the ideology is calling: flee de progaming

Here's what happens when you confront a brain washed person with logic that they can't rfuste.

after getting back on carm and ruaming it down their throats on the being has to be argument Donald says:

I've lost my patience entirely. What have we seen here lately, in support of Christianity? Well, there's Matt's little version of TAG- an argument so transparent and absurd that it really warrants nothing but ridicule- except that, somehow, it's being taken seriously by most of the Christians here! This, to me, is a clear indication of just how desperate they are to cling to anything which helps them to convince themselves that their beliefs are warranted.

We have someone else running around claiming that there's no way that beliefs could have a positive effect unless they're true. This same person repeatedly calls God "being itself"- refusing to accept that "being" is an abstract concept. For a while, I thought that maybe these concepts were just going over my head- that I was missing something. Then, this same poster stated that they, too, agreed with Matt's TAG- which eliminates them from serious consideration. Only an intellectual lightweight would make such a statement, and I therefore have concluded that I'm not missing anything- they're just wrong, and too stubborn to admit it.

of course the second paragraph means me. After arguing some more he gets more angry and says this:

Knock it off. It's stupid.

I will not think I will not think

I will not listen I will not listen

"Donald, this is the ideolgocial tape in your head, run way to avoid degprogaming."

why? the paradigms are shifting, there are too many anomalies for him to deal with and he feels the paradigm slipping away.

More Orwellian Atheist Use of Language

I have noted the Orwellian nature of atheist language. For atheists reading this, Orwell (George Orwell) was a great writer who specialized political language. One of his greatest achievements was to write an essay which one of the best ever written on the use of language in political ideology: "Politics and the English Language," written in 146. In that great work he reminds us that:

Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

Never was this so true than in dealing with atheists. In the way atheist are beginning to use speech we can see all tricks Orwell talked about. Of course most of these internet atheists have not read Animal Farm or 1984 so they have no idea. But in their use of certain words they disguise totalitarian leanings one would never suspect. The totalitarian regimes of the Soviet Union refereed to their political dissidents as "mentally ill" and kept putting in mental institutions becuase they felt rejecting the worker's paradise must surely be a form of mental illness.

I've already written about how the atheists use term "delusion." They actually don't use it to mean mental illness. They use the term to merely mean "a wrong idea." But in using a term that everyone knows means a false construct which results from mental illness they are actually calling religious people mentally ill without having to admit that they are doing it. It's like if they said religious people are stupid. The religious person objects but they said "it's a special form of the word that doesn't mean really not bright," bu then they keep saying it. We would get the idea. It's like insulting people who plausible deniable. why use a special term such as this just to mean "this is idea is wrong?" obviously it's mean Otto carry a connotation. Now consider the dangers of labeling as mentally ill any hone who happens to disagree with your point of view. Atheism as a whole is become more totalitarian all the time and they can't see it because they are so addicted to the charge they get from feeling superior.

Here's the latest example of the Orwellian tendencies. They Dawkies use the term "cult" in relation to all religious belief and groups. Of course they have no knowledge of the true sociological meaning of the term. They think all cults are imposing their will upon brain washed lackies whose live they take over and ruin. An example is the posting by a CARM Dawkie named "Toast"



The title of the therad:" a few questions about cults" so he's just equating religion with cults.

If no one ever told you about your god you would still believe?

if so, would your belief mirror the one you have been indoctrinated into?

if you still would believe even if know one told you these things to
believe would you not just be making things up?

He's trying to say that because you can't come to the same conclusions you do as a Christain on your own with no Bible and no church to guide you then it must be a cult because it's others imposing their will.


another post by Toast:

sorry but everything...a religion is a cult

This is also the same tendency. Everything the other guys value we disvalue so every term they use we must re-think impose our own terms. We can't allow them to name their own things, such as "chruch" we must name them and stick them whit the connotations of our own interpretation. So thus Churches become cults. The irony meter is gong to blaring in a moment.

The really alarming tendency is the almost blatant admittion that ideas which don't stack up the atheist ideology are "dangerous" and must be controlled. This statement was made on CARM sept 21 2009 by "Mountaineer Elf.

Because some ideas can be dangerous. Not all ideas deserve to be heard if they are dangerous.

Trying to usurp science and reality to stick in your deity is dangerous.

The context he's speaking of is an argument for the existence of God. The idea that a new concept or some concept that he doesn't agree with is "usurping scinece" is quite alarming. What's worse is he's not content for scinece to stay in its own domain it must conquer all and control all reality. Science when is arguemnts for God usurping scinece? That can only be the case if he thinks that science proper domain is dictating to use that we can't believe in God. It's even worse that equates science with reality. His view is so totalizing that it must control all, there can be nothing in existence that is not controlled by his view point.

