Why did not god make me a believer?

[Elfdude]

The funny thing in this line of reasoning so far is that Atheists, and Feminists are far less violent, far more ethical and consider morality far deeper than their counterparts on average.

When religious folks start being better people on average I'll consider changing my ways, I don't see that happening.

[mishkin]

basics

"Why did not god make me a believer" (when he created me).

There may be a grammatical error in that phrase. I am sure that unfortunately there will be grammatical errors in every message that I write, and if you do not realize it probably is because you are already used to reading my messages (plagued by grammatical errors).

I have already received messages that seem satisfactory to me about what god does with the pagans and atheists of the world (in his immense wisdom he takes into account the circumstances).

I recognize that from page five the subject seems to have deviated a lot and I have stopped paying attention to this discussion, but I still have not received a satisfactory explanation as to why god (which does not exist, this is just a theoretical exercise ) did not endow me (and so many others) with the seed of faith or why he allowed external circumstances (the environment) to wither and kill that supposed seed. Or why god has not made me fall off the horse yet, and why he allows many people to die before that magnificent fall.

I do not believe in god, I have no hope of someday believing in god, I know what will happen to my body after my death, I know that there is no soul. Sad, maybe, but true. A pity that I can not fool myself (or that nobody has indoctrinated or imbued me with these ideas in my youth) with nice tales about an eternal life, but life is unfair (or do not care about our stupidities), right?

[Sir Adrian]

The funny thing in this line of reasoning so far is that Atheists, and Feminists are far less violent, far more ethical and consider morality far deeper than their counterparts on average.

Between the anti-white men campaigners, atifa, jezebel.com, numerous false rape charges, countless attempts to get people from the opposing ideology fired and the prevalence of marxism among said people your statement is demonstrably false.
it, you can ignore the rest. The simple fact of holding any neo-marxist or marxist ideas makes talk of morality and agreeableness just empty talk regardless of who you are and what you have done personally. And if you do not understand why I have 150 million corpses or a book to show you - The Gulag Archipelago, which everybody should read and own.

EDIT: Just so we're clear I'm not saying anything about any twc users. Just talking in general.

[Elfdude]

Between the anti-white men campaigners, atifa, jezebel.com, numerous false rape charges, countless attempts to get people from the opposing ideology fired and the prevalence of marxism among said people your statement is demonstrably false.

What I'm hearing you say is:

"Because of my poorly understood strawman of an anti-white men campaigners, antifa, jezebel.com, false rape, and attempts to get folks fired and marxism your statement is false!"

Anti-white men activists are a rare phenomena relative to alt-right racists, even rarer than fundamentalist christian criminals, antifa is significantly less violent than their counterparts, jezebel.com is a website wtf are you talking about, false rape accusations almost never happens as opposed to real rape never being reported, and I didn't mention marxism. Great job making baseless claims, want to back this up with some numerical evidence which invalidates my claim that their counterparts are objectively worse, objectively more violent and objectively a larger problem to today's society?

it, you can ignore the rest. The simple fact of holding any neo-marxist or marxist ideas makes talk of morality and agreeableness just empty talk regardless of who you are and what you have done personally. And if you do not understand why I have 150 million corpses or a book to show you - The Gulag Archipelago, which everybody should read and own.

I didn't talk about marxism. In terms of a political ideology however it's objectively true that marxism without authoritarianism is rather harmless.

EDIT: Just so we're clear I'm not saying anything about any twc users. Just talking in general.

It's clear you intend to talk about twc users you layed out a bold claim knowing full well you thought you were including your political opponents on this forum. Your generalisms however are baseless and boring. It'd be great if you had some sort of data to back up but the best you have is 150 million deaths you've wrongly attributed to marxism. Let's be rigorous with our words shall we? On the other hand my generalisms are well known truths and easily able to be backed up with data. We can look at the prison population, incidence of criminality, violent crime, divorce, abuse of family, so on and so forth. When it comes to being a good person in the modern world it seems religious is more of a barrier for most than it is a boon.

