Health and Religion

[CoinCube]

False ideas that modify behaviour may also happen to impact health outcomes.

The placebo effect for example, is very real.

If an idea is shown to repeatedly and consistently improve outcomes it behooves one to look very deeply into said idea.

Similarly if one has followed logic into a worldview that is self-refuting it is in ones best interest to re-evaluate ones basic assumptions and conclusions.

[qwik2learn]

People assume serial killers are atheists

[CoinCube]

One would think that fairly solid evidence of a massive and population wide toxic exposure would spark a public outcry in a robust and viable society.

Sperm Counts Have Plummeted Among Western Men, Scientists Confirm

https://www.google.com/amp/gizmodo.com/sperm-counts-are-declining-among-western-men-scientist-1797231662/amp

Something weird is going on with human sperm production. For decades, scientists have warned that sperm counts are dropping among Western men, but no one has really been able to prove it. In what is now the largest and most comprehensive study of its kind, scientists have presented compelling evidence in support of this rather alarming assertion, showing that sperm counts have dropped more than 50 percent in just four decades.

The sperm count decline is real and it’s not showing any signs of slowing down, according to new research published in Human Reproduction Update. By conducting a meta-analysis of 185 studies published between 1973 and 2011, researchers from the Hebrew University-Hadassah Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai documented a 52.4 percent decline in sperm concentration, and a 59.3 percent decline in total sperm count among men living in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.
...
Scientists don’t actually know what’s causing the sperm count crisis.

[IadixDev]

Socrates argued that the soul is what makes a body alive. Death occurs when the soul ceases to animate the body.

Then tell me, what must be present in a body to make it alive?
Soul.
Is this always so?
Of course.
So whenever soul takes possession of a body, it always brings life with it?
Yes, it does.
Is there an opposite to life, or not?
Yes, there is.
What?
Death.3

Scripture defines death as the separation of the body from the spirit.

As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead. James 2:26 (NIV)

http://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/history-of-happiness/socrates/

The first argument Socrates presents concerns the analogy between health in the body and justice in the soul. We all certainly prefer to be healthy than unhealthy, but health is nothing but the harmony among different parts of the body, each carrying out its proper function. Justice, it turns out, is a similar kind of harmony, but among the different parts of the soul. Injustice on the other hand is defined as a “sort of civil war” between the parts of the soul (444a): a rebellion in which one rogue element—the desirous part of our natures—usurps reason as the controlling power. In contrast, the just soul is one that possesses “psychic harmony:” no matter what life throws at the just man, he never loses his inner composure, and can maintain peace and tranquility despite the harshest of life’s circumstances. Here Socrates effectively redefines the conventional concept of happiness: it is defined in terms of internal benefits and characteristics rather than external ones.

The second argument concerns an analysis of pleasure. Socrates wants to show that living a virtuous life brings greater pleasure than living an unvirtuous life. The point is already connected with the previous one, insofar as one could argue that the psychic harmony that results from a just life brings with it greater peace and inner tranquility, which is more pleasant than the unjust life which tends to bring inner discord, guilt, stress, anxiety, and other characteristics of an unhealthy mind. But Socrates wants to show that there are further considerations to emphasize the higher pleasures of the just life: not merely peace of mind, but the excitement of pursuing knowledge, produces an almost godlike state in the human being. The philosopher is at the pinnacle of this pursuit: having cast off the blinders of ignorance, he can now explore the higher realm of truth, and this experience makes every merely physical pleasure pale in comparison.


http://www.roangelo.net/logwitt/logwit86.html



But ethics is practical. You must find the ways of looking at things that help you. Our aim through the study of ethics is, after all, to become good human beings (contra Aristotle's disinterested account of ethics; "Nothing too much" -- e.g. nothing to excess in either direction, neither over- nor under-estimating one's own ability -- was a Greek proverb, to which Aristotle gave his own application, although I don't see that pointing out that courage lies between cowardice and foolhardiness, which is a point of grammar which anyone who speaks the language knows, is helpful to ethics), for otherwise ethics is idle. For Albert Schweitzer, love -- that is, reverence for truth and reverence for life and a particular picture of the kingdom of God -- was the way of looking at things that was serviceable to him. But that may not be the way for everyone: in our world the same tree may to different individuals yield good fruit or no fruit at all or even do harm.

