Health and Religion

[BADecker]

This is horrible, and how to distinguish good Muslims from the bad?

You can't... just kill everyone who believes in any religion... they'll go to heaven, and the world will be much better without religion

Mass extermination and genocide is the most toxic of the 'theologies' that atheists are prone to embrace. Thank you for the public demonstration of this principle.

The United Soviet Socialist Republic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USSR_anti-religious_campaign_(1921%E2%80%931928)
The Soviet regime had an ostensible commitment to the complete annihilation of religious institutions and ideas. Militant atheism was central to the ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and a high priority of all Soviet leaders. Convinced atheists were considered to be more virtuous individuals than those of religious belief.
When church leaders demanded freedom of religion under the constitution, the Communists responded with terror. They murdered the metropolitan of Kiev and executed twenty-eight bishops and 6,775 priests. Despite mass demonstrations in support of the church, repression cowed most ecclesiastical leaders into submission.

The Nazi Regime
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Nazi_Germany#Plan_for_the_Roman_Catholic_Church
As Hitler rose to power, many Catholic bishops, priests, religious and lay leaders vociferously opposed Nazism on the grounds of its incompatibility with Christian morals. In early 1931, the German bishops issued an edict excommunicating all leaders of the Nazi Party and banned Catholics from membership.
In 1937 Pope Pius XI issued the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge condemning Nazi ideology. In 1941 the Nazi authorities decreed the dissolution of all monasteries and abbeys in the German Reich, many of them effectively being occupied and secularized by the Allgemeine SS under Himmler. Himmler saw a main task of the SS to be that of "acting as the vanguard in overcoming Christianity and restoring a Germanic way of living" as part of preparations for the coming conflict between "humans and subhumans". Hitler called a truce in the Church conflict with the outbreak of war, wanting to back away from policies likely to cause internal friction in Germany. He decreed at the outset of war that "no further action should be taken against the Evangelical and Catholic Churches for the duration of the war".

Khmer_Rouge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge_period_(1975%E2%80%931979)#Religious_communities
Many monks were executed; temples and pagodas were destroyed[14] or turned into storehouses or gaols. Images of the Buddha were defaced and dumped into rivers and lakes. People who were discovered praying or expressing religious sentiments were often killed. The Christian and Muslim communities also were even more persecuted, as they were labelled as part of a pro-Western cosmopolitan sphere, hindering Cambodian culture and society.
The Roman Catholic cathedral of Phnom Penh was completely razed.[14] The Khmer Rouge forced Muslims to eat pork, which they regard as forbidden (ḥarām). Many of those who refused were killed. Christian clergy and Muslim imams were executed. One hundred and thirty Cham mosques were destroyed.

Early Communist China
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/~geary20d/worldpolitics/maozedeng.html
During the beginning of the People’s Republic of China, Mao Zedong and the Communists had seized control and 10,000 missionaries were forced to leave the country. Persecution of Christians proceeded at full throttle. Mao Zedong did not want any foreign influence on the people. In 1952 the last U.S. Presbyterian missionaries, Frank and Essie Price, were forced to leave China a mere three years after Mao Zedong assumes power. During the dark years of Mao's 'Great Leap Forward' (launched in 1958) and 'The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution' (launched in 1966), many of the Christian leaders were killed and imprisoned for their faith, and many others spent years in hard labor camps. According to an article in the Epoch Times, “The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) has lost all composure in the frantic persecution of religion. During the Cultural Revolution, numerous temples and mosques were torn down, and monks were paraded in humiliation through the streets

They always think that it will happen to somebody else.

Atheists live in a dream world. They know that God exists. They know it because they don't know for a fact that He doesn't, and yet they adamantly say He doesn't. So they are setting themselves up as gods by being authoritarian about something that they know they don't have the truth about.

Because of this, they live in a dream world. And they don't want their dream to collapse. So they will fight for atheism tooth and nail even when they know that they are contradicting themselves with their atheism religion philosophy.

Because of all the above, the atheist will promote genocide at times. It is all fiction land to the atheist, because he can't seem to see that he might be the one who loses his life in the genocide.

[organofcorti]

They always think that it will happen to somebody else.

Atheists live in a dream world. They know that God exists. They know it because they don't know for a fact that He doesn't, and yet they adamantly say He doesn't. So they are setting themselves up as gods by being authoritarian about something that they know they don't have the truth about.

