tar

Imatfaal, I agree with large portions of your thinking, and have been influenced in my background by some of the same ideas that have influenced you. I wanted to discuss the influence that religion had on the establishment of various institutions and people that formed my persona, but thought my argument would be better understood if I could find some religious underpinning to your beliefs through your background. Your college shows that part of your education was obtained from the same college in London where Eric Bohm was a professor, and the school was founded by a man with Quaker parents. From Wiki's article on Quaker: "Quakers, or Friends, are members of a family of religious movements which collectively are known as either the Friends Church, or the Religious Society of Friends. Friends' central doctrine is the priesthood of all believers,[1][2] a doctrine which is derived from the Biblical passage 1 Peter 2:9.[3] Most Quakers view themselves as a Christian denomination. They include those with evangelical, holiness, liberal, and traditional conservative Quaker understandings of Christianity. Controversially, over the last 25 years, a minority of Quakers in the Western world have started to question some traditional Christian beliefs and practices." I attended the wedding of my cousin to a Quaker. We sat silently in a bare wooden barrack like structure on wooden benches. Communing with each other with eye contact mostly, but basically just silently. Few if any words were spoken. I noticed the couple was sitting in the only patch of sunlight entering though the several openings in the wall. Everybody noticed and was pleased and there were many smiles, and still no words. The priesthood of every believer, is a similar thought on some level, to the equalitarian sharing of knowledge, and my thesis would say that the founder of your college, may have held the moral values of his parents, whether or not he himself believed in God, and your founder may have attended a Quaker wedding and felt whatever it was I felt that day when the sun shone upon my cousin and wife, and everybody smiled, and no one said a word. Regards, TAR elfmotat, I was not able to hear the video (my volume control doesn't open), but I think I got the drift. I am a peculiar version of Atheist though, who feels the sting and hurt of proclaiming myself atheist, who sees religion's harm to secularity, its role in bigotry, its role in sexism and sees right through all its lies and usurptions of heavely powers, yet an Atheist that thinks I know the "real" components that people who believe in God might be refering to. Religion's role in the maintanence of social order on the one side, and its rational basis in asserting that we all have a certain connection to the same universe, at the same time, on the other side. I would argue, along with humanists that we should just go with the sure knowledge of the common connection to the universe, and forget about this divine association bit...but humanists believe that there is nothing greater than a human to believe in, and here I have to part company, because there IS something greater than a single human to believe in. First of all, there is every other human, second of all there is the massive long lived universe in every direction, that is quite spectacular in both its order and diversity, that has been able to spawn intelligence, in at least one instance (humans) and probably in other species here on Earth like dolphins, and might be able to have had spawned such elsewhere. With or without intention or plan, this tiny chunk of universe material named TAR, knows I am in it. I know therefore that this emmense universe is at least capable of being as intelligent as I am. With no evidence to show that I am as intelligent as the universe can get. Rather I am a rather tiny peice and glimpse of the whole deal. If its this "whole deal" that believers in God might be usurping the power of, and attributing goofy stuff to, then even every scientist believes in this "whole deal" thing, And I can easily pretend that this "whole thing" that I am under is the same thing that my country's constitution was written under, and if common belief in this thing is good for cohesion and social order, and I have no claim to anything greater than THAT, why should I ask another man to take the word God, off my coinage? Regards, TAR2

Semjase, Well, aliens COULD exist, and they could have sprinkled the Earth with mitochondria but the Bible tells some story about God creating an Adult Human named Adam, and taking one of his Ribs and Creating Eve, and then names the lineage, person by person, down to actual individuals that lived on this Planet. The two stories don't match. They don't fit the facts. They don't add up . One or the other, or both, is/are not the case. So let's say, we construct a convoluted story about just when these aliens created humans, and placed them on Earth. It then would not be God that created heaven and Earth. We would have a situation where the Stars and Earth and Aliens were available, and the Aliens created us, and led us to believe that we should refer to them, as God. And still we are left with the fact that they are not actually God, just a bunch of Aliens pretending to be. Still leaves the question of how might THEY have evolved, and who it might be that's lying to THEM about their beginnings. And you call this imaginary scenario a search for truth? I think it better we apply the scientific method to the problem, and come up with a story that fits the facts. Perhaps come up with a theory that matches all available evidence, and float a theory, and test it against all new information we uncover. Something we could call "The theory of evolution", that would describe a possible, fit the facts type of explanation of our emergence as a species. And besides, the aliens would have to be rather complex themselves, once they arrive on Judgement day, we should ask them to explain where the heck they got that mitochondria from, and how they figure they may have come about. Oh us? Our circuits where designed and placed on Planet X couple of weeks before we did that human experiment thing on your Earth, by some Gods on Planet Z, and those folks are going to toast our tails if we don't straighten out your defective immortal souls, right now. The whole bunch of you, has been recalled and scheduled for destruction. You guys should have seen this coming...we TOLD you this would happen. Possible? No, not likely at all. Doesn't explain a single thing that does not already have a good explanation, and raises about a Zillion new questions...all hypothetical, and none based on fact. And what is that new destruction date the Bible has so plainly given for this incredible nonsense? I really think it would be nice for you to post it again in really big font on this thread. That way at least, I can make you a bet. If you lose the bet, you have to answer any post on this thread, addressed to you, and explain to us, in 500 words or less, why scientific method is superior to Biblical prose, in predicting future events. If I lose, and I see you in heaven, I'll give you a kiss. If I lose, and am in hell, I won't be able to pay up, but you will understand my predictament. If the world ends and both our consciousnesses are out of the picture entirely, then we both lose. Are we on? Will you take the bet? Regards, TAR2 Bet payable the day after the date you post in really big font.

