discrimination against religious fanatics: DH edition

[Budget Player Cadet_]

For the record: I am referring to irrational christians who would take the word of the bible over scientific discovery/facts and their parallels in other religions. Not rational people.

Is it fair to discriminate against someone because of their belief?

There are several major things that separate this from discrimination based on most former factors. First of all, the big one: your religion or belief can be changed. Not overnight, but there are countless cases of people either ceasing to believe in their religion, or taking up a new religion. And even if you fail to change your belief (it runs very deep in some people), you can effectively fake it without major psychological damage (the damage coming from faking your sexuality is ridiculous, as it requires an effective suppression of said sexuality; faking your gender or race is nigh-impossible; faking your religion is in many communities fairly typical if you do not belong to the leading creed). Of course, this does not justify discrimination. It merely means that it is not blatantly unfair, as you can avoid the discrimination altogether with relative ease.

Now, as far as the justification... Religious fanatics who deny scientific advancement or simple logic that contradicts their existing beliefs are, simply put, a danger to the world. When we have a democratic state as such, everyone is able to put their opinion in. Think about this for a moment. This allows people to stand in the way of scientific advancement not because it's morally wrong, or dangerous, or even distasteful, but because it disagrees with their (usually ancient and heavily flawed) beliefs. Why is this an issue? Because virtually every advancement in the history of human society has based on logical reasoning and science. When people reject logic and reason ("Religion lies on a much more stable basis than the shifting sands of logic and reason"), they are saying that almost any advancement of society is worth less to them then their beliefs. We've seen the consequences of it through abortion and stem cell research, as well as classes that refuse to teach evolutionary science or about the big bang theory, despite both of them being as accepted, scientifically, as almost any other part of science. Also, imagine for a moment what Global Warming means for the fundie worldview ("god wouldn't let that happen"-I wish I was kidding, but some people actually do think like that!) and you get a very stark view of the future.

In short, we have a justification to discriminate against religious fundamentalists who deny scientific advancement or facts that disagree with their religious beliefs (or worse, deny logic overall), in the same way we discriminate against neonazis or other radical groups. Imagine hiring a scientologist for a position in natural history at a university. Now imagine hiring someone who believes that cell phones are magic to, well, any meaningful job, and you start to understand where I'm coming from.

Thoughts?

 

[rvkevin]

To make a similar point, I've been thinking lately that the freedom of religion in the first amendment is superfluous. Anything that would be acceptable would be covered under freedom of speech, expression, assembly, etc. This would mean that each person would have the same amount of rights and the religious would not be given special treatment for their beliefs. For example, an employee who can't work on Saturday for religious observation would be treated with the same seriousness as someone who decides to not work on Saturday so he can watch his son's baseball games. Under the current law, one is covered while the other is not, even though they pose the same consequences to the company and the father values his family just as much as someone who values their day of worship. This means that one citizen is granted extra flexibility in their work schedule as well as other accommodations than another merely because of their religion which seems contrary to the ethos of the constitution.

 

[ballin4life]

There is one other important aspect of the first amendment on relgion - that the government can't declare a national religion.

 

[Dre89]

There is one other important aspect of the first amendment on relgion - that the government can't declare a national religion.

You have the Church to thank for that, for initiating the state-religion separation.

 

[rvkevin]

Ballin,
Yea, I shouldn't have referenced the first amendment, I should have referenced EEOC's policy. That we should treat religion as any other idea/practice, and not have it as a protected class.

Dre,
No, I have Thomas Jefferson to thank for that.

 

[Dre89]

So you're saying that the Church-state separation instigated by the Church had no impact on the Chruch-state separation in many western countries, depsite the fact that western civilisation for the majority of its life has been defined by Christianity?

 

[rvkevin]

So you're saying that the Church-state separation instigated by the Church had no impact on the Church-state separation in many western countries, despite the fact that western civilization for the majority of its life has been defined by Christianity?

I'm saying that the proximate cause for the first amendment is Thomas Jefferson. If you want to support your claim that the church is responsible for Jefferson's thesis, then you can make that case by referencing his writings, correspondence, etc. I find your reasoning suspect. The demographic of western civilization is irrelevant to the formation of the constitution considering that Jefferson would not have fit into that demographic. It's a complete non-sequitor.

