Mises and "New Atheism"

[pvn]

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Smoking creates all the problems that it fixes. It is only relaxing because it's a relief from the withdrawal pangs. It only seems to taste good because the smoker has acquired that taste, and learned to associate it with pleasure.

[/ QUOTE ] These assertions are simply false. Tobacco contains drugs that have effects on the mind no matter what, and you can posit that it is an "acquired taste" all you want but many people who aren't addicted to it enjoy the taste.

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Same thing with religion. I'm not missing out on anything really by being an atheist. I don't need heaven, because I don't fear hell.

[/ QUOTE ] I listed 5 positive functions religion plays for people, none which had anything to do with going to hell. What about all those benefits that it does and has brought to billions of people throughout history?

In my view, all that you are showing is that the process of cognitive dissonance reduction has set in very staunchly within your mind in these two cases, convincing you that there are not any benefits to these things that you don't do. Now, cognitive dissonance reduction is very good for improving an individual's utility (they no longer have to worry about whether or not the path they have taken was the correct one, because there is nothing good about the alternate path!), but terribly awful at helping them to understand the world as it is.

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I'm in with moorobot.




The fact that snowball doesn't enjoy smoking doesn't mean that people who "think" they do are merely brainwashed, or deluding themselves.

And religion, while it can be abused, does not *require* that one engage in aggressive behavior. The people who use religion as an excuse to commit violence would find something else to blame their thuggery on if they didn't have that crutch.