Atheism is not for intellectuals.

Westvelern

Originally Posted by Metacrock

ahahaha that' crap! that's not research that's the bogus play "study" by Zuerman.

don't' be a sucker man!

http://www.doxa.ws/social/Zuckerman.html

and

http://www.doxa.ws/social/Sweden.html

I have reference to over 400 studies that disprove it (not the religious experience studies)

http://www.doxa.ws/experience/empirical_studies.html

Westvleteren

Again nobody cares about books Meta so either you have peer reviewed research or it is irrelevant. And I have never heard of Zuerman so no that is not what I was talking about.

so fater saying he eosn't care bbout books, he links to books then talks about books in his signature.



http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html
Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies

A First Look

Gregory S. Paul
Baltimore, Maryland

Introduction
[1] Two centuries ago there was relatively little dispute over the existence of God, or the societally beneficial effect of popular belief in a creator. In the twentieth century extensive secularization occurred in western nations, the United States being the only significant exception (Bishop; Bruce; Gill et al.; Sommerville). If religion has receded in some western nations, what is the impact of this unprecedented transformation upon their populations? Theists often assert that popular belief in a creator is instrumental towards providing the moral, ethical and other foundations necessary for a healthy, cohesive society. Many also contend that widespread acceptance of evolution, and/or denial of a creator, is contrary to these goals. But a cross-national study verifying these claims has yet to be published. That radically differing worldviews can have measurable impact upon societal conditions is plausible according to a number of mainstream researchers (Bainbridge; Barro; Barro and McCleary; Beeghley; Groeneman and Tobin; Huntington; Inglehart and Baker; Putman; Stark and Bainbridge). Agreement with the hypothesis that belief in a creator is beneficial to societies is largely based on assumption, anecdotal accounts, and on studies of limited scope and quality restricted to one population (Benson et al.; Hummer et al.; Idler and Kasl; Stark and Bainbridge). A partial exception is given by Barro and McCleary, who correlated economic growth with rates of belief in the afterlife and church attendance in numerous nations (while Kasman and Reid [2004] commented that Europe does not appear to be suffering unduly from its secularization). It is surprising that a more systematic examination of the question has not been previously executed since the factors required to do so are in place. The twentieth century acted, for the first time in human history, as a vast Darwinian global societal experiment in which a wide variety of dramatically differing social-religious-political-economic systems competed with one another, with varying degrees of success. A quantitative cross-national analysis is feasible because a large body of survey and census data on rates of religiosity, secularization, and societal indicators has become available in the prosperous developed democracies including the United States.
[2] This study is a first, brief look at an important subject that has been almost entirely neglected by social scientists. The primary intent is to present basic correlations of the elemental data. Some conclusions that can be gleaned from the plots are outlined. This is not an attempt to present a definitive study that establishes cause versus effect between religiosity, secularism and societal health. It is hoped that these original correlations and results will spark future research and debate on the issue.

this guy claims to have a ph.D.! he doesn't' care about books. Intellectuals believe that books are gate way to understanding. According to this guy they are not anything. Then he says:

BTW that statement is form teh bogus study by the artist who pretends to do social scienence research, Gregory S.Paul. For a critique of the pretend study go here.


Westveleteren

Debates are worthless Meta. either you have the evidence or you don't debates don't change that fact and validity is not determined by debate.

So he's not interested in books, debate is worthless, he refuses to deal with specifics of argument, he assumes that all my schoalrs are televangelists (meaning he's never heard of Crosson) he asserts they are all in un-peer-reviewed sources, as though Crosson has never been published in a journal. He does the whole the thread like this, noting in the post except little quips and remarks the way they always do.


West:

Oh BS, there is nothing at all scientific about the way anyone looks at the Bible. If they do the Bible has to be thrown out immediately from a literal standpoint because it conflicts with reality.

He's never heard of textual criticism.


There have been many other atheist who say "your education is useless it was for nothing." Atheists don't respect learning,t hey don't respect books, as they did when I was an atheist. It was for intellectuals in that day but is no more. They still need to think they are smarter so they have all kinds of little tricks for that like the lies about the IQ studies. But what they don't have is respect for learning.