 

[Reaver197]

A quick read up on wikipedia, though hardly the arbitrator of truth, does not do anything to help your position, Dre.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state

 

[Bob Jane T-Mart]

I agree with discrimination against those who could be described as borderline insane. There is perfect justification to do that in only a few circumstances. The ones I can think of at the moment, are gun/weapon ownership and employment.

However, where do you draw the line as to what should be discriminated against and what shouldn't?

When concerning employment, I'd draw the line at, whether their beliefs have a substantial negative impact on their quality of work, safety of others around them etc.

When concerning gun/weapon ownership, I'd draw it at, whether their beliefs create a substantial risk to the health and safety of those around them.

 

[Dre89]

But you haven't really clarified anything. It's like saying "I draw the line with abortion when it becomes a human" but you haven't specified when it becomes human.

As I said in the other thread, it's just fundamentalist athiesm, science being the new Bible. If you disagree with science you're a heretic and can be discriminated against.

 

[A Pimp Named Slickback]

Do you, Dre, disagree with science then?

I don't see how that's possible, seeing as you use it everyday.

 

[Sucumbio]

But why is Political ideology less legitimate than religious beliefs? All a nazi has to do is base his beliefs in a religious backing (hell, "Mein Kampf" could damn well be his bible!) and all of a sudden it's not fair to discriminate against him? What?

Well in point of fact there have been a few examples I can think of... such as Westboro Baptist Church home of Fred Phelps, and his offspring and congregation getting jobs in Topkea and the surrounding county. Due to EEOC they aren't able to be discriminated against in terms of hiring, firing, etc. But to put a finer point on what rvkevin brought up - if they held one of their colorful anti-gay rallies at one of their jobs, no doubt the employer would be within their right to terminate the employee. The EEOC reminds me of don't ask don't tell when I think about it. They don't care if you're Christian, Muslim, Scientologist, whatever, so long as you aren't breaking company policies with respect to your beliefs, you're good.

An interesting side-story: A transgendered employee at the call center I used to work at decided they didn't feel comfortable using the rest room because he was now mostly a she. The women didn't feel comfortable with her using their restroom because she wasn't she enough. Ugh. So basically he/she got to use the guest restroom at the front of the office, which was until then strictly off limits to employees. This was a company decision to balance a situation where everyone seemed to have a problem with whatever solution was arrived at. The only lucky thing I suppose is that the person agreed to it. Had they been forced to use the guest bathroom to make other employees feel more at ease, there may have been an issue.

But anyway, yeah, you're right, but it's more or less a given that Nazism isn't a religion, even though there are some strict similarities to cultism. It's "National Socialism" and favors genocide and whatnot. It's the kind of thing that wouldn't be welcome in the workplace. In fact political discussions can be barred from the workplace as well, because they oftentimes insight undesirable attitudes and behavior. So too can overt religious debates, or debates on sexuality. Enforcing EEOC means you're not discriminating because of someone's race/gender/religion. What you talk about or act on while on company property and on company time is different, because you're expected to keep it all to yourself. The only one that I find difficult is gender issues, because it's hard not to look at the he/she who's obviously only part-way through the transformation. But... they choose it, so they should accept the stares or chuckles or awkwardness, to a degree, of course. Coming to work with a giant zit on your face will get you some comments and looks too,

 

[Bob Jane T-Mart]

As I said in the other thread, it's just fundamentalist athiesm, science being the new Bible. If you disagree with science you're a heretic and can be discriminated against.

Is that in response to what I said?

I'm sorry, I just it's justified to discriminate against religious fundamentalists who appear borderline insane to the point where it substantially negatively affects their ability to work. I don't see a problem with that.

 

[Dragoon Fighter]

I agree with Dre.

Discrimination would be bad because while BPC might never commit a fowl act if enough people do believe in BPC philosophy it would spell bad news for "heretics". I think as one who was assaulted for believing one set of believes a while back that the merit of a person in the work place should be judged by if they can get the job done. (Using job based discrimination as an example.)

 

[rvkevin]

The EEOC reminds me of don't ask don't tell when I think about it. They don't care if you're Christian, Muslim, Scientologist, whatever, so long as you aren't breaking company policies with respect to your beliefs, you're good.

