God: No magic required

[Angrboda]

For starters, people want citations for the peer reviewed research indicating greater happiness and longer life expectancies for spiritual/religious people, as opposed to pure secularists.

http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/sp...ive-longer

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1305900/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19949046

Citing these studies in support of being religious is an example of the fallacy known as cum hoc, ergo propter hoc, that because one thing occurs in the presence of another, the one is a cause of the other. As any properly educated individual knows, correlation does not imply causation. This is because both of the correlated phenomena may be the result of a third confounding factor, and in this case, there is a readily identifiable one, namely, the absence of minority stress.

Wikipedia has this to say about minority stress:

Minority stress describes chronically high levels of stress faced by members of stigmatized minority groups. It may be caused by a number of factors, including poor social support and low socioeconomic status, but the most well understood causes of minority stress are interpersonal prejudice and discrimination. Indeed, numerous scientific studies have shown that minority individuals experience a high degree of prejudice, which causes stress responses (e.g., high blood pressure, anxiety) that accrue over time, eventually leading to poor mental and physical health. Minority stress theory summarizes these scientific studies to explain how difficult social situations lead to chronic stress and poor health among minority individuals. It is an important concept for psychologists and public health officials who seek to understand and reduce minority health disparities.

(emphasis mine)

Since being a minority, and according to studies one of the most hated minorities, can itself account for the differential health outcome, your attempt to attribute it to being an effect of being religious is premature and fallacious.

Now, someone else suggested that (1) not every single US study has shown this to be the case and (2) some studies of third world countries have shown the opposite. With regard to #2, it's an apples to oranges comparison. I don't think that divine intervention is responsible for the longevity and mental health advantages to spirituality and religion. I don't know the literature for third world countries, where a large majority of the population is very poor. Perhaps the secularists in these countries belong to higher socioeconomic classes. Perhaps there are requirements unique to, for example, Islam which are potentially harmful to health (Ramadan fasting, followed by gorging, for example). What's relevant to this particular thought experiment is the population of people living in the USA, because that's the population in the studies I cited. I can safely assert that the preponderance of peer-review medical literature supports the advantages of spirituality/religion with respect to both longevity and happiness.

Choosing which studies to consider significant after the fact due to specifics which have nothing to do with whether or not the result is representative of the general class is an inappropriate procedure. Informally this is referred to as cherry picking, but it's an example of what is known as an inappropriate selection bias, and any results tainted by that bias must simply be dismissed.



You claim to be good at analyzing scientific data, yet so far, all I can see is that you're a biased and incompetent douche bag.

[Kayenneh]

Hi Minimalist. Are you Finnish (referring to the quote at the end of your post)? I'm half Finnish. Just an aside.

Oletpa huono lukemaan. Et mukamas huomannut ettei saa mainostaa blogeja, YouTube kanavoita j.n.e. ja että Maxilla on suomalainen sigi, ei Minillä. Olet kyllä aikamoinen aasi.

[LastPoet]

Oletpa huono lukemaan. Et mukamas huomannut ettei saa mainostaa blogeja, YouTube kanavoita j.n.e. ja että Maxilla on suomalainen sigi, ei Minillä. Olet kyllä aikamoinen aasi.

Google translate sucks lol. Translating that to Portuguese made me laugh, but I understood most of it. Youtube butter!?!?!

[Kayenneh]

Google translate sucks lol. Translating that to Portuguese made me laugh, but I understood most of it. Youtube butter!?!?!

Lol. Google isn't too good with spoken Finnish (it differs quite a lot from written and official). It's supposed to be channels, but it only picked up on 'voita' which is butter (a lot of butter without specifying how much).

[Minimalist]

You (and others) demanded citations/links from me,

Um, no. I asked for evidence of this statement.

If the bioelectric energy of the human brain can organize itself into consciousness, then how can we be certain that the dark energy of our universe and/or the exotic energy of other universes cannot do so, also?

Lots of things "could" happen. I don't have time for such idle speculation. Let's deal with facts.

[LastPoet]

Well we kindly let the links he gave to 'support' his arguments. But advertizing his own blog is a big no-no. This is a discussion forum for its members to discuss stuff, not an ad agency.

[lweisenthal]

Hi Rasetsu,

There's no reason to go calling me names. I didn't make any sort of ad hominem attack or say anything at all disrespectful of either atheism in general or any atheist in particular.

