Yegods there are some ignorant arrogant Islamophobic people here – albiet mostly earlier in this thread.

Frankly, I pity the Sheik for his apparent mental illness .. & can only really note what a mountain has been raised from this molehill.

As has been noted before, a good quote which sums everything up superbly in this context comes from Galileo which went something like (in Italian though naturally .. or maybe Latin, a-n-y-w-a-y) :

“Science tells us how the heavens go, not how to go to heaven.”

In finest distillate :

Want an ethical code on how to live your life well?

Well then, in that case, the Bible’s or Qu’rans fine but a geology/biology/astronomy text is totally inapplicable & unhelpful.

Want to know the facts about the age of the Earth or how Humans came to be?

Well then, in that case, a geology/biology/astronomy text is fine but the Bible or Qu’ran is totally inapplicable & unhelpful.

Seems simple & clear enough if you look at things that way doesn’t it?

Can’t both religion & science get along with that?

As for atheism not being a religion, well strictly speaking neither
is Buddhism either. Perhaps both more broadly belong under the
philosophy not religion classification however both areforms of belief about religion. Buddhists are passionate believers in Buddha’s path to
enlightenment, atheists are passionately & sometimes stridently convinced that : “There is no God but NO God!”

… & then agnostics like me shrug our shoulders and say well .. heck .. we’re not sure & like Socrates we know what we don’t know .. and thus keep open minds.

———————–

To end on a lighter note, here’s an old joke or two :

What do you get if you cross a Mormon with an atheist?

Answer : Someone who knocks on your door for nothing!

What do you get if you cross a Jehovah’s Witness with a Hells Angel?

Answer : Someone who knocks on your door & tells you to @*^%%^^% off!

& finally :

Moses comes down from the Mountain & lays it all out to Aaron . Aaron is seems pretty shocked & gets him to repeat it again and again .. finally he syas : Okay my brother, let me get this down right one last time – so the Arabs get all the oil & we hafta cut the ends off our … WHAT!

Why don’t you underline this fact!? We also think that this muslim is wrong abpute photos on the earth. The erath is flat we believe! Am I exaggerate something ironically? No, I just don’t dare to confront Gore.

There are two points I’d like to make.

1.) There is a group of atheists to which I belong who do not seek the elimination of religion. This could be represented by strategy B in my previous post. There is another group of atheists (Richard Dawkins, P.Z. Meyers, and several posters on this blog) who do seek the elimination of religion and seem to promote conflict between religion and atheism at every turn. This could be represented by strategy A in my previous post. In my opinion strategy B is much better than strategy A for a variety of practical and philosophical reasons.

2.) In regards to science versus religion I support Gould’s concept of NOMA (NonOverlapping MAgisteria). Thus, when Abd Al-Baset Sayyid makes claims about infinite energy coming from Mecca and says Neil Armstrong said things that he didn’t, I have absolutely no objection to scientists shooting down his concepts. What has happened is that religion in this case has stepped out of its magisterium and is commenting in the science magisterium. It is legitimate to rein it in.

“Let’s be clear here, no scientist is petitioning to have evolution taught in churches, and no senators are floating around an “outlaw faith” bill.”

Let’s for the sake of argument assume that science was pushing for evolution to be taught in Sunday School and for religious faith to be outlawed. That would constitute a meddling of science in the other magisterium and it would be just as legimate to rein in science. So almost like the checks and balances in the United States federal government among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches the religious magisterium and the science magisterium serve to check each other’s power. When one side gets too powerful the other is there to curb its excesses.

That, in a nutshell, is what I am arguing.