[basics]

mishkin,

There are but one or two written of that knew they were God's, one even from inside the womb and I am talking of the Baptist and King David. All the others only found out as time passed in their lives and some of them screaming and kicking against it. So, I am not surprised by your response. I never had any doubts that there was a God but my analysis of Him was nothing like it is today. I never really knew anything about Jesus nor the crucifixion as any Bible glossing over was to read of the battles within it. What caught my attention then and perhaps still does is where there are battles to read of, to re-enact in my mind, I will search them out. What brought me into knowing God was however personal tragedy of my own making that made me lose all hope at that time but little did I know then that He was already working on my behalf to take me to a place where that personal contact would be realised. So, I've seen the two sides of the fence and although things are tougher now, I wouldn't change anything for all the tea in China as the saying goes. Oh yes, life can be unfair but it's far better with Jesus than without.

[mishkin]

Oh yes, life can be unfair but it's far better with Jesus than without.

I am sincerely happy for you. I would be more happy if you extended your views beyond religious texts and if you gave up your (otherwise understandable) attempts to proselytize (in which you have the truth, and the rest we are wrong or just ignorant), but again, life is not fair. Go with god.

[Cope]

The funny thing in this line of reasoning so far is that Atheists, and Feminists are far less violent, far more ethical and consider morality far deeper than their counterparts on average.

Is there a source for this?

When religious folks start being better people on average I'll consider changing my ways, I don't see that happening.

Change your ways how? I assume you're not arguing that you'll become a theist if "religious folks start being better people on average". I'll be interested to see how (if at all) the data accounts for the the correlation between wealth and religiosity given that poverty and/or oppression tends to encourage faith. African Americans, for example, are significantly more likely than American whites to be religious. It is also generally true that the citizens of poorer countries are more likely to be religious than the citizens of wealthy countries.

[fkizz]

Change your ways how? I assume you're not arguing that you'll become a theist if "religious folks start being better people on average". I'll be interested to see how (if at all) the data accounts for the the correlation between wealth and religiosity given that poverty and/or oppression tends to encourage faith. African Americans, for example, are significantly more likely than American whites to be religious. It is also generally true that the citizens of poorer countries are more likely to be religious than the citizens of wealthy countries.

People under pressure/adversity tend to be more likely to become religious.
People under comfort tend to be less likely to become religious.

[mishkin]

Certainly a miserable environment makes many dream of eternal life and believe that everything that is happening to them must have a purpose, but I doubt that many atheists embrace religion after a calamity unless such calamity is resolved through some evident miracle.

[Elfdude]

In many areas we find difficulty in this. The first thing we run into is religious incongruence fallacy or the fact that few people observe their religion in a theologically correct way, most don't know what this means and high theological understanding is also associated with higher likeliness of becoming non-religious. This is because cognitive dissonance becomes far more pronounced the more you understand about a particular religion versus the real and practical behavior you and most others have. Still while religious folks are more than happy to describe them as charitable, compassionate, or good-willed we find no real evidence for this in most cases.

A particularly interesting study on whether or not people would stop to help an injured person. This isn't the full study but it does summarize many of the points. Interestingly those who viewed religion as a quest tended to do far worse than average compared. It was ironic that the way the authors leveraged hurriness (the lack of time) was by making participants late. They were also to be reading the parable of the Good Sammaritan to highlight the incongruence even more:
http://faculty.babson.edu/krollag/or...y_samarit.html

Highlights several things:
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/322/5898/58

Interestingly Moral behavior of religious folks seems to be high while in the presence of other religious folks, lower in the presence of atheists or in anonymous situations.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/322/5898/58

Studies have shown that American Chrsitians definitely are more charitable... On Sundays... if you include tithing to their church. In general it was also found that the donations to your church acted to insulate one from guilt of not giving at later periods meaning that throughout the week giving less negated the moderate advantage.

http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=37730

Furthermore these effects are shortlived (literally in the process of minutes). Interestingly the level of religiosity had no real effect and may even have had a counter-productive effect as the combination of giving to one's church a long with increasingly general views of the outgroup inhibited people's giving. In short this is mediated more by the situation than the person's beliefs.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/322/5898/58

An interesting study does seem to show that when rule of law is weak religious folks are less likely to cheat. This is most obviously pronounced within poor communities and destabilized countries than it is in communities like the US. As the relative expectation of justice increases, and the trust in the rule of law increases ipso-facto religious belief decreases leading to the conclusion that religion is a substitute for the rule of law in the absence of it but is quickly abandoned in the presence of it.

