One of the variety of religious experiences...

I think it will be difficult to prove that believing or not believing makes a difference because it won't be possible to isolate belief (or no belief) as a measurable variable. It will be found to be tied in with too many other factors. — Bitter Crank

A statistical analysis could only show if there is a difference it could not prove the cause of that difference. As there is simply no way you can randomly assign beliefs to people. Without that type of random assignment it would be restricted to observational studies, which do not establish cause, but it would be a start.

I bet if Mongrel actually took the time and effort to look into it there are probably some relevant studies out there. Mongrel has a thesis the next step is to actually research that thesis.

You know, some people have done observational studies of faith and no-faith with respect to coping, and they show that people with faith seem to have better outcomes. It just may not be the religion that does the trick.

Older adult males (50 -75 years) do much better, and live longer if they are involved with other people, have a spouse, are engaged in a community, and so on. One of the obvious ways of obtaining those benefits is to be involved in a church.

Single males (50-75) who are isolated, unengaged, live alone, shun community activities, and so forth, tend to be sicker and to die sooner than men who have a varied social life and close companion(s). I could very easily be one of those self-neglecting isolated old men.

I'm not a believer, but I am involved in a church. It was a ready-made community which I could plug into. It gives me a level of social contact (not very intense, but steady) that I would be hard-pressed to find elsewhere. The gay community used to be a source of social involvement for me, but that was decades ago. A socialist group was also a source of community, but that has given up the ghost. So, God help this atheist, it's the Lutheran Church. I'm grateful.

I rather read them for myself, than have you tell me about them. I am well aware that there are some studies out there, and have seen a few for myself but they generally leave a lot of room open for debate. I also would want to review their sampling methods and statistical procedures used.

I rather read them for myself, than have you tell me about them. — Jeremiah

Well, be my guest.

You are the one making claims about what they said without any citation at all, accept some responsibility.

I'd say religion itself is heavily responsible for that response. In its hierarchal concens, it teaches people itself is only source of meaning. The sort of "Nihilism" people is only the underlying religious approach to the world, that it is horrible and without meaning, shorn of the saving force or entity.

We might say that philosophy and religion in general is posioned by the Nihilism, by the idea our world is meaningless, so that we must find the transcedent force which turns into something worthwhile. Most are unwilling to teach life, itself, is meaningful because then people wouldn't need their tradition to matter.

What alleviation from suffering can science offer an atheist which it cannot and does not also offer to the religiously devout?

From my perspective (agnostic soft-atheist), religion would be more of an existential party drug than a medicine. A cherry on-top. I already live with uncertainty and acceptance of death, and maybe that's because I have low standards or because I live in a time filled with so many interesting things that life without after-life is consolation enough, so what reason is there to perform the mental gymnastics required to get a few boons from religion with all the extra burden?

Granted, if humans go back to shitting out their intestines in ditches from cholera, people will certainly be wanting their opium back, but are you so sure back to the ditches is where we're immediately headed?

When the blow holes were forced back to the ocean, gills never made a comeback.

What alleviation from suffering can science offer an atheist which it cannot and does not also offer to the religiously devout? — VagabondSpectre

Wait, what alleviation from suffering does science even offer at all, to anyone?

Morphine for one thing, the strongest opiate of all!

Ah yes; thank the Almighty Lord Science for offering the alleviation of physical suffering, and for his bountiful blessings of Xanax for those sufferings we poor faithful are inflicted with that aren't quite as easy to define. But solely dependent, of course, on our health insurance. Thank the Lord for his daily blessings.

How about antibiotics then? Surely not requiring limb amputation or death alleviates suffering.

How about the combustion engine?

Electric heating?

Air conditioning?

Weather satellites?

If boredom is suffering, and using this forum alleviates it, then you can thank science for the design of the computer you use to do so!

Verily, we thank the Almighty Lord Science for all and every form of alleviation of physical suffering, and for all forms of ever increasing physical convenience that bring us closer and closer to our very Lord herself. For we consider these light and momentary afflictions as preparation for a weight of momentary glorious convenience and comfort before the inevitable extinguishment of our very existence. As we look not to the things that are unseen, but to the things THAT ARE SEEN. For the things that are unseen are IMAGINARY, but the things that are seen are, thank the fucking Lord, temporary.

The title of the discussion is so stupid.

Compared to the epic throes of such sarcastic existential neediness, what alleviation of suffering could there ever be?

My point is that religious folk are happy to accept all the boons of science just as atheists are. It's not as if we've jumped ship to science because if we were so inclined we could have both.

That we're not inclined toward religion or religious belief is what loosely defines us as atheists in the first place though.

"Shit man, I was really enjoying this movie, but then I realized that it's gonna end eventually".

"Yea, totally... Without believing that it goes on forever, it's all stupid and meaningless".

"Pass the popcorn".

Compared to the epic throes of such sarcastic existential neediness, what alleviation of suffering could there ever be? — VagabondSpectre

Do not suppose that I have come to bring sarcasm to the world. I did not come to bring sarcasm, but rather poetic analysis.

My point is that religious folk are happy to accept all the boons of science just as atheists are. — VagabondSpectre

Verily, whoever does the will of my Father Lord Science, is my brother and sister and mother.

That we're not inclined toward religion or religious belief is what loosely defines us as atheists in the first place though. — VagabondSpectre

Verily, whoever believes in Lord Science is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is already condemned because they have not believed in the name of Lord Science's One And Only Son.

