ILX Religiosity and Spirituality and Agnosticity and Atheicity Poll

also i think atheists are better suited to determine the subjective value as many of them were once believers.

As far as the value of religion, it seems the subjective value is only answerable by theists,

And yet theists continually try to judge the subjective value of atheism re: "comfort", "values", etc.

- what possible tests, data or hypothesis could be devised to demonstrate this? Religions have had many different functions and relation to society throughout history, yet the world always seems to have contained unhappiness and suffering, without varying in relation to religion but to the socio-economic relations withing that society.

I don't think the problem is as difficult as you make it out to be. Yes statements like "religion is the root of all evil" are certainly impossible to defend objectively. But we can certainly judge individual church actions, policies, and their effects.

There's 'more' religion in the USA than there is in Italy, so which has more problems?

The church as a systemic power is much bigger in Italy obviously.

Could I correlate Church attendance to life expectancy?

Yes, you can. There are studies that show such correlations and we can easily separate out such factors from anti-gay policies or whatever.

The whole idea has so many problems that it's hard to know where to start.

Well, I disagree. I feel like overall, theists make some vague claims about religion's benefits and ask us to overlook any negatives, as though all religion was some undefinable whole and we have to take or leave it all. Conversely, some atheists may seem content to throw the baby out with the bathwater. But the religious haven't made very strong arguments in favor of the baby's cuteness and they seem awfully concerned with defending the potability of the bathwater as well.

x-posts

I think we were just arguing part each other, wk - by no means do I think that is the only reason atheists bring up real world effects of religion; there is a lot to criticize in that field, after all. But atheism is surely different from being irreligious, or anti-religious. When I first began to believe in God I was still anti-religion, as I had been when I was an atheist. And as for my concern about "real problems" (which I understand you found smug), I guess I feel that a problem should be solved because it's a problem, and not because of who caused it. Hence AIDS in Africa is a problem not because it's exacerbated by Catholicism but because it's destroying lives - and malaria in Africa deserves attention for the same reason, although as far as I'm aware no religion has any big problems with mosquito nets (maybe Jainism? The treated nets don't kill mosquitos, do they? /stupid).

And yet theists continually try to judge the subjective value of atheism re: "comfort", "values", etc.

Theists who do so are wrong, imo.

"churches function and behave within the confines of capitalism (or the prevailing socio-economic system)"
I don't know if they are so neatly separable, at least in the US. They're both so woven into the tapestry of each other.
and on even a basic organizational unit of civilization, churches and marketplaces serve very consonant purposes.
getting a bunch of people together, exchange of goods/services, providing a framework for transactions

dowd is my kind of theist, wkiw in a heartbeat

Re: capitalism, communism and religion...

One of the lessons of communism to me is that religion is one of the most powerful and useful methods of social control and you can't easily replace it with propaganda and brutal military oppression. As Philip says, capitalism and religion are so intertwined that I don't know how you could mount an effective critique of capitalism while ignoring one of the biggest moneymaking schemes in history. Has the strange biblical literalism in the U.S. shaped the attitudes of global warming denying politicians, or have the forces of big oil merely take advantage of these people as useful dupes? How do you get away with vast economic inequality without promising something better in the next life?

Well, the place I live is mostly a military base, and it's the airshow this weekend, so I'm going out for one last pint before I get overrun by creepy little men with binoculars and band-scanners, and will be similarly frustrated/busy all weekend, so I'll bow out of the discussion here - been given plenty to think about anyway, especially by those on the (apparent) opposite side. Later.

x-post I'll need to think about that, in a hurry, but certainly religion functioned well (and had a more controlling role) under feudalism.

But atheism is surely different from being irreligious, or anti-religious.

Yes, definitely. I'll admit to being both atheist, and anti-religious.

