WARNING! Religion may cause…
Kelly O'Connor
Jan 30, 2008
...hypocrisy; cognitive dissonance; higher rates of STD infection, teen pregnancy, abortion, and poverty; mass societal dysfunction; early mortality; homicide; and, in rare cases, delusions and psychosis. Is Living Under the Influence (of religion) less dangerous than Driving Under the Influence?
In the news this week, we have the case of Eunice Spry, a British woman who systematically tortured her adopted and foster children because of her religious convictions. She did pleasant things like forcing the children to eat their own vomit for being greedy, and making a child with nighttime enuresis (bed-wetting) at the age of 4 wear a sign reminding everybody that she was an evil attention-seeker. It doesn't stop there, either. She also prevented a teenaged girl who was injured in a car accident and temporarily confined to a wheelchair from walking in order to collect more compensation money, despite the fact that the prognosis was she would regain ability to walk within 6 months. After moving out, they children submitted to medical examinations which showed evidence of internal scarring due to Eunice's punishment of choice-forcing the children to vomit and then eat it.
If you aren't sick by now, you should be. Obviously, this woman's problems extended beyond her religious beliefs, but her absolutely inhumane treatment of those children was done under the guise of punishing them for what would seem to be the seven deadly sins. All she would need to do is chop somebody's pregnant wife's head off and send it to them and we could make a movie. Oh, wait, somebody already did. In my opinion, crimes like these should be a more serious offense than murder. Going Andrea Yates on them would have been merciful. I almost wish that a hell existed so she could go there.
Don't go away yet, there's more. A Washington, D.C. woman, Banita Jacks, sat in her home for over two weeks with the decomposing bodies of her 4 daughters who were apparently "possessed." Now tell me: Where would she get this idea of demon possession if it hadn't been planted in her mind by religion? I realize that before mental illnesses were understood, demon possession was a common diagnosis, but we're living in the 21st century here, people. That concept would not have survived the Enlightenment if it wasn't for the eternally ubiquitous presence of that festering boil we refer to as religion.
I know the next argument that you're going to make, too. "Well, she was insane, so she would have done something horrible anyway." How do you know that? How do you know that she would have had any concept of a "demon" if it wasn't placed there? The bible clearly states that this is a war not of flesh and bones, but of spirits and the forces of good and evil. One is to arm themselves for battle and prepare to deflect the attacks of satan and his minions. People still believe in this stuff! Does anybody get this? The Pope is calling for mass exorcisms, and some evangelical christians believe that sicknesses are caused by satan and that you can "cast them out in Jesus' name." It is a travesty that the more obsequious among us have bought the propaganda hook, line, and sinker. Anybody who cannot see the correlation here is either blind or indifferent and will allow these things to continue to happen. All because we can't talk about religion like that-it's just not nice.
Obviously, the vast majority of religious people do not commit these kinds of crimes, but there is an overwhelming amount of violence perpetrated upon people that is religiously motivated. I've already pointed out the child abuse that occurs in the name of religion, and some christian parenting sites teach you how to "switch" your children with PVC tubing from the age of 9 months. Incidentally, a devotee of theirs was charged with first-degree murder when she wrapped her 4 year old son tightly in blankets because he kept getting out of bed and he suffocated to death.All because god is a god of order, not chaos, and you must maintain order in your home. Talk about fragile egos on these people who won't be manipulated by the cries of a hungry newborn baby.
I said this in my first post on this topic, and obviously I need to repeat myself for the either dense or dishonest critics, but even if religion only exploits existing mental illnesses, should we not give people one less reason to kill or harm others? Imagine a scenario in which small groups of racist people are still terrorizing anybody with darker skin than them, but since the vast majority of white people don't act that way, we just shouldn't address it.
In all honesty, the reason that most religious people do not act like the Phelps family is because they are nominal (insert religion here) only. A study done by the Barna Group, a christian research firm, showed that many young Americans see christians as hypocritical, and that they really are hypocrites. They surveyed 1003 adults on 20 "lifestyle elements," including things such as altruism, sexual behavior, and substance abuse. The results: on 15 of the 20 behaviors, evangelical christians were indistinguishable from us heathens, and the areas in which they do differ (porn consumption, cursing in public, playing the lottery, and music piracy), the difference is minor (One-third of heathens vs. one-quarter of christians) except for the music piracy, in which there is a 7% difference. That is not likely because of the commandment to not steal, but rather that resisting the urge to download music is much easier than resisting the urge to have sex. If that's not causing cognitive dissonance, I don't know what will.
