Ethics of religious discussions?

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I would suggest fact checking that link, I only checked out a few passages and the one that forbids rape, only does so for women who are engaged. The "beating your slave" aspect is paraphrased accurately by LKL according to the 3 bible versions I checked. There is also the conditional "for hebrew slaves" which doesn't help non-hebrews. The equivalent modern law, would without a doubt be shot down for being racist.

You see, christians are not safe in Norway, that's why one of them went on a killing rampage against kids.

The point I would make here is that non-Hebrew slaves were still covered by Israeli law. The quote you are talking about, refers to punishments where the cause of death was not natural. The fact that they did not die for a few days would not except the offender from a murder charge as the intentional killing of a foreigner, slave or not, was still illegal. The Biblical passage does not function in the same way as a modern law would and it one is quite mistaken to treat this verse in utter isolation to others. As to the idea that rape only applied to the engaged, that is ridiculous, rape, if you read the text more broadly applied to all women, married or not. The law of Israel also punished all sex outside of marriage.

Every bible I checked, clearly outlined different laws for hebrew and non-hebrew slaves, even between hebrew people and non-hebrew people in general. Given that we have about 10 versions of the Bible if not more, this may differ. The rape scripture and its surrounding text clearly outlined that the "rape law" only counted for engaged women, because the women then was considered to belong to the man whom she was engaged to.

You are free to reinterpret, however I stick to the "letter of the law" and that says "engaged".

@ 91, on the Bible's slavery laws, shorter version of your arguments: 'slavery (owning a human being) isn't that bad if there are rules! Selling your daughter to another man isn't that bad, because then she's his wife, and there are rules!
Hint: It's the selling another human being and owning another human being part that we find irreconcilable with morality. You sound like the American slave owners who said that that American slaves were well-treated because 'a slave is a long-term investment!'

You are kidding yourself. Just for example:
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html
in addition, the vast majority of Nobel winners are atheists. If you look at a who's who of scientists based on the prominence of their ideas and how well known they are for their ideas in scientific communities, rather than looking for scientists who are christian, you will find a large preponderance of atheists.
How many of these scientists are priests, or even funded by the church?
http://www.nobelprize.org/
Hint: not many.
How many of the people published here
http://www.sciencemag.org/
or here
http://www.nature.com/
are overtly religious? How many are priests? How many are funded by the church?
Hint: not many.

I did not make the claim that the majority of scholars are Christians, I just mentioned that they make a significant contribution. I am not out to denigrate the efforts of anyone. If however, you think the world would be better off without the Christian education system, Christian higher research and Christian health care, by all means pay to replace it with secular sources.

We already are paying for Christian hospitals, schools, kindergardens, and other church-operated institutions. At least in Germany. I don't know if these institutions receive any public funding in the USA, but German taxpayers and health insurances pay as much for a Christian hospital as for a secular one.

That's a huge source of income for the churches, especially for the Catholic church. Catholic hospitals are often staffed with nuns instead of hired nurses, the wages for surgeons are lower than in secular hospitals, and there is overall more of a minimalist approach to patient care. Catholic tax-funded kindergardens even have the gall to refuse children from non-Catholic families on the basis that they don't pay church tax.

Replacing these institutions with secular ones would be a step towards more social equality and take political influence away from the major church organisations, which shouldn't have any political leverage in a secular country imho. Other than that it wouldn't change anything.

You claimed that the church is "at the forefront" of science. It is not. I do think that the world would be better off without religiously affiliated education and 'research,' although I freely admit that they do ok with healthcare so far as they allow doctors to practice as their training and consciences permit.

I'm amazed that they have enough nuns to do this. I work at a Catholic hospital, and we rarely even see the nuns that officially run the place because there just aren't enough of them to even have a single one around full-time. The wage is similar to that of secular hospitals in the area.

Germany is still a very Catholic country. About 30% of the population are Catholics, and there are many religious orders. Such as the "poor service maids of Jesus Christ" (Ancillae Domini Jesu Christi). That's exactly what Catholic nuns are in RCC-owned hospitals: Poor service maids. They usually don't receive any wage, aside from a little pocket money that is paid by their order. While I wouldn't call the entire RCC a cult, these orders certainly are comparable to cults.

All you need to do to see the church at the forefront of science is to google the Pontifical Academy of the Sciences. That one institution alone brings together funding, publication and research by networking the worlds best scientists. If however you think the world would be better without the Church's efforts then your position is ignorant of their contribution. It was after all a Catholic priest who founded big bang theory. I am sure you think Lorenzo Albacete is into 'research', well when your peer review publications list is half as long as his, then you can start thinking about passing judgement.

Darling, you're arguing in circles. If you look at whom scientists respect based on the prominence of their ideas today, churchmen are not in there. Also, you might recall that I said that the church was sometimes at the forefront of science in the past. It has become less and less so over time, and now actively places itself against science in many ways.

What does it even mean for the Catholic Church to be at the forefront of science? What evidence would count as evidence for or against it?

Are we talking about whether or not many prominent scientists are Catholics? Well, of course a lot of them are. But are they wearing their Catholic hat while doing science? No, they're wearing their scientist hat.

Are we talking about whether the Catholic Church provides a sort of infrastructure that facilitates science? Well, yes it does, but to a lesser extent than it used to.

A higher proportion of working scientists than the general public are non-religious.
A higher proportion of National Academy members than working scientists are non-religious (In fact, most of them).
A higher proportion of Nobel prize winners than National Academy members are non-religious (in fact, almost all of them).
The people who contribute the most to human knowledge and progress are not even believers, much less church members and far less clergy.

This seems plausible, since naturalists are probably better than non-naturalists at pretending that naturalism is true. If you see what I mean.



This is only true if you have subscribe to the "Great Man" idea of human knowledge, as Tolstoy might put it. Actually, human knowledge is furthered by lots of people chipping away at things. Who are you to say that Stephen Hawking has contributed more to human knowledge than some Catholic who knows more than anyone else in the world about a certain species of wasp?

I also think that it is easy to confuse "the best scientists" with "the best popularisers of science". With very few exceptions, a person doesn't have enough time to do both.