I find this statement curious (myths, perspective, miracles, Jesus)
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That is total balderdash!. Why do you say such things! Spiritual nourishment is simply feeding one's spiritual side, of which is something you atheists have no clue.
Spiritual = emotional.
Atheists do experience emotions. As a former evangelical/conservative Christian, I am well aware that religious beliefs have real psychological effects (both positive and negative).
And, ImissThe90's, if it works it isn't a placebo--is it?
Placebo Effect- a beneficial effect, produced by a placebo drug or treatment, that cannot be attributed to the properties of the placebo itself, and must therefore be due to the patient's belief in that treatment.
Here is an example of "lack of nourishment" from this thread. Someone said people in hospitals are helpless (post 36). That sounds like people can not be helped, that no one can give help or receive help, that they are beyond help. That causes harm when we tell others that and when we tell ourselves that. It is a grim cruel dark sad example of withholding nourishment and comfort.
Ahh, another post where you cherry pick my post! Fantastic!
I was specifically referring to those who are praying for loved ones, as if it were helping. I was not referring to EVERYONE in hospitals. I have already made note that maybe I did not explain what I meant well enough, but maybe now you can stop misrepresenting it?
I really question this sort of statement. I have a degree in Psychology and have retired from 15 years as a Social Worker who dealt with mentally ill and delusional people-note my user name and look up what 5150 refers to.
Here is a bit of insight I gained over the years. Normal is what most people are. Regardless of what a small minority might think or believe. 90%+ of people on the planet believe in the spiritual world, gods or God. To call us delusional is the same as the thinking of a mentally ill person who believes he or she is fine and everybody else is nuts. We are normal. The under 10% who think otherwise should think twice before calling us normal people delusional.
Thank You.
Wow, nice usage of the Appeal to Popularity fallacy.
That's like saying that if, for some bizarre reason, 90% of the human population believed they were Napoleon, we must accept each and every one of those claims as Truth and Fact because Napoleon believers are the majority and, therefore, "normal."
Sorry, but as a trained psychologist you should have found fault with your argument long before you clicked that "reply" button.
Now, I'm not going to fo so far as to say that every believer is mentally dysfunctional, but using such a flagrant fallacy is just ... well ... tsk, tsk. Obviously there is a healthy brain and a non-healthy brain; if 90% of people have a non-healthy brain, that doesn't mean the brain is healthy. If 90% of people had cancer ... well, I'm sure you get the point.
MOST religious beliefs, in my estimation, simply comes from brainwashing and enculturation starting at a young age and not necessarily due to mental disorders. Yet it *must* be said that religion is not normal behavior.
Why?
Because in nearly every other aspect of our lives, our beliefs and thus our decisions are based on evidence. Unfortunately, people, who are otherwise rational and clear-headed, suddenly throw logic and our understanding of reality right out the window in favor of "faith-based" non-evidential beliefs. What's worse is that no other belief paradigm, no, not even politics, carries the same degree of fanaticism and irrational certitude as religion. Most believers would be inclined to think the chair they're currently sitting in is less real than their gods despite the evidence. This is why someone would walk into a concert filled with children and blow themselves up -- or why someone who would otherwise fight for freedom would suddenly opt to be the oppressor and the subjugator if this group or that group is daring to flout religious edicts.
Religion *does* in fact change one's behavior. It *does* in fact cause some people to do completely insane and anti-social acts. Simply believing that everyone who does not bend their knees to Jesus will not only burn in Hell for eternity, but deserve to burn in Hell for eternity, is just but one example. If someone believed such a thing for any other reason than religion, that person would almost certainly be declared mentally imbalanced. Anyone who has ever said, "They send themselves to Hell" is trying desperately to rationalize a belief they KNOW is immoral, anti-social, and just plain crazy.
Naturally, the same can be said about Islam and this belief that everyone who doesn't immediately convert to Islam deserves to die. That's what ISIS claims, by the way. They released a small list of reasons why they are committing acts of terror against the West and the number one reason was because we aren't Muslims. Are you going to tell me that ISIS somehow managed to accumulate tens of thousands of certifiably crazy and psychotic people? Or perhaps religion does have a deleterious effect on otherwise rational thought patterns.