Socrates' "virtue is knowledge" (Our life must be guided by thoroughgoing use of reason and self-watchfulness to reform the bad habits formed in the past through ignorance of the good) is one of the ways of looking at things that I myself use in ethics. Another is Schweitzer's "reverence for life" (The good is whatever is beneficial to life, the bad whatever harms life). Another is the Gospels', in Augustine's words, "whatever is not done from love is not done as it should be done". The sayings of Epictetus are also very useful to me.

[CoinCube]

Euthanasia is becoming a major cause of death in the Netherlands. Seems it may only be a matter of time now before it becomes a full blown industry complete with target numbers and quotas.


Euthanasia responsible for 4.5 per cent of deaths in the Netherlands
http://catholicherald.co.uk/news/2017/08/03/euthanasia-responsible-for-4-5-per-cent-of-deaths-in-the-netherlands/

Euthanasia has become a common way to die in the Netherlands, accounting for 4.5 percent of deaths, according to researchers who say requests are increasing from people who are not terminally ill.
...
 People must be “suffering unbearably” with no hope of relief — but their condition does not have to be fatal.
...
“These are old people who may have health problems, but none of them are life-threatening. They’re old, they can’t get around, their friends are dead and their children don’t visit anymore,” he said. “This kind of trend cries out for a discussion. Do we think their lives are still worthwhile?”

How doctors want to harvest euthanasia patients' organs BEFORE they die
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3530935/How-doctors-want-harvest-euthanasia-patients-organs-die-Campaigners-warn-deeply-worrying-trend-donors-feel-pressured-end-lives-benefit-deaths.html

A man lies on a hospital bed, conscious and fully aware of his surroundings. As family members look on, a doctor injects him with two drugs.

The first renders the patient unconscious, putting him in coma, the second, a muscle relaxant, stops his heart.

Time, now, is very much of the essence. A few minutes are allowed for the relatives’ final farewells before he is pronounced dead and a team of surgeons swings into action, removing his liver, kidneys and pancreas.

As each organ is extracted, it is immediately transferred to separate operating theatres where medics are on hand to transplant it into a patient who lies waiting.

Slick, fast-paced and brutally efficient — while it may sound like some sci-fi scene set in the future, in fact, this chain of events unfolded in a hospital in Holland earlier this year.

What, of course, makes it so extraordinary is that the man, who has not been identified, died at the hands of a doctor.

Having suffered a stroke he had decided that his quality of life was so poor that he wanted to end his life. In the Netherlands, he was able to do this because euthanasia has been legal since 2002.
...
An academic paper published last week by a Dutch medical researcher explores the possibility that, in future, doctors might be allowed to remove organs from euthanasia patients who are still alive.

What is being suggested is that the patient could be anaesthetised — but not killed — and their organs removed, including the heart and lungs. It would be the removal of the heart that would lead to death.
Medically, this would mean that organs for transplant — hearts and lungs in particular — were more likely to be viable.

The Dutch medical fraternity insists there are as yet no plans to go down this route, but even the discussion of such a possibility has prompted campaigners to warn of the dangers of a slippery slope.

‘The trend is deeply worrying,’ says anti-euthanasia campaigner Lord Carlile of Berriew, who warns that when patients are at their lowest ebb in the immediate aftermath of a serious illness — for example, a stroke — they could be susceptible to persuasion.

‘The pressure to agree to provide a transplantable heart, lung or liver might be huge,’ he says.

‘The evidence of protection of the vulnerable in Belgium and Holland is sketchy at best. The boundaries of euthanasia are pushed yet further back and the potential for doctors to “engineer” these events grows.

Without deity, all devolves to therapy; all therapy devolves to universal death
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2017/06/without-deity-all-devolves-to-therapy.html?m=1

If deity is denied - or, nowadays, not so much 'denied' as ruled-out a priori on the basis of unexamined and unacknowledged metaphysical assumptions regarding the nature of reality...

Without deity then Life devolves to how we feel about life, currently; and therefore all possible problems devolve to therapy - because the solution to all possible problems is to change how we feel about them. Full stop - nothing more to be said.

