Survivorship bias. Especially for high-demand religions, answering "no" means admitting the church you make so many sacrifices for does absolutely nothing. This leaves those who are either too afraid to confront the cognitive dissonance or who were already happy in the first place.
The post title implies religiosity != happiness, the parent implied other results might differ, my comment was a response to that possibility, for the sake of argument as you said.
Reverse causality or unobserved confounds. Maybe happy people are more likely to become or stay religious. Maybe living in an area with strong community makes you happier and you also get dragged along to church (but the two do not influence each other).
Believing you are happy and actually being happy are different things. Religious people believe that they're happier than other people, but they're not.
Yes they would. If you ask people if they're happy they'll say yes. If you actually measure it by observing what people do they'll exhibit behavior that shows they're not actually happy.
Self-delusion is a well researched topic. There are many studies.
I know a lot of religious people like this. On the outside, they seem like the happiest people you’ve ever met, but once you get to know them, it turns out that they are miserable, and that the religious beliefs and behavior that they embrace are used to self-regulate their mental states. The more extreme religious people appear to be suffering a type of scrupulosity unique to disorders like OCD, and many sufferers will tell you that they are not happy.
“ Meta-analyses have pointed to a positive relationship between religiosity and a person’s evaluation of their life, suggesting that people who are more religious tend to feel better about their lives. But researcher Mohsen Joshanloo remarks that these studies have not offered strong evidence of a causal relationship between the two variables. “
E.g. maybe happy people are more likely to be religious, but like with most social science, there is no way to test this with the scientific method because of ethical reasons.
My favorite stat is that weekly church goers report the highest satisfaction in their sex lives.
The point of religion is to solve civilization-scale game theory coordination dilemmas. "Thou Shalt Not Kill" is a mutually beneficial metastable equilibrium but is only stable to the extent that it is a universally adopted principle. A lot of modern tragedies like climate change can be tackled in this way if we can establish universal shared values that apply to all people independent of nationality, status and in particular, education. It needs to be comprehensible to all 7 billion people for them to adopt it, including areas of the world with low literacy.
"To focus attention on one equilibrium with no higher appeal, it would be best to consult
the highest possible authority. If the players share a cultural understanding that certain
unpredictable processes may be used by the fundamental divine spirit of the universe to answer
questions, and that this divinity cannot be bothered about the same question more than once, then
a recommendation that is based on such a sacred randomization can serve as a focal coordination
device that cannot be appealed to any higher arbitrator. Then the oracle's recommendations can
be self-enforcing, without any further intervention by the divine spirit, provided that the
recommendations to the players form an equilibrium. Thus the focal-point effect can admit a
socially significant role for oracles and divination, as an effective foundation for social
coordination. Indeed, when we look for effective focal factors, what can command people's
attention more than the overall pattern of the whole universe? This divine pattern can serve as a
focal determinant, however, only when players have a shared understanding about it can be
interpreted into a selection among the set of Nash equilibria of their game.
...
"In any society, it is vital to maintain a broad general agreement about who has legitimate
authority in any situation. Thus, from our earlier remarks about the focal power of the divine, we
can see why societies may find it useful or even essential to call for frequent testimony that the
local system of rules and authority is compatible with the divine pattern of the universe.
Although coordination within a society can be improved by such belief in the universal nature of
its principles of justice and legitimate authority, such universalization of local law and authority
makes it harder for people in one society to recognize the different forms of justice and authority
in other societies (see Myerson, 2006). That is, the same forces that help people to achieve
consistent coordinated expectations in a successful society can become forces for inconsistency
of expectations across societies in international relations. Indeed, in international conflicts
throughout history, people on each side have regularly failed to understand the other side's
perception of justice in their conflict.
...
"The focal-point effect may even offer a perspective on some ideas of theology, not about
the nature of the divine, but about how societies use the divine. The focal-point effect is about
environmental parameters that attract people's attention to one of many equilibria, and no aspect
of our environment has a stronger claim on our attention than the divine pattern of the entire
universe. Thus, coordination in a society can be strengthened when it culturally portrays local
forms of law and authority as derived from universal divine principles."
OP’s statement is too broad and thus incorrect, but it is essentially correct about Abrahamic religions where the religious texts are clearly concerned with upholding state power. This obviously does not apply to many, if not most, other religions.
The church I belong to says its mission, or our duty as mem bers, is to:
1) live the gospel
2) care for those in need (which we very actively work at, locally and worldwide)
3) invite others to come to Christ (love, share, invite)
4) unite families for eternity
My own notes/additions to the above include:
1) Live the gospel meaning to keep commandments (like the 10), do what one knows is right, be humble and faithful, etc in order to have the promised ~ "...peace in this life, and eternal life in the world to come." I have seen the results in stable multigenerational family organizations, and ability to work through very hard times. And to know life and hard things have a good purpose and is worth it. And so much more.
It's not the point of religion, it's a side-effect. While religion is a remarkably effective control/coercion tool, there are more ethical ways to establish universal shared values. "Thou Shalt Not Kill" isn't exactly inspirational coming from a book filled with god-sanctioned rape, incest, genocide, and infanticide. People didn't adopt that principle because religion told them to, they adopted it because it allowed them to outcompete the primitive societies that didn't.
People didn't adopt that principle because religion told them to, they adopted it because it allowed them to outcompete the primitive societies that didn't.
But the divine nature of mankind makes that commandment more powerful because, one, you're killing God's creation and, two, it directly comes from God. It is not a simple "yeah, lets agree on that".
In the end it's just falsely attributing divinity to pro-social human programming developed over millennia of natural selection. Religion came much later than pro-social behavior, and in fact it more resembles "let's agree on that": When it serves you, quote the bible verses that forbid killing, and when it serves you, quote the verses that justify killing indiscriminately.
