John Cuthber

You keep saying that, and it keeps not being true I didn't just argue it, I cited published references and a report of a court report. But even then I didn't say it was the sole factor. I already pointed that out when I said Not according to Christ, (as reported by Matthew in the NT) it doesn't. And I already pointed that out. It depends on your interpretation of this

What I have said is that I agree that religion sometimes does good things. I have also said that the Bible tells its followers that they should kill people. I pointed out that religious interference in vaccination programs leads to the deaths of children. I pointed out that those deaths upset people and that's proof that people's religious belief causes effects on others. What bits of that were refuted?

Define "heathen religions"

You forgot to answer the question. What irony?

What Irony? You keep banging on about the fact that religion sometimes manages positive things. I have repeatedly acknowledged that fact. You keep on repeating it anyway. Don't you realise it's like saying "the Kray twins were nice to their mother so they are OK- we should let them off multiple counts of murder"?

I'm not. But you keep saying the same thing and I just pointed out that I had replied to it lots of times. It doesn't seem to have worked, because you said the same thing again. You don't seem to understand that I only need to find one case where religion led to the death of a child in order to show that other people's religion does affect you. I already did that. I think it was this case. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2015/05/jehovahs-witness-parents-refuse-life-saving-treatment-for-son/ but you seem to have ignored it- and only think I cited the other paper about vaccinations. If someone asks what is 2+2? and you say 4, you don't expect them to argue that there are an infinite number of numbers, and you have cherry picked an answer. If you say "what's the problem with religion?" and I say- it sometimes encourages people to commit crime, it isn't cherry picking to leave out any other aspects of it. It's just answering the point raised.

Not sure but I suspect that, if the mean free path is bigger than the wavelength it's not clear how you can have a "wave"

How far have you got?

No, that's 3 countries worth of examples. I know

I don't understand how you can read this "Religious opposition by Muslim fundamentalists is a major factor in the failure of immunization programs against polio in Nigeria (2), Pakistan (3) and Afghanistan (4). This religious conflict in the tribal areas of Pakistan is one of the biggest hindrances to effective polio vaccination." and say

The problem itself is religion deliberately getting in the way of progress. That's hardly "incidental". I take it you have accepted that you were wrong to say other people's religion doesn't affect you.

The algorithm here is, I think, the one they taught my dad many years ago. http://www.homeschoolmath.net/teaching/square-root-algorithm.php I never learned, or used it, but it's interesting to look at.

I'm puzzled that you are unaware of the link. People who oppose vaccinations against one generally oppose vaccinations against the other. Well, since I didn't define "your area" and diseases can get round the world these days by air travel, yes- those people in Africa and India will do as examples. You said it didn't affect you at all. Have you recognised that you were mistaken about that? Other people's religion leads to kids dying needlessly and that affects you -at least to some detectable extent.

I didn't say "next door" neighbours. Are you certain that none of the antivaxers in your area are religiously motivated? Perhaps more importantly: Are you really totally unconcerned with those poor kids dying, because they are in Africa? Doesn't it trouble you at all?

Yes it is even if you claim it isn't in CAPITALS. There is documentary evidence to show that it is. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2727330/ You keep saying it isn't; in spite of the evidence that it is, and then you call me irrational... He was driven by greed. I never said that all bad things were caused by religion. What I said was that many of them are caused, or helped by the lack of rationality which religion preaches.

Again, how fortunate that I didn't clam that. What I said was that religion legitimises irrational behaviour. Saying that we don't need experts isn't rational. How did a senior politician get away with it? Part of the answer is that facts have lost respectability and part of the reason for that is religion.

Yes it does. It has you taking your shoes off at airports. It has your neighbour's kids who are immune deficient (and can't be vaccinated) dying from measles because other people didn't vaccinate their healthy kids and maintain herd immunity. And again, I didn't say it had to be. But it often is. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2727330/ so you can't say it's "nothing" to do with religion. Really, I'm not the one pretending that I'm isolated from the rest of the world. I'm not seeking to convince people that I'm unaffected by the beliefs of others.

It's true that nobody is totally logical. I can't logically justify my preference for roast lamb over roast beef. But I can analyse this illogical behaviour and conclude that it has practically no effect on anyone but me (and not much effect on me) And I can contrast that with the anti-vaxers's belief which does affect others. It kills children. If the only difference that religion made was that people went to a building with a pointy roof and sang songs on a Sunday morning then there wouldn't be any issue here. But, and this brings us back to the topic of the thread, religion sticks it's oar into things where it has no place. Religion shouldn't dictate things that matter. Those things should be decided rationally- not by a misinterpreted record of a 4000 year old goat herder's creation myth. (and in fairness to DimReeper's comments, it shouldn't be decided by a political power grab by the rich) I didn't say it was. I said that religion is one big source of irrational behaviour that we would be better off without. There are lots of sources, but religion is portrayed and perceived as authoritative, which makes it particularly pernicious.

I already answered that about a dozen times. It leads people down the path of illogicality. That's what gets us racism, Trump, and Michael Gove saying "I think the people have had enough of experts" followed by a disastrous Brexit. It leads to kids dying because their parents believe nonsense All these are part of the same lack of understanding that reality is real. I'm not sure I ever believed that I had a soul separate from "me". So I have lived my adult life like this without needing the "training" which you say is necessary. I contend that you are mistaken, and I cite myself as a counter-example.

I would teach Koti arithmetic and how to estimate things. Not sure what I'd do after that.

Fine. Now, given that the record shows that the Bible contradicts itself something like 400 time, but some people still think it's literally true... It's a long time ago that I studied pharmacology; one aspect of that is the use of drugs to address psychosis. To do that you need to define what psychosis is. It's not, for example, a mental heath problem if you are sad because your spouse just died. But it is a problem if you are still unable to live your life because of the grief of the death of a spouse ten years ago. And the definition given then was that it's psychotic to believe something (for example that you are Napoleon) when most people accept that the belief isn't supported by- or is contradicted by- the evidence. Somewhere along the line, you have to accept that most religions lack rationality. As I said earlier; there's the bit about believing the Book or the evidence. Only one of those options is rational. No prizes for guessing which side religion is on.

Who said rationality was normal? And I asked before (repeatedly) "What's left?"

Believing stuff with no evidence brings their rationality into question. That sort of thing gets us nowhere. I could say that I interpreted that as you appearing to say that you like poking pigeons with pork sausages. The fact is that I didn't assert what you said I "seemed" to. I should have picked up on this one earlier. It would be if there was a "Book of being Black" that told people to commit serious crimes (like murdering gay men) in the same way that there's "Book of being Christian" which does tell people to commit crimes like that. Someone, and it may have been you, asked earlier about how we might get rid of religion. You seem to have answered the question; as long as we explain that religion is also subject to critical thinking- rather than somehow exempt as it usually claims.

Looks like I was pretty close. Wouldn't it be better to tackle anti-rationalism as a whole, rather than just antivaxers? That's nice; but I didn't assert that. I asserted that faith in irrational things is correlated with faith in other irrational things. Care to try again with less strawmanning?

It's a fair cop. Incidentally, if I post this. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/despite-measles-outbreak-anti-vaccine-activists-in-minnesota-refuse-to-back-down/2017/08/21/886cca3e-820a-11e7-ab27-1a21a8e006ab_story.html?tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.fa409111ccd4 people will tell me that not all anti vaxers are religious. Tue, but they are all part of the same group that feed off eachother's irrationality. (autocorrect messed that up)