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The Science of the Benefits of Religion

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Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#291

Post by eitland »

michaeltlewis wrote: post #285
eitland wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, fine but then I ask you to do the same for for example Christianity: Do see the difference between Catholicism as abused by various Spanish and English kings and Christianity. Do see the difference between abusive cults that do things that the rest of us disapprove of and the rest of us. Otherwise be prepared to defend Stalin, because he was an atheist just as much as the mad guys during the dark ages were Christ…

That's a straw man and missing the point. Sure, not all harms committed by the religious are because of their religion. But the assertion was that there has been much greater harm done by the religious _because of their religion_ than harm done by athiets _because of their atheism_. History clearly supports that. It even stands up taking into account the different population sizes.

Not intended to be a straw man (and I even think whataboutism would be closer if you were going to try to dismiss it).

> But the assertion was that there has been much greater harm done by the religious _because of their religion_ than harm done by athiets _because of their atheism_.

How about:

"Much greater harm has been done by atheists in their fight against religions than by religious in their fight against atheists" ?

Or even: "Much greater harm has been done by atheists than by religious" ?

I'm purposedly keeping why out of the equation here. It might for the sake of the argument be because we Christians are dumber and not as able to commit atrocities, but the numbers are quite clear: atheists have killed more people than all religions together during the last 1000 years.

And, to be clear: It is not my point to prove that Christianity is right or Christians are better people. There are many atheists I respect a whole lot. And a lot of people claiming to be Christian that I don't respect as much.

My point is no one can collect all the bad stuff done by one side and all the great done by another and compare.

If you want be to be responsible for madmen "on my side" 500 years ago you should very much take responsibility for madmen "on your side" 50 years ago.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#292

Post by BiteCode_dev »

allturtles wrote: post #240

I have no problem believing that religion may serve useful social and cultural functions. Unfortunately, this article is founded on findings in social psychology, and we already know that social psychology is largely bunk[0]. What are the chances that this "meditation leads to kidness" result (with a total of 39 participants) would actually stand up to attempts to replicate it? The claimed effect size - "8 weeks of m…

Besides, associating meditation to religion is like assuming fasting == religion.

They are both practices that can exist without mythology, sacred texts or believes of what happens after death.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#293

Post by BiteCode_dev »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #267
roenxi wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same boat. > There are definitely downsides to religion... Pretty minor ones. The basic concepts are well battle tested good ideas. Saying religion is bad is like saying democratic politics is bad - no, it is great because even when horrible people are in charge the fundamental positive influence of the institution persists.

> Pretty minor ones. I don't know how you could say that, considering the many horrible things taught because of or done in the name of religion over the millennia. Like, to use a recent issue, the biggest thing stopping gay marriage in the US at least was people's religiously driven belief that homosexuality is morally wrong. I know many will say, "well it's only nominally driven by religion, people would've done [b…

Those things would have been done in the name of something else too. Religions here is just a pretext.

Killing the american natives, the tutsi, the jews or the cambodgian intellectuals intellectuals were among the worst things humanity have ever done, and the religion of the perpetrators had nothing to do with it.

Terrible humans will use any rationalization to do terrible things.

Most muslim women in my country don't wear a hijab. However, men beating their wifes are from all kind of religious and non religious backgounds.

I now believe that religion is a reflect of the state of your society, not the other way around. People are racist, homophobic, intolerant, entitled, misogynist, and then, they sometimes use religion to justify that.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#294

Post by jwally »

dQw4w9WgXcQ wrote: post #140

So much of the US population cruises along unconsciously on an implicit set of Judeo-Christian values and morals. Increasingly many citizens claim to have left religion behind and subscribe to an exclusively scientific worldview, but the majority of their upstanding behavior still stems from religious beliefs. Pressed to reveal its true character, a purely scientific worldview produces no inherent sense of meaning, m…

From my naive perspective, the Bible itself has a lot of warts that are pretty indefensible. This isn’t to say the Bible has nothing of value to contribute to society; but as an authority on morality there’s a lot of amoral things god does. Easy example: Exodus and the plagues.

God wants to free His people from Egypt (why aren’t all people his people if he created them?) so he tells Moses to tell Aaron to tell Pharaoh that if he doesn’t free the Israelites God will punish the Egyptians - and eventually kill a bunch of kids.

Wouldn’t a better solution be to just teleport the Israelites to the Holy land and not kill children? Or possess Pharaoh and make him issue a decree. Put yourself in Gods shoes and see if you can’t come up with a better solution that doesn’t involve a bunch of innocents dying.

