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Why Do Otherwise Intelligent People Delude Themselves With Religion?

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Religion seems to break something in the mind, letting irrationality and fallacy rush in and hijack the reasoning process. Belief should follow a logical or evidential reason to believe, but religion swaps this process around so that belief comes first, followed by twisting everything else you find upside down in an effort to rationalise that initial belief. Once your brain normalises this reversal of its natural function it affects every decision you make and every experience you have. In my opinion it all falls on allowing the emotional part of the brain to dominate and override the logical part.
OakTownA



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  • OakTownAOakTownA 442 Pts   -  
    I agree with your post. I think that many people find comfort in religion or like the tradition. I was a theist for decades before I realized that what I considered my "spiritual beliefs" were more like morals, and that what I believed about the divine was, well, silly . (Basically, absent gods who left an imprint through myths and traditions) There are also likely atheists who claim to be theists or are fine letting people assume they are theists because it makes their lives easier. There's still significant stigma around being an atheist. As the stigma lessens, it would not be surprising to see the number of "nones" (those without any religious affiliation) increase.
    Nomenclature
  • BarnardotBarnardot 519 Pts   -  
    @Nomenclature ;Religion seems to break something in the mind, letting irrationality and fallacy rush in and hijack the reasoning process. Belief should follow a logical or evidential reason to believe, 

    Who says in the first place that religious people delude themselves because you are assuming it by asking such a question. And who says belief should follow a logical or evidential reason to believe. I never read that any were and could not find that said any were on google. And who says any one who believes twist things around and rationalize things. I could not find that in google ether. So in the end when you analize it intelligent people who are religious aren't deluded because they know more than atheists because not only do they have the knowledge of all the facts and science but they also have the knowledge of God. So that means intelligent people who believe are not likely to be deluded but atheists are because they refuse to believe in God and instead stick to facts which don't prove any thing really and making things up like irrationality and fallacy rush in and should have logical and reason is symptoms of being deluded . So guess who are deluded thats right the atheists.

    NomenclatureDeeOakTownA
  • NomenclatureNomenclature 1245 Pts   -  
    @Barnardot
    Who says in the first place that religious people delude themselves because you are assuming it by asking such a question. And who says belief should follow a logical or evidential reason to believe. I never read that any were and could not find that said any were on google

    Who says that you are entitled to an opinion? I never read anywhere that people with an IQ under 90 are allowed to have opinions. 

    Dee
  • DeeDee 5395 Pts   -   edited January 2023
    @Barnardot

    Who says in the first place that religious people delude themselves because you are assuming it by asking such a question. 

    Listen Barndoor theres no assumptions going on as you believe a resurrected Zombie took a stroll across water , You're text book delusional 

    And who says belief should follow a logical or evidential reason to believe.

    Yes indeed why believe in logic when you have a book of bull to back you up 

     I never read that any were and could not find that said any were on google. And who says any one who believes twist things around and rationalize things. I could not find that in google ether. So in the end when you analize it intelligent people who are religious aren't deluded because they know more than atheists because not only do they have the knowledge of all the facts and science but they also have the knowledge of God.

    Sure buddy when I 'analize' it  American rubes actually believe that a talking serpent lured a dumb b-tch into eating a magical apple in a magical garden and this enraged the psycho god so much he decided punish mankind forever 

    So that means intelligent people who believe are not likely to be deluded but atheists are because they refuse to believe in God and instead stick to facts which don't prove any thing really

    Ha,Ha "refuse to believe in god" you mean the same way you refuse to believe in Allah?

    This statement ......

    but atheists are because they refuse to believe in God and instead stick to facts which don't prove any thing really 

     .......from you is possibly the dumbest thing a human has ever said and remember I'm attempting to make allowances for the fact you're the progeny of a clan of jug playing inbreds from the Appalachian mountains , there you have it "facts don't prove anything really" ........how f-cking dumb do you have to be to claim this?

    and making things up like irrationality and fallacy rush in and should have logical and reason is symptoms of being deluded . So guess who are deluded thats right the atheists.

    It's hilarious watching you try and string a coherent sentence together but I guess communication skills in your neck of the woods consists of grunts and groans and the most important task of your day is selecting fresh straw for the clans bedding for when you return home after slaughtering a 1,000 or so chickens at the local slaughterhouse 
    Nomenclature
  • NomenclatureNomenclature 1245 Pts   -  
    @Dee
    the dumbest thing a human has ever said and remember I'm attempting to make allowances for the fact you're the progeny of a clan of jug playing inbreds from the Appalachian mountains

    Quite impressive really. On a website with over a dozen people who would fail a general knowledge test for the under fives, he stands out like a sore thumb for being particularly thick.

    Dee
  • BarnardotBarnardot 519 Pts   -  
    @Nomenclature ;Who says that you are entitled to an opinion? I never read anywhere that people with an IQ u

    Im so sorry that I offended you there mr girlie boy boss because I never thought you would ever say anything like that but anyway since you failed to debate the points then that meens that you lose and it’s no wonder any way because what you said was so illogical and girlie any way.

    OakTownA
  • BarnardotBarnardot 519 Pts   -  
    @Dee so have you got an answer to my argument or not otherwise you lose because saying dum things about me doesn’t count so your like girlie boy and you lose the argument because you didn’t have one any way.
    OakTownA
  • DeeDee 5395 Pts   -  
    @Barnardot

    so have you got an answer to my argument so what do you accept instead of facts?

    You hadn't got an argument you vegetable as you refuse to accept facts remember you crowed .... "facts which don't prove any thing really"  ......so what do you accept instead of facts? That's a pretty tough question so why not drag your dad off the moonshine for a minute and ask for his help? Should be fun 


    or not otherwise you lose because saying dum things about me doesn’t count so your like girlie boy and you lose the argument because you didn’t have one any way.

    Again what you're trying to say is beyond me , no wonder Trump adored brainless Id-ots like you and your deliverance type family 
    Nomenclature
  • NomenclatureNomenclature 1245 Pts   -  
    @Barnardot
    have you got an answer to my argument or not

    I'm afraid your arguments are far too erudite and well-researched for a mere mortal like myself to rebuke. The "girlie boy boss" hypothesis is particularly irrefutable. Clearly, you have some type of professorship in idiocy.

    Dee
  • jackjack 447 Pts   -  
    Nomenclature said:

    Why Do Otherwise Intelligent People Delude Themselves With Religion?