It's not like that at all. If the company needs to change their policy to accommodate religious practices, unless it will cause an "undue hardship" to the company, they are required by law to change their policy. It is not the same for other practices. This means that religious practices are given special treatment over secular practices.

 

[Reaver197]

Discrimination would be bad because while BPC might never commit a fowl act if enough people do believe in BPC philosophy it would spell bad news for "heretics".

The discussion reminds me of the recent event where a security guard for a Pakistani politician shot and killed the politician for trying to remove the blasphemy laws in Pakistan.

Would not his personal religious beliefs, which apparently prompted him to decide to outright violate the duty of his job, be grounds for not having him be a security guard for a politician in the first place, especially one that was challenging their religious-based laws?

It also seems to me that it isn't so much about whether to adhere to science, but whether you're operating on a belief system that tries to reflect reality. If you aren't, I don't know how I, or anyone, could really trust what line of action you would take in response to any given situation or event.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

But you haven't really clarified anything. It's like saying "I draw the line with abortion when it becomes a human" but you haven't specified when it becomes human.

Around 3 years old.
And it doesn't matter where the line is drawn, it only matters that, once this line is drawn, discriminating things over it is morally acceptable.

As I said in the other thread, it's just fundamentalist athiesm, science being the new Bible. If you disagree with science you're a heretic and can be discriminated against.

Yep. Now here's the difference between discriminating against someone for not believing in god, and discriminating against someone for not believing in rational thought:
-Religions are based in that which we cannot experience with our own senses. Scientific reasoning is based entirely on what we can see, feel, and comprehend.
-Religious belief, whenever it has been pared off with reason in a fight, has been wrong every single time (at least, that I know of).
-Virtually every positive development in the history of human society has come from rational thinking, not blind demagoguery.

I think an appeal to the results is in order, honestly. And when someone makes the decision to go without logic and reasoning, they are making an active choice against society. Honestly, when I hear bible-thumpers say things like "If someone brought me a logical argument against god that I couldn't defeat, I'd ignore them", it makes me want to go through their stuff and remove literally anything that has any technology in them, deny them any form of medical care for the rest of their lives, and take their children away from them because they are clearly horribly misguided, radical parents who would force their misguided belief on their offspring (you'd take kids away from the Taliban, wouldn't you?).

Extreme? Yeah. I know. But these people are literally spitting on what holds our modern society together, what keeps billions of people alive, and all in favor of a book which is so riddled with logical holes that not even a member of the Ministry of Love could enforce enough doublethink to get a logical person to accept it! You cannot argue the existence of the christian god as he is written in the bible. He is a logical impossibility. The only way to accept his existence is to abandon logic, and ignore the logical arguments against both his existence at all, as well as against omnipotence/presence.

Well in point of fact there have been a few examples I can think of... such as Westboro Baptist Church home of Fred Phelps, and his offspring and congregation getting jobs in Topkea and the surrounding county. Due to EEOC they aren't able to be discriminated against in terms of hiring, firing, etc.

See? This is what I'm talking about. These people should be homeless. Yes, it's within your rights to piss everyone off. But to expect to get jobs despite of that? ****. This world is such a ****ed-up place.

But to put a finer point on what rvkevin brought up - if they held one of their colorful anti-gay rallies at one of their jobs, no doubt the employer would be within their right to terminate the employee. The EEOC reminds me of don't ask don't tell when I think about it. They don't care if you're Christian, Muslim, Scientologist, whatever, so long as you aren't breaking company policies with respect to your beliefs, you're good.

Fair enough. But why are they allowed to vote? And why is a congressman allowed to keep his job after a message like this? Hell, why should we trust people who have no grip on reality with jobs at all?

But anyway, yeah, you're right, but it's more or less a given that Nazism isn't a religion, even though there are some strict similarities to cultism. It's "National Socialism" and favors genocide and whatnot.

No, Nazism ≠ National Socialism. Nazism is the religion which names Hitler its prophet, and the national socialistic agenda its holy text of rules. It is by all means equivalent to most modern religions in almost every section (hell, the bible calls for genocide too!). Why can a follower of this faith be discriminated against, but a christian not only cannot, but can get days off due to their belief?

