Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
Suicide rates are lower in religious countries than in secular ones
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I doubt you read your own link as it suggests quite strongly there is no reasons at this point to think that is true because of religion - or that there actually is less suicides just less suicide _rates_.
The first thing the link notes for example - quite honestly I have to say - is that one of the reason for lower _rates_ rather than actual lower suicides - is under-reporting due to religious stigma around suicide.
Even when it speculates - and speculation is all this link offers for your case I am afraid - that religion "may" have anything to do with it at all - it suggests that it might actually have nothing to do with religion in and of itself and everything to do with mere social inclusion. Something we _already know_ is a positive predictor of improves reduction of suicide incidents. A fact born out given your link also acknowledges that it appeared to have zero impact at all _which_ religion they were a member of. Which suggests any benefit - even if real rather than just correlation - likely has nothing to do with what a given religion actually teaches.
All that said however the major
major major hole in these studies is how it measures religiosity in the first place. For example your link centres around "religious committent". Others centre around attendance to religious events and ceremonies or mass.
The problem here is that automatically skews the results in favor of religion. Why? Because depression is a predictor of not being social - not attending public and social events - and not being a participant. So by selecting the people who _are doing_ those things - you are automatically selecting for the least depressed and least likely to choose suicide group of potential victims.
The problem being we can not asses the religiosity of the people who therefore are home-bound by their depression and the results are therefore not useful.
Further as your link - again quite honestly - acknowledges they only asses the religiosity of the person in the present not in the past. And their not being religious can be _ a result of _ their depression - not a factor in it. They say themselves "Therefore, it is possible that depressed patients who stated that they were atheists or had no religion had abandoned religion as a consequence of depression or hopelessness."
That is not to say that such studies are 100% useless or inform us of nothing. They are valuable documents and valuable results. They just do not support the narrative you are selling about atheists.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
You use terms like "magical" to belittle our beliefs. Even from a logical perspective, if you followed the teachings in the Bible, a vast majority of our social problems and suffering would be wiped out.
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If we all followed the teaching of the Third Reich the same would be true. If we hammer diversity out of our society and all follow one set of Dogmas - many social ills and suffering would fall away. This is not unique to Christianity by _any means_.
The problem is there is no good argument for attaining that goal by paying that price.
Further though - there is no useful teaching in the Bible that we could not simply distil out and incorporate into a modern and beneficial world view. I have done it myself. Much of the teachings of the Bible and the Jesus character are not even his own originals either - many things like the Golden Rule predate him by sometime.
And certainly there is no beneficial teaching in the Bible that requires you to believe Jesus existed - he had magical powers - his daddy was a god - or in fact there was or is a god in the first place. All of that is merely filler and white noise nonsense. Not one actually useful teaching in the Bible requires you subscribe to superstitious magical teaching and nonsense in order to benefit from, or learn from.
So when you say "There is freedom in following Christ" I would change that to "There is freedom in considering Christ's teachings along side all of humanities other moral thinkers and to learn from them all - distil out the useful - and discard the nonsense."
There is no freedom in imagining that one character in our human history was somehow perfect or had everything on the money. That was fundamentalism and limitations lie. Neither of which we require.
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