This comes up from time to time, so I felt it merited its own thread. Here in the UK, atheism is typically a mark of nothing more than disbelief in gods. I have few friends who attend church, which is less a reflection of my choice of friends than the demographic of the country I live in. I tend not be exposed to bigotry as a result of denoting myself as such. I go online for that!
I don’t wear a badge or steer the conversation towards the subject, but it’s no secret either. No-one cares. If I wanted to run for public office it would be no barrier; people don’t appear to trust me any less, or assume amorality or a lack of goodwill on my part.
But other countries are different. Atheism is the ‘state religion’ in some, in others it can still be a reason to put you to death (surely one of the densest ideas ever dreamed up). I am interested in experiences, and in how you view ‘the other side’. Over to you.
I don’t think atheists are bad people any more than any other group. I think atheism is a bad habit, like smoking, that doesn’t do your spiritual health any good (even if one uses it to self-medicate, so to speak) and can ultimately prove very destructive and even fatal – but, that can be said for a lot of habits or conditions.
I don’t think it’s a “habit” at all, William. What a bizarre word to use.
William’s beliefs are habits, unconstrained by evidence, as he cheerfully admits.
He forgets that the rest of us aren’t like that.
can ultimately prove very destructive and even fatal
I’ve not encountered anyone who has discovered a lifestyle that is indefinitely non-fatal.
What is beyond the veil is anybody’s guess, of course, and perhaps you mean a spiritual death. I may wake up after dying to be told “you are now going to be obliterated”. “I thought I already had been. You woke me up to tell me that?”.
But the big problem for me – if problem it is – is that I cannot will myself to believe something I don’t find believable, any more than I can will myself to fancy unattractive women (or attractive men), or enjoy particularly disgusting flavours of ice cream. I’ve thought about it a lot – most atheists have – and spiritual propositions simply do not stack up. If I’m to be punished for the role I took in a game I’m not even sure is being played – so be it.
Someone brought up the point that Gregory may live in a country where atheism was the state religion and religions was suppressed. I grew up at a time when atheists were pariahs and unemployable. It was legal and customary for employers to ask what church you attended, whether you were a member, and how often you attended.
In both cases there has been a pushback. But for most of our written history,religion has been an official instrument of government. I would argue that in the communist countries where religion was suppressed, atheism functioned as a religion.
So it is not completely irrational to view atheism as a competing religion. It’s just that an educated person should be able to tell the difference between an ideology that is enforced by government and an idea that is freely chosen or freely arrived at.
William : even if one uses it to self-medicate, so to speak) and can ultimately prove very destructive and even fatal
This seems completely backwards, atheism seems to be the rejection of the self medication that religion provides, that death can be cheated.
I do sometimes think that not having church-state separation, as in the UK, is a powerful bulwark against the dangers of religion.
There’s nothing like making something official to thoroughly dilute it.
What evidence leads you to think this can ultimately result from atheism, any more than any other group? I’d like to see actual statistics.
Unlike making up whatever God one considers most desirable, then remaking that God to improve it whenever the mood strikes.
It’s not too late to get started on better mental habits for 2014.
Glen Davidson
What a strange thing to say, even in the context of the original post. Its seems to me to betray something I’ve long suspected of many religious people- that they don’t actually believe in God. They say they believe in God of course, but that’s mainly because they’re trying to convince themselves that they believe in God, and because they believe that public professions of faith are good for the community of the faithful, but in their heart of hearts, or mind of minds, they don’t actually believe. I say this because so often religious people don’t act as if they think a God is watching them or in this case, because of the way they argue for God. If there really was a God watching us then Williams comment should have been along the lines of : ‘whether a person is good or bad in this life is absolutely trivial compared to the concern of whether they spend eternity burning in Hell’.
Of course there are people who seem to genuinely believe. Anyone who can casually give up their life for their religion probably believes that death is merely a step into another life.
The simple test for whether belief has any value in and of itself, aside from whether it is about something that is true, is to ask whether believing in something widely regarded as evil or insane is a good thing.
When my father broke his pip at age 92 and was confined to a wheelchair, and having restricted blood flow to his brain, he came to believe there were German soldiers marching outside the house. My mother had episodes of electrolyte imbalance, and saw insects crawling across the ceiling.