On a larger scale, we have three studies on the impact of religion on society, and neither of them is going to vindicate religion. The first was published in the Journal of Religion and Society and authored by Gregory Paul, a social scientist. He concluded that:
"In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.
"The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so."
"The non-religious, proevolution democracies contradict the dictum that a society cannot enjoy good conditions unless most citizens ardently believe in a moral creator.
"The widely held fear that a Godless citizenry must experience societal disaster is therefore refuted." (TimesOnline.co.uk)
The next was a Pew global survey that graphed the correlation between religiosity and wealth. Although the U.S. was an outlier, there was still an inverse statistical correlation between rates of religious belief and wealth. Attached to that article was a site you can use to determine rates of religiosity in different areas of the US and the corresponding population data. (It is slightly dated with 2000 as the year the data was collected.) There is a similar correlation in the US among different areas as there is among countries worldwide. Below are the two graphs plotting the data.
The third and final study is perhaps the most comprehensive. Phil Zuckerman analyzed levels of organic (not coercive) atheism and how the countries scored on the "Human Development Index," which rates countries on various indicators of societal health such as homicide rates, gender equality, poverty, literacy, and infant mortality. Not surprisingly, higher levels of atheism have a positive correlation to better levels of societal health as measured by these statistics. The top 25 countries all have very high levels of non-believers with the exception of Ireland. There was an increase in suicide rates among some of the atheistic countries, but the author notes that all of those countries were formerly parts of the USSR and are still suffering from the effects of that.
(nb: The link to the study itself is gone, but it is available in the Cambridge Companion to Atheism)
So, due to the insistence of numerous people, I have been working on a more official thesis on theism as a mind disorder, but getting the actual studies often requires expensive memberships or trips to the library. Don't worry-it's coming. Even if you disagree on that point, I think that there's enough data here to support the claim that religion has deleterious effects on society. One should use caution while using religion until one is certain of its effects.
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Good stuff. Religion is an
Good stuff. Religion is an addiction far worse than even alcoholism, that's for sure^^.
I'm curious, though - what point are you trying to make about the standards of living/atheism correlation? I hope you're not implying a causal relationship, such as "atheism causes better standards of living", when another proposition "better standards of living cause atheism" is just as likely. Unless you can quote further research, at least.
The distinction is important, I think, when you're trying to convince people that atheism is better than theism. An example. Wealthier people wear more expensive clothes in general, but if poor people wear expensive clothes it's not likely to make them wealthy, because wealth->expensive clothes, not expensive clothes->wealth.
If richer nations are more atheist, I expect a theist could probably pass it off as a result of selfishness and materialism. (Not that I agree, of course!)
On the other hand, if all you're doing is proving that theism is not required for a well-functioning society, I agree. This is a reasonable conclusion from the data.
The next person that I hear
The next person that I hear making kids sing "Jesus Loves the Little Children" is going to get this article handed to them for lying.
Thanks Kelly.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
The latter is the proper
The latter is the proper conclusion. Any study, particularly psychological or sociological, is going to establish correlations between things, hopefully with as few confounding factors as possible. So nobody should make the assumption that atheism causes these things, just that they are related for some reason. You could take the converse and say that theism is correlated to poor societal health. The real strength of these studies, though, is taking away the "without religion everybody would turn into wild animals" argument.
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Another great one Kelly. I
Another great one Kelly. I will def have to make a point of passing this one around as those are some truly horrific stories.
Quote: That is not likely
I'd suggest that it's more likely to be a reflection of the fact that many Christians eschew sinful "secular music," and many won't even listen to Christian Rock and Roll. After all, "Rock and Roll" is a euphemism for sex.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
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Nah, it's just because
Nah, it's just because Christian rock is almost universally terrible. Like many things prefaced with the word 'Christian'. The exception, of course, is "Christian Science" - that's completely universally terrible.
When I was a kid, and
When I was a kid, and wasn't supposed to listen to anything but Christian rock, I was so deluded that I thought Def Leppard was really good.
Just to show how awful religion is, to this day, I'm still a closet Def Leppard fan. I simply can't shake them, even though I know they suck.