Except that problem is already solved by a bunch of things like empathy and reputation.
The point of religion is to solve civilisation wide coordination dilemmas like war. How do you get people to kill and die for strangers?
Religion's purpose is to get people to do horrible things not to behave nicely. It's used for wars mostly (plus genocides etc).
That's why we no longer need it. If we were fighting a ground war against a dangerous invading force it would be socially useful. But we're not.
This is also why religion has only flourished in places with exactly those issues (Iran, Afghanistan, Palestine recently).
Unless the plan for solving climate change is to convince x% of people to kill themselves, religion won't help with that any more than it helps with poverty or crime.
you're reducing religion to its dark spots, and I'm not religious..
we all have existential crysis, deep fear, doubts, dilemmas. These questions are also in religion, now religion was probably a huge pile of everything from existence, to social life, morality, sexuality and family and yeah converting / conquering other people or other faiths.
You don't go to church to gather weapons but to marry, celebrate birth and grieve death.
I think your analysis is spot on. With respect to the last part though:
> Unless the plan for solving climate change is to convince x% of people to kill themselves, religion won't help with that any more than it helps with poverty or crime.
Climate religion basically is telling people they need to go without the comforts of modern society (and generally live in some sort of centrally controlled societal construct that minimizes individual rights) in the name of some eternal paradise. It's not quite as severe as sending people to their deaths, but it's the same idea of convincing people to act against their own interests (and to let the priests continue to do what they want in the name of spreading the word) in order to fulfill some divine purpose.
(I should add as a sibling post did, I believe there are many positive points to religion as well, I'm responding to your post that essentially addresses religion as a coercion (sp?) mechanism
Meanwhile, the largest mass exterminations of humanity in the 20th century were carried out by regimes that expressly forbid the open practice of most religions.
Your view that religion is only really used to motivate war is incredibly shallow and I encourage you to broaden your horizons on this subject.
> Religion's purpose is to get people to do horrible things not to behave nicely. It's used for wars mostly (plus genocides etc).
Flat out false.
> Philip and Axelrod’s three-volume Encyclopedia of Wars, which chronicles some 1,763 wars that have been waged over the course of human history. Of those wars, the authors categorize 123 as being religious in nature, which is an astonishingly low 6.98% of all wars.
Hoping not to flame or anything, but personally the point of my religion (orthodoxy) is to be correct and to provide an understanding of reality. Morality and coordination stem from that for sure, but they aden't the purpose per se.
Not sure I like the easy assumption here that "panel study" = causality. Suppose I get happier. Then I go to church more. The use of some complicated-ass Granger-causality-style technique also makes me trust it less.
This natural experiment looks more interesting, although it exploits just a temporary shock (variation in the length of Ramdan):
"We study the economic effects of religious practices in the context of the observance of Ramadan fasting, one of the central tenets of Islam. To establish causality, we exploit variation in the length of daily fasting due to the interaction between the rotating Islamic calendar and a country’s latitude. We report two key, quantitatively meaningful results: (i) longer Ramadan fasting has a negative effect on output growth in Muslim countries, and (ii) it increases subjective well-being among Muslims. We find evidence that these patterns are consistent with a standard club good explanation for the emergence of costly religious practices: increased strictness of fasting screens out the less committed members, while the more committed respond with an increase in their relative levels of participation."
Did I misread the article? They just found that it was uncorrelated for individuals who became religious during the study (that is, temporally there is no effect) but positively correlated between people, and neither of those shows causality. For the temporal result, it at least negated it being causal.
A zero correlation across time also doesn't prove that there isn't causality. Suppose that there's (e.g.) a positive relationship due to an unobserved third factor, and a negative relationship which is genuinely causal. These two could cancel out in the observed data.
I'm not an antiquity specialist, but from what i've heard the first monotheism was probably zoroastrism (might have been a duotheist religion as first, with their Satan equivalent being as powerfull as their version of god), and might have appeared more than ten thousand years ago.
Followed by some version of Hinduism, then either the Aton cult or judaism (i've heard theories about Judaism started becoming a monotheism after an exile from egypt of Aton priests).
On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." -Mark 2:17
There was an interesting little snippet I heard the other day, it was something like "the idea that Religions are things to do that improve ones life puts it in the self-help section of the bookshop." The answer to that I'm more foggy on but its something like "religion is something we are called to do, it's not a shelf in a bookstore or something to be bought into. It's the entire bookstore and it's the city the store is in."
More appropriately, Religion is the rent-seeking landlord of the bookshop who skims all the profits, provides little to no value, and takes all the credit for the literacy of the townsfolk.
For a medical study sure, for a subjective field where society and culture play a major role, even N=1e7 of individuals living in the same country wouldn't be enough to draw a conclusion on the entire human population.
>wouldn't be enough to draw a conclusion on the entire human population.
Which is why the study does not draw a conclusion on the viability of all religion, it merely says that it doesn't see much evidence that religiosity leads to life satisfaction. The author even notes "these results need to be evaluated within the context of the study." Hardly the wholesale dismissal of religion you claim it's making.
Does anyone know what the study author actually means by religiosity? I couldn't find the "supplementary material," just a three page paper that shows some tables. Without knowing what the term means in this context it's hard to interpret the finding. Are they lumping together Christians, Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Mormons, and every other faith tradition present in the USA in any quantity together? I'd be willing to bet that even within one of those religions you might find wildly different results.
For example Latin Mass attending Catholics who honestly try to live the Church's teachings fully may report a different happiness level than casual Catholics who show up to Church occasionally and don't really live the life that the Church teaches them to.
