Religion DOES Do More Good Than Harm

[andyfox]

Don't you think that most people in the world do live lives of quiet desperation and what gives them a degree of solace in their present life is the sense of belonging that their religion gives them, as well as hope that the next life will be better?

[madnak]

Most people do live lives of quiet desperation, religion doesn't give them solace. At least, not sufficient solace. A sense of "belonging" to an exclusivistic and judgmental clique is no cure for alienation.

[David Sklansky]

"This doesn't mean that religion does more good than harm. All it means is that abandoning religion may cause pain. The two are very different conclusions."

I know. The title of the thread wasn't really my point.

[vhawk01]

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Where I come from about 50% of the populace are atheist, 50% theist and maybe a fifth of them practicing theists - I honestly am not seeing any large lack of happiness.


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Where is this and what would you figure is the current fertility rate in this cohort/country/culture/commune?

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Cant you just keep this in the other 5 threads you have about it? We've already established that your entire position disappears in the wind as soon as we realize that sex isnt the only way to create atheists.

[madnak]

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I know. The title of the thread wasn't really my point.

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See, I get worked up over something and then I realize it's just advertising.

[thedorf]

DS,

I'm sure this will fall on deaf ears as usual but once again I'm gonna bring up the possibility of living for extremely long periods of time. Right now the mention of such an idea is seen as quackery. such was the case with human flight and man landing on the moon roughly 20 years before both things happened respectively.

anyway, the reason i bring this up is that a world full of atheists would be much more equipped to discover a way for humans to live a healthy life for 10,000 years than a world full of people who believe in ghosts...or jesus. If this is true, and it is actually a practical possibility that people could live this long, then certainly a majority would benefit from atheism because all the jesus people would run around trying to behead the life extenders. then we'd all be sad...and dead.

By the way, since this is a poker site let me reiterate my position on extreme life extension. In my mind, even if the possibility of such long life is extremely remote (which, right now, it seems to be), the pot (i.e. the possibility that we can live healthily for 10,000 years) that we're contending for is nearly infinitely large. Especially if you believe that life revolves around the pursuit of happiness urrrrrrrrr topless dancers.

PS I don't think that believing in the possibility of extremely long life extension precludes the belief in jesus or his colleagues (muhammed, your own god etc.).

PSS I think that if people who currently believed in god would replace that belief with a belief that humans can live healthily for 10,000 years, they would be happier. I say this because I think that most of the people who claim to believe in god are actually fairly doubtful. This doubt most likely can't diminish whereas a belief in 10,000 year health can.

PSSS I used to believe in jesus much more than i currently believe in the possibility of living a healthy life for 10,000 years. Now I don't believe in jesus and I barely believe that it will some day be possible for humans to live healthily for 10,000 years. I'm happier now than i was with jesus.

[luckyme]

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But I think almost everybody would agree that they are happier with their religion and its restrictions than they would be without either.

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How do we reconcile the numbers that seem contrary to this - divorce rates, crime rates, etc.
Or or they simply happier in prison, divorced or what?

luckyme

[iggymcfly]

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http://www.newspolls.org/story.php?story_id=53

"An even stronger factor is the power of organized religion --any religion--on a sense of well-being.

"Although their numbers were small, Jewish participants in the poll were the most likely of any group to say they are very happy. Protestants--especially self-identified "born again" evangelicals--also report a high rate of contentment.

"Sixty percent of people who have recently attended worship services at a church, synagogue or mosque say they are very happy, compared to 46 percent of people who have not publicly worshiped and 44 percent who have no religious preferences."

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Don't you think it's possible that regularly practicing denial about the nature of the universe could also lead you to practice denial in other arenas of your life? I think a lot of religious people say that they're happy just because they think that's how they're "supposed to" feel.

In particular, I read an auto-biography of a Mormon woman where she talked about how she was continually run ragged the whole time she was in the church, but kept telling herself that she was happy and gaining fulfillment until she finally had a nervous breakdown and tried to overdose on pills along with her child. She says that even now, on probation as a dangerous offender for what she tried to do to her child, she's actually more happy than in her life as an LDS housewife.

[RJT]

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… but I don't necessarily agree that over the sum of a life, a person raised with religion will be happier than one raised without.

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I don’t think the OP is giving any opinion in that regard.

But, since you brought it up, I would be very surprised to find that a significant number of atheists are content with theirs lives. I highly doubt that Thoreau was limiting the field to theists. Do you really believe that the majority of atheists, on this forum for example, aren’t interested in questions other than the here and now?

If you say yes, then why even have a Philosophy forum? What exactly are you trying to Philosophize? Why such interest in the “God threads”?

If you say no, then what do you think the odds are of coming up with any real answers? The odds can’t be any better than the odds of Christianity being True.

Who are the ones kidding themselves?

And btw,

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…true moral courage…

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… a lack of spirit, a lack of courage, and a lack of heart.

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What do those words even mean? What, to live? Most people don’t commit suicide.

[joes28]

drugs make people happy too.


btw drugs should be legal too.