In defending this other atheoids literally said "O he didn't mean it that way and you know it." How do we know it? How could he mean it in any other way? In what way could God arguments userp scinece and reality without the idea that science is all reality?

Here's the Orwellian rub. In animal farm the Pigs control the farm. There's a revolution the animals have overthrown the farmer and changed the name of the Farm to "animal farm" they are in charge. The pigs are the leaders, they keep putting up posters with slogans telling the other animals what it's all about. But they keep changing the messages until they come around to mean the exact opposite of what they did at first This is the way totalitarians use language, according to Orwell.

(for a synopsis of the book go here)

Atheist used to call themselves "free thinkers." They wanted us to believe that they were just sticking for the rights of us all to think anything we think and believe anything we believe. Now they begin to define believing things that contradict their ideology ad "delusion" and "usurping reality." When I pointed this out Mountaineer Elf redefined the nature of free thinking:


then:

True free thinkers are those that can speak and think with accuracy and honesty. As a scientist, I pride myself on being able to read and understand the natural world and everything it has to offer. Not all of it is 100% right, but I consider the 95% to be good enough.

This is so Orwellian everyone need to see this. He's narrowed the definitive of free thinking to the point where it includes his ideology and nothing more. So free thinkers are people who agree with me. Scientists. The true free thinkers agree with me and nothing more.

But wait he's not done. It get's worse. he goes one better:

The rest of your anti-free thought rant snipped - not worth responding to insults. If you want a discussion, I'm more than willing to discuss. If you want to hurl insults, I can just go back to the Evolution/ID forum and have Creationists assume that I'm stupid for not buying into talking snakes, magic trees, and global floods.

now he defines opposing his form of totalitarianism is "anti-free thinking." This is just like the communists. If you are dissident you are mentally ill and sanity is defined as obeying the state. If you point out that he's against free thought hen you are anti-free thought because free thought has now been reduced to nothing more than agreement with him. To disagree with him is opposes free thought. So the person who thinks we should all have the right to think for ourselves is now anti-free thought and one who thinks we have to control everything that is not in agreement with the ideology is now the free thinker! Black and just become white, as Orwell said. That is exactly what Orwell said political language does. read it again:



"Political Language...is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.."

Then his cohorts carry it a step further and if you dissent from this truth regeime of the atheists then you are a danger to humanity:


May brick

So Metacrock would be happy for children to be taught that HIV is spread through vaccines and that condoms offer no protection?

You can't get more Orwellian than this. This is exactly right out of 1984 where the state has the right to imposes that dissents must must accept their view of reality even by forcing them to admit something such as 2 + 2 = 5. In forcing them to accept something categorically and fundamentally believe to be totally wrong they are eliminating their ability to ever think independently. That is exactly what's happened to many of these atheists and what they are trying to do to religious people.

In brow beating, intimidating, by mocking and ridiculing people they force them to de-convert and in so doing they force them to alter their most based and cherished beliefs and the fundamental understanding they have of who they are and what reality is. there is nothing more hinus one can do to another person. that is on a par with murder and If thought like they do I should start calling them murderers.

I'm sure they will come back and say they can't force anyone to deconvert against their will, that doesn't stop them from trying and it means they are shutting down reason and thought in discourse, they shut down reasoned discussion and reduce the whole situation to a political escapade. Perhaps this means they are not quite as bad as I think, but only becuase they aren't successful enough in what they are trying to do.

Dealing With Atheist Incredulity:To Atheist "Rex"

Paul Exposed as Space Alien




A poster named Rex said something I thought was very funny: to the effect "you quote Paul as though he's some kind of saint or something." I was amused by this and, giving vent to my urge to be jsut a bit mean but mosly just teasing I put it under "stupid atheist tricks." It really wasn't "stupid" and I know what he means. He made an answer this is very telling. I will discuss this:

Yes, I am guilty as charged. I am guilty of not assigning any more significance to Paul than I would to any other minor fictional character in a badly written piece of fiction. I am also guilty of not sharing your delusion of invisible gods and saints and apostles, not because I am uneducated about them, quite the opposite actually, but because it is a work of fiction written by men.

"Worship me and me only, or I will burn you forever" Not exactly a loving forgiving chap eh?

If these concepts make me a "stupid atheist", then I accept that label, but at least I am not living every day in fear of homosexuals or atheists corrupting society, or in fear that I might not worshiping in the exact right way to get me into "heaven".