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01983.x

In fact the evidence is quite strong that the rule of law, ethics, and morality in general is an inbuilt human phenomena, in short we're moral because instinctually we're moral and religion is a result of this innate morality in the absence of other systems of moral rule but quickly becomes less and less relevant when moralities are legislated.

https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01963

Some more supporting info:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014...-all-misbehave

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/...88868309351002

Now when we consider things like violent crime things tend to get very one sided. It should be noted that the most violent countries are also those with the highest religious belief. This is pretty obvious.

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/...51399020001005

While they find regular attendance is associated with less violence, they also find that the more conservative one is in their religious views the more abusive they are likely to be especially amongst men.

MIT has an interesting book on this and finds repeatedly that Religious observance especially in nations with strong ethical framework for laws, economic prosperity and governance stability is actually maladaptive and leads to far more criminal activity. This is because most religions have far looser standards of ethics than developed nations and often include far more discrimination or intolerance in their dogmas providing a justification for criminality.

https://mitp-web2.mit.edu/sites/defa...6_ind_0001.pdf

In fact this seems to be the case in all criminal activity in at least the developed world, white collar criminals for example are dramatically more religious.

https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publicatio....aspx?ID=70827

When we delve into many of the assumptions about atheists we find that not only are they less problematic than the religious but dramatically so. For example Atheist divorce rate is half that of religious folks. https://secularpolicyinstitute.net/w...on_Atheism.pdf

There's also an idea that atheists lack a sense of wonder and appreciation of the beauty of the universe, this is actually opposite with atheists far more likely to find beauty in the universe and religious folks especially those who are extremely religious to have a pessimistic sense of the universe.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank...bout-atheists/

Overall Atheists are 10 times less likely than average criminal, which is about 6 times less likely than Protestants. When we account for economic and racial differentiation this number shoots up dramatically with atheists doing even better. We find the same thing with regards to education.

Hell we even find that atheists are more likely to know theology than their religious counterparts:
http://www.pewforum.org/2010/09/28/u...wledge-survey/

The list goes on and on and on. This is more than enough to assert religion has no effect on morality, and it does give tentative indications that it may even be on average a problem for society rather than a virtue.

[Prodromos]

People under pressure/adversity tend to be more likely to become religious.
People under comfort tend to be less likely to become religious.

Every thinking being is religious. Different people just have different religions. Just look at the "irreligious" people declaring their "morality", which is fundamentally a religious concept.

[fkizz]

Every thinking being is religious. Different people just have different religions. Just look at the "irreligious" people declaring their "morality", which is fundamentally a religious concept.

But their morality is often a copy paste from at least one religion (can be more), with some editing of their own, and then declaring it to be "irreligious".

But yes I agree, no one can pretend forever to have infinite life here, and one can only pretend so long to be indifferent to the idea of dying one day. And obviously science and rational exercises are helpless in the face of that.

Now I don't think religions automatically create beautiful scenarios, but can you name one single advanced civilization that didn't have religion as a societal shaping force incorporated in it during its growth process at least?

Even Confucius writes about this, and repeats himself several times on the importance of the ritual.

[Cope]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

In many areas we find difficulty in this. The first thing we run into is religious incongruence fallacy or the fact that few people observe their religion in a theologically correct way, most don't know what this means and high theological understanding is also associated with higher likeliness of becoming non-religious. This is because cognitive dissonance becomes far more pronounced the more you understand about a particular religion versus the real and practical behavior you and most others have. Still while religious folks are more than happy to describe them as charitable, compassionate, or good-willed we find no real evidence for this in most cases.

