Suicide Rate Now Highest in 50 Years, Way to Go, Atheists!! (believer, perspective)

[phetaroi]

Originally Posted by jeffbase40

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No, you complained right off the bat making the false claim that I ignore your posts. Then when I take a good bit of my valuable time to address your lengthy post, you are still rude and you follow up with an even more monstrous reply. I don't have the time or energy to go over it all now.

This is a perfect example of your hyperbole. I've seen nothing in anyone's posts that could approach being "monstrous".


This is the typical isolation tactic. Trying to make it seem like I am the only Christian on the planet with these viewpoints. I'm not. I don't care if you've met hundreds of Christians. I've met hundreds too who share my beliefs in God's Word. Not to mention it is simply intellectually dishonesty to even remotely claim that you know a person's character when you don't know anything about my personal life or experiences.

Once again, another falsehood. He hasn't said that, and in my case I have made it clear more than once that I place you in the right wing christian group.

Again, I can separate an internet forum from reality. You are nothing but a nickname to me, another voice vomiting vitriol against my faith. The only thing I hate is lies and sin. I don't hold hatred for people especially ones I don't even know personally. Again, you direct the conversation away from the topic into a character attack. LAME and PATHETIC. I will call you out on it every time. Stick to the topic with is suicide rate, not whether you think Jeffbase is a sorry human being.

Wow. That's some really good hyperbole -- "vomiting vitriol". You've outdone yourself. Did you get that out of the bible?



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Then you have to admit that at least opens the possibility that an increase in atheism will result in an increase in suicide. I firmly believe this is what is happening. Secularism and turning away from God is rotting out the heart of humanity leaving a coldness behind.

Oh, so now it's a "possibility", and yet the very title of your thread laid the blame right in the lap of atheists.

[Rafius]

Originally Posted by RosemaryT

If the Bible's message brings comfort and peace to its adherents, how is it harming you? Why are you so invested in talking people out of something that lifts their spirits and lightens their burdens?

How would you feel if, like Christians, atheists were trying to indoctrinate schoolchildren with nonsense disguised as 'science', or if they were constantly trying to influence governments to enact laws that were based on how atheists think we should all live? Wouldn't you fight it too. If Christians want to believe the nonsense that they do then they can. They just need to keep it to themselves. If they did that, we atheists would find better things to do than fighting the spread of wilful ignorance and superstition.

Originally Posted by LuminousTruth

Then why would Christians take pain medication?

...or fight so hard to stay alive.

[TRANSPONDER]

Originally Posted by Hannibal Flavius

Physical healing lol, so you are the one with the power of the Holy spirit?

Where were you when my sister died?

Jerusalem was a very small place with very few Christians and these Christians went from town to town healing every single person and no matter what they asked from God, they recieved.

We aren't speaking of a hundred people, not even 50 people, not even 30 people and yet they raised the dead.

Now here you are with a BILLION freaking Christians all claiming that they have the power of the Holy spirit and NOT ONE can do a single thing a handfull of disciples did when they had the holy spirit.......

Do you see the numbers?

One would think that out of a billion people, at least one would have the power of the Holy spirit, can you even name one?

That's actually a damn' good argument. It is also striking that the apologetcs seem to mutually destruct with one claiming that healing miracles happen all the time (but anecdotally) or excuses as to why they don't. If they did, it would be the focus of world medical attention, trying to found out how it was happening.

[monumentus]

Originally Posted by jeffbase40

I would imagine an atheist living with chronic pain might consider suicide. What's the point of going on, suffering to become worm food on a future day? Christians have the hope of physical healing and eternal pain free life.

Again "imagine" is the operative word here because once again all you are doing is coming up yourself with how you want atheists to behave, think and feel rather than actually listening to them tell you how they behave, think and feel.

However I can speak pretty directly to your question as I know many atheists and I know some of them living with chronic pain and other debilitating illnesses. And they simply have no issue or problem at all with finding reasons to suffer on rather than travel over to Dignitas to end it all.

For some of them it is the work and projects they are involved in. For others it is the joy of watching their Grandchildren grow up. For others it is there mere enjoyment of life itself - an enjoyment their suffering has failed to deny them of. And for one interesting case the sheer challenge of living in the face of pain is itself a motivator to go on. He has a wonderful "********* if you think you can beat me" attitude to his condition.