The first thing that strikes me about this is the ignorance and the sense of arrogant expectation that his view is so overwhelmingly right that everyone should just assume it without even having to prove it. Why would anyone think there's a problem with quoting Paul in a religious context? He was an Apostle, he was the single most influential Biblical writer next to Moses, and New Testament figure next to Jesus; and yes, he was a Saint actually, still is too. It's absurd to expect scholars to give credence to or make the assumptions of the Jesus myth movement. There is no reason not accept Paul's authority of face value, and no atheist or myther has ever produce any kind of hard evidence that would shake it.

Let's take his statements apart:

I am guilty as charged. I am guilty of not assigning any more significance to Paul than I would to any other minor fictional character in a badly written piece of fiction.

He asserts Paul is fictional. why do they assert this? It's not even the majority of mythers it's a faction within the Jesus myth cult. Why? Because the vast majority f real scholarship (degrees, teach at universities, present papers at conferences, publish in journals) accept Paul as basic primary evidence for early Christianity and as the best secondary evidence for Jesus. But the Jesus myth cult is anit-intellectual and anti-scholarship. We can see this clearly in their last ditch straw-clutching effort to label Paul "fictional." The Pauline corpus is one of the best sources against Doherty's lies. Paul says specifically that Jesus was flesh and blood that he had a genetic line that made of flesh and blood (Romans 1:3). They tried to argue the Greek but their Greek was so bad it could not past muster with real scholars. So now they resort to undermining the basic sources of evidence, of which Paul is one.

The Jesus myth theory has always been crack pot, anti-intellectual and at odds with real Scholarship. The nineteenth century version was disproved by Albert Schweitzer, and the twentieth century version has been so disproved and smashed and broken up that now they mythers are the end of line trying in this last ditch effort to undermine the basic sources of all NT scholarship in a vain effort to save a lie that has for the second time been totally disproved and defeated. One of the first things they did was to resurrect the crock pots of the nineteenth century and try to put them over as major scholars. There are no serous scholars who maintain that Paul was fictional. There is no data that would prove this. The only hard data they have is doubt about Pauline authorship of the Pastoral epistles, then they find "problems" (subjective imaginings) with the accepted Pauline books copied after the pattern of problems with the Pastorals.

Then he evokes his general incredulity as expects us to accept that as some sort of base line assumption as he does:

I am also guilty of not sharing your delusion of invisible gods and saints and apostles,

Its' circular reasoning and guilt by association. Circular because he expects his incredulity o function as proof, I doubt God exits, therefore he doesn't, then because saints and Apostles are associated with a belief he doesn't accept they are suspect too. But you can't use your opinion to validate your opinion. Your premise rests upon your conclusion. There is no proof that saints and Apostles were fictional and there's good solid proof they existed. We know that Paul existed becuase Clement of Rome says he know people who saw him die (and may be implying that he himself was one of them). But the mythers of course deny that it's the same Paul. This is one of the major escape hatches of a lie that has solid data to back it, is based upon a vendetta to opposes good scholarship, and based upon the premise of incredulity as the lionization of its own view point. No form of evidence ever counts against the Jesus myth lie, and if it does, it mysteriously becomes fictional itself no matter how many scholars think it's real.

The incredulity reaches psychodrama proportions:

"Worship me and me only, or I will burn you forever" Not exactly a loving forgiving chap eh?

This is noting more than his own subjective opinion about the message of Christianity. Of cos rue it's contrary to all expositors and interpreters, Even the most extreme fundies would try to mediate these aspects. But never mind that, what do they matter? The mythers hate Christianity, they hate God they are fuming with hatred, they hate scholarship and real academics, they are not willing to consider anything as ever counting against their view, now you are supposed to accept their reading of God's intentions regardless of deeply they are contradicted by the experiences of religious people. One can only speculate about the conflict going on inside someone who has to interpret the most loving and generous attempt to reach out as some evil blackmail scheme form the sky. As if this wasn't telling enough:

If these concepts make me a "stupid atheist", then I accept that label, but at least I am not living every day in fear of homosexuals or atheists corrupting society, or in fear that I might not worshiping in the exact right way to get me into "heaven".

O you are not hu? why would you even think about that? Apparently this guy doesn't understand the psychology concept of "projection." When one decides that he understands a deep seated hidden psychological motive of a whole group of people who can't see it themselves, one must suspect perhaps he's projecting his own fears upon the group. It probably does make him feel better about his feelings of inferiority that led him to mock and ridicule Christians to think believe that they are all afraid of gays. Why gays? Hmmmm. Not that there's anything wrong with that (as Seinfeld tells us).