I don't have a problem in the world with secular, non-religious people. People like this include a number of my closest relatives and best friends, and I was, myself, a member of this group for the more than 40 years before I started the "clinical trial" of intentionally trying to develop belief in theism, which I described above.

Of course, association doesn't prove causation. In the absence of proof beyond reasonable doubt (the situation for a great many things in life), an individual still must make some sort of decision. One criterion which may be applied intelligently is preponderance of evidence.

There are still smokers who swear that there is no extra risk from cigarette smoking, because it's mostly association statistics. I got into a real knock down, drag out argument about that a few months ago. People get downright passionate about their smoking status, diet (types of food eaten), exercise (or lack thereof) program, and, of course, politics and religion.

I've spent quite of a bit of time, for example, trying to get "pro-life" people (whom I call "pro-criminalization" people, as they really seek to make criminals of women who get abortions and doctors who perform them) to understand the point of view of the "anti-criminalization" side. Yes, I, too, have been on the receiving end of that "I'll pray for you" stuff.

Additionally, I've brought to the attention of many religious people the peer review data which show that you don't do most seriously ill people a favor when you tell them that "I am praying for you." There was an interesting study in which patients with heart problems were randomized into three groups: the first group got no prayers and weren't told that they were or weren't getting prayers, the second group got prayers, but weren't told about it. The third group got prayers and were told that people were praying for them.

Which group did the worst? The last group. The authors speculated that when you have someone who's seriously ill and you tell them that "I am praying for you" that you are really sending the message that they are so far beyond the ability of conventional medicine to cure that the only thing left is prayer. This creates "performance anxiety" and leads to worse outcomes.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16569567

Here's a pretty comprehensive review of most of the studies on intercessory prayer:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19370557

Now, the above doesn't prove the absence of health healing miracles for intercessory prayer beyond reasonable doubt, from the point of view of a committed believer, but, for me, the preponderance of evidence indicates that it's a bad idea to tell sick people that you are praying for them. I tell this to religious people and most of them agree with me that, if one is going to pray for a sick person, it's best just to keep it between the person doing the praying and God, and not to inform the afflicted patient that such prayers are being offered.

As I stated earlier, I think it's pretty obvious that prayers for peace, rain, and healing don't get answered, or, if they do, it's like winning the lottery, and it makes no sense at all to me that God would run lotteries. So I don't waste my time or God's time praying for divine intervention with regard to world peace, natural disasters, healing, and the like.

On the other hand, prayers for personal courage, solace, liberation from substance abuse, endurance, discipline, personal commitment, and personal morality are dependably answered. I look at it as somewhat akin to tapping into "The Force," made famous by Star Wars movies.

And unlike medical studies of intercessory prayer, the medical studies of the physical and mental health effects of religiosity (referenced in an earlier post) are, on the whole, quite positive. Yes, these statistical associations doesn't prove causation beyond reasonable doubt, but, for me, the preponderance of evidence was sufficiently persuasive that I thought it was worthwhile to see whether or not it would be possible to turn myself from a secular agnostic into a theist. I didn't see a downside, and the potential upside seemed obvious. As I wrote earlier, this seems to be working out well for me, to date.

When you talk about "minority stress" from "oppressed atheists," however, I personally think that this is a bit of a reach. I lived for more than 40 years as a secular agnostic (and liberal Democrat, which I continue to be). My reasons for being an agnostic, as opposed to an atheist, are pretty cogently argued in Vincent Bugliosi's Divinity of Doubt.

Basically, I think it's somewhat presumptuous to rule out all possibility of a higher order sentient being, in a universe made up mostly of dark matter and dark energy, possibly of 11 dimensions, and possibly only a one of an infinite number of other universes in an infinite multiverse. So agnosticism just made more sense. But I understand that it's quite possible to believe in atheism, just as it's possible to believe in Catholicism, for example.

Getting back to "minority stress"...although I was a secular agnostic, as opposed to a secular atheist, I'm sure that most people couldn't distinguish me from an atheist. I personally never felt the slightest "stress" because of this. If atheists in the USA (I can't speak for the UK or elsewhere) are "persecuted," then I have to say that I truly can't think of another class of "persecuted" people less "persecuted" than atheists.