It's fair to differentiate between authentically lived religion and more hollow performative religion.
Having an established social circle leads to greater life satisfaction - you don't need a study to know that. And that's the main thing churches provide.
Honestly, and completely anecdotally, having been raised Catholic I would expect it to result in quite the opposite when so much of the doctrine is based on guilt. That said before anyone jumps on me, also anecdotally, I haven't found any greater life satisfaction by not being religious either. You do you.
The article says the study suggests there's not a really strong causal relationship in either way which surprises me a little but yeah I can see it given the experience.
And If I were to find religion suddenly again now I imagine it may only increase life satisfaction based on the fact I have no real community at the moment and that I think is probably a more interesting study.
How much has external community (i.e. not close friends, partners and families) breakdown occurred over the last 40 years and what is the effect on our life satisfaction? My grandfather was a part of a bunch of men's clubs etc last I checked most of those are floundering now.
Aside from that Catholic guilt and community aspects, people like to feel hope and purpose. Religious beliefs can offer both of those. I do like to point out that this effect will take place regardless of the truth of the belief system, so paint yourself a picture that brings "meaning" to your life however you want - as long as it's something you can actually believe ;-)
Yes, hope and purpose are important. I like existentialism and cling hard to thought of being able to define that belief system myself and what purpose I have from it. That said as of late, after years I seem to be going through a bit of a dark night of the soul with that chosen system, to borrow more from religious terminology.
I guess one of the downsides of forming my own belief system versus religion is it's bedrock is just a wee bit younger and potentially less well formed as I've been learning. Back to the drawing board :P
I'm Catholic, and although I acknowledge that many of my coreligionists have felt it, even to the point where "Catholic guilt" has its own Wikipedia entry, my experience is the opposite. It is through my faith that I have felt relieved from my guilt. Some people say that Catholicism makes them feel guilty for things they otherwise wouldn't feel guilty about, but for me, the recognition that I've sinned is apparent apart from whatever the Church might teach, but it is through the grace of the sacraments that I am relieved of that guilt.
I have done what is wrong in God's sight, according to His law. For that, I justly deserve His condemnation. That's guilt.
Grace is, even though I deserved God's justice and wrath, Jesus Christ died in my place, taking the judgment I deserved, and offering me forgiveness instead, which I totally did not deserve. That's grace.
...which talks about community trust and whether different groups believe that others in their neighborhood would be willing to help out, and resonates with my neighborhood experiences while living in various different places, including among those of other/no faiths.
Edit: My personal experience and observation has also been that those active and devoted in my faith have much greater success in solving the inevitable problems of life, and having united multigenerational families, than those who choose other paths (but we still love them). And that increased devotion correlates with increased education, and with success in having a stable life with ability to help others. (So many examples...)
Blue zone theory suggests religion helps people live longer.
Which is the same as life satisfaction. (If you think people who live longer are unhappy or blobs stuck in a bed that's your bizarre world)
Blue Zone theory isn't a great theory, but it's very logical. Ie. Religious people have support later in life, it's a life long hobby anyone can do etc etc.
This 'meta study' of only 4000 is poorly written. I'll assume it's because they are Korean and not because in science poorly written Journal Articles do better.
You can't read much from this study.
Religiosity means little.
They mention in the study they have no idea about attendance for instance which is what matters.
It's not about how strongly you believe. More the fact to use the support structure when needed.
I am a member of a religious group whose doctrine, practices, culture, etc. are very different from the doctrine, practices, and culture of other religious groups. Some people who identify as religious are monotheists, others polytheists, others pantheists, and still others agnostics or even atheists. (Yup, there is such a thing as Christian atheism.)
So I always find it strange when 'religiosity' is used as a catch-all personality trait and everyone who identifies as religious is lumped together.
I haven't been able to look at the specific six-question set used in the study to measure religiosity, but something tells me that with only six questions, we can ascertain the impact of a person's particular religious beliefs and practices on their life in only the vaguest way.
>something tells me that with only six questions, we can ascertain the impact of a person's particular religious beliefs and practices on their life in only the vaguest way.
This sounds like a game! 20 questions, but with religion!
I'm pretty sure there are different groups also among the same exact religion. If we asked to a large group of Christians whether we, say, should help immigrants, we would probably end up with 3 types of answers: "yes, let's help them!" - "yes, but only for very basic needs, then let's kick them out" - "nope, let's build a wall and let them rot on the other side".
Of course the 2nd and especially the 3rd group have absolutely nothing to do with anything christian, and they profess them as such only to not feel guilty, or possibly because the society they live in requires that (how many votes would a politician get is he/she admitted being atheist?) - religion for them is just a series of acts (go to church, make offers, say prayers aloud, etc.) intended to cheat the system and appear as good people while in realty they aren't.
I am also sure that the 1st group live a better life, which doesn't mean they'll earn more, actually it's quite likely the opposite, but they grow better "antibodies" to overcome difficulties without anger.
BTW, I'm writing this as a complete atheist. Spending most of my youth in catholic schools helped me to know many people of all those groups, and believe me, for us atheists recognizing someone that is just pretending to be religious is truly easy.
> I'm pretty sure there are different groups also among the same exact religion. If we asked to a large group of Christians whether we, say, should help immigrants, we would probably end up with 3 types of answers: "yes, let's help them!" - "yes, but only for very basic needs, then let's kick them out" - "nope, let's build a wall and let them rot on the other side". Of course the 2nd and especially the 3rd group have absolutely nothing to do with anything christian, and they profess them as such only to not feel guilty, or possibly because the society they live in requires that (how many votes would a politician get is he/she admitted being atheist?) - religion for them is just a series of acts (go to church, make offers, say prayers aloud, etc.) intended to cheat the system and appear as good people while in realty they aren't. I am also sure that the 1st group live a better life, which doesn't mean they'll earn more, actually it's quite likely the opposite, but they grow better "antibodies" to overcome difficulties without anger.