Some of my best friends are gay. I'm sure some Christians are afraid of them, but it's a silly stereotype. Look at how it's tied in with the over all warp and woof of his arguments. His founding premise is "I hate Christians becuase they don't accept gays" (?). then all the business about God's evil black mail scheme it's just so transparent that that's the premise for the myther theory. Because I hate Christianity I will assert that Jesus didn't exist. Then Because I can't admit there's no basis for that I have to deny that Paul existed.

So we have a bunch of guys running around in the first century named "Paul" and "Peter" and they were all confused with the Paul and Peter who thought to be Apostles, after their cults got going and tired their myths in with the myths of Jesus. No telling how many Mary's there were. So they could have had four or five Peter, Paul, and Mary groups. Maybe that's how folk music started.

The truth of it is Paul was really a space alien, that's proved by those iconic pictures like he one above that show him in a space helmet. the Jesus myth ting is on a par with Bigfoot and UFOs. It's not real academically included and is actually the enemy of real scholarship. In fact I actaully have a lot of respect for Grvoer Krantz and Jeff Maldrum. The Jesus mythers are like the Tom Biscardi end of sasquatchery.

New Stupid Atheist Trick

This was on Metacrock's blog tonight:

Look at your post before this one, where you quote Paul unquestioningly and at length as if he were some kind of saint or something

ahahahaahahaahahh I can't stand it! They are so illiterate.

Role Reversal

read the posts on this thread you will see the atheists are scared to death to consider any alternative to their view point. they sound exactly like funides being set upon by an artiest. I sound like the atheist trying to tear down their safe little ideology that dominates their minds and gives them illusion that they know everything that matters.

they are so resentful of having thier view pionts challenged that they can' make a single straightforward observation about it. they go immediately to reducible mode.


what set them off is this book add I quoted:

Today the majority of philosophers in the English-speaking world adhere to the "naturalist" credos that philosophy is continuous with science, and that the natural sciences provide a complete account of all that exists--whether human or nonhuman. The new faith says science, not man, is the measure of all things. However, there is a growing skepticism about the adequacy of this complacent orthodoxy. This volume presents a group of leading thinkers who criticize scientific naturalism not in the name of some form of supernaturalism, but in order to defend a more inclusive or liberal naturalism.

you an find the book through the add's link above. Also here.

Look at how belligerent and ranting they become immediately. As of this point there are no rational arguments back it's all like this:

Phrontist
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Oh no, naturalism is doomed, doomed! Only the majority of English speaking philosophers are proponents, and a small number of philosophers want to replace it with a slightly different version of naturalism!

and

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Phrontist View Post
Oh no, naturalism is doomed, doomed! Only the majority of English speaking philosophers are proponents, and a small number of philosophers want to replace it with a slightly different version of naturalism!
Therefore...Jesus?

and

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Where does this stuff come from?

Meta, when I'm off my meds, I'm a basketcase. I understand. Honestly. More than you know. You should consider the possibility that you need some kind of medication.

that same guy adds: "My dislike for you has turned to pity."


O yea they are not a cult are they? They can't tolerate the slightest challenge to their world view.


the thread goes from bad to worse. I quoted the book ad that says naturalism is the majority in philosophy. Then I quoted the quote by Quentin Smith saying theism is running all over secular philosophy. First they point out these are contradictions. Well it's a book ad. It's made to sell books. Smith is not selling books, he's writing an arithmetic in a journal. I didn't quote the book ad to document a point. I was just calling attestation to the books.

Now they go on a big ridicule spree. they call me a liar they accuse me of making things up and fabricating the religious experience studies.

they are such little brain washed ninnies they can't argue fairly. The cowardly custard who can't reason. They make brave bold statements about how Superior their reasoning abilities are to those of Christians then when one confronts them with a philosophical challenge they reset to lying, reducible, slander, they just go to pieces.

that's the nature of atheism.

My Debaet with Mitch LeBlanc on CARM

This is my opening statement:


It's a 1x1 debate. The topic: Atheism is philosophically Banckrupt.


LeBlanc seems bright. He's one contributor to a blog called Urban Philosophy.

I wont transcribe the whole debate here. I may give a couple of summaries latter.


Opening Statment: J.L. Hinman


I don't expect any atheists on CARM to agree with me. I'm telling them that their main thing is bankrupt. I know they won’t like it. Lurkers will find it meaningful. I will present two arguments:

I. Atheism is not a complete Philosophy

This is a statement that will be agreed to by almost all atheists. Such was not the case before the internet, in the days when Madeline Murray O’Hare was one of them major forces behind atheist growth in America. But today most atheists accept the idea that atheism is merely the lack of a belief and nothing more. That is not an advantage it's a problem.