A particularly interesting study on whether or not people would stop to help an injured person. This isn't the full study but it does summarize many of the points. Interestingly those who viewed religion as a quest tended to do far worse than average compared. It was ironic that the way the authors leveraged hurriness (the lack of time) was by making participants late. They were also to be reading the parable of the Good Sammaritan to highlight the incongruence even more:
http://faculty.babson.edu/krollag/or...y_samarit.html

Highlights several things:
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/322/5898/58

Interestingly Moral behavior of religious folks seems to be high while in the presence of other religious folks, lower in the presence of atheists or in anonymous situations.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/322/5898/58

Studies have shown that American Chrsitians definitely are more charitable... On Sundays... if you include tithing to their church. In general it was also found that the donations to your church acted to insulate one from guilt of not giving at later periods meaning that throughout the week giving less negated the moderate advantage.

http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=37730

Furthermore these effects are shortlived (literally in the process of minutes). Interestingly the level of religiosity had no real effect and may even have had a counter-productive effect as the combination of giving to one's church a long with increasingly general views of the outgroup inhibited people's giving. In short this is mediated more by the situation than the person's beliefs.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/322/5898/58

An interesting study does seem to show that when rule of law is weak religious folks are less likely to cheat. This is most obviously pronounced within poor communities and destabilized countries than it is in communities like the US. As the relative expectation of justice increases, and the trust in the rule of law increases ipso-facto religious belief decreases leading to the conclusion that religion is a substitute for the rule of law in the absence of it but is quickly abandoned in the presence of it.

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01983.x

In fact the evidence is quite strong that the rule of law, ethics, and morality in general is an inbuilt human phenomena, in short we're moral because instinctually we're moral and religion is a result of this innate morality in the absence of other systems of moral rule but quickly becomes less and less relevant when moralities are legislated.

https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01963

Some more supporting info:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014...-all-misbehave

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/...88868309351002

Now when we consider things like violent crime things tend to get very one sided. It should be noted that the most violent countries are also those with the highest religious belief. This is pretty obvious.

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/...51399020001005

While they find regular attendance is associated with less violence, they also find that the more conservative one is in their religious views the more abusive they are likely to be especially amongst men.

MIT has an interesting book on this and finds repeatedly that Religious observance especially in nations with strong ethical framework for laws, economic prosperity and governance stability is actually maladaptive and leads to far more criminal activity. This is because most religions have far looser standards of ethics than developed nations and often include far more discrimination or intolerance in their dogmas providing a justification for criminality.

https://mitp-web2.mit.edu/sites/defa...6_ind_0001.pdf

In fact this seems to be the case in all criminal activity in at least the developed world, white collar criminals for example are dramatically more religious.

https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publicatio....aspx?ID=70827

When we delve into many of the assumptions about atheists we find that not only are they less problematic than the religious but dramatically so. For example Atheist divorce rate is half that of religious folks. https://secularpolicyinstitute.net/w...on_Atheism.pdf

There's also an idea that atheists lack a sense of wonder and appreciation of the beauty of the universe, this is actually opposite with atheists far more likely to find beauty in the universe and religious folks especially those who are extremely religious to have a pessimistic sense of the universe.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank...bout-atheists/

Overall Atheists are 10 times less likely than average criminal, which is about 6 times less likely than Protestants. When we account for economic and racial differentiation this number shoots up dramatically with atheists doing even better. We find the same thing with regards to education.

Hell we even find that atheists are more likely to know theology than their religious counterparts:
http://www.pewforum.org/2010/09/28/u...wledge-survey/

The list goes on and on and on. This is more than enough to assert religion has no effect on morality, and it does give tentative indications that it may even be on average a problem for society rather than a virtue.

The data relating to this subject is varied. There is plenty of reputable material which either contradicts the notion that religiosity causes violent behaviour or argues that religiosity (or lackthereof) is not a significant factor in explaining criminality.

For instance, "...according to a study [by Sociological Quarterly] analyzing crime and religion data from 132 counties in three states...violent crime decreased as greater numbers of people were religiously active in a community".

Additional research by the Christian University of Baylor (which sampled 15,000 young adults) found that, with reference to violent crimes, no difference existed between the religious and the non religious. In a separate study it argued that active religious participation caused criminal activity to decrease.

In 2009, Phil Zuckerman (who is currently a Professor of sociology and secular studies in California) published an article in defense of atheism the Sociology Compass. The article touches on many of the issues we have discussed:

...although some studies have found that religion does inhibit criminal behavior (Baier and Wright, 2001; Powell, 1997; Bainbridge, 1989; Elifson, et al., 1983; Peek et al., 1985) others have actually found that religiosity does not have a significant effect on inhibiting criminal behavior (Cochran et al., 1994; Evans et al., 1996; Hood et al., 1996)...