I think you meant to say illegal immigrants, undocumented workers, or some other word.
> Of course the 2nd and especially the 3rd group have absolutely nothing to do with anything christian, and they profess them as such only to not feel guilty, or possibly because the society they live in requires that (how many votes would a politician get is he/she admitted being atheist?) - religion for them is just a series of acts (go to church, make offers, say prayers aloud, etc.) intended to cheat the system and appear as good people while in realty they aren't. I am also sure that the 1st group live a better life, which doesn't mean they'll earn more, actually it's quite likely the opposite, but they grow better "antibodies" to overcome difficulties without anger.
I think you doing a covert type of name-calling here.
Are Christians not supposed to care about US laws?
I care about the law. If we willfully ignore the laws, where could that stop? What would be the impetus to fix the laws that need updating, or the problem areas we have like a gap in short term agricultural visas?
If we encourage illegal border crossing, who will that benefit, and hurt?
I think it will benefit cartels, coyotes moving people, as well as the big corporations that operate meat-packing plants and foodservice, exploiting low cost labor, and underpaying people. It may benefit the person coming to the US, until that eventual time when they are caught, and sent home.
I think it will also hurt all the people looking for good paying jobs in lower ends of the service sector, and all the legal immigrants that are waiting in line for a chance. All the people that are hurt by an uncontrolled criminal element preying on members of their own communities. Nope, can't think about them. All the construction workers that used to be able to raise a family on doing residential work, nope, can't be concerned about them. Via exploiting the local emergency room for free medical care via EMTALA, the local hospital system will be damaged too, forcing higher rates to be negotiated with insurers, adding to ever increasing insurance rates. Nope, can't talk about that either.
please, refrain from projecting a simplistic morality onto others. There are many points of view out there.
> Are Christians not supposed to care about US laws?
I was mainly referring to African immigrants in southern/eastern Europe. Their situation is completely different from Mexican immigrants in the US, yet there are far right politicians who will happily let them die while attempting to cross the Mediterranean sea to build consent among their far right supporters.
Seriously, there's no such thing as illegal immigration when the alternative for those people is being jailed or shot in their own country.
I find this study problematic because it fails to take into account that
life satisfaction is highly dependent on the exact moment when the respondents answers the questionnaire even if 10 years apart.
If I had a bad day and it so happened that it was the day where I was supposed to fill in a form on my life satisfaction, my answer would probably be very biased regardless if I was religious or not.
It also fails to take into account that not all religions are based on happiness meaning that life satisfaction in this world is not the be all and all.
An example is Islam. In Islam this worldly life is considered as a test. So you're going to be tested with hardship, afflictions and so on. There is also the concept of this being cyclical. After hardship comes ease. (not really cyclical in the sense that hardship comes because you had some ease before it but more like tuples of (hardship, ease) coming your way one after the other)
If you keep steady while you're being tested you'll be rewarded with paradise or/and a period of ease in this life.
Otherwise if you disobey Allah's commandements and die upon disbelief (You did not repent sincerely while you were still alive.) you'll likely go to hell.
Here it would be understandable to the believer that their life will not be all roses.
You solve for random noise like that simply by looking at sufficiently large number of respondents, that's how basic statistics works. Any particular respondent may have an unusually bad or good day, however, if there would be some real difference of a few percent in happiness conditional on religiosity, then given 4000 respondents it's extremely unlikely that the average responses would not reveal that.
Is there any major religion which has an expressly stated purpose of increasing the “life satisfaction” of its adherents? I mean, hard to fault religion for failing to deliver something that it never really promised in the first place.
>Is there any major religion which has an expressly stated purpose of increasing the “life satisfaction” of its adherents?
Christian here. Our titular hero - the very God of our universe - was beaten and hung on a cross to die (slowly). It is hard to look at that and think "following this guy is going to increase my life satisfaction".
The way I think about it is that part of the point of religion, and perhaps more generally one part of the point of our strange existence on Earth is not to make us happy, but to make us into people who are capable of being happy.
I mean, imagine putting someone into a world where every wish they had was immediately granted. Would they be happy? Probably for awhile, but I don't think they would be happy for long. Imagine a dire or generally unpleasant situation, and imagine who could get through that and still be happy. Or maybe happy is the wrong word, but at least to not give up and to be kind to others. That sort of thing, being able to make the most out of any situation, is difficult and usually takes a lot of practice.
(Which isn't to say we should tolerate suffering because it's a good "learning experience" for someone. Maybe it is, but to be okay with someone else's suffering is also a learning experience that, in my opinion, reinforces the wrong sorts of behavior.)
As more people lose faith, you have higher numbers of people that have faith in only themselves. What replaces morality? I haven't seen a large movement to replace it.
Morality doesn't presuppose religion, faith or belief in the supernatural. The religious can be amoral and selfish, atheists can be moral and selfless.
Thank God he staffed you with all the objectivity he had left after creating the objective universe so that you can enlighten us with such third grader logic.
Give me a moral basis on why we can't destroy Earth when at the end of the day, from an atheistic materialistic point of view, nothing matters since we're all "chemical scum". Suffering or pleasure, it doesn't matter one bit. This isn't controversial, this is what atheist heads and philosophers say because it's the only logical conclusion to arrive at from their world view: https://youtu.be/EqK_JPts26k?t=183
Is it you or your God who thinks other people think of other people as „chemical scum“? What if that same God that allows you to think of other people as people who think of other people as „chemical scum“ also allows for subjective morality rather than your objective version of it? What if I told you God himself has sent me to bring you this very message? Would it confuse you?
