Health and Religion

[CoinCube]

...
In the 21st century, we have other concepts that essentially function as religions.  Secular governments, science, data.  

Bitcoin is an example.  Two strangers trust bitcoin value because they trust Math behind it.  They are willing to co-operate (in this case exchange value) despite the fact that they don't know each other, might be actually enemies otherwise.  But they will co-operate the same way two Christian Kingdoms co-operated to kill and plunder pagan tribes.

You don't need to suspend your reason to believe some bronze age nonsense, today, you have other options.

af_newbie I am not suggesting you suspend your reason. I am advising you fully engage it.

Upthread Moloch brought Pascals Renewed Wager to our attention.

In this paper we see that belief in God coupled with observance of belief is correlated with numerous health outcomes including:

1) Happiness
2) Physical health
3) Mental health
4) Longevity
5) Stable marital relations

The data in the OP allows us to add fertility to that list.

The only possible counter is to argue that it's all just illusion with some other ultimate cause. That is exactly what the atheist counter paper cited by Moloch tries to do. The 15 page paper is full to the brim with attempt after attempt to to explain away the data. If you are looking for tips on how to strongly argue a weak position its a great source.

The reality is I have yet to see a single study where atheist (of any stripe) outperform the very religious on health metrics. Furthermore there is not a single current or historic non-religious group that has maintained reproductive replacement levels on the communal level.

If someone came to your door marketing lab grown soylent green and meat-x plus you would probably ask a several pointed questions before abandoning fruits vegetables and fish.

Specifically:

A) Are those eating soylent green maintaining physical health?
B) Do they live as long as those eating traditional diets?
C) Could the artificial stuff contain poisons that do bad things like reduce your fertility?

If you would ask these hard questions about soylent green why wouldn't you ask them of atheism? Wishful thinking aside there is no evidence to suggest that modern contrivances like socialism, humanism, or nationalism function as viable and sustainable replacements for religion.

Bitcoin is a great example. Two strangers can transact in bitcoin because they have confidence in the consensus it represents. The math behind bitcoin is simply a tool that helps keep that consensus strong. This is why the hard fork controversy is so bitter. It is an attack on consensus in one of the few areas where math is not protective.

This is probably a major reasons why religious people distrust atheist. Religion can be looked at as a moral consensus. It is a system of rules which it's adherents (sometimes nominally) agree to live by. By declaring themselves atheists individuals choose to publicly reject that consensus which leads to suspicion. The bitcoin equivalent would be a miner publicly supporting a closed source hardfork.

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[organofcorti]

<snip>

This is probably a major reasons why religious people distrust atheist religion can be looked at as a moral consensus. It is a system of rules which it's adherents (sometimes nominally) agree to live by. By declaring themselves atheists individuals choose to publicly reject that consensus which leads to suspicion. The bitcoin equivalent would be a miner publicly supporting a closed source hardfork.

That Scientific American article describes that as un unsupported cognitive bias. Just because people distrust atheists doesn't mean there's a reason for it.

And just because many religious people feel they need religious rules in order to act morally it doesn't mean that people who don't follow religious rules can't act morally. It's more likely that religious people need religion in order to be moral actors, just as BADecker wrote.

[popcorn1]

...
In the 21st century, we have other concepts that essentially function as religions.  Secular governments, science, data.  

Bitcoin is an example.  Two strangers trust bitcoin value because they trust Math behind it.  They are willing to co-operate (in this case exchange value) despite the fact that they don't know each other, might be actually enemies otherwise.  But they will co-operate the same way two Christian Kingdoms co-operated to kill and plunder pagan tribes.

You don't need to suspend your reason to believe some bronze age nonsense, today, you have other options.

af_newbie I am not suggesting you suspend your reason. I am advising you fully engage it.

Upthread Moloch brought Pascals Renewed Wager to our attention.

In this paper we see that belief in God coupled with observance of belief is correlated with numerous health outcomes including:

1) Happiness
2) Physical health
3) Mental health
4) Longevity
5) Stable marital relations

The data in the OP allows us to add fertility to that list.

