"I wonder what the world would be like if say 85% of the world professed atheism?"

It would signal intelligence, so I would say better. Isn't most of northern Europe atheist? If more of the world was like northern Europe, to me that would be an unqualified improvement.

I think the Bible-Beating Christians are the biggest problem, in the western world. It's not enough for them to worship their God, they have to make you worship their God, too.

I'm sort of a Taoist/Buddhist/Christian. Catholic by birth, so it's always a part of me. Christian in the sense that I try to behave as I've heard how Christ behaved, not because I have any fondness for most of his followers. I love the man more than the god, and of course, all that we know of the man is mostly a myth.

I'm Buddhist because like any All American boy growing up in the early 1970's, I watched Kung Fu. Later in life I found a book of Zen poems and koans and they really stuck with me, like the story of a cup having to be empty before it can be useful, before it can be filled again.

And Taoism? I'm a little embarrassed to admit it, but that I Ching has been talking to me for about twenty years now and I'm always amazed at how...applicable the readings can be. Lately the 23rd passage of Lao Tzu's "Way of Life" has really been sticking with me. I hope you don't mind me including it here; it's kind of long.

lao tzu - Tao Te Ching - 23
Sparing indeed is nature of its talk:
The whirlwind will not last the morning out;
The cloudburst ends before the day is done.
What is it that behaves itself like this?
The earth and sky! And if it be that these
Cut short their speech, how much more yet should man!

If you work by the Way,
You will be of the Way;
If you work through its virtue
you will be given the virtue;
Abandon either one
And both abandon you.

Gladly then the Way receives
Those who choose to walk in it;
Gladly too its power upholds
Those who choose to use it well;
Gladly will abandon greet
Those who to abandon drift.

little faith is put in them
Whose faith is small.

But I wouldn't begin to force anyone to see things as I do. That's a sickness.

(sorry for the long post on your blog)

A little bit of poking around the web leads me to believe that 60 minutes study was biased. You know all about biased questions and interviewer expectation. You also know that in our society being totally without religion is very difficult, and rather rare.

Here is a currently respected study: http://www.bumc.bu.edu/centenarian/overview/

And it says specifically: Not all centenarians are alike. They vary widely in years of education (no years to post-graduate), socioeconomic status (very poor to very rich), religion, ethnicity and patterns of diet (strictly vegetarian to extremely rich in saturated fats). However, the centenarians we have studied do have a number of characteristics in common:

Then they go on to list the things they had in common, and having faith was not listed. Handling stress well is. In my opinion, faith is one way to deal with stress, and as long as you expand what you have faith in, it includes people whose faith is something like "modern psychiatry" and "bio-feedback" and "yoga" and such.

To pick something that women in the study of people over 100 had very often: they often had children past the age of 40. I'm not sure there are any metaphysical things to conclude from that.

Studies of human populations are very difficult to deal with scientifically.

That's my opinion.

By the way, I took some life-expectancy calculator online, and it didn't ask me about religion. It did ask me about stress-coping. After you take the test, it tells you what you should do to increase your expectancy. I am told I should take asprin, exercise more, and enjoy my friends.

It's never too late to give your life to Jesus, dag.

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^Jesus is just alright with me. Probably a pretty decent guy if he existed.

Interesting info on the longevity study Ox. I hope you are right.

Just the other day I was watching a space shuttle launch and got this sickening feeling. As the shuttle got higher and higher, this loneliness and insignificance started creeping through me. Thinking about the people on the ship that were so small compared to the vastness of space they were entering, triggered something inside me. I can't really explain it, but the feeling lasted until I fell asleep that night. I have never felt that way before, nor do I want to again. Just for a little while, I started thinking how nice it would be to believe in a god right now. At minimum, it would at least give me some comfort in thinking somebody was there when I was feeling so lonely.

Now I look back and have been thinking about it. Would that actually make me feel better(believing in a god)? Short-term, I think it probably would have. But in the long run, I think being honest to myself by trying to understand why I felt that way, is much more healthy. Having a god would just give me comfort so I can feel better, without an understanding of why I was feeling that way. Making myself mentally lazy would not help me. In effect, I think God is a placebo, and doesn't do anything but make you think you are OK. He doesn't actually fix anything. It's just the idea of a warm cozy blanket on a cold winter night, not an actual blanket.

I hope that made sense, I am up way too late.

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^Makes total sense to me. I think God is like parents for adults.

>> ^rougy:
I'm sort of a Taoist/Buddhist/Christian. Catholic by birth

Whoa I'm one of those too.

