everyone (else) seems to be hating on atheists

[Aiza]

Someone hasn't been doing the reading I supplied

I did the "reading" you supplied.

and has yet to establish anything beyond the fact that highly religious people subscribe to external controls and therefore moderate their behavior. This makes religion no different from a drug.

And um, what? This sentence is wrong on multiple levels. Nothing in any paper describes "external controls". One paper mentioned extrinsic vs. intrinsic religiosity and more fundamentalist vs. spiritualistic religious practice, and certain benefits associated with religion occasionally associate with one or the other. The last scientific cpaper I gave you (and which I have given you 2-3 times now, explicitly associates religion with self-control and notes that only 35-50% of the benefits associated with religion can be attributed to social factors (in contrast to your blog post claims).

However, even saying it did....."drugs" have nothing to do with "external controls" either. A drug changes your body chemistry. Drugs are as internal as it gets, so...?

As such, it may offer benefits to those with mental illnesses, and it may exacerbate said illnesses, but your point that those who are religious are less likely to BE mentally ill finds no support

Yes it does, at least with some mental illnesses such as depression and depressive disorders. Please re-read the McCullough and Larson paper I posted earlier.

Yes, it is true that religion greatly helps coping skills with illness (both physical and mental), but its also true that religious people are less likely to develop symptoms period, at least of depressive and anxiety-disorders (which, tbf, are the two of the most common mental disorders in the US)

For what it's worth, since I can't recall the details of the study, the only one I'm aware of that compared the right apples to the right oranges found that atheists and pious Christians were ethically comparable. That is, both atheists and pious Christians averaged more ethical than nominal Christians. I don't like putting out unsourced claims like that, but it occurs to me that the finding explains pretty much everything that anyone has claimed on this thread: the less religious ARE more obstreperous, but the people at the extremes are less so, like an upside-down moral bellcurve with the most faithful at one end and atheists on the other.

I am not sure about this (and I think "ethics" studies tend to be extremely subjective), but it is true that people who are "not religious at all" score higher on some measures of health than "somewhat religious" (with "very religious" scoring the highest IIRC).

Now the Freethought Society of the Midlands (FSM is our third name, but I think this one will stick) has events pretty much every week: Drinking Skeptically, Sandhills Rationalists, Science and Religion, Regular Meeting, and UU Humanists; plus occasionally events like bowling or roller derby (only spectating!). Two of our events are held at the local Unitarian Universalist congregation. Atheism is a weak glue to bind a group, shared committment to reason and humanist values (even our two resident nihilists are humanist nihilists) on the other hand, seems to work fine.

Interesting, thank you for sharing.