    Hello N:

    Even intelligent people wanna avoid accountability for their decisions..  Religion lets you off the hook.

    excon


    OakTownA
  • NomenclatureNomenclature 1245 Pts   -   edited January 2023
    @jack
    Even intelligent people wanna avoid accountability for their decisions..  Religion lets you off the hook.

    Yeah, unintelligent people do that too, which is why you continuously lie to everybody that you're Jewish. The only real difference is that you use smear attacks to try to get you off the hook.

  • jackjack 447 Pts   -  
    Nomenclature said:

    Yeah, unintelligent people do that too, which is why you continuously lie to everybody that you're Jewish. The only real difference is that you use smear attacks to try to get you off the hook.

    Hello hater:

    Now, how did I know you were gonna show your Jew hating a*ss around here??  Cause you're OBSESSED with me, that's how.  You follow me around like a little puppy dog.  You can't give me up.

    Du-de.

    Bwa, ha ha ha ha ha..

    excon
    Nomenclature
  • MayCaesarMayCaesar 5965 Pts   -  
    Why does anyone believe or do something that appears obviously irrational to others? I believe that what takes place here is inherent inability of any system to manually regulate itself: it lacks any reference points outside of itself. A woman cannot give birth to herself, a fist cannot hit itself, and a logical statement cannot refute itself.

    Whenever trying to introspect our thought processes, those very processes are used for the introspection. A thought process cannot fix its own "bugs", and while certain logical errors can be identified by examining them from different angles, there is always a potential for a systematic "bug" to be there not prone to such correction. 

    This is why I believe that the main methods of improvement of one's thinking are the following: playing a devil's advocate for ideas one disagrees with, and listening with an open mind to others' advocating for such ideas. The former gets you out of your comfortable thinking routine and forces you to expand your perspective, and the latter allows you to hear thoughts that you yourself would never generate due to lack of corresponding neural pathways in your brain.

    Religion is obviously just a fantasy to someone like me who grew up in a non-religious family, played video games and read fantasy books since before I could walk... I look at the Bible and see just another book full of wild stories, not too different from something like "The Mistborn". But it is not at all so to someone who since a very young age was routinely exposed to the idea of a supernatural creature having immense powers and watching one's every move: years and years of seeing the world through these glasses resulted in adoption of the model of the world which crumbles completely if its pillar - the assumption that said creature exists - is taken out. It is not as simple as saying, "I agree, there is no evidence that god exists, so let us move on". It is instead, "If god does not exist, then what about all those other gazillions of things that my pastor have always explained by referencing god's grand design?"

    I will say, in line of this, that those who are most certain in their thinking being superior to others' tend to be the most blind ones to the flaws of that thinking. We have had a number of folks on this very website calling religious followers, or people who do not believe in their edgy conspiracy theories or big claims about inferiority of certain groups of humans, "imbecils" and the like, and their own arguments were always ridden with blunders obvious to virtually anyone who is not as deeply invested in these positions.

    My guilty pleasure is, when hanging out with my friends, to make a dubious argument and see if they spot the fallacy in it. Often they will spot the fallacy, but explain it in a way I have never thought about, and that allows me to look for fallacies in my actual thinking in a way unavailable to me before. Other times I may surprise myself by thinking that what I am saying is fallacious and finding out that it is not and that my assumption that it us a fallacy was caused by an actual fallacy in my own thinking.

    I think that deep thinking is a collaborative effort, and sticking to one's own guns can easily lead one doubt a wrong path. The world is full of ivory tower philosophers who, allowing the errors in their thinking to remain unchallenged and florish, were driven to madness - communists and national-socialists are great examples of that, as well as ayatollahs and crazed monks. The problem here is that people tend to surround themselves with those who think like them, hence the society is fragmented into islands within which "bugs" grow and multiply - and when they clash with each other, violent conflicts happen. I think that it is essential to surround yourself with those who are going to challenge you, not in a nasty way (as is common on the Internet), but in a noble and constructive way. Not in the, "You must be out of your mind to think that", way, but in the, "Okay, here is where I think you are going wrong, and here is why", way.

    The most useless thing in the world is to try to prove to someone (including yourself) that you are right. If you are right, then cool, what now? It is finding where you are wrong which makes for serious personal growth. And the extent to which a religious person thinks themselves to be right about their beliefs is the extent to which they are stuck in their current development stage. Same naturally applies for non-religious people, but with the caveat that not having a strong position on an issue is qualitatively different from having one and being wrong. More often than not "I do not know and do not care" is a better place to be than "I believe that I am 100% right, but I am actually wrong".
  • NomenclatureNomenclature 1245 Pts   -  
    @MayCaesar
    A thought process cannot fix its own "bugs"

    I'm not sure that's true. I was raised in a moderately religious atmosphere, and religious ideas were simply accepted as a normal way of life. However, by my early teens I'd thrown out religion because I realised it just wasn't logical. There are other examples in my life of this exact same process -- for example when I began to question what I believed about the 9/11 attacks. If we were unable to fix our own bugs then I can't see how learning would be possible. I definitely agree that some people (many people, even) refuse to ever change their general perspective about anything, but at least in theory it is possible. Some people can do it and I appear to be one of them. 

  • NomenclatureNomenclature 1245 Pts   -  
    @jack
    Hello hater:
    Now, how did I know you were gonna show your Jew hating a*ss around here?

    Let me clear something up for you which you're evidently not intelligent enough to grasp. "Jew haters" hate people who are Jewish. You are not Jewish. You are a cowardly lowlife worm who pretends to be Jewish for clout and then slanders everybody who exposes your web of lies as a "Jew hater". 

    You were exposed on CD for lying about being Jewish and you left in complete disgrace. Now, predictably, you're pushing your same falsehoods on a different website.

  • MayCaesarMayCaesar 5965 Pts   -  
    @Nomenclature

    Changing one's mind is absolutely possible - however, it does not necessarily constitute a bugfix. Since our only buggy mind is used to facilitate this, the correction can actually introduce new bugs. In the context of the original topic, some non-religious people become religious, although it is much less common than the opposite event.

    When I say that thinking is a collaborative effort, I express the hope that a large number of people with diverse individual minds and experiences will generally tend to spot and correct each other's bugs: the bugs are much more visible from the outside, after all. However, there are two caveats here: first, there could be bugs universal to all humans and not easily prone to correction, and second, the "collective mind" can actually develop and amplify bugs unique to collective thinking.