...according to Michael Argyle (2007:218), “studies have found very little effect of religion on crime or delinquency...and serious offenses,” concluding that “the effect of religion appears to be very small here"...

...when it comes to more serious or violent crimes, such as murder, there is simply no evidence suggesting that atheist and secular people are more likely to commit such crimes than religious people...

...If religion, prayer, or God-belief hindered criminal behavior, and secularity or atheism fostered lawlessness, we would expect to find the most religious nations having the lowest murder rates and the least religious nations having the highest. But we find just the opposite. Murder rates are actually lower in more secular nations and higher in more religious nations where belief in God is deep and widespread (Jensen, 2006; Paul, 2005; Fajnzylber et al., 2002; Fox and Levin, 2000). And within America, the states with the highest murder rates tend to be highly religious, such as Louisiana and Alabama...

The above cited article provides a solid defence of atheism, but its findings do not demonstrate any conclusive link between religiosity and violent behaviour. Zuckerman notes a correlation between "high murder rates" and the most "religious nations", but he ignores the significant effects of poverty in these regions. This being despite the fact that we know poverty is a substantial factor in explaining violent behaviour and crime rates.

At the end of your post, you argued that "this [your source material] is more than enough to assert religion has no effect on morality, and it does give tentative indications that it may even be on average a problem for society rather than a virtue". This conclusion - which isn't unreasonable - is different from you original argument that atheists "are far less violent, far more ethical and consider morality far deeper than their counterparts on average". This statement is potentially misleading since it implies either that a significant cause of violent behaviour is religiosity (or conversely that atheism encourages non violence) when the evidence for such a claim largely circumstantial. It takes on similar characteristics as arguments attempting to undermine atheism which cite Stalin, Mao Zedong and Pol Pot as evidence of the amorality of atheism based on the false assumption that their actions can be explained by their commonly shared rejection of religion.

[Elfdude]

The data relating to this subject is varied. There is plenty of reputable material which either contradicts the notion that religiosity causes violent behaviour or argues that religiosity (or lackthereof) is not a significant factor in explaining criminality.

For instance, "...according to a study [by Sociological Quarterly] analyzing crime and religion data from 132 counties in three states...violent crime decreased as greater numbers of people were religiously active in a community".

This is a terrible meta analysis for a variety of reasons. They spend a lot of time trying to define religious context in the end their measurement is based on attendance of congregations tallied from two studies on violence. One should also note the coefficient of uncertainty was larger than the actual measured effects in almost all cases, this means that their statements were really couched in semantic demagoguery, in reality most of their effects didn't exist using the data as they provide but the data they provide is extremely suspect as well. All of their statistical manipulations are more or less meaningless because they draw disparate data together w/ a violence studies which are messed up, namely:

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/84e...2be57ac9d5.pdf

Which found that bridging social capital and specifically social (including religious) institutions which encouraged this phenomena were engaged in lower rates of adult and juvenile murder. However they fail to define what type of religious institution thus the authors take the study as any religion. That's silly. Furthermore this study specifies no relationship whatsoever (if not the opposite) was found in cities. Woops.

The second study being:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...0.00355.x/full

Which finds that catholicism presence works to help Latinx communities be more accepted than those without strong catholic influence but that protestant presence was associated with dramatically higher incidence of crime. Also not at all what the study was assessing. This means the two largest portions of violence said study was looking at cannot be applied the way the study tried to do so.

On the other hand the plurality of studies showing atheism is associated with dramatically less crime are unambiguous and robust in their data requiring little manipulation or assumption to conclude.

Additional research by the Christian University of Baylor (which sampled 15,000 young adults) found that, with reference to violent crimes, no difference existed between the religious and the non religious. In a separate study it argued that active religious participation caused criminal activity to decrease.

Another utterly terrible study. Amongst the first thing which should stand out to you is the slant of the study's authors and the provocative way they frame the data. https://digitalcommons.hope.edu/cgi/...y_publications

One thing which stands out is that while they found no statistically significant relation between their hypotheses and the data (their hypothesis could not explain the data distribution) they tried to claim it partially supported them. This was silly.