<snip>

So, anything you can't prove doesn't exist actually exists? Cool, I've always wanted an invisible pink flying unicorn.

[BADecker]

They always think that it will happen to somebody else.

Atheists live in a dream world. They know that God exists. They know it because they don't know for a fact that He doesn't, and yet they adamantly say He doesn't. So they are setting themselves up as gods by being authoritarian about something that they know they don't have the truth about.

<snip>

So, anything you can't prove doesn't exist actually exists? Cool, I've always wanted an invisible pink flying unicorn.

I bet you live in a funny farm, and aren't quite bad enough to deny Internet to.     

[anon_giraffe]

Is it possible to have a discussion about atheism or religion without it denigrating into the same same arguments rehashed?
Is it possible that there are actually intelligent people left alive who can actually accept the notion of free speech without needing to smash someone's ignorant head in?

If any of these arguments presented were actually useful then there would be no need for ignorant behaviours.

[anon_giraffe]

...
Suggesting that intellectual mindsets are necessary to create behaviours relies on our intellect being our ruling aspect. This does not seem true.
The intellect is never a truly objective entity and will always interact with subjective reality.
...
On reflection, it seems some arguments are based on the assumption that the intellect is the base cause for behaviour or morals.
This seems a weak point and has no necessary validity.
...

Let's examine base human behavior and morals when you strip away all "intellectual mindsets"

In a base state each person would have a right, or license, to everything in the world. There is no centralized authority and no external recourse against violence, coercion, or defection. Thomas Hobbes envisioned this as, a "war of all against all"

In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

Now it is likely that we do have a 'built in' primitive moral code that allows us without any preconceptions to escape Hobbs baseline. This code is one of tribalism.

One only has to look at how non-intellectual life exists to see the wrongness of an apparent "war of all against all".
There are myriad examples of cross-species interactions and non-parisitical behaviours, also inter-species interactions which are benevolent.

I also say you cannot escape the nature of mankind as being intellectual. Any "tribalism" is an intellectual construct, that any society which may exists as tribal, does so intellectually.

Before Newton "discovered" gravity, no-one noticed it. Before the 4 minute mile was broken, no-one could do it. But once these realisations became public knowledge it was not possible to undo these.
Your idea of tribalism should be expanded to acknowledge major social/cultural advances that have occurred. But I suggest it is impossible to do anything but hypothesise an unknowable base level - possibly useful for amusement but of no real use as it's too abstract to become useful.

What Hobbs describes is a war of survival. Obviously when there is lack there will be competition. This does not require a base level of survival war as the root of man's behaviour.

[tvbcof]

I'm kind of a subscriber to the 'social evolution' hypothesis.  In a nutshell, as I define it at least, it is the idea that the proportions of different kinds of people are evolutionary arrived at in order to maximize the survivability of a group.  The mechanics of evolution being slow and human history beyond hunter/gatherer stage being minimal, we are likely 'set up' for a small group dynamics.

One example would be that it might be nice to have someone who likes to stay up late.  This because it was important for a village to keep the fire going.  But if everyone liked to stay up late then everyone would want to sleep in and fewer berries would be gathered and less game captured.

We all know the 'all chiefs and no Indians' or 'to many chefs' idea.  When that happens, disaster is around the corner.  It is best for a group dynamic to have mostly followers and few leaders.  In fact, the key to being a successful leader is to recognize that most people are natural followers.  One of the tools that a leader has available to them is religion, and it is used to great effect in most societies.  Thus, most people are going to be susceptible to religion.  It's sort of hard-wired in.

(I recent theory of mine is that religiosity is a re-routing during the maturation process of the circuitry that one uses to relate to their parents in childhood.  But I digress.)

On the intellect thing, it is not really in the best interest of a group to have a lot of smart people.  Just like leaders, a few will do just fine.  I suspect that usually they became the group shaman and were responsible for at least counseling the leader on group movements, war strategy, and such.

Now being smart is kind of associated with being powerful in other ways, and the opposite sex often appreciates this.  How to avoid having to many kids and the catastrophe of having the mean intellect of the whole village explode.  Should that happen, who would do the fighting???  One solution is to have bright people tend to be weird and creepy.  In modern times a bright person is more likely to be able to predict what a pain in the ass a spouse would be, and would also be able to build a wealth buffer for old age (e.g., by buying Bitcoin) but the weird and creepy gene lives on.