Besides, if God is always present, in what sense could he "arrive" for even a first time, much less a second coming. Popping in and out, would require his absence in the mean time. Like perhaps just coming home at the end of the day, or during the weekend? This would indicate to me, that part of lessons of the Bible were to empower one's Earthly lord with Divine rights, power and priveledges. A theme that was strong in the Kuran (a bible derivitive) as well, what with Muhammed saying that a 1/5th should be given to Allah...or his Messenger...or blood relatives of the messenger. The sexism of the Bible and Koran give more authority to the male. U.S secular society still has vestiges of this ethos, but even progressive churches give mother and father equal sway, and the Jewish Mom is the vessel through which the divine nature flows. I think it important to separate any "valuable" religious messages that appear in the Bible, New Testament, and Koran, into those that serve mankind, and those that serve Earthly power structures. Though one, actually means the other, there are "people" that usurp the "power" of the universe, and claim to have befriended it, claim to know its secrets, and claim this power in the absence of reasonable evidence. The scientist claims knowledge and truth and power over the universe and the world, and each other, only where it evidently appears to be the case. And sees no evidence of impending fire and brimstone, nor has of yet found it likely that gods or sons of gods, or anti-gods have any likelyhood of appearing in our skys on flying horses. There have been few verifyable reports of this kind of activity in the past. We have some visions and anecdotal evidence of a burning bush and such, but very little to NO hard evidence. If your beliefs are to be found valid, ONLY if this flying white horse appears, I would say the validity of your beliefs, is highly suspect. Regards, TAR2 and quite ironically would be validated only at the very point where they would no longer apply Yes my dear, I will validate your belief in me, right after you die. And also, just so you don't believe me, I will validate your belief in me, just after I obliterate the world. So be sure to provide me with the weekly tithe, my dear.

Which religious information is it that science ignores? This second coming thing is rather like the mother, saying to the unruly children, "Just you wait 'til your father comes home, then you will see the stick and the fury of justice and truth, then you will know you should have listened to me". I would like to suggest that this is an empty threat, if the mother does not, in actuality, have a husband, or if father does not wield a stick. And the threat would be not made, if the mother herself would be able to use the valuable and workable information contained in religion, even if her husband were dead, without resorting to the stick, and destruction. I would also like to point out, that we could have the general discussion, of "who is your daddy?" without resorting to the stick. When I was growing up, our family stayed at a summer cottage. There was a Catholic family we hung around with often (they had TV, a boy and a girl my sister's age, a boy and a girl my age, and a younger girl). There was a woodshed behind the house which the boys feared as a place where their father might take a stich to their behinds. My sister and I did not have such a woodshed. Both our father and their father worked during the week a decent car ride away, so came up, only on the weekends. All of us children were aware that retribution for any sins (failing to listen to our moms, lying, cheating, smoking, or breaking of any rules of society or family) would come, when I fathers got home. My father was not religious, nor did he ever strike us as punishment. He was a "reasonable" man. We were all basically "good" kids, and all feared the weekend and facing our fathers, should we have engaged in any transgressions. But I carried my conscience with me, and still have it. I would "be good" because not being good would upset my dad. My friend would occasionally cross the line, because he could "get away with it", if his mother did not find out, to tell his dad. Leaving me, in regards to this discussion with a couple questions for you. Can you be good, even if you are not going to see your father soon? What "good" would come of it, if your father came home, and burned the house down? The woodshed and the end of the world have been hanging over the heads since the Bible was first written up, and probably even was hanging over our heads as far back as man had clans and parents. Although the woodshed is an ever present thing, and there are consequences to breaking the rules of your clubs, the universe itself seems rather constant in providing us with dangers, and benefits. It doles out good and bad arbitralily, with no withholding or offering based on our thoughts or prayers or sins or based even on our adherence to our conscience. If a great retribution is required for you to be good, and the retribution never comes, then why should you be good? I heard a grown Catholic once, talking about stick weilding Nuns, and following the rules and such, say that he became aware of the emptiness of their threats of retribution, the first time he secretly sinned, and was not struck by lightning. If you feel that religion has good messages for mankind, I would agree 100%. If however there are unreasonable components of the message, that are NOT real, then these components can be easily ignored with no chance of harm. The real components of the message that ARE real and valuable can be held in our conscience, not only without the white horse and the "son of man" riding in, on a global basis, but without dad getting home, on a personal basis. And in any case, the failure of the arrival of the second coming is sure evidence that it need not come at all, inorder to be simply taken as the threat "just wait till your father comes home". Personally, I would rather envision "God" as being a "reasonable man". (if I were to anthropomorphize the universe). And as a reasonable man, myself, in terms of worrying about the end of the world, I would say "Don't". Live by the rules on their own merit. Remembering that once you are an adult, and have kids, you ARE the parent. You have no reason to fear the family woodshed, or the Nun's stick, or have any reason to fear the actual end of the world. And let your conscience be your guide. So, again, what are these valuable messages of religion, that you think, TAR as an atheist, might be missing? Regards, TAR2

