posted
If the vast majority of us seem to believe that the marketplace of faith exists and is a good thing, and the biggest complaints to be had about it being not relevant to their faith in this thread are Jewish, why do we have this "Christian America" fight going on. As someone who has not bought into the Evangelical Christian based faiths, they appear to be trying to set up a monopoly in this marketplace, or give themselves powers and advantages that are outside the norm--basically adding irrelevant incentives to purchase their Truth via political power.
It reminds me of the "Buy American" pleas of failing car companies. They don't or can't compete with competitors outside the US, so they try to force or even legally prescribe the need to buy American. While this is patriotic, it is hardly capitalist. So, "Christian America" is the "Buy America" plan of the faith marketplace?
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posted
No, not really. I think the metaphor breaks down pretty quickly, in fact, Dan, once you start poking at it and trying to use it to draw any actual conclusions.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:You know who your dad was, and who your grandfather was - it's insanely difficult for someone to re-write the complete history of your nation.
I don't see how these two things are remotely connected, to be honest with you. Knowing who my grandfather is has no bearing whatsoever on knowing whether he did in fact have a parent who heard God.
Again, seriously, all it would have taken is a group of people dedicated to lying for what they thought was a higher cause, and a slightly larger group of people willing to kill the skeptics.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: If you can get people to believe in scientology, you can get people to believe in fridgefairy.
It really does amaze me, what people will believe.
I guarantee I could talk some rural 3rd-world villagers, or some not-so-bright people, into believing in Tom's fridgefairy. Or my fridgefairy, etc.. People will believe all kinds of crazy stuff, particularly if the source of the information is a trusted authority figure, like a parent, or is very persuasive.
If I had been raised in a non-YEC, non-fundamentalist religion, I maybe would have stuck with it. I found it impossible, though, given the ridiculous claims that the Earth is 6000 years old, and that only people at this 1 tiny church are going to Heaven, all else straight to Hell...going to Hell, in fact, for tiny doctrinal differences.
The stuff just doesn't stand up to an honest look at probability, IMHO.
Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
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quote: I guarantee I could talk some rural 3rd-world villagers, or some not-so-bright people, into believing in Tom's fridgefairy. Or my fridgefairy, etc..
I guarantee the likelihood of your being lynched by such people for attempting to do so is greater than the likelihood of your succeeding to convince them.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:It really does amaze me, what people will believe.
I guarantee I could talk some rural 3rd-world villagers, or some not-so-bright people, into believing in Tom's fridgefairy. Or my fridgefairy, etc.. People will believe all kinds of crazy stuff, particularly if the source of the information is a trusted authority figure, like a parent, or is very persuasive.
The interesting side question is: How difficult would it be to get you to believe in something similarly absurd, if told to you by an authority you trust in a way that's very persuasive, in terms that would make it sound plausible given the way you see the world?
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quote:I guarantee the likelihood of your being lynched by such people for attempting to do so is greater than the likelihood of your succeeding to convince them.
However, should you avoid the lynching, your willingness to martyr yourself will be held up as evidence for the truth of the religion. This argument is used frequently in LDS and Evangelical apologetics.
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posted
Alternatively, if you do get lynched, rest easy with the knowledge that your martyr's death may well prove a good starting point for a subsequent attempt Think of it as a win-win.
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posted
I think that exposure to many ideas is essential - at least it was/is for me. I believe that there is Truth but that no one religion holds all of or only Truth and that people have different ways of accessing Truth.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: The interesting side question is: How difficult would it be to get you to believe in something similarly absurd, if told to you by an authority you trust in a way that's very persuasive, in terms that would make it sound plausible given the way you see the world? [/QB]
What is so frightening is that it isn't difficult at all. If you make up a complex enough story and keep repeating it with enough conviction, you can actually start to convince yourself, even though you know it's false, because you made it up yourself.
Our minds love simple, pat answers to complex questions. Real knowledge requires work. Just making up happy answers and believing them is easy. We see examples of it everywhere.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:It really does amaze me, what people will believe.
I guarantee I could talk some rural 3rd-world villagers, or some not-so-bright people, into believing in Tom's fridgefairy. Or my fridgefairy, etc.. People will believe all kinds of crazy stuff, particularly if the source of the information is a trusted authority figure, like a parent, or is very persuasive.
The interesting side question is: How difficult would it be to get you to believe in something similarly absurd, if told to you by an authority you trust in a way that's very persuasive, in terms that would make it sound plausible given the way you see the world?
posted
I think, for a lot of atheists or agnostics, the answer to that question would be "easy to do initially, but difficult to maintain." That's the way it worked out for me.