[CoinCube]

The concept you are both approaching anon_giraffe from the perspective of reproducing intellectual structures and tvbcof from the idea of social evolution is the that of group selection.

Group selection is a very deep and mostly under-explored area of evolutionary biology. The most intriguing and active thinking that I have seen in this area is that of Charlton.  Below is an excerpt of his work.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
General properties of Group Selection and the 'group mind' (in relation to the adaptive production of geniuses)

The major function of group selection is presumably directly to promote the sustained reproductive success (lineal survival) of the group, in face of the spontaneous tendency for random change to promote the individual (and other lower level, below group) levels of selection.

For example, group selection would be of value in sustaining the cell in face of the tendency of cell components (for example the nucleus, or of evolvable organelles such as the mitochondria, chloroplast or centriole) to become 'free-riders' or parasites (taking net reproductive benefits from the cell, while contributing less than this to the cell, or nothing, or actively-harming the probability of the survival and ultimately reproduction of the cell).

A more clear cut example is the individual specialized cell in the context of a multicellular organism; there is a tendency for individual cells to evolve towards 'opting out' of the coordinated cooperation of the whole organism  - and taking more than they give. This is termed neoplastic change, and the tendency is what leads to cancers - cancers constitute an internally-generated cellular parasite.

But the main posited role for group selection has been in the context of animal society - especially in social animals (social insects such as ants or bees, and social mammals such as many primates including Man - as well as other mammals with differentiated social roles such as naked mole rats or meerkats).

The problem for the sustained survival of social animals over many generations is that individuals tend to evolve to enhance their personal reproductive success at the expense of the group - taking benefits from social living while avoiding the costs and duties of social living - thereby destroying the social structure.

The fact that social animals are known to have existed over many generations is evidence that his problem has been solved historically - and the underpinning mechanism is usually regarded to be kin selection (aka inclusive fitness) together with reciprocity (the mutual benefits of cooperation).




The difficulty with such individual level mechanisms as kin selection is that they must themselves evolve in a context where the spontaneous tendency is for adaptations to be lost - on top of the spontaneous tendency for kin selection and reciprocity to be damaged by spontaneous mutations. In other words it is very difficult to evolve a high level mechanism of social living on top of all the other layers of cooperation at sub-cellular and cellular levels - all of which are vulnerable to destruction by spontaneous mutations.

This is presumably one reason why social animals have been a late arrival on the evolutionary scene, in the past couple of hundred thousand years - however, once a stable and sustainable adaptation had arisen to enforce sociality, these animals have more-or-less taken over the earth by becoming the dominant species. Thus ants and termites dominate the tropical regions (in terms of biomass) while more recently humans have come to dominate the temperate zones.

Clearly sociality is a tremendous advantage - the difficulties are in evolving it, and sustaining it in the face of continued spontaneous mutations with each generation; and the tendency of sub-lethal deleterious mutations to accumulate generation-upon-generation; plus any environmental change and variety which is itself a consequence of the high adaptiveness of these species.

However, the very success of social animals, their dominance, would be expected to contain the seeds of destruction - since the conditions for free-riding and parasitism are greatly increased by the expansion in numbers and the relative autonomy from environmental constraints such as food supply and predation.

(This can be seen very clearly in modern human society, where the large surplus of modern economies above subsistence allows for unprecedented levels of parasitic behaviour by individuals, and also groups - such as bureaucracies.)




A successful social species can therefore find itself in the situation when the main proximate constraint on reproductive success is competition within the species - and this creates many niches for more-or-less parasitic and exploitative behaviours (the individual profiting at the expense of the group).

In the short-term, the fastest and most secure route to enhanced reproductive success is to exploit other humans (rather than cooperate with them) - and this would tend to destroy the social structure by reproductively favouring the least social individual animals.

Group selection entails that the group has an identity, that this identity must have integrity over time, and that it be transmissible between generations. This group identity must be able to sustain itself and should also be potentially further-adaptive to some extent.

Group identity needs to be of a cognitive and behavioural nature - in other words there must be strategizing knowledge and also some kind of reasoning from this knowledge. In sum, group selection requires a group identity; and group identity requires a teleology, aim or purpose; and that purpose should 'know' (with better than random probability) how to implement itself in individuals within that group.

