EAC: We're doing a good job!

[southernhybrid]

Since this thread is going in many directions, I'd like to just say a few words about mental illness, because it runs in my family and when I was still working as a nurse, many of my patients suffered from mental illnesses.

My father was an evangelical Christian, but he also suffered from bipolar disorder and severe PTSD. He could be very cruel and subject to rapid mood swings. The PTSD came from his combat experience in WWII. The bipolar disorder was likely genetic, since his own mother had similar symptoms. I've forgiven him for his behavior because I realize he couldn't help himself. My Christian sister has never been able to forgive him. I don't judge her for that. She probably can't bring herself to forgive him.

My former patients were almost all Christians, including those who suffered from a variety of mental illnesses. Mental illness is a disease of the brain, and has nothing to do with one's beliefs. Sure, loneliness and isolation can lead to depression and many people these days suffer from anxiety disorders, possibly due to t he increased stress that modern day life has brought. And, I'm sure that many Christians in the south are happy because they have community from their churches. I attended Atlanta Freethought Society's monthly meeting and had a wonderful time, so I get the need for community and we atheists aren't always very good at that.

As for me, I've been far happier as an atheist than I ever was as a Christian. If being a Christian makes you happy, go for it, just don't judge the rest of us and don't make up false claims about the causes of mental illness. I loved caring for my patients, especially those who suffered from mental illness, including dementia. It gave me emotional satisfaction to be able to advocate for them and treat them as if they were perfectly normal adults who needed a friend.

OOOps. That was more than a few words. Sorry about that.

 

[Worldtraveller]

Thank you for that... great find. That one escaped me!!!???

Why??

1) You've always only cherry picked the parts of the bible they tell you to read.

2) Your reading comprehension is terrible.

I'm sure there are several other possibilities.

 

[Lion IRC]

Also:

“The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality of happiness, and by no means a necessity of life.” - Shaw

That would be a really good quote if 'happiness' was some trivial, mundane, ho-hum,
take it or leave it human experience.

But considering the fact that we are in a forum surrounded by atheists whose favourite anti-God counter apologetic is probably related to theodicy...

Happiness is NOT overrated.

I'm happier than at any time in my life with the possible exception of very early childhood. That happiness relates directly to living long enough and learning enough to overcome superstitious instincts such as religion. That people are living longer is very bad for religion. Religion needs immature people who are ignorant and afraid.

A religious worldview correlates quite strongly with longevity.

Also, longevity is accounted as a blessing in the bible - that book which former atheists claim to know better than everyone else.

So I'm not sure where you get the idea that long(er) life is a problem for region.

 

[Lion IRC]

Thank you for that... great find. That one escaped me!!!???

Why??

Because dragons are NOT the central theme of the bible.
And because it's not unreasonable to diffentiate between literal and symbolic.
So you can be forgiven for your doubt and surprise when an atheist asserts to you that there are literal - not symbolic - fire breathing dragons in the bible.

...which is true BTW

 

[atrib]

Also, longevity is accounted as a blessing in the bible - that book which former atheists claim to know better than everyone else.

So I'm not sure where you get the idea that long(er) life is a problem for region.

Allegedly, Biblegod created Adam and Eve and later sentenced them to disease, death and a life of hard labor. Not just Adam and Eve, but all their descendants. Is that the blessing of longevity you are talking about?

Also, the average life span of humans at the time the Bible stories were invented was less than 50 years. Today science has greatly advanced both the longevity of humans as well as their quality of life. If we were to take your statements at face value (which I almost never do), it is apparently religious people like you, people who deny the science (biology primarily), that benefit the most from these advances. And what do you do? You turn around and thank God. Thanks God! For making me broken. For cursing me with disease and death and a life of hard labor. And then forgiving me so I can spend eternity groveling at your feet in the celestial Christian version of North Korea. Praise be to the Dear Supreme Leader and his only begotten Son! The coincidences are eerie.

 

[atrib]

Because dragons are NOT the central theme of the bible.
And because it's not unreasonable to diffentiate between literal and symbolic.
So you can be forgiven for your doubt and surprise when an atheist asserts to you that there are literal - not symbolic - fire breathing dragons in the bible.