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quote:Originally posted by Juxtapose: I think, for a lot of atheists or agnostics, the answer to that question would be "easy to do initially, but difficult to maintain." That's the way it worked out for me.
Perhaps. I'm likely to believe lies that people tell me about their lives, or lies about subjects that are very hard to verify, or lies that don't seem to create obvious benefit for the liar.
However, lies about things that affect all living things, everywhere, like statements about an all-knowing/all-powerful God, trip my BS meter like you wouldn't believe.
The thing that people miss is that it is incumbent upon believers to prove God's existence, not unbelievers to disprove.
Why?
1. There's no easily-observable phenomenon in the world that obviously requires a God. I'm not saying there's NO phenomenon, just not one that's easy to scientifically verify. (actually, I think there's no phenomenon, I'm just trying to be nice)
2. Believing in a God often has deadly consequences (see the Crusades, 9/11, etc.--belief has caused a lot of deaths, directly or indirectly).
3. There's no clear, observable benefit to believers--atheists/agnostics aren't measurably poorer, less healthy, dumber, or shorter-lived.
None of this means that something might not be occurring on the supernatural level...but when you start talking about the supernatural like it has more power than humans, that's when you start to trip the ol' BS meter. Prove it. That's what I'm asking, and I'm asking it for the reasons that I just stated.
Believing in God is gilding the lily, in my humble opinion. The simplest explanation for the observable, consensus-reality world is that, whether the supernatural exists, or whether everything is scientifically study-able and therefore predictable, the supernatural is not that much more powerful than humans. Again, in my humble opinion.
Shoot, I nailed that. That was some beauty. BAM! Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:There's no clear, observable benefit to believers--atheists/agnostics aren't measurably poorer, less healthy, dumber, or shorter-lived.
This is a testable hypothesis. It has been tested and general found to be false. Numerous studies have found that religious people are happier, live longer, have more social capital and give more time, money and blood to secular charities.
Since you are touting the superiority of science, its rather hypocritical to simply reject this work out of hand. You have proposed a testable hypothesis that doesn't stand up to critical analysis.
[ April 27, 2010, 06:28 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
I have to agree with the bunny on this one. Your first two points are fine. The third doesn't have much of a leg to stand on, and you don't even need any polls or studies to see this - just a little observation. Many to most religious people I know are very happy and satisfied with their lives - and their religion is a significant source of that. I can even recognize that I personally would likely be much happier if I could believe that an omnipotent, omniscient, omni-benevolent god had my back through the hard times in my life. Stress kills, and I'm willing to bet most religious folks would be a lot more stressed without the comfort of their god to get them through the day.
Posts: 1945 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I'm a bit late to the game here and I admit that I've skimmed heavily, but it looks like no one is even arguing with the idea that the marketplace of faith exists.
I don't really think it does.
Oh sure, *legally*, we can pick and choose whatever religion we like. But socially? There is a lot of pressure within religious groups to not even listen to other ideas lest you be tempted away. (Hence the things Lisa said about her ideal Jewish state.)
Not only that, but in certain areas of the country, things are so heavily mired in a single religious ideology that even if someone tried to buck social pressure, they'd have absolutely no where to go.
Humans, being social creatures by nature, aren't likely to buck the system. Ostracizing is a highly effective tool to keep people in line and to keep them from exploring.
Even people I meet on the Internet who have access to various ideologies put up walls between themselves and those points of view. They're not shopping to buy, they're selling. (And often getting angry when no one else is buying. )
People who buy into new religions are few and far between and usually they do so not because another religion is more appealing, but instead because something about the religion into which they were originally indoctrinated ticked them off. At this point, instead of shopping for a new religion, most of the people I've ever known turn to no religion -- some form of atheism or agnosticism, with or without spirituality. (This probably describes me as well -- a spiritual agnostic.)
Speaking from my own experience, I've looked for a marketplace, but everyone's selling some variety of apple and I'm really looking for strawberries. In other words, ten million varieties of Christianity don't make for a very useful marketplace.
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quote:There's no clear, observable benefit to believers--atheists/agnostics aren't measurably poorer, less healthy, dumber, or shorter-lived.
This is a testable hypothesis. It has been tested and general found to be false. Numerous studies have found that religious people are happier, live longer, have more social capital and give more time, money and bloody to secular charities.
I gotta say that I've seen plenty of dispute on all of the above points, due to the great variety in what is being measured. Well, except for the blood donation bit, I don't think I've seen that before.