I guess I feel that a problem should be solved because it's a problem, and not because of who caused it. Hence AIDS in Africa is a problem not because it's exacerbated by Catholicism but because it's destroying lives -

Absolutely, but how do you then solve a problem in the face of continuous systemic opposition to the solution, or outright denial of the problem? How do you get someone to wear a condom when god is telling them not to?

I don't know, but getting Catholicism to become more secular as their leadership dies off feels like a more tractable solution than converting people away from it. I think there's plenty of room for influence within the church. At least that's the sense I get from reading an article about the weird circumstances that caused them flip/flop on the birth control pill issue.

I'm Catholic -- Catholicism leaves you, not the other way around.

Anyway: I am a hardcore atheist. I don't want to go anywhere near a house of worship unless it's for my gay wedding.

Could I correlate Church attendance to life expectancy?

Yes, you can. There are studies that show such correlations and we can easily separate out such factors from anti-gay policies or whatever.

sorry, not been keeping up with the conversation, but are you saying that if you go to church you live longer, and if so, how?

sorry, not been keeping up with the conversation, but are you saying that if you go to church you live longer, and if so, how?

I believe there have been longevity studies that have shown exceptional longevity within certain religious communities. But there are also indications that longevity is connected to family and a sense of community, where elders are valued and still feel like they have something to contribute. So while there may be a correlation between religion and longevity, I seriously doubt there's any causation there.

oh yeah could believe that- in catholicism it's very likely that you'll take steps to avoid the final judgement for as long as fuckin possible, for instance

Hellfire sermon in Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man to thread!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Can I please vote hardcore atheist twice?

Especially after this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11332515, which is a little strong coming from someone who was with the Hitler jugend himself - he must have seen the German army's "Gott mit uns" slogan up close at the time, one would imagine: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Coat_of_arms_of_Prussia_1933.svg .

which is a little strong coming from someone who was with the Hitler jugend himself

Every 14-year-old boy in Germany was in the Hitler Youth by law, it's not like he went out of his way to sign up.

Still bad form to pull Godwin's Law on atheism all the same.

Ok, I stand corrected on that Hitler jugend membership - it's just that I'm a little, let's say frustrated, at what's going on at the moment (Belgium is in a massive catholic pedophile scandal and popes going around saying pedophilia is a disease (so nobody's responsible and those damned priests are victims as well) isn't helping at all).

how well did Catholicism acquit itself re: the Hitler situation? It seems like there were strains of conscience perking within the laity, like the guy in valkyrie, but not reading too many flattering things about the clergy at the time.

pretty badly

http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSaW-eSmOOK_Uh41TmhwcAe3PGYf2i2VvALYcy2f7nQNILvv1I&t=1&usg=__zhej1ZQbEDKF-unk6JlMPt0bgK4=

just hangin out, salutin der fuehrer

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQxYWn4JNv64Sp6Ed4Rw6HDqZ3g4-ojnx3dYpwWKM-gFeU2KbY&t=1&usg=__oFEtExE2KxrMq94lni5nxTU9T74=

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT0xgy3dzl6To1TcI-0jor433zb8mTJXZl89AIqM7EMigZOqm8&t=1&usg=__lmRoVSqYxR7NI2Y2-yOWurcdSOI=

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRYdNDDEA6xleyGPHJsjaKnrvEzksHS5XTURc6Fut5f2cZSaLs&t=1&usg=__YgAwFQc5TfJROkDnuBpCGNm7xJA=

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQTPOP5MLWC4ivY6rElXSw-ABmig1cNibKqtsK2OVj95eGOWdo&t=1&usg=__yLPvUTknoaxJn9IIUoj-Fzn4v30=

Those evil soldiers are doing the Nazi salute, the holy saints are replying with the completely innocent Roman salute.

unchill complicit-in-genocide pontiff bro

just some bros waving at each other

tbf, Pope John Paul's speech at the wailing wall about the Holocaust and apologizing for the Church's role in it was pretty moving

(altho calling it an apology is probably an overstatement)

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_3I0gXJZ6XmU/S6AzgHLfJ0I/AAAAAAAAAog/ksDTMUxjvoI/s1600-h/pope-benedict-nazi-salute.jpg

Huh? Not working? In case that image link really isn't working (doesn't look so at the moment), here it is on another site:

http://i53.tinypic.com/907x3l.jpg

(that's the Ratz man himself)

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

huh.