I think you're not understanding the point. Stephen Hawking is on record for saying that humans are "a chemical scum on a moderately sized planet". From the atheistic materialistic point of view, that's the only logical conclusion to reach.
If you're claiming that God sent you with a message, you're going to have to bring evidence, claiming is not enough.
You diverted the discussion to prove the existence of God. The original discussion was that it is not possible to have objective morality without a Creator. That is fact as per the atheist figures and philosophers, so no need to argue that point.
I can cite equal "overwhelming evidence" for any other religion, or any other book of fantasy. You consider it evidence because you believe it, but the tautologies of your personal faith are meaningless to anyone else. I asked for objective proof, which you can't provide because it doesn't exist.
Which means that the morality you claim to derive from an objective God is just derived from your belief in an idea of God that you made up. Which makes your morality - and all religious morality - just as relative as anyone else's, barring your providing actual proof that any God exists.
>You diverted the discussion to prove the existence of God.
No, you claimed that anyone claiming to speak a message from God must bring evidence - without ever bothering to do so yourself.
>The original discussion was that it is not possible to have objective morality without a Creator.
No, you claimed that morality of any kind was impossible without belief in a religion. Here are your exact words:
"You can't have morality without religion, it's a senseless question to pose."
It's not a senseless question to pose. You can have morality without religion. You've done nothing to prove the senselessness of the question or to defend your premise.
Now you are the one diverting the discussion.
>That is fact as per the atheist figures and philosophers, so no need to argue that point.
What figures? What philosophers? Who have you read? Can you correctly state their arguments and refute them on their merits? If so, why haven't you done so yet? I've provided you plenty of material to work with. If your knowledge of atheism and secular philosophy is so complete, why do you keep falling back on juvenile tropes like a slippery slope towards nihilism or referencing Mao and Stalin - as if religious people had never been responsible for slavery, genocide, cruelty and violence despite their "objective" point of view? Should I stoop to your level and point out that Mao was raised a Buddhist and Stalin an Orthodox Christian?
The closest you've come to an actual defense of your views is a quote from Steven Hawking, which you seem oddly fixated on, talking about the chemical nature of humans and the insignificance of Earth relative to the universe - all of which is objectively true, and completely orthogonal to questions of the nature of morality. What about Sartre? Kant's categorical imperative? Dawkins? Hitchens? How do you rationalize your thesis that all atheists must be amoral sociopaths with the existence of secular humanism? Have you ever even heard of secular humanism?
We're done here. I won't be replying further. Good night.
> I can cite equal "overwhelming evidence" for any other religion,
No you can't. This is a challenge.
Islam is the only faith or tradition that has the notion of Isnad, by which we are able to ascertain that certain events or narrations are true. No other religion has this. For example, the authors of all the 4 New Testament bibles are unknowns. Under the Islamic Sanad system, this immediately renders the text as unreliable.
> You consider it evidence because you believe it
I believe it because of the evidence, after strict investigation of the process.
> without ever bothering to do so yourself.
I just did.
> You can have morality without religion
No you can't. This is the established position among atheist heads and philosophers, please see https://youtu.be/EqK_JPts26k?t=183 again.
Ah, Dawnkins, who argues along with Kraus, that he cannot find a moral argument against incest. Or that some pedophelia is ok.
Again, all atheists who are true to themselves will only come to the ultimate natural conclusion of their world view, that nothing matters and that there is no objective morality. At least they're honest with themselves.
It's very straightforward to debunk the above: atheists don't believe in God. The implication is that everyone is "chemical scum", that there is no purpose to life, and that ultimately nothing matters. Therefore, it doesn't matter if we blow up the entire world, or make everyone suffer to please a handful of people, there are no consequences and nothing matters at the end of the day.
Morality is entirely a subjective endeavor that feels objective only because large groups agree upon certain standards of behavior. The idea that you need religion to have morality is an old one based on tradition, but has never been true at any time in history.
In fact, when we look at religious morality through history with the eyes of modernity, we see what we can only describe as a vast chasm of immorality. Sure, a stopped clock is right twice a day, and once in a while, religious morals get it right.
It’s often said by atheists like myself, if you want to become an atheist, simply read the religious books of any major religion. The problem is that most religious adherents have no idea what their books actually say, and take most of their beliefs on faith from authority. But when you really read the books, you realize that this is not a paragon of morality by any stretch of the imagination.
It is the normalization of men having one partner. By setting up this rule more men are able to marry a partner. On Tinder the top 2% handsome men get most dates.
This title could be more precise. It finds plenty of evidence across individuals who are religious and not (as have many studies) but little evidence temporally across the life of someone whose religiosity changes.
I’d be curious to know out of the 4000 surveyed individuals the percentage that experienced nontrivial changes in religiosity and whether the life patterns/worldview (community, sense of morality, perspective of human life, personal values, daily habits, charitability, etc.) they inherited from their religion also deteriorated.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 186 ms ] threadAssuming for argument's sake, that is.
I think there's a chasm or 10 between declining a responsibility and denouncing your faith.
Even if that were true, the two likely wouldn't be distinguishable in any meaningful way.
Self-delusion is a well researched topic. There are many studies.
The best part of this notion is the inverse where miserable people are doing happy people things.
Sartre called it “bad faith”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_faith_(existentialism)
I know a lot of religious people like this. On the outside, they seem like the happiest people you’ve ever met, but once you get to know them, it turns out that they are miserable, and that the religious beliefs and behavior that they embrace are used to self-regulate their mental states. The more extreme religious people appear to be suffering a type of scrupulosity unique to disorders like OCD, and many sufferers will tell you that they are not happy.
