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What stats? The only basis of your counter argument is that it is there is no way to 100% prove my position. The stats consistently show that whenever there is a decrease in religion or faith, there is a huge increase in suicide. Logically it makes sense since there is NO HOPE in atheism and human beings only have a future of being maggot food to look forward to after dying which can happen at any moment of any day. Atheism is bleakness to the maximum.
Do the stats show that? I have never seen anything to indicate that.
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Furthermore, you didn't even bother to offer an alternative explanation for the increase. Typical smoke and mirrors from you.
There are some suggestions around. Cultural, in Asia, a gloominess brought about by too many dark days in the north, dangerous conditions meaning that suicide is the last thing on peoples' minds. But it's guesses. Something that would require research and off -topic. We simply don't know. But you do: secularism is to blame, even if the stats you quote are not the stats we find. Scandinavian countries tended to rate better than the US. It doesn't mean that atheism ends all problems. But it doesn't hurt like you are so eager to claim.
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Originally Posted by jeffbase40
The data doesn't prove that a lack of religion is good for society which is the major premise of the OP.
No, it doesn't. It is taken as good news for us, because we are irreligious. We think it is better and rational, and we get that in the OP. But it's how we feel about it. Nobody said that the data was evidence for it. You do use a lot of strawman arguments and unsupported assertions in your arguments, Jeff.
So you look forward to the day of even higher suicide rates and moral conflicts? I don't.
So you keep asserting despite the evidence proving you wrong.
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Originally Posted by jeffbase40
I love how your side has no problem correlating a lack of religion with happiness yet if I do the exact same thing with the suicide rate, all I get is correlation is not causation shield from atheists.
Except you did not do this.
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Originally Posted by jeffbase40
Ok, let me punch a big hole in that one. I have a friend who lives in Saudi Arabia. He loves it there and enjoys a high standard of living including free meals and laundry service at his employer compound. The people there are very friendly and laid back. Zero crime. No homeless population or litter. The cities have all the modern conveniences including chains like Starbucks. Most people there just want to work and provide for their families. Yet it is one of the most religious countries in the world with society observing prayer times throughout the day. Israel is another country I would love to live in and it has holy sites for the world's three major religions. South Korea has a strong Christian population and it is a good country as well.
Your house built on sand ignores the problem of sexuality, inequality for women, and NO freedom of religion (among many other problems).
Ridiculous notion. Plenty of websites say otherwise. Here is one
Doesn't sound like an atheist country to me. You live in a fantasy world.
Except the argument was not that it was an atheist country, the point was that it was secular. So not only have you misrepresented the argument, you then refute your self by claiming it is 50% secular.
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Originally Posted by jeffbase40
Funny how atheists have no problem using personal antecedotes as evidence when it suits your argument. Hypocrisy at its finest.
MORE misrepresentation! This is not a personal anecdote, it is just one example of how women are treated in Saudi Arabia. Your post is dishonesty at its finest.
No. Please don't be rude and tell me what I believe. I said that truth is relative to many people. It's simply what feels good.
Ask anyone here if there is such a thing as absolute morality. Go ahead.
The question is not if absolute morality exists, the questions are 1) why are you arguing that an absolute must come from a god when this is not the case, and 2) why do you insist on proving your definition of your god does not exist with this argument?
What stats? The only basis of your counter argument is that it is there is no way to 100% prove my position. The stats consistently show that whenever there is a decrease in religion or faith, there is a huge increase in suicide.
This BS has been refuted so many times now you are either not listening, do not understand, or are just in denial.
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Originally Posted by jeffbase40
Logically it makes sense since there is NO HOPE in atheism and human beings only have a future of being maggot food to look forward to after dying which can happen at any moment of any day.
Logically the opposite makes sense if we believe we only have one life to live.
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Originally Posted by jeffbase40
Atheism is bleakness to the maximum.
The fact that I believe we only have one life makes my life very rich. I am enjoying this warm breeze and the smell of my coffee at this very minute.
It would only be bleakness to the maximum for me if I was afraid of not existing. Maybe you are projecting your fear on to us.
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Originally Posted by jeffbase40
Furthermore, you didn't even bother to offer an alternative explanation for the increase. Typical smoke and mirrors from you.
The data doesn't prove that a lack of religion is good for society which is the major premise of the OP.
I can't speak for the OP but all that the original graph in this thread shows is the change in distribution of religious beliefs, that's all. It doesn't reach any conclusion as to happiness levels or anything else, these are generally taken from other surveys. So, in that respect, I agree with you that this data doesn't prove that a lack of religion is good for society. In fact, I'll go one further and suggest that no data achieves that proof.
The most any data chart can do is show a trend and potentially some correlation, which can be very spurious indeed*, hence the great adage - correlation doesn't imply causation. So then begins the long process of studying the data and attempting to determine if any relationships do in fact exist.
I also agree with your assessment of suicide rates.