And, changing how we feel about things is not innocuous; because it includes the possibility of Not-feeling. IN other worlds any and all problems can be solved temporarily by obliterating feelings; perhaps by obliterating awareness, obliterating The Self; maybe with drugs, surgery or some other technology...

Or we abolish feelings by death. Because without deity - death is the end of consciousness.

So all possible problems can permanently be solved by death...

Further, all problems can be prevented - by never being alive in the first place. Prevention of life.

So the therapeutic society is continually sliding down a slippery slope towards the idea of universal and permanent extinction of Life, as the one sure way of preventing suffering.

Death is the ultimate therapy for everything!

OR - if that sounds... wrong to you; then you might discover and reconsider your metaphysical assumptions which lead to that conclusion; then re-examine the possibility of deity?...

[BADecker]

Euthanasia is becoming a major cause of death in the Netherlands. Seems it may only be a matter of time now before it becomes a full blown industry complete with target numbers and quotas.

And once it has large acceptance, then they will start dropping th age limits. The idea is to reduce world populations, of course.

Once the world is down to only 10-year-olds left, there will finally be peace.

Wild in the Streets 1968 Full Movie HD Up SCR

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC7iSzrjZ_A

[LenyaPoker]

thx for longread
iam not atheist but im not religion man and it was interesting

[CoinCube]

Church attendance may lower suicide risk in women
http://www.pikecountycourier.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20170812/NEWS01/170819999/0/sports/Church-attendance-may-lower-suicide-risk-in-women

Women who attend religious services at least once a week may have a lower risk of suicide than those who never attend services, according to a study led by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Tyler VanderWeele, professor of epidemiology, and coauthors analyzed health data from 89,708 women participating in the Nurses’ Health Study from 1996 through June 2010. Most of the women were white and Catholic or Protestant.

Compared with women who never attended religious services, women who attended once per week or more had a five times lower risk of committing suicide during the study period, the researchers found.

The authors noted that their study used observational data and did not account for factors such as impulsivity or feelings of hopelessness. In addition, the findings may not be generalizable to other populations.

Suicide is among the 10 leading causes of death in the United States. The major world religions have traditions prohibiting suicide.

“Our results do not imply that health care providers should prescribe attendance at religious services,” they wrote. “However, for patients who are already religious, service attendance might be encouraged as a form of meaningful social participation. Religion and spirituality may be an underappreciated resource that psychiatrists and clinicians could explore with their patients, as appropriate.”

[Sponsoredby15]

thx for longread
iam not atheist but im not religion man and it was interesting

This thread was helpful for those who are religion centered and wants to know more about the outside things of the religion. although we could see that many are believers of religion but still we can conclude that not all people are not believing in it including me.

[CoinCube]

Chinese missionaries flow into SE Asia and the Middle East
https://www.ft.com/content/69a41f7e-6b96-11e7-bfeb-33fe0c5b7eaa

Plan to send 20,000 evangelicals to SE Asia and Mideast creates dilemma for Beijing

At a Sunday service in an underground church in Beijing, worshippers clap their hands and vow to spread their Christian faith in China, and beyond.

“Use me as an instrument, Lord, send me out in the world,” they sing. “I will go make you known. Lord send me.”

A Protestant revival in China has swelled the church’s membership to tens of thousands, and its ambitions are no longer limited to the country

Beijing’s Zion church is one of dozens in the country to have sent missionaries overseas, as evangelical Christians follow their country’s huge infrastructure push into Southeast Asia and the Middle East, creating a dilemma for the officially atheist Communist party.

There are about 1,000 Chinese missionaries outside the country, compared with virtually none a decade ago, according to churches and academics.Church leaders hope to increase their number to 20,000 by the end of the next decade.

Those leaders say missionary activity is a natural extension of China’s Protestant movement, which has grown rapidly in recent decades and now numbers about 100m.

“When a country develops religion to a certain level it will engage in missionary activity. This is very normal,” says Cui Qian, pastor of the Wanbang Missionary Church in Shanghai.