I think the big loser in the atheism vs religion debate is philosophy. Atheists are usually deeper thinkers, but when they talk about religion, the water gets shallow quickly, and religion is nothing but a brain virus that wreaks evil.

If you look at it objectively, religion exists and persists because of some survival benefits it granted. People together are powerful, but like a herd of cattle, they never realize what they could do if they worked together. Religion is the dark age's solution to that problem; it removes much of the hassle of organizing groups. When hierarchy was ordained by a divine power, there's much less debate and less time and energy wasted on deciding who rules whom, and how. It not only guided people as a group, but individually, it could remove stresses and preoccupations we'd otherwise have--to remove even our fear of death. It often misfired or was used in a negative way, but that's true of any other tool we've invented. Scapegoating religion for humanity's dark side is pointless and false.

There's real work to be done on how to maintain some of those beneficial aspects of religion without religion, or even improve on them. Just removing religion doesn't solve anything. If the problems religion addresses were solved in another way, religion would disappear. Removing religion shouldn't even be atheism's goal; it should be to reduce conflict and improve quality of life, whether or not religion is involved. Of course you wouldn't call it "atheism" then, you'd just call it "the right thing to do."

>> ^dag:
^Makes total sense to me. I think God is like parents for adults.


Agreed. People need to grow up and cut that particular umbilical cord.

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>> ^Lodurr:

Well put Lodurr- that was kind of what I was trying to say about religion being selected for - at the end of my post. I guess it's not quite the epiphany I thought it was- and must be a pretty well-worn social theory.

It does make sense to have something like religion hard-wired in the brain to help people work together. Maybe it really is just the herd instinct- hyper-extended and applied to sentient beings. Maybe if we find aliens who evolved as solitary creatures (like spiders) - religion will seem completely incomprehensible to them. But that makes me wonder if civilization could ever develop among beings who don't have "togetherness" as a value.

I'm a fan of some of the neurological elements of religion.

The neuroscience of religion basically shows mystical feelings are just turning off some neural circuits and over-activating others. For example, 'oneness with the universe' is just turning off the neural circuits we develop in infancy that allow us to distinguish between self and world, between where my hand stops and the table starts (one is "me" .. the other is not).

I think one of the bottom lines of human behavior is that the more energy, speed, and perseverance the individual has, the better. However much you have, more is better. IMHO, managing your neural circuits creatively, but without actually believing made-up stuff, is the best of both worlds.

^As a side-note, we might have faith in the esential spiritual hypothesis, that there's an invisible spiritual material (soul, spirit, universal consciouss etc.) that invisibly perturbs neural circuits to make it look as if the brain is self-contained, but 1. modern history is a relentless chipping away of magical thinking like that, and 2. science will finish reverse engineering the human brain in 20-50 years, so I humbly don't recommend betting too much money on that hypothesis.

I chafe against a lot of religion, particularly a lot of American Christianity. I've seen it make people suffer unnecessarily. But on the other hand, the purpose and origins of faith is pretty clear to me, and I wouldn't choose to take it away from people if I could.

I think a lot of prayer is akin to imploring a car to start on a cold winter day (c'mon, c'mon, start!). We all know how well that works. I think it does half the time. I also believe in accountability to something larger than just yourself, even if they are simply moral principals.

Regarding longevity by way of "faith": as they say "correlation does not imply causation."

>> ^schmawy:
I chafe against a lot of religion, particularly a lot of American Christianity. I've seen it make people suffer unnecessarily. But on the other hand, the purpose and origins of faith is pretty clear to me, and I wouldn't choose to take it away from people if I could.
I think a lot of prayer is akin to imploring a car to start on a cold winter day (c'mon, c'mon, start!). We all know how well that works. I think it does half the time. I also believe in accountability to something larger than just yourself, even if they are simply moral principals.


"Accountability to something larger than yourself" reads as rejecting your own responsibility and accountability. I also think it is moral cowardice to say that exactly moral principals are not made by us, but by something different.

I have no problem with spirituality. I see no compromise in my Atheistic principles to "believe" in things. I consider myself more anti-religious than anti-spiritual. I believe that the trappings of organized religions are what hurts mankind as a species.

The arrogant belief that the faithful are chosen by this or that deity, and that everyone else is doing it wrong (and destined for judgment) for example.

The hypocrisy of sentiments like "Judge not, lest ye be judged" only to turn around and actively work towards hindering other's civil rights, to actively judge others against ones very personal moral code (their interpretation of the manual.)

Individual belief is potentially a great thing, something very much like hope. Religious indoctrination is nothing like that.