This is probably the basis of the intense modern suspicion of and hostility to group selection - this idea that group selection entails something like a group purpose, memory and 'mind' - which superficially sounds like a non-biological, maybe even supernatural, kind of thing.




However, social animals are based on communications between networks of individuals, and the idea of conceptualizing the complex interactions of individuals in terms of being a type of 'computational' or 'cognitive' process is actually fairly mainstream - for instance in the theories of complex systems, the mathematics of chaos and complexity and elsewhere.

So, in principle, there is no reason to exclude the possibility that webs of complexly interacting social animals can be considered as higher level, group entities - which have a tendency to sustain and reproduce themselves.

Furthermore, these networks of communications fall into patterns, and these patterns may be self-sustaining and with a tendency to expand - so there is a potential mechanism for non-genetic inter-generation transmission.

In other words, the group-level entity is a pattern of communications which is both influenced by and also influences the communications (and behaviours) of the individual components of that patter: the individual organisms. And this pattern of communications will tend to fall into relatively stable forms, forms that resist change.

(Such a stability of forms is something which has cropped up in many areas of science over more than 2000 years - since at least the time of Aristotle with his elaboration of a finite number of archetypal 'forms' or relatively stable conformations into which all things will tend to 'fall; modern conceptualizations of the same basic idea include 'strange attractors' and 'morphic fields'.)




I do not see any fatal difficulty in supposing that relatively stable and 'cognitive' patterns of inter-individual, group communications would be transmissible between generations of social animals - given that these generations are overlapping (with new group members incrementally arriving and maturing, while others are leaving and dying - but without a break in the continuity of communications).

Such a concept of 'group mind' would have implicit purpose (survival and self-propagation) implemented by problem solving and strategizing properties including memory and intelligent processing.

Therefore, in principle, this group mind entity could identify problems among individuals within the group, and (to a significant extent) suppress selfishness at the individual level - also it could foresee (with better than random probability) the need for (or potential benefits from) certain types of individual which would be useful to the group survival and reproduction. Then individuals of this type might be induced to arise from the group - perhaps by the kind of developmental switching posited by Life History theory.

So, for the putative example of genius - it seems possible that the group mind might detect and appreciate the need for, or potential benefits from, an increase in the production of geniuses (i.e. those individuals characterized by what I have termed an Endogenous personality comprising a triad of high intelligence, intuitive thinking and inner motivation).

Having calculated that such individuals would probably be of value to the group - it seems possible that either the developmental trajectory of individuals might be directed towards becoming a genius - or more fundamentally that suitable pairs of individual parents (especially those characterized by high intelligence - low mutational load) might (perhaps by broadly 'epigenetic' means, by affecting gene switching, activation, suppression etc) lead to the sexual conception of more potential geniuses who are designed to benefit the group survival and reproduction, even when this tends to reduce the probability of reproductive success in the individual geniuses.

So this above scheme could, in broad brush terms, provide a group selection mechanism by which the group benefits of genius might be acquired when the group circumstances require, despite that many or most geniuses have below average reproductive success due to their energies and efforts being directed at non-reproductive, non-social goals.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bruce Charlton is a professor of theoretical medicine having completed a doctorate in neuroendocrinology with postgraduate training in psychiatry and public health.

He published a book this year on Genius titled The Genius Famine.

He has two blogs which are located here
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/
http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/

[BADecker]

The concept you are both approaching anon_giraffe from the perspective of reproducing intellectual structures and tvbcof from the idea of social evolution is the that of group selection.

Group selection is a very deep and mostly under-explored area of evolutionary biology. The most intriguing and active thinking that I have seen in this area is that of Charlton.  Below is an excerpt of his work.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
General properties of Group Selection and the 'group mind' (in relation to the adaptive production of geniuses)

Selection in this sense suggests that randomness exists.

Random cannot exist in a system where cause and effect exist.

Cause and effect are upheld by Newton's 3rd Law, which is universal to our knowledge, and which has never been found to have any failure in anything.

Random as far as the way people use it, is simply an organized method of guessing, called probability, that people use. They use it because they have such limited ability for determining the abundant, detailed activities of cause and effect.