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posted
I think that there is a "marketplace"; it just isn't easy to get to. And some, even most, people aren't very good shoppers.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:There's no clear, observable benefit to believers--atheists/agnostics aren't measurably poorer, less healthy, dumber, or shorter-lived.
This is a testable hypothesis. It has been tested and general found to be false. Numerous studies have found that religious people are happier, live longer, have more social capital and give more time, money and blood to secular charities.
Since you are touting the superiority of science, its rather hypocritical to simply reject this work out of hand. You have proposed a testable hypothesis that doesn't stand up to critical analysis.
I think you will find that the evidence is not so clear-cut as all that. 'Numerous studies' have shown atheists to be more educated and to have higher IQs than theists, qualities which are strongly correlated with social capital and long life.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:There's no clear, observable benefit to believers--atheists/agnostics aren't measurably poorer, less healthy, dumber, or shorter-lived.
This is a testable hypothesis. It has been tested and general found to be false. Numerous studies have found that religious people are happier, live longer, have more social capital and give more time, money and blood to secular charities.
Since you are touting the superiority of science, its rather hypocritical to simply reject this work out of hand. You have proposed a testable hypothesis that doesn't stand up to critical analysis.
I think you will find that the evidence is not so clear-cut as all that. 'Numerous studies' have shown atheists to be more educated and to have higher IQs than theists, qualities which are strongly correlated with social capital and long life.
Yes, that's a factor that is easy to control for in a study. My point is that is a testable hypothesis. If its true, you should be able to design a study and produce data to demonstrate that its true. Making the claim without having done that is decidedly unscientific. Making the claim in the presence of data that contradicts that claim, without acknowledging and refuting that body of data is not just unscientific, its scientifically unethical.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
You state, then, that given two twins, both with college degrees and similar IQs, the religious one will live longer than the atheist? If so that's interesting, but does not demonstrate that the benefit comes from the religion; I would think it more likely to come from the churchgoing, which is not the same thing. Have your studies looked at religious people who do not go to church, or who live in predominantly atheist communities, or both? Being an unpopular minority is never easy; it does not follow that the majority would retain the benefits of being in the majority, if the numbers were reversed. (In any case, of course, "Going to church is good for you" is a poor argument for the truth of the doctrines preached there, but that's not what we're discussing at the moment.)
I also note that the initial post to which you responded had a list somewhat at cross-purposes with what you said studies could show; the quote was "atheists/agnostics aren't measurably poorer, less healthy, dumber, or shorter-lived". In fact, theists are, as we apparently agree, measurably dumber and poorer.
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posted
KOM, Here are the references to several studies that support the theory that religiosity promotes human well being. Can you provide any such studies that support your theory that it does not? After all, you are the one that has claimed that making such judgements without evidence is evil.
If you want more, I'm sure I can find them but not until you produce so scientific counter examples.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: You state, then, that given two twins, both with college degrees and similar IQs, the religious one will live longer than the atheist? If so that's interesting, but does not demonstrate that the benefit comes from the religion; I would think it more likely to come from the churchgoing, which is not the same thing. Have your studies looked at religious people who do not go to church, or who live in predominantly atheist communities, or both? Being an unpopular minority is never easy; it does not follow that the majority would retain the benefits of being in the majority, if the numbers were reversed. (In any case, of course, "Going to church is good for you" is a poor argument for the truth of the doctrines preached there, but that's not what we're discussing at the moment.)
I also note that the initial post to which you responded had a list somewhat at cross-purposes with what you said studies could show; the quote was "atheists/agnostics aren't measurably poorer, less healthy, dumber, or shorter-lived". In fact, theists are, as we apparently agree, measurably dumber and poorer.
KOM, You are the one who has said that making such judgements without evidence is evil. Produce the evidence.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:A sample of 711 15-16-year-olds completed the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity and the Standard Progressive Matrices index of intelligence, together with information about paternal occupation. The data provide no evidence for a relationship, either positive or negative, between intelligence and religiosity.
posted
KOM, but arguing with you about religion is just like arguing with Ron Lambert about religion. You are both oblivious to the unsubstantiatable assumptions that underly your beliefs and impervious to rational arguments.
It's amusing but not sufficiently amusing to hold my attention any longer.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
Well. Three posts in a row, expressing very different things; hard to respond to. I'll try to deal with them in sequence. First, you give evidence that religiosity correlates positively with measures of well-being, and challenge me to provide counter-evidence for "[my] theory that it does not". I have not put forth such a theory; rather I took yours at face value, and speculated on what the causal mechanism - which is, as you well know, not the same as correlation - might be. Do your studies give any information on the causality? (They might do so if well designed.)