Mr Cui’s church has 20 missionaries overseas, mostly in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. They work as Chinese teachers or at state-owned enterprises, and learn local languages, says the pastor, who recently visited a missionary couple in Lebanon.

Nearly all Chinese missionaries are from “underground” churches independent of China’s state-controlled Protestant association, which for decades have been subject to Communist party crackdowns.

That experience makes them ideal for low-profile activities in countries including North Korea, Mr Cui says. “It’s Chinese-style missionary work. We don’t build churches and we don’t need much organizational structure. We survived the Cultural Revolution. So we have experience”.
...
Chinese churches’ most ambitious plan is “Mission China 2030”, which aims to send 20,000 faithful overseas by the end of next decade. The number, calculated in part on an estimate of the number of foreign missionaries who died in China, was affirmed at a meeting of 1,000 Chinese church representatives in South Korea last summer.

[CoinCube]

thx for longread
iam not atheist but im not religion man and it was interesting

This thread was helpful for those who are religion centered and wants to know more about the outside things of the religion. although we could see that many are believers of religion but still we can conclude that not all people are not believing in it including me.

I am happy to see people have found this thread worthwhile. You are very welcome.

[CoinCube]

Defector: Christianity Thrives in North Korea as Citizens ‘No Longer Respect’ Kim Jong-Un
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2017/08/16/defector-christianity-thrives-north-korea-citizens-no-longer-respect-kim-jong-un/

Christianity is spreading in North Korea as fewer citizens in the hermit state consider dictator Kim Jong-Un a god, the Telegraph has learned from an anonymous defector.
Using figures found in the latest International Religious Freedom Report authored by the U.S. State Department, Breitbart News has determined that the Christian population in North Korea has increased dramatically—at least five-fold—from about 37,000 known practicing Christians in 2012 to between 200,000 and 400,000 now.

The State Department, which gleaned the Christian population figures from data maintained by the United Nations and the Cornerstone Ministries International (CMI), acknowledged the number of Christians in North Korea may be higher.

State learned from CMI that an estimated “10-45 percent” of people imprisoned in North Koreans detention camps are Christians.

“An estimated 80,000 to 120,000 political prisoners, some imprisoned for religious reasons, were believed to be held in the political prison camp system in remote areas under horrific conditions,” points out State in its report. “CSW [Christian Solidarity Worldwide] said a policy of guilt by association was often applied in cases of detentions of Christians, meaning that the relatives of Christians were also detained regardless of their beliefs.”

An unnamed North Korean defector confirmed the significant increase in North Korea’s Christian population.

“In the past, the people were told to worship the Kim family as their god, but many North Koreans no longer respect Kim Jong-Un”, the defector, now a member of the Seoul-based Worldwide Coalition to Stop Genocide in North Korea, told the Telegraph. “That means they are looking for something else to sustain their faith.”

“In some places, that has led to the emergence of shamans, but the Christian church is also growing and deepening its roots there”, he also said, adding, “Even though people know they could be sent to prison—or worse—they are still choosing to worship, and that means that more cracks are appearing in the regime and the system.”

North Koreans who practice any form of religion can face jail, torture, or even execution in the communist country, reveals the International Religious Freedom Report for 2016.

“The government continued to deal harshly with those who engaged in almost any religious practices through executions, torture, beatings, and arrests,” stresses the report.

Citing a 2014 report of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the Human Rights Situation of North Korea, State reports that the communist country considers Christianity a serious threat.

Christianity “challenged the official cult of personality and provided a platform for social and political organization and interaction outside of the government,” notes State. “The report concluded Christians faced persecution, violence, and heavy punishment if they practiced their religion outside the state-controlled churches.”

Although the North Korean constitution provides protection for the right to freedom of religious beliefs, the communist nation denies its people the right to freedom of thought and religion.

In North Korea, “there was an almost complete denial by the government of the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, and, in many instances, violations of human rights committed by the government constituted crimes against humanity,” notes the State report, which covers about 200 foreign jurisdictions, criticizing American allies and foes alike for their religious freedoms shortcomings.

[Sithara007]

^^^ I really doubt how Kim Jong Un is going to react to the spread of Christianity in his country. In the neighboring South Korea, Christianity has become the dominant religion, replacing Buddhism. Even the president of South Korea (Moon Jae In) is a Christian.

