================= LKH How '' mighty'' convenient to simply blame the Lord for all; laziness/bad human decisions, and ignore personal responsibility. Like as you quoted above''6 days shalt thou labor..; some people starve because they will not eat beef like India. No such thing as a sacred cow in Bible; theyre kosher
So you blame the starving people for their plight? That is really an ignorant thing to say. Most people starve because god does not see fit to give them a few drops of rain. Your version of god does control the rain does he not?
Proof #24 - Ask why religion causes so many problems If God were to exist, wouldn't you expect there to be a huge benefit to those who follow and obey him? Why, instead, do we see the opposite? For example, there is growing evidence that the delusion of religion causes significant social dysfunction. Statistical research is revealing the problems that go with religion. For example, a recent article in the Journal of Religion and Society points out that religion is correlated to the significant social difficulties that we can see in America: In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion in the prosperous democracies (Figures 1-9).http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html The most theistic prosperous democracy, the U.S., is exceptional, but not in the manner Franklin predicted. The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developed democracies, sometimes spectacularly so, and almost always scores poorly. The view of the U.S. as a âshining city on the hillâ to the rest of the world is falsified when it comes to basic measures of societal health. [ref] The prevailing view is that religion is harmless even if it is delusional. That turns out not to be the case. America is the most religious country of those studied in the developed world. America also has the biggest problems in terms of things like homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion. This article by Sam Harris puts it this way: http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/200512_an_atheist_manifesto/ While most Americans believe that getting rid of religion is an impossible goal, much of the developed world has already accomplished it. Any account of a âgod geneâ that causes the majority of Americans to helplessly organize their lives around ancient works of religious fiction must explain why so many inhabitants of other First World societies apparently lack such a gene. The level of atheism throughout the rest of the developed world refutes any argument that religion is somehow a moral necessity. Countries like Norway, Iceland, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdom are among the least religious societies on Earth. According to the United Nationsâ Human Development Report (2005) they are also the healthiest, as indicated by measures of life expectancy, adult literacy, per capita income, educational attainment, gender equality, homicide rate and infant mortality. Conversely, the 50 nations now ranked lowest in terms of human development are unwaveringly religious. Other analyses paint the same picture: The United States is unique among wealthy democracies in its level of religious literalism and opposition to evolutionary theory; it is also uniquely beleaguered by high rates of homicide, abortion, teen pregnancy, STD infection and infant mortality. The same comparison holds true within the United States itself: Southern and Midwestern states, characterized by the highest levels of religious superstition and hostility to evolutionary theory, are especially plagued by the above indicators of societal dysfunction, while the comparatively secular states of the Northeast conform to European norms. Of course, correlational data of this sort do not resolve questions of causality--belief in God may lead to societal dysfunction; societal dysfunction may foster a belief in God; each factor may enable the other; or both may spring from some deeper source of mischief. Leaving aside the issue of cause and effect, these facts prove that atheism is perfectly compatible with the basic aspirations of a civil society; they also prove, conclusively, that religious faith does nothing to ensure a societyâs health. Countries with high levels of atheism also are the most charitable in terms of giving foreign aid to the developing world. The dubious link between Christian literalism and Christian values is also belied by other indices of charity. Consider the ratio in salaries between top-tier CEOs and their average employee: in Britain it is 24 to 1; France 15 to 1; Sweden 13 to 1; in the United States, where 83% of the population believes that Jesus literally rose from the dead, it is 475 to 1. Many a camel, it would seem, expects to squeeze easily through the eye of a needle. In other words, religion is harmful, not helpful. The reason is because God is imaginary and religious delusion is hurting all of us.
Proof #24 is one of your more interesting posts. But at it's core is an apples to oranges comparision. You're comparing a decidedly capitialist nation with those that are veritably socialist ones. Then, the conclusion is drawn that it somehow must be a function of religion that there are many disparities? That makes for an improper comparision and ultimately is illogical. Capitalism, at its core, believe it or not, flies in the face of Christianity. It is contradictory to the message of Christ. Christianity is actually closest to socialism and libertarianism but on some levels communism(economically speaking as in having all things in common. Giving to every man as he has need. All one in Christ). But then again, America is not a theocracy. So here you have a unique situation where the beliefs of the majority of its citizens are at odds with the economic foundation of the country. What is more, politically it is at odds with Christianity. There's nothing Christian about going to war. Socially, America is at odds with Christianity. There's nothing Christian about oppression of any group. What business do Christians have enforcing anti-abortion? Or prohibiting Gays from getting married? Or preventing evolution from being taught? There's no Christian mandate that says that Christians are to legislate morality. None. And there's nothing Christian about pre-marital sex which may lead to a situation of having an unwanted or ill-timed pregnancy. There's nothing Christian about crime and violence. In any event, America, while claiming to be founded on Christian principles, is hypocritical on that front. So really then, what meaningful comparison can be made about its level of religiousity versus other countries? There are times the Europeans act in a far more "Christian" manner than America does. And yet Americans bash them and call them "pansies" for it. Weird no? What's funny is that many if not all of the European countries you cited were founded on Christian principles much like America. Though I argue that democracy is mostly derived from the Greeks because Christianity is not a democracy. You can't use such terms with Christianity because Christianity is without government inspite of the way the Roman Catholics would like to have it. But even here, with the RC, it's a dictatorship. No, true Christianity, as laid out in the bible, at most has guides and teachers but no authority except Christ. And what does Christ's authority tell the Christian about how to live in the world with those who are not Christian? Love them. Do good to them. Live at peace. Etc. But there is not one jot in there that mandates the enforcement of christian beliefs upon a multitude or even an individual. So in the end, you're left with only comparing the differences between the economic foundations of these countries and the social ills or triumphs of each respective system.