The only possible counter is to argue that it's all just illusion with some other ultimate cause. That is exactly what the atheist counter paper cited by Moloch tries to do. The 15 page paper is full to the brim with attempt after attempt to to explain away the data. If you are looking for tips on how to strongly argue a weak position its a great source.

The reality is I have yet to see a single study where atheist (of any stripe) outperform the very religious on health metrics. Furthermore there is not a single current or historic non-religious group that has maintained reproductive replacement levels on the communal level.

If someone came to your door marketing lab grown soylent green and meat-x plus you would probably ask a several pointed questions before abandoning fruits vegetables and fish.

Specifically:

A) Are those eating soylent green maintaining physical health?
B) Do they live as long as those eating traditional diets?
C) Could the artificial stuff contain poisons that do bad things like reduce your fertility?

If you would ask these hard questions about soylent green why wouldn't you ask them of atheism? Wishful thinking aside there is no evidence to suggest that modern contrivances like socialism, humanism, or nationalism function as a viable and sustainable replacements for religion.

Bitcoin is a great example. Two strangers can transact in bitcoin because they have confidence in the consensus it represents. The math behind bitcoin is simply a tool that helps keep that consensus strong. This is why the hard fork controversy is so bitter. It is an attack on consensus in one of the few areas where math is not protective.

This is probably a major reasons why religious people distrust atheist religion can be looked at as a moral consensus. It is a system of rules which it's adherents (sometimes nominally) agree to live by. By declaring themselves atheists individuals choose to publicly reject that consensus which leads to suspicion. The bitcoin equivalent would be a miner publicly supporting a closed source hardfork.

126-year-old living atheist celebrates birthday?
#1  Postby CIS » Feb 03, 2011 8:07 pm

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEcKbbcNfm8[/youtube]
No international longevity research body has yet verified her claim to be the oldest person ever (the current official titleholder—Jeanne Calment—died at age 122 in 1997), but she claims to have been born February 2, 1885, making yesterday her 126th birthday.

In the video above, she claims "not to be much of a believer (in afterlife/religion)". If she's really the age she claims, she'd have been born just 3 years after Charles Darwin's death.

OLDEST PERSON IN THE WORLD IS AN ATHEIST
RELIGIOUS PEOPLE ARE THICK AS SHIT..So what you say is not true?

Keeping busy makes you live longer FACT not to much stress on the body light walks every day bike rides gardening and so on.

I bet an old person in the garden would last longer than the old person going to church..
I understand why they live longer going to church than a couch potato because there moving around and keeping active..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hxfr5Tg7jY

The video above they were asked what was there secret and not one mentions GOD? OR CHURCH

[CoinCube]

<snip>

This is probably a major reasons why religious people distrust atheist religion can be looked at as a moral consensus. It is a system of rules which it's adherents (sometimes nominally) agree to live by. By declaring themselves atheists individuals choose to publicly reject that consensus which leads to suspicion. The bitcoin equivalent would be a miner publicly supporting a closed source hardfork.

That Scientific American article describes that as un unsupported cognitive bias. Just because people distrust atheists doesn't mean there's a reason for it.

And just because many religious people feel they need religious rules in order to act morally it doesn't mean that people who don't follow religious rules can't act morally. It's more likely that religious people need religion in order to be moral actors, just as BADecker wrote.

The statement I am an atheist as opposed to the statement I am an atheist and (insert moral code here) means the following to a religious person.

1) I reject your moral and spiritual code and have replaced it with nothing
or
2) I reject your moral and spiritual code and have replaced it with something I do not wish to share

It is reasonable to be suspicious of the values and morals of someone operating with no moral code. It is also reasonable to be suspicious of someone who knows and can anticipate your moral code but refuses to disclose his own. I fail to see the cognative bias.

[organofcorti]

<snip>

This is probably a major reasons why religious people distrust atheist religion can be looked at as a moral consensus. It is a system of rules which it's adherents (sometimes nominally) agree to live by. By declaring themselves atheists individuals choose to publicly reject that consensus which leads to suspicion. The bitcoin equivalent would be a miner publicly supporting a closed source hardfork.