And those are just the answers from my tiny social circle. The atheist community as a whole is massively diverse and distributed in our world. You can expect their reasons for going on are as diverse and numerous as they are.

Originally Posted by jeffbase40

There is no pretending. You can disagree and not be rude and insulting about it. Look at some of your past quotes. These are your EXACT words: It's little snide comments like that which come off incredible condescending and arrogant. And completely uncalled for. You will never change my mind when you come at me like that. Rather, you only reinforce my negative perceptions of atheists.

And I stand by them as being entirely accurate. You see you have a false definition of "rude and insulting". You basically think it is anything you do not want to hear. I have a "call a spade a spade" rule when differentiating insult from fact. And both of the quotes you just offered from me here, I stand by as perfectly honest and defensible statements from me.

The _other_ statements you talked about _other_ people throwing at you (assuming they actually did) such as calling you mental or a pedophile - now _they_ are insults and rude. And the people who resort to that level of rhetoric do indeed deserve to feel shame for their actions. But you can take that up with them.

To be honest though I have no fear of "reinforcing your negative perception of atheists". As it is patently obvious you are on a campaign to do that yourself anyway regardless of what we do or do not say. This thread and its OP where you twist and mangle a single study into an anti atheist narrative that is in no way supported by anything in that study is proof positive that you are not an honest interlocutor on the subject of atheism. And you will be reinforcing your own world view in that regard no matter what anyone else does or does not do.

As for ignoring posts though - I can only repeat what I said already. If you go over all the posts I have written to you in the past you have ignored significantly more of them than you have replied to. That is a simple statistics of fact, nothing more. If you do not like that statistic then continue to do what you are now doing. Change it.

Originally Posted by jeffbase40

This is the typical isolation tactic. Trying to make it seem like I am the only Christian on the planet with these viewpoints. I'm not.

So once again you accuse me of a view point I never expressed. Is there a reason you require yourself to make that move so consistently? I think there is.

But no there is not a single word I have written that suggests you are the only one. Quite the opposite. I expressly and clearly described a continuum of Christians and I expressly and clearly described where I believe you fall on that continuum. In very simple and very clear English too. Yet here you are claiming my position is the _exact_ opposite of the one I actually expressed. For shame.

Secondly if you bother to read what I actually wrote again, my position is as much talking about whether you share your viewpoints with other Christians as it was describing how you represent those viewpoints. It is _that_ which I find more unique than what those actual view points are. And as I said you are more inline with members of Westboro in that regard than - say - all my peers who go to the local Catholic Church here in my home country.

Originally Posted by jeffbase40

Not to mention it is simply intellectually dishonesty to even remotely claim that you know a person's character when you don't know anything about my personal life or experiences.

Great - so now when you go back over my posts and realise that there is no post anywhere where I actually did that - you might get over yourself on that one. Because I have not done any such thing. I have only and solely been discussing how you represent yourself and your views on this forum. Nothing more. Nothing less. And there is nothing intellectually dishonest about _that_ you will notice.

Originally Posted by jeffbase40

Stick to the topic with is suicide rate, not whether you think Jeffbase is a sorry human being.

I think you are distorting reality here again. For someone who claims to only hate lies and sin - you certainly tell a lot of them. For example the post from me you are replying to spoke _heavily_ about the topic of the thread. Go read it again if you do not believe me.

Now this reply from you replied to _very little_ of that. You barely discuss the topic of the thread in this entire post _at all_.

So perhaps take your own advice rather than fling it at me - because of the two of us I am the only one who requires it. Because every time I actually do write about the topic of the thread - those are the _exact_ parts of my post you contrive to ignore and not reply to.

Originally Posted by jeffbase40

The studies concluded that non-religious people commit suicide more than religious. Again, you make it about me when in reality if the studies are bogus then the blame should be at the ones who spent money conducting such research without accounting for all the variables.

And once again you move to ignore what I said on this matter. Who is saying the "study is bogus"? I sure as hell did not. Perhaps you forget that I wrote - or as usual ignored it - "That does not undermine the value of those links however. They are good studies with good data that should be noticed - used - and progressed with further study. There is good material there. It is just that it is not supporting that _you_ want to pretend it is."

That is the exact opposite of calling the study Bogus. The only thing so far that has been Bogus is the claims you have been making off the back of the study. Right from the implications in the very title of the thread itself.

Originally Posted by jeffbase40

Do I need to keep providing evidence that you will continue to reject?