[CoinCube]

A casually worded CBS News article depicts a horrifying reality.

CBS News reported earlier this week that Iceland is leading the world in “eradicating Down syndrome births.” One might be forgiven for assuming that Iceland has developed an innovative treatment for the chromosomal disorder. It turns out Iceland’s solution is much simpler, and much more sinister: using prenatal testing and abortion to systematically exterminate children with Down syndrome. This isn’t progress; it’s eugenics.

Prenatal testing is optional in Iceland, but the government mandates that doctors notify women of that option. About 85 percent of expectant mothers undergo the test, and close to 100 percent of those women choose to abort if their child is diagnosed with Down syndrome. Just two children with Down syndrome are born in Iceland each year, often as the result of faulty testing.

The CBS article does little to accord this subject the moral gravity it deserves. “Other countries aren’t lagging too far behind in Down syndrome termination rates,” the authors note casually. CBS News’s tweet promoting the story read simply: “Iceland is on pace to virtually eliminate Down syndrome through abortion.”

But Iceland isn’t “eliminating Down syndrome” at all. It’s eliminating people. The callous tone of the piece makes selective abortion sound like a technological innovation rather than what it really is: the intentional targeting of “unfit” persons for total elimination.

What kind of culture does it require to foster such a mindset, to foster a society in which nearly every mother of a Down-syndrome child chooses to abort? Iceland is at the high end of the spectrum in this regard — and was one of the first countries to normalize widespread prenatal testing, in an effort to identify fetal abnormalities and eliminate them through abortion — but it is far from alone.

Ninety percent of women in the United Kingdom who receive a positive Down-syndrome diagnosis choose to abort. In the U.S., that percentage falls somewhere between 67 and 90, according to a recent meta-study of Down-syndrome termination rates over the last few decades. In Europe as a whole, somewhere around 92 percent of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted. This targeting of individuals with Down syndrome is borne out not just in astronomical abortion rates, but in a cultural attitude that often regards them as less than human.

In France, for example, the State Council banned from the airwaves a video featuring children with Down syndrome talking about their happy lives. The advertisement was meant to comfort mothers who received a prenatal diagnosis and assure them that their children would have beautiful, largely normal lives. The ad was forbidden by the French government because the smiles of the children would “disturb the conscience of women who had lawfully made different personal life choices” — in other words, because seeing them happy would upset women who had aborted their Down syndrome children.

Meanwhile, prenatal testing is praised nearly universally for its ability to give women a full array of “options” for their pregnancies, but many women report feeling pressured by their doctors — whether to be tested in the first place or to choose abortion if the test reveals Down syndrome or other abnormalities. It is taken for granted in the medical community that no woman would carry a Down-syndrome pregnancy to term.

This pressure reveals the pervasive belief that selective abortion is somehow an actual health-care solution. Instead of seeking real treatment for the ailments that plague people with Down syndrome, or even finding potential cures, we have settled for a false vision of progress that kills people with a disorder rather than treating them.

A counselor at an Iceland hospital sees the issue even more starkly. “We don’t look at abortion as a murder,” she said. “We look at it as a thing that we ended. We ended a possible life that may have had a huge complication . . . preventing suffering for the child and for the family. And I think that is more right than seeing it as a murder — that’s so black and white. Life isn’t black and white. Life is grey.”

It is in this supposed gray area that the desire to promote health and well-being morphs into the insidious view that people with Down syndrome are better off dead — and that we will be a more advanced society for having relieved them of the burden of a “limited” life. Too many people today believe it is preferable, and indeed more humane, to murder children rather than allow them to suffer. But what life doesn’t have suffering?

Jerome Lejeune, the French geneticist who discovered the chromosomal basis for Down syndrome, once offered this perspective: “It cannot be denied that the price of these diseases is high — in suffering for the individual and in burdens for society. Not to mention what parents suffer! But we can assign a value to that price: It is precisely what a society must pay to remain fully human.”

