Epitome

The additional 'meanings' tacked on to the First Amendment may be necessary to keep the peace in our country, but trying to say they were the intentions of those that wrote the constitution is to ignore the facts of history.

The inclusion of religion in government and public schools in the early years of this country clearly indicates the intention of the COnstitution was not to rid the government of religion but prevent the government from forcing the practice of or preventing the practice of religion. (kind of like just what it says. )


Corona688:Of all the religions that are represented in the citizenry of the United States of America - Muslim, Hindu, Wiccan, Bhuddist, and on and on - they have chosen to give only one of them a direct presence in government buildings.

The Ten Commandments have a legitimate place in American history as well as part of the religion of most of our founders.

Personally I don't have that big of a problem with the separation of church and state... so long as I can still practice, no biggy.

But secularists applauding and demanding the removal of all traces of religion from their public displays of history is clear indication that they are hostile and irrational.

Epitome

[ November 23, 2002: Message edited by: Epitome ]</p>

emur

Yes, there are atheists and secular humanists like that, and there are religionists like that. It's a problem with some from all beliefs. Of course this means that religion doesn't really make people better in and of itself.

I think it's moral to be humble... And I believe that in spite of Christianity, not because of it. I'm afraid that if I had stayed in evangelicalism much longer, I would have become less so with time, with group-think and all.

It's not in the moral code of those being intolerant. Such people just balance the nice teachings in the bible with the nasty ones, and side with the nasty ones. They do that because intolerance is within them, and all the nice teachings will not change it, nor does any supposed power of God.

As for Jesus' teachings, all the intolerant have to do is lump you in with the goats because you don't agree with them, and guess what, you're going to hell! Or claim that their views on Jesus' teachings on morality trump yours and unless you follow their morality, out you go! And it's all done with the support of their local churches.

The problem is, intolerant Christians don't know better, and God hasn't seen fit to address it with them. So, they go on hurting others and will continue to do so in the name of God with the church's blessing.

Yes they do, but I have most often heard the statement used to support the Christian's "superior" morality over the non-Christian when the non-Christian has had something befall him/her.

Religious morality is useless for the betterment of humankind when it results in events like the killings in Nigeria over the Miss World pageant and the proclamations of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell that 9-11 was God's punishment on America because we are not moral enough. And it results in things like these quite often, doesn't it?

Mel

[ November 23, 2002: Message edited by: emur ]</p>

Epitome

Mel:Yes, there are atheists and secular humanists like that, and there are religionists like that. It's a problem with some from all beliefs. Of course this means that religion doesn't really make people better in and of itself.

The existence of hypbocrits in religion does not mean it is not better. The facts and statistics found in the studies I provided earlier demostrate being active in religion tends to develop healthy, moral people more so than not being active in religion.


Mel:Religious morality is useless for the betterment of humankind when it results in events like the killings in Nigeria over the Miss World pageant and the proclamations of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell that 9-11 was God's punishment on America because we are not moral enough. And it results in things like these quite often, doesn't it?

If that's all it resulted in I would agree. But statistically, relgious belief does more good in the lives of people and for society than any bad... Though I admit, the bad that it is capable of is horrid.


Epitome

Vorkosigan

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Epitome:
[QB].

But for the skeptics, I pulled up some research that show religions positive effects on society, morality and crime rates.[/b]

Epitome, these studies don't show anything about the effects of religion. That is why we ignore them. They show the effects of community, which everyone acknowledges to have profound effects on psychological well-being. Also, you forgot to mention that Kark attributed the death rate differences in his study to differences in lifestyle, not religiosity. The Orthodox had much better diets than the secular; leading to the stunning conclusion that if you eat well, you live longer. &gt;sigh&lt;

If you want to see the effects of religion, compare the high levels of violence, murder, crime, suicide, political corruption, abortion, out-of-wedlock births, divorce, environmental pollution, and low teacher pay, low educational attainment, etc, for the more religious areas of the US compared to the less, or the more religious US compared to the less religious European countries. Generally speaking, in all categories of social regression, the more religious an area is, the worse it is. Look at the miniscule number of atheists in prisons. Look at the intolerance and hate religion projects. Only religious types are running around the US demanding that others give up their civil rights to satisfy the mythical demands of sky fairies.