Like minded people tend to form alliances and tendencies emerge. Tendencies have emerged in atheism; while they do not constitute formal definition of atheism they do plague the atheist community. There is no way to stop this because there is no atheist ethics or code of behavior or any corrective one can point to and say "you are not being a good atheist." There is such a corrective in Christian teaching. There is no such thing in atheism.

A. Philosophies not corrected by atheism

This leaves the atheist community filled with tendencies of reductionism and with scientistic and also hate group mentality in some quarters. I have been doing the Atheist Watch blog for a couple of years now and I have large body of evidence to demonstrate this hate mentality. But it's there on every message board. No atheist had taken my challenge to go on a board pretending to be a Christian. I find it amusing and telling that no one will do it. They know and I know how they would be treated if they did.

I believe this hate group aspect is the result of hatefully minded people banding together under the rubric of "atheism" because there is no corrective, there is no ethics and are no teachings that would same them into civilized behavior.

One tendency I've noticed is atheists often become polarized in argument and fearing that anything could be a God argument take the nee jerk reaction and support extreme positions. I think this happened in the recent discussion about consciousness.


B. Logical Contradictions at the heart of atheism.


There three contradictions I’ll deal with here:

(1) Atheist thinking originally ruled God out of science on the basis that we had no need for that hypothesis since we had natural cause and effete to explain everything rather than God.

This is the famous statement made by La Place and that is basically why he said it, because he had cause and effect to fall back upon. But now atheists abandoned cause and effect to a great degree to get away from the cosmological argument. In so doing they have eliminated their basic ordinal reason for leaving God out of science.


a. Materailism based upon cause and effect
Dictonary of Philosphy Anthony Flew, article on "Materialism"

"...the belief that everything that exists is ether matter or entirely dependent upon matter for its existence." Center For Theology and the Natural Sciences Contributed by: Dr. Christopher Southgate: God, Humanity and the Cosmos (T&T Clark, 1999) http://www.ctns.org/Information/information.html Is the Big Bang a Moment of Creation?(this source is already linked above)

"...Beyond the Christian community there was even greater unease. One of the fundamental assumptions of modern science is that every physical event can be sufficiently explained solely in terms of preceding physical causes. Quite apart from its possible status as the moment of creation, the Big Bang singularity is an offence to this basic assumption. Thus some philosophers of science have opposed the very idea of the Big Bang as irrational and untestable."

b) Something from nothing contradicts materialism
Science and the Modern World, Alfred North Whitehead.
NY: free Press, 1925, (1953) p.76

"We are content with superficial orderings form diverse arbitrary starting points. ... science which is employed in their development [modern thought] is based upon a philosophy which asserts that physical causation is supreme, and which disjoins the physical cause from the final end. It is not popular to dwell upon the absolute contradiction here involved."[Whitehead was an atheist]

c) Causality was the basis upon which God was expelled from Modern Science

It was La Place’s famous line "I have no need of that Hypothesis" [meaning God] Which turned the scientific world form believing (along with Newton and assuming that order in nature proved design) to unbelief on the principle that we don’t' need God to explain the universe because we have independent naturalistic cause and effect. [Numbers, God and Nature]
2) Materialism Undermines Itself
a) Big Bang contradicts causality (see quotation above)
b) QM theory seems to contradict cause/effect relationship.
c) Rejection of final cause
3) Probabilistic Justification for assumption of Cause

We still have a huge justification for assuming causes inductively, since nothing in our experience is ever uncaused. The mere fact that we can't see or find a cause isn't a proof that there isn't one.


Alfred North whitehead pointed this out as a major reason for understanding a contradiction in science and atheism both. Because it leaves the field open for final cause but both atheists and scientists are afraid to take that up.



II. Atheism is Bankrupt because it denies the vastly well documented transformative power of religious belief while offering no such supported assumptions of it’s own.

A huge body of empirical data has been amassed through several hundred empirical studies by real social scientists. Religious experience, “mystical” or “peak” experience as it is called, has been demonstrated to provide real, positive and lasting changes. While atheists claim to “feel better” after leaving certain religious environments there is no one single study of any kind that backs up any such claims on the part of atheism.

