My Answer to Austin Cline: Kind God Makes You Kind

 
 Dancing over the hill with death from Bergman's Seventh Seal



On the CADRE blog to today BK argues with atheist pundit Austin Cline who says that cruel people choose a cruel God. He's quoting Bertrand Russell. BK says:

If I understand this argument (which isn’t really so much an argument as an assertion), Cline believes that non-belief in God allows the Atheist to be kind. Yet, his paragraph on kindness does not really support this idea. He apparently agrees with Bertrand Russell’s statement (which I believe to be nonsense) that, “Men tend to have the beliefs that suit their passions. Cruel men believe in a cruel god and use their belief to excuse cruelty. Only kindly men believe in a kindly god, and they would be kindly in any case.”(CADRE comments, "Does Atheism Promote Kindness?" June 19th, 2013).

I basically agree with you BK but there are a couple of things I want to add.

The statement by Russell was not original.When I was at Agape Force in the East Texas Branch (their golden age: Keith Green and Second chapter of Acts lived next door) they had us read an old 19th book by some evangelist, can't remember the name, called "Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation." He argued the very same thing. He was saying that pagan religions do this. That's why violent people like the Thugees had Kali goddess of evil as their goddess. That's really a misunderstanding of Kali and of Indian culture.

In any case I don't think that atheism frees one to be kind, but makes it "cool" to be cruel. Look at the rationalizations for using mockery and ridicule--we have to stop stupid ideas so it's ok to hurt people because its so important they emulate our brilliant ideas. Atheist guru Keith Parsons say:

I am. I ain’t a Christian. I don’t turn the other cheek or love my enemies or pray for those that say mean things about atheists.

What justifies ridicule? The ridiculous deserves to be ridiculed. Well, we should spare the innocent ridiculousness of those who cannot help it–the genuinely, pathetically dimwitted or uneducated. But pernicious, aggressive ridiculousness by smart, educated people who are attempting to foist their ridiculousness on the rest of us–that richly deserves ridicule. Those who attempt to use the power of the state to cram their fatuous, hateful ideology down the throats of everyone else–by having creationism taught in the public schools, say–are contemptible and fully deserving of contemptuous laughter. I heard Lewis Black do a terrific rant on creationism. Priceless.

Ah, yes the soul of kindness.

We need to use empirical study to compare populations. Cline's statement, no surprise, is anecdotal. The empirical facts show that religious people are much less likely to depressed or mentally ill. Of those religious people who are depressed or mentally ill or have low self esteem it's more likely to be those with a  negative God image.

It is true that Christians can have a negative view of God. A huge body of empirical study shows that those who do have low self esteem. That is not limited to atheists but is true of atheists as well.

I notice that atheists are quite likely to mock the idea of "happiness" when they attack the religious experience studies. As though happiness is just nothing at all we don't even need it. Then we find Cline using it as an inducement to become an atheist. You will be happier, of course if Christianity makes you happier then happiness is something we don't need. The empirical facts are that studies show religion makes one happier, like it or not.

Kind God Makes you Kind

Those have religious experiences, especially those labeled "mystical" tend to be more socially conscious and kinder than those who don't have such experiences.

State of Unitive Consciousness http://csp.org/experience/docs/unitive_consciousness.html

"Furthermore, Greeley found no evidence to support the orthodox belief that frequent mystic experiences or psychic experiences stem from deprivation or psychopathology. His ''mystics'' were generally better educated, more successful economically, and less racist, and they were rated substantially happier on measures of psychological well-being. "

A major aspect of mystical experience is an overwhelming all pervasive sense of love and being loved. We should take this as the sense of God's love, thus loving God makes you kind.


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

Religion is the most powerful Factor in well being.

Poloma and Pendelton 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. 3290.

Quote:

"The authors found that religious satisfaction was the most powerful predictor of existential well being. The degree to which an individual felt close to God was the most important factor in terms of existential well-being. While frequency of prayer contributed to general life satisfaction and personal happiness. As a result of their study the authors concluded that it would be important to look at a combination of religious items, including prayer, relationship with God, and other measures of religious experience to begin to adequately clarify the associations of religious commitment with general well-being."