The separate study you mention merely confirmed what I stated earlier that crime associated is only with regards to regular attendance and seems to have little to do with religiosity, similar effects have been found in regards to folks who belong to numerous institutions especially those with strong ethical considerations. However in all cases this is short lived and does not predict behavior outside of the sphere of influence of that institution. Furthermore the source of that is significantly biased as well, one can look at significant cherry picking obvious in the data. That's clearly not a study but rather a thorough research paper, given the religious bent to the authors and the paper I find it no more compelling than the other study from said university.

In 2009, Phil Zuckerman (who is currently a Professor of sociology and secular studies in California) published an article in defense of atheism the Sociology Compass. The article touches on many of the issues we have discussed:

The above cited article provides a solid defence of atheism, but its findings do not demonstrate any conclusive link between religiosity and violent behaviour. Zuckerman notes a correlation between "high murder rates" and the most "religious nations", but he ignores the significant effects of poverty in these regions. This being despite the fact that we know poverty is a substantial factor in explaining violent behaviour and crime rates.

This is pretty normal. I think one thing that folks who look at atheism and secularism consistently find is that there's a lower than religious association with violent behavior. On the other hand while some religious practices can definitely show a lower than "average" incidence there's several problematic points for religion which cause one to question the idea of it's protective influence.

At the end of your post, you argued that "this [your source material] is more than enough to assert religion has no effect on morality, and it does give tentative indications that it may even be on average a problem for society rather than a virtue". This conclusion - which isn't unreasonable - is different from you original argument that atheists "are far less violent, far more ethical and consider morality far deeper than their counterparts on average".

I mean, I said what I meant and I still stand by my statement. While it's debatable that religious folks are more violent than average when we control for confounding factors we do find consistently that atheists and secularists are even less violent by a factor of 5-6x. I'm happy to fully support that but at this point it's hard to do so without really opening myself up to consistent analysis and debunking of hundreds of studies, and I have no interest in that. If you can find me a study which shows the opposite I'd feel more apt to concede that they're about the same but I highly highly doubt such is possible and if you do, I'm presuming I can debunk the study quickly. The question is always in comparison to what and it's consistent that atheists/secular are less criminally violent than their religious counterparts.

This statement is potentially misleading since it implies either that a significant cause of violent behaviour is religiosity (or conversely that atheism encourages non violence) when the evidence for such a claim largely circumstantial. It takes on similar characteristics as arguments attempting to undermine atheism which cite Stalin, Mao Zedong and Pol Pot as evidence of the amorality of atheism based on the false assumption that their actions can be explained by their commonly shared rejection of religion.

With your initial statement is concerned I would state even amongst arguments using Stalin Mao or Pol Pot as references we can still show Religion all things held apples to apples is still more deleterious. People may cry out, but EVERYONE in history in control of a country was religious, and I would agree, but if you can assign blame to atheism to these people, the counterpoint must also be entertained as valid. I do consider religiosity a risk factor for violent crime, in particular child and spousal abuse, in fact because I work in child development I have regular classes taught on those phenomena because it is not uncommon for abuse to first be noticed or suspected by me. Religious idealization is on that list just as Smoking would be in the case of lung cancer. I have encountered atheists who have abused their children and spouses as well but these individuals tend to also feature significant and obvious signs of sexism and racism. On the other hand abuse amongst those with tolerant viewpoints is very rare and if it does operationalize at all its of the sort we associate with ignorance and misplaced intentions. I'd love to find a religion which maximizes tolerance and goodwill but thus far every religion I've looked at in detail (at least the ancient sorts) has failed to deliver on it's promises.

I do think the last line you propose is solid. Looking at behavioral intervention strategies we know pretty solidly what works and it's neither religion nor atheism. The best sort of intervention we know of is cognitive behavioral therapy, which draws upon principles of many philosophies including some religious ones but critically looks at whether they're validated by science and applies them to emotional and impulse conditioning.

[basics]

I am sincerely happy for you. I would be more happy if you extended your views beyond religious texts and if you gave up your (otherwise understandable) attempts to proselytize (in which you have the truth, and the rest we are wrong or just ignorant), but again, life is not fair. Go with god.

mishkin,

You wee monkey, was it not you that proposed the subject in the first place? Still, I hope we're still friends?