Two major studies, the wuthnow study and the Nobel study both show a huge list of changes in people’s lives, for the better as a result of religious experience:



*Say their lives are more meaningful,
*think about meaning and purpose
*Know what purpose of life is
Meditate more
*Score higher on self-rated personal talents and capabilities
*Less likely to value material possessions, high pay, job security, fame, and having lots of friends
*Greater value on work for social change, solving social problems, helping needy
*Reflective, inner-directed, self-aware, self-confident life style

Noble:

*Experience more productive of psychological health than illness
*Less authoritarian and dogmatic
*More assertive, imaginative, self-sufficient
*intelligent, relaxed
*High ego strength,
*relationships, symbolization, values,
*integration, allocentrism,
*psychological maturity,
*self-acceptance, self-worth,
*autonomy, authenticity, need for solitude,
*increased love and compassion


2) States of consciousness and mystical experiences
The ego has problems:
the ego is a problem.
``Within the Western model we recognize and define psychosis as a suboptimal state of consciousness that views reality in a distorted way and does not recognize that distortion. It is therefore important to note that from the mystical perspective our usual state fits all the criteria of psychosis, being suboptimal, having a distorted view of reality, yet not recognizing that distortion. Indeed from the ultimate mystical perspective, psychosis can be defined as being trapped in, or attached to, any one state of consciousness, each of which by itself is necessarily limited and only relatively real.'' -- page 665


Roger Walsh (1980). The consciousness disciplines and the behavioral sciences: Questions of comparison and assessment. American Journal of Psychiatry, 137(6), 663-673.



3) Therapeutic effects of peak experiences
``It is assumed that if, as is often said, one traumatic event can shape a life, one therapeutic event can reshape it. Psychedelic therapy has an analogue in Abraham Maslow's idea of the peak experience. The drug taker feels somehow allied to or merged with a higher power; he becomes convinced the self is part of a much larger pattern, and the sense of cleansing, release, and joy makes old woes seem trivial.'' -- page 132


Lester Grinspoon and James Bakalar (1983). ``Psychedelic Drugs in Psychiatry'' in Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered, New York: Basic Books.




Transpersonal Childhood Experiences of Higher States of Consciousness: Literature Review and Theoretical Integration. Unpublished paper by Jayne Gackenback, (1992)
http://www.sawka.com/spiritwatch/cehsc/ipure.htm
"These states of being also result in behavioral and health changes. Ludwig (1985) found that 14% of people claiming spontaneous remission from alcoholism was due to mystical experiences while Richards (1978) found with cancer patients treated in a hallucinogenic drug-assisted therapy who reported mystical experiences improved significantly more on a measure of self-actualization than those who also had the drug but did not have a mystical experience. In terms of the Vedic Psychology group they report a wide range of positive behavioral results from the practice of meditation and as outlined above go to great pains to show that it is the transcendence aspect of that practice that is primarily responsible for the changes. Thus improved performance in many areas of society have been reported including education and business as well as personal health states (reviewed and summarized in Alexander et al., 1990). Specifically, the Vedic Psychology group have found that mystical experiences were associated with "refined sensory threshold and enhanced mind-body coordination (p. 115; Alexander et al., 1987)."



(4) Greater happiness


Religion and Happiness

by Michael E. Nielsen, PhD


Many people expect religion to bring them happiness. Does this actually seem to be the case? Are religious people happier than nonreligious people? And if so, why might this be?

Researchers have been intrigued by such questions. Most studies have simply asked people how happy they are, although studies also may use scales that try to measure happiness more subtly than that. In general, researchers who have a large sample of people in their study tend to limit their measurement of happiness to just one or two questions, and researchers who have fewer numbers of people use several items or scales to measure happiness.

What do they find? In a nutshell, they find that people who are involved in religion also report greater levels of happiness than do those who are not religious. For example, one study involved over 160,000 people in Europe. Among weekly churchgoers, 85% reported being "very satisfied" with life, but this number reduced to 77% among those who never went to church (Inglehart, 1990). This kind of pattern is typical -- religious involvement is associated with modest increases in happiness



Argyle, M., and Hills, P. (2000). Religious experiences and their relations with happiness and personality. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 10, 157-172.

Inglehart, R. (1990). Culture shift in advanced industrial society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

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Recent Empirical Studies Prove Religious Believers have less depression, mental illness lower Divorce rate, ect.


J. Gartner, D.B. Allen, The Faith Factor: An Annotated Bibliography of Systematic Reviews And Clinical Research on Spiritual Subjects Vol. II, David B. Larson M.D., Natiional Institute for Health Research Dec. 1993, p. 3090

Quote:
"The Reviews identified 10 areas of clinical staus in whihc research has demonstrated benefits of religious commitment: (1) Depression, (2) Suicide, (3) Delinquency, (4) Mortality, (5) Alchohol use (6) Drug use, (7) Well-being, (8) Divorce and martital satisfaction, (9) Physical Health Status, and (10) Mental health outcome studies....The authors underscored the need for additional longitudinal studies featuring health outcomes. Although there were few, such studies tended to show mental health benefit. Similarly, in the case of teh few longevity or mortality outcome studies, the benefit was in favor of those who attended chruch...at least 70% of the time, increased religious commitment was associated with improved coping and protection from problems."