My mother “chose” not to believe they were real. She could see them, but reasoned that they were hallucinations. My father lost that ability.
So when I see a movie or a discussion that asserts there is some value in having faith without evidence, I think about my parents, and ask myself, ins’t there some value in requiring evidence and consilience?
I have to say that William’s “choosing what to believe” seems to me to boil down to “making a set of working assumptions”. Which I think is fine, but I don’t see that a different set of assumptions is any more or less of a “habit” than that. We all make working assumptions about the world, whether or not we truly “believe” them, because we can’t expect to have direct personal evidence for everything – some things we have to take on trust, and we can choose which.
But as far as the choice not to believe in god or gods is concerned, I don’t see any evidence that it’s any more dangerous than any other choice, and some evidence that it is less so.
I have to side with Gregory on one aspect of his rather sketchy manifesto. is is relatively safe to adopt “working assumptions” that are time and culture tested, and which have a community of followers.
But the Raëlians and the followers of Jim Jones demonstrate that novel religions can be risky. Christianity — at least by legend — was once a risky fringe religion. Judaism also. The utility of belief differs according to time and place.
Well, I wasn’t particularly talking about the physical side of things, but of course there have been studies that link religious beliefs both with better moral and ethical behavior, and sense of satisfaction & happiness, as well as studies about atheists that show they are less healthy, happy & moral.
http://www.webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/news/20060518/spirituality-may-help-blood-pressure
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11331802
Am J Health Promot. 2005 May-Jun;19(5):369-75.
Characteristics of adults who use prayer as an alternative therapy.
O’Connor PJ, Pronk NP, Tan A, Whitebird RR.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15895540?dopt=Abstract
Hughes M. Helma, Judith C. Haysb, Elizabeth P. Flintb, Harold G. Koeniga and Dan G. Blazera. 2000. Does Private Religious Activity Prolong Survival? A Six-Year Follow-up Study of 3,851 Older Adults. The Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences 55: M400-M405.
Koenig, H.G., and Larson, D.B. 1998. Use of hospital services, religious attendance, and religious affiliation. Southern Medical Journal 91: 925-932.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9823746
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2343920?dopt=Abstract
December 18, 2010
Religious Service Attendance Strengthens Immune System
By Georgianna Donadio, MSc, DC, PhD
December 01, 2004
Religious Affiliation and Suicide Attempt
Kanita Dervic, M.D.; Maria A. Oquendo, M.D.; Michael F. Grunebaum, M.D.; Steve Ellis, Ph.D.; Ainsley K. Burke, Ph.D.; J. John Mann, M.D.
Now, all you need to do is to exhaustively study all of the confounding factors, and then all of those studies might indicate more than correlation, William.
Glen Davidson
Once again, I don’t think all atheists are “bad”, but I think it’s pretty clearly shown in the research that atheism, generally speaking, tends to decrease moral/ethical behavior, one’s physical health and longevity, and one’s mental health and sense of happiness, satisfaction and sense of purpose.
This is why I compare it to a bad habit, like smoking. IMO, these are just the effects that can be studied, and I think they are reflections of even greater spiritual damage.
I call William for selective credulity regarding studies. If these studies involved testing a new medication, they would be tossed on the scrap heap.
Which of your studies supports this? Are priests excluded from your statistics on moral and ethical behavior?
There’s this:
http://www.minnpost.com/second-opinion/2012/04/are-religious-people-happier-atheists
Final word? Well, I doubt it. In one sense, I tend to think that religion “feeds the soul,” that is, it plays into mental processes that aren’t so rational, but naturally do exist. Clearly that can be a bad thing, but how is one to doubt that it can be a good thing, too? Are we supposed to be all logical now that the Enlightenment has happened? Well, we’re not.
So I have sympathy for religion and “spirituality,” while recognizing that these are not going to do much for establishing facts or telling us about “reality out there”–although these may be beneficial for the creative side of science. What doesn’t work for most humans is the frequent atheist denial of the longings and hopes that guide so many people, quite apart from scientific evidence and logic.
