NationStates

As many have said, I'd point more at secularism. Secularism has definitely made the world better form my perspective.

Tarchuna and Ravenna wrote:

Dogmeat wrote:It infects us in our deepest integrity. It says we wouldn't know right or wrong without it. It says we must kneel to an unquestionable, unalterable supreme authority. Whom we must love, and fear. And threatens children with eternal torment if they do not.

Among other things.

And if one simply believes in a higher power?

I don't see much wrong with this... However I still think that it's unnecessary, as such useless, and something useless is detrimental.

Tarchuna and Ravenna wrote:

Dogmeat wrote:It infects us in our deepest integrity. It says we wouldn't know right or wrong without it. It says we must kneel to an unquestionable, unalterable supreme authority. Whom we must love, and fear. And threatens children with eternal torment if they do not.

Among other things.

And if one simply believes in a higher power?

People don't actually.

It's possible to, of course. But virtually no one just believes in a higher power, they believe in a higher power that conforms to all kinds of vaguely Abrahamic stereotypes

Tarchuna and Ravenna wrote:

VoVoDoCo wrote:The weight of religious inference in Hitler’s speeches far outweigh the occasional criticism he had against religious institutions.

Read all of his quotes under the speeches tab:
https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Religio ... olf_Hitler

He kinda had to pose as a Christian to control Germany.

Can you provide a historical valid source though it’s just he wasn’t actually Christian?

Bear Stearns wrote:No, because it didn't make the world less religious, it transferred the desire for spirituality and morality away from Christianity and towards political extremism.

Also true. Arguably the increasing irrelevance of religion to politics led to the most radical social and political movements of the 20th century.

Panslav wrote:

The Emerald Legion wrote:
Not really. The idea of the spooky scaries and spirits is pretty darn natural.

Animism is the default, even if not inherently formalized.

Animism makes a positive claim. Something that makes a positive claim can't be the default position since it has the burden of proof on it.

It makes a positive claim in the same way claiming that people who think aliens are abducting them for weird sex are wrong, is a positive claim.

They're making a fairly elaborate, unfalsifiable positive claim, and you're saying, "that doesn't sound right."

Panslav wrote:

The Emerald Legion wrote:
Not really. The idea of the spooky scaries and spirits is pretty darn natural.

Animism is the default, even if not inherently formalized.

Animism makes a positive claim. Something that makes a positive claim can't be the default position since it has the burden of proof on it.

Default just means the primordial belief, not necessarily the philosophically neutral belief. But also lack of belief is a position itself.

Dogmeat wrote:

Tarchuna and Ravenna wrote:
And if one simply believes in a higher power?

People don't actually.

It's possible to, of course. But virtually no one just believes in a higher power, they believe in a higher power that conforms to all kinds of vaguely Abrahamic stereotypes

Have you talked to anyone with this belief?

Why is 2+2 4 instead of 5? Why is a Pi infinite?

That's a question different people will have different answers to. If you think the world we live in today is good then sure. The west has been Godless since the 60s and 70s.

Well, not necessarily. Atheists and theists are both perfectly capable of horrific acts and are prone to the same sorts of evils. Atheism doesn't make someone inherently better.

Antityranicals wrote:Ladies and gentlemen, Atheism is a meritless delusion which defies all sense and restricts the mind, plain and simple. There is an argument to be made that deism made the world a better place, but Atheism has dulled the minds of generations, and must be fought and killed on the intellectual battlefield.

This exact same argument could be made about religion and it'd probably be as correct, if not more.

Bear Stearns wrote:

LimaUniformNovemberAlpha wrote:

hurrr Kerry/Lieberman '04. Buck Fush no more wars for oil. Jesusland. Enron.

Babble some more please, it's incredibly entertaining.

While I don't agree with the worldview, I do believe that atheism has benefited society. It gives us the push to investigate faith further and allows us to embrace reason — an important aspect of our nature and evidence of our Creator, in whose image we are made.

I think the atheist worldview is incomplete. There is a divine spark in man that I cannot accept as merely electrical signals and chemical reactions and a beauty in nature I cannot accept as coincidental.