    Ultimately, the ingredients to success, both individual and collective, are open-mindedness and self-reflection: the more willing people are to consider ideas they are uncomfortable with and acknowledge their own fallibility, the more effective their minds will be. Of course, even these ingredients are somewhat volatile, and open-mindedness has the danger of leading to carelessness, and consideration of uncomfortable ideas to persuasion into dangerous and harmful ideas.
  • NomenclatureNomenclature 1245 Pts   -  
    @MayCaesar
    Changing one's mind is absolutely possible - however, it does not necessarily constitute a bugfix. Since our only buggy mind is used to facilitate this, the correction can actually introduce new bugs. In the context of the original topic, some non-religious people become religious, although it is much less common than the opposite event.

    Sure. All I'm saying is that a rational and open mind can self-correct. Science works on the same principle of self-correction, and it is this principle which separates it from all the other ideologies, regardless of whether it ever reaches the correct answer. 

    When I say that thinking is a collaborative effort, I express the hope that a large number of people with diverse individual minds and experiences will generally tend to spot and correct each other's bugs: the bugs are much more visible from the outside, after all.

    In theory, certainly, but in my experience it's usually a messy affair. Frequently, when someone else's thinking is crooked they are the very last person you can convince of that. Even on the occasions people realise they've taken a wrong turn, self-pride often interferes and they simply resort to using fallacy rather than concede anything. I mean, we can use this website as a case study. In all your time here, how many times have you ever heard anybody just openly say: "I was wrong"?

    Ultimately, the ingredients to success, both individual and collective, are open-mindedness and self-reflection

    I guess it depends on what you define as success. I don't think that's the path to material success -- that's more often about bullheadedness and ruthlessness -- but I definitely agree the above are the correct ingredients for personal growth. 

  • BarnardotBarnardot 519 Pts   -  
    @Nomenclature
    I'm afraid your arguments are far too erudite and well-researched for a mere mortal like myself to rebuke.

    Well I wasn't a wear of that that was the problem but if you try and do a bit of research and try not to get so girlie every time some one makes an argument opposite yours then you might say to your self hey I can do this.

  • just_sayinjust_sayin 853 Pts   -  
    Argument Topic: It is reasonable to believe in God

    @Nomenclature
    First let me mention the personal and societal benefits of faith:.  As the Mayo Clinic points out

    A majority of the nearly 350 studies of physical health and 850 studies of mental health that have used religious and spiritual variables have found that religious involvement and spirituality are associated with better health outcomes...During the past 3 decades, at least 18 prospective studies have shown that religiously involved persons live longer....Recent prospective studies have carefully controlled for potential confounding variables.

    Now anti-God extremists may try and say the Mayo Clinic is a religious cult, however the vast, vast majority of research shows that religious people have better health outcomes.  Here are just a few areas identified in their report from the 1200 studies:

    • Greater longevity
    • less cardiovascular disease
    • lower blood pressure
    • Less hypertension
    • Get more exercise
    • Better nutrition
    • More likely to use a seat belt
    • Less smoking
    • Less anxiety
    • Less Depression
    • Less anxiety
    • Less alcohol and drug abuse
    • Less suicide
    That alone seems to suggest that people of faith have better health outcomes.  And there are many societal benefits to faith as people who attend religious services are much more charitable with their time and money.  

    People who are religiously affiliated are more likely to make a charitable donation of any kind, whether to a religious congregation or to another type of charitable organization. Sixty-two percent of religious households give to charity of any kind, compared with 46 percent of households with no religious affiliation. - Philanthropy Today

    Further people of faith are less likely to commit violent crimes, 

    So, there are personal and societal benefits of being a person of faith.  Yet, the real discussion is that believing in God is not just reasonable it best fits the universe we find ourselves in.  An intelligent agent best describes the incredibly fine tuning of our universe.  

    Cosmologists pointed out the odds of a life permitting universe from the cosmological constant -  1 part in 10^120. If it were just slightly more positive, the universe would fly apart; slightly negative, and the universe would collapse.  That number is bigger than the number of particles in the universe (not  atoms, but the things that make up the smallest things in our universe) and it is bigger by a huge margin.

    Cosmologist Roger Penrose pointed out that the odds of the initial low entropy state of our universe occurring by chance alone are on the order of 1 in 10 10(123).  It seems unrealistic to believe that our universe was so highly ordered in the initial conditions that permitted a life supporting universe.  

    The Gravitational Constant and the weak force constant (sometimes called the Hubble constant) is also fine tuned.  As Paul Davies notes:

    "If G, or gw, differed from their actual values by even one part in 10^50, the precise balance against Λbare [the "true" cosmological constant] would be upset, and the structure of the universe would be drastically altered. ...If Λ were several orders of magnitude greater, the expansion of the universe would be explosive, and it is doubtful if galaxies could ever have formed against such a disruptive force. If Λ were negative, the explosion would be replaced by a catastrophic collapse of the universe. It is truly extraordinary that such dramatic effects would result from changes in the strength of either gravity, or the weak force, of less than one part in 10^50." -Paul Davies, Physicist 

    In fact all the fundamental forces and many other universe parameters are incredibly fined tuned for life.  The atheist would look at all of these statistically implausible numbers and just say - "just believe that this is random.  Please, I know it looks bad for our argument, but just have faith that against all these overwhelming statistics of how finely tuned our universe is, it isn't finely tuned."

    Personally, I just don't have enough faith to be an atheist.  If you came upon an iPhone on a beach, you could reason that naturalistic forces made it, that given enough time and random chance, inevitably a working iPhone would be created.  But most of us realize, it is much more likely to think that an intelligence made the iPhone.  And the odds of an iPhone being created by random forces is a small number when compared to all of the fundamental forces of the universe to be so precise.  
    Nomenclature
  • BarnardotBarnardot 519 Pts   -   edited January 2023
    @Dee @Nomenclature So what about the argument about the title. I just wanted to know what you thought about it being assumption .You all ready conceded the bit about religion not needing any reason or logic but the real reason about not needing logic and reason is because religion and belief comes from the heart and you cant tell me or any one thar every thing you think is based on reason and logic any way. Its the way we are and to deny God is denying the way you are. How many times did you use logic and reason today for example. Did you order the sandwhich with rye and mayo and pastrami and pickles because of reason and logic. When you analize it in the end I bet most of the things you thought and did had no reason and logic. Like trying to be dum and offensive with answers like girlie boy because theres no reason and logic behind that. So why not be religious any way because it makes more sents than just being willy nilly when your not logic and reasoned. Sure the bible has heaps of dog mess in it but theres all so heaps of decent stuff in in and who says that life is what it is any way. Your got to make your own life and stop trying to dis miss things just because there not reason and logic other wise you would have ordered some vitamin and nutrition pills from the deli because there more reasonable and logic.