Glen Davidson
I am perfectly prepared to accept the possibility that atheists on the whole are more miserable, less successful or whatever than a theist in an otherwise identical circumstance. Of course, to establish that result would require some rigorous correction for confounding factors.
I certainly don’t personally feel in any way impoverished, in any aspect of my life, and nor do my many non-believing pals. I can’t even imagine in what way religion would enrich it or me. And I still don’t believe in a god. That’s the bottom line.
I am too, but I’m equally prepared to accept that non-conformists may very well be more miserable, etc., than conformists. It even seems likely for social animals.
Few of us would actually see this as a good reason to be conformists.
Glen Davidson
The single, overarching theme in common in all those studies is that organised religion has traditionally provided a kind of community service “safety-net”, in the form of an obvious local “support group” you can go to.
In general, if you don’t make an effort to connect with and spend time with other people, you can easily become isolated, get lonely and then get a depression. Which, yes, can negatively impact your health.
But it’s important to separate the mere absense of godbelief from the absense of confounding daily routines you have been brought up with. Historically religion has provided a community service in that respect. If you grow up with it, it sort of becomes second nature. Once you leave that behind, it might be much less obvious where you can go to get the same kind of sense of connectedness to other people, maybe simply through a bit of mingling, listening to other peoples stories and just enjoying their company, or the knowledge that there’s some group you can “always” go to to get some kind of help.
But none of this means, entails or even implies that not believing in gods, leads to worse morals or “bad” mental habits of any kind. It’s simply that there doesn’t seem to have been any concerted effort in modern society to step in and provide obvious alternatives to what religion has provided in this respect. Even where such alternative services exist, it might not be obvious to people when you’re not brought up with it in the same way most religious people are(going to church every sunday and all that stuff).
Sorry William, but I don’t see how any of your studies actually substantiate your opening claims.
Well, Billy Graham and Madalyn Murray O’Hair were born almost in the same year, and Billy has outlived her, so belief has some advantages.
Atheists are more intelligent than theists, on the whole
Obviously, the only reason I point to this article is that it does deal with confounding factors, noting that no good conclusion can be made from such studies that atheists are necessarily unbelievers because they’re so almighty intelligent.
Similarly, one should take a jaundiced view of what William wants to be the take-home lesson from the studies discussed in the links.
Glen Davidson
I assume that the vast majority of subjects in these studies actually believe (in the usual sense) that their religion is true. Do you get the same alleged benefits if you merely act as if it’s true, with no expectation that it actually is true?
So does not hiring violent people and then savagely attacking them in print after they have proven less than adequate to your desires.
That can land you in a shallow grave.
Glen Davidson
William,
A comment I posted at UD in 2009:
religion
I’m going into pure speculation here, but I suspect that in the United States, religion is so pervasive that being an athiest implies being a non-conformist, and less socially involved. This would probably not be as true in university communities and large cities. New York has Ethical Societies and non-sectarian churches.
Atheists are bad people – discuss
“Bad” as in what sense, exactly? “Bad” in the sense of “Breaking Bad”? Bad in the sense of “bad-ass”, which implies a sort of rugged and uncompromising individuality which many admire and to which many aspire. “Bad” in the sense of a naughty child or “bad” in the sense of something rather more serious like the Holocaust.
I would assume that atheists as a social group are overall pretty much the same as any other when it comes to behaving morally. For every example of an atheist behaving immorally, whatever that might mean, I believe we can find examples of believers doing the same. Do we decide the issue by totting up the numbers on both sides and see which is the bigger?
Mr Murray cites a number of scientific studies which find evidence of the benefits to heath of religious belief. This is what I would expect. We are social animals so it comes as no surprise that belonging to stable and supportive social groups confers measurable physical and social benefits on its members. it’s why I think atheists who foresee the eradication of religion within a generation or so are whistling in the wind. Religious belief is going to be around in some form or other for as long as we humans are what we are regardless of the theological merits of the belief.
The fact that belief seems to come with a better ‘health plan’ than atheism says nothing about the moral advantages. I suspect that membership of the Communist Party in Russia or the Nazi Party in Germany would have been found to be similarly advantageous and it’s no surprise that not being a member was not so good for one’s health at the time.