I have, however, put forth one claim of fact, which I thought from your previous posts you agreed with and therefore I needn't substantiate it; this is the claim that atheism is correlated with intelligence. Here is one study showing this.
Next you object to my making judgements in the absence of evidence, accusing me of hypocrisy; fair enough, had I done so. I put forth speculations on causality, testable but, to my knowledge, not yet tested; nothing in my ethics forbids this. I also made a claim of fact backed up by evidence, although I did not give the evidence as I thought it un-controversial. Since I was mistaken on that point, I have now given the evidence, or at any rate some of the evidence - just what I could dig up in two minutes of Googling.
Finally you seem to abandon the dispute, apparently in response to some post I have made only in your own mind. Very well, if you do not wish to post, I cannot force you.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: I would think it more likely to come from the churchgoing, which is not the same thing. Have your studies looked at religious people who do not go to church, or who live in predominantly atheist communities, or both? Being an unpopular minority is never easy
This was my first thought. Even if the studies are accurate, I would be inclined to believe that this is the reason. Social networking is hugely advantageous and many doors are closed if you aren't in with the right people. I've often thought that non-theists should organize in some way to help one another out. Not believing in God, not being religious, or just not belonging to a mainstream religion doesn't mitigate the human need for belonging.
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posted
I am not sure how (or why) one would separate religion from being part of a community. At least for Catholics being "in communion" is an integral part of religion and I think that this is true for many varieties of Christian as well as other religions.
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posted
I can easily imagine an atheist who goes to church for the social aspects (indeed I came across such a one in a different discussion board the other day, so I have no need for imagination); conversely I can easily imagine a theist who does not go to church because he finds it boring - this is practically the norm in Europe. 'Religion', in this view, is the actual belief in a god, which is strongly correlated with church-going but is not the same thing.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Christine: ... Not believing in God, not being religious, or just not belonging to a mainstream religion doesn't mitigate the human need for belonging.
Sorta.
quote:Gallup's 2008 surveys in 32 countries with average annual incomes of $2,000 or less (the countries are listed in the "Survey Methods" section) document the extent to which religiosity appears to affect residents' emotional health. Specifically, they are more likely than those in the less religious group to say they experienced enjoyment the previous day, and they are less likely to have experienced a range of negative emotions. ... Now compare these results with those from the world's richest countries -- i.e., the 31 countries surveyed in 2008 where residents have average annual incomes of $25,000 or more. Note that the differences here are smaller -- in fact, in the two cases in which they are more than a couple of percentage points, they are in the opposite direction from those we saw among the poorest countries.
quote:For example, those in the more religious group are more likely to say they were treated with respect all day and that they smiled and laughed a lot that day. Again, these differences are smaller or nonexistent among rich-world populations.
posted
In a nutshell, I suggest that this is usually how this plays out.
The theist, in this case represented by The Rabbit suggests that controlling for wealth, income, health-care, etc. the more religious tend to be healthier and happier, which may very well be true.
The non-religious usually suggest that the more religious are usually poorer, less healthy, and less educated. This is true as well on a much broader scale.
Effectively, these are two different arguments that while related to each other, are not mutually exclusive.
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posted
Although I do not disagree with the general thrust of your post, I'm making a slightly stronger claim than what you give as the atheist position, namely that (controlling for other factors), atheists are more intelligent (not merely more educated, although that is also true), and also the more intelligent are more likely to be atheists.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Are you equating church attendance with being part of a community?
I am using it as shorthand. I understand that showing your face in the church does not give you the sociality any more than showing up at a party does if you sit in the corner and read. But I do think one can get the community, which is basically a primate instinct, without the belief. You may well object that this is hypocritical, and that if done deliberately it is a deceit of the Christians whose community is thus bing infiltrated; but that is beside the point I'm making.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
Right. The point I am making is that, at least for Catholicism*, being "in communion" - being part of the Body of Christ in theological language - is entwined with knowing people and showing up but is not the same thing. A cloistered hermit is still part of the "community" as are people who live in parishes on opposite ends of the earth. This is an important distinction and I want to make sure that I understand what you are talking about and that you understand the difference.
*This, I think, is sufficiently central to the core of Catholicism that I am comfortable stating it as such.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Although I do not disagree with the general thrust of your post, I'm making a slightly stronger claim than what you give as the atheist position, namely that (controlling for other factors), atheists are more intelligent (not merely more educated, although that is also true), and also the more intelligent are more likely to be atheists.
