>> ^ponceleon:

>> ^JiggaJonson:
cult , plain and simple

Scientology = Mormonism = Christianity = Islam = cults


So clever. The words cult and religion are separate words though in the English language.

Oh, and your witty remark is exactly the argument Scientology makes in court to demand special protections for itself, which it should NOT be getting.

@SDGundamX

On the So-Called Benifits of Religious Belief

First, I'm going to assume that you simply googled "religion+health+studies" or stg like that, and did not read before posting; frankly, I don't blame you. I can only hope you are not as intellectually (and downright) dishonest as the second link you posted: the very first study cited is completely misinterpreted; basically, since kissing multiple partners can increase probability of meningococcal disease, and strict religious tradition would prevent that, religion prevents meningococcal disease. Yeah, really strong science in favour of faith right there. Some of the studies cited actually prove the opposite of what the site is peddling, but they excuse this by accusing the meddling of "Jews and Buddhists" in the prayer groups. I'm actually surprised at some of the studies the website cites, one of which concludes that "Certain forms of religiousness may increase the risk of death." Some of the studies make no mention of religion whatsoever. I could go on, but the point is made.

As for the studies - and they exist - that show positive correlation between health and religion, they concern only the social benefits of religion as community*. The so-called "New Atheists" are the first to point out this positive role, although the uniting and socially reinforcing factor of religion is the same force that fosters and reinforces hate, prejudice and discrimination against the self (guilt) and the "Other" (non-members of the ingroup, "heathens", gays, blacks, "Westerners", you name it). When people use the socially unifying and reinforcing benefits of religious organisations to defend religious beliefs, a certain comparison quickly comes to mind, which Godwin's law prohibits me from making...

As for faith itself, a recent study suggests that it can actually have negative effects on health, because of the stress and guilt believers put upon themselves when prayed for (link). Regardless, even if a positive placebo effect could/can be attributed to faith/rel. belief, it does not make it any less idiotic or objectionable than the belief in homeopathy or vaudou.
_{(if interested in what I think of the "faith is comforting" argument, pm me, I'm filling this thread enough as is)}

Your "two-sides of same coin" analogy fails entirely: telling a believer they're delusional is not denying their perception of their own happiness. A child happy at the prospect of Santa delivering presents is delusional, but truly happy. The idea that there is the same amount of evidence against and for religious belief is pure ludicrous. The Abrahamic God (let's not bring in the thousand and one others for now) has been logically disproven, even before el Jeebs showed up with his promise of hellfire. There is also substantial evidence that he is man-made, as are the book(s) describing him, which are full of inconsistencies (and outright fallacies) themselves.

Your comment about John Smith suggests that the only evidence that could convict a fraudster is confession; good thing you aren't a judge! Seriously though, your doubt probably stems from your lack of acquaintance with the evidence. You can start by reading his brief biography on Wikipedia; his con trick of "glass-seeing" (looking at shiny stones in a hat and pretending to see the location of treasure), for which he was arrested several times, is eerily familiar to the birth of the Book of Mormon (looking into a hat and "transcribing" gold plates that probably did not exist). He even had to change a passage after losing some pages of the transcript He received a divine revelation that the exact pages of the transcript that he lost needed to be changed, and that God had foreseen the loss of those papers (link).

The further one goes back in history, the harder it is to get historical evidence against religious beliefs, but there are always logical arguments that count as evidence as well (in arguing the idiocy of certain beliefs). Since my Santa analogy above seems not to have appealed to you, here's a different one. Imagine Kate were to have said "I do not believe in witchcraft/vampires because I'm not an idiot." Audience response? "Duh!" or stg similar. And yet there is the same amount of evidence for witches and vampires as there is for deities and afterlife**. The only difference between these three once highly common delusions is that one of them persists, even demanding respect, when it deserves at best critical scrutiny, at worst nothing but scorn.


<sub>*(and sometimes those benefits stemming from certain rules, like no alcohol/extra-marital sex etc... still nothing to do with belief.)

**Actually, there is relatively more evidence in favour of vampirism than of deities and afterlife</sub>


tl;dr: faith/rel. belief has no health benefits (check sources b4 posting); argument of religion's social role is double-edged; delusions are still delusions if they make you happy (try drugs); Joseph Smith Jr was a (convicted) fraud; idiotic beliefs are still idiotic when shared by the majority, just more socially unacceptable to mock.