If you want seriously “bad”, you can find it in what Hitler and the Nazis thought and wrote about the Jews, which was allegedly largely inspired by Darwinian thinking, and what Martin Luther thought and wrote about the same unfortunate people, entirely without the benefit of evolutionary theory. What did they have in common?
I know firsthand the profoundly positive effects that my spiritual views have had on me. Please note that in no study was there much in the way of a statistical difference between different theisms, just between theism and atheism.
I’d be interested in a study conducted in the UK, England specifically – contrasting those who were active churchgoers and those who did not claim any religion (as opposed to those specifically claiming to be atheists).
In my experience, religious people are in the minority, and the rest seem to do just fine.
I think it’s complicated. I’m USAian. I’m both a loner and nonconformist. As far as I can tell from my own life, that’s orthogonal to atheism, neither causing it nor being caused by it. I was raised in a faith tradition. loved going to church summer camp, voluntarily attended teen church group once a week … other than those rituals I preferred my own company. I never felt “faith” or “belief” in god, but assumed there was something real at the base of their faith. Then as an entheogen-drug user, I realized that I was never going to believe like them, so I dropped out of church activities. It was a big city, and like you say, there were other things to do, other groups to attend at least as much as I was comfortable with.
But I wonder if anyone would much notice or care in most small town nowadays. People are busy, stressed about jobs, trying to keep their kids in school and away from gangs — I think they may just not have as much time and energy to gossip about their neighbors, especially not their neighbors’ failure to attend church on Sunday.
Now I live in a small town and of course there aren’t humanist clubs or non-christian churches, but I’ve been a scout parent, a soccer parent, and I’ve never felt socially isolated as an “atheist”. Yeah, there’s always the momentary aggravation of some man saying a quick prayer before the game — but I am much more isolated from them by their stupid regressive politics than I am by their religion.
And I think it’s plausible it could work for some people. I’ve read that in Alcoholics Anonymous, people are advised to go along with the “higher power” aspect of the program even if the don’t accept that there is such a thing. For an alcoholic who has hit rock-bottom, maybe the cognitive dissonance would be easier to deal with given that the alternative is to continue in alcoholism. And while I accept that you are describing your experience accurately from your perspective, now we are dealing with anecdotes rather than evidence.
Ok, but I suspect the theistic subjects were most likely “true believers”, unlike yourself, so I don’t see that the studies are directly relevant to your case. I have no trouble accepting that true believers could experience benefits based on their religious beliefs.
It might also be worth pointing out that different religious traditions have different conceptions of the relation between religion and ethics, as well as different conceptions of and attitudes towards atheism.
For example, I was raised with the view (in Reform Judaism) that atheism does not lead to badness, but only to incurable loneliness. So it is not even the case that all versions of theism insist that having a strong religious identity is necessary for virtuous character.
I assume that the flaws with divine command theory and natural law theory — the two most prominent versions of the attempt to justify any specific ethical framework in terms of theistic metaphysics — are well-known enough here that it’s not necessary to go into them.
Quite frankly, I very much doubt that (a) the correlations between religious commitment and ethical behavior are all that strong, and (b) that the correlations, to the extent that they do obtain, cannot be explained as adequately by a naturalistic position as by a theistic one.
KN,
Or, they can be explained as a placebo effect. In that sense, it wouldn’t matter if god and an afterlife was true or not, but rather that believing in it generates certain benefits for one’s health both mentally and physically.
Which is another reason William’s Wager is a good bet and pays off in the here and now.
The First World War was a significant factor in the world factor in loss of religious faith in those who had to experience it and this spread through their families. Regarding social support, the US seems to lack secular opportunities for social intercourse like the pub.
ETA clarity
What’s your response to the normal, Christian Pascal’s wager? It seems like you’re already halfway to accepting it. Why not go all in and get some fire insurance?
The trouble with placebos is that they don’t work very well if the person isn’t convinced that they work.
For some of us, believing in something for which there is no evidence isn’t something that we can just choose to do because believing will be good for us.
We have to find a more convincing placebo.