One of the main criticisms of the World Happiness Report (which by the way doesn't draw any causative links between happiness and irreligion) is the way in which happiness is measured that seems to focus more on the standard of living. The following is a quote from Wiki:
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Some argue that questioning on overall life status leads humans to overweight income concerns, rather than happiness. For instance Colombia came 37th in the 2018 World Happiness Index but 1st by daily emotional experience. In 2012 "A Gallup survey on happiest countries had a completely different list [compared with the World Happiness Index], with Panama first, followed by Paraguay, El Salvador, and Venezuela". Similarly a Pew survey of 43 countries in 2014 (which excluded most of Europe) had Mexico, Israel and Venezuela finishing first, second and third.
Others point out that the ranking results are counterintuitive when it come to some dimensions, for "instance if rate of suicide is used as a metric for measuring unhappiness, (the opposite of happiness), then some of the countries which are ranked among the top 20 happiest countries in the world will also feature among the top 20 with the highest suicide rates in the world.***"
I think it is all too easy to jump to conclusions and declare positive or negative correlations between trends, the media is notorious for blowing these things out of proportion. So, in my opinion, stating that irreligion, religion, or fewer suicides is proof of happiness is just as ill-advised as suggesting that none of the poll data matters at all. Things are far more nuanced than we generally care to admit.
For instance, suicide is only one indication of unhappiness and whilst it is indeed an extreme metric, it should be noted that our outward behaviour doesn't always reflect on level of happiness "and that there is a great cultural and personal variation in one’s capacity to cope with unhappiness, other than by committing suicide.***"
So you look forward to the day of even higher suicide rates and moral conflicts? I don't.
Who said that? You just pulled straw out of nowhere.
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Originally Posted by jeffbase40
Ok, let me punch a big hole in that one. I have a friend who lives in Saudi Arabia. He loves it there and enjoys a high standard of living including free meals and laundry service at his employer compound. The people there are very friendly and laid back. Zero crime.
Perhaps having people needing to live in compounds has something to do with your misuse of statistics here? Yes - living in compounds tends to correlate with a reduction in crime.
However when you say "zero crime" do you mean in the compound or the country as a whole? As the latter claim is rather more fantastical.
Firstly Americans continue to report lots of crimes against them when they are there to the OSAC. Further many crimes go under reported because the victim is persecuted. Especially with sexual crimes where women can be jailed and even lashed for the crime of _being_ raped.
Finally you correlate things with religion that have nothing to do with religion. For example the lack of homelessness which you claim has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with the law there as providing social welfare and housing is an obligation for the state. So this is less an argument for religion so much as it is for aspects of socialism.
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Originally Posted by jeffbase40
The stats consistently show that whenever there is a decrease in religion or faith, there is a huge increase in suicide.
That is not at all what the stats show - you just keep claiming they do even when directly corrected on the error. However even if the stats did show that correlation it in no way suggests a link between the two numbers. If you want to imagine a link - and so far imagining it is all you have done - between losing religion and suicide then you have all your work still ahead of you.
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Originally Posted by jeffbase40
Logically it makes sense since there is NO HOPE in atheism and human beings only have a future of being maggot food to look forward to after dying which can happen at any moment of any day. Atheism is bleakness to the maximum.
That is what I used to think about Rap Music until I noticed that once I took my ignorance out of my navel and looked at fans of rap - I realised they did not conform to my fantasies. So I grew up and got over myself. I suggest you do the same.
In your navel gazing you imagine the above to be true - but you never seem to take your gaze out of your own navel and notice that us atheists seem to get all the same home and pleasure and meaning and goals and joy out of life as anyone else. And when your hypothesis does not map onto reality - you should table the hypothesis until such time as it does.
See the real difference lies in you couching your "hope" around death. You focus on death and derive hope from imagining stuff coming after it. And so you can not imagine where atheists get hope without being able to do that - missing entirely as you do the fact that our focus is not on death at all but everything that comes before it - and we define and derive our meanings and hopes and dreams and motivations from that.
Is your life so empty that you derive your hope and meaning and joy from the point of it's ending? Then you have my sympathy. But many of us have full and happy lives full of all the things you imagine being precluded us.
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Originally Posted by jeffbase40
Furthermore, you didn't even bother to offer an alternative explanation for the increase. Typical smoke and mirrors from you.
Actually I offered you a vast number of alternatives - with supporting arguments. You suddenly decided to ignore me from that point onwards once I did so. Which is massively telling.
What stats? The only basis of your counter argument is that it is there is no way to 100% prove my position. The stats consistently show that whenever there is a decrease in religion or faith, there is a huge increase in suicide. Logically it makes sense since there is NO HOPE in atheism and human beings only have a future of being maggot food to look forward to after dying which can happen at any moment of any day. Atheism is bleakness to the maximum.
Furthermore, you didn't even bother to offer an alternative explanation for the increase. Typical smoke and mirrors from you.
I don't think any of the atheists here (and certainly not the agnostics) are asking for anything that is 100% proved.
We may be looking for what is similar to the standard held in a courtroom -- beyond a reasonable doubt.
And your comment that "Atheism is bleakness to the maximum" is simply another of your insults against people who do not think like you.
In terms of becoming nothing but maggot food...let's say there is a good for the sake of discussion. And despite what you've been taught, at the end of each life it is simply over...does that mean that your life has been meaningless? If so, I feel sorry for you.
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