Dear Brushy..... you keep on mentioning the sammmmme thing.. "Muslims got us out of our intellectual bondage" kind of thing.

I honestly don't know why you keep saying this.. are you expecting us to suddenly start 'appreciating' them in some new way? Life and history have moved onnnnn since that period. Its quite disputable anyway. (the claim you made) but the bottom line is.. it just doesn't matter.

It doesn't change the fanatacism and rage of those jihadis...-if we suddenly had 'appreciate Islam day' with specific mention of that period.. do you honestly think Dafur would be solved? or.. Hamas would suddenly see the light and stop killing Fatah? Or Iran stop trying to become Nuclear? Or the Muslims in Malaysia stop trying to have 'male/female' checkouts at supermarkets.. etc etc.

I can give you MANNNNNY examples of Muslim brutality and invasion after invasion... just as others can provide such reports about periods in the history of Christendom.... again.. it don't matter mate.

Look more at the driving fundamentals.. the founder.. the framework, and the future based on those.

Sometimes I get the impression you are just trying to say nice things about "Islam"..

You have made the point so many times now about 'reason/muslims' etc.. and ..for what?
There must be a new paddock to graze in mate :)

While I am agnostic verging on athiest,religion from my point of view is just a natural progression of our consciousness.We yearn the security of our maternal genetic history yet cannot come to terms with with our own finite mortality.

It is serious folly to ever to say never,since religion is the buffer zone that will enable us feeble humans to reach a higher order of awarness.Religion has been seen to be flawed,however with no floor upon which to base our values,we are doomed to chaos.

The concept of "god" is not a relevant point of contention.Life is about now.

BN,
“… if you think that abortion is "wrong", don't get one. Let those who do face the consequences”
I see. So “… if you think that invading other countries is "wrong", just don't invade Iraq. Let those who do face the consequences.”

DEMOS, dickey, Grey, stop&think, thank you for showing us all that the problem is not as simple as Brian wants us to see it. It is a scientific problem, the answer to which the scientists will eventually find. And, perhaps even more importantly, an ethical dilemma, an answer to which we all must seek, whether speaking on behalf of a Church or just on behalf of ourselves. For the sake of the suffering, but also for the sake of the future of mankind… err humankind.

My opinion is that we would never have understood and accepted the dangers of a nuclear explosion explained to us by physicists if there were no Hiroshima. I think we shall never understand the depths of the dilemma we face with the possibilities of biogenetic research, unless a side effect, probably even unintentional, will shock us, or rather our descendants.

"finding it much easier to make stuff up about God or ignore him than purify my heart and pursue him;"

Umm Martin, before your drift off with the fairies altogether,
I will remind you that your heart pumps blood, thats about it.
We could give you a heart transplant, little would change...
you'd just have a new pump. Even a pig's heart, now that
would be really pure :)

George,

The introduction of non-indigenous species into Australia [rabbits, frogs] are examples of carelessness. Just the same, the Space Shuttle or an atomic reator is controlled. Immunisation was/is dangerous too. Some of Susan Greenfield's [neurosciencist] would suggest work on the brain in near centuries will involve morphing micro-electronics to existing functionalities, rather actually changing the brain. Like extrachanging a carburetta with fuel injection, not replacing the internal combustion engine. Genes don't act in isolation and we are a fair away in undrestanding how neuroclusters work. Some neuro-mapping machines are precise but examine the brain over intervals which are too great. Oter machines are can do the micro-second stuff but are not as accurate. Once we combine the technologies, we shall have a better understanding of the brain works and be able to more safely manipulate functions. The same would be true of other technologies, such as genetics. It is a matter of finding the true path between "fools rushing in" and becoming technologically arrested: e.g., Margret Mead in 1950s referred to farming practises in Ireland as arrested when farmers did not allow land to remain fallow for intervals

Martin, I’ll tell you why the scientific method isn’t muddled but the religious method is.

The answer is simple. Science has disbelief as its default setting. In other words a scientist will only consider believing in something if there is sufficient evidence. The evidence doesn’t have to overwhelming (although it can be), just sufficient.

Religious people on the other hand have belief as their default setting and are willing to believe in something with little evidence or logic attached to it.

One example is the Night Journey from Mecca to Jerusalem by the Prophet Mohammed . Apparently he rode on the back of a winged creature called al-Buraq to what is now known as The Haram al-Sharif. Because of this flighty adventure Jerusalem has become Holy to Muslims as well as Jews with the result being the intensification of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Therefore, we have an international religio-political conflict rather than a localised political conflict which has become impossible to resolve. Indeed, this conflict involving millions of people is made manifestly worse because of a mythical flying donkey thing recorded in Islamic literature many decades after the supposed event.

What stupidity, and what a travesty. If only the people of the Middle East thought like scientists and sceptics with disbelief as their default setting!