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., National Institute for Health Research Dec. 1993, p. 3090

Quote:

"The Reviews identified 10 areas of clinical status in which research has demonstrated benefits of religious commitment: (1) Depression, (2) Suicide, (3) Delinquency, (4) Mortality, (5) Alcohol use (6) Drug use, (7) Well-being, (8) Divorce and marital 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]

2) Shrinks assume religious experience Normative.
Dr. Jorge W.F. Amaro, Ph.D., Head psychology dept. Sao Paulo

[ http://www.psywww.com/psyrelig/amaro.html]

a) Unbeliever is the Sick Soul

"A non spiritualized person is a sick person, even if she doesn't show any symptom described by traditional medicine. The supernatural and the sacredness result from an elaboration on the function of omnipotence by the mind and can be found both in atheist and religious people. It is an existential function in humankind and the uses each one makes of it will be the measure for one's understanding."

b. psychotheraputic discipline re-evalutes Frued's criticism of religion

Quote:

Amaro--

"Nowadays there are many who do not agree with the notion that religious behavior a priori implies a neurotic state to be decoded and eliminated by analysis (exorcism). That reductionism based on the first works by Freud is currently under review. The psychotherapist should be limited to observing the uses their clients make of the representations of the image of God in their subjective world, that is, the uses of the function of omnipotence. Among the several authors that subscribe to this position are Odilon de Mello Franco (12), .... W. R. Bion (2), one of the most notable contemporary psychoanalysts, ..."

[sources sited by Amaro BION, W. R. Atenção e interpretação (Attention and interpretation). Rio de Janeiro: Imago, 1973.

MELLO FRANCO, O. de. Religious experience and psychoanalysis: from man-as-god to man-with-god. Int. J. of Psychoanalysis (1998) 79,]

c) This relationship is so strong it led to the creation of a whole discipline in psychology; transactionalism

Neilson on Maslow

Quote:

"One outgrowth of Maslow's work is what has become known as Transpersonal Psychology, in which the focus is on the spiritual well-being of individuals, and values are advocated steadfastly. Transpersonal psychologists seek to blend Eastern religion (Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.) or Western (Christian, Jewish or Moslem) mysticism with a form of modern psychology. Frequently, the transpersonal psychologist rejects psychology's adoption of various scientific methods used in the natural sciences."
"The influence of the transpersonal movement remains small, but there is evidence that it is growing. I suspect that most psychologists would agree with Maslow that much of psychology -- including the psychology of religion -- needs an improved theoretical foundation."

Answering Benjamin Lusk's Comment

This was a comment made on the blog to the post "atheists who say they hate Christians."
Jan 31, 2010

Benjamin Lusk said...
Metacrock,

I want to highlight the points that you highlighted, yourself, and dispute them. Unfortunately, my phone doesn't allow me to copy and paste (or not that I've discovered!), so I'll have to simply brush over each point before continuing.

Now, I know you're dyslexic, so don't take anything that I add in parenthesis as an attempt to make fun of you. It is not, I assure. I simply want to be clear on my understanding of how you phrased certain bits, and how I interpret it.

Ok I'll try to restrain my barbaric urges for revenge.

The first point that I make is attempting to gather what you're trying to accomplish as the writer here. I state that you're trying to make atheists out as being irrational and foolhardy.

You disagree by stating that atheists are "intelligent (people) who discovered that (religion) is real stupid and thought their way out". And also that they are "being pulled along by the force of a bandwagon that's not based on intellectual truths, but psychological motivation". 

On the bit about "they are intelligent people" I probably meant to say they are not just intelligent who discovered this about religion but they are being drug along by forces." Not to say that they are not intelligent but that their reason for being atheists, the real reason below the surfaces not just that they think its not intelligent but there's a psychological motivation. It seems as I get older dyslexia, poor eye sight, and typing to fast becuase my brain runs faster than my fingers, means that I leave words out sometimes.
 ..... I said there's a segment of the atheist community that's being pulled along by psychological motivations. I have always pointed out that it's not all atheist but a certain segment who operate like a hate group and exhibit cult-like tendencies and mocking and ridicule and seek to destroy Christianity. I can't help but wonder if certain atheist leaders haven't planed on it being this way. It is defiantly this way. This segment of the atheists community are a clear and present danger as they are an organized totalitarian group bent on the destruction of a valuable social institution. Of cousre that doesn't to all atheists.

I'll leave the first statement alone. The second one, I can't help but tear apart.

First and foremost, I want to see your degree in psychology if you're going to make a statement like that. I'd be real interested in knowing how your facts stack up to my brothers Masters in Psychology.That'd be a fun conversation.

 I don't need a degree in psychology per se to see that there is a growing body academic work which shows that atheism is motivated by psychological forces related to low self esteem. A similar and related concept, that of negative God image (that is those who see God as a monster and not as a positive good loving thing) do so in relation to their own self image. This latter group is demonstrated through a huge body of academic work going way back.