Proof #25 - Understand evolution and abiogenesis Recently there has been a remarkable change in the Christian community: Many members of the Christian faith are embracing evolution. For example, there is this article: At Churches Nationwide, Good Words for Evolution: "On the 197th birthday of Charles Darwin, ministers at several hundred churches around the country preached yesterday against recent efforts to undermine the theory of evolution, asserting that the opposition many Christians say exists between science and faith is false. At St. Dunstan's Episcopal Church, a small contemporary structure among the pricey homes of north Atlanta, the Rev. Patricia Templeton told the 85 worshipers gathered yesterday, 'A faith that requires you to close your mind in order to believe is not much of a faith at all....' At the Evanston Mennonite Church, Susan Fisher Miller, 48, an editor and English professor, said, 'I completely accept and affirm the view of God as creator, but I accommodate evolution within that.'" And this letter, signed by more than 10,000 clergy members: An Open Letter Concerning Religion and Science: "...We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as âone theory among othersâ is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children..." The interesting thing to understand is that when you accept evolution, what you are automatically doing is rejecting the concept of a soul. Here is why: As soon as you accept that evolution is true, you also accept that the creation story in the Bible is false. It is pure mythology. The concept of the "soul", which comes from the same book, is exactly the same sort of mythology. Simply think through the logic. What the theory of evolution says is that every living thing on this planet has evolved through a completely natural process. Every species that we see today is derived from simple, single-cell organisms over the course of hundreds of millions of years. In other words, there was no supernatural creation process for humans as described in the Bible's book of Genesis. As you think about this, what you will realize is that evolved beings have no souls. Human beings are no different from any other animal, insect, plant or bacteria in the way that we have evolved. In the same way that every other living thing on planet Earth is soul-less, humans are soul-less. The whole notion of a soul is a figment of human imagination. This makes complete sense. The biochemistry of life powers evolution. That biochemistry is amazing and complex, but it is nothing more than a set of soul-less chemical reactions. When the chemical reactions cease, you die. There is no "soul" mixed in with the chemicals. Where did the first cell come from? Many believers will argue that God magically created the first living cell. This, of course, is silly. The scientific principle that describes the origin of life is called abiogenesis. In the same way that there is no supernatural being involved in evolution, there is no supernatural being involved in abiogenesis. Both the creation of life and the evolution of species are completely natural processes. There is no "supreme being" in heaven who reached down to create life on Earth or human beings. Nor is that being answering prayers. There is no soul. There is no everlasting life. Science tells us all of these things with complete clarity. God is imaginary.
Obviously you didn't read the article he quoted. It was not simply comparing social ills in each country. It showed a strong correlation between religious beliefs and social ills. For example, if you plot the number of teenage abortions as a function of percentage of population who go to church every week, you find a nice linear correlation. Likewise a similar correlation exists between sexually transmitted diseases and percentage of church goers. Note that although the US stands out as a strong extreme in both cases, it is not being compared alone against the Europian countries. Even excluding the US, these correlations are still valid, i.e., the more people go to church, the more prevailant sexually transmitted diseases and more teenage abortions, among those "socialist" European countries. Draw any conclusions you like, but the facts are there. My conclusion is that it's not necessarily the fault of the religion, but definitely the fault of the Church - their adament opposition to sex education in schools, for example.