Unfortunately there is no Western equivalent of the word 'dharma' which is preferable to 'religion'.

Oh, come now. Take a laxative and calm down. — Bitter Crank

Charming.

Nevertheless, I have adequate daily intake of moral fibre, thank you very much.

Most are unwilling to teach life, itself, is meaningful because then people wouldn't need their tradition to matter. — TheWillowOfDarkness

You say this, but it overlooks something very important. And that is that people are not naturally disposed to recognising meaning or living free from anxiety and dread. That I take to be the existential meaning of 'the fall'.

Spiritual traditions do recognise there is something within you which can rise above that - there is a Buddhist tradition of the 'inherent great perfection', and analogous ideas in other sources. But it is understood to not be something which usually occurs spontaneously to people, it has to be sought out. That's the sense in which a spiritual discipline is a form of therapy - not in the narrow sense of treatment for a particular ailment, but for the general unease, dukka, of day to day life.

And again, in Buddhism, there is a recognition that the teaching ultimately doesn't matter, that once it has served that purpose, then it can be left behind. (This is the import of the well-known 'parable of the Raft'. Other traditions generally don't hold such a view.)

There is a saying from Jung, which I know will probably be controversial but bear in mind, Jung was no Christian apologist. But he did say

Among all my patients in the second half of life—that is to say, over thirty-five—there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had lost what the living religions of every age have given their followers, and none of them has been really healed who did not regain his religious outlook.

You'll be sounding like Carl Sagan, before long. — Bitter Crank

If I start sounding like Carl Sagan, than kudos to me. If others started sounding like Carl Sagan than there wouldn't be morons justifying the mass slaughter of innocent people by saying that the world death rate is 100%.

Wait, what?

The world death rate is 100% — Bitter Crank

:-|

Of course there are people dying in the middle east. As well there should be; it's over populated, like much of the world. — Bitter Crank

Perhaps keep your psychopathic tendencies hidden under the rug, old horse.

We're back to counting corpses again, to see who is the gooder thinker. If the insight is clear, the parasite is transformed into a symbiote. This is the magic of thought, that where biology must laboriously evolve, thought can change instantly. — unenlightened

Actually, I live by righteousness and not by pretending moral worthiness as part of my virtual social schema, nor do I appreciate the hostilities of those who have confidently lived an intellectual life without ever achieving anything morally worthy before projecting that intellectual viciousness out onto others. I live an intellectual life, studied law when I didn't want to, but most of all I dedicate myself to those fleeing from the 'corpses' of their loved ones. The numerical - albeit pithy - display is to satisfy the cancerous drones, not that it would make a difference.

And yes, I can be vicious, but never to justify my failures.

Granted, if humans go back to shitting out their intestines in ditches from cholera, people will certainly be wanting their opium back, but are you so sure back to the ditches is where we're immediately headed? — VagabondSpectre

I didn't say "immediately."

And yes, I can be vicious, but never to justify my failures. — TimeLine

Could you expand on this? O:)

Perhaps keep your psychopathic tendencies hidden under the rug, old horse. — TimeLine

Oops, word is out. Psychopathic.

So, what I was getting at was that there are not, to quote you,

millions upon millions dying in the Middle East. — TimeLine

who would not die in the normal course of events. There are thousands and thousands of people dying from violence (internecine* bombings and international bombings), aka "excess deaths", not millions and millions. There are various estimates, generally below 1,000,000, some way below 1,000,000.

It's helpful not to go overboard on estimates of deaths in the Middle East, just as it's helpful not to go overboard on terrorist deaths in Europe or the U.S.

*

Pirate. — Mongrel

Well, yes. But that's all.

I've no idea what you're going on about, now. — Heister Eggcart

Not much, really, beyond the fact that I think the Caesars probably had friends, though not many, being Caesars, and that Jesus as putative God probably had none, being God.

I live an intellectual life, studied law when I didn't want to, but most of all I dedicate myself to those fleeing from the 'corpses' of their loved ones. — TimeLine

Ah, but to the extent living an intellectual life is related to law and corpses, you haven't lived a truly intellectual life until you practice law when you don't want to and have buried the corpses of your loved ones.

Verily, whoever believes in Lord Science is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is already condemned because they have not believed in the name of Lord Science's One And Only Son. — Noble Dust

Are you saying that "belief in science" is incompatible with "belief in god"?

Are you a disbeliever in science then?

Ah, but to the extent living an intellectual life is related to law and corpses, you haven't lived a truly intellectual life until you practice law when you don't want to and have buried the corpses of your loved ones. — Ciceronianus the White

I don't have loved ones to bury, not for a very long time and what propelled me to an intellectual life despite my gender and appearances, hence why I spend time on places like this rather than entertain social networking en masse. And if I pursued the study of law for moral purposes, I did so for the utility to position myself in an adequately suitable profession in order fulfil that utility. I don't want to work in a low-paying job in the interest of this objective, but I do.

Could you expand on this? O:) — Heister Eggcart

It is pretty self-explanatory. In the interest of provoking conversation, many people utilise various models of persuasion to justify vicious behavioural components only because they themselves are guilty of practicing such behaviour. The difference is that I am conscious of this intentional discourse and use it for objective rather than subjective purposes.