The title of the CBS piece asks, “What kind of society do you want to live in?” The article’s implicit response seems to be, “One dedicated to eliminating abnormality and suffering by any means necessary.” But no admirable society eradicates suffering by eradicating those who suffer. To achieve true moral progress, we must reject the killing of the vulnerable and condemn any backwards society that promotes such a regime as a solution.

Here is the video banned by the French government because the smiles of the children would “disturb the conscience of women who had lawfully made different personal life choices”. I am not familiar with the laws of France. If you are French it may be illegal for you to watch it.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju-q4OnBtNU

[CoinCube]

Buy organic fruits & vegetables and look into the source of your drinking water.

Atrazine induces complete feminization and chemical castration in frogs
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2842049/

ABSTRACT

The herbicide atrazine is one of the most commonly applied pesticides in the world. As a result, atrazine is the most commonly detected pesticide contaminant of ground, surface, and drinking water. Atrazine is also a potent endocrine disruptor that is active at low, ecologically relevant concentrations. Previous studies showed that atrazine adversely affects amphibian larval development. The present study demonstrates the reproductive consequences of atrazine exposure in adult amphibians. Atrazine-exposed males were both demasculinized (chemically castrated) and completely feminized as adults. Ten percent of the exposed genetic males developed into functional females that copulated with unexposed males and produced viable eggs. Atrazine-exposed males suffered from depressed testosterone, decreased breeding gland size, demasculinized/feminized laryngeal development, suppressed mating behavior, reduced spermatogenesis, and decreased fertility. These data are consistent with effects of atrazine observed in other vertebrate classes. The present findings exemplify the role that atrazine and other endocrine-disrupting pesticides likely play in global amphibian declines.

Atrazine is one of the most widely used pesticides in the world. Approximately 80 million pounds are applied annually in the United States alone, and atrazine is the most common pesticide contaminant of ground and surface water (1). Atrazine can be transported more than 1,000 km from the point of application via rainfall and, as a result, contaminates otherwise pristine habitats, even in remote areas where it is not used (2, 3). In fact, more than a half million pounds of atrazine are precipitated in rainfall each year in the United States (2).

In addition to its persistence, mobility, and widespread contamination of water, atrazine is also a concern because several studies have shown that atrazine is a potent endocrine disruptor active in the ppb (parts per billion) range in fish (4, 5), amphibians (6–12), reptiles, and human cell lines (5, 13–15), and at higher doses (ppm) in reptiles (16–18), birds (19), and laboratory rodents (20–28).

Atrazine seems to be most potent in amphibians, where it is active at levels as low as 0.1 ppb (6–10). Although a few studies suggest that atrazine has no effect on amphibians under certain laboratory conditions (29, 30), in other studies, atrazine reduces testicular volume; reduces germ cell and Sertoli cell numbers (11); induces hermaphroditism (6, 8, 10); reduces testosterone (10); and induces testicular oogenesis (7–9, 31). Furthermore, atrazine contamination is associated with demasculinization and feminization of amphibians in agricultural areas where atrazine is used (32) and directly correlated with atrazine contamination in the wild (7, 9, 33, 34).

Despite the wealth of data from larvae and newly metamorphosed amphibians, the ultimate impacts of atrazine’s developmental effects on reproductive function and fitness at sexual maturity, which relate more closely to population level effects and amphibian declines, have been unexplored. In the present study, we examined the long-term effects of atrazine exposure on reproductive development and function in an all-male population of African clawed frogs (Xenopus laevis).

(full study available at link above)

If the effects on amphibians cross over at all into the human population, which they probably do, young children especially young boys would be at highest risk. As the parent of a young boy I have starting purchasing separate and expensive drinking water (just for him) that is from a remote ground water source. I drink the cheep filtered stuff.      
 

One would think that fairly solid evidence of a massive and population wide toxic exposure would spark a public outcry in a robust and viable society.

Sperm Counts Have Plummeted Among Western Men, Scientists Confirm

https://www.google.com/amp/gizmodo.com/sperm-counts-are-declining-among-western-men-scientist-1797231662/amp

Something weird is going on with human sperm production. For decades, scientists have warned that sperm counts are dropping among Western men, but no one has really been able to prove it. In what is now the largest and most comprehensive study of its kind, scientists have presented compelling evidence in support of this rather alarming assertion, showing that sperm counts have dropped more than 50 percent in just four decades.

