After all, I doubt the no littering signs are operating under the 10 commandments. And on the reverse, I doubt you are one of those liberal Muslim apologists who say it's okay for a Sharia court to operate in the UK.
Not sure what you mean exactly.
No, I don't think that any law system should be built on religious dogma, no matter whether its Islam or Christianity.
As for 10 commandments on the front door, as I said, I didn't say that should somehow be forbidden, but I think an insitution that already should be trying to make a point of being secular, would do best by not generating contradicting imagery in a social environment where not everyone is actually convinced that a secular law system without a Bible is any good.
our values today have been shaped by a Judeo-Christian cultural heritage.
I don't see how that matters.
They've been shaped by people who, while mostly accepting Christian beliefs, have had the most differing "interpretations" of it that you could imagine.
If the Reconstructionists were at power, we'd have a hardcore theocracy with stoning, propaganda and mandatory religion.
As it happens, we've got people who believe in the moral side of it.
So seeing that we could have ANY sort of society under the banner of "Judeo-Christian", and anything from "do not kill" to "kill the unbelievers" could be justified, we have to conclude that we ended up like this because of... the people who took their faith into a particular direction.
Should we pay our dues to the religious influence, or to the people who thought Sermon on the Mount was better than Exodus?
Should we stress that we have our values and laws from the Bible, when in actuality we cherry-picked the parts we found agreeable, that don't need any religious influence to deduce in the first place?
All I know is, America has been founded on the separation of church and state, and I don't see why a court of law should prefer to make any implications to the contrary.
The 10 Commandments begin with an order to worship Yahweh and no other Gods. Why should we need THAT in front of a secular court of law?
We realize why stealing is bad based on LIFE. We've also realized that commanding people to believe in a certain God is stupid, so we've discarded that.
I'd much rather have a giant brain printed on the front door than a list of commands judging thought crime.
"I disagree with the overly-literal interpretations of the Bible utilized by Baptists, in addition to their rigid mindset and intolerance of others' ideas."
But that's the thing, though, we don't have any such bible-thumping bigots on here, so why not call them that if there's no one to offend?
However, should any actual bigot or racist or whatever come on this thread, he'll get no sweet-talk or respect from me.
Calling things their names is the name of the game.
There are multiple ways to view the universe, not just the skeptic's way. While science leads to greater understanding of how it all workds, it is not the only way to appreciate the world. Take art. What is beautiful for one may be hideous to another. To the one who finds the art beautiful, that is his or her truth, and all scientific studies could not disprove that person's understanding of what makes something beautiful.
They could explain why or how a person comes to a certain conclusion or perception.
Disproving the FACT of individual perception wouldn't only be outside the realm of science, it would actually be unscientific.
At any rate, science is there to gather facts and understanding of reality.
Opinions about art isn't another way to view the universe, it's about subjective impressions about objects.
Religious beliefs relate to factual claims, not personal impressions that are entirely subjective.
Take illness. Scientific studies have allowed physicians to treat and cure countless afflictions. But when a doctor asks, "On a scale of 1 to 10, how much pain are you in?" are they requiring scientific evidence to back it up? If their screenings find nothing physically wrong with the person, or at least nothing that should warrant a severe pain, do they tell the patient, "You're just delusional; you're not really in that much pain"? Of course not.
1) The fact that patients often can't be trusted with an accurate description of their sensations and there's no way to check reliably, is actually acknowledged as a problem in diagnostics.
The maxime being: do as best as you can with what's available.
2) Not delusional - ILLUSIONAL. Pain without physical causes is called psychosomatic, it happens all the time - depression, anxiety disorder, hypochondria etc. etc.
Obviously, it often happens that an actual problem can't be detected and the doctor wrongly puts off a sympton as psychological, while it's actually physical.
That has nothing to do with worldviews, however, it just means the methods need more and more improvement in precision.
Or were they perceiving details and reasoning them out without conscious effort? We may not be able to scientifically prove how they came to that conclusion, but that does not necessarily prove the conclusion as coincidental.
Well, intuition can go both ways - it can be delusional, but it can also pick up on things the consciousness doesn't.
While no one says following it is always wrong, can it be called a reliable method in gaining and cementing actual knowledge? NO.
Yet, in the end, we may find that one of the less popular theories is closer to the truth.
Based on new EVIDENCE, right?
simply lacking evidence to prove it true does not make something false.
Please look up "burden of proof" - it's an absolute must for anyone who wants to partake in a discussion about religion.
But if you are to proudly assert how insensitive he is to the rest of the world, don't be so dang sensitive when anyone makes a lighthearted jab or disagrees with you.
Where am I being sensitive??
Why you're starting to preach kindness and peace when I actually haven't insulted or demeaned a single user in this thread, giving no reason whatsoever for anyone to lock any threads, is beyond me.
Is it paranoia, or just your obscure "sense of humour"?
Just because you can state your opinion with passion and many words does not make it correct.
No.
Backing it up with reason makes it correct.
Not correct in a final sense, but a temporary correctness until valid counterpoints are made.
In this case, I think I've made a pretty good case for why your analogies to art and medicine aren't valid and don't translate well to religion, but apparently, in a "sensitive topic", making simple points based on logic can easily rub people the wrong way. *surprise surprise*
If your point is that religious claims could be correct even if they're not proven, well d-uh.
But that kind of "intuitional certainty" hasn't lost anything in science or law, so I don't even know why you're bringing it up.
PS:
If you allow me the expression, sir, I've noticed that you're somewhat of a "murky".
You like to make vague, foggy points with implications and analogies, sort of twirling and dancing around a point without actually making a clear case.
Why this talk about "different ways to view the world"?
Well here's one way to view the world: I know a schizophrenic. He sees demons and ghosts. There's no evidence that they exist and we know schizophrenics see that kind of thing due to brain dysfunctions, but they COULD be real now couldn't they?
So I'll just follow my "intuition" and consider that a relevant probability.
Someone tells me "but this is ridiculous lol!"
To which I reply: "Well, it's irrational in a scientific sense, but there's that feeling that I'm following here. That's also a way to view the world, aside from the skeptic one - but I wouldn't teach that in a science class so don't worry lol!"
Isn't this a much clearer summary of the issue here?