I don’t know William, but I think his position could be more subtle than a placebo effect, particularly if he doesn’t care if his belief is true or not.
He is projecting an image — partly of his own making, but largely a cultural meme — which is an idealized deity. Since the idealization is supported by the culture, he can query it for guidance and support without quite so much danger of making it up to fit his personal desires.
I think that’s fairly common.
On each man’s head is his own sin. Its not that atheists are badder but that true Christians or anyone regarding a higher beings demand for justice and love are and nave more reason to be gooder.
To evangelicals the majority are almost Godless and so atheism makes no difference.
Whence is ones moral code?
A superior moral code is made by true CHristianity and so origin of the Anglospere’s superior moral civilization.
The British world was nicer because it was more influenced and had more Evangelical christians. Its that way in North America today.
william: . In that sense, it wouldn’t matter if god and an afterlife was true or not, but rather that believing in it generates certain benefits for one’s health both mentally and physically.
So does going to the gym and it requires fewer assumptions.
Which is another reason William’s Wager is a good bet and pays off in the here and now.
I’ve tried both, I prefer the search, it is more interesting. Of course if Robert is right we both are up shit creek
This discussion reminds me of the famous excerpt from a speech by Steven Weinberg:
“Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.”
That definitely reflects my experience. The religious people I grew up with who were genuinely kind, compassionate, and charitable gave credit to their religion for what was really a reflection of their natural empathy and humanity. Those who were bigoted, intolerant, and cruel could find plenty of scripture to support their base natures.
Liz said:
Or, perhaps it doesn’t require you to actually believe “in” it, but rather just act as if it is true.
You don’t have to believe you’re happy; just act like it – smile – and the study shows that people feel happier. Sometimes acting like something is true doesn’t require believing that it is actually true to get the benefits.
You don’t have to believe a model is true in order to try it out to see if it works. The effect may not have to do with belief at all, like the frown/smile thing, but rather some kind of physiological thing that theistic thoughts and habits generate. That’s how I do it; I try a model component out to see if it seems to work. If it works, I keep it for as long as it works. If not, I ditch it and find another model component to test out.
Socle said:
That particular bet (1) requires I place no other bets, and (2) is a bet I don’t care about winning anyway. Not exactly a good bet for me.
(1). Would you please back up your claim that there is “no” evidence for the existence of a god of some sort?
(2). Why would a lack of evidence for a thing prevent you from believing in it?
You mean there was a worse, less joyful version of you? *shudders*
I believe that this article on doxastic voluntarism — the view that we have voluntary control over at least some of our beliefs — may be helpful for getting better conceptual articulation on some of the issues William has raised here.
I suspect that one would need to accept a libertarian theory of freedom in order to accept doxastic voluntarism, but that’s just a hunch — I haven’t looked into the issue myself.
William, to Lizzie:
Because she’s sensible.
Do we really need to explain to you why it’s sensible to withhold belief in the absence of evidence?
Indeed. But if you really don’t, then it’s not going to work.
But there are plenty of things that you can believe in as an atheist that have the same effect, and have the added bonus of being supported by evidence.
Or of not requiring suspension of disbelief.
For instance, I act on the working assumption that the vast majority of people have a strong desire to be kind and helpful, even if this is often countered by other motivators, such as fear and suspicion.
It may not be true, but I don’t have any good reason to think it isn’t, and quite a lot of think it is.
I also act on the working assumption that people can change their lives and habits of thought quite radically, if they have the right support and encouragement, or even figure out on a new way of thinking about themselves and the world on their own. Again, this is supported by good evidence, and is an empowering assumption to make.
I also have my own quasi-theology, which doesn’t posit a supernatural being, but does posit an ideal “whole person” of which each of us is merely a part – a kind of summation of humanity as though there were no barriers of imperfect knowledge between people, but everyone was party to all thoughts and all feelings, thus with no vested interest in one person’s welfare over another’s, but understanding all, feeling all, and thus infinitely compassionate.
That whole person doesn’t exist, but would if our knowledge of each other were perfect. So we can approach that ideal by attempting to break down those barriers of self-centredness and try to understand things from the PoV of others.
As in Einstein’s famous quote:
Byers, you are an abberation.