Hey pal, you calling me a dingdong or a wiener?

ydoaPs,<br /><br />I do tend to overanalyize, or overthink. I jump to the only conclusions I can find standing in the aftermath. I thought at some point, we had befriended each other and then concurrent with my strawmanning episode, got a big red -3 friends announcemnent along with a button to press, that reads "see who". Upon pressing the "see who" button I received a screen inviting me to join some facebook defriending announcement service which I had no interest in joining. Figuring that I would know exactly where and when and why I had parted paths with somebody, or could retrace my interactions with "missing" friends, and figure it out for myself. When I found you "missing" from my short group of friend icons, I made a reasonable assumption that I had overstepped the bounds and broken the bonds of whatever associations we may have previously made with each other.<br /><br />Obviously there are yet other explanations, that would fit the facts, since you did not unfriend me.<br />We may never have been friends, and I mis-remembered, thinking that we rather should have been.<br />There was a computer glitch of some sort that mislisted my current friends.<br />The facebook pop-up thing is a false advertisement of some sort to get me interested in the service and does not actually reflect three missing forum friends, but may reflect missing facebook friends, or no missing friends at all.<br />You actually were and are on my list, and I scanned past your Icon, or looked at and did not see it.<br /><br />I do not think that the quantity of my analytical thinking is at fault, though evidence shows that the quality of it may be highly suspect, as I very often arrive at false conclusions and I have recieved confirmation of my deficiencies along these lines by recently just receiving my GMAT score breakdown.<br />TAR's standing amoungst the population of folk aspiring to enter MBA programs:(in percentiles) Verbal=90%, Quantitative=36%, Total=69% (raw score 620), Analytical Writing=20%, Intergrated Reasoning=52%.<br /><br />So analytic ability is not something I possess in large quantities and I am probably not able to study up and train, and score above 718 and show myself to be Ivy League Business school material. (studied test taking strategy and familiarized myself with the content for three weeks before the test and had scored a 540 on the initial practice test, so perhaps I could raise my score some of the way, to Ivy League status, by additional study and practice, but you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.)<br />But in general, you do not want me as your CFO, though I might aspire to middle management roles and muddle through OK, and be admitted to less than Ivy league Master Programs, or programs that do not look at the GMAT.<br /><br />Point being, we are all not capable of what our greatest minds are capable of, yet we all are human, and have equal rights to associate with the universe. And one can aspire to helping their fellow man, in whatever small ways they can manage, or use their talents to guide lesser equipt folk. And the workable solutions of the elite amoung us, are sometimes offered freely to all, or come with a cost, or are secretly locked away, or used to control and manipulate. And us lesser folk have not the where-with-all to discern the difference. We can not use anaytical abilities that we do not have to discern who among us is on humanities side, and who among us is working against the cause. Because each of us is already in the human club and automatically on its side, and works toward survival and the benefit of themselves, family, friends, neighbors, workmates, company, church, institutions, organisations, nations and each of us serves and is guided by whatever rules and morals and values have been, agreed upon within and surrounding the particular instance of each of the above which with we associate. We can study ourselves, and we can create many things, we can deconstruct and reconstruct and know the reasons why things work the way they do and use this knowledge for good or ill, but we have no way of creating matter or energy, and we ourselves as humans did not create our own concsciousness, nor did we engineer the first mitochondria, nor did we create the environment that shaped these "accidents" or emergent things. We can name and understand all processes and entities we encounter, but we can never be other than them, superior to them, or disassociate ourselves from them. We would not be conscious of them if they had not already been the case and cause of and the focus of our attention.<br /><br />I am not arguing against human judgment, or rationality, I am rather arguing for it, and accept all your arguments for progress and excellence, education and innovation, but if you know that you yourself are capable of this thing called human judgment, it requires that everybody else has the same general asset and must have been excercising it, from the dawn of man, from their birth til their death, up to now, and will continue to do such into the forseeable future. There has to be this "human spirit" to allign oneself with.<br /><br />America has already signed up for the secular experiment, whether we are as Americans doing it right in someone elses eyes or not. There is not a secular god/judge to turn to for a decision other than our own supreme court, and there is no way to void the contract, but by revolution, or sucession, or denouncing citizenship, and no way to change the rules but by legislative process and influencing such by vote and lobby.<br /><br />Our Ideals are already sound. One nation, under god, with liberty and justice for all. We are already on the case, and need no outside body to inform us that we don't know what we are doing. Nor is it reasonable to assume that by force of intelligence or analytical excellence we could rise to any loftier heights than are reachable by the excercise of human judgment.<br /><br />To trust humanity, and distrust the guy across the street, reveals some sort of internal conflict that we Americans must, by definition, already be addressing successfully, through our laws and traditions, agreements and institutions, or we would not have lasted over 200 years as a nation, operating under the same constitution (with appropriate amendments to extend rights to include any class or type of human, ommited or depreciated in stature in the first take).<br /><br />Under this aggreement, one could hate the idea of anal sex, see no rational for it, find correlations between it and Aids and other health problems, and STILL fight for the rights of two men to love each other, and be full citizens, and completely count as 2 votes, and two whole humans in the eyes of the law. But have no reason to sanction anal sex on any rational basis.<br /><br />Regards, TAR2