Ditto Noah’s arc, sodom and Gomorrah. Even in the New Testament he tells Joseph to hide from Herod to avoid the slaughter of the innocents but doesn’t stop the innocents being slaughtered.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#295

Post by forgingahead »

iammisc wrote: post #190
rayiner wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The difference between religion and other groups is that it provides an impenetrable shield to those who wield it, and virtually anything can be deflected Yeah, other groups have this as well. I once had the temerity to observe that Bush did a lot to quell anti-Islamic sentiment by appealing to other people of faith in post-9/11 speeches. I recounted my own experience as a brown guy with a Muslim name living in the…

Haha same. Been informed by so many white liberals as to how I should feel, one wonders if they think they'd make a better brown man.

Yeah it's been crazy to experience - white liberals lecturing minorities on how they should feel or think is itself extremely racist and insulting.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#296

Post by nlitened »

jlpom wrote: post #31

Basing anything on false or inexact beliefs won't leads to lasting desirable outcomes IMO*. Some argues to read religious texts as metaphors but I think it's just a way to circumvent the reality. *except for charities but benevolence is obviously not (only) tied to religions

Scientific method gives you only falsifiable theories and inexact beliefs. Anything “universally true” and “exact” is a religion.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#297

Post by zigzag312 »

rlt wrote: post #265
roenxi wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same boat. > There are definitely downsides to religion... Pretty minor ones. The basic concepts are well battle tested good ideas. Saying religion is bad is like saying democratic politics is bad - no, it is great because even when horrible people are in charge the fundamental positive influence of the institution persists.

> Pretty minor ones. Well, except for all the violence committed in the name of various religions over the millennia. Maybe it balances out, but I wouldn’t say it’s minor.

That is quite a vast time frame. Violence used to much more common in general than it is today. Is there any evidence that religion increased violence above average for a specific time period?

Also, it is often difficult to define what was committed in the name of a religion as there are often multiple sources of conflict. Anything that defines a person in any way can easily be abused by propaganda that seeks to split people into "us" vs "them".

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#298

Post by drran »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #267
roenxi wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same boat. > There are definitely downsides to religion... Pretty minor ones. The basic concepts are well battle tested good ideas. Saying religion is bad is like saying democratic politics is bad - no, it is great because even when horrible people are in charge the fundamental positive influence of the institution persists.

> Pretty minor ones. I don't know how you could say that, considering the many horrible things taught because of or done in the name of religion over the millennia. Like, to use a recent issue, the biggest thing stopping gay marriage in the US at least was people's religiously driven belief that homosexuality is morally wrong. I know many will say, "well it's only nominally driven by religion, people would've done [b…

Communists (atheists) done a lot more harm than any religion, and they hate gay marriage too. Anything powerful can be used to do a good thing and a bad thing. Any institution can be used to do an evil thing, neglect, or be corrupt, e.g. police (police can be abused to protect corrupt regimes), courts or event justice as whole (slaves were legal in many countries), church, etc.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#299

Post by bserge »

sali0 wrote: post #256
lalaland1125 wrote: post #9

It's interesting to think of religion as a societal tool that has co-evolved along with humanity. Societies with more beneficial religions would prosper and societies with less beneficial religious would die out. It's thus no surprise that the religions that survived until the present day promote human survival. For example, it's no accident that most major religions heavily encourage their followers to have a lot of…

I used to be a very hard headed atheist until I read the book "The Secrets of our Success" by Joseph Heinlein. That book speaks of how culture evolved along with genetics, and it made me realize how important tradition and religion really are to society. I am still atheist, but now very much encourage religious people to stay with their faith and continue their worship. There are definitely downsides to religion, but…

That can be done without some mythical life after death and almighty chode in the sky.

It's unfortunate that religion has those elements. I hold many Christian values, but I refuse to accept the afterlife, God, saints, apostles and other shit made up by the Church for their own material benefit.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#300

Post by bserge »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #4

Religion clearly has mental health benefits, especially in terms of robustness. The interesting question is whether it is a transcendent ‘supra-rational’ belief system, e.g. a cheat code at life, because even assuming nothing matters, it makes sense to believe if you want to ‘be statistically more joyful’ (of course, some don’t want joy in their lives, so maybe it wouldn’t make sense for them?).

Does it? If I knew 100% there's any kind of afterlife, I'd kill myself today. Not to mention that there's some almighty butthole in the sky that does nothing to help anyone but asks for faith (also their supposed representatives ask for money), now that's depressing. Oh and v1.0 of the European shit is pretty gruesome.
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