Quantum Mechanics is a complex form of complex probability that is used to guess more complex things.

QM doesn't prove anything.

The idea of "selection" suggests that there is intelligence doing the selecting.

[CoinCube]

The concept you are both approaching anon_giraffe from the perspective of reproducing intellectual structures and tvbcof from the idea of social evolution is the that of group selection.

Group selection is a very deep and mostly under-explored area of evolutionary biology. The most intriguing and active thinking that I have seen in this area is that of Charlton.  Below is an excerpt of his work.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
General properties of Group Selection and the 'group mind' (in relation to the adaptive production of geniuses)

Selection in this sense suggests that randomness exists.

Random cannot exist in a system where cause and effect exist.

Cause and effect are upheld by Newton's 3rd Law, which is universal to our knowledge, and which has never been found to have any failure in anything.

Random as far as the way people use it, is simply an organized method of guessing, called probability, that people use. They use it because they have such limited ability for determining the abundant, detailed activities of cause and effect.

Quantum Mechanics is a complex form of complex probability that is used to guess more complex things.

QM doesn't prove anything.

The idea of "selection" suggests that there is intelligence doing the selecting.

BADecker I agree with the majority of your statement above. However, I disagree with the two sentences underlined.  

Group selection does not require randomness. The existence of infinite possibility and a mechanism to allow examination of possibility is sufficient. Thus group selection is not necessarily incompatible with an entirely cause and effect driven view of the universe.

Quantum Mechanics is not simply a mechanism for guessing things. It offers us a deep insight that the world is not as it appears to our senses. It is quantum mechanics that leads us to the conclusion that we may actually be living in a Holographic Universe. The idea the the the world around us indeed the entire universe is simply the projection of a deeper reality.  

In his essay The Universe Anonymint draws our attention to the the holographic principle. Specifically the fascinating notion that when you combine the the holographic principle with the thermodynamic quantities of heat and mechanical work it is relatively straightforward to derive Newton’s classical equation of gravity.

These ideas are difficult to grasp and at this stage they remain theoretical physics. However, there are a growing number of scientist who are taking them very seriously.

Below is a great introductory video on the topic. I recommend it for you BADecker to give you a appreciation of quantum mechanics. More importantly I recommend it to anyone who has difficulty accepting the possibility of a deeper fundamental truth and reality.  
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMBt_yfGKpU

 

[Batmanvsduecare]

Even people who do things selfishly and other unradical deeds is are also poisonous if a member in a team is in down sometimes other teams are also down.

[BADecker]

The concept you are both approaching anon_giraffe from the perspective of reproducing intellectual structures and tvbcof from the idea of social evolution is the that of group selection.

Group selection is a very deep and mostly under-explored area of evolutionary biology. The most intriguing and active thinking that I have seen in this area is that of Charlton.  Below is an excerpt of his work.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
General properties of Group Selection and the 'group mind' (in relation to the adaptive production of geniuses)

Selection in this sense suggests that randomness exists.

Random cannot exist in a system where cause and effect exist.

Cause and effect are upheld by Newton's 3rd Law, which is universal to our knowledge, and which has never been found to have any failure in anything.

Random as far as the way people use it, is simply an organized method of guessing, called probability, that people use. They use it because they have such limited ability for determining the abundant, detailed activities of cause and effect.

Quantum Mechanics is a complex form of complex probability that is used to guess more complex things.

QM doesn't prove anything.

The idea of "selection" suggests that there is intelligence doing the selecting.

BADecker I agree with the majority of your statement above. However, I disagree with the two sentences underlined.  

Group selection does not require randomness. The existence of infinite possibility and a mechanism to allow examination of possibility is sufficient. Thus group selection is not necessarily incompatible with an entirely cause and effect driven view of the universe.

Except for one major thing. Reality in something has only one thing. There are not two or more realities. That kind of thinking is theory.

There is no selection, group or otherwise. So-called selection in reality has been programmed to exist the way it does by countless cause and effect reaction operations.

The idea of the existence of infinite possibilities has to do with our inability to know about something, and our methods for finding out about it. This is where QM comes in. QM is not reality. It is probability in our search for what the reality is. There is only one reality, but there are infinite possibilities if we don't know what the one reality is. QM examines the possibilities in a probability fashion.