E.g. maybe happy people are more likely to be religious, but like with most social science, there is no way to test this with the scientific method because of ethical reasons.
My favorite stat is that weekly church goers report the highest satisfaction in their sex lives.
That's really interesting. Is there more data? Any differences between the sexes? Age?
Going by kid-count I'd wager we're talking Catholics and Mormons.
While I can't find the source now, my favorite stat is that paid-per-view porn spikes during Christian men's conferences.
EDIT: ^at hotels
Or their families watching back at home?
Citation please
"To focus attention on one equilibrium with no higher appeal, it would be best to consult the highest possible authority. If the players share a cultural understanding that certain unpredictable processes may be used by the fundamental divine spirit of the universe to answer questions, and that this divinity cannot be bothered about the same question more than once, then a recommendation that is based on such a sacred randomization can serve as a focal coordination device that cannot be appealed to any higher arbitrator. Then the oracle's recommendations can be self-enforcing, without any further intervention by the divine spirit, provided that the recommendations to the players form an equilibrium. Thus the focal-point effect can admit a socially significant role for oracles and divination, as an effective foundation for social coordination. Indeed, when we look for effective focal factors, what can command people's attention more than the overall pattern of the whole universe? This divine pattern can serve as a focal determinant, however, only when players have a shared understanding about it can be interpreted into a selection among the set of Nash equilibria of their game.
...
"In any society, it is vital to maintain a broad general agreement about who has legitimate authority in any situation. Thus, from our earlier remarks about the focal power of the divine, we can see why societies may find it useful or even essential to call for frequent testimony that the local system of rules and authority is compatible with the divine pattern of the universe. Although coordination within a society can be improved by such belief in the universal nature of its principles of justice and legitimate authority, such universalization of local law and authority makes it harder for people in one society to recognize the different forms of justice and authority in other societies (see Myerson, 2006). That is, the same forces that help people to achieve consistent coordinated expectations in a successful society can become forces for inconsistency of expectations across societies in international relations. Indeed, in international conflicts throughout history, people on each side have regularly failed to understand the other side's perception of justice in their conflict.
...
"The focal-point effect may even offer a perspective on some ideas of theology, not about the nature of the divine, but about how societies use the divine. The focal-point effect is about environmental parameters that attract people's attention to one of many equilibria, and no aspect of our environment has a stronger claim on our attention than the divine pattern of the entire universe. Thus, coordination in a society can be strengthened when it culturally portrays local forms of law and authority as derived from universal divine principles."
They don't have a point.
They just exist.
My own notes/additions to the above include:
1) Live the gospel meaning to keep commandments (like the 10), do what one knows is right, be humble and faithful, etc in order to have the promised ~ "...peace in this life, and eternal life in the world to come." I have seen the results in stable multigenerational family organizations, and ability to work through very hard times. And to know life and hard things have a good purpose and is worth it. And so much more.
2-4) so very much could be said. example-- https://www.thechurchnews.com/living-faith/2021-10-25/nation... ... which resonates with my neighborhood experiences, including with those not of our faith.
And the extensive humanitarian work (where 100% of those specific donations go to those in need, none to admin overhead) and high voluntarism.
I'm not so sure anymore.
The point of religion is to solve civilisation wide coordination dilemmas like war. How do you get people to kill and die for strangers?
Religion's purpose is to get people to do horrible things not to behave nicely. It's used for wars mostly (plus genocides etc).
That's why we no longer need it. If we were fighting a ground war against a dangerous invading force it would be socially useful. But we're not.
This is also why religion has only flourished in places with exactly those issues (Iran, Afghanistan, Palestine recently).
Unless the plan for solving climate change is to convince x% of people to kill themselves, religion won't help with that any more than it helps with poverty or crime.
we all have existential crysis, deep fear, doubts, dilemmas. These questions are also in religion, now religion was probably a huge pile of everything from existence, to social life, morality, sexuality and family and yeah converting / conquering other people or other faiths.
You don't go to church to gather weapons but to marry, celebrate birth and grieve death.
> Unless the plan for solving climate change is to convince x% of people to kill themselves, religion won't help with that any more than it helps with poverty or crime.
Climate religion basically is telling people they need to go without the comforts of modern society (and generally live in some sort of centrally controlled societal construct that minimizes individual rights) in the name of some eternal paradise. It's not quite as severe as sending people to their deaths, but it's the same idea of convincing people to act against their own interests (and to let the priests continue to do what they want in the name of spreading the word) in order to fulfill some divine purpose.
(I should add as a sibling post did, I believe there are many positive points to religion as well, I'm responding to your post that essentially addresses religion as a coercion (sp?) mechanism
Your view that religion is only really used to motivate war is incredibly shallow and I encourage you to broaden your horizons on this subject.
Flat out false.
> Philip and Axelrod’s three-volume Encyclopedia of Wars, which chronicles some 1,763 wars that have been waged over the course of human history. Of those wars, the authors categorize 123 as being religious in nature, which is an astonishingly low 6.98% of all wars.
This natural experiment looks more interesting, although it exploits just a temporary shock (variation in the length of Ramdan):
https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/130/2/615/2330341?login...
"We study the economic effects of religious practices in the context of the observance of Ramadan fasting, one of the central tenets of Islam. To establish causality, we exploit variation in the length of daily fasting due to the interaction between the rotating Islamic calendar and a country’s latitude. We report two key, quantitatively meaningful results: (i) longer Ramadan fasting has a negative effect on output growth in Muslim countries, and (ii) it increases subjective well-being among Muslims. We find evidence that these patterns are consistent with a standard club good explanation for the emergence of costly religious practices: increased strictness of fasting screens out the less committed members, while the more committed respond with an increase in their relative levels of participation."