I agree with Dre.

Discrimination would be bad because while BPC might never commit a fowl act if enough people do believe in BPC philosophy it would spell bad news for "heretics". I think as one who was assaulted for believing one set of believes a while back that the merit of a person in the work place should be judged by if they can get the job done. (Using job based discrimination as an example.)

The degree of "where to draw the line" is not an issue here, it's merely if discrimination on those bounds is legitimate.

Also, reaver gets it. Congrats.

 

[ballin4life]

Fair enough. But why are they allowed to vote? And why is a congressman allowed to keep his job after a message like this? Hell, why should we trust people who have no grip on reality with jobs at all?

Welcome to Democracy (even though we aren't really a democracy, but you know what I mean). If 51% of people vote to have this congressman in office, it happens. Hell, if 51% of people support the church, they can vote to throw you in jail for not agreeing with them. They'll claim that you are the one with no grip on reality (like Nineteen Eighty-Four).

No, Nazism ≠ National Socialism. Nazism is the religion which names Hitler its prophet, and the national socialistic agenda its holy text of rules. It is by all means equivalent to most modern religions in almost every section (hell, the bible calls for genocide too!). Why can a follower of this faith be discriminated against, but a christian not only cannot, but can get days off due to their belief?

No. Nazi is an abbreviation of National Socialism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi

 

[Dre89]

BPC- The argument from positive developments coming from science is pointless because several positive developments have come from religion.

You know what I find interesting, is that people bring up when religious people kill, using a development in science, such as a gun or bomb (even though most of the time religion is used as a mask for the real purpose, which is some personal/political gain) people blame it on religion. But when you mention things such as the numerous scientific developments, universities, hospitals that came from religious institutions, for religious reasons, science gets the credit for it.

 

[Dragoon Fighter]

The degree of "where to draw the line" is not an issue here, it's merely if discrimination on those bounds is legitimate.

I would state that it is morally unacceptable, the reasoning unfortunately gets real messy so I will type it up in 5 or 6 days, but maybe sooner. (Limited computer access for the next four days.)

Also, reaver gets it. Congrats.

Lol, I am really dependent on Google Chromes spell check so I do make mistakes like that frequently.

 

[Reaver197]

Lol, I am really dependent on Google Chromes spell check so I do make mistakes like that frequently.

Ha ha, don't worry, I do it all the time. It's just that I've seen that particular line used in so many awful puns, that I couldn't help but find it really funny.

The reason why science gets the credit for universities and hospitals is that their effectiveness in what they teach and/or operate on was made to what it was by science. If it were not for science, universities and hospitals would simply be as useful as churches in terms of actually healing people or teaching them about the world, it's history, and how it functions (not very well, unfortunately, as it seems to be).

 

[Bob Jane T-Mart]

Discrimination would be bad because while BPC might never commit a fowl act if enough people do believe in BPC philosophy it would spell bad news for "heretics". I think as one who was assaulted for believing one set of believes a while back that the merit of a person in the work place should be judged by if they can get the job done. (Using job based discrimination as an example.)

Well... that's actually a strawman. We were never advocating the assault of those who are out of touch with reality. Additionally, these "heretics" deserve discrimination against, simply because they are out of touch with reality. I think it is perfectly fair to discriminate, within reason of course, against those who are insane. The same sort of thing should apply here.

BPC- The argument from positive developments coming from science is pointless because several positive developments have come from religion.

You know what I find interesting, is that people bring up when religious people kill, using a development in science, such as a gun or bomb (even though most of the time religion is used as a mask for the real purpose, which is some personal/political gain) people blame it on religion.

Guns and bombs don't kill people on their own. Technology is neither good nor evil, it's how you use it. Science provides a set of tools for mankind, how we use those tools is up to us.

But when you mention things such as the numerous scientific developments, universities, hospitals that came from religious institutions, for religious reasons, science gets the credit for it.

But as you said yourself, they are scientific developments. Science deserves the credit for scientific developments doesn't it? And can you source these claims?