  • NomenclatureNomenclature 1245 Pts   -   edited January 2023
    @just_sayin
    First let me mention the personal and societal benefits of faith:.  As the Mayo Clinic points out:

    I've repeatedly debunked your claims in another thread, and the very fact that you are simply cut and pasting the exact same trash without acknowledging any of the criticism levelled against it only serves to emphasise the point raised in the OP. The Mayo Clinic is religiously biased, sells religious services to its patients, and was started by a group of nuns and a devout Christian doctor. Furthermore, as I have repeatedly demonstrated, your data is contradicted by numerous other studies which you simply refuse to acknowledge. For example:-

    What role does religion play in health and longevity? This question has long been debated, with the religious claiming that their faith keeps them healthy. But is this the case? The data appears to show the opposite.

    https://bigthink.com/culture-religion/which-religion-has-the-longest-life-expectancy/

    You are simply repeating the exact same fallacies I debunked mere days ago, as if I haven't already debunked them, which is as pathetic as it is frustrating. 

    In fact all the fundamental forces and many other universe parameters are incredibly fined tuned for life. 

    I have also debunked this you ridiculously deranged halfwit. You are assuming, entirely absent supporting evidence, that:-

    A. This universe is the first universe and that there have been no prior failures.

    B. The existing conditions of the universe could have been any different.

    C. A habitable universe is some sort of evidence for a magic space fairy.

    Again, you simply pick and choose the things you want to acknowledge and simply ignore everything else like you are a 9 year old child in a Pick 'n Mix store. Here's another quote from Paul Davies which you seem to have had trouble finding:-

    Yes, the universe looks like a fix. But that doesn't mean that a god fixed it - Paul Davies, Physicist 

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/jun/26/spaceexploration.comment
    just_sayin
  • just_sayinjust_sayin 853 Pts   -   edited January 2023
    Argument Topic: The argument for atheism is weak

    @Nomenclature said:
    Furthermore, as I have repeatedly demonstrated, your data is contradicted by numerous other studies which you simply refuse to acknowledge. 

    Wow, that's some serious special pleading, if you think 1200 studies from the likes of Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, CDC, and most medical and health associations are debunked by an atheist website which does a bait and switch.  Instead of comparing religious and non-religious people from the same country, the study referenced to debunk the idea of religious people having better health instead compared Sweden to countries in less religious countries.  There are several problems with this approach.  First, since you are comparing countries, you are not really comparing the impact of faith in any direct sense.  If the study had done so, it would have concluded, as other studies have, that religious people in Sweden are healthier than non-religious people in Sweden.  Further, the study failed to consider the different societal and social issues of different countries.  If you compare wealthier nations to less wealthy ones, you are not really comparing people of faith to non-faith, but you are just comparing different nations to each other.

    ALL OF THE FUNDAMENTAL FORCES OF THE UNIVERSE are incredibly finely tuned to ridiculously fine values.  The odds of such an alignment that would allow for a life permitting universe are staggering - like 1 in 10^10^1000 power.  If several dozen factors look finely tuned by ridiculous odds, that suggests an intelligence behind them.  It certainly suggests it is much more likely that an intelligent force is behind it than random chance.

    The same problems exist for life on earth.  People think if you just put of bunch of chemicals in a bowl and hit it with some lightning it will form life.  No one studying the topic believes that life can be created so easily. The co-discoverer of DNA, Crick, famously said that life looked like a miracle and suggested panspermia as a solution, because the complexity of even the simplest life-forms code appeared to be too complex to have happened randomly.  But as the Fermi paradox points out if life is so easy to create, why haven't we been visited by other life forms?  The numerous steps involved in evolution are so staggering also.  As William Lane Craig has observed:

    In their book, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, Barrow and Tipler lay out 10 steps necessary to the course of human evolution, each of which, each of which is so improbable, that before it would occur the sun would have ceased to be a main sequence star and would have burned up the earth. Now it seems to me that if evolution did occur, then it would have had to been a miracle. In other words evolution is literally evidence for the existence of god!

    Even Darwin said God was a logical conclusion:

    “The question of whether there exists a Creator and Ruler of the Universe has been answered in the affirmative by some of the highest intellects that have ever existed.” -Charles Darwin, Descent of Man


    Throughout history, our greatest scientists have been people of faith.  

    “Both religion and science require a belief in God. For believers, God is in the beginning, and for physicists He is at the end of all considerations… To the former He is the foundation, to the latter, the crown of the edifice of every generalized world view.”

    “There can never be any real opposition between religion and science; for the one is the complement of the other. Every serious and reflective person realizes, I think, that the religious element in his nature must be recognized and cultivated if all the powers of the human soul are to act together in perfect balance and harmony. And indeed it was not by accident that the greatest thinkers of all ages were deeply religious souls.”

    —Max Planck, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist who made the crucial scientific contribution of founding quantum physics.

    Even Einstein seemed to believe that science isn't antithetical to religion but shows us the glory of God:

    I’m not an atheist, and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God.”
    —Albert Einstein


    Nomenclature
  • JulesKorngoldJulesKorngold 809 Pts   -  
    Robert M Pirsig:  "When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Religion."

    (Robert M Pirsig was an American author, best known for his book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance".)
  • MayCaesarMayCaesar 5965 Pts   -  
    Nomenclature said:

    Sure. All I'm saying is that a rational and open mind can self-correct. Science works on the same principle of self-correction, and it is this principle which separates it from all the other ideologies, regardless of whether it ever reaches the correct answer. 
    But if the self-correction mechanisms themselves contain "bugs" (and they certainly do), then there is no guarantee that those mechanisms will correct the mind in the right direction. The scientific method, if followed consistently and correctly, necessarily produces correct conclusions - however, there is not a single person in this world who follows scientific method in all areas of their lives, and not even the most perfectly designed AIs can possibly be capable of it.