I'm not an antiquity specialist, but from what i've heard the first monotheism was probably zoroastrism (might have been a duotheist religion as first, with their Satan equivalent being as powerfull as their version of god), and might have appeared more than ten thousand years ago.
Followed by some version of Hinduism, then either the Aton cult or judaism (i've heard theories about Judaism started becoming a monotheism after an exile from egypt of Aton priests).
Studied population: 4167 American adults.
Conclusion: All religions are bad.
Which is why the study does not draw a conclusion on the viability of all religion, it merely says that it doesn't see much evidence that religiosity leads to life satisfaction. The author even notes "these results need to be evaluated within the context of the study." Hardly the wholesale dismissal of religion you claim it's making.
https://mohsenjoshanloo.weebly.com/publications.html
For example Latin Mass attending Catholics who honestly try to live the Church's teachings fully may report a different happiness level than casual Catholics who show up to Church occasionally and don't really live the life that the Church teaches them to.
It's fair to differentiate between authentically lived religion and more hollow performative religion.
The article says the study suggests there's not a really strong causal relationship in either way which surprises me a little but yeah I can see it given the experience.
And If I were to find religion suddenly again now I imagine it may only increase life satisfaction based on the fact I have no real community at the moment and that I think is probably a more interesting study.
How much has external community (i.e. not close friends, partners and families) breakdown occurred over the last 40 years and what is the effect on our life satisfaction? My grandfather was a part of a bunch of men's clubs etc last I checked most of those are floundering now.
I guess one of the downsides of forming my own belief system versus religion is it's bedrock is just a wee bit younger and potentially less well formed as I've been learning. Back to the drawing board :P
More on the topic, most Christians I know seem (and admit to being) profoundly unhappy. Perhaps they weren't dosing their sacraments correctly.
Grace is, even though I deserved God's justice and wrath, Jesus Christ died in my place, taking the judgment I deserved, and offering me forgiveness instead, which I totally did not deserve. That's grace.
...which talks about community trust and whether different groups believe that others in their neighborhood would be willing to help out, and resonates with my neighborhood experiences while living in various different places, including among those of other/no faiths.
Edit: My personal experience and observation has also been that those active and devoted in my faith have much greater success in solving the inevitable problems of life, and having united multigenerational families, than those who choose other paths (but we still love them). And that increased devotion correlates with increased education, and with success in having a stable life with ability to help others. (So many examples...)
Which is the same as life satisfaction. (If you think people who live longer are unhappy or blobs stuck in a bed that's your bizarre world)
Blue Zone theory isn't a great theory, but it's very logical. Ie. Religious people have support later in life, it's a life long hobby anyone can do etc etc.
This 'meta study' of only 4000 is poorly written. I'll assume it's because they are Korean and not because in science poorly written Journal Articles do better.
You can't read much from this study.
Religiosity means little.
They mention in the study they have no idea about attendance for instance which is what matters.
It's not about how strongly you believe. More the fact to use the support structure when needed.
So I always find it strange when 'religiosity' is used as a catch-all personality trait and everyone who identifies as religious is lumped together.
I haven't been able to look at the specific six-question set used in the study to measure religiosity, but something tells me that with only six questions, we can ascertain the impact of a person's particular religious beliefs and practices on their life in only the vaguest way.
This sounds like a game! 20 questions, but with religion!
BTW, I'm writing this as a complete atheist. Spending most of my youth in catholic schools helped me to know many people of all those groups, and believe me, for us atheists recognizing someone that is just pretending to be religious is truly easy.
I think you meant to say illegal immigrants, undocumented workers, or some other word.
> Of course the 2nd and especially the 3rd group have absolutely nothing to do with anything christian, and they profess them as such only to not feel guilty, or possibly because the society they live in requires that (how many votes would a politician get is he/she admitted being atheist?) - religion for them is just a series of acts (go to church, make offers, say prayers aloud, etc.) intended to cheat the system and appear as good people while in realty they aren't. I am also sure that the 1st group live a better life, which doesn't mean they'll earn more, actually it's quite likely the opposite, but they grow better "antibodies" to overcome difficulties without anger.
I think you doing a covert type of name-calling here.
Are Christians not supposed to care about US laws?
I care about the law. If we willfully ignore the laws, where could that stop? What would be the impetus to fix the laws that need updating, or the problem areas we have like a gap in short term agricultural visas?
If we encourage illegal border crossing, who will that benefit, and hurt?
I think it will benefit cartels, coyotes moving people, as well as the big corporations that operate meat-packing plants and foodservice, exploiting low cost labor, and underpaying people. It may benefit the person coming to the US, until that eventual time when they are caught, and sent home.
I think it will also hurt all the people looking for good paying jobs in lower ends of the service sector, and all the legal immigrants that are waiting in line for a chance. All the people that are hurt by an uncontrolled criminal element preying on members of their own communities. Nope, can't think about them. All the construction workers that used to be able to raise a family on doing residential work, nope, can't be concerned about them. Via exploiting the local emergency room for free medical care via EMTALA, the local hospital system will be damaged too, forcing higher rates to be negotiated with insurers, adding to ever increasing insurance rates. Nope, can't talk about that either.
please, refrain from projecting a simplistic morality onto others. There are many points of view out there.
I was mainly referring to African immigrants in southern/eastern Europe. Their situation is completely different from Mexican immigrants in the US, yet there are far right politicians who will happily let them die while attempting to cross the Mediterranean sea to build consent among their far right supporters. Seriously, there's no such thing as illegal immigration when the alternative for those people is being jailed or shot in their own country.
If I had a bad day and it so happened that it was the day where I was supposed to fill in a form on my life satisfaction, my answer would probably be very biased regardless if I was religious or not.