  Second, you want to say they are being led on by the force of a bandwagon? Give me a break! Religion is the biggest bandwagon out there. That is why people can convert so easily between religions, and organizations like AA (Alcoholics Anonymous), succeed so easily for the weak minded. 

Yes but religion admits it's a movement. Atheism refuses to admit that ti's a movement. They not only balk at being told they have ideology (while saying the same things when you push the same buttons) but many of them exhibit a real phobia of admitting there's any organized movement at all. While I've shown gobs of world wide moneyed organization. See my article The Atheist movement and it's Organization. Then there's "Cracking the Jesus Myth Phony Scholarship Code." Perhaps the most telling is the article  on Center for Inquiry.  Who could forget "Institutionalizing Hate, International Blasphemy Day."

Do NOT get me wrong. For some people, Atheism is just a FAD to get in on. But for the general majority, Atheism is simply a realization or understanding of the basic truths. God can't be seen, touched, felt, smelled, or tasted. Therefore, God does not exist. Those are basic truths.

How can it not be  a movement if its a fad? Are you willing to admit that for those at least for whom it is a fad it's also movement? Perhaps if its a fad the fad has an ideology? The logic that says "God can't be seen, touched, felt, smell or tasted is poor logic. Atheists value scinece right? What scientific things can't be smelled, touched, seen, or tasted? Let's try some:

nuterios, can they be smelled, touched, seen or tasted?
dark matter?
singulity?
big bang expansion?
evolution?
Quantum particles?

Looks like most of the result of modern scinece can't fit your criteria for reality. We can't touch, taste, smell or see the laws of physics can we? Do you not believe there are laws of phsyics? God is the ground of being, the basis upon which the nature of exists rests. Why would something like that be amenable to our senses? You have bought into the notion that it's some sort of basic common sense logic that anything real has to exhibit these hard concrete qualities and yet the basis of reality that modern science teaches us to believe in doesn't fit your criteria.

Religion on the other bullies with threats of Satan and Hell to non-believers. Religions shun those who don't believe, making them feel alienated and hated in a culture that they belong in. How can you even justify saying Atheism is a bandwagon, when (for the most part), Atheists tend to simply ignore the subject of religion altogether? 

 While some religious people behave this way not all do. I don't believe in Satan. That's not a trait of liberal theology, which is mocked and ridiculed by atheists and hated by fundamentalist Christians. Atheists make ridiculous argument that liberal theology "enables" fundamentalism when in reality it's seen as satanic deception by funides and is the cure to being fundie. Besides that you are charging the belief system with an unfair bias in belief yet I'm charging atheists themselves with being bullies (although not all of them). That's a big difference becuase Chrsitians go around to all the atheist sites bothering them and making fun of them. Some may perhaps but not nearly on a scale that atheists do that. Christians believe they have to be nice to people while atheists rationalize being rude and mean so they can justify and keep doing it.

The second point that you tried to make when I offered Christians up as being cool-headed was that, "I never said that and I sure don't believe it. There is a dangerous element in Christianity, its' a more dangerous (one) than Atheism". Okay... so... why are you singling out Atheist when there is a greater evil to battle? Priorities.

You have kind of distorted that. Fist you didn't say Christians are cool-heaed as your own opinion you said taht as part of what you think I'm trying to prove.

you: "On the same side of that, you are suggesting that Christians are cool headed and peaceful by nature."

I did not deny that Christianity is more rational than atheism. I didn't say that it's more dangerous than atheism is either. I said the dangerous element in Christianity is more powerful than atheism. Not that it's more dangerous but that it's more powerful.

(1) I fight it too. In fact I lost about on average 50 readers per blog piece from all the pro-Obama pieces I wrote during the election. I don't care. I am willing to lose them all to say the truth.

(2) I think atheism is more dangerous. In the long run if you have God involved in your life you are still better off than if you don't even if you are in a totalitarian night mare. In other words I think either kind of extreme, fundie or atheism would lead to totalitarian night mare. I'd rather have a 1984 type society with God than without one. That doesn't mean want a totalitarian nightmare now, so don't say I do.

God is hope, and freedom, even if freedom is only inside you it's still more free with God than without him. Atheism is reductionism. You reduce humanity to the machine. I'm not saying all atheists want to do that I'm talking about totalitarian distopias. The worse of atheism was Stalin. the worst of Christian society was The Spanish inquisition. As Mick Jagger said. "the choice of cancer or polio." They would both be pretty bad so we need to work together to prevent either one.