>> ^SDGundamX:


See my answer to @BicycleRepairMan--what people accept as evidence in this matter and how much evidence is required for people to believe (or not believe) in a religion varies from person to person. Further complicating matters is that belief is not binary--it's a very wide continuum that includes people who aren't sure but practice the religion anyway.
My point about the New Atheists is that they feel the evidence against religion is sufficient. They are entitled to that opinion--but at the end of the day it is only an opinion. They should be free to express that opinion and tell people their reasons why they came to that conclusion. But they shouldn't pretend that their opinion is "fact" or belittle those who haven't come to the same conclusion.
About the "faith improving lives" bit--there is a fair bit of empirical evidence for the benefits of religious faith (in terms of both physical and psychological health: see here and here for more info) so I can't see how you can argue it is "delusional." Unless you meant that religion isn't the only way to obtain the same benefits, in which case I absolutely agree. But I find an interesting parallel in your thinking the New Atheists can tell a religious person that he/she is delusional if that religious person believes religion has a positive effect on their life with Christians who claim that atheists think they are happy but in reality suffering because they aren't one with Christ. Seems like two sides of the same coin to me.
I'm glad I amused you with my reference to Scientology. But this is a very rare case where we have a "smoking gun" so to speak. While I agree with you that there is a some suspicious stuff going on with Mormonism (how some passages in the Book of Mormon are very similar to other books available at the time John Smith lived), I'm unaware of any hard evidence that John Smith actually admitted to making it all up. Again with Mormonism, we're back to people having to personally decide for themselves what to believe (and all the issues that entails). [...]

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>> ^hpqp:

@SDGundamX
You make a very fair point, and I agree with you to a certain degree. I agree that it is important to respect people, even when one does not respect certain among their beliefs.
When it comes to evidence, however, I disagree that there is no evidence against the beliefs of theists; all the evidence points to those beliefs being the creation of men from a specific timeperiod in history. In a court case you don't necessarily need a "smoking gun" to disprove someone's alibi, if their alibi is so obviously made up, or logically impossible.
As for the New Atheists themselves are the ones demanding special treatment. They are essentially saying that everyone must think the same way that they do, and those who don't are somehow inferior., I would refer you to my Santa Claus comparison above. Sure, Santa Claus may exist, but for a grown person to believe in Santa when all the evidence points to him being the production of the human imagination is - to put it bluntly - dumb... even idiotic.
You say A lot of people believe because they feel their faith improves their life--provides them with social and psychological comfort, gives them a sense of mission and hope, etc. This is exactly the delusion that the so-called "New Atheists" are trying to fight against (amongst other things) because not only is it an empty promise, but it also lends credence (and thus power) to the belief systems it is attached to (X-ity, Islam, etc.) which in turn do far more damage.
It's funny that you exclude Scientology because "Hubbard admitted to making it up". Historical evidence shows that John Smith was a conman and a charlatan, yet try and tell a mormon today that his/her faith is based on a conman's made up religion. The people who believe may or may not be charlatans (look at all the preachers/gurus who make huge profits... heck, check out the golden decked halls of the Vatican), but those who founded such beliefs most probably were, at least to a certain degree.
Finally, as to whether or not being rude is always counterproductive, it would seem that is a matter of divergent opinions (you can tell what mine are in the comments above).


See my answer to @BicycleRepairMan--what people accept as evidence in this matter and how much evidence is required for people to believe (or not believe) in a religion varies from person to person. Further complicating matters is that belief is not binary--it's a very wide continuum that includes people who aren't sure but practice the religion anyway.

My point about the New Atheists is that they feel the evidence against religion is sufficient. They are entitled to that opinion--but at the end of the day it is only an opinion. They should be free to express that opinion and tell people their reasons why they came to that conclusion. But they shouldn't pretend that their opinion is "fact" or belittle those who haven't come to the same conclusion.

About the "faith improving lives" bit--there is a fair bit of empirical evidence for the benefits of religious faith (in terms of both physical and psychological health: see here and here for more info) so I can't see how you can argue it is "delusional." Unless you meant that religion isn't the only way to obtain the same benefits, in which case I absolutely agree. But I find an interesting parallel in your thinking the New Atheists can tell a religious person that he/she is delusional if that religious person believes religion has a positive effect on their life with Christians who claim that atheists think they are happy but in reality suffering because they aren't one with Christ. Seems like two sides of the same coin to me.