[The authors conducted a literature search of over 2000 publications to glean the current state of empirical study data in areas of Spirituality and health]
70% of the time believers are more likely than non believers (or at least experiences are more likely than non experiences) to have these effects of self actualization.

Atheism teaches one to doubt these effects even though hey are well documented. Especially the “new” atheism would evangelically and actively seek to disuad people from experiencing these effects even though they are basically the best thing in life. Atheism would seek to instill in its adherents a tendency to gamble with their own happiness and fulfillment betting on the depressed, less adjusted and less well end of the continuum of human experience merely because accepting the advantages would mean placing faith in a reality that atheists cannot control and that they cannot feel special advocating.

The things atheists say about hte Bible are hateful

from carm of cousre

Quote:
Originally Posted by JesusL View Post
Atheists, we all know that you don't like the Old Testament very much. A Jew seems to think that this is because of Christianity.

blowfly
Well it's because there's a lot of genocide, throwing hissy fits, killing people, and not very nice stuff.


Quote:
How do you think Christianity makes the Old Testament seem worse?
Well because the New Testament is a lot nicer than the Old Testament. It offers contrast.


Quote:
Does the New Testament affect your view of the Old Testament? If there was no concept of "Hell", would you be more accepting of it?

Hell doesn't hold me up from believing in the New Testament, any more than the appeal of 70+ virgins motivates me to believe in Islam.

this guy Apostae abe is asked what he thinks of the NT he doesn't even bother to report on that. He just begins ranting about how evil the OT is:

The Old Testament is thoroughly violent, primitive and backward, regardless of any comparison or relation to the New Testament. That is why Ultra-Orthodox Jews are so much more disagreeable than Fundamentalist Christians. But, if we are speaking about God, then Robert Ingersoll said it best:

As a last answer, as a final excuse, the worshipers of Jehovah
said that all these horrible things happened under the "old
dispensation" of unyielding law, and absolute justice, but that now
under the "new dispensation," all had been changed -- the sword of
justice had been sheathed and love enthroned. In the Old Testament,
they said. God is the judge -- but in the New, Christ is the
merciful. As a matter of fact, the New Testament is infinitely
worse than the Old. In the Old there is no threat of eternal pain.
Jehovah had no eternal prison -- no everlasting fire. His hatred
ended at the grave. His revenge was satisfied when his enemy was
dead.

If it were not Hell, and if it were not for its encouragement for belief in the Old Testament, the New Testament would not seem that bad. Christianity would be just another ideology that requires evidence.

they have totally blinded themselves to anything but the evil stinking scum of hte OT they can't see anything else. They could not find a decent passage of nice anything anywhere ever. This kind of hatred is being prouder out on thousands of message board every day. it's just the typical stereotype of athirst hatred that Christians are evil because they read this evil book and there's not one single decent thing in it.

Stupid Atheist Quote of the Day

on CARM 9/13/09 poster: HS Friend (high school?)

I just glanced at the number of viewers for the CARM discussion boards, and at 16 viewers the atheism board is by far the most popular at the moment. In the past, I've noted frequently that the atheism board and the intelligent design board have the most viewers when I bother to check. When I go into these boards, it also seems that they are dominated by the non-religious posters, rather than Christian defenders of the faith. Does anyone else notice this pattern?

I'm starting to think that CARM is being largely ignored by Christians out there, and that it mostly atheists and agnostics roaming the boards, in order to pick a debate (or a fight) with the few religious zealots who turn up!

Look at that last statement. "to pick a...fight with the few religious zealots..."

That says it all. He's not there to discuss or learn or think, he's there to pick a fight. Because he hates religious people and it makes him feel like a big man to mock and deride people.

that's the nature of atheism

Orwellian Athieism

staff at atheist mental hosptial



I find atheists using terminology in such a way that it is a weapon and hurtful o religious people and obscures their true meaning. I find atheists on CARM using the term "delusional" to indicate that religious people are mentally ill. When pressed they deny that they mean that. They basically say they just mean the ideas are wrong. But they using a term that designates mental illness. A delusional person is "out of his head." He cannot be reasoned with. This is obviously way too strong a word to just designed an idea they disagree with. It makes me wonder if these people even live in the world.

CARM athist board,
Sept 3, 2009
poster named "Too"

OK theists we know you don't think you are delusional when it comes to believing god is something that is not just in your mind, but do you think it is possible for you to have a delusion?

Are delusions possible? If they are how can you tell?

How can you tell the difference between your mind and want you mind creates?

We know optical illusions exist. You see something that definitely is not there.