 

[Dragoon Fighter]

Well... that's actually a strawman. We were never advocating the assault of those who are out of touch with reality. Additionally, these "heretics" deserve discrimination against, simply because they are out of touch with reality. I think it is perfectly fair to discriminate, within reason of course, against those who are insane. The same sort of thing should apply here.

Sorry about the stawman I should of noticed that my argument was that

Anyway I believe that discrimination against a group of people is wrong in general. (More detail later as stated in a previous post.)

Also I have a few questions.

Why would one wish to discriminate against them?
What does one gain from discriminating against them?

 

[Bob Jane T-Mart]

Also I have a few questions.

Why would one wish to discriminate against them?
What does one gain from discriminating against them?

Well, because it negatively affects their ability to do certain things. To answer the first question.

To answer the second one, productivity and safety (in the case of gun ownership laws).

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Welcome to Democracy (even though we aren't really a democracy, but you know what I mean). If 51% of people vote to have this congressman in office, it happens. Hell, if 51% of people support the church, they can vote to throw you in jail for not agreeing with them. They'll claim that you are the one with no grip on reality (like Nineteen Eighty-Four).

...And this is why democracy is a ridiculously flawed system-it assumes that a majority of the people know what they are doing. Even in a system where there are more than two parties, nothing ever gets done-germany has been stalled on really doing anything for years because nobody is willing to budge and make tough, unpopular decisions, and when they are, they get stopped because nobody ever has an absolute majority.

No. Nazi is an abbreviation of National Socialism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi

I'm trying to define Nazism as a hypothetical religion which does not have "direct" ties to national socialism but follows all of the basic prospects. Trust me, I know what nazis are.

BPC- The argument from positive developments coming from science is pointless because several positive developments have come from religion.

From religion, or from logical reasoning?

Also, hit me with a few. A couple examples.

You know what I find interesting, is that people bring up when religious people kill, using a development in science, such as a gun or bomb (even though most of the time religion is used as a mask for the real purpose, which is some personal/political gain) people blame it on religion. But when you mention things such as the numerous scientific developments, universities, hospitals that came from religious institutions, for religious reasons, science gets the credit for it.

Geez, I wonder why... Because it's right?
Could that hospital exist without science? No. Could it exist without religion? Yep, there are many, many non-religious hospitals, colleges, and libraries.
Could those terrorist attacks exist without science? No, science is an enabler. Could they exist without religion? No. No sane person would do something like that. Granted, there have been cases of school shootings caused by atheists, but even then, it was not attributable to their lack of a belief in a god, but rather the fact that they were bat**** insane-in fact, it never had anything to do with their religion in the first place. It's possible to use logical thought to evil ends, but it's hard to logically reach the reasoning to perform such evil ends.

Bob-Jane puts it very nicely as well.

Sorry about the stawman I should of noticed that my argument was that

Anyway I believe that discrimination against a group of people is wrong in general. (More detail later as stated in a previous post.)

Also I have a few questions.

Why would one wish to discriminate against them?
What does one gain from discriminating against them?

You would wish to discriminate against them so that they cannot force their beliefs on others (teaching your children that the word of the bible is factual truth should be illegal. Seriously.), cannot use their religion's principles as a political platform, and cannot influence lawmaking with said principles.
You gain... Well, let me ask you this. If we were to discriminate as such, would we have Intelligent Design in science classes? You gain a general populace which is more intelligent in the ways of the world, more ethically educated and therefore able to make truly moral (not religious) judgements, and more tolerant (there has never been a more reliable justification for any form of discrimination than religion).

 

[Dre89]

BPC you contradict your own argument.

You concede that athiests do mass shootings etc but then attribute it to insanity, but when religious people kill it's because of religion, despite the fact that you conceded they were also insane. You can't argue that the religion makes the insanity, because the majority of religious people are not insane.

In fact, it's quote the opposite. Religious people are statistically healthier than irreligious people, and I have two separate sources, from a thiest and an athiest, to back that up.

I don't get why you keep mentioning that science was necessary for positive effects of religion. No one here is saying science is bad, we're not taking a lip sided view like you are.

Do you wish to shut down religion entirely? Meaning that you're happy to make people less healthy, less happy, increase suicide rates , discriminate against most evolutionary biologists (all backed up by statistics) and shut down the largest exporter if charity in the world?

