Make any presumption of innocence that you like, and it still looks as if the latest cell of religious would-be murderers in Britain is made up of members of the medical profession. When I was growing up, the expression "Doctors' Plot" was a chilling one, expressing the paranoia of Stalin about his Jewish physicians and their evil conspiracy; a paranoia that was on the verge of unleashing an official pogrom in Moscow before the old brute succumbed to death by natural causes just in time. Now it seems that there really was a doctors' plot in London and Glasgow and that its members were so hungry for death that they rushed from one aborted crime scene to another in their eagerness to take the lives of strangers.

The normal human reaction to this is one of profound shock, because of the Hippocratic principles that are supposed to draw certain people toward the noble practice and high calling of medicine. Not only does one want to be able to count on this in the case of any physician consulted by oneself, but one also has the slight expectation that a doctor involved in politics will tend to be actuated by humanitarian motives. Certainly, this used to be true on the left: One of the most powerful magnets drawing members of the middle class toward socialism used to be the experience of doctors in the slums, forced to confront the raw injustice and maldistribution that dominated the life-and-death question of health care. The hero of Graham Greene's Stamboul Train is such a one, impelled into action by the realization that his patients cannot afford the care they desperately need. Mao Zedong wrote a paean to the Canadian physician Norman Bethune, inventor of the battlefield blood transfusion, who gave up a promising career to help the revolutionary forces in the Spanish and Chinese civil wars. Salvador Allende in Chile, Vassos Lyssarides in Cyprus—these are only among the better-known names of party leaders who won the admiration of the poor by trying to practice what they preached in Hippocratic terms.

More of the article here... Link

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It's an interesting artilce that Hitchens' put together here. Even has a doctor you're given a position of trust because it's assumed your motives are going to be for the improvement of people rather then carnage in all forms. Though as he listed that nazism had these doctors and Stalinism was morally wrong in sense... The idea of taking your religion to the point of going against your fellow man, social ties and their own free will... It's a scary thing. The most recent of doctors who were trying to commit mass murder for islam on innocent UKers never really even accepted their ties to the community or even cared that they were human beings. Completely rejected their home, co-workers and neighbors for a religious cause that meant trying to kill hundreds of people.

What really is more important though? Living with your fellow man and trying to resolve peace despite your religion... Or completely rejecting your fellow man, to try and murder them?

This would also go for the atheist, non-beliefs and solely politican movements that were mentioned in the article like Josef Mengele (nazi ss doctor), Che Guevara (marxist), Stalinism and Nazism that were all equally and sometimes even more so brutal then religious fanatics. Though these people and ideas weren't for an all mighty god who could have fought and won by himself instead of having mere mortals do his dirty work... These ideas were driven soley on what was suppose to be right in their heads for the idea of the betterment of mankind in their own way. Which well I can relate to and I'm sure everybody else here who has their own chance of thinking what is right and what is wrong would relate. What matters is what is being practiced most commonly. A fight for freedom in some way is a valid war depending on what it's basis is.... A fight for a god to only spread religion is never valid no matter who does it because it imposes the wrong ideas of freedom of mankind on others. Pacifism is a nice thought for all of humanity but it's not a reality. We are all independent in our thoughts and the ideas of what are right and just are never going to mean the same to another person. This is a reality of humans. But despite all this different thoughts and even different religions that want to fight... I like to think that one day that we can actually settle in our own ways of what is best for our survival, life styles and morality despite our differences. It may not end all violence, but the idea is nice... Though this perfect world scenario will never work with a religion as it's leader to impose it's religious values on the population. I do think the future is atheism... Where in this perfect world scenario the laws of societies would be based on freedoms of the people rather then the freedoms of a religious nature which imposes it's will on others who don't want to agree with it's own values as a person.

I'll shut up now and let others discuss.

Some cultures are compatible with others and some are not. The world grows smaller each year and those cultures that maintain themselves as a threat to others will have to changed or eliminated. Specific spiritual practices are just one aspect of a culture.

It dosen't exactly make me feel secure when medical professionals are so sought after that medical authorities are practically throwing money at them in an effort to recruit, I'd sooner wait a little longer knowing that the person examining me wasn't measuring me up for a tree-suit.

I don't trust modern medical authorities anyway... Once there was a time when the healer was freely supported by the community, but no longer. They need to make money, and how will they do that when they've healed everyone?