That Scientific American article describes that as un unsupported cognitive bias. Just because people distrust atheists doesn't mean there's a reason for it.

And just because many religious people feel they need religious rules in order to act morally it doesn't mean that people who don't follow religious rules can't act morally. It's more likely that religious people need religion in order to be moral actors, just as BADecker wrote.

The statement I am an atheist as opposed to the statement I am an atheist and (insert moral code here) means the following to a religious person.

1) I reject your moral and spiritual code and have replaced it with nothing
or
2) I reject your moral and spiritual code and replaced it with something I do not wish to share

It is reasonable to be suspicious of the values and morals of someone operating with no moral code. It is also reasonable to be suspicious of someone who knows and can anticipate your moral code but refuses to disclose his own. I fail to see the cognative bias.

Bias 1: It's not reasonable to be generally suspicious of groups of people. Why would you assume they have no moral code? Just because they don't follow the exact rules you do doesn't mean they have no morals.

Bias 2: People are generally moral beings (for trustworthiness and  "do unto others" values of morality). It is much more likely that if you think that people are not generally moral beings unless they belong to your religion, this is more to do with how you see the world rather than how the world is.


Edit:
Another cognitive bias: I see plenty of immorality from religious people, and very little "love thy neighbour". I realise that the "Die poofter!" or "Die Muslim!" or "Die Jew!" contingent are only a tiny minority of religious people, but I'll bet good money that their fellow believers are able to overlook this obvious lack of moral code because they are from the same church.

[CoinCube]

I fail to see the cognative bias.

Bias 1: It's not reasonable to be generally suspicious of groups of people. Why would you assume they have no moral code? Just because they don't follow the exact rules you do doesn't mean they have no morals.

Bias 2: People are generally moral beings (for trustworthiness and  "do unto others" values of morality).

(snip)

I agree that religious groups are far from immune to the unjustified out of group discrimination that seems to characterize all human groups.

Most atheist have some form of code. Ethical hedonism seems a common choice but their are many options. There is every reason to believe that publicly following and promoting a moral code in the past is predictive of continuing to do so in the future.

In the refusal to adopt a public moral code the atheist make it much harder for others to accurately determine their trustworthiness or predict their behavior. If a religious person repeatedly rejects temptation and expediency when it conflicts with their publicly disclosed code one can have some confidence they will continue to do so in the future. This allows one to predict future behaviors and facilitates cooperation and trust. Similarly a nominally religious person seen not following their code helpfully flags themselves as untrustworthy. To achieve similar confidence regarding an atheist one must observe them over a much longer period examining their behavior across the entire relevant moral spectrum.

[organofcorti]

I fail to see the cognative bias.

Bias 1: It's not reasonable to be generally suspicious of groups of people. Why would you assume they have no moral code? Just because they don't follow the exact rules you do doesn't mean they have no morals.

Bias 2: People are generally moral beings (for trustworthiness and  "do unto others" values of morality).

(snip)

I agree that religious groups are far from immune to the unjustified out of group discrimination that seems to characterize all human groups.

Most atheist have some form of code. Ethical hedonism seems a common choice but their are many options. There is every reason to believe that publicly following and promoting a moral code in the past is predictive of continuing to do so in the future.

In the refusal to adopt a public moral code the atheist make it much harder for others to accurately determine their trustworthiness or predict their behavior. If a religious person repeatedly rejects temptation and expediency when it conflicts with their publicly disclosed code one can have some confidence they will continue to do so in the future. This allows one to predict future behaviors and facilitates cooperation and trust. Similarly a nominally religious person seen not following their code helpfully flags themselves as untrustworthy. To achieve similar confidence regarding an atheist one must observe them over a much longer period examining their behavior across the entire relevant moral spectrum.

Do religious people repeatedly reject temptation in general? If not, would this not make religious people less trustworthy, since one cannot predict their future behaviour, and would make expecting moral behaviour from such people also another such bias.

