Re:Ethics? (Score 1)

You make a very good point. It's ultimately this point which Benedict XVI is making. People often "consider" and then conclude an opinion on a single sample, and in most cases, the sample is a paraphrased quote in a particular article with a particular purpose! Pope Benedict's lecture at the University of Regensburg in September 2006 is a typical exmample of this, but his over all message on that occassion is echoed through your reasoning here. His lecture was entitled "Faith and Reason". He spoke of the importance of faith and reason working together, hand in hand. He of course made the example of the way many Muslims practise their understanding of faith (and you should've heard about how the Muslims went ballistic), and, when looking at it from those Muslims' points of view, it becomes acceptable to fly planes into buildings, because they're doing it in the name of Allah, in the name of faith, and their understanding of whatever that means. Pope Benedict rebuked this kind of thinking and operating, and said that faith does not transcend reason. He went so far on that occassion as to use the Greek word for 'reason', which is 'logos', and then explained how there is no English equivalent for this word (logos), and that it could mean 'word', but it could also mean and certainly implies 'reason' and 'intellect'. The Gospel according to John begins with "In the begining was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...". "Word" is actually "logos", and so if you put in the other translations (reason, intellect), it implies the importance of faith and reason or intellect going hand in hand. You can't have faith without reason. You can't have God without reason. You act against God when you act against reason. You certainly act against intellect when you act against reason. Its unreasonable to create and destroy life. Who has the right to dispense such authority? You act against God when you create or kill babies (or nuke the earth, to use your lingual)in the name of science, in much the same way that you act against God when you fly planes into buildings in the name of God or faith! Religion (no one religion in particular), in its existence, has certain objectives. When the practise of religion is given no limitations in search of these objectives, Rastafarians must be allowed to smoke ganja, Muslims must be allowed to fly planes into buildings, and Christianns should not only then be allowed to, but also encouraged, to kill Jews. Religion must therefore be limited in its persuit of its objectives. This should be applied to science too...