Theism cuts deep, man.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
BeefontheBone wrote:
Somebody is buying it. When I suffer insomnia and flip through the channels late night, I go from Girl's Gone Wild, to Extendz, to Sleep Comfort and then hit, "Songs Of Inspiration, from Time Life Music"(I stay as long as it takes to hit my up arrow on my remote). I dont think they invest money in failing projects. I simply think they are making money off the 50 million Evangelical suckers out there willing to fork over the $19.95.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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As someone who does a lot
As someone who does a lot of research, many public libraries have good article databases where you can research from home (you just need to type in your library card number).
Also, your myspace profile says you're in college, and colleges provide free access to their students to their journal databases. Usually the available online materials are a year behind, but that's pretty good without having to pay any membership fees.
There ware ways that the
There ware ways that the causality can be reversed, like wealth -> lack of religion instead of lack of religion -> wealth.
I think that it can happen from the increased availability of cultural and other such resources that wealth makes possible. This may fit into studies of relative religiosity of different regions noted by Steve Bruce in his book God is Dead: Secularism in the West. The most religious areas were rural areas, except for extremely remote areas far from some house of worship. Cities were less religious, even though they have much more religious variety, and thus much more ability to seek religious compatibility.
Furthermore, he notes that places with strong religions tend to have monopoly religions. He noted his homeland, England, in the Middle Ages; much the same thing is true of several traditionally Catholic countries until recently, and also of several Islamic countries at the present time.
He does address the question of why the US is such an oddity, and he concludes that the US, despite its overall religious variety, has long been a patchwork of religious monopolies or near-monopolies: first Puritans and then Catholics in the northeast, Baptists and the like in the southeastern states, and Mormons in Utah and nearby. He also notes the development of a whole fundie "Christian" subculture, which consists largely of fundie knockoffs of mainstream popular culture. From his book:
Bravo!!!!
Great post! I will be using this link as a reference. Thanks for the ammo.
The U.S. is an outlier on
The U.S. is an outlier on the wealth study because, until recently, the U.S. was one of the most secular societies in the world, with clear divisions between church and state authority, a pluralistic society where opression on religious grounds was not tolerated, a public education system not run by any religion and an overall cultural bias toward religion as a personal, spiritual matter rather than as a source of political identity. The other, more secular parts of the industrialized world (like Western Europe) have followed the US lead to where they are today. It is only since WWII that televangelism has brought irrational, radical, politically motivated religion back as an important force in America. It hasn't been back long enough to start to cramp the US's style economically...yet.
Lazy is a word we use when someone isn't doing what we want them to do.
- Dr. Joy Brown
Atheists know they're
Atheists know they're losing the battle, hence websites like this. If God does not exist, and the atheist is so sure of it, why do they even care what people believe? Nothing ultimately matters right?
The fact is that the atheist knows God exists, and it drives them crazy. They live a total lie. They are jealous of the joy, peace and fulfillment the Christian has. They are mad that someone (God) smarter, wiser and more powerful exists then they. They can't stand the fact they are subject to Him and are utterly dependant on Him for their every heartbeat.
Atheists had bad father figures and they take it out on God. And since they have no problem lying, they inevitably do so by asserting they did not have bad father figures. Search within yourself. You know you have issues with your dad. Listen to your inner voice.
Atheists always concentrate on the few and far in between examples of poor theists. They never focus on all the good theist people have done in the world. Just in America alone by 1989, 79% of American hospitals and universities were founded by Christians. Atheism has never contributed anything to mankind; especially in terms of giving meaning and purpose to life.
Quote:
Do you know this or are you guessing?
What precisely in your statements distinguishes it from any other run-off of empty rhetoric that anyone could construct? From what are you deriving your assertions? What evidence do you have to back up this assertion? You do not have the slightest evidence to back up this assertion.
Is that your doctorate in clinical psychology talking, or did you just make that up?
From whence did you derive this assertion?
Thank you, Dr. Freud.