After all, in every other facet of our lives, we don't make decisions based on "faith" unless we absolutely have to (like placing our faith in the airline pilot to get us back on the ground without crashing). And no, don't hand me any guff about "love" and whatnot. Even there, we base our beliefs on evidence. We certain can tell whether or not someone loves us based on their behaviors -- and that amounts to evidence. Only with religion do we accept something as being 100% infallibly true without so much as a scrap of good evidence.
Going back to the "what is normal" argument, I'm sure you know: Every childhood is "normal" to the child who lives it. The same can be said of religion: Every religion is normal to the people who believe in it.
Even when it isn't.
Unfortunately, most people can't step outside of their own culture to see that. One of the reasons why America is such an absurdly religious nation is because the vast majority of Americans will never step foot outside of their own country much less truly immerse themselves in a non-Western culture. If you could, then you'd have a much better understanding of why religion, no matter which one you look at, is always absurd ... except for the religion YOU believe in. Of course, those on the other side of the religious divide think you are the crazy one for believing in Jesus's divinity, for instance.
Since the vast majority of the world's population does NOT believe in the divinity of Jesus, that, by your own argument, would make Christianity abnormal. Yet you still believe in it anyway. In fact, Christians will take that abnormality concerning the Christian faith and turn it into a strength! They'll say that it is the very abnormality that proves the Truth of the Christian religion! Yeah ... that just goes to show you that your definition of "normal" is simplistic at best, disingenuous at worst.
No, I don't think religion itself is a mental disorder. However, I do believe that religion can, and often does, rewire the brain to cause mental disorders. Thus an otherwise normal and healthy brain can become suffocated by and corrupted from these beliefs. Unfortunately, we as children are so inundated by Bible stories, references to "God" everywhere, people praying, churches on every other street corner, and television preachers that most of us never bother questioning the reality of God or the Truth of Christianity. We just accept it as true because no one else around us ever questions it. Doubts, skepticism, and those burning questions about religion are usually squelched by the lack of doubt and skepticism from society.
Thus religion becomes "normalized" -- even when it's not. If religion were at all "normal" and true, believers wouldn't need to come up with so many ridiculous and completely illogical rationalizations and excuses for what they believe in ... we wouldn't even *need* Christian apologists to twist reality in order to fit the Bible when the Bible should instead fit reality.
I think not. One problem is that you think you can just say I have poor reading comprehension (thanks for the insult) and everyone will simply believe you. However, I not only have average or better reading comprehension, but the ability to copy and paste posts six and 18 for your perusal.
Post six:
Post 18:
So maat, please tell me and our gentle readers where a poster said atheists are delusional? In case you don't understand why part of post 18 is italicized, it is an atheist quoting a Jehovah Witness writing.
Sorry. You need to do your homework.
It is the atheist fantasy that one day religion will go poof and all will be well. Ain't gonna happen. Religion is not going to go poof, and the world would be a far more dangerous place if it did. Atheists will always be a tiny segment squawking from the fringe because atheism is the ism that is badly out of touch with the reality in which the vast majority of humans live and always have lived
"atheism is the ism that is badly out of touch with reality"
I take this statement as asserting delusional. And again, my statement was in general and not limited to this thread. I think you are delusional, I'm sure I could scan through your post elsewhere and find where you have stated or insinuated likewise, but again, your witch hunt is not worth my time.
Although there have been Placebo studies that demonstrate that people just get better from having something to do, even if they know its fake.
Even if you tell them it had been a placebo, a significant number of people will only continue to stay well if they continue taking the placebo, although they already know it's just a sugar pill or some such rather ineffectual thing.
Yes. I have heard of that interesting phenomenon.
My hypothesis: the people who get better from a placebo even when they know it's a placebo have the ability to "believe what they know ain't so" with respect to religion. Those people can dabble in religion and get a real psychological benefit from it, without taking it too seriously and going off the deep end. My grandparents were that way. Based on conversations with them, I could tell that (deep down) they knew it was all BS. They really weren't all that worried about hellfire and damnation or saving people from God's wrath, etc. But nonetheless they felt it helped them in their lives, in the sense that a generic "faith" was helpful.