Third: you're going to defend The Crusades? Honestly. Years of slaughtering innocent people because they believed in a brown God vs. a white one? Seriously? That is.perfectly acceptable? I supposed Hitler killing 4 million people was perfectly alright, as well, seeing as though he did it in the name of White Christianity.

Why would you equate minimizing their damage with defending them? When we had a Tornado in Dallas recently my sister called and said "are you guys ok?" I went right over our house. I said "Yes it didn't do hardly any damage int this area." Does that mean I was really saying 'It was great, we should have them more often?" I said you can't assert that crusades are some kind of hallmark of Christianity (they only had them in a short 200 year period a thousand years ago). You choose not define religion by the making of the red cross, the invention of he modern hospital, the YMCA, missions to the homeless, soup kitchens and so on. you choose to define it by crusades s though that's what reilgion always does. It does not. That's a rare one time event and it's not something they do all the time. Through in the religious wars of Europe even then it doesn't outweigh the massive good Christianity has done.

Moreover, Christianity is not Jesus. "Christianity" is a tool that God has used to spread Jesus' teachings, it's not the point of the gospel. The point of finding Jesus is not so you can join a group called "Christianity." The point of having a Christianity is os you can find Jesus. It get's off its message and becomes the tool of powerful interests form time to time but atheism did too. Look at communism. I was communist and I know what I'm talking about. Communism was proud of being atheist and they saw the destruction of religion as one of their main goals. Not to say that all atheists are communists of course. My point is it's the fallacy of guilt by association to try and tag Christianity by some negative event like the crusades and not by the positive things it's done.

Now onto the medical. Religion, in general, does not believe in The Theory of Evolution. Okay, that's cool. But to keep our children, our future scientists, from being able to learn and explore this theory does hurt medical science. The sooner we can figure out our ancestral chain, the sooner we can isolate Homosapien-specific genetic disorders and then repair them.

First, it's a rash statement to claim that "religions in general doesn't believe in evolution." that is just not true. It's not even true that most Chrsitians oppose it. It's certainly not true of religion in general because they lack the motivation. The major motivation for Chrsitains to oppose it is due to Genesis. Religions outside of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, don't really care about Genesis. The guy who headed the genome project is a Christian. Catholics have never had a problem with evolution. They have always been much more excepting of it. There's a problem in America which is suffering from backward thinking and poor education since the Reagan era. In that same period there's been an exodus of intelligent Chrsitains. A huge number of women left the states to work in the third world becuase the American chruch was o backward about women. Gallup Poll shows that 40% of Americans are Creation. Since America is 86% Christian that means an equal percentage and then  some are Chrsitians Christians who accept evolution or are undecided

And what about Stem cell research? The most promising medical discovery since penicillin. "I'm sorry, Mister Soldier man. You can never walk again, even though stem cells have proven to correct spinal damage!"

I had a friend who was Catholic and doing Ph.D. study for his doctorate in cell biology he said we don't have get stem cells from the unborn. Apparently we can get them from dead adults. That's related to an ethical issue about when humanity begins, not to religious belief per se. they are opposing stem cell use because the have a hang up that says "science is wrong." It's becuase they a thing about the unborn still being human life.

Now, the next point was funding to get criminals out of jail, or the best attorney is null and exagerrated. I give you that one except for one particular instance. Catholic priests. The Catholic church has fought every step of the way to keep RAPISTS, Sodomizers, and their child molesters out of prison. Argue that, I dare you. Oh, and please present evidence shoeing that the Columbine shooters shot someone because she was Christian. They killed themselves. Nice try.

January 6, 2013 2:02 PM

 That's not true either. A few years ago when that story got big the atheist were on the war path against Ben 16 alleging he must e child raper. I cold try to look some of those up for you I argued them out and fought tooth and nail and prevailed. I showed that Ben 16 led reforms to stop child molestation and to report it. There has been a move for reform even among the Priesthood. Only about 1% of the priests have been accused. Probably no more than 3% are guilty.

Again this is guilt by association. Catholics are half the Christians and Priests are a tiny percentage of Catholics. You are trying to blame religion itself. When we blame atheism for the crimes of communism, that's a fallacy. that is so unfair one must not do that. Can't you see its the same exactly logic? It  is. if you don't see that you dont' see any logic. Some people who ware this label do X, therefore, all people who wear this label are guilty of X and therefore the label itself  causes the doing of X. That's all crap.