Except - for the 5th or 6th time now, I am actually losing count - I am not rejecting any of your evidence on this thread at all. I am rejecting the idea that the evidence is for what you are claiming it is.

You really do appear unable at this point to separate _your_ conclusions from the actual contents of your links. And every time I comment on the former you simply leap - as you do here - to pretending I was commenting on the latter.

Originally Posted by jeffbase40

Then you have to admit that at least opens the possibility that an increase in atheism will result in an increase in suicide. I firmly believe this is what is happening. Secularism and turning away from God is rotting out the heart of humanity leaving a coldness behind.

I do not have to "admit" it because I have already openly and clearly said it myself. The problem for your narrative is while I believe it can result in _an_ increase - I think it is going to be a relatively small increase to all the other things that are also increasing it.

You see no one - certainly not me - has been claiming atheism is not going to affect the rates at all. But atheists are a statistical minority in a huge population of people. It is your attempts to link the "all time high" narrative to atheism that is a crass bogus exercise in nonsense here that you are loath to admit to or let go of it seems.

You also leap too easily between Secularism and atheism as if they are somehow synonymous. They are not. At all. In fact most of the most vocal and activist secularists I know are devout Catholics. Secularism is a massively different thing to Atheism. And if you want to link higher suicide rates to Secularism now - rather than atheism - you are going to find that you are on even weaker ground with regards to evidence than you were with atheism.

A final problem for your narrative is that atheism is a minority - but a quickly growing minority. As such quite a lot of the time it is not atheism itself causing a problem with mental health and well being - but the period of transition. I firmly believe a _transition period_ from a heavily religious society to a more atheistic one is going to see mental health issues in the short term. Because transition is turmoil and turmoil is difficult. But that is not the same thing as atheism causing such issues _ at all _ even if you are desperate to spin the statistics that way.

So perhaps go look at the statistics on suicide in the atheist population in countries where atheism statistics have been relatively stable for a period of time. What you will find, I warrant, is that the suicide rates in that community are not much different to any other. Then maybe go look at statistics on atheist suicide in countries with diverse % population of atheists. I warrant you will find that suicide rates go up in relation to just how much of a minority atheists are. And as they become less of a minority so too do their suicide rates decline. Because as I said to you before - just like mental health issues in the homosexual community - much of them stem not from being homosexual at all. but how they are treated as a minority.

So really as I keep telling you - this need you have to uncover some neat little 1:1 explanation for suicide rates is simplistic to the point of comedy. It simply can not be done. It is a massively complex statistic with a massively diverse number of inputs and influences. It will not and likely never will fit into the neat little boxes you demand of it.

[monumentus]

Originally Posted by ShouldIMoveOrStayPut...?

If the crab example is an original work, Rosemary's got ya beat monumentus!

Hah yeah - I have to admit the tactic of "Dodge by analogy" is not one that has ever impressed me all that much.

[RosemaryT]

Originally Posted by Hannibal Flavius

Physical healing lol, so you are the one with the power of the Holy spirit?

Now here you are with a BILLION freaking Christians all claiming that they have the power of the Holy spirit and NOT ONE can do a single thing a handful of disciples did when they had the holy spirit.......

Do you see the numbers?

One would think that out of a billion people, at least one would have the power of the Holy spirit, can you even name one?

Spontaneous remission.

That's the phrase that doctors use when someone is "miraculously" healed of a life-threatening disease process. Physical healings through prayer are not uncommon, but they don't get much press, especially in circles that atheists frequent.

Recently, I read Dodie Osteen's book ("Healed of Cancer") and it's a remarkable account of her complete and permanent healing of Stage IV cancer. After being hospitalized for weeks, she was sent home to die in 1981, and spent six weeks focusing on nothing but the Bible's promises of healing and restoration.

The multiple tumors throughout Dodie's body dissolved, the cancer disappeared and she is now 85 years old and in excellent health.

That's one account and there are many, but Dodie's is well-documented.

As a tiny infant, I was hospitalized and after all medical hope was exhausted, my mother was shoved out of the hospital room, as I was in the "active dying phase" (multiple organ failure). She went home and summoned a church friend to pray with her through a very long night. I was restored to life through prayer.

Yes, these are anecdotes, but if spiritual healing is based on spiritual laws (which supersede human understanding), then a single healing demonstrated by spiritual laws means that it's something that is accessible to all.