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

BPC you contradict your own argument.

You concede that athiests do mass shootings etc but then attribute it to insanity, but when religious people kill it's because of religion, despite the fact that you conceded they were also insane. You can't argue that the religion makes the insanity, because the majority of religious people are not insane.

In fact, it's quote the opposite. Religious people are statistically healthier than irreligious people, and I have two separate sources, from a thiest and an athiest, to back that up.

I think I actually misspoke, but yeah, you're right on this one... But here's the thing-what's the difference between a religious terrorist attack and an atheist shooting up a school?
Answer: the atheist is not using his religion, or lack thereof, as a justification for the action. This is the second or third thread where you've failed to distinguish between an action done because of a person's religious beliefs, and one done completely unrelated to their beliefs.

Also, link to sources? I also asked you for what good religion does a page or two back...

I don't get why you keep mentioning that science was necessary for positive effects of religion. No one here is saying science is bad, we're not taking a lip sided view like you are.

Do you wish to shut down religion entirely? Meaning that you're happy to make people less healthy, less happy, increase suicide rates , discriminate against most evolutionary biologists (all backed up by statistics) and shut down the largest exporter if charity in the world?

When you put it that way, you make it sound like a bad thing. I'm happy to make people more logical, more scientifical, completely remove religious terrorism, discriminate against the members of the WBC, and shut down the largest protector of pedophiles in the world. Both of these lines of argumentation are flawed because they're cherrypicking from their side of the argument. All in all, they make little difference. But honestly, can you seriously attribute happiness, health, and suicide rates to religion? Can you honestly claim that these evolutionary biologists belong to the group I am trying to discriminate, the religious fanatics who decline scientific advancement due to their own beliefs of the universe? And can you honestly claim that such charity would not happen without the church?
This post reeks of intellectual dishonesty, tbh.

 

[rvkevin]

Also, link to sources?

I don't see what benefit that would pose, since you don't even need the source to show his claim to be false. The correlation wouldn't give one iota of credence to the claim that religion has positive effects. The same mistake is made when someone tries to say that homosexuality causes depression. Sure, the two phenomena are correlated, but homosexuals are more likely to be depressed because of the social forces rather than anything inherent to homosexuality. It's like saying that the bully is happier than the victim (correlation), so bullying leads to happier individuals (cause), but the reality of the situation is that everyone would be better off without bullying. It would hold true for any social outcast. Yet again another mistake of correlation for causation.

 

[Reaver197]

Also, those claims (being healthier, happier, suicide rates, etc) have nothing to do with the truth value of religions anyway, which is part of the point.

Anyway, I have not seen any sources for the happier or healthier claims in my internet travels and scours, but I have heard of the suicide rate one. That one is interesting to me, but from all that I can read on it, that may be more of a statistical correlation than a causation, not necessarily an endemic issue to irreligiousity. There is also the issue that suicide rates might be skewed somewhat, as they may not always be reported, either at all or as such due to religious, social pressures, and/or the laws in a region and/or country.

From what I read, and can figure, it would sort of make sense that highly religious people have lower suicide rates due to A) the main Judaic religions expressly forbidding and punishing suicide and B) having churches function as a social network, having the person feel more connected to a community. Point B can be shifted towards any other sort of networking or community building system, it doesn't necessarily need to be religious, though in a community dominated by religious people, it would be easy to see why it would be more common for it to be.

Point A is a bit more difficult, admittedly. Obviously, if your belief system does not have room for an afterlife, you obviously lose quite a bit of fear of any sort of punishment for suicide. However, that doesn't mean there aren't nonreligious ways to counter such issues, but it would certainly take some effort and time. Either way, the point does nothing to validate religion as a belief system.

That is, also, not to speak of the people that commit suicide due to religious-inspired intolerance, the biggest example of that being gays at the moment. There is also that flip side to consider, which is how many suicides might be caused by the negative effects of religious thinking? That number is surely harder to estimate or gauge for, but it is something to consider in the grand scheme of things.