Presuming this is true, so what? There are all sorts of things that could lead to this state of affairs and many different things one can conclude from it. The correlation is not nearly strong enough to suggest that religiosity is a sign of low intelligence or that atheism is a sign of high intelligence. The correlation between IQ and near sightedness (for example) is much stronger. In fact, I know personally a few rather stupid atheists and more than a few religious people of extraordinary intelligence (and as a Professor and active scientist my standard for what I consider extraordinary intelligence is very high.) These people are exceptions to the general rule, but such exception are strong evidence that there is no causal link between them.
Certainly, one can't become more intelligent by rejecting religion so I'm not sure what action it could motivate. Certainly as a scientist you aren't claiming that the correlation between intelligence and atheisim is evidence that there is no God. So what is your point in repeating this claim?
I find the fact that atheists embrace this claim (despite the relatively week evidence supporting it), rather disturbing because it so closely parallels religious claims of that membership accords one a chosen status as an "ubermensch". That kind of thinking is really dangerous and has lead to atrocities through out history.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
So now you're talking to me again? Quick work. To answer your question, I wasn't in fact trying to draw any particular conclusion, I was just pointing out where I thought others' posts were getting facts wrong, or not mentioning closely-related facts. Idle chatter, as it were. Perhaps you won't believe this, coming from me in a moderately religious discussion, but it's so.
quote:In fact, I know personally a few rather stupid atheists and more than a few religious people of extraordinary intelligence
As you well know, this is meaningless in the context of a discussion of population-scale correlations.
quote:The correlation is not nearly strong enough to suggest that religiosity is a sign of low intelligence or that atheism is a sign of high intelligence.
Nu; moving the average by a point or two has little effect on the large mass of the population, but considerable effect on the tails. A drop of 2 points of IQ is practically meaningless around the average, but as you go out to, say, 130 or 140, a few standard deviations from the mean, it can becomes quite a large drop in the probability of encountering such a person. So if you hear that someone is a world-class, Nobel-winning scientist, you should be rather more surprised at hearing he is a Christian than you would when hearing the same of an average Joe. Not necessarily very surprised, because the base rate of Christianity is quite high. But it would not be quite the expected thing among the most intelligent people in the world. Similarly, a very dull atheist, IQ around 60 or 70, is a bit unusual; but here we run into the difficulty that such IQs are the border of mental retardation and having difficulty making one's way in daily life, and it's not clear that it's meaningful to speak of the theological beliefs of such a person. I would generally expect them to parrot whatever they heard from their parents or other authority figures, and to be unable to defend their view, whichever it was, in a reasoned debate.
quote:Certainly, one can't become more intelligent by rejecting religion so I'm not sure what action it could motivate.
In general one cannot become more intelligent by adopting any belief; but it's not unreasonable to expect to become better informed by adopting the beliefs of those smarter than oneself. This is perhaps especially so when the correlation is driven, as I suspect it is, by education; smart people are more likely to have a college education, more likely to evaluate the evidence for themselves, and less likely to be theists. In extreme cases of religion, such a Creationism, the mental blinders required are so powerful that just abandoning them can effectively increase your brainpower quite a bit; I know of several ex-Creationists who speak of the immense relief of not having to fight their own rational instincts anymore and being able to unleash their full potential.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
I myself found, that in theological discussions when I was still a Christian, I spent so much time trying to figure out ways around cognitive dissonance, it was as much a debate with my own theology as with my interlocutor.
Not having to try to figure out ways to reason through a basket full of irrational beliefs opens up your time for thinking about things that actually make sense, and might lead to meaningful conclusions.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
I'd like to point out that the problems that come with religions all start with believing that the supernatural world has clearly more power than humans.
It's not a belief in the supernatural that does the dirty work...it's spending time and energy on appealing to God/gods/etc. instead of using your own common sense and brainpower.
An excellent example of that would be the parents whose children die because they refuse to get prompt medical attention for those children, for religious reasons.
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: What was that religion specifically, if you don't mind satisfying my curiosity.
If you're asking me, I was raised Methodist, but I'd say I just had a pretty generic protestant view of Christianity, due to involvement in a couple different churches and youth groups.
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posted
Interesting. What part of that mix caused cognitive dissonance?
Edit: The reason I ask is that for some religions the cognitive dissonance would be fairly obvious (YEC for example), IMO, but that isn't so clear to me for Methodists.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
Just the general cognative dissonance in Christianity: problem of evil, why intercessory prayer produces no results, how a just, loving God would allow some people to go to hell for minor infractins while rewarding Christian murderers, etc.
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