This is sort of a personal post, but involves science and humanism directly, and might be worth discussing. I was challenging the methodology, and exploring the implications of a study ydoaPs linked (10,000 times) and was charged with strawmaning, reading things into what he was saying, not reading I paper I was not subscribed to and ultimately unfriended by ydoaPs and two others. I do not have many friends to begin with, so I took a significant hit. From both secular leaning and religosity leaning friends. I had never before been befriended, so it left me a little bewildered as well, as I was not smart enough to catch whatever stupidity it was that I exhibited. But my muses upon the implications of the study linking religioustiy to societal problem, and secularity to societal health, and then subsequent studies linking lower levels of religiousity to higher levels of education, intelligence and analytical abilities, forced me into logical corner, where that only leaves about 10 percent of us, that are fit to innovate, and set the standards for the other 90 percent to follow. Being as this seemed rather undemocratic and rather elitist in its implications, I sort of fought it, but to no avail. And if all these correlations are true, and my implications anywhere close to realistic, then Humanism has a serious flaw. How can 10 percent set the moral standands for the other 90 percent? Especially while profusely claiming that there is NO higher authority to go to, but to the 10 percent who know the most about the universe and man and know the best about what our relationship should be to the objective world, including life on Earth, and human organisms that existed before their mortal lifetime, and will exist after their mortal lifetime. Although I do not believe in the literal existence of the god of the Bible, or that Jesus rose to sit on his right hand, or that Gabriel straightened Mohommed out and Allah has no associates, or that elves and fairies or Immortal's 32 or 3000 eminations of Brahman are flitting about vieing for our attention and fear, I do believe my consciousness came about by some means other than me, and this means I have to have had a creator of some variety, that was capable of such a thing as TAR. So I do not know which box I would have to check on the religiosity test. Creator or no creator? How could anyone believe that they popped into existence on their own? And while I do believe the only place from which we could have come, is the primordial sludge of this Earth, this is not a completely different "thought" than the universe in reality, causing us to rise from the mud, learn the difference between good and evil, and thusly separate ourselves from it. If this is as far as humanism would go, then I could join the club, and simply say what is good for one human is good for all, but this is simply not the case. How can TAR claim club membership to all the clubs that exist in the world of humans, when he doesn't filfill the entry requirements and has not paid the dues of most of them? And how can anyone love humanity, with the exclusion of the Christians and the Jews, the Moslims, and the Buddists, the criminals and bloodsuckers, the huckesters and the theives, the stuck up elite, the unjust, the ugly, the stupid, the racist, the selfish, those of another race, or nation that is suffering cultural problems, or run by a dictator, or mullah, or military industrial complex or a communist regime or a contentious parliment or congress? So the problem with humanism is this. The 10 percent fit to rule, are already ruling. By pen or sword, deceit or power, by wealth or control of the means of production. Everybody has a boss, and their boss has a boss and so on. Every club promotes it tenants and principles, institutions, traditions and laws. Every club has its membership requirements and most people do not have the $600,000 it might take to join a prestigious law partnership or enough money, intelligence, analytical ability, charisma and leadership ability to make their way into an influencial or authoritative role in a World Government, or "church" that would have the authority and power required to establish and enforce a morality system "good for everybody". 'til all the world is for Allah? 'til we all know the Secret of the Vedas? 'till we are all Lutheran? 'till we are all under the emperor? What common morality, could Humanists possibly be considering? That would have nothing at all to do with a creator, or a sense of commonality in belonging to the universe, or be derived from the religions of Humans? Pack morals are the only ones encoded in the genes, morals beyond those, require a bit of human imagination and a bit of dreaming. And we have already been doing that, and humanists think there might be a different way? Regards, TAR hu·man·ism [ hymə nìzzəm ] 1.belief in human-based morality: a system of thought that is based on the values, characteristics, and behavior that are believed to be best in human beings, rather than on any supernatural authority 2.concern for people: a concern with the needs, well-being, and interests of people 3.Renaissance cultural movement: the secular cultural and intellectual movement of the Renaissance that spread throughout Europe as a result of the rediscovery of the arts and philosophy of the ancient Greeks and Romans Synonyms: nonbelief, unbelief, doubt, skepticism, incredulity, freethinking, disbelief, godlessness, agnosticism, humanism. I might add, that France and the United States have already initiated this secular experiment. And I think we are doing a fairly decent job so far, and have hope it will get even better, with time, and an underlying faith in our common association with God, however we wish to worhip it or imagine it.

