above the norm.'

nicknamenick,

You're confusing me with someone else. I never mentioned Scandinavia or Japan specifically. The data I linked to covered many countries.

<<Your site has this quote, which shows the simple theory is astray.>>

What simple theory? And how is it astray?

AJ
Correct, you didn't mention Japan. You answered the other half of my comment .
But your quote about religion / rape is still dodgy by its own assessment: the facts against it are "outliers" and must be mistakes.
Religious Arabs and irreligious Japanese , in general, abuse women so the score is 1 all.

nicknamenick,

I haven't said anything about rape and religion. You've lost me completely now, sorry.