Atheists probably don't hear a lot of those stories. That's the beauty part of being a "believer." We have hope, and that is a beautiful thing.

Y'all should get out more. Visit a church from time to time. You might hear some of these powerful stories. It sure beats thinking that everything is so hopeless and grim!

[monumentus]

Originally Posted by RosemaryT

Spontaneous remission. That's the phrase that doctors use when someone is "miraculously" healed of a life-threatening disease process. Physical healings through prayer are not uncommon, but they don't get much press, especially in circles that atheists frequent.

Well interestingly enough they did a study - which Jeff vaguely referenced earlier I think - into the effect of prayer on sick people.

They had 4 groups of people as I recall. All with the same medical condition. People who were prayed for and knew it - people who were prayed for and did not know it - people who were not prayed for but were told they were - and people who were prayed for but told they were not.

Ultimately when they looked at the results of recovery the people who thought they were being prayed for -regardless of whether they actually were - fared worse.

Which is interesting ethically. It basically means that if someone is sick and you tell them you intend to pray for them - you are in an ethical sense perpetuating a premeditated attack on their well being.

But yes cancers do go into remission for reasons we - alas - can not explain. There is little sign that the presence of religion, prayer or faith affects the overall figures in this. It is just a fact of our human biology and nothing "miraculous" about it really.

Originally Posted by RosemaryT

Atheists probably don't hear a lot of those stories.

Quite the contrary we hear about them pretty much as often as you do I warrant. Especially those of us who are on debating forums such as this where anecdotes of this nature are offered up often.

The snidery of "you should get out more" can easily be reversed though because we not only hear such stories - we do not only hear them in church. So for many of us we not only hear those stories - but maybe even more of them than you and from a greater diversity of sources than church goers in particular.

Originally Posted by RosemaryT

It sure beats thinking that everything is so hopeless and grim!

Who is it thinking that exactly? I certainly do not. And I have not seen anyone else on the thread express such a position except for JeffBase expressing it vicariously on our behalf. Or - in the vernacular - shoving words in peoples mouth.

I would say my world view and that of all the atheists I know is the exact opposite of everything being hopeless and grim. I fear you have maybe been more emotionally compromised by the original anecdote you started in the thread with than perhaps you yourself realise and are extrapolating one single character into a generalised assumption with no basis.

[The Last Amalekite 1Sam15]

Jeffbase has been mia for a while on his own post.

Way to go Atheist and people who can think.

[The Last Amalekite 1Sam15]

Jeff seems to bring up suicide in the past.

//www.city-data.com/forum/relig...s-suicide.html

Way to go Atheists

[L8Gr8Apost8]

Originally Posted by RosemaryT

Spontaneous remission.

That's the phrase that doctors use when someone is "miraculously" healed of a life-threatening disease process. Physical healings through prayer are not uncommon, but they don't get much press, especially in circles that atheists frequent.

Recently, I read Dodie Osteen's book ("Healed of Cancer") and it's a remarkable account of her complete and permanent healing of Stage IV cancer. After being hospitalized for weeks, she was sent home to die in 1981, and spent six weeks focusing on nothing but the Bible's promises of healing and restoration.

The multiple tumors throughout Dodie's body dissolved, the cancer disappeared and she is now 85 years old and in excellent health.

That's one account and there are many, but Dodie's is well-documented.

As a tiny infant, I was hospitalized and after all medical hope was exhausted, my mother was shoved out of the hospital room, as I was in the "active dying phase" (multiple organ failure). She went home and summoned a church friend to pray with her through a very long night. I was restored to life through prayer.

Yes, these are anecdotes, but if spiritual healing is based on spiritual laws (which supersede human understanding), then a single healing demonstrated by spiritual laws means that it's something that is accessible to all.

Atheists probably don't hear a lot of those stories. That's the beauty part of being a "believer." We have hope, and that is a beautiful thing.

Y'all should get out more. Visit a church from time to time. You might hear some of these powerful stories. It sure beats thinking that everything is so hopeless and grim!

I would fully expect you to be healed of the physical ailments you listed after that extra ordinary experience you had. It sounds like you were suffering mentally prior and it seems reasonable to me that would have a profound effect on your health. As someone asked about regrowing a limb, that would be inconsistent to me and I'd love to see evidence of that type of healing if it exists.

I'm an atheist and I have "hope". I'm so far on the optimistic scale I might have a few toes over the denial line. I engage everyone that tells a story such as yours.