Randomc, Well, thank you for that. I was more interested in starting such a discussion, than converting everybody to Lutheran. But as you say, you can not "vote" for change, without knowing what tack you are on, and what tack your're choosing in its stead, and what overall course you have in mind. Although I'm found of the sailboat analogy, tacking back and forth to make progress against the wind, I think that societies are more like battleships or oceanliners, hard to turn because of their momentum, and requiring a mission, or destination, a single captain and a capable cadre of navigators and second mates, and a crew to "make it so". Your roller coaster is not bad, with its ups and downs and turns and such, but the freefall is exciting but safe, because the track is already laid, and the car will simply follow the track, and your participation is not required. You are merely a passenger, and your fate has already been decided by the designers of the ride. My other favorite is the pendulum, swinging left and right where you as a passenger have your choice of leaning one way or the other, to pump or dampen, but any height reached to the left will be matched by the subsequent move to the right. Similar to the stochastics (overbought and oversold) and the dynamics of the stock market. With cycles discernable in any timeframe you choose(in retrospect). But what and where we are as a society is a huge and complex organism, which operates on all these principles and more. What ever role in the orgasm we play, it is an actual role, where our human judgment determines the next action we take, and that action will have actual consequences in regards the fate of the organism. In this, it is interesting to point out that the Swedish economy is very competitive. Internal competition pushes innovation and rewards capability and excellence, and this in turn produces fine steel and scientific breakthroughs, which are used by other societies, making Sweden competitive in World markets, and giving it a vital role in the EU. I think it "too late" to ever design a civilation. Only on the fly and in context will ideas develop and be inacted. Unworkable ideas will be slowly discarded and the workable ones will endure. And the body of work performed by those that came before us is worth maintaining, in large part. The speed of progress in this computer age is indeed dizzying, whole areas of study and endevour have matured and spawned derivitives before most of us even know its name. But we should always retain control over these systems, and use them as tools, guided by human judgment. The tools themselves enact human judgment, the judgment of the programmers and the people that put the systems in place, but the systems themselves do not have human judgment. Its better that we keep our trust, in the judgment of other humans, that share our values and traditions. And use these systems as tools. Regards, TAR2

Sweden is a poster child for social justice. How did she get that way? Moral values a mix between those of Nordic Legendary Kings and those of the Bible turned Catholic by Christ, and Catholic turned Protestant by Luther. The current social order is maintained by a mixture of nobility (Weath is not as equally distributed as income) and a democratically elected parliment. The economy controlled by knowledge based large industries, fueled by great scientific minds (The Nobel Prize). I left a lot out, no doubt, the ideas of Marx and those derived from the French Revolution have worked their way into Sweden as well, but the low religiousity of the people, many if not most of them, Lutheran at birth is worth a thought or two. The U.S. mind has been affected by these ideas as well, along with the effect of significant numbers of Swedish immigrants. It is probably difficult to turn oneself instantly Swede, without having a Swedish Nobility to turn to for support. Plus we have a multitude of other workable traditions to account for in our collective mind, as we develop our own secular yet noble, moral code and cadre to trust and turn to for guidance and support. We remain "the great experiment" and still have a chance to be the Shining City on the hill. I am thinking though, that adherence to traditional values and ideas and social structure, can and should be done, with more trust placed in the lords available in reality, than trust in non-existing lords. For secularity's sake. For social justice's sake. And for God's sakes, honestly, what's the hold up? Sweden shows us we can keep one eye on God, and still keep both eyes on the road before us. Regards, TAR2 And we can still do it the American way.

So here we have it. Secular beliefs correlate positively with measures of societal health. Literal belief in the Bible, Praying, and believing in a creator seems to do nothing for us, in fact correlate negatively with several measures of societal health taken. Take-away, secular beliefs (like take the medicine) are probably more effective at promoting societal health than religious beliefs (like, let God take care of it). The In Nature correlations would suggest that there is a positive correlation between secular beliefs and analytic thought. Take-away, the more you know, the smarter you are, and the better you are at analysis, the more likely it will be that you can effect reality, compared to those who are uneducated, less intelligent and bad at analysis. Looks like education kills Gods. And we best hope that those smarter than ourselves are on our side, and have our best interests in mind. (However they have come to such a "humanist" conclusion.) Regards, TAR2 And to believe in your fellow man, still requires some faith, and some belief in the greater good. And there must be some reason we have those things. There must be a synthesis that occurs after the components have been analysed. If the efficacy of a contract with god is suspect. Who or what is it, that we should have a contract with instead? Who or what shall be our helper, and who or what should be our judge? Who or what shall be our guide? After looking at the links in this thread (with the exception of the In Nature study) I am of the opinion that it would be wise to take the counsel of insightful, intelligent, educated humans (good at both analysis and synthesis), that have also demonstrated their love for their fellow man. And it is mostly unimportant, as to how they characterize this connection, or how they consider it devoloped. Being as the United States was founded AS a secular nation, where the church and state should be separate, yet individual's rights to worship whatever, were protected by all (as long as they did not infringe on the rights of another to worship as they pleased), I still think the U.S. has certain claims to be considered a helper of the cause of secularity, despite the high level of religiousity, of its individual members. And should not be cast from the Shining Hill simply because pennicillin shows more efficacy in fighting infections, than prayer does. Regards, TAR2

"Do you have any idea what a correlation is?" No, evidence shows I have no clue. The Dude