Perhaps the Christmas holiday season imposes stress. Well, it imposes stress on everyone, religious Christians included. Jews handle it by going to Chinese restaurants. But, as "stress" goes, the "stress" associated with religious holidays would seem to be among the most trivial. Try losing your job or losing your wife or dealing with sickness and death.

Anyway, the only point I intended to make with all of this is that it's not at all irrational for a secular agnostic to make an intentional effort to develop some sort of religion. Whether or not God really does exist, there are objective advantages to believing in God, which have been experienced by billions of people -- since the dawn of humanity and continuing on to this very day. These advantages have nothing at all to do with avoiding Hell or going to Heaven. They are advantages for this life in this world. Anything that may or may not happen in the Great Perhaps would be just so much frosting on the cake.

- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA

For starters, people want citations for the peer reviewed research indicating greater happiness and longer life expectancies for spiritual/religious people, as opposed to pure secularists.

http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/sp...ive-longer

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1305900/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19949046

Citing these studies in support of being religious is an example of the fallacy known as cum hoc, ergo propter hoc, that because one thing occurs in the presence of another, the one is a cause of the other. As any properly educated individual knows, correlation does not imply causation. This is because both of the correlated phenomena may be the result of a third confounding factor, and in this case, there is a readily identifiable one, namely, the absence of minority stress.

Wikipedia has this to say about minority stress:

Minority stress describes chronically high levels of stress faced by members of stigmatized minority groups. It may be caused by a number of factors, including poor social support and low socioeconomic status, but the most well understood causes of minority stress are interpersonal prejudice and discrimination. Indeed, numerous scientific studies have shown that minority individuals experience a high degree of prejudice, which causes stress responses (e.g., high blood pressure, anxiety) that accrue over time, eventually leading to poor mental and physical health. Minority stress theory summarizes these scientific studies to explain how difficult social situations lead to chronic stress and poor health among minority individuals. It is an important concept for psychologists and public health officials who seek to understand and reduce minority health disparities.

(emphasis mine)

Since being a minority, and according to studies one of the most hated minorities, can itself account for the differential health outcome, your attempt to attribute it to being an effect of being religious is premature and fallacious.

Now, someone else suggested that (1) not every single US study has shown this to be the case and (2) some studies of third world countries have shown the opposite. With regard to #2, it's an apples to oranges comparison. I don't think that divine intervention is responsible for the longevity and mental health advantages to spirituality and religion. I don't know the literature for third world countries, where a large majority of the population is very poor. Perhaps the secularists in these countries belong to higher socioeconomic classes. Perhaps there are requirements unique to, for example, Islam which are potentially harmful to health (Ramadan fasting, followed by gorging, for example). What's relevant to this particular thought experiment is the population of people living in the USA, because that's the population in the studies I cited. I can safely assert that the preponderance of peer-review medical literature supports the advantages of spirituality/religion with respect to both longevity and happiness.

>>>>>

Rasetsu Wrote:

Choosing which studies to consider significant after the fact due to specifics which have nothing to do with whether or not the result is representative of the general class is an inappropriate procedure. Informally this is referred to as cherry picking, but it's an example of what is known as an inappropriate selection bias, and any results tainted by that bias must simply be dismissed.

You claim to be good at analyzing scientific data, yet so far, all I can see is that you're a biased and incompetent douche bag.

[Darkstar]

On the other hand, prayers for personal courage, solace, liberation from substance abuse, endurance, discipline, personal commitment, and personal morality are dependably answered. I look at it as somewhat akin to tapping into "The Force," made famous by Star Wars movies.

If people are praying for these things, then they are already looking for them. Not to say that there can't be a psychological placebo effect of sorts, so there may be some truth to this.

And unlike medical studies of intercessory prayer, the medical studies of the physical and mental health effects of religiosity (referenced in an earlier post) are, on the whole, quite positive. Yes, these statistical associations doesn't prove causation beyond reasonable doubt, but, for me, the preponderance of evidence was sufficiently persuasive that I thought it was worthwhile to see whether or not it would be possible to turn myself from a secular agnostic into a theist. I didn't see a downside, and the potential upside seemed obvious. As I wrote earlier, this seems to be working out well for me, to date.

Forgive me for leaping to conclusions, but if I'm reading this correctly, you are suggesting that we become religious to make ourselves feel better, not because there is actually a god.