The sperm count decline is real and it’s not showing any signs of slowing down, according to new research published in Human Reproduction Update. By conducting a meta-analysis of 185 studies published between 1973 and 2011, researchers from the Hebrew University-Hadassah Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai documented a 52.4 percent decline in sperm concentration, and a 59.3 percent decline in total sperm count among men living in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.

[sonicwave]

I do not see any connection between religion and health. Believers are as sick as atheists.
But sometimes atheists begin to pray to recover from a serious illness. They are helped by the belief that God loves them. It's just self-hypnosis

[sirazimuth]

.....
But sometimes without exception atheists begin to pray see a doctor to recover from a serious illness. They are helped by the belief fact that God loves modern science and medicine will help them. It's just self-hypnosis being rational.

FTFY

[qwik2learn]

. They are helped by the belief that God loves them. It's just self-hypnosis

There is a difference between self-hypnosis and wishful thinking. If the effect is from self-hypnosis then atheists should learn that skill and see if they can replicate the effects.

[BADecker]

I do not see any connection between religion and health. Believers are as sick as atheists.
But sometimes atheists begin to pray to recover from a serious illness. They are helped by the belief that God loves them. It's just self-hypnosis

Coincube has been showing us the connection. There is a possibility that all medical health is placebo effect on a level not yet understood. This would make all health self-hypnosis-like if it were found to be true.

[CoinCube]

Superrationality and the Infinite

I’ll argue that the error of your morality and ethics argument is that morality and ethics are always driven by economics and game theory, not vice versa. Religion works because it encodes game theory and economics, not because of some cardinal virtue of (non-relativistic) absolute truth.
...
There is no such thing as absolute truth or absolutely true ethics, because our Universe is necessarily and definitionally unbounded entropic relativistic
...
A particular orthodoxy works at a particular epoch because of the game theory and economics of that epoch.
...
More bluntly, humans defect or cooperate according to the Nash equilibrium of the system in play.
...
The economically relevant players have a risk due to unfair play. Think about in terms of a Nash equilibrium or Prisoner’s dilemma. When players know the possible outcomes and strategies, the equilibrium is more performant.
...
Problem with the “don’t drink goats milk on Thursdays” and “universe loves you if you love the universe” sort of religious mind control, is it just doesn’t work well any more, because humans have access to information and so they can’t be fooled so easily
...
Meta physics will always exist because I’ve explained elsewhere that our existence must necessarily be composed on unbounded unknowns (i.e. uncertainty aka entropy) else we do not exist other than as some preordained static game where all the outcomes were known at the birth of the universe. The static universe is impossible because it would necessitate that something exists (mathematically) “outside” the bound, but then by definition that is unbounded.
...
Commensurately there’s no absolute truth of philosophical arguments such as this one, as they’re relativistic like everything else. There isn’t a winner. Contention in philosophy is part of our existence. It’s disingenuous however to not cite the opposing argument.

You have your cause and effect transposed.

Economics and game theory are ultimately driven by morality and ethics. To highlight this let's look at the classic and famous example of the prisoners dilemmas and its Nash equilibrium.

The prisoner's dilemma is the standard example of game theory where two rational individuals will not cooperate despite it being in their best interest to do so.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma

Two members of a criminal gang are arrested and imprisoned. Each prisoner is in solitary confinement with no means of communicating with the other. The prosecutors lack sufficient evidence to convict the pair on the principal charge.

They hope to get both sentenced to a year in prison on a lesser charge. Simultaneously, the prosecutors offer each prisoner a bargain. Each prisoner is given the opportunity either to: betray the other by testifying that the other committed the crime, or to cooperate with the other by remaining silent.

The offer is:
If A and B each betray the other, each of them serves 2 years in prison

If A betrays B but B remains silent, A will be set free and B will serve 3 years in prison (and vice versa)

If A and B both remain silent, both of them will only serve 1 year in prison (on the lesser charge)

It is implied that the prisoners will have no opportunity to reward or punish their partner other than the prison sentences they get

The prisoners dilemma leads rational actors to logically betray each other leading to a suboptimal low cooperation outcome. Betrayal and failure to cooperate is the Nash Equilibrium of the prisoners dilemma.