[CoinCube]

Do religious people repeatedly reject temptation in general? If not, would this not make religious people less trustworthy, since one cannot predict their future behaviour, and would make expecting moral behaviour from such people also another such bias.

Is striving towards a challenging ideal superior to ignoring that ideal or paying it lip service?

If you think it through the answer to your question coupled with the answer to mine provides a framework for understanding the outcome data presented upthread (the differing level of wellbeing reported by the very religious, the 'moderately' religious and the unaffiliated).

[Moloch]

Morals do not come from God.

Only 2 of the 10 commandments are laws.

Don't even get me started on Leviticus

Everyone, and I mean everyone, has broken 9 of the 10 commandments...

The main reason people dont murder is because they don't want to go to prison

[organofcorti]

Do religious people repeatedly reject temptation in general? If not, would this not make religious people less trustworthy, since one cannot predict their future behaviour, and would make expecting moral behaviour from such people also another such bias.

Is striving towards a challenging ideal superior to ignoring that ideal or paying it lip service?

If you think it through the answer to your question coupled with the answer to mine provides a framework for understanding the outcome data presented upthread (the differing level of wellbeing reported by the very religious, the 'moderately' religious and the unaffiliated).

Getting back to the "cognitive bias" part, I think we have established that religious groups can:
a) Reject another group because it doesn't understand that group, even though the other group has never committed an offence against them
b) Do not reject their own members, even though they commit the offences that they attribute to the out-group.

This is a cognitive bias - seeing the world in a way that does not reflect reality.

Given that this cognitive bias can lead to conflict, is it not certain that in this case a religion which encourages members to ignore reality will cause conflict, reducing members quality of life and enjoyment?

I think a more general case could be made that dogmatic beliefs that do not match reality are a recipe for conflict.

[libertad]

I'm confused. How does one decide to suddenly believe in an all knowing all powerful invisible man in the sky without being dishonest with themselves?

[BADecker]

I'm confused. How does one decide to suddenly believe in an all knowing all powerful invisible man in the sky without being dishonest with themselves?

This depends on the life of the one making the decision. If the person has seen that life is falling apart for himself, and if he has tried all kinds of things to change it, he might decide to suddenly believe because he has (or thinks he has) tried everything else. However, this might not be the way for everyone.

Some people are reasonably honest, thinking people. They say to themselves, "Smart people build all kinds of complex technology, yet the universe defies their understanding because it is so extremely complex. Where does that great complexity come from? Well, let's see. Man-made complexity comes from intelligence of people. So, universe complexity must come from something even more intelligent. I don't know if the man in the sky is really a man, and I don't know if he/it is even human, but he/it is extremely intelligent to have built complexity that man can't figure out."

So, it is not necessarily a sudden belief, nor is it necessarily a sudden decision. It is simply a direction of thinking.

In addition, if the person happens to check out the Bible at this stage of the game, the Holy Spirit works in the person's heart to come to understand God enough to believe in Him.

[anon_giraffe]

The OP makes no necessary relationship between atheism and "modernity".
Nor any necessary exclusiveness between atheism and the "human spirit".

There are forms of spiritual philosophy that are not Christian whilst also atheistic.

I think the thread should be renamed,
My version of Christianity is the only true spirituality and all other people are going to hell.

It would make more sense to the content provided.
I'm sorry, that was an immediate response that now seems unjustified.


It doesnt help that "atheism" has no consistent usage and is nowhere defined for usage within the content.

And what does fertility rate have to do with anything?
It's well known that people from area's with high infant mortality have more children than people with higher survival rate.
And that poor people have higher average number of children.

Are you suggesting that spiritually active people are comparable to third world societies or lower socio-economic families?

[CoinCube]

Getting back to the "cognitive bias" part, I think we have established that religious groups can:
a) Rejects another group because it doesn't understand that group, even though the other group has never committed an offence against them
b) Do not reject their own members, even though they commit the offences that they attribute to the out-group.