When you talk about "minority stress" from "oppressed atheists," however, I personally think that this is a bit of a reach.

If you are comparing to, say, blacks from the pre-civil rights era, then it is a stretch. If not...
Exhibit A: http://digitaljournal.com/article/315425
Exhibit B: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/edgell/home/Stri...alues.html

Basically, I think it's somewhat presumptuous to rule out all possibility of a higher order sentient being, in a universe made up mostly of dark matter and dark energy, possibly of 11 dimensions, and possibly only a one of an infinite number of other universes in an infinite multiverse. So agnosticism just made more sense. But I understand that it's quite possible to believe in atheism, just as it's possible to believe in Catholicism, for example.

Technically speaking, if I took what you just said purely at face value, there would be no error. It is both presumptuous to 100% rule out all possibility of any form of god whatsoever, and it is possible to believe in atheism (that is, hold active belief that god doesn't exist, as opposed to simply not believing that he does). And then there is agnostic atheism, which need not do either of those things (though agnostic 'atheists' who are highly uncertain my prefer just agnostic).

If atheists in the USA (I can't speak for the UK or elsewhere) are "persecuted," then I have to say that I truly can't think of another class of "persecuted" people less "persecuted" than atheists.

I'm taking it you've never heard of Fox News. Youtube is filled with their anti-atheist slander. And many people actually take them seriously.

Perhaps the Christmas holiday season imposes stress.

You mean the 'war on Christmas'?

Whether or not God really does exist, there are objective advantages to believing in God, which have been experienced by billions of people -- since the dawn of humanity and continuing on to this very day.

I guess I'm just not at good at self-delusion as you are. Sorry.

[lweisenthal]

Hi Darkstar,

Firstly, thank you sincerely for the respectful tone and thoughtful and constructive reply.

I don't like offering nit-picky point-by point rejoinders; Anyway, I think that your points are stated clearly and I don't disagree with most of them.

The one thing that I'd continue to debate is the magnitude of the "stress" inflicted on atheists (and to only a lesser extent, secular agnostics) by the viewpoints of the Fox News viewership (less than 2,000,000 people out of more than 300,000,000) and even the entire religious wing of the Republican Party. We are a polarized society; there is a group of people who hate atheists, but this is the same group (including Rush Limbaugh) which is now criticizing Pope Francis as being a "Marxist."

The most objective information you offered to support your point of view (2nd of your links) of more general "persecution" was an 11 year old study from the University of Minnesota. This study reported that atheists were the least trusted of the various groups of people about which the respondents were polled. But, looking at the actual numbers, 54% of the respondents agreed that atheists "shared [the respondents'] view of society." I'm sure that a similar poll taken today (11 years later) would show that number to be up considerably. So a majority of Americans feel that atheists share their view of society. In the history of persecuted minorities, that's not so bad. The Catholic bishops claim that they are a persecuted minority. Atheists, Catholics, and Evangelicals all watch NFL football on big flat screens and drink craft beer while so doing. If they don't like football, they can choose between Hannity, Maher, Maddow, Limbaugh, Stuart, and so on. Life sure is tough for these persecuted minorities. I'm not an expert on the UK, but do I listen to the BBC most nights. Don't see a lot of evidence for anti-atheist bias there.

As I wrote, I "passed" for an atheist for more than 40 years. I can't think of any unusual "stress" that I felt because of this. On the other hand, if one wishes to assert one's Constitutional right to be publicly critical of the majority (i.e. and in so doing to express actual intolerance, sarcasm, etc.), then one should realistically expect to get some blow back. I voluntarily submitted my present points of view on a discussion group populated mainly by atheists. I was prepared for blow back. So any atheist who (like Bill Maher, for example) chooses to make public derogatory remarks against religious people should realistically expect blow back, as well.

When it comes to the ACLU or whomever challenging some aspect of public religiosity, a vocal of minority of people feels personally threatened, and they make a lot of noise. But they are fighting a losing battle and everyone knows this. So you guys are actually winning the current culture wars. What's there to feel stressed about, much less persecuted?

- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA

[Kayenneh]

Höh, mikä törkimys, ei se sitten haluaa jutella mun kaa suomeksi..

Eller är du kanske finlandssvensk, från Pampas eller skärin och förstår inte finska?