I wonder what it is about ILX that attracts the hardcore atheist/leftist minorities

crudely? ILX is the most intelligent open forum on the internet + intelligence is attractive to free-thinking leftie atheist types = these people flock to ILX

although I'm a bit dismayed at that result - it's overwhelming and kinda helps explain why ILX doesn't have a particularly good track-record on religious discussion - personally I could have voted for any one of the bottom 3 but none of the top 3

cynicism and atheism are correlated

Optimism is not possible without atheism.

<3 these results

there's a lot more atheists than cnn polls turn up once a year is my guess shakey

Voted for Option 1 but I'm really not hardcore about being an atheist, I just don't believe in God and never have really. Not through any particularly intellectual or logical reasoning but just a combination of not much curiosity and actually finding comfort in the idea of being born, living, and dying, and that's it. The End. Stop. This is more satisfying to me than any idea of God or heaven to be honest.

shit I could have used a better word than 'flock' there

egotistical types have trouble seeing a higher power than themselves and they flock to ilx

On the contrary, believing that your insignificant monkey species is somehow superior to everything else because of some hazy invisible magician excuse is the ultimate hubris. Primitive people constructed a fancy story partly because they can't handle the fact that we, just like every manifestion of life on this planet, are nothing more than an elaborate trick by DNA to get reproduced. No higher purpose, no eternal life.

That is how I'm atheistic. How is that egotistical?

Given the demographics of ILX (and more active internet users in general) this is broadly what I would expect - educated at a higher than average level, middle class-ish, 20-40 (at a guess), vaguely left of centre etc.

Religiosity is also over-represented in polls - I imagine the main factor is the identity/cultural aspects of religion. Certainly if as many British people attended church as answered Christian (72%) the streets would be deserted on a Sunday morning (new census next year! I love censuseses).

Disappointing results, but I do think part of that was down to the way in which the questions were phrased. (I think it is *very* leading to have 4 degrees of atheism/agnosticism and only 2 poorly phrased religious answers - not to mention the lack of a "I am a hardcore spiritual person" makes it very very unbalanced.)

So it's a poor poll with leading questions to start with, which means that any results are going to be skewed.

What I find most personally concerning about these results is the high degree of *certainty* that people seem to express. Because that kind of "hardcore" certainty can lead both to dogmatism (my belief system is the only one that is correct, so you should follow it to) and arrogance (there was a good quote in Sagan's Contact about "how can you represent the entire human race when you think 95% of it are deluded or lying?") The arrogance doesn't come from the belief, it comes from the certainty that one believes one's own belief is the only *possible* one.

I'm honestly surprised that there were not more *agnostics* because that, to me, is the most intellectually *defensible* position, but the way the poll is phrased makes it difficult to pick out tolerant agnostics on the borderline cases.

Anyway, the one good thing about this poll is, when any hardcore atheists on ILX start trying to represent themselves as hard done by or a minority, I'm going to point them to this thread and tell them to eat a bag of dicks.

Re-poll with better options?

xp I can't honestly recall or imagine that ever happening here.

Gee, Ledge, look upthread, you'll find lots of examples.

Even I can't be bothered to repoll, but I just wanted to repeat that the option were biased and the results skewed.

I'm honestly surprised that there were not more *agnostics* because that, to me, is the most intellectually *defensible* position

You realise this is just hardcore agnosticism, exactly on a par with hardcore atheism or religiousness? Saying that one cannot intellectually justify either position (belief/unbelief) is itself a philosophical position, prima facie no more or less justified or in need of justification.