This is a cognitive bias - seeing the world in a way that does not reflect reality.

While this can certainly be true of religious groups it can also be true of any other grouping of humans that has existed or will exist. They have even shown a similar phenomena in completely random groups separated only by t-shirt color.

What you have identified is referred to by psychologist as in-group favoritism.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-group_favoritism

The two main theories regarding the cause of this are referred to as Realistic Conflict Theory and Social Identity Theory. In-group favoritism is essentially one of humanities built in flaws.

Religious organizations are made up of humans and thus not immune to humanities inherent flaws.

[CoinCube]

...
And what does fertility rate have to do with anything?
It's well known that people from area's with high infant mortality have more children than people with higher survival rate.
And that poor people have higher average number of children.
...

All of the data from the opening post is from populations living in the United States.

Fertility is a major component of Biological Fitness. If you judge your biological fitness to be unimportant then the fertility data can be ignored as tangential. Others may feel differently so I included it.

[organofcorti]

Getting back to the "cognitive bias" part, I think we have established that religious groups can:
a) Rejects another group because it doesn't understand that group, even though the other group has never committed an offence against them
b) Do not reject their own members, even though they commit the offences that they attribute to the out-group.

This is a cognitive bias - seeing the world in a way that does not reflect reality.

While this can certainly be true of religious groups it can also be true of any other grouping of humans that has existed or will exist. They have even shown a similar phenomena in completely random groups separated only by t-shirt color.

What you have identified is referred to by psychologist as in-group favoritism.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-group_favoritism

The two main theories regarding the cause of this are referred to as Realistic Conflict Theory and Social Identity Theory. In-group favoritism is essentially one of humanities built in flaws.

Religious organizations are made up of humans and thus not immune to humanities inherent flaws.

This makes judging people based on group status a flawed method to interpret the world. In this case, the idea that "atheists do not publicise their moral code and therefore cannot be trusted" can be seen as just as flawed, since this viewpoint would also apply to any out-group.

So, getting back to your original point --

<snip>
It is reasonable to be suspicious of the values and morals of someone operating with no moral code. It is also reasonable to be suspicious of someone who knows and can anticipate your moral code but refuses to disclose his own. I fail to see the cognative bias.

is not useful information, since the religious person will be more suspicious of any out-group, regardless of the god (or lack of god) they follow.

I don't think any of these points come close to dismissing my original point, which is

<snip>
It's more likely that religious people need religion in order to be moral actors, just as BADecker wrote.

[organofcorti]

Hey! Some poison is good for you. Coffee has at least 119 toxins in it... in tiny amounts. But they cause your immune system to activate, so that you fight off a host of other things as well. <snip>

Untrue. "Toxins" in coffee do not cause your immune system to activate, so that you fight off a host of other things as well.

And vaccines don't work either.   

Wow. You're keen to bring on the crazy eh?

[mrflibblehat]

Hey! Some poison is good for you. Coffee has at least 119 toxins in it... in tiny amounts. But they cause your immune system to activate, so that you fight off a host of other things as well. <snip>

Untrue. "Toxins" in coffee do not cause your immune system to activate, so that you fight off a host of other things as well.

And vaccines don't work either.   

You must have seen the last X-Files episode 

[designerusa]

I'm confused. How does one decide to suddenly believe in an all knowing all powerful invisible man in the sky without being dishonest with themselves?

maybe, some psychological disorders let people believe so called holy stuff suddenly.. or brain tumor make it happen who know ? someday in the future science will have proved this shit..

[eon89]

I'm confused. How does one decide to suddenly believe in an all knowing all powerful invisible man in the sky without being dishonest with themselves?

maybe, some psychological disorders let people believe so called holy stuff suddenly.. or brain tumor make it happen who know ? someday in the future science will have proved this shit..

I personally think it has to do with our finite nature.
You can see yourself weak and prone to disease and convince yourself that when you die you'll dine with the gods in Valhalla.
It gives reason for your death. Not facing reality that you'll just turn to dust.