We know people can think they can fly but they just plummet to their deaths. They obviously were convince their delusion was real.

We know placebos work. Your mind thinks it is taking a drug and it makes things happen as if the drug actually existed.

We know you can lose an arm but the person stills thinks it is there and can feel it.

So is it the size of the delusion? Does a shared delusion carry more reality?

We know for a fact everyone is capable of delusions. We know delusions can be helpful and harmful but they still remain delusions.

Can you know if you are delusion or does someone else have to tell you?

Look how much fiction assumed to be the case is loaded into that statement? Shared delusions? Obviously he's not using this in a clinical sense yet he's giving the impression that he thinks religious people are just out of their heads.

that is a hate tactic, it dennnotes hate, and it's a tactic hate groups use. I say it denotes it I mean not that it merely implies (connotes) but overtly says "I hate you."

I asked them if the op was delusional and the the Poster Roger T steps in:

It may be the result of a delusion. But it certainly isn't a fantastic delusion. And much less delusional than one involving invisible beings capable of creating the natural world.

So does this mean he thinks religious people are out of their heads and need institutionalization? Of course he claims to know absolutely that there can't be a God. One would have to know this or a fact to declare belief in it to be designational.what about the deductive reasoning people like Aquinas did in the ontological argument and the scinece that went into the fine tuning argument. Are these guys actually having delusions as they do the math on fine tuning?

Aussie Dave says:

Before I was converted Hans, I used to think I was rational, just like you infer. However, when I was converted, I realised that that former rationality I had justified to myself was based on ignorance. To gain enlightenment, one must follow Yahweh's formula and believe - then you will "see". It is my prayer that you will take that step one day.

this makes it seem they are using the term "delusion" to just mean a different view point but one that may be somewhat self decieved. Yet the term they use has real legal implications and is extremely insulting.


The one that really takes the cake is by MarcusAurelius

Originally Posted by MarcusAurelius View Post
Conversion disorder is a shared delusion, religion could easily be compared.

Monkey see, monkey do, if you will.

He's invented his own fictional from psychological malady, which defines the basic understanding of sentient being and requires that we all have the same exact perceptions, that of the "shared delusion." do they have any sort of data to back it up. No of course not they don't even try to give any.

Roger T and I have a little tussel:


Meta: (1) it is an ideology

(2) its about hating religious people.

RT:

Your ignorance is astounding. Or are you just pulling our legs?

Quote:
Lets see how much you think you know.
What makes it atheism an ideology? What are the ideological components?

Meta
(1) you reduce all forms of knowlege to one

(2) you try to imply that that one form of knowledge is science3, but when science doesn't' back you up you don't accept it. So its not science you use but scientism or perhaps reductionism. that is famously an ideology.

(3) you only credit facts that support your one form of knowledge and reduce everything else out of existence.

(4) you all say the same things

(5) you all look at everything the same way

(6) any idea that i snot in line with this one form of knowledge you mock and ridicule.

(7) you use hate speech to designate anyone who does not accept this one form of knowledge (as we see in this thread).



Quote:RT

And where does this ideology make any declarations against religious people?

Meta:
you would have to missing a brain to not get this. your use of the term "delusional" to dscribe ideas you don't agree wtih is hate it is an act of hate. Because you saying "if you don't agree with me then you are crazy out of your head and can't think for youself." you are saying "you have zero credibility in my eyes if you don't fall in line behind the ideology.

Look at the way he expresses it when he tired to argue with someone who disagrees:


Quote:RT
You are completely off your rocker.

Meta:
he can't even accept the idea that people don't' agree with everything he says. to disagree with this guy is to be insane, no valid, not competent.


Quote:RT

If you want to be taken seriously, you should probably think about what you want to say before hitting the submit button.

Meta:
I'm the one who researched 350 studies that say religious experience makes you whole and less depressed and less mentally ill than people who don't have them. you have no data to back up your bigoted hate speech, and yet you think I have less credibility and I"m not taken seriously?

that's becuase in your eyes there's only one form of knowledge and if you don't accept it you are not a valid person you are to be hated and objectified. we call that way of thinking "ideology!"
__________________

Marcus adds:

Originally Posted by MarcusAurelius

I don't get the reference. Never read Orwell or watched (read?) Animal Farm. Maybe you could expand on this?



How would you know what I believe?

he hasn't read Orwell. but he's so intellectual he knows all about philosphy and why it can't prove God and so forth, but he's never read one of the most basic books of the 20th century. This is the problem. Atheism is not an erudite movement anymore. It's a movement of the uneducated rebel.

I know what he thinks by the stuff he says.



atheism looks like a clear and present danger.