It also fails to take into account that not all religions are based on happiness meaning that life satisfaction in this world is not the be all and all.
An example is Islam. In Islam this worldly life is considered as a test. So you're going to be tested with hardship, afflictions and so on. There is also the concept of this being cyclical. After hardship comes ease. (not really cyclical in the sense that hardship comes because you had some ease before it but more like tuples of (hardship, ease) coming your way one after the other)
If you keep steady while you're being tested you'll be rewarded with paradise or/and a period of ease in this life.
Otherwise if you disobey Allah's commandements and die upon disbelief (You did not repent sincerely while you were still alive.) you'll likely go to hell.
Here it would be understandable to the believer that their life will not be all roses.
Christian here. Our titular hero - the very God of our universe - was beaten and hung on a cross to die (slowly). It is hard to look at that and think "following this guy is going to increase my life satisfaction".
"Happy people, singing people, party people, happy people Jamming on the party session, oh Lord Sing Hallelujah..." etc
I mean, imagine putting someone into a world where every wish they had was immediately granted. Would they be happy? Probably for awhile, but I don't think they would be happy for long. Imagine a dire or generally unpleasant situation, and imagine who could get through that and still be happy. Or maybe happy is the wrong word, but at least to not give up and to be kind to others. That sort of thing, being able to make the most out of any situation, is difficult and usually takes a lot of practice.
(Which isn't to say we should tolerate suffering because it's a good "learning experience" for someone. Maybe it is, but to be okay with someone else's suffering is also a learning experience that, in my opinion, reinforces the wrong sorts of behavior.)
If you're claiming that God sent you with a message, you're going to have to bring evidence, claiming is not enough.
You're the one making that claim, you bring the evidence, since you ignored mine.
You can start by proving, objectively, the existence of your God.
* https://www.provingislam.com/proofs/fire-of-hijaz
* https://www.provingislam.com/proofs/green-arabia
* https://www.provingislam.com/proofs/bedouins-prophecy
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3FmcWR1M-0
You diverted the discussion to prove the existence of God. The original discussion was that it is not possible to have objective morality without a Creator. That is fact as per the atheist figures and philosophers, so no need to argue that point.
Which means that the morality you claim to derive from an objective God is just derived from your belief in an idea of God that you made up. Which makes your morality - and all religious morality - just as relative as anyone else's, barring your providing actual proof that any God exists.
>You diverted the discussion to prove the existence of God.
No, you claimed that anyone claiming to speak a message from God must bring evidence - without ever bothering to do so yourself.
>The original discussion was that it is not possible to have objective morality without a Creator.
No, you claimed that morality of any kind was impossible without belief in a religion. Here are your exact words:
"You can't have morality without religion, it's a senseless question to pose."
It's not a senseless question to pose. You can have morality without religion. You've done nothing to prove the senselessness of the question or to defend your premise.
Now you are the one diverting the discussion.
>That is fact as per the atheist figures and philosophers, so no need to argue that point.
What figures? What philosophers? Who have you read? Can you correctly state their arguments and refute them on their merits? If so, why haven't you done so yet? I've provided you plenty of material to work with. If your knowledge of atheism and secular philosophy is so complete, why do you keep falling back on juvenile tropes like a slippery slope towards nihilism or referencing Mao and Stalin - as if religious people had never been responsible for slavery, genocide, cruelty and violence despite their "objective" point of view? Should I stoop to your level and point out that Mao was raised a Buddhist and Stalin an Orthodox Christian?
The closest you've come to an actual defense of your views is a quote from Steven Hawking, which you seem oddly fixated on, talking about the chemical nature of humans and the insignificance of Earth relative to the universe - all of which is objectively true, and completely orthogonal to questions of the nature of morality. What about Sartre? Kant's categorical imperative? Dawkins? Hitchens? How do you rationalize your thesis that all atheists must be amoral sociopaths with the existence of secular humanism? Have you ever even heard of secular humanism?
We're done here. I won't be replying further. Good night.
No you can't. This is a challenge.
Islam is the only faith or tradition that has the notion of Isnad, by which we are able to ascertain that certain events or narrations are true. No other religion has this. For example, the authors of all the 4 New Testament bibles are unknowns. Under the Islamic Sanad system, this immediately renders the text as unreliable.
> You consider it evidence because you believe it
I believe it because of the evidence, after strict investigation of the process.
> without ever bothering to do so yourself.
I just did.
> You can have morality without religion
No you can't. This is the established position among atheist heads and philosophers, please see https://youtu.be/EqK_JPts26k?t=183 again.
Ah, Dawnkins, who argues along with Kraus, that he cannot find a moral argument against incest. Or that some pedophelia is ok.
Again, all atheists who are true to themselves will only come to the ultimate natural conclusion of their world view, that nothing matters and that there is no objective morality. At least they're honest with themselves.
https://theconversation.com/religion-does-not-determine-your...
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/homo-consumericus/20...
In fact, when we look at religious morality through history with the eyes of modernity, we see what we can only describe as a vast chasm of immorality. Sure, a stopped clock is right twice a day, and once in a while, religious morals get it right.
It’s often said by atheists like myself, if you want to become an atheist, simply read the religious books of any major religion. The problem is that most religious adherents have no idea what their books actually say, and take most of their beliefs on faith from authority. But when you really read the books, you realize that this is not a paragon of morality by any stretch of the imagination.
I’d be curious to know out of the 4000 surveyed individuals the percentage that experienced nontrivial changes in religiosity and whether the life patterns/worldview (community, sense of morality, perspective of human life, personal values, daily habits, charitability, etc.) they inherited from their religion also deteriorated.