carepov

As they should. OK I misunderstood. Of course they are different, my argument is countering the claims. Problem-solving resources are limited. We should not waste time on relatively minor/insignificant problems. Compare your first paragraph with the second. Do you see the irony?

IMO, religion has been an insignificant factor in warfare for at least the last 200 years.

There are so many delusions and claims without sufficient evidence out there where do you start. I say start with the harmful ones and leave the benign alone. That is not what most religious people beleive. IMO most religious people mhave a mixture of faith and doubt and keep their religion to themselves. How does this point related to significant political influence? What deluded version of reality do you live under? Moderate religious people are the majority and hold the power in Canada. For the US, the moderates and the extremists are about equal in number. Again, I fail to see how your reply relates to mine. I am saying that the more that secular societ accepts moderates, the less influence extemists will have. Even Bonam agreed with me on this one.

Agreed. Banning a religion? are you serious? Many posts argue along the lines of: "once people come to their senses and start thinking critically then they will reject their religion and become secular" or "religion is holding back progress". These are the types of claims I am arguing against.

Of course the amount of money matters. First of all if religious NGO funding went from $1 million to $1.42 million (42% increase) and secular funding went from $10 million to $10.5 million (5% increase) there would still be more money added for secular NGOs. Secondly, to discuss if religion has a significant influence we need to know how much money we are talking about, what percentage of CIDA's budget are we talking about? But forgetting the money, this issue points directly to one on my main points - who cares weather or not an NGO (or individual) is religious or secular? The work of NGOs should be evaluated based on objective criteria and those groups that best meet the criteria (or have the best potential/plan) should get the most funding. All the same criteria and rules should be applied equally. Most NGOs do great work and the last think I want to see is an increased division or bickering between religious and secular NGOs.

How much actual money are we talking about?

You have some of the worst analogies I have ever heard. Of course the costs of (potential) problems need to outweigh the efforts spent in solving the problems. LEAN or no LEAN. Management decides what problems to solve and which to ignore/live with. Again LEAN or no LEAN. A good example of LEAN is changing your winter tires. In your garage you can get them done in in an hour. At a shop it would take less than half the time. In NASCAR pit stops it takes seconds. Waste is everywhere, LEAN provides tools to see it, measure it and problem solve. Unlike comunism, it can be done properly and has been proven in many sectors including Health Care.

Religious beleifs/actions should be challenged when they are harmful, like if they violate other peoples rights. I also opose proselytizing as much as I opose telemarketing. IMO religion has virtualy no influence in Canadian politcs. There are some extremists in US politics but most are adequately marginalized. If secular society was more welcoming to moderate religious beleivers I think that religious extremists would have less influence.

We agree more than we disagree. I think that most significant problems have nothing to do with presence of or lack of religion. And therefore (except in extremist circumstances) there is no need to "combat religion".

No, on an earlier thread we discussed anti-theists. My understanding was that anti-theists are oposed to other people's religious beleifs, usually vocally. The above post by AC is a good example. Christopher Hitchens is probably the most famous example

OK fine, every single human being is sometimes irrational and unreasonable, religious or not. "Falling in love" is not rational. Road rage is not rational. Excessive gambling, drinking, etc... is not rational. I would say religious people are about as irrational as non-religious people.

You are making the claim that I am arguing against: I do not think that a reduction in the level of religiosity in most Western countries would necessarily improve society. I feel strongly about this issue because I think that vocal anti-theists (I am not suggesting that you are one) make society worse as they increase intollerance and also feed the religious extremist views that "secular society is out to get them".

You often stereotype religious people as irrational, unreasonable or otherwise inferior to atheists. Here is but one example:

Why is that? Why are there no atheist societies? If atheism is superior, then as per social Darwinism, it should have been adopted by the most successful societies, no? I never said that. I said that Japan is one of the countries that has the most atheists: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/05/23/a-surprising-map-of-where-the-worlds-atheists-live/

Are humans part of nature? I mostly agree - forestry in NA and Europe is a good example of an industry becoming sustainable.

Because I want to refute any notions along the lines of: if we just got rid of religion then we would reduce x Where x is: "human rights violations", "sexism", "domestic violence", "stupidity", etc...

I cannot support my opinion for now we'll have to agree to disagree. I do not think "atheist" societies are problematic - just no better than the current "mildly religious societies". My position is that we should not divide people along religious and non-religious lines. Religious people deserve as much respect as non-religious people. Religion has been, and continues to be used both positively and negatively. IMO insulting and stereotyping religious people is counterproductive - it feeds the influence of extremists

IMO, the vast majority of religious people today realize, like you and I, that "religious scriptures" are written by humans "warts and all" and agree with us that "morality is born of civilized society rather than the gods". Your argument applies only to the religious extreemists/literalists. No one is "bullied by religion". People (mis)use religious arguments to violate human rights. The focus should be on the violation of human rights. An aquaintance of mine is a homosexual woman minister, she certainly has thought critically of her beleif systems and has come to conclusions much different than yours. I suspect that you are making too many assumptions about what people's religious beliefs actually are. OK then, where's the problem? "Better" countries are on average less religious. I argue that this is a correlation not a causal relationship. On the flipside, if religious countries on average emit less CO2 than non-religious countries - should we therefore promote religion to stop global warming?

It is not meaningless - it is a refutation of your argument that LEAN cannot work in health care. Even "if done right" you cannot wash your face with a computer - this was a bad analogy. The test is doomed to fail in the real world if people have your attitude that "LEAN cannot work"

Crop outputs are rising - where is the evidence that: "The quality of our fields are being severely weakened through monoculture and the dumping of toxic sewage sludge. These fields are accumulating toxins and heavy metals"? We are not running out of fertilizer: http://vaclavsmil.com/wp-content/uploads/Jeremy-Grantham-Starving-for-Facts-—-The-American-Magazine.pdf We certainly are wasting too many resources, including food: "Roughly one-third of the edible parts of food produced for human consumption, gets lost or wasted globally, which is about 1.3 billion ton per year." http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/suistainability/pdf/Global_Food_Losses_and_Food_Waste.pdf

Here's what we do: http://annualletter.gatesfoundation.org/#section=home

Well, yes, check this out: http://sundayassembly.com/

LEAN does not always work in manufacturing. If done right, LEAN can work in any process where there is waste, including health care, accounting, call centers, etc...

There are a few facts that do not fit with your theory: 1. The principle driving force behind abolishing the slave trade was led by religious individuals and groups: http://www.antislavery.org/includes/documents/cm_docs/2012/8/8_summer_2010_history.pdf 2. If atheism is so great, then a.) why are there so few atheists and atheist societies? Note: The door has been opened and people have been examining religion for a long long time. b.) why do those societies with the most atheists seem no better than comparable more religious societies: (Sexism in Japan, Domestic Violence in Russia, Human Rights in China...)?

Forst of all I somewhat agree with you that LEAN can be a useless waste of time, LEAN is often over-hyped by its proponents and most training intiatives fail. However when it done right LEAN tools can help to significantly reduce waste. It can work in manufacturing (unionized and non-unionized) in services and even at home. I am an outsider to heath care but I have observed some very LEAN operations in hospitals and clinics. A dermatologist was able to see about 10 patiens an hour, by "working on" 3-4 at a time. Chiropractors have eliminated the waiting time between their adjustments and crack away 20-30 patients an hour. Clinics assign nurses for more and more tasks saving valuable doctor time. And orderlies do more nursing work - less waste. Homecare can be seen as a LEAN initiative. LEAN is a set of tools. Saying that LEAN is useless is like saying computers are useless - just look at all the time wasted by posting on MLW instead of working...