    Nomenclature said:

    In theory, certainly, but in my experience it's usually a messy affair. Frequently, when someone else's thinking is crooked they are the very last person you can convince of that. Even on the occasions people realise they've taken a wrong turn, self-pride often interferes and they simply resort to using fallacy rather than concede anything. I mean, we can use this website as a case study. In all your time here, how many times have you ever heard anybody just openly say: "I was wrong"?
    Certainly, one's mind ultimately can only be corrected if it is open for such correction, and I do not think a single mind is completely open to be corrected with respect to every idea it harbors. I suppose a better way to characterize it than a "collaborative effort" would be something like "crowd-sourcing": those people who do want to find where they are wrong and make the necessary corrections benefit tremendously from other people thinking about the same issues as them and providing them with feedback and different perspectives.

    To your last question, while this has happened very few times around here, I do not think that this is representative of how people really feel. I know that I personally have been in those situations where I know I am in the wrong, yet I do not want to lose face in front of the public and keep trying to salvage an unsalvageable argument. Nobody knows how many people refusing to openly admit that they were wrong (on this website or elsewhere) quietly realized that they were and later changed their views.

    Nomenclature said:
    I guess it depends on what you define as success. I don't think that's the path to material success -- that's more often about bullheadedness and ruthlessness -- but I definitely agree the above are the correct ingredients for personal growth. 
    By "success" here I meant something like attunement to reality: having a set of views, beliefs, positions, et cetera that do not generally conflict with the properties of the real world. It is possible to obtain many goods, material and otherwise, in this world by being somewhat detached from reality and stubbornly applying some strategy that incidentally happens to produce the expected results - but there is always a chance that eventually the rubber will meat the road with disastrous consequences. For example, someone who believes that all they need to do to stay healthy is to pray to god every morning eventually may contract a serious disease, refuse being treated at a hospital and get in a world of trouble.

    Something to add here is that, no matter how rational a human is, their emotional state significantly alters their thinking. Someone who overall is very logical may completely break down under an emotional duress, and the world is full of stories of people becoming alcoholics or drug addicts over a breakup or loss of a job. In my personal journey I found that being in tune with one's emotions is, at least, as important as thinking logically, if not more so, and one's mind is only really tested when everything goes awry and they need to think on their feet. It is easy to sit in a comfortable chair at home, sipping wine and philosophizing; not so easy having a horrible day when everything goes wrong and having to make an important financial decision on the spot.
  • BoganBogan 417 Pts   -  
    Why do otherwise intelligent people delude themselves that all races are equal?
  • NomenclatureNomenclature 1245 Pts   -   edited January 2023
    @just_sayin
    Wow, that's some serious special pleading

    No, it is not "special pleading" to point out that you are ignoring every solitary piece of data which contradicts what you want to believe. That's simply called honesty.

    if you think 1200 studies from the likes of Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, CDC, and most medical and health associations are debunked by an atheist website which does a bait and switch

    You haven't shown 1200 studies from anywhere, so you are very evidently suffering from some type of delusional mental health problem. For the last four days you have been repeatedly linking the precise same paragraph from the precise same religiously biased health clinic, which literally sells religious services to its clients. 

    Instead of comparing religious and non-religious people from the same country, the study referenced to debunk the idea of religious people having better health instead compared Sweden to countries in less religious countries.

    No, it investigated lifespans based on religious affiliations, regardless of country. Location did not play a factor, which is the only way to build a reliable picture of whether religion truly increases lifespan. The very idea that believing in a fairy makes you live longer is self-evidently ludicrous, and a complete data set shows that fact. Your insistence that believing in a fairy somehow makes you live longer is comprehensive evidence of your unstable mental health.

    There are several problems with this approach.  First, since you are comparing countries, you are not really comparing the impact of faith in any direct sense. 

    Nobody is comparing countries. The PEW study excludes location as a factor in its final results. Furthermore, you are again illustrating an utterly shocking set of double standards. Religion is not evenly distributed throughout the United States and heavily religious areas are likely to have other factors which contribute to any increase in lifespan. Therefore, you are essentially saying it's fine to compare states but not countries, which is just as absurd and ludicrously biased as everything else you ever write. 

    ALL OF THE FUNDAMENTAL FORCES OF THE UNIVERSE are incredibly finely tuned to ridiculously fine values.

    Stop repeating yourself and address the rebuttal you got the first time. When you run out of argument you simply repeat yourself and it's daft.

    The odds of such an alignment that would allow for a life permitting universe are staggering - like 1 in 10^10^1000 power. 

    Stop pulling numbers out of your sphincter you deeply unhinged lunatic. In order to know what the odds are for any particular outcome you need to know what all the alternatives could be, and as I explained to you in the last post, you don't. You don't know that the fundamental forces could have been any different, you don't know if they were different in the distant past, and you don't know if life could still exist even if they were different. 

    If several dozen factors look finely tuned by ridiculous odds, that suggests an intelligence

    STOP... IGNORING... THE... REBUTTAL... YOU... HAVE... ALREADY... RECEIVED... FOR... THIS... ARGUMENT...

    The human eye looks finely tuned by ridiculous odds too, but you dummies were wrong about that and you're wrong about the universe. Both the human eye and the universe evolved through trial and error. Your argument is completely self-defeating, because if the universe couldn't survive with different parameters, then it probably collapsed and reinflated trillions of times before becoming stable.

    In their book, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, Barrow and Tipler lay out 10 steps necessary to the course of human evolution, each of which, each of which is so improbable, that before it would occur the sun would have ceased to be a main sequence star and would have burned up the earth.

    Panspermia. Life did not originate on this planet. It simply found a home here because the conditions were ripe. 

    I find you to be deeply delusional.

  • BarnardotBarnardot 519 Pts   -  
    @Bogan ;Why do otherwise intelligent people delude themselves that all races are equal?

    Because bogins aren’t intelligent that’s why because if they were intelligent then they wouldn’t be bogins any way Any way if races were not equal then how do you explain that all people in one race are different and a bogin would say there equal so there for the same difference s apply for every one in different races so there for a bogin must have to say that all races are equal.

  • just_sayinjust_sayin 853 Pts   -   edited January 2023
    Argument Topic: It takes too much faith to be an atheist

    @Nomenclature
    Since my argument has a lot of evidence in support of it, I'll spend the post talking evidence, rather than personal attacks.