John Cuthber, "Do you realise that correlation isn't the same as causation?" Yes I do, I am rather interested in pointing that out to "statistics Punk". Ringer, Your points are fair and taken. Except for the part about me charging bias on a paper I have not read. I based my bias possibility on the 10,000 times linked study, which I have read and thought about, more than once. I took the findings of the In Nature as stipulated, and drew my conclusions only from the abstract. And I am not sure about the "using belief/disbelief in evolution" as a defining marker. Though I would consider myself a member of the "believe in Evolution" camp, I would not suggest that anybody take this to mean that I am either sensible or educated. Or to think that therefore I am credentialed to thusly dismiss any value in spirituality or would even want to do that. Nor would I suggest putting any stock in the correlary. Regards, TAR2

John Cuthber, I don't feel the methodologies of the various studies in the first correlation were consistent which each other, and results from one study were charted against data collected in various ways and I want to make sure that the makers of the correlation where not just cherry picking data with a political agenda in mind. For instance, I do not know if people in Sweden that were polled were asked if they believed in fairies or Elves, or the moral values found in fairy tales. And this becomes important, especially if belief in anything of a spiritual nature, would classify one as engaging in religioustiy. What about belief in a "life force", or "The Force", as refered to in Star Wars? If any Swedish people polled, believed in any of these things, and that was classified as counting as religiosity, then the health of their society would correlate that much more positively with religiousity. And just what if Church attendance was considered a measure of the health of a society, or loyalty to the nation's flag, or the percentage of GDP spent on defense of the society's way of life? The observed correlations are dependent on the measures of societal health you are using, on the one hand, and the studier's definition of religiousity and choice of questions to determine this, on the other. And then separately, in the conclusions, the Red states of the Southern US are singled out as showing a strikingly powerful inverse correlation, as if to suggest that Republicans might be unhealthy to the society. If ydoaPs wishes to show us that we are an unhealthy society, compared to other industrialized, 1st world societies, based on the measures of societal health used in the study, he has succeeded. If ydoaPs wishes to show us that across the board, measures of Reliousity are inversely correlated with these measures of societal health, he has succeeded. If ydoaPs wishes to show us that education tends to kill gods, I will take that as stipulated, having not assessed the In Nature study. But if the point is to validate atheism and invalidate spirituality, I do not believe the correlations show this. That is a conclusion that has been implied, which ydoaPs insists he has not implied. Moontanman, I meant that the service had singing and words from at least the three major faiths of this country, and all spoke to the same message of faith, and belief, in our common spirituality, and hope. The President embraced the message, Biden was a bit uncomfortable. Regards, TAR2 ydoaPs, And just for kicks, consider that when you add all the correlations together it suggest that the study was probably done by analytical folk, dismissive of spirituality. Allowing for the chance of confirmational bias. Regards, TAR2 What do you think of that, smartie pants?

Ye that dost callest me Dude, Sure pally wally, whatever you say. "Direct to the paper" is not what I experienced. (or is it Pallie Wallie? I am inexperienced in proper name calling) ydoaPs, Perhaps then I wonder why you have posted the same first study you linked, 10,000 times which states that there is a strong inverse correlation between religousity and societal health? What is it, that you wish to imply? Regards, TAR2 I would agree, and have agreed that education tends to dismiss false, incorrect, untrue things, including fairies, nymphs, the God of the Bible, Koran, and the 32 or 3000 of Vedic fame, to name just a few. If we have no argument. Then we have no argument. Regards, TAR2

ydoaPs, Please don't call me dude. I truely take it as an insult. Brazil is killing itself off in the drug infested slums, run by gun welding gangs. So are we. The tie-in has more to do with drugs than religion. And IF your thesis is correct, we should allow only educated people with several doctorates, to exist, and this will make us healthy. (Don't really mean I think that is what you are saying.) But is that what you think the facts demand? Should only rich, educated, analytical minds run the show? What about everybody else? Should the 10 percent that do not believe in God or spirits or supernatural stuff, design a society for the other 90%? Well they have, but that has gotten us, to exactly here. Where do we go FROM here? Regards, TAR2 P.S. I only could get as far as the abstract. You in actuality did not provide me with a link to the Nature study. And I remain too lazy or uninterested to invest the time and/or money it would take to reach it. Perhaps this is why I remain uneducated. Lack of gumption and funds to apply to the task.

ydoaPs, Just to be thourough in assessing your thesis. Let's consider the measures of the health of a society. How charitible, how it protects its weak, how it protects its children, its sick and its poor. Where did we get these measures? What writers wrote that the measure of a society is how it handles its weak. Why not have Nazi measures? The law of the jungle, the survival of the fitest? Why should the strongest not prevail? Why should the old and weak and the useless child not be slaughtered? Perhaps because of this. "Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed." (from Psalms) and other lessons taught in the bible I sang in Sunday School "Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, he loves yellow, black and white, all are precious in his sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world." Could this have anything to do with why I would be open to considering the health and well being of a child in a distant land? Why would I be tolerant of my enemies, why would I love them as myself, why would I turn the other cheek, if it was not told to me by my parents, and church and society, that this was the proper way to be? Can we measure the negative effects that religiousity has on society, using religiousity's yardstick? Perhaps we can show where we have not lived up to our own standards, but can we fault the standards with our failure to live up to them? And who will be the judge of whether I personnaly have lived up to these standards? Whether I have instilled them in my children? Just in the interest of thoughoughness, consider the role that religion has played and continues to play in setting the standards, in suggesting that we will be judged by our actions on Earth, by a higher authority. And consider where hope and charity and such made their entry into our collective consciousness. Regards, TAR2