You might also consider that many, if not most of the researchers "finding" these results are fundie nuts; for example Larson, whose name appears on many of these studies, is an outspoken facist Christian. None of this research is trustworthy, it's simply an attempt to gloss over the high death tolls, intolerance, and hate projected by religion. For example, the studies gloss over that the "community" feeling of so many religious organizations is created by projecting hate outwards, creating an "other" which the community becomes closer by hating -- in other words, the "costs" of religious belief are not "internalized" in the community but projected outward onto society, much like as a factory will dump its untreated waste in the nearest river without regard for downstream users.

The funniest thing was your article on John Gartner's prison study, which was accompanied at the bottom by the inevitable plea for cash.

Vorkosigan

emur

The problem is, at least within fundamentalist and evangelical Christianity, the hypocrites are running the farm!

Vorkosigan answered this well above. But I must add, even if your position were true, the good that religious belief does for people in no way justifies the harm that it does to others. A practice that benefits some and harms others is not a good practice, no matter how you slice it.

Mel

Vorkosigan

To continue for a moment, Gartner's study is a good example of how bad the research in this area is. The inmates were a self-selected group, those who had chosen to participate in religion had a much lower recidivism rate. This seems interesting until you think about it sociologically. Naturally, those who would participate in such groups were probably more communally-oriented, less violent, wanted to get out, could read and write, etc....in other words, people with a higher hope of success even without religious indoctrination.

Further, the study was a retrospective longitudinal study, apparently not blind -- the researchers knew which prisoners had committed crimes later and which did not, and of course, none of the glowing articles says where the study was published. In other words, is it a published, peer-reviewed piece of research in a serious journal, or just another Christian puff piece? Epitome, do you have that information?

Finally, from what I've been able to tell, Gartner is one of a cabal of Christian fundie researchers -- like David Larson -- who've been working together putting together bogus studies about religion. Gartner is a former student and research partner of that fundie nut Paul Vitz who runs around claiming that atheists hate their fathers, which is why they are atheists. In other words, Gartner is a fundie nut....

If you want to view interesting stats about religion, go to <a href="http://www.barna.org." target="_blank">www.barna.org.</a> There'll you'll find Barna's interesting study showing that evangelical Christians have the highest rates of divorce, with atheists, agnostics and freethinkers having the lowest.

Vorkosigan

[ November 23, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ]</p>

Epitome

So let me get this straight?

If religious people do good things, it's because they are part of a community.

If a community of people do bad things, it's because they are part of a religion.

*LOL*


Epitome

The Other Michael

It is worth noting that the barna site is run by Christians, which to me makes the poor results of Christians in their studies all the more telling since they would seem to lack an axe that needs grinding.

cheers,
Michael

Vorkosigan

Do you have any serious responses to any of the issues raised? For example, do you know where Gartner's study was published?

Also, you seem to be a bit confused in your response. We were not discussing religious people doing good things but deriving beneficial effects from being part of a religious group. So not only was your comment asinine, it didn't even address the topic at hand. The benefits derive from being part of a community, not being religious. But religion constructs communities in peculiar ways -- by forming an evil "other" who exists in opposition to the "good" community. As Steve Weinberg once wittily put it, good people do good things, and bad people do bad things, but to get good people to do bad things, that takes religion. As we have seen.

Your second line is even dumber, since we were not discussing why communities do bad things, but why religious communities do bad things.

So your answer so far consists of two non sequitors, which you dimly thought passed for wit. Any time you want to engage in substantive discourse, you can start by seriously dealing with the issues raised in my last two posts.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

George Barna said in an interview a couple of months ago that many churches no longer let him do research there, since he uncovers so much that reflects negatively on Christ-inanity in America, especially in his strict eyes. He doesn't count anyone except Born-Again as a Christian, for example. But the site itself is a treasure trove. Never would have I have imagined, for example, that 35% of evangelicals regard Christ's rising as spiritual rather than physical, for example...

Vorkosigan