    @Nomenclature said:
    You haven't shown 1200 studies from anywhere, so you are very evidently suffering from some type of delusional mental health problem.
    The Mayo Clinic article said:
    A majority of the nearly 350 studies of physical health and 850 studies of mental health that have used religious and spiritual variables have found that religious involvement and spirituality are associated with better health outcomes

    They are referencing the work done in  Koenig HG. Religion, spirituality, and medicine: application to clinical practice. JAMA. 2000;284:1708.  So not only are you saying the Mayo Clinic is an unreliable source because they are a religious cult, but the Journal of the American Medical Association is a religious cult group also?  Sounds like more special pleading, since no evidence of the claim is provided.

    Longevity Studies


    The Mayo clinic does mention several of the 1200 studies.  For example it said:

    18 prospective studies have shown that religiously involved persons live longer.

    References to each of those studies are provided:
    1. Comstock GW. Fatal arteriosclerotic heart disease, water hardness at home, and socioeconomic characteristics. Am J Epidemiol. 1971;94:1-10. 
    2. Comstock GW, Partridge KB. Church attendance and health. J Chronic Dis. 1972;25:665-672.
    3. Comstock GW, Tonascia JA. Education and mortality in Washington County, Maryland. J Health Soc Behav. 1977;18:54-61. 
    4. Berkman LF, Syme SL. Social networks, host resistance, and mortality: a nine-year follow-up study of Alameda County residents. Am J Epidemiol. 1979;109:186-204.
    5. House JS, Robbins C, Metzner HL. The association of social relationships and activities with mortality: prospective evidence from the Tecumseh Community Health Study. Am J Epidemiol. 1982;116:123-140.
    6. Wingard DL. The sex differential in mortality rates: demographic and behavioral factors. Am J Epidemiol. 1982;115:205-216. 
    7. Zuckerman DM, Kasl SV, Ostfeld AM. Psychosocial predictors of mortality among the elderly poor: the role of religion, wellbeing, and social contacts. Am J Epidemiol. 1984;119:410-423.
    8. Schoenbach VJ, Kaplan BH, Fredman L, Kleinbaum DG. Social ties and mortality in Evans County, Georgia. Am J Epidemiol. 1986;123:577-591.
    9. Seeman TE, Kaplan GA, Knudsen L, Cohen R, Guralnik J. Social network ties and mortality among the elderly in the Alameda County Study. Am J Epidemiol. 1987;126:714-723.
    10. Bryant S, Rakowski W. Predictors of mortality among elderly African-Americans. Res Aging. 1992;14:50-67.
    11. Goldman N, Korenman S, Weinstein R. Marital status and health among the elderly. Soc Sci Med. 1995;40:1717-1730.
    12. Kark JD, Shemi G, Friedlander Y, Martin O, Manor O, Blondheim SH. Does religious observance promote health? mortality in secular vs religious kubbutzim in Israel. Am J Public Health. 1996;86:341-346.
    13. Strawbridge WJ, Cohen RD, Shema SJ, Kaplan GA. Frequent attendance at religious services and mortality over 28 years. Am J Public Health. 1997;87:957-961.
    14. Oman D, Reed D. Religion and mortality among the community dwelling elderly. Am J Public Health. 1998;88:1469-1475.
    15. Glass TA, de Leon CM, Morottoli RA, Berkman LF. Population based study of social and productive activities as predictors of survival among elderly Americans. BMJ. 1999;319:478-483.
    16. Hummer RA, Rogers RG, Nam CB, Ellison CG. Religious involvement and U.S. adult mortality. Demography. 1999;36:273- 285. 
    17. Koenig HG, Hays JC, Larson DB, et al. Does religious attendance prolong survival? a six-year follow-up study of 3,968 older adults. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 1999;54A:M370-M376.
    18. Clark KM, Friedman HS, Martin LR. A longitudinal study of religiosity and mortality risk. J Health Psychol. 1999;4:381-391.
    So apparently, according so those who wish to dismiss the 1200 studies about the benefits of religion the following organizations are religious nut jobs: Journal of Chronic Diseases, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, American Journal of Epidemiology, Social Science & Medicine Journal, the British Medical Journal, Demography - Population Association of America, The Journals of Gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences, and the Journal of Health Psychology.  

    It seems unlikely that such highly respected health journals are religious cults. And the size of most studies seems substantial.  As the Mayo Clinic reported:
    A recent meta-analysis of 42 studies of nearly 126,000 persons found that highly religious persons had a 29% higher odds of survival compared with less religious persons (odds ratio [OR],1.29 [95% CI, 1.20-1.39]). The authors could not attribute the association to confounding variables or to publication bias  - see McCullough ME, Hoyt WT, Larson DB, Koenig HG, Thoresen C. Religious involvement and mortality: a meta-analytic review. Health Psychol. 2000;19:211-222

    Cardiovascular Studies

    The Mayo Clinic reported:

    Studies have found that religious involvement is associated with less cardiovascular disease.

    Some of the studies that show less cardiovascular disease for religious people are:

    •  Friedlander Y, Kark JD, Stein Y. Religious orthodoxy and myocardial infarction in Jerusalem—a case control study. Int J Cardiol. 1986;10:33-41. 
    •  Goldbourt U, Yaari S, Medalie JH. Factors predictive of long-term coronary heart disease mortality among 10,059 male Israeli civil servants and municipal employees: a 23-year mortality follow-up in the Israeli Ischemic Heart Disease Study. Cardiology. 1993;82:100-121. 
    • Oxman TE, Freeman DH Jr, Manheimer ED. Lack of social participation or religious strength and comfort as risk factors for death after cardiac surgery in the elderly. Psychosom Med. 1995;57:5-15.
    • Koenig HG, McCullough ME, Larson DB. Handbook of Religion and Health. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 2001. 

    Lower Hypertension Studies


    The Mayo Clinic reported:
    Studies have found that religious involvement is associated with lower blood pressure and less hypertension. 
    Studies that show religious people have lower hypertension cited are:
    • Koenig HG, McCullough ME, Larson DB. Handbook of Religion and Health. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 2001. 
    • Koenig HG, George LK, Hays JC, Larson DB, Cohen HJ, Blazer DG. The relationship between religious activities and blood pressure in older adults. Int J Psychiatry Med. 1998;28:189-213.
    • Walsh A. Religion and hypertension: testing alternative explanations among immigrants. Behav Med. 1998;24:122-130.
    • Hixson KA, Gruchow HW, Morgan DW. The relation between religiosity, selected health behaviors, and blood pressure among adult females. Prev Med. 1998;27:545-552.