Do you know what happens to people like you in formal debate? You wouldn't last five seconds. If you want to be welcome here, I suggest you sober up and focus: At present you have presented nothing but vitriol, but no argument. You have conducted the most woeful psychoanalysis I have ever encountered. Ever heard of poisoning the well, kid? Now, if I was a betting man, and I am, I would suggest a classic case of projection brought on by a set of delusions, which are defined as fixed, false belief systems arranged in an organized fashion. Now, this is evident by that the bulk of your proposition and argument is supported by virtue of rhetoric. Now, unless you wish to conduct yourself in a manner which is conducive to proper discussion, by which I mean that you will put forth proper argumentation supported in the proper fashion, you have been a member here for scarecely one hour at the time of writing and you have already outstayed your welcome. In addition, in other threads I have detected spamming from you, thread-derailment in the Ron Paul thread. We have enough bandwith troubles as it is. It would take me less then 30 seconds to get a moderator concensus to have you banned unless you stop spamming and trolling simultaneously. I have seen your ilk before, and believe me, none of them lasted long. Your thoughts are welcome, but I suggest you start composing your prose in order of think first, post second, or you'll be out the door in no time.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
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Nice essay
Sure anyone can say that they are a "Christian" but it takes a person convicted by the Holy Spirit to live a life like Christ's. You should do a companion piece on the crimes that atheists commit as well to show how the severity of the crimes differ if they differ at all considering both sides have mentally unstable people. Hey it's a thought. I liked how you did your research and all. Most people I know that are like you wouldn't have anything to back themselves up. Have you even read and researched the Bible to see what God truly wants or do you specialize in the bashing without fully understanding both sides of the argument? I am a Christian, born again in the spirit of Christ, and I sin everyday. It is the all too human part of Christianity. The only difference between me and the average Joe is that I learn from my sins and do my best to not make the same mistakes that I have made in the past. Most people are lazy and don't try to better themselves. They sin once and give up, but continue to call themselves Christians. It is appalling. Everyone has the opportunity to accept God and his grace. It is up to the individual to decide whether or not to accept. I am not going to spam some evangelical message but I am going to say study the Bible and look at God's guide for how to live your life. Like Christ, a humble servant to your fellow man, be filled with compassion and love for others. Many don't recognize the message for what it really is and just become judgmental and hypocritical. Well I guess that I have given you enough to try and pick apart. Thanks for letting me comment! ^_^ The freedom of speech is one of the greatest freedoms we have! Sorry for the length.
Quote: Sure anyone can say
So you're saying that all those non-Christians in say, the Peace Corp, who literally leave everything they have to go build houses and do work for those who can't do it themselves -- all those people look like they're acting really morally, and if we did a list of everything they've done, it would look like they were as giving and selfless as Christians, but they're not?
You should look at crime statistics more carefully. Though atheists are around 12-16% of the population (depending on who you believe), they make up well under 2% of the prison population. Not only are atheists less prone to be criminals, they're much less prone!
You should also do comparison studies between predominately theist countries and predominately secular countries. The secular countries overall have less people in jail, percentage-wise, and less crime.
It's funny you should say that, because I've never met a Christian who could back up his beliefs.
Virtually all of us are ex-Christians. Thanks.
Do you realize how arrogant and condescending this load of shit sounds?
What kind of a prick do you have to be to accuse me, who you don't know from Adam, of not learning from my mistakes? You think I just run around everyday doing the same shit that I did when I was a teenager? You think your little religion, out of all the religions that have ever existed, is the only one that grants people the ability to learn from their mistakes?!
Have you ever left the country? Have you not noticed that the majority of the world is not Christian?! The rest of the world has been managing to learn from their mistakes for thousands of years. Get your head out of your ass, please.
Prick. You don't even realize how bigoted you are.
You already have. Why don't you take some time and read some of the actual science on this site? There's so much you don't even realize you don't know.
I'd bet ten to one odds that any one of the core members of RRS knows the bible better than you. We've all read it and studied it.
We believe that the freedom of speech is crucial. I think you're ignorant and arrogant, but I do appreciate you posting. It's good when Christians illustrate their own delusions so that we have first hand evidence.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
A. Tunnell wrote:
No True Scotsman fallacy. Next.
I believe I mentioned that in some of my other posts--and refuted it if you're pulling the Nazi card. You can look at the statistical data regarding prison population studies to demonstrate that obviously less atheists are committing crimes worthy of incarceration--by far. Even if an atheist did murder somebody, unless he murdered somebody for the express reason that they were not an atheist, it would have no basis in idealogy as the religious killings do. I'm not going to cut my baby's arms off like some loving christian mother did because of atheism. If anything, one could do something like that if suffering from schizophrenic delusions/hallucinations, but I guess the similarity there is my point, right?
Thanks.
I have read the bible in its entirety 4 times. I have read probably the entire NT at least 7. I have studied apologetics from your "heaviest hitters" and even took college level theology courses at a Jesuit university for 2 years. Wanna play buy-bull trivia?