I'm glad I amused you with my reference to Scientology. But this is a very rare case where we have a "smoking gun" so to speak. While I agree with you that there is a some suspicious stuff going on with Mormonism (how some passages in the Book of Mormon are very similar to other books available at the time John Smith lived), I'm unaware of any hard evidence that John Smith actually admitted to making it all up. Again with Mormonism, we're back to people having to personally decide for themselves what to believe (and all the issues that entails).

Just one more thing... since you believe there are times that being rude or insulting can be productive, I'd like to know if you have any examples (personal examples are fine) of that being the case. I'm just curious what brought you to that conclusion.

>> ^BicycleRepairMan:

@SDGundamX said:Second, Randi can demonstrably show people how the charlatans are pulling off their tricks. In other words, he has factual evidence to prove they are charlatans. For most religions (I'm excluding Scientology since L. Ron Hubbard basically admitted to making it up to make money) it is impossible to provide such factual evidence (showing that they are false). The Crucifixion and (supposed) Resurrection, as just one example, simply doesn't lend itself to testing through the scientific method. Of course, we can look at other evidence (archaeological for instance) but like I said, for most religions there's no smoking gun either way (in support of or against).
Well thats a bit like saying the lottery has a 50/50 chance isn't it? Its like your forgetting that atheists also have "beliefs" about the resurrection: We believe that it didn't happened and that it was made up.
Take this video of James Randi explaining a little matchbox trick. Sure, some of us might say the trick has been exposed and thoroughly debunked. However, you could still believe there were magic crystals from the lost city of Atlantis involved somehow, and explain that there is "no factual evidence for or against". Of course, you might say: thats easy: i can do the matchbox trick right now, iaw replicate the trick, and thereby find a plausible, natural place of origin for the "magic".
Well I can do the same for the jesus myth: "2000 years ago Susej was nailed to a cross and three days later he rose from the dead." There, I just told a fictional story similar to the jesus one and thus proved it was possible to simply make it up.
Conversely, there is no evidence that a)any of that stuff actually happened OR b) that it even could happen. But again, there's plenty of evidence that shows that it could have been made up.


I don't necessarily disagree with you. It all goes back to credulity--each person decides for themselves how much evidence they require to believe something. I think for the vast majority of people the evidence against the matchbox trick is overwhelming. The same can't be said for the case against most religions--the people who feel the evidence is overwhelming (or put another way, that there isn't enough evidence to justify their belief) are atheists. The problems are deciding what constitutes "evidence" and the fact, as I mentioned above, that people believe in religions for a host of other reasons besides the evidence (personal experience being probably the foremost).

Back to the original point, calling people idiots neither adds anything constructive to the discussion nor is it really even true for most people (either religious or atheist).

>> ^hpqp:

In 100 years a scientologist will be one of the serious contenders for the Republican presidential nominations.

(I'd tick the sarcasm button, but seeing where Mormonism is today... )


As opposed to what? A president of these United States going to war because god told him to?

>> ^ZappaDanMan:

I guess this means I'm a Suppressive Person and a Potential Trouble Source Sorry, a little obscure anti-scientology humor for those in the know.


Not as obscure as I wish it was.

>> ^JiggaJonson:

cult , plain and simple


Scientology = Mormonism = Christianity = Islam = cults

I guess this means I'm a Suppressive Person and a Potential Trouble Source Sorry, a little obscure anti-scientology humor for those in the know.

@SDGundamX said:Second, Randi can demonstrably show people how the charlatans are pulling off their tricks. In other words, he has factual evidence to prove they are charlatans. For most religions (I'm excluding Scientology since L. Ron Hubbard basically admitted to making it up to make money) it is impossible to provide such factual evidence (showing that they are false). The Crucifixion and (supposed) Resurrection, as just one example, simply doesn't lend itself to testing through the scientific method. Of course, we can look at other evidence (archaeological for instance) but like I said, for most religions there's no smoking gun either way (in support of or against).

Well thats a bit like saying the lottery has a 50/50 chance isn't it? Its like your forgetting that atheists also have "beliefs" about the resurrection: We believe that it didn't happened and that it was made up.

Take this video of James Randi explaining a little matchbox trick. Sure, some of us might say the trick has been exposed and thoroughly debunked. However, you could still believe there were magic crystals from the lost city of Atlantis involved somehow, and explain that there is "no factual evidence for or against". Of course, you might say: thats easy: i can do the matchbox trick right now, iaw replicate the trick, and thereby find a plausible, natural place of origin for the "magic".