Inow, Yes, but you are talking correlation not causation or explaination. What if drug use and teenage promiscuity are causative factors relating to social deficiencies, and these things are areas where atheists have a higher tendency to engage. What if the prision population, which is highly religious is also poor, uneducated, underpriveledged and stupid. Would this not skew the numbers? What if most Scandinavians believed in elves and fairies and the lessons they learned in the nursery when they learned their moral lessons from fairie tales. And was not Grimm from the lowlands? If morality is learned and shared and instilled in children, it need not be at church where it happened. The poorest and most uneducated nations in the world, are also the most religious. But the causative factors may be due to missionaries that went to these places, with strategies for clean water, brought medicine and food, built schools, and a set of moral, human loving values. Moral values came from somewhere. They are not findable in field theory formulae. We got them from our parents, developed them to match the changes in the world, and gave them to our children. Some get outdated, and religion is not real swift at changing to meet the newly found values, but some do change, new ones spring up, populations keep the baby, throw out the bathwater and move on. There may be certain values that are encoded in our genes. As surely as my pleasure in the female form, is encoded in mine. But our laws and values and morals, come a peice at a time, as us scentient folk, see what works, and what does not. We teach our children to avoid the pitfalls, and engage in the valuable stuff. But consider the tenets of humanism. Can one believe that the life of a child in a far away country is as important as the life of your own child, without some belief in an objectively real truth, greater than ones own family, tribe or nation? Where would this notion be found in the pack gene? It is an abstraction. It is an ideal. It is a belief. As flimsy a notion under scientific scrutiny as a unicorn. It must be an idea under development. An extension and clarification of previous thought. Perhaps an idealological mutuation of the insights of Moses, and Buddah, and Hammirabi, mixed in with the lessons taught by the elves and fairies and gods of the Morse and the Peyote smoking wise men of American Indian lore, and every other tradition that saw magic and wonder in the world around them and associated with it. Personified it in myth and ledgend, and told the stories to their children. If drugs and teenage sex, and poverty were to be erased in our society, this would be a welcome thing for the churches in America. The church is not the cause of these things, it is one of the forces that tries to come to the rescue of the afflicted. That religion is found amoungst the poor and uneducated, underpriveledged, terminally ill, drug addict, desease ridden and mentally disturbed, does not mean that religion causes these things. Believing such, would be like believing that pennicillin causes disease. Regards, TAR2 And each religion should be assessed on its own merits. For instance the inequality of women in the Muslim world is greater than the inequality of women in America, although the sexism in the Bible is rooted in both traditions. Perhaps Mohammed added something wrong to the story, that disallowed a fair mutation to what is more globally considered a more workable position. And perhaps Jesus, added something positive.

ydoaPs, Alright, I submit to the correlation. Analytical thought is an enemy to irrational hogwash. And facts tend to dismiss false (non-existing) gods. But remaining is the question of whether or not this is comletely the same correlation as the inverse correlation between social health and religiousity. While on the surface one could easily surmise that the more you know about how things actually are, rather than believing in how they are not, on faith, the more you will be able to actually affect and address the challenges the world around you poses, there remains the need for something else, which I cannot clearly define, that trumps ones individual personage, that religioustiy, stripped of the hogwash, still addresses. Your thesis suggests that we would be better off without spirituality and church attendence, and belief in God. And that analytical thought should win the day, and that will be sufficient to guide us. I am not sure that that is correct. Regards, TAR2

Thread, Had a waking thought on "authority's" potential role in this discussion. A drunk, wishing to rehabilitate, often looks "outside" himself for the strength. (not to mention that an "intervention" may have brought him/her to the "support" group, in the first place). The tie-in is the thought of "independence", in the sense that education (knowledge is power), intelligence (the pen is mightier than the sword), and wealth (money is power), seem to coincide to some degree with the thought that one can "do it on their own", and turn to themself for support, authority and validation. If God is to be, symbolically at least, objective reality, how one has developed or structured their own internal world and their own relationship to the objective reality that they are in and of, is pertinent to the discussion. And very important as well, is what other human or group of humans does one turn to for authority, and include in their "feeling of self". (if one needs no other humans for support, and authority, then a "personal god" would be the only place left to go for such). So scientists have the "scientific community" to reference. They need no personal god. Super intelligent folk, wealthy folk, politcally powerful folk that gain personal power over the world around them, in one way or the other, I would theorize, have less need for God, than those who are powerless. Secular societies are based on a body of law, that all look toward for authority. "The group" everybody looks to for support is everybody that believes in, upholds, and obeys those laws. These people have less need for religiousity, I would surmise. United States is an interesting mix of peoples from all over the world, coming from varied traditions, built on the idea that all men(male or female) are created equal and endowed with unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Freedom to believe in any and all personal gods is embedded in the law. A secular society, one nation of laws, under god, that is a trusted authority, even for the atheist. Regards, TAR2 When one turns to God (objective reality) for support, that might include the community of humans with which he/she associates. Be that a church community, the scientific community, the neighborhood, or the legal entity with which he/she communes.