    General Physical Health Studies


    The Mayo Clinic reported:

    Studies have shown that religious involvement is associated with health-promoting behaviors such as more exercise, proper nutrition, more seat belt use, smoking cessation, and greater use of preventive services.

    Studies that show these results listed are:

    • Oleckno WA, Blacconiere MJ. Relationship of religiosity to wellness and other health-related behaviors and outcomes. Psychol Rep. 1991;68:819-826.
    • Wallace JM Jr, Forman TA. Religion’s role in promoting health and reducing risk among American youth. Health Educ Behav. 1998;25:721-741. 54. Strawbridge WJ, Shema SJ, Cohen RD, Kaplan GA. Religious attendance increases survival by improving and maintaining good health behaviors, mental health, and social relationships. Ann Behav Med. 2001;23:68-74.
    • Idler EL, Kasl SV. Religion among disabled and nondisabled persons, II: attendance at religious services as a predictor of the course of disability. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. 1997;52: S306-S316.
    •  Koenig HG, Larson DB. Use of hospital services, religious attendance, and religious affiliation. South Med J. 1998;91:925-932.
    •  Comstock GW, Partridge KB. Church attendance and health. J Chronic Dis. 1972;25:665-672.
    •  Koenig HG, McCullough ME, Larson DB. Handbook of Religion and Health. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 2001.

    Lower Depression


    The Mayo Clinic reported:
    Religious salience was associated not only with less risk of depression but also with recovery from depression among those who were depressed at the start of the study (especially those in poor physical health).

    •  Robins LN, Helzer JE, Weissman MM, et al. Lifetime prevalence of specific psychiatric disorders in three sites. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1984;41:949-958. 
    •  Braam AW, Beekman AT, Deeg DJ, Smit JH, van Tilburg W. Religiosity as a protective or prognostic factor of depression in later life: results from a community survey in The Netherlands. Acta Psychiatr Scand. 1997;96:199-205. 68. Koenig HG, George LK, Peterson BL. Religiosity and remission of depression in medically ill older patients. Am J Psychiatry. 1998;155:536-542.
    • Propst LR, Ostrom R, Watkins P, Dean T, Mashburn D. Comparative efficacy of religious and nonreligious cognitive-behavioral therapy for the treatment of clinical depression in religious individuals. J Consult Clin Psychol. 1992;60:94-103.
    • Razali SM, Hasanah CI, Aminah K, Subramaniam M. Religious– sociocultural psychotherapy in patients with anxiety and depression. Aust N Z J Psychiatry. 1998;32:867-872. 71. McCullough ME, Larson DB. Religion and depression: a review of the literature. Twin Res. 1999;2:126-136.
    I could go on, but the overwhelming number of studies that say religious people have better health outcomes may just depress those who think there are no benefits to faith.  And as the above documentation shows, people without faith are more likely to experience depression and have more struggles with it.  

    Now I can keep going for some time on the health benefits for people of faith (after all there are at least 1200 studies that show that), but I will be merciful and pause for now.  I will just conclude by observing that a majority of the evidence, and the evidence from the most trusted and reliable sources, shows that people of faith have better health outcomes.

    There was too much evidence for my argument to cover  in this post. So I didn't get to the fine tuning evidence. I'll follow up with more evidence for the other points later.  
    Nomenclature
  • NomenclatureNomenclature 1245 Pts   -   edited January 2023
    @just_sayin
    The Mayo clinic does mention several of the 1200 studies.  For example it said:
    18 prospective studies

    Just stop. It's clear from reading the titles of some of these articles that they aren't specifically studying any proposed relationship between religion and longevity.  You're seriously proposing that, "A nine-year follow-up study of Alameda County residents" is a more reliable data set than a worldwide study specifically investigating the relationship between religion and lifespan? What an absolute joke. I picked just one of these out at random:-

    https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/135910539900400301

    Older residents (N 5 1972) in California were investigated prospectively for association of volunteering service to others and all-cause mortality. 

    So this study isn't even about religion. It's about volunteering. Here's another:-

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22021605/

    These women had healthier behaviors... In this bright, middle-class, 20th century sample, religiosity among women seems to be part of a generally healthy lifestyle.

    So this study concerns healthier lifestyles among middle class American women, not religion.

    Here's another:-

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9786287/

    Religious affiliation (n = 542) and church attendance (n = 455) were examined in a consecutive sample of medical patients aged 60 or older admitted to Duke University Medical Center

    So this study examines differences between religious church goers and religious non-church goers. It doesn't even include the non religious!

    And another:-

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10454399/

    Social and productive activities that involve little or no enhancement of fitness lower the risk of all cause mortality as much as fitness activities do. This suggests that in addition to increased cardiopulmonary fitness, activity may confer survival benefits through psychosocial pathways. 

    So social activities. Nothing to do with religion specifically.

    STOP MISLEADING PEOPLE.

    just_sayin
  • NomenclatureNomenclature 1245 Pts   -   edited January 2023
    @just_sayin
    Since my argument has a lot of evidence in support of it

    You are utterly, UTTERLY delusional. I get this same fallacy from the ultra far right all day long. When you have no quality, spam as much quantity as you can. Bet the house that nobody can be bothered meticulously going through each and every item to illustrate exactly where and how you're distorting reality.

  • NomenclatureNomenclature 1245 Pts   -  
    @just_sayin

    The actively religious are generally less likely than the unaffiliated to smoke and drink. Religions often frown on certain unhealthy behaviors, and that tendency seems reflected in data on smoking and drinking. In all but two of 19 countries for which data are available, the actively religious are less likely than the unaffiliated to smoke, and, in all but one country, less likely than the inactively religious to do so. The actively religious also tend to drink less.

    https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/31/are-religious-people-happier-healthier-our-new-global-study-explores-this-question/

    Literally only someone whose mental faculties are in decline could possibly distort data like this into the belief that religion itself makes a person healthier.
  • BoganBogan 417 Pts   -  
    @Barnardot ;  Because bogins aren’t intelligent that’s why because if they were intelligent then they wouldn’t be bogins any way Any way if races were not equal then how do you explain that all people in one race are different and a bogin would say there equal so there for the same difference s apply for every one in different races so there for a bogin must have to say that all races are equal.

    Such a Boganist rant that negatively stereotypes and labels Bogans, clearly displays that you are a Boganist bigot who is prejudiced against Bogans.


  • just_sayinjust_sayin 853 Pts   -  
    Argument Topic: Did you read the research you posted.