I saw something on 60 Minutes a few years ago on a study that was looking at what common characteristics centenarians shared. The single most prevalent trait was a deep, deep faith.

When we get old, Dag, and we find less of an ability to control our own lives and we have more free time than we can deal with, we'll see just how religious you and I become. Ok, I guess I'm not admitting that becoming old will make an atheist into a believer, but it'll definitely convert some passive religious into weekly church-goers.

Plus, if they're trying to make a claim that people that believe in god live longer, how do they explain the ever-stretching average lifespan? 500 years ago, I'm sure there were plenty of Christians, but I doubt there were any 100 year olds. Furthermore, I'm sure those hundred somethings each have more health issues than all the members of this website combined. Is this really a good thing? So, you've lived to see 100, you've got no idea what's going on in the world, you're sickly, you need help pooping. Is this really what you're claiming god wanted for you? They're just alive because thankfully somebody looked beyond god to find answers with science.

---------
Chilaxe: "As a side-note, we might have faith in the esential spiritual hypothesis, that there's an invisible spiritual material (soul, spirit, universal consciouss etc.) that invisibly perturbs neural circuits to make it look as if the brain is self-contained, but 1. modern history is a relentless chipping away of magical thinking like that, and 2. science will finish reverse engineering the human brain in 20-50 years, so I humbly don't recommend betting too much money on that hypothesis."
---------

I'm no proponent of this widespread religious assumption Chilaxe has identified. That said, there's some room for clarification.

But first a quibble: the error behind the belief that there is some tangible animating spirit somewhere offstage from human affairs is based not on an assumption of brain isolation but rather the contrary. In fact, the assumption is that the brain, specifically in its capacity to generate interiority, is somehow profoundly *involved* with the "unseen."

In other words, spiritualists always presuppose an intrinsic bridge between some common "essence" -- that is, "human essence" -- and their particular oceanic-hidden-premise (OHP). Gary Zukov's quantum Woo-Woo and this "Secret" come to mind.

Contrast this view with Buddhism (Theravadin Buddhism) which asserts that all phenomena can arise only when the necessary preconditions are present. So, for example, as far as brains are concerned, emotional experience is contingent upon a functioning limbic system. (Compare the behavior of your dog to, say, a gecko.)

Science has greatly advanced our understanding of how the brain functions, and how it is able to integrate the various complex physiological processes. But there still remains the difficult problem of just how the brain gives rise to conscious experience.

That's the hard question, *ahem* AI people...

"But unfortunately there still remains the difficult problem of just how the brain gives rise to conscious experience."

We're getting there slowly but surely.

Researchers separately stimulated parts of the brain involved in the desire to move, the belief that we've moved, and movement itself. ... Up to now it has been very difficult for neuroscientists to deal with the idea of intentions or wishes or will."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17092-possible-site-of-free-will-found-in-brain.html

>> ^gwiz665 "Accountability to something larger than yourself" reads as rejecting your own responsibility and accountability. I also think it is moral cowardice to say that exactly moral principals are not made by us, but by something different.


There are many things larger than I am. My community, my family, the respect I earn from others. And yes, some intangible force. Is there nothing larger than Gwiz? Do you not measure your behaviour by how it affects others, do you ever wonder how you contribute to the balance of good and evil? I wonder. Moral cowardice. Yeah, that's me.

"We're getting there slowly but surely. "

As you probably know there is that significant ongoing debate between people like David Chalmers and others and those you reference. Chalmers, or perhaps Jaron Lanier, would say that's still taking the easy question for the hard.

http://consc.net/chalmers/

Consciousness as an illusion is a bit of a fallacy. The primary function of consciousness is awareness, and awareness is fundamentally impossible to prove or disprove from an outside observation. Science will undoubtedly change how we think of our consciousness as we learn more about our brains, but the core phenomena of "something instead of nothing" from our internal perspective is inexplicable.

Consciousness as a "user" illusion seems to posit that there is a unique, independant user/observer for each of our brains, something like souls.

