TR,

“Fellow-Human, when you talk about the 'separation' of monotheism and the State what do you actually mean by that?”
There are many good examples of separation of church and state. A good example like the Vatican, Saudi Arabia (just kidding: -).
Good examples are Australia, US, Turkey, Emirates, Egypt, etc..

I agree with all your statements above except for this one:
“Legislative assemblies should not quote or mention the divine in any form”

Lets define what secularism is: Its to respect everyone freedom to express themselves or their beliefs provided that they don’t infringe or discriminate against the others. So if am MP in the senate have a political view based on his religious beliefs (like the Catholic MPs and stemcells) we should respect their individuality. The same goes for religious symbols: veils, skull caps, rose rings, pink hair should not be triggers of discrimination but a trigger of respect for diversity.

What I am hearing you promoting is ‘militant secularism’ or ‘anti-religious’ (ie the Capitalist version of the soviet union which ironically look like where France is heading.)
Please clarify if I mis-understood what you are asking me.

“What about thinly veiled threats made by Rabbis, Cardinals and Sheiks? Do you feel that political lobbying by religious leaders is unwarranated, devisive and irreligious?”
True, although I think its like a radio broadcast, only those who follow it should care.
In saying that, I believe scholars should focus on educating their beliefs only. If they are keen on creating ‘the other” they should reach to touch points and not discrepancies. I don’t judge as according to my beliefs ‘judgement’ is reserved to the creator and not for humans to practice

George,

“…. there are indeed people with both scientific and theological qualifications, and, of course they use different methods to study those two different kinds of knowledge”.

Definitely Newton was a [Christian] theist experiencing the early days of true science. He was also Protestant at odds with the established universal Christian Church. He had problems with the Trinity and didn’t believe it. He was a scientist, who did not only believe in God, but also Christianity’s god. Newton had broken from the Mother Church and didn’t believe in the fourth century creed of the Trinity. Was he an [early] scientist? I think was. Was he a theist?… yes A Christian theist?…yes A denominationalist? That is a bit fuzzy… mainly.

The value of pi does not change. That said, historically, not all societies have had the same ability to measure the upper and lower limits of pi. That value changes according to how developed is the society.

Zero and positional notation in a plutonic sense have always existed, but have not always been to known to us. Numbers [5, XIV] as used mathematicians are symbols. These conform to the psycholinguistic rules too, 12 and 21 having different meanings. Linguists call this “productivity”, which in English is syntax. Symbols do change and when used merely represent a latent underlying entity.

A true scientist would hold any constant as testable and a forever to be tested posit. A scientist would try to disprove that posit. Does it work on Mars? Theistic scientists I have read tend to keep the two domains under two umbrellas. The exception might be pantheistic mathematicians, where the universe is self-sustained owing to its underlying proportions and mathematic rules. Whether he would admit it or not, maybe, Penrose is headed in this direction.

My point with Ying and Yang was that with religious concepts and oppositional concepts, there is more to it than the opposing forces. With good and evil, increasing one would be said to increase the other. Creating insight into god’s mission, would increase doubt too. Ratchet one thing and you increase measure of its opposite.

Cheers.

Fellow-Human wrote,

'There are many good examples of separation of church and state. A good example like the Vatican, Saudi Arabia (just kidding: -).
Good examples are Australia, US, Turkey, Emirates, Egypt, etc..'

Egypt?? You have got to be kidding Fellow-Human. As a reminder here is Article 2 from the Egyptian constitution;

'Art.2*: Islam is the Religion of the State. Arabic is its official language, and the principal source of legislation is Islamic Jurisprudence (Sharia).'

http://www.egypt.gov.eg/english/laws/Constitution/chp_one/part_one.asp

For a country to nominate a particular religion as its State religion is completely unacceptable. Why? Because it reinforces bigotry within society and gives the clerical oligarchies a voice in society that they should not have. Here is a good reason why Rabbis, Cardinals and Sheiks should be removed for the centre of public debate;

'Egyptian writer on trial over religion

An Egyptian writer who described the Koran as a book of ignorance and blamed Islam for underdevelopment in Muslim countries has gone on trial in Cairo.