Biblegod: literal or symbolic? Since you're differentiating and all.

 

[Learner]

Ahh ok if you must.. Are you the one that thought only 144 thousand got into heaven before you were enlightened to the context from an amateur?

Typical.... rather than an honest answer, change the subject.

I'll try again. Do abandon your knowledge of the world and reason to now believe that there are/were "fire-breathing fairy tale dragons" or do you retain your reason and believe that there are claims in the Bible that can't possibly be true?

Sorry about that, I responded too hastily to the top line of your post (losing focus) : ("I dunno. How many posts have you made in which you made definitive statements as to what is and isn't in the Bible?").... without concentrating on the rest.

 

[Learner]

Thank you for that... great find. That one escaped me!!!???

Why??

1) You've always only cherry picked the parts of the bible they tell you to read.

2) Your reading comprehension is terrible.

I'm sure there are several other possibilities.

Number one, not really unless you mean I talk about things I (think I) know but I'll go with number two.

Haven't we had some discussions before?

 

[Learner]

There isn't anything wrong with learning when corrected but you don't seem to do that unless a direct Biblical quotation is shown to you. Also, since you can't state everything you believe, a surer method of learning would be to go directly to the source, read it, and educate yourself from that.

Well yes but its also about how much one remembers and retains all the books in ones head when read. I don't have that talent. Revising continuously is always encouraged (the same, reading the source, but would be most useful having it at hand).

Apparently, your knowledge of the real world and reason led you to believe that a "fire-breathing fairy tale dragon" couldn't possibly exist so you assumed that one couldn't be in the Bible. Now that you know that one is in the Bible, do you now reject your knowledge of the real world and reason to accept that there were/are such beasties? Or do you retain your reason and assume that the Bible says much that can't be true?

Absolutely! The bible is true to the believer, this would then be the guide that sets him on the right path. How can I reject what it says? There could be some alternative explanations I'm missing that may well be beyond me. There may perhaps be some aspects of the scripture somewhere, where it borders between both allegory and literal. Its not fathomable in the "real" world - IOWs not being the usual thing we see today.

Its turned out to be a blessing because I am now very interested with the fire-breathing dragon.

Previously I was pointing out distorted depictions of various characters or creatures in the bible, sometimes used to debate like for example: unicorn, the devil all-red with horns & trident, even the blue eyed blond Jesus - yes of course I included fire-breathing dragons (plural). Leviathan was a sea creature as far I remembered vaguely.

 

[Rhea]

Also:

“The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality of happiness, and by no means a necessity of life.” - Shaw

That would be a really good quote if 'happiness' was some trivial, mundane, ho-hum,
take it or leave it human experience.

But considering the fact that we are in a forum surrounded by atheists whose favourite anti-God counter apologetic is probably related to theodicy...

Happiness is NOT overrated.

Does that mean we should believe false things just because we're happier when we do

No, I think it means you should get drunk more.

 

[southernhybrid]

A religious worldview correlates quite strongly with longevity.

There is some evidence of that, but imo, it's due to religious people having more opportunities for community. Social isolation and feelings of loneliness have been equated with a shorter life span. Atheists haven't done a very good job of forming communities yet. It's hard to herd cats!

Still, I've known atheists who lived well into their 90s, but they were active in atheist communities. And, there are many other more important factors that equate with longevity, like being physically active, maintaining a healthy weight, eating a healthy diet and perhaps most of all, genetics. There isn't much we can do if we come from a family prone to many deadly health problems, so some of longevity is simply luck.

 

[Atheos]

A religious worldview correlates quite strongly with longevity.

There is some evidence of that, but imo, it's due to religious people having more opportunities for community. Social isolation and feelings of loneliness have been equated with a shorter life span. Atheists haven't done a very good job of forming communities yet. It's hard to herd cats!

Still, I've known atheists who lived well into their 90s, but they were active in atheist communities. And, there are many other more important factors that equate with longevity, like being physically active, maintaining a healthy weight, eating a healthy diet and perhaps most of all, genetics. There isn't much we can do if we come from a family prone to many deadly health problems, so some of longevity is simply luck.

In the US the longest life expectancy is in Hawaii. The shortest is in Mississippi. The buybull belt composes pretty much the entirety of the lowest 20%.