Reason has its place, as does emotion and faith. Atheists have allowed reason to overtake other parts of life and are trapped by it. That said, I'd rather deal with an atheist that has beliefs put in place through logic than a spiritualist woo-woo hippy that bases everything on what feels good.

Tarchuna and Ravenna wrote:Why is 2+2 4 instead of 5? Why is a Pi infinite?

For fuck's sake. π isn't infinite.

Dogmeat wrote:

Tarchuna and Ravenna wrote:
And if one simply believes in a higher power?

People don't actually.

It's possible to, of course. But virtually no one just believes in a higher power, they believe in a higher power that conforms to all kinds of vaguely Abrahamic stereotypes

I mean im on that belief sooo

LimaUniformNovemberAlpha wrote:

Tarchuna and Ravenna wrote:
Source?

All this shows is that religious people voted for the best president since Nixon.

Tarchuna and Ravenna wrote:

Dogmeat wrote:People don't actually.

It's possible to, of course. But virtually no one just believes in a higher power, they believe in a higher power that conforms to all kinds of vaguely Abrahamic stereotypes

Have you talked to anyone with this belief?

I can confidently say that I've never met someone who just believed in a higher power. I've met people who've claimed that's what they believe, but when questioned they always turn out to have all kinds of additional beliefs about what they think this power is interested in. Which always turns out to be rather anthropocentric.

Pure deism is a relic of the enlightenment. A refuge for rational minds before we knew enough to dismiss those watchmaker arguments. Anyone who would have been tempted by it in the past, these days, just goes to atheism.

Eglaecia wrote:

LimaUniformNovemberAlpha wrote:

All this shows is that religious people voted for the best president since Nixon.

Excellent meme, props.

Considering the happiest, freest, and most advanced counties are more secular. Compared to the most religious nations that are more impoverished and use it as an escape.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/142727/rel ... tions.aspx

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/do-countr ... -1.1310451

Celritannia wrote:Considering the happiest, freest, and most advanced counties are more secular. Compared to the most religious nations that are more impoverished and use it as an escape.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/142727/rel ... tions.aspx

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/do-countr ... -1.1310451

They also statistically have some of the highest rates of depression and fairly high rates of suicide compared to the most religious countries.

United Muscovite Nations wrote:

Celritannia wrote:Considering the happiest, freest, and most advanced counties are more secular. Compared to the most religious nations that are more impoverished and use it as an escape.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/142727/rel ... tions.aspx

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/do-countr ... -1.1310451

They also statistically have some of the highest rates of depression and fairly high rates of suicide compared to the most religious countries.

Nope, not really:
https://www.christiantoday.com/article/ ... 127465.htm

Cekoviu wrote:

Tarchuna and Ravenna wrote:Why is 2+2 4 instead of 5? Why is a Pi infinite?

For fuck's sake. π isn't infinite.

Questionable. One man found 2.7 Trillion digits, but didnt say that was the precise point where it ended. Also yes pi isnt infinite, but it is an infinite decimal. Which just means the decimal digits go on for what "so far" is percieved to be infinite. Though mathematically it becomes negligable.

Tarchuna and Ravenna wrote:

VoVoDoCo wrote:The weight of religious inference in Hitler’s speeches far outweigh the occasional criticism he had against religious institutions.

Read all of his quotes under the speeches tab:
https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Religio ... olf_Hitler

He kinda had to pose as a Christian to control Germany.

ANYONE can fake religious beliefs. NO one knows whose religious beliefs are real and whose are fake. The point is moot.

Celritannia wrote:

United Muscovite Nations wrote:They also statistically have some of the highest rates of depression and fairly high rates of suicide compared to the most religious countries.

Nope, not really:
https://www.christiantoday.com/article/ ... 127465.htm

Mixed bag for depression: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiol ... depression

Notably Islamic countries and Greek and Oriental Orthodox have remarkably lower suicide rates than almost all Western countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... icide_rate

Happiness is impossible to measure via polling.

Celritannia wrote:Considering the happiest, freest, and most advanced counties are more secular. Compared to the most religious nations that are more impoverished and use it as an escape.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/142727/rel ... tions.aspx

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/do-countr ... -1.1310451

Meanwhile atheist/irreligious people have worse mental health than religious people.