    @Nomenclature
    I'm not sure you read the above quote you posted.  It seems to indicate that religious people smoke and drink less.

    Rather than debunk the 1200 health studies that show religious people have healthier and happier outcomes, the Pew study seems to agree with much of their findings.  Here are some quotes from the article:

    Actively religious people are more likely than their less-religious peers to describe themselves as “very happy” in about half of the countries surveyed.  Sometimes the gaps are striking: In the U.S., for instance, 36% of the actively religious describe themselves as “very happy,” compared with 25% of the inactively religious and 25% of the unaffiliated. 

    At the same time, the actively religious are generally less likely than the unaffiliated to smoke and drink. Religions often frown on certain unhealthy behaviors, and that tendency seems reflected in data on smoking and drinking. In all but two of 19 countries for which data are available, the actively religious are less likely than the unaffiliated to smoke, and, in all but one country, less likely than the inactively religious to do so. 

    People who attend religious services at least monthly often are more likely than “nones” to join other types of (nonreligious) organizations, such as charities and clubs.

    The actively religious generally are more likely than others to vote. 

    Now the article does not say that the religious have overall worse health outcomes than non-religious people, just that
    "There is not a clear connection between religiosity and the likelihood that people will describe themselves as being in “very good” overall health."  And when comparing negative results it only mentions 2 studies.  That doesn't seem to debunk the 1200 studies where there are positive health outcomes associated with being a person of faith.
  • BarnardotBarnardot 519 Pts   -  
    @Bogan ;Such a Boganist rant that negatively stereotypes and labels Bogans, clearly displays that you are a Boganist bigot who is prejudiced against Bogans.

    But its all right for you to stereo type races then is it and in a real totally negative way so then its one rule for bogin man and one rule for others then which is just like what used to happen here years ago one rule for red necks and one rule for blacks.

  • BarnardotBarnardot 519 Pts   -  
    @MayCaesar ;Why does anyone believe or do something that appears obviously irrational to others?

    But I can say that it appears obviously irrational to others because those others have a prejudice idea that religious people are Richard heads. And being prejudiced is being irrational any way so what. I bet that most of what you think in a day is irrational and has no logic and reason other wise you would be a robot. So just because what religious people think is irrational and illogical and unreasonable does that mean they think that all the time a nd do irrational things. Do you see religious people trying to walk on water no you dont. What were saying is that all people have irrational thoughts most of the time but we have structure to ours and if any one says that our irrational thoughts are wrong and got no proof Id like to see what proof there irrational thoughts have.

  • NomenclatureNomenclature 1245 Pts   -   edited January 2023
    @Barnardot
     those others have a prejudice idea that religious people are Richard heads

    There's nothing prejudice about the objective fact that what religious people believe is garbage. Religious people believe garbage, supported by absolutely nothing, which is why the basis of religion has to be faith. If the basis of religion were evidence or even reason, it would be over in ten minutes. 

    So just because what religious people think is irrational and illogical and unreasonable does that mean they think that all the time a nd do irrational things.

    It means precisely that. Religion is a core belief system, so every decision and thought you have is going to be tarnished by, and framed within the context of that core belief system.

  • MayCaesarMayCaesar 5965 Pts   -  
    @just_sayin

    You are confusing correlation with causation. Those studies by no means support your claims about "benefits of religion", they merely suggest that being religious positively correlates with the metrics in question. The correlation does not imply causation, and it is quite possible that all of those benefits are caused not by religiosity itself, but by the confounding factors. For instance, someone who regularly goes to church probably has a sense of being a part of the community, and all other things being equal, it is reasonable to expect someone like this to be more fulfilled socially than someone who has never been in a church - the same effect can be achieved by being a part of a tabletop community, or a book club, or a sports organization, without all the baggage that believing in a fantasy comes with.

    And even if religion directly causes particular benefits, the downsides it causes should not be ignored either. For instance, religious people may smoke less than non-religious people due to seeing smoking as a sin and refraining from it - but they may also be psychologically more disturbed by the need to avoid countless activities due to the fear of being tortured forever in the afterlife. Is smoking more harmful than the psychological distress caused by such a grim prospect? Said studies do not do anything to help with answering this question.
    Nomenclature
  • NomenclatureNomenclature 1245 Pts   -  
    @just_sayin
    I'm not sure you read the above quote you posted.  It seems to indicate that religious people smoke and drink less.

    That was the entire reason I posted it. I was trying -- unsuccessfully, it seems -- to explain to you that not smoking or drinking is what provides health benefits, not worshipping a sky fairy.

    Rather than debunk the 1200 health studies that show religious people have healthier and happier outcomes

    Please stop this utterly delusional rhetoric. You linked some papers ostensibly in support of your argument, and I picked out four at random and debunked them all. None of the four papers I looked at support your belief that religion in itself has any health benefits, so I would greatly appreciate it if you would stop insulting my intelligence. 

    the Pew study seems to agree with much of their findings

    I've explained to you once already that I linked that particular study to illustrate that the health benefits you claim are a result of religion are actually a result of there being less drinkers and smokers in the test group. 

    Actively religious people are more likely than their less-religious peers to describe themselves as “very happy”

    Lol. What a joke. That also applies to drug users. See:-

    Understanding Why Opiates Make You Happy

    https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/opiate-addiction/understanding-why-opiates-make-you-happy/

    So are you also arguing that people should take opiates?

    Religious people are happier for the precise same reason drug users are happier: because their brains have been dulled and they aren't being forced to confront reality every day. Religious people and opiate users are both afraid to face life without a crutch to lean on.
  • NomenclatureNomenclature 1245 Pts   -  
    @just_sayin

    Here's a nice study I found.

    Atheists are more intelligent than religious people, finds study.

    In a new paper published in Frontiers in Psychology, researchers say that diminished intelligence among people of faith could be because they largely rely on intuition.

    “It is well established that religiosity correlates inversely with intelligence,” note Richard Daws and Adam Hampshire at Imperial College London.

    Surveying more than 63,000 participants online who indicated whether they were atheists, religious or agnostic, each person had to complete a 30-minute set of 12 cognitive tasks that measured planning, reasoning, attention and memory.

    Overall, the research found that atheists performed better overall than the religious participants even when demographic factors like age and education were taken into consideration. Agnostics mostly placed between atheists and believers on all tasks.

    https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/athiests-religious-people-intelligence-smarter-study-imperial-college-london-a8183131.html

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