LOL. I didn't read it? Why would you draw that conclusion? IF you look at figures one through nine, you will see that the crux of the examination is the US versus other 1st world countries many of which are nearly socialist. Don't think that the general socialist attitude doesn't affect the ideology of those who live by it. Likewise for our laissez-faire capitalism. On top of that, most Christians in America don't really take their religion seriously. It's a cultural, familial thing. While many go to church, they don't read and study their bibles. Church is really a social gathering/ community center. Not a place where theology is really taught. Most church goers I know, don't know some of the basic tenets of Christianity. But the poll shows that's obvious in that the so called American Christians are living as anything but Christians. Hey, just look at the Christian right in this country all ready to support war when Jesus himself taught of pacificity and meekness. Are you going to tell me that Christianity as laid out in the bible, if followed, invariably leads to the social ills mentioned in article and LKH's post? Anyway, I'd say you'd have a point if and only if the poll grouped all theists in the western world (1st world) against non-theists. Then we'd have a better understanding of where to look and see if the impetus of these social ills is a matter of theistic verve or socio-economics. Hey, I've seen polls that show atheists as generally unhappy people who have murderous or rebellious tendicies. Yet most of the atheists I know are about as well adjusted as the next guy. Oh yeah, and those studies done cite communist atrocities to prove their point. See how silly that is? Look, when you have an axe to grind, you WILL bias your "findings" to suit your agenda.
One other thing Mr. Bond, The study simply denotes America as generally religious: (Majority of population goes to church, believes in God, take bible literally) Then it takes a statistic like murders/100,000 in population and tries to correlate that with America's religiousity. So how many of those who absolutely believe in God, take bible literally, go to church regularly are responsible for those murders? See what I mean? It's a useless study unless that particular fact is fleshed out. And since infant morality rates are high in poor countries, wouldn't you think the mortality rates of those in America is a function of poverty since many do not have adequate access to health care? That study has been done. Clearly nothing to do with religion. On life expenctancy, many studies look at it as a function of diet and exercise (among other socio-economic things). Americans have been considered recently as fatsoes as compared to their European counterparts. Glutonny is a sin in christianity. So can't be Christianity driving to over/poor eating, couch potatoeing. But on STD transmission rates, well, the RCC as you already pointed out, is against contraception. Then there's the denial among Christian youth that Christians can be a "dirty" as non-Christians so why bother with contraception. And sex talk seems a taboo among American Christians and their puritanical culture. But Christianity speaks of abstinance before marriage with fornication a sin. So you can't blame Christianity. The study is junk science. I find it has some similarities to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and like thinking unwarrantedly trying to blame a group for some social ills.
If you look at the horizontal axes of all the figures, you see captions like "Absolutely believe in God," "Take Bible literally," "Attend religious services at least several times a month," "Pray at least several times a month," and "agnostics and atheists." When there is correlation, very often there is a reason. I proposed one possible reason (that Church leaders' opposition to sex education may lead to higher rates of STD and teenage abortion). If you think there are other reasons then please propose them. The correlation is there. There may be simple explanations. Or there may not be.
1st thing's first: Correlation does not equal causation. Once you understand that, you will begin to understand the flaws of this study and why it can't be relied on for anything other than either entertainment or to help support a bias against religion in general. And in statistics, this would be a logical fallacy. Cum hoc ergo propter hoc. "With this, therefore because of this." As an example of this fallacy: Ice-cream sales are strongly correlated with crime rates. Therefore, higher ice-cream sales cause crime. It's just a coincidence that ice cream sales correlate with crime. But we know that it's impossible for ice cream sales to cause crime. Likewise, as in that study: High levels of religiousity correlated with high degree of social ills. Therefore religion leads to social ills. Obviously such a thing is silly considering that everyone can plainly see that the religion in question speaks and is codified against those ills. And those who belong to that religion but commit acts that are against the religion are hypocrits. (might want to examine what if anything would drive some to become hypocrits. Is the religion's standards too high?) But one major difference between the country with the highest level of social ills versus the others is the socio-economics. We can't right away say that Capitalism leads to these social ills. That would be a logical fallacy. But given capitalism's competitive, dog-eat-dog nature, we can reasonable assume that it might be somewhere we'd like to look into. Second thing: It is impossible to prove that a causal relationship exists between two (or more) variables solely through statistical analysis. Where are the tests? Where is the regression analysis to "work out the bugs?" In fact, the article says this: See #12 under Procedures and Primary Data Sources. A key element of statistical analysis skipped?! Ok, so the author(s) are saying, well, nothing yet. The study says nothing, nor proves anything. And they admit this in the above either purposefully or inadvertently. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt since it is subtitled "a first look." Third thing: Where's the counterfactual? Causation is found by observing the counterfactual. For example: A dog of a certain breed bites a mailman because they wear a shade of blue. (derived from some observation and then formulated a correlation.) To prove this correlation and that being a mailman who wears blue is the cause of a dog biting, one would have to observe the counterfactual which is that a dog of a certain breed will not bite a mailman who doesn't wear any shade of blue. Can you think of the counterfactual to the article's biased correlations? They didn't bother because they know who the article will attract.