Quantum Mechanics is not simple a mechanism for guessing things. It offers us a deep insight that the world is not as it appears to our senses. It is Quantum Mechanics that leads us to the conclusion that we may actually be living in a Holographic Universe. The idea the the the world around us indeed the entire universe is simply the projection of a deeper reality.  

QM can be a complex method for guessing things. QM can be used to determine things that are entirely opposite. All QM determined things must be proven by some other method before being known to be reality. The only time this might not be true would be if someone decided to use QM to prove a law already known to exist. Use QM to verify Newton's 3rd Law.

In his essay The Universe Anonymint draws our attention to the the holographic principle. Specifically the fascinating notion that when you combine the the holographic principle with the thermodynamic quantities of heat and mechanical work, it is it’s relatively straightforward to derive Newton’s classical equation of gravity

These ideas are difficult to grasp and at this stage they remain theoretical physics. However, there are a growing number of scientist who are taking them very seriously.

Below is a great introductory video on the topic. I recommend it for you BADecker to give you a appreciation of quantum mechanics. More importantly I recommend it to anyone who has difficulty accepting the possibility of a deeper fundamental truth and reality.  
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMBt_yfGKpU

Thank you for the video offer. Right now I am not into learning the deeper points of how to use QM. But, the thing that most people don't realize is, that everybody is using a simple version of QM in their daily living all the time. It is a mental thing, and has to do with how the brain operates... because nobody knows for a fact what will happen in the next minute (second). If people did, there wouldn't be any car accidents, and nobody would get on a plane that was going to crash.

As you said, they are theory. Anyone who wants to test out the validity of any theory should seriously use QM to formulate the exact opposite of the theory. QM will provide this opposite. The first effect will be to show which "thing," the theory or its anti-theory has the better odds. But then you can use QM to formulate the theory and its anti-thory in a different way that will change the odds.

Usually, understanding a theory is difficult enough. So, who wants to go off and try to think out an anti-theory to disprove the theory? So it is that science is doing itself a big disfavor.

[TPTB_need_war]

Except for one major thing. Reality in something has only one thing. There are not two or more realities. That kind of thinking is theory.

I can prove you are wrong.

What is the reality of 1 billionth person in India today? Obviously you can't possibly know and thus you and he/she have different realities. Fact is that for you to know all the realities in real-time (because history can always be a lie if you did not experience it live) would require the speed-of-light to be infinite, which would thus collapse the past into the future into an infinitesimal point in spacetime and thus nothing could exist. Friction insures multiple realities, and there is no other possible way anything could exist.

You don't realize how ignorant you are, which is typical Dunning-Kruger disrespect.

[BADecker]

Except for one major thing. Reality in something has only one thing. There are not two or more realities. That kind of thinking is theory.

I can prove you are wrong.

What is the reality of 1 billionth person in India today? Obviously you can't possibly know and thus you and he/she have different realities. Fact is that for you to know all the realities in real-time (because history can always be a lie if you did not experience it live) would require the speed-of-light to be infinite, which would thus collapse the past into the future into an infinitesimal point in spacetime and thus nothing could exist. Friction insures multiple realities, and there is no other possible way anything could exist.

You don't realize how ignorant you are, which is typical Dunning-Kruger disrespect.

Not knowing what a reality is at different parts of the universe doesn't change that reality for me or the universe or you.

If one doesn't know something, then the reality is that he doesn't know what the reality of that thing is. The realities don't change. All that may change is the knowledge about them.

All you are doing is delving into the idea that not all things are known. This is what the probability feature of QM is all about.

[acroman08]

Atheism and IQ

High IQ is usually regarded by those that possess it as an unmitigated good. Those gifted with superior intellect are not only smarter, they are also taller, healthier, and more athletic than average. In his 1920 study on high IQ children Lewis Terman noted that despite these advantages high IQ is not always beneficial. He found that the very brightest often grew up maladjusted in some way suffering from anxiety, depression, personality disorder, or nervous breakdowns.

In Mensa Magazine Bruce G Charlton posited three fundamental disadvantages of high IQ .

Charlton’s triad:
1)   Socialism
2)   Atheism
3)   Infertility

Charlton argued that IQ is associated with a tendency to embrace socialism, a rejection of religious teachings, and ultimately a declining fertility. The writings In the Economic Devastation thread especially the essays of Shelby Moore delve deeply into the topic of socialism. The purpose of this essay is to evaluate the second of Charlton’s triad. Is atheism toxic to mankind and if so why?