john5746, Postmoderism. Thanks for the link. Caused me to look up postmoderism. I will have to reevaluate my own thinking, regarding my reasons for being an Atheist. Seeems I have been having sort of postmodern thoughts myself. Not sure yet what that might do to ydoaPs thesis, either. Maybe, in general, skeptics seem to look to their own authority, when looking for authority to look toward. Whether this is reasonable or not.... Regards, TAR2

Accept or lean toward: theism 70 / 101 (69.3%) Accept or lean toward: atheism 20 / 101 (19.8%) Other 11 / 101 (10.9%) but if you look at the faculty teaching philosophy of religion, and those holding a PhD in the field you get these results Bottom line, from my perspective is that it is very likely that the more closely you inspect reality, and the more you learn about it, the less likely you are to believe in gods or a god...unless it is the nature of God that you are investigating. and if you would run the same poll at a renown Buddist place of higher learning you might find quite different numbers. So it seems to depend quite strongly on what it is that is being taught in your classes, whether education is a causitive factor in the belief or disbelief in God. As to analytic abilities, and intelligence being a causative factor, I would just retreat to personal experience and anecdotal evidence and refer to my rather bright, mathematically degreed, teacher, deceased, Jesus loving, Mom. But I will agree, that education very strongly tends to dismiss false gods from ones thinking. And agree that the more intelligent you are, the less likely it is that you will believe in the god or gods, prepared for mass consumption, by the priests of religion. Still leaves the god of Einstein and PeterJ, TAR and atheists like me, to consider. and consider that super intelligent people, often are seen by the rest of the world, as being a bit bonkers (I was not implying I am any where close to super intelligent, I am just a bit down the right hand slope of the distribution. I am viewed as being just a bit bonkers, with no excuse)

ydoaPs, No, my thinking was good. If the findings are true, they will remain true, and those truths will reveal themselves in the facts as they are experience by everybody, in the general unfolding of 6.5 billion lives. My knowing of those particular findings is not going to change the facts. Therefore I choose rather, to take a nap. If a peice of information vital to your argument is lacking in your post and links, it is not my fault. I need not search the world for evidence important to your argument. That is your job to present. Regards, The snoozer.

Which trend are you speaking of. That the recognition of the fairly important nature of religion increases with education? ydoaPs, Don't call me dude. I hate being called Dude. TAR will do. And what if my local town library has not paid its subscription to the repository you would have me access? Regards, TAR if I have to pay to know...that would add another wrinkle to your argument. And add another aspect to mine. Having a personal god with whom you commune, comes without a charge. So would the trends suggest that if one where to poll 100 folks with post post doctorate education about 49 would think religion was very important, 29 would think it somewhat important, and 22 would think it not very important? Still would leave 78 highly trained, intelligent, educated folks believing that religion had some importance.

Gentleman, I don't think I am missing your point. I am exploring the implications of it. If education and critical thinking are poisonous to the acceptance of religious ideas then it would mean that the smartest and the most educated are the least likely to accept religious ideas. The correlary would be that the stupidest and least educated are the most likely to accept religious ideas. Then there becomes the impossible questions of how would an educated and brilliant person be able to transfer their non-acceptance to a person of less intelligence and education, and how would a stupid and uneducated person be able to transfer their acceptance to a person of greater intelligence and education. Your thesis is unworkable. Generally speaking. And opens up some questions of who then is teaching lies and who is teaching truth to the uneducated. And what truth might it be that is available only to the most intelligent and well educated, that is unreachable by everybody else. Plus, I was taking Robitussin at the time of my last post, and my gag reflex may have been artifically comprimised. Regards, TAR2 (meaning, I was unable to choke on my own words, at the time)

ydoaPs, Well then what is your take away? That religion is the opiate of the masses, inflicted upon them by elites that know better? I have real problems with people more intelligent than I am, telling me how to be and how to think. I don't particularly like being in a position, where they could know a way to manipulate and fool me, and I would have no way of knowing when they were being true to me, and when they were fooling me, for their own purposes. Evendenty, if your thesis is correct, such a condition is a real and present one. The unanalytical through lack of gray matter are doing it wrong, and those with sufficient enough grey matter are doing it right. "Players and pawns" would be the best description of human society. Little fish getting eaten by bigger fish, and those big fish getting eaten by bigger ones. Person able to bend the largest group of people to their will, wins. Suggests a reason to believe in conspiricy theories, secret societies, and all sorts of groups and individuals out to dupe you. People with 180 IQs only have a handful of people to be cautious of in this regard. I have many many millions some have hundreds of millions, some others have billions. Half the population of the planet has the other half to worry about in this regard. Sort of handy to imagine being personal friends with the most intelligent being, the biggest fish there is, the master duper, the one that cannot be fooled, the ultimate judge, the one that provides, and takes away even the life of the greatest man (or woman), Perhaps belief in god is not required for some, for purposes of equalization. Perhaps it is required for many for this purpose. And in this regard, it is not a lie, because even the most intelligent among us is mortal and beholding to a greater power. Because even she, can not fool the universe. She can not bend the thing to her will, and she will, one day, submit to its. In this regard, it is not false to consider that we are all created equal, in the eyes of the lord. Regards, TAR2 As you are paranoid if you think you are being followed, unless you are being followed. So you are delusional if you believe in a creator, unless you have been created.