In spite of that I do not correlate religion with lower life expectancy (or higher, for that matter). As a lifelong southerner I know it's how I was raised to eat. I wish things had been different and I hadn't squandered my youth eating that sort of unhealthy food but there you have it. I'm 60 now and while I've vastly improved my eating habits over the last 10 years or so, much of the damage was already done.

 

[PyramidHead]

Imagine thinking that living longer and being happier is a reason to simply decide to believe something you have no reason to think is true

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

A religious worldview correlates quite strongly with longevity.

There is some evidence of that, but imo, it's due to religious people having more opportunities for community. Social isolation and feelings of loneliness have been equated with a shorter life span. Atheists haven't done a very good job of forming communities yet. It's hard to herd cats!

Still, I've known atheists who lived well into their 90s, but they were active in atheist communities. And, there are many other more important factors that equate with longevity, like being physically active, maintaining a healthy weight, eating a healthy diet and perhaps most of all, genetics. There isn't much we can do if we come from a family prone to many deadly health problems, so some of longevity is simply luck.

Why do religious people die? Why are they dying? What's wrong?

And the ones I do know that lived into old age did so miserably, no quality of life, just a living corpse. Not all, but most.

 

[Rhea]

Moreover, why would religious people WANT to live longer?
What makes them all so very reluctant to go to heaven? To the point that they would appear to brag about their abilities to avoid it?

I find that immensely interesting.

 

[southernhybrid]

Moreover, why would religious people WANT to live longer?
What makes them all so very reluctant to go to heaven? To the point that they would appear to brag about their abilities to avoid it?

I find that immensely interesting.

I know. I was almost going to mention that earlier. To be honest, I did have a few Christian patients that would say they were ready to go and be with the Lord, but the one I remember the best was in her 90s, was still fairly independent, and had not suffered any obvious loss of cognition.

I tend to think that my own Christian father was afraid of death. He once told my mother that he feared being punished by god for killing soldiers in combat, but he did suffer from severe PTSD, so that was likely the reason he felt that way at times. He was an evangelical convert in his 20s. When he was about 86, he once told my mother that he expected to live to be close to 100, despite being partially dependent and suffering from severe chronic pain. That always confused me. He died at age 87, a few weeks after being diagnosed with cancer. I don't think he even knew he was dying, which in his case was probably a good thing.

I've had many Christian patients who were in their upper 90s and still had great fear of death. I sometimes wondered if the only reason they believed was because they hoped or thought it would help them cope with death. In many cases, it didn't. In other cases, it seemed to offer no comfort. Religion is a placebo for a lot of people, but placebos don't always work for very long.

 

[Politesse]

I have never noticed religious vs. non-religious people to have any more or less fear of death, on the whole. Personality and experience seem like more of an important factor there. I know fear of death is pretty integral to Marx' theory of religious participation, but I personally find it hard to credit that one empirically. Looking at things like the decline of the Azzi-Ehrenberg hypothesis in the economics of religion crowd would seem to bear me out on this. Really, there's no rational reason to fear death regardless of one's perspective, but Mary Douglas might be a better guide than Marx in explaining why we do it anyway. It's loss of control, not loss of happiness, that drives anxiety and anxious behavior.

 

[Lion IRC]

Atheists don't fear death.
They are too busy living like there's no tomorrow.

 

[skepticalbip]

... snip ...

I've had many Christian patients who were in their upper 90s and still had great fear of death. I sometimes wondered if the only reason they believed was because they hoped or thought it would help them cope with death. In many cases, it didn't. In other cases, it seemed to offer no comfort. Religion is a placebo for a lot of people, but placebos don't always work for very long.

There is no reason for an atheist to have a fear of death... maybe dread of painful dying or regret of no longer experiencing life. For an atheist, death would just be a return to oblivion, the same as before birth.

The religious have been given a sound reason to be terrified of death. There is the fear that they will be judged unfit to be admitted to heaven so will suffer eternal torment in hell.

 

[Lion IRC]

Yes, and I think this is why atheists invented the (religious) idea that there's no God(s).
It's a palliative.
It's the very thing they accuse theists of doing - inventing a comforting belief.