I wouldn't make the leap that because we are conscious, we have immortal souls. But if I came from nothing, then some essence of me survives when I return to nothing. As Chuang-tzu says:

"Birth is not a beginning; death is not an end. There is existence without limitation; there is continuity without a starting point. Existence without limitation is space. Continuity without a starting point is time."

i heard an interview with a woman who wrote a book, something along the lines of "a case for god", but i dont really remember. she said one thing that spoke to me. religion is as old as community and probably, at least initially was not meant to replace observable fact, but only a mystical filler to fill in the gaps where observation couldn't. kind of like how you have to take humanities classes to meet your core requirements, even for a mathematics major.

and i don't think that's a bad thing. at all.

and if something terrible were to happen in my life, say to my kids, even as much as i reject the idea of god or an afterlife or a mystical man in the sky sitting around judging me for wiping my ass with wrong hand all day, i can imagine a void that is so great and insurmountable i would NEED to believe in an afterlife. and i would definitely need some kind of community support. i can only imagine a few people arrogant enough to want to strip that comfort from people.

its not simple belief, or faith in the improbable or illogical that is the problem. its institutionalized group think. plain and simple. its the same kind of group think that invents political parties and state (or religion) run schools. anyhow, the institution of anything will always becomes a means to meet the ends, which is to acquire more power and more control for the institution. same problems i have with governments. and large corporations for that matter. and marriage.

As an evangelical, I don't try to compare God to a psych theory.

Actually, its only religious people who need religion. Only religious people hate God, which is really the major sin in Christianity. The other being not loving your neighbor....and who needs to follow that?

To repeat myself, being a believer who hates god, that's when you run into problems.

Probably the best thing about the rise of Atheism is that people won't be hating god.... but if they truly hate the world I guess it's a wash.

>> ^Lodurr:

If you look at it objectively, religion exists and persists because of some survival benefits it granted.

Yes we are sheep, but we also get to live in a moral universe where right and wrong exist.

Let's drop the idea of right and wrong. Do you want to live somewhere where personal survival is the bottom line, always? Much like the proverbial jungle? Let's say no. Let's say you believe in sin, now. If you do, you're halfway to Jesus Christ.

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I would never seek to strip this comfort from anyone either- only prevent them from imposing it on myself or others.

I would like to strip it from myself though - as a kind of atheistic asceticism. That's why I think perhaps atheists might not live as long. Reality is a burden - and you really feel its weight when you have kids.

>> ^peggedbea:
and if something terrible were to happen in my life, say to my kids, even as much as i reject the idea of god or an afterlife or a mystical man in the sky sitting around judging me for wiping my ass with wrong hand all day, i can imagine a void that is so great and insurmountable i would NEED to believe in an afterlife. and i would definitely need some kind of community support. i can only imagine a few people arrogant enough to want to strip that comfort from people.

I think religion is hard wired like our ability to communicate. As rational as atheism is to me there is always something that pulls me back and tells me there has to be something else other than this life I have. Whether or not thats my instincts or not is not important. It's my perception and becomes my reality.

Heres what I do believe. If there is a god he is not a vengeful one thats irrational to me. I believe were here to become something more than what we were born. If there is a god I don't believe he cares how we get there.

I don't believe in hell. Worse case scenario I die and there is a hell I guess Ill go there and have all my lovely videosift friends there to enjoy it with. Muh ha ha!

I wouldn't worry too much about it though, if there is a god he will welcome us all on the other side.

I read an article (I think it was this one: http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101041025/ -damn your archive premiums Time magazine!) about how religion effects the brain, and how things like music, dancing, chanting, drugs, sex (and other similar repetitious or trance inducing states) have the same chemical effect on the brain as religious ecstasy. So as far as your brain chemistry is concerned, you aren't missing out on anything. It's also interesting to note that these cranial competitors to religion are commonly forbidden by religion.

Also, here is an interesting read from Atlantic Monthly that you might dig.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200512/god-accident

>> ^ctrlaltbleach:
I think religion is hard wired like our ability to communicate. As rational as atheism is to me there is always something that pulls me back and tells me there has to be something else other than this life I have. Whether or not thats my instincts or not is not important. It's my perception and becomes my reality.
Heres what I do believe. If there is a god he is not a vengeful one thats irrational to me. I believe were here to become something more than what we were born. If there is a god I don't believe he cares how we get there.
I don't believe in hell. Worse case scenario I die and there is a hell I guess Ill go there and have all my lovely videosift friends there to enjoy it with. Muh ha ha!
I wouldn't worry too much about it though, if there is a god he will welcome us all on the other side.


Now that is the kind of religion I could live with. I just don't see any reason to. I think that is getting close to "Pascals Wager".

>> ^schmawy:
>> ^gwiz665 "Accountability to something larger than yourself" reads as rejecting your own responsibility and accountability. I also think it is moral cowardice to say that exactly moral principals are not made by us, but by something different.

There are many things larger than I am. My community, my family, the respect I earn from others. And yes, some intangible force. Is there nothing larger than Gwiz? Do you not measure your behaviour by how it affects others, do you ever wonder how you contribute to the balance of good and evil? I wonder. Moral cowardice. Yeah, that's me.


