Atheists are mentally ill

[Faith No More]

Get ready for a lot of butt-hurt. Someone seems to be upset at the articles saying atheists are smarter.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/seanth...tally-ill/

Obviously, it’s the believers who are smarter. Anyone who thinks otherwise is mentally ill.

And I mean that literally: the evidence today implies that atheism is a form of mental illness. And this is because science is showing that the human mind is hard-wired for faith: we have, as a species, evolved to believe, which is one crucial reason why believers are happier – religious people have all their faculties intact, they are fully functioning humans.

Therefore, being an atheist – lacking the vital faculty of faith – should be seen as an affliction, and a tragic deficiency: something akin to blindness. Which makes Richard Dawkins the intellectual equivalent of an amputee, furiously waving his stumps in the air, boasting that he has no hands.

Apparently, not believing in the magic man watching over your shoulder is crazy.

Perhaps we have just evolved past the need for delusional crutches?

[pineapplebunnybounce]

If atheists are the ones who are mentally unstable, we would be on the streets right now calling for the writer's death. Oh wait no, that's bullshit religious people do.

Edit: Sorry, didn't mean to insinuate that all religious people are nuts.

[Jackalope]

What utter bollocks.

[Minimalist]

If atheists are the ones who are mentally unstable, we would be on the streets right now calling for the writer's death. Oh wait no, that's bullshit religious people do.

Edit: Sorry, didn't mean to insinuate that all religious people are nuts.

OK. I'll do it.

[Something completely different]

Meanwhile in 2009 a team of Harvard psychologists discovered that believers who checked into hospital with broken hips reported less depression, had shorter hospital stays, and could hobble further when they left hospital – as compared to their similarly crippled but heathen fellow-sufferers.

Who`s in for a game of "mixing apples and dogshit"?

In 2004, scholars at UCLA revealed that college students involved in religious activities are likely to have better mental health. In 2006, population researchers at the University of Texas discovered that the more often you go to church, the longer you live. In the same year researchers at Duke University in America discovered that religious people have stronger immune systems than the irreligious. They also established that churchgoers have lower blood pressure.

So he posts this and gives this as source:

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports...-stability

[sarcasm]Yeah, a "conservative research" institution is certainly not unbiased.[/sarcasm]

They way in which the writer posts a very short amount of a few sources and numbers which stand on shaky ground and then continues to write a lenghty rant based on that shakey ground just screams unprofessional journalist and demagogic cunt throughout the hall.

[pineapplebunnybounce]

So many holes in this article, most not even worth pointing out cos they're so obvious.

But this is one (from the website TGAC posted):

Happiness and Well-Being.Happy peopletend to be productive and law-abiding and also tend to learn well, thus having a positive impact on society. A review of the research shows that Religion significantly affects the level of an individual's happiness and overall sense of well-being. In the vast majority of the studies reviewed, an increase in religious practice was associated with having greater hope and a greater sense of purpose in life.[74]

74 is the citation, and this is it:

[72] A recent review of the sociological literature on drug treatment and rehabilitation by Byron Johnson, now at Baylor University's Department of Sociology and Anthropology, gives cause for both optimism and caution: "Our review of the literature on faith-based [interventions] reveals two very basic facts. First, what we do know about their effectiveness is positive and encouraging. Faith-based organizations appear to have advantages over comparable secular institutions in helping individuals overcome difficult circumstances (e.g., imprisonment and drug abuse). Second, although this literature is positive, it is also limited." Johnson et al., "Objective Hope."
[73] Johnson et al.,"Objective Hope."
[74] Ibid.
[75] Ibid.

In case you don't know, Ibid just means the same source as the one just cited. so 72-75 are all the same source, this "Objective Hope". Notice also that the citation only gives the title and the author's name, but no journal. I doubt this is a book because no publishers cited. My guess is the review wasn't published? Not even by non peer review journals?

Like are you kidding me? A review that says there's limited evidence about faith based and secular drug rehabilitation leads to a paragraph on how believers are happier?

LOL.

[Bad Writer]

Being hardwired to accept things on faith actually proves that we are all flawed, i.e. products of natural selection and evolution, and we are simply overcoming this flaw. We can't breathe under water or in space either, but we overcome that just fine too.

[Kayenneh]

[Faith No More]

So many holes in this article, most not even worth pointing out cos they're so obvious.

Yeah, there's so much fail that it could take hours to dissect it all. I just think it's somewhat entertaining to watch people attempt to justify obvious prejudices using spurious logic. Plus, it reeks of insecurity, something you'd think strong faith would prevent.

ETA: Plus, the conclusion is that not having faith is an affliction, but you don't see him saying deists, pantheists or other non-atheists without faith are abnormal. Obvious prejudice is obvious.

[Jackalope]

So many holes in this article, most not even worth pointing out cos they're so obvious.

Yeah, there's so much fail that it could take hours to dissect it all. I just think it's somewhat entertaining to watch people attempt to justify obvious prejudices using spurious logic. Plus, it reeks of insecurity, something you'd think strong faith would prevent.

Perhaps their fath is not so strong after all..