Religion Health and Wellbeing

The first hint can be found in large surveys measuring wellbeing and happiness. In a landmark survey of over 600,000 people Frank Newport and colleagues showed that the very religious not only report higher levels of overall wellbeing they are also more likely to have healthy eating and exercise habits.



Every religion reported superior wellbeing to that of atheist but the largest differences were found in the Mormons and the Jews. These minority religions each comprising about 1.7% of the US population. Examining these two groups will help us better understand the impact of religion on human health.

Mormon Demographics

Demographically Mormons differ greatly from society at large. Nearly two thirds of Mormons 66% are married compared with just over half 48% of the general population. Mormons have large families with a fertility rate of 3.4 children per woman double that of atheists.



Mormons may also have some immunity the detrimental effect IQ on fertility. In the general population increasing income (highly correlated with IQ) is associated with both declining fertility and declining religious commitment. In Mormons the reverse is true. Mormon fertility is positively correlated with income and Mormons with higher levels of formal education tend to be more religiously committed.

On multiple religious measures Mormons stand out for having exceptionally high levels of religious commitment. More than nine-in-ten Mormons report a belief in God and that the Bible is the word of God. Mormons are also very observant in their religious practices with more than eight-in-ten praying daily. Mormons strongly support a strict interpretation of their faith and the preservation of traditional beliefs and practices.

Are these demographic differences actually due to the Mormon religion? How can we be confident these are not just population level differences that happen to correlate with religion? To better answer that lets examine the Jews.

Jewish Demographics

Unlike Mormons who are a young religion and can be looked at as a single group the Jews are one of the oldest religions and have splintered into many subgroups. There are at least 5 different major types of Jews and these very drastically from each other. From most conservative to most liberal these are Ultra-Orthodox, Modern Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Secular (atheist) Jews.

Orthodox Jews believe their sacred scriptures the Torah is the word of god and should always be followed. Conservative Jews acknowledge that Jewish writings come from God, but believe that the Law should change and adapt, absorbing aspects of the predominant culture.  Reform Judaism does not believe that the Torah was written by God and do not demand the observance of all its commandments. Secular Jews don’t believe in God.

When people think of the Jews they often think of famous figures like Allen Greenspan or presidential candidate Bernie Sanders both secular Jews. Secular Jews tend to be liberal, democratic voters, and staunch Zionists. Orthodox Jews could not be more different. The Orthodox tend to be socially conservative, republican voters, and are often opposed to Zionism.

The Jews as a group are very smart. They consistently rank highest in the world on IQ studies significantly higher than even Asians who are their nearest competitors. If Charlton’s triad of IQ disadvantages is correct then the Jews should be particularly susceptible. Is this the case?

American Jewish Fertility by Religious Current

Religious Sect	Average No. of Children per Woman
Ultra-Orthodox	6.72
Modern Orthodox	3.39
Conservative	1.74
Reform	1.36
Secular	1.29

As Jews leave orthodoxy it appears their fertility plummets. The Ultra-Orthodox Jews are a group that has judged the outside world to be corrupt and toxic and like the Amish have separated themselves from it as much as possible choosing to live in isolated communities. They have a fertility rate of 6.72 which is very similar to Amish fertility rates . Modern Orthodox Jews strictly adhere to their faith but simultaneously advocate engaging with the outside world especially higher education. The Modern Orthodox fertility rate 3.39 is nearly identical to that of Mormons. The Modern Orthodox have a similar philosophy to that of Mormons in that they advocate engaging with the outside world as much as possible while maintaining strict adherence to their religious code. As Jews move away further away from their historic religious tradition their fertility plummets. Atheist Jews have a shockingly low fertility of 1.29 among the lowest in the world. For the Jews it appears the detrimental effects of high IQ are very real and that traditional religion offers some protection.

Toxicity of the Modern World

In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley envisioned a future where the masses were rendered infertile and controlled with pleasure and drugs. Is that the world we live in now? Anyone over that age of 25 may not realize how far traditional courtship and dating has been undermined by modernity. The tinder generation is being conditioned to swipe right on their onscreen app and meet up later for random sexual gratification. This phenomena has been described by Vanity Fair as nothing less than a dating apocalypse.

