and the things that are allowed to stay. There's a DUer with an extremely disturbing avatar but that was deemed OK because he's had it forever, or so I'm told. I just finally put him on ignore so I wouldn't have to see it anymore.

I agree with you.

As someone who's lost family members to suicide by gun, that avatar isn't humorous. I hate it.

I must've missed it?

I would have rec'd it if i saw it before it was locked and i would have voted not to hide it if i were on the jury.

Although your post was just a tad bit disingenuous since you and I both know science gave us the means to annihilate the human race...those guns in that picture, yup, without science they wouldn't exist.

I would dare say as many people have died because of military science, as to any faith based system.

The reason why we don't do that is ethical and not inherent to "science". We substitute other animals for humans in scientific experiments that are lethal, potentially lethal, or require killing the subject for analysis. When the ethical restrictions are removed, as they were in Nazi Germany, or closer to home in the Tuskegee Experiment, people have been killed "in the name of science".

perversions of the pursuit of scientific knowledge, for sure, and people have wrongly used science as a justification for those acts. But it's not entirely analogous to the slaughter of innocents in the name of one god or another.

Nazi Germany wasn't motivated by scientific ideology to slaughter innocents. It was hatred, and vile bigotry. Religious fanatics are, on the other hand, motivated by their ideology to commit those heinous acts.

Power, in the wrong hands, can be dangerous, when combined with some perverted view of what science should be. That's why we need an ethical code to direct our practices. But I don't think it's valid to compare that to those who kill people while screaming the name of one god or another, believing they're pursuing some divine purpose.

Your post was thought provoking, but I do think religious ideology and scientific ideology cause people to act differently, religion proving to be far more dangerous throughout history.

Du is almost perfect but could use a new rule of warning benefit of doubt to edit before demerit

Religious privilege on exhibit right here on DU.