Then there are people like me who don't have the ability to "believe what they know ain't so." We don't have the ability to compartmentalize. We become either atheists or religious fanatics.
Atheists will always be a tiny segment squawking from the fringe because atheism is the ism that is badly out of touch with the reality in which the vast majority of humans live and always have lived.
Naturally, if you're religious, you're going to claim that religion will always be with us. I tend to agree, it will be.
However, where I think you're deadbang wrong is this notion that atheists will *always* be "squawking from the fringe."
Over time, as our knowledge of the universe grows, religion will diminish. Where you will always find religion will be those places where people are poorly educated, often impoverished, and culturally isolated. Unfortunately, there will always be that segment of the population.
So while, sure, there will always be those clinging desperately to irrational and "faith-based realities" (I use the term "realities" very loosely), atheism, agnosticism, and the non-religious will continue to grow. We may never obtain a majority among the global population, but we will not "always be a tiny segment" either.
It goes without saying that believers hope that atheism will always remain a small minority, but between the harsh actions of fundamentalists within both major world religions as well as an ever-increasing body of scientific knowledge the future will eventually put a cork in much of religion.
Spiritualism, on the other hand, is likely to increase, but this would be spiritualism without the slavish devotion to ancient books and blind obedience to wicked gods -- gods that seem inordinately concerned with even the trivial, banal aspects of human life.
Quote:
Originally Posted by maat55
"atheism is the ism that is badly out of touch with reality"
Religion is an invented reality -- and even if every last man, woman, and child believed in a religion, it wouldn't make that reality any more true or any less invented.
It's always easy to dismiss those who are in the minority -- it's easy to feel "safe" when you have numbers on your side. But that's an illusory sense of security. Especially considering once you're done here defending ALL religions as being "reality," you'll go right back to doing precisely what you claim we atheists are doing: Squawking from the fringe.
Because no matter what religion you believe in, the majority of the world's population thinks you're wrong.
It is the atheist fantasy that one day religion will go poof and all will be well. Ain't gonna happen. Religion is not going to go poof, and the world would be a far more dangerous place if it did. Atheists will always be a tiny segment squawking from the fringe because atheism is the ism that is badly out of touch with the reality in which the vast majority of humans live and always have lived
"atheism is the ism that is badly out of touch with reality"
I take this statement as asserting delusional. And again, my statement was in general and not limited to this thread. I think you are delusional, I'm sure I could scan through your post elsewhere and find where you have stated or insinuated likewise, but again, your witch hunt is not worth my time.
Goldenrule would certainty approve your argument. And while you don't make his error of saying: "atheism will fail, therefore atheism is wrong." You and he have a point. There is a huge instinct to believe in gods. And maybe we will never get the majority vote over it.
But you know, we are making good progress on organized religion, and THAT is the game we are after, not god -belief itself. And note also that people believed in astrology for millennia, and many still do. It is a lucrative little earner still. But it is generally without credibility - or at least influence, and we atheists will be well content if Organized Religion is reduced to the same lack of social influence.
While I don't expect humanity to turn to pointy-eared Vulcans or Sindarin elves overnight, I wouldn't expect us to act a whole lot worse, and we may act better. I certainly do not believe for a moment that a humanist global worldview would make it much more dangerous, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a bit of clearing up of a few dangerous areas.
That is total balderdash!. Why do you say such things! Spiritual nourishment is simply feeding one's spiritual side, of which is something you atheists have no clue.
You really do need help comprehending posts.
I was referring specifically to Tzaph's pending response. She is an expert at evasion. (Which her succeeding posts proved yet again.)
And you've been around here long enough that if you'd paid the slightest attention, you'd know I am not an atheist. (Not that there's anything wrong....)
I have always been the worst at comprehending, I get something in my head while reading and I seem to turn it into something else, shamed myself so many times because I can't read. I guess some people are just that way.
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