Either way, from the links that I can find, it strikes me as overly simplistic to say that religion is the only way to keep down suicide, and that secularism necessarily raises it. It is an interesting thing to take note of though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_suicide

http://www.religioustolerance.org/sui_reli.htm

http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=13737&cn=9

http://www.adherents.com/misc/religion_suicide.html

http://www.gallup.com/poll/108625/more-religious-countries-lower-suicide-rates.aspx

Also, for charities, you are sort of setting up a biased case there since, of course, there are way more religious people in the world than nonreligious. Of course, in that regard, the sheer number and output of religious charities would obviously reach higher levels.

However, it is worth noting in your favor that when taken as a percentage of the number of people from either group, the a higher percentage of religious people perform charitable acts versus nonreligious people, either with religious or nonreligious charities. Though, it seems that how effective and truly helpful a lot of the explicitly religious charities is questionable, for example the Catholic church giving aid to Africa, but at the same time compounding their hunger and AIDS issues by spreading anti-condom and sex control doctrines and even out right lies, or other sorts of religious charities that just end up sending bibles or something.

It could also be part of the fact that it seems that secularists believe more in public social programs to do that sort of work, and so may be less inclined to participate in charities as a result, but do not necessarily have less of their fellow man's interest and well-being at heart. Just a different approach to handling it. However, there may be some flip sides to that as well.

http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/6577

http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/charity.html

But, at the same time, I would have to see this in balance to some of the more negative effects of religion, things which would be much more difficult to quantify. Things like the aforementioned Africa issues, the role it played and plays in the Balkans, between Pakistan and India, Palestine and Israel, much of the history of the Middle East, and a good chunk of European history. Again, hard to corroborate meaningful quantifications to compare though, but I imagine there is a bit more issues caused by religious doctrines than charity helps heal up.

Anyway, it's super late, so I'm probably really rambly and incoherent with a lot of this. Feel free to pick apart and make fun of at your discretion. I did find these two other articles/blog posts that is on the subject of this debate, so I figured I might as well post them here (them both related to Dre's favorite person of all time).

http://richarddawkins.net/articles/583650-should-employers-be-blind-to-private-beliefs

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/01/dawkins_on_gaskell.php

Edit: Fixing having too many commas (as usual).

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Reaver bringin' the facts.

 

[ballin4life]

BPC you contradict your own argument.

You concede that athiests do mass shootings etc but then attribute it to insanity, but when religious people kill it's because of religion, despite the fact that you conceded they were also insane. You can't argue that the religion makes the insanity, because the majority of religious people are not insane.

Strawman alert! The claim was that on average, religious people are more likely to kill for religious reasons than atheists are to kill for the "cause" of atheism.

In fact, it's quote the opposite. Religious people are statistically healthier than irreligious people, and I have two separate sources, from a thiest and an athiest, to back that up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_causation

Do you wish to shut down religion entirely? Meaning that you're happy to make people less healthy, less happy, increase suicide rates , discriminate against most evolutionary biologists (all backed up by statistics) and shut down the largest exporter if charity in the world?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_causation

Also strawman alert! No one wanted to "shut down" religion.

 

[A Pimp Named Slickback]

I didn't expect such a blatant strawmanning and overall low-quality post from Dre.

I think he's pissed.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

I'd expect him to be. It's like a black man being angry at the KKK for discriminating against him. After all, this thread is not only placing his religion at the barrel of a shotgun, it's inherently placing him in the spotlight, as an active christian.

 

[Reaver197]

I also want to say that, yes, there are issues with secular societies and how they function, which is to be expected of any human society. I don't want people coming away with the idea that I, or that other atheists or secularists, believe that having religion gone or so diminished from the world will instantly make it some human paradise. Of course not.

I just think that, all things considered, it seems that having a world that does not have religion playing such a prominent role in so many people's decision making process would be better place to live in, in terms of peacefulness and stability, better handling of social and/or political issues, overall growth of humanity, and, I really think, our overall happiness and health, in both the physical and mental.

The thing is, religion has played such a central role to many societies that its removal will not be easy, or without some undesirable side-effects. However, I believe with time and effort, secular societies can fix and address the issues that seem to plague them at the moment, especially as it becomes more culturally salient to be as such, and more cultural institutions and activities grow around it. Especially with the growth of social media, the internet, and video games, there might be ways to connect people that replace the social hub that churches had traditionally been, except without the doctrine.