A Nash equilibrium of this sort, however, is a failure that only binds "rational" individuals. All that is needed to escape from this trap is to elevate the nature of the participants and make them superrational.

Superrationality
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superrationality

In economics and game theory, a participant is considered to have superrationality (or renormalized rationality) if they have perfect rationality (and thus maximize their own utility) but assume that all other players are superrational too and that a superrational individual will always come up with the same strategy as any other superrational thinker when facing the same symmetrical problem. Applying this definition, a superrational player playing against a superrational opponent in a prisoner's dilemma will cooperate while a rationally self-interested player would defect.
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Superrationality is a form of Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative.
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Superrationality is an alternative method of reasoning. First, it is assumed that the answer to a symmetric problem will be the same for all the superrational players. Thus the sameness is taken into account before knowing what the strategy will be.
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(In the prisoners dilemma) two superrational players will both cooperate, since this answer maximizes their payoff.
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Note that a superrational player playing against a game-theoretic rational player will defect, since the strategy only assumes that superrational players will agree.

If you want to see how superrationality would play out of in the real world just change the players in prisoners dilemma.

Suppose two Christian missionaries are arrested and imprisoned in North Korea for suspected spreading of blasphemy against the Great Leader. Each missionary is in solitary confinement with no means of communicating with the other.

The North Koreans lack sufficient evidence to convict the pair on the principal charge. But can get both sentenced to a year in labor camps on lesser fabricated charges. Simultaneously, the prosecutors offer each missionary a bargain. Each prisoner is given the opportunity either to betray the other by testifying that the other is a Christian missionary, or to remain silent.

Does the Nash Equilibrium still hold? Doubtful most likely the missionaries will stay quiet. They will do so because they are superrational.

Your rejection of religion as mind control that won't survive the transparency of an information age is flawed because belief in God is a superrationality protocol that maximizes rationality and utility. It will thus thrive with technological progress, transparency, and decentralization as awareness of this superiority grows. It is the rejection of religion that will not survive as it is ultimately non-competitive and locks you into suboptimal outcomes as seen in the prisoners dilemma above.

The Universe is finite. You are correct that this necessitates something exists (mathematically) “outside” the bound, and this something must by definition be unbounded.

The Nature of God
http://www.jewfaq.org/g-d.htm

The existence of God is a necessary prerequisite for the existence of the universe. The existence of the universe is sufficient proof of the existence of God.
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God is a unity. He is a single, whole, complete indivisible entity. He cannot be divided into parts or described by attributes. Any attempt to ascribe attributes to God is merely man's imperfect attempt to understand the infinite.
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God transcends time. He has no beginning and no end.

The prisoners dilemma is a microcosm for a whole host of human and societal interactions. Superrationality breaks the prisoners out of the dilemma allowing the achievement of optimal cooperative outcomes despite a Nash equilibrium of defection and betrayal. Superrationality itself is just a formalization of Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative.

Kant's categorical imperative:
Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.

The categorical imperative in turn is a valiant but incomplete attempt to codify much older wisdom into a logical framework.

Brett Stevens wrote up a nice article on this deeper religious wisdom and its relationship to the good but imperfect categorical imperative.

Kant’s categorical imperative, Biblical law and the “golden rule”
http://www.amerika.org/science/kants-categorical-imperative-biblical-law-and-the-popular-notion-of-the-golden-rule/

Ultimately superrationality is at its heart the logical result of applying ancient religious wisdom to modern problems. It is Ethical Monotheism that teaches us to treat others as ourselves even when dealing with strangers.

Christianity: Matthew 7:12
"So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets."

Judaism: Hillel the Elder
"What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn."

Islam: Abdullah ibn Amr Al-Ass
"Whoever wishes to be delivered from the fire and enter the garden should die with faith in Allah and the Last Day and should treat the people as he wishes to be treated by them"

Ethical Monotheism is thus directly responsible for a tremendous portion of the progress humanity had made to date as it facilitates cooperative outcomes over competitive defection.

See: Metaphysical Attitudes for more.