Now now, I wanted to add a NB that said you shouldn't take this personally, but neglected to. My point is not that there are no things larger than "me", but that there are no things larger than the physical world. Your community, your family, other people, sure. But no, there is no intangible force, and if you believe you get your morals out of "the ether", then you are indeed a moral coward.

You have to recognize your own part in morality and your fellow men in your morality, but if you start to drag in your invisible friends, then you are making a scapegoat for some actions, be they "good or bad".

If they keep it to themselves, then I can live with it too, but in the end I would rather that they found solace in something real.

I'm a cold-hearted son of a bitch when it comes to human emotions, because the prevalent response that comes to mind when someone says something similar to "I have to believe in this, because the reality would be to dark and depressing" is grow the hell up.

>> ^dag:
I would never seek to strip this comfort from anyone either- only prevent them from imposing it on myself or others.
I would like to strip it from myself though - as a kind of atheistic asceticism. That's why I think perhaps atheists might not live as long. Reality is a burden - and you really feel its weight when you have kids.
>> ^peggedbea:
and if something terrible were to happen in my life, say to my kids, even as much as i reject the idea of god or an afterlife or a mystical man in the sky sitting around judging me for wiping my ass with wrong hand all day, i can imagine a void that is so great and insurmountable i would NEED to believe in an afterlife. and i would definitely need some kind of community support. i can only imagine a few people arrogant enough to want to strip that comfort from people.

I'd say religion is selected for evolutionarily, but not in the genetic sense - in the memetic sense. It's popular because it works, and tends to propagate itself as a result. (Yes, there are plenty of other reasons major religions propagate, but I do believe their success at raising an individual's perceived quality of life is the most important.)

I've argued this point before, but I think there are aspects of most major religions that are incredibly beneficial to personal and community well-being, regardless of whether there is truth to the "deity" behind it. I like to use prayer as an example.

If the deity exists, then prayer is a no-brainer and "works" as advertised.
However, let's look at prayer from a rational perspective.
Praying allows an individual a moment of quiet introspection, and facilitates setting priorities and gaining perspective, like setting aside time for quiet meditation.
When deciding what to pray for, we evaluate what's important to us. I do believe that acknowledging your priorities on a regular basis does help in working toward them. (Essentially, answering your own prayers.) In some cases, when thinking "do I really want to ask God for that?" we may recognize misplaced or trivial desires - realizing that perhaps we should focus our attentions elsewhere.
Most religious that incorporate prayer place a significant emphasis on giving thanks, and this portion of prayer can help someone recognize their blessings, or more objectively evaluate the positive aspects of their life, which can help encourage us when things seem bleak, and uplift us when things are going well.

Other aspects - things like gathering together regularly, codified rules like the Ten Commandments, et cetera - work to foster healthy communities.

Personally, I think the worst thing that happened to religion was the invention of written language, because the message is set, and is much more difficult to evolve along with us as it could in the age of a purely oral tradition. Obviously, we've all seen individuals take from the texts only those portions that suit their purposes, so Religion can still evolve, but much of it is unbending.

The world's religions did not spring fully-formed into the populace. Religion was (and I believe to a degree is still) an observational science - people observed the world around them and formulated theories as to its operation, in both the physical and social sense. As our knowledge of the world around us changed, so did those theories, tinted through the lense of the individual who spread the word. Even if people treated these theories as absolutes, people change and people die, and new generations were free to reinterpret. Unfortunately, once it was written down, the various religions were no longer free to adapt to advances in social and physical sciences, and I think that's dangerous.

On a different topic, I'm excited to see some discussion up there about "the consciousness problem" with our current scientific model of the universe.

I used to think free will was a problem as well - that the scientific, deterministic physical model of the universe must be fundamentally flawed if I can decide, NOW, to do something specific in a few moments, or at some other point in the future. That, however, assumes a linear flow of time, which might just be a limitation of the observer.

The consciousness problem remains, however.
I have no problem believing that everything in the universe followed some basic physical rules and became what it is...that my body and brain are just collections of atoms, collections of individual cells, responding to physical forces, doing what they do because those are the rules. I don't even have a problem accepting that "free will" is an illusion and that consciousness is all post-hoc. It still doesn't explain the observer. Don't get me wrong - I understand that a model doesn't have to explain everything to be correct, but it's a pretty fundamental problem. Even as a pure observer, if I can detect what's going on, then the current model stipulates I'm almost certainly exerting some effect on it.
It just...doesn't make sense. What binds those cells, those atoms, into my experience? From a scientific standpoint, there's nothing there that isn't everywhere else in the universe - just particles and physics.