 

[jaswa]

Andre isn't a Christian...

 

[Dre89]

What's interesting is that many of the seculars who support the removal of religion claim that we evolved religion for social benefits.

BPC- Those religious people killed because of insanity. They probably could have been manipulated by athiest movements.

And many people kill because they are not religious. Mobsters have stopped killing because they converted to a religion. If religion is what makes them stop killing, then their lack of belief in God is what allowed them to kill.

Or take that famous gay serial killer for example. They were worried about him when he was younger. He got sent to live with his grandma who was religious. He said he started becoming religious and started becoming good, then he get lured away from religion and the rest was history. Had he been religious, he would not have killed, so his lack of belief allowed him to kill.

Or take that Mexican athiest politician, who slaughtered numerous Catholics and gave all his kids satanic names.

So you're argument that more people kill because of religion is pointless because many people kill due to a lack of religion.

As for the statistics, seeing as I have four separate sources suggesting the same thing, two of them from athiests, if they don't count for anything then statistics in general would be pointless. If those statistics said religious people were less intelligent you wouldn't question them for a second.

 

[A Pimp Named Slickback]

Don't you see how volatile a code of ethics based on religion is?

If God is the only reason you don't kill your neighbor, don't you see something wrong with that? We shouldn't kill our neighbors because that would be an injustice to our neighbor and to the peacefulness of society as a whole.


And I hate how someone who believes in their religion too strongly can simply be passed off as insane and you can just say "oh he's not a part of MY religion."

So you're argument that more people kill because of religion is pointless because many people kill due to a lack of religion.

Right... how can you link killing to a lack of religion? Both religious and non-religious people have reasons to kill people, and a few of them are bound to act on their desires. You can't say that "oh he wouldn't have done so and so if he had the Lord in his life" because how would you know? There have been plenty of murderers who were religious, and it is impossible to know that he wouldn't have killed anyways.

 

[Dre89]

My post was in response to BPC, who said religious people kill due to insanity. I was showing the inconsistencies of his argument.

The examples I showed were of people who killed because they weren't religious. I was showing that BPC's argument that people kill because for religious reasons goes both ways, as people also have killed due to a lack of religion.

 

[ballin4life]

So you're argument that more people kill because of religion is pointless because many people kill due to a lack of religion.

Which happens more? That is what the claim was about.

As for the statistics, seeing as I have four separate sources suggesting the same thing, two of them from athiests, if they don't count for anything then statistics in general would be pointless. If those statistics said religious people were less intelligent you wouldn't question them for a second.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_causation

 

[Reaver197]

What's interesting is that many of the seculars who support the removal of religion claim that we evolved religion for social benefits.

Well, unfortunately, that is too much of a simplification. There are many different psychological aspects that play into the utilization of what we call religion. Our sense of agency and agency detection was evolved clearly so we could not only predict and plan for tracking prey or escaping predators, but to also properly navigate and understand the social world in which we inhabited. However, that agency detection we have also can misfire, and lead us to anthropomorphize other animals or inanimate objects.

Obviously, something that is not really desirable from an engineering perspective, but evolutionarily, it paid to be safe. You would rather err on the side of false positives than have to deal with the issues of a false negative.

The thing about evolution, though, is that what was beneficial in one environment, can become irrelevant or even detrimental in another environment. We have reached the technological point where false positives can result in very destructive and wide reaching consequences. Luckily, it hasn't really much happened (thus, no evolutionary clamping restraining of it), but our environment is at the point where we really can't sustain much in the way of false positives to the degree that someone might start a war, use nukes, or chemical/biological weapons.

The social nature of humans might've been somewhat hijacked, or subsumed into this agency error that we seem to have. To say that religion explicitly in of itself evolved to help us survive probably isn't the case. Rather, individual aspects from other evolutionary picked factors would feed into the overall picture of making religion, or at least religion as we know it. I think it's telling to note that many different cultures have produced many variations of religions, and ideas of what "religion" or "spirituality" entails. It's not very consistent.

Any sort of social system that encouraged bond-forming, and strengthening of group identity and efficiency would've been selected for. In this case, or at least in some cultures cases, it was religion.