[mishkin]

basics, the subject was why, from a religious point of view, some people are "comdemned" to be atheists, not if god exists or not. I see you have interpreted my comment as an attack. It is undeniable that you use these forums for proselytizing and that you use as your only arguments your personal religious experience and biblical texts (bad strategy when you try to convince people that as atheists obviously do not respect that - biblical texts and religous experiences). Beyond that (as I said understandably to some extent) I have nothing against you.

The day you (plural) stop belittling and insulting atheists (and different religions) your cause will be more respected.

[basics]

basics, the subject was why, from a religious point of view, some people are "comdemned" to be atheists, not if god exists or not. I see you have interpreted my comment as an attack. It is undeniable that you use these forums for proselytizing and that you use as your only arguments your personal religious experience and biblical texts (bad strategy when you try to convince people that as atheists obviously do not respect that - biblical texts and religous experiences). Beyond that (as I said understandably to some extent) I have nothing against you.

The day you (plural) stop belittling and insulting atheists (and different religions) your cause will be more respected.

mishkin,

Not just some people but all people are condemned regardless of what they think or believe because of Adam's default in the garden. Now that's not what basics thought up, rather how God has made things to be. That said He did however make provision through the blood of Jesus Christ that all those that genuinely seek Him shall be saved. That was my experience and it works. But, if you are convinced that there is no God and will not budge from that belief, then condemnation remains on you. The choice is yours.

As for me belittling anyone that is not my purpose. I am only repeating what God has had written and that includes the offense of the cross.

[fkizz]

The day you (plural) stop belittling and insulting atheists (and different religions) your cause will be more respected.

Religion has been under fire in cultural vectors since the 60s at least. It's only human such institutions act defensive.

Plenty of people/intellectuals are doing this following the unproven belief that erasing of religion and metaphysics will usher upon a glorious golden dawn, a new golden age of development.

Many groups believe this in some form or another. Basically the opponents want to go to paradise, but believe they will have paradise on earth simply by taking metaphysics out. Quite the unproved belief there's in there.

They believe in badly done correlations. If areas full of crime typically have a lot of police, it does not mean that absence of police will turn those areas into upper class neighborhoods.

[Phier]

Religion has been under fire in cultural vectors since the 60s at least. It's only human such institutions act defensive.

Plenty of people/intellectuals are doing this following the unproven belief that erasing of religion and metaphysics will usher upon a glorious golden dawn, a new golden age of development.

As an atheist I agree with your take on this. Most people seem to need some sort of religion, and when that religion isn't "religion" they make something else their religion, usually politics these days, but I suppose it could be also seen in people who go to extreme fandom too.

As a evolutionary biologist, I look at religion from the angle of it being instinctive in humans and for a good reason. I personally think it makes a culture stronger and as such people who were religious are more represented genetically. People like me would have been good at playing along even if I didn't need it or believe it. People who fought it would have been purged and removed from the gene pool.

Its great to sit in an ivory tower of sorts and complain about those people who believe as being a problem (and oddly its only Christians they complain about but thats another topic), but even though I know I don't need a religion to help me find meaning and joy in life, its apparent others do need something bigger. There was a time I would have thought those people slightly stupid or at best naive but I don't think so anymore. Its like anything else in life where there is a genetic component, its how they are wired. Teaching people that there is no god only shifts this need to something else.

[Common Soldier]

The funny thing in this line of reasoning so far is that Atheists, and Feminists are far less violent, far more ethical and consider morality far deeper than their counterparts on average.

When religious folks start being better people on average I'll consider changing my ways, I don't see that happening.

Actually, when it comes to atheists, the communist atheist have been justt as violent, killed just as many as any religious person. Stalin and the millions who died in the Ukraine, Stalin and his argues, the million who died in Communist Cambodia, rather disproves your point.

As for feminist, I don't have any good statistic for crimes commitrd by feminist vs non feminist or rreligious persons, and I doubt you do either. Can you provide some statistics to back up your claim? And what percentage of Feminist are atheists? Are all Feminist atheists? Do you have statistics?