Well I can do the same for the jesus myth: "2000 years ago Susej was nailed to a cross and three days later he rose from the dead." There, I just told a fictional story similar to the jesus one and thus proved it was possible to simply make it up.

Conversely, there is no evidence that a)any of that stuff actually happened OR b) that it even could happen. But again, there's plenty of evidence that shows that it could have been made up.

@SDGundamX

You make a very fair point, and I agree with you to a certain degree. I agree that it is important to respect people, even when one does not respect certain among their beliefs.

When it comes to evidence, however, I disagree that there is no evidence against the beliefs of theists; all the evidence points to those beliefs being the creation of men from a specific timeperiod in history. In a court case you don't necessarily need a "smoking gun" to disprove someone's alibi, if their alibi is so obviously made up, or logically impossible.

As for the New Atheists themselves are the ones demanding special treatment. They are essentially saying that everyone must think the same way that they do, and those who don't are somehow inferior., I would refer you to my Santa Claus comparison above. Sure, Santa Claus may exist, but for a grown person to believe in Santa when all the evidence points to him being the production of the human imagination is - to put it bluntly - dumb... even idiotic.

You say A lot of people believe because they feel their faith improves their life--provides them with social and psychological comfort, gives them a sense of mission and hope, etc. This is exactly the delusion that the so-called "New Atheists" are trying to fight against (amongst other things) because not only is it an empty promise, but it also lends credence (and thus power) to the belief systems it is attached to (X-ity, Islam, etc.) which in turn do far more damage.

It's funny that you exclude Scientology because "Hubbard admitted to making it up". Historical evidence shows that John Smith was a conman and a charlatan, yet try and tell a mormon today that his/her faith is based on a conman's made up religion. The people who believe may or may not be charlatans (look at all the preachers/gurus who make huge profits... heck, check out the golden decked halls of the Vatican), but those who founded such beliefs most probably were, at least to a certain degree.

Finally, as to whether or not being rude is always counterproductive, it would seem that is a matter of divergent opinions (you can tell what mine are in the comments above).

@hpqp who said:

Randi calls charlatans all kinds of names, why is no one up in arms against that? Why should religious nuts/beliefs get special treatment?

There are two problems to that line of reasoning. First, Randi is not saying that people who believe in charlatans are idiots (which would be the more accurate analogy than the one you proposed)--he is making the factual (and tautological) claim that people who deceive people are charlatans (ie deceive people). In discussing people who fall for charlatans he often uses the word "credulous" (which basically means too trusting) not "idiocy."

Second, Randi can demonstrably show people how the charlatans are pulling off their tricks. In other words, he has factual evidence to prove they are charlatans. For most religions (I'm excluding Scientology since L. Ron Hubbard basically admitted to making it up to make money) it is impossible to provide such factual evidence (showing that they are false). The Crucifixion and (supposed) Resurrection, as just one example, simply doesn't lend itself to testing through the scientific method. Of course, we can look at other evidence (archaeological for instance) but like I said, for most religions there's no smoking gun either way (in support of or against).

So it comes back to the question of credulity. What do you believe? People look at the evidence and have widely different thresholds for how much evidence they need before they believe something. For some people, the fact that people they admire and respect believe in the religion is enough to convince them to believe as well. At the end of the day, I think for the vast majority of religious people, whether their religion is factually "true" or not doesn't matter. A lot of people believe because they feel their faith improves their life--provides them with social and psychological comfort, gives them a sense of mission and hope, etc.

The long-winded point I'm trying to make is that you, personally, choose not to believe until there is hard (empirical) evidence. That's your choice. I respect that, not the least of all because it is the same choice I make. Where I think you and I differ is that I do not demand everyone make the same choice as I do. When "New Atheists" call someone an "idiot" because that person chooses to believe in a religion, the New Atheists themselves are the ones demanding special treatment. They are essentially saying that everyone must think the same way that they do, and those who don't are somehow inferior.

New Atheists are of course free to point out the logical flaws, inconsistencies, historical inaccuracies, and so forth that every religion contains. You don't have to respect ideas, but if you want to improve society you better damn well make sure you respect people. Showing respect for a person in no way, shape, or form implies that you agree with them. Showing disrespect, as other posters have already noted, is probably best way to ensure that your message never reaches the people who most need to hear it.