So, you're saying that non-christians don't learn from their mistakes? That's quite a claim--did you pull that out of your ass or somebody else's? I agree that most people in general do not critically analyze themselves, their behaviors or beliefs. Religious people seem to be the masters of compartmentalization.
Not according to the bible. Faith is a gift from god; the elect have been chosen since before the foundations of the earth; god has created vessels of wrath and vessels of glory--who is the clay to question the potter; people must go to hell in order to demonstrate god's wonderful love and mercy for mankind...need I go on? He obviously created me, along with every other atheist or non-christian person in history, for the express purpose of burning in hell. Loving god, that guy!
Well, if your omniscient god had perhaps made his message to mankind upon which your eternal soul depends decipherable and non-contradictory, maybe it would be easier to understand the "message". Last I checked, god's guide for moral living depends upon stoning disobedient children, adulterers, and homosexuals. Along with not eating animals with cloven hooves, shellfish, boiling a kid in its mothers milk, or wearing a polyester blend.
As far as love and compassion goes, wasn't that story from the bible where the man celebrating upon the return of the ark of the covenant to Israel from Babylon accidentally bumped into it and god struck him dead? It just fills my heart with warm, fuzzy feelings.
I'm going to go ahead and preemptively say--you've been PWNED. I appreciate the fact that you weren't a jerk about it. If you have a rebuttal, feel free to post it.
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A. Tunnell wrote: Thanks
Your welcome.
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I'm glad you included the
I'm glad you included the "Where did Banita get the idea of 'demons' from if not religion?" argument.
It's the same for Yates, Laney, and Schlosser.
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God...
God is existance. Good things have been done by people of all faiths. Bad things have been done by people of all faiths. Faith in No Faith is just the same too. Existance is love, and the typical concept of "God" is the common denominator that allows ego to understand ego. All is love, our pain is the result of the many misinterpretions of love over the ages, followed by attempts to "fix" what was never broken. We are all just god amoeba cilia.
Xynelia wrote: Faith in No
Huh? Are you speaking english and do you know what an oxymoron is?
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After reading this I
After reading this I checked out the website of the "no greater joy" ministries and here are a few other "gems"
http://www.nogreaterjoy.org/articles/child-training/bed-wetting/view/archive/1996/march/01/true-confessions-of-a-bed-wetter/ (just stuff a towel into your childrens pants at night, or make them wear a diaper)
On spanking, these sickos use corporal punishment as a means to
(taken from their On Chastisement I article).
I could go on because that site is full of this nonsense. It's actually frightening how these people use their religious texts to justify about anything.
A.Tunnell wrote: Like
You mean for instance when Christ tells his followers to slay everyone who will not join him at the end of Luke Ch. 19? You presume a lot in your comments, not the least of which is assuming that the people on this site have never studied the bible. Studying that book is what made me see that Christianity contains the same sickness as any other religion. And I know I'm not alone.
Hmmm...
Just saying that if a god exists, it is in the minds of millions. Jesus is the adult version of an imaginary friend. To fight belief in god, you cause "the faithful" to become defensive and further blinded to any form of truth, and so the concept of god gets stronger in the eyes of those wishing to defend it. I guess I don't understand why everyone is so personally offended when people want to hold on to their delusion. I'm sorry my english is poor.
xynelia wrote: I guess I
Call me a skeptic, but it may have to do with such people as fundamentalist Muslims that suggest that women should have more wrapping than a Christmas present to remain virtuous or what have you (not to mention the improbability of defending oneself in the case of rape); and some born-again idiotic Christian President of Some Country or Another who felt he had to effectively declare yet another Crusade against the Muslims; and Creationists and ID proponents, whether they are Christian, Muslim, or what ever; and all like cases of problematic thought processes. It's no wonder that many atheists do not mean to destroy religion, but root out its worst elements instead!
I did not read the article, however
Not to diminish your intellectual potential or your importance in the grand scheme of things...but with your body not many people will care if you are right or wrong. i, we, I mean they will just want to be your circus monkey.
viper601 wrote:Not to
Considering that you didn't read the article, and likely haven't read any, I can see how your ignorance would compel you to such a conclusion. For the record, anybody who is so sure that attractive women cannot be smart is a waste of my time, and if I can persuade others to support us or atheism in general because I'm so fucking awesome, then great. Now that you've posted in two threads at least that you want me to dominate and humiliate you, can we move on? Or how about this--be a good monkey and sit in the corner quietly.
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