The writer, Salaheddin Mohsen, has been charged with offending religion.

The Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights, which is monitoring the trial, says Mr Mohsen has confessed to the charge.

He could face several years in jail.....'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/795456.stm

And then there is the well documented on going fiasco with people of the Bahai faith in Egypt;

'The Bahá'í in Egypt also face persecution; on December 16, 2006, the Supreme Administrative Council of Egypt ruled the government may not recognize the Bahá'í Faith in official identification numbers.[76] Consequently, Egyptian Bahá'ís are unable to obtain government documents, including ID cards, birth, death, marriage or divorce certificates, or passports, all of which require a person's religion to be listed. They also cannot be employed, educated, treated in hospitals or vote, among other things.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1'%C3%AD_Faith
http://www.bahai.org/persecution/egypt/update

There are good reasons why sceptical secularists like myself get on our high-horse when the issue of mixing State politics and monotheism comes up. Monotheism makes cohesion within a multi-faith society impossible. It's all to do with an overly jealous and vindictive sky-god from the Bronze Age.

Oliver,
Newton belongs to 18th century and we are in the 21st when both physics/science and theology/religion have gained more sophisticated insights. I was surprised at your doubt about the EXISTENCE of numbers not about values which indeed can be constant by their very nature, or empirically constant (or assumed as such within a physical theory), or variable. The yin-yang polarity is seldom applied to Platonic transcendentals, i.e. to good-bad, true-untrue, beautiful-ugly.

TR,
“It's all to do with an overly jealous and vindictive sky-god from the Bronze Age.”
You have got a point here which is something like one half of Arnold Toynbee’s observation:

“Christianity and Judaism has one vision of God as being self-sacrificing love – God the merciful, the compassionate, according to the Islamic formula – and another vision of God as being a jealous God. … The jealous God’s chosen people easily fall into becoming intolerant persecutors. … Perhaps the two visions of God, which I have called irreconcilable in the Judaic group of higher religions, have their roots in nature-worship and in man-worship respectively.”

There is a quote from Toynbee’s Study of History that could also be relevant to our discussions:

“The subordination of higher religions to states or other secular institutions is a relapse into an ancient dispensation under which religion was an integral part of the total culture of some pre-civilisational society or early civilisation, limited in spiritual and geographical sense.

But the higher religions will always be bound to strive to keep themselves disengaged from secular social and cultural trammels, because this is an indispensable condition for the fulfillment of their true missions.

This mission is not concerned directly with human beings’ social or cultural relations with each other: its concern is the relation between each individual human being and the trans-human spiritual presence of which the higher religions offer a new vision.”

I know, many people disagree with Toynbee’s interpretation of history but I was just wondering, among other things, whether such a vision (of Islam) would be acceptable e.g. to Fellow_Human.

Thanks TR for the following

Egypt?? You have got to be kidding Fellow-Human. As a reminder here is Article 2 from the Egyptian constitution;
Art.2*: Islam is the Religion of the State. Arabic is its official language, and the principal source of legislation is Islamic Jurisprudence (Sharia).'

Many of the Islamist apologists seem to be speaking through their rectum.

Quote George:

"Thank you for the attention you paid my remark addressed to stickman. I am not sure whom you call “theist” but there are indeed people with both scientific and theological qualifications, and, of course they use different methods to study those two different kinds of knowledge. "

Thanks George, sorry been tied up again. Oliver has already addressed this one more eloquently that I could, but suffice it to say that I find the disctinction between scientific and theological knowledge utterly arbitrary and false. There is just 'knowledge,' surely? Why should theological matters be afforded different treatment?

Quote George:

"Atheists claim the non-existence of (the monotheist version of) God but I have never heard of anybody denying the existence of numbers."

Be very careful how you characterise atheism - an extreme, 'radical' atheist position may deny the possibility of God, but I (and I suspect the majority of people who identify as atheist) deny not the possibility of God, but that there is sufficient evidence for him.. it.. whatever.

Atheism for most, is more the absence of belief in the unprovable than a claim of anything... a subtle distinction but an important one.