In Colorado long acting implantable contraceptives which a render women infertile for up to 10 years and require a doctor’s visit to remove have been implanted in 26% of young women age 15-24 as of 2013.

In 2015 an advisory body to the US Department of Health and Human Services recommended that Medicaid examine how often doctors are using “most effective” or “moderately effective” contraception. Only contraception deemed “highly effective” or “moderately effective” (Long acting implantable or long acting injections) would be included in the proposed measurement. Doctor’s with a low percentage of young patients using such contraception would presumably be rated as giving lower quality care.

We appear to be living in a “Utopia” of declining fitness and capability. An age of existential exhaustion manifested by an ageing, hedonistic society characterized by declining marriage, and near zero children.

Sin is the Situation

Sin is the situation where how we feel is ultimate human reality, and how we feel is known to be contingent and means nothing.
Sin is to embrace this nothingness as reality, to propagandize that nothingness is reality, to denigrate anything which saves us from nothingness.
*
And that is the reason we need to be ‘saved’.
And this is the reason why we cannot save ourselves.
We need to be saved from nothingness, and from those who brainwash us into a belief in nothingness, and from ourselves who propagate that reality is nothingness.
*
Sin is to embrace nothingness

Modern society is a mechanism for inculcating bad habits, especially the habit of seeking instant pleasure, intoxications and distractions; a habit of regarding ourselves as passive recipients for ‘entertainment’. A devout life is not so much about a flash of understanding but is mostly a matter of using insights into truth in building-up good habits; and this can be influenced by our will. A devout life enables one to build these habits and most importantly successfully pass them on to our children.

Whatever sense we make of this world, whatever value we place upon our lives and relationships, whatever meaning we ultimately give to our joys and agonies, must necessarily be a gesture of faith. Whether we consider the whole a produce of impersonal cosmic forces, a malevolent deity, or a benevolent god, depends not on the evidence, but on what we choose, deliberately and consciously to conclude from that evidence… If we decide to leave the questions unanswered, that is a choice; if we waver in our answer that too is a choice: but whatever choice we make, we make it at our peril.

What we choose to embrace, to be responsive to, is the purest reflection of who we are and what we love. That is why faith, the choice to believe, is, in the final analysis, an action that is positively laden with moral significance.

In the end you must make a choice:

Wallow in the degradation of modernity

Or

Celebrate purity of the human spirit

Your choice is one that echoes through time influencing not only your life but the lives of your children and grandchildren as well.
Choose Wisely



CoinCube Highlights:
The Rise of Knowledge
Understand Everything Fundamentally
On Entropy
Finance: Part 1, 2, 3
Economic Devastation

the truth is religion is the reason why war never stops in the middle east. so im snot sure atheism is poison.
by the im catholic is just that atheism is not the only one to blame about what is happening to people right now.

[TPTB_need_war]

Not knowing what a reality is at different parts of the universe doesn't change that reality for me or the universe or you.

You are ignorant of the Butterfly Effect.

[justdimin]

Atheism can send the wrong message across to people, especially those weaker in faith but brushed off and laughed at by every religious sect out there. It is not a religion, just a group of non believers.

[BADecker]

Atheism can send the wrong message across to people, especially those weaker in faith but brushed off and laughed at by every religious sect out there. It is not a religion, just a group of non believers.

Yet they all revolve around the same basic dogma... that God doesn't exist. Some of them don't participate in discussion about it, just like some weaker people of other religions don't go to church. Some atheists get together with other atheists and set up methods in their minds about how all things came into being, and about what the purpose of their lives might be. All of it is just like religion. So, it is a religion.

[BADecker]

Not knowing what a reality is at different parts of the universe doesn't change that reality for me or the universe or you.

You are ignorant of the Butterfly Effect.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect:

The Butterfly Effect is a concept that small causes can have large effects. Initially, it was used with weather prediction but later the term became a metaphor used in and out of science.

The two significant parts of the above are the word "concept" and the words "weather prediction." Have you ever noticed that the weatherman is only right on what seems like random occasion? Have you ever noticed that concepts are not laws, but only ideas? Are you fluttering around like a butterfly?

[Moloch]

[BADecker]

Now you are touting a particular religion other than atheism?     Fickle.