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On March 23 2011 10:39 Fasterfood wrote:
"It posits that social groups that have more members are going to be more attractive to join, and it posits that social groups have a social status or utility."
So right off the bat we know this study is wack. Most religious people I know aren't religious for the social status. They admit that the model is bad, but if it were correct it would suggest "where things are going".
Sensationalist reporting wins page hits yet again.
That's sort of an anecdotal piece of evidence though...From what I've learned in practical reasoning you don't have the grounds to qualify the study as "wack" from that alone. It may bear to know many psychological and neurological bonuses to being a part of a group just for the sake of it. In fact I remember watching Hitchens on MSNBC and the host admitted his mother went to church merely for the company instead of the belief system.
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On March 23 2011 10:44 hugedong wrote:Anything with north korea in it is full of shit.
north korea samples are given by the government itself and are mostly full of untrue stuff yes but how else to find out right? not like the researchers could walk in and ask them about it
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Problem with this is that people like me who ascribe to a deist approach get automatically lumped together with non-believers, which is highly inaccurate since I DO think there's a God.
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On March 23 2011 10:44 Ghostcom wrote:Agnostics aren't non-believers. And no, the disapperance of religion isn't exclusively a good thing. There is a reason why it has been a major part of every society all over the world. I don't think religion will ever completely disappear; I've met my fair share of non-believers who when falling terminally ill (I've spent 6 months on an heamatology department - leukemia is a cruel thing) find some consolation in religion. Sure, society would probably be best off with a complete seperation of religion, but I think that part of the increased incidens of depressions and stress can be contributed to the void the lack of religion leaves.
Its just that most people cant cope with the thought of being completely helpless, or that they wont be apart of some magical afterlife.
Personally its something that doesnt really bother me, and I accept it. Once people begin to accept Atheism they will realize how ridiculous things look from the other side.
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People are starting to realize that doctors and medicine heal your ailments, whatever it may be, "god" doesn't.
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On March 23 2011 10:43 Teivospy wrote:
You're also ignorant (and probably 12) if you think religion doesn't do a lot of good to balance out the bad that it does
I'm not 12 and I generally don't consider myself ignorant, but could you name a single good thing that religion has done for humanity that couldn't be (or hasn't already been) accomplished by secular means?
Morality? No.
Happiness? No.
Charity? No.
Knowledge? No.
Technology? No.
Medicine? No.
Honestly, I don't see a function for religion, other than to act as a defense mechanism (a crutch) for those who need its irrationality. And there exist many other (healthier) alternatives than what religion offers.
Feel free to PM me (anyone) if you'd like to delve in to this more though, as I'm sure we don't want to start a flame war! 
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It's no surprise that I find that posts in this thread are highly disrespectful to those who actually do believe in religion. There's no way this thread is gonna bode well considering the history of TL religion discussion threads.
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On March 23 2011 10:38 whiteguycash wrote:How quaint, an Atheist support group. Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 10:38 Consolidate wrote:On March 23 2011 10:32 bumatlarge wrote:
As some one who has been a christian for his entire life, you eventually are going to have to start killing people before you make religion extinct. Whether that is sad to hear or not, it's the truth. You aren't going to be around forever. Religions are just advanced cults. It would be very difficult to eradicated cultist tendencies and behaviors. The best we can do is relegate Christianity to the same category as something like Scientology. Really, with that mindset, why wait at all? I mean, I would assume that you are a naturalist, and doesn't naturalist thinking promote evolutionary standards, up to and including the mind and society? Why wait, when your own school of though encourages eradication of different beliefs?
naturalist thinking doesn't promote evolutionary standards, and to posit such is a very tired attack on secularism.
Just because we evolved through natural selection doesn't mean that we should continue to use "survival of the fittest" as an excuse to murder or otherwise eradicate our weaker cousins. The only people I ever hear use this argument are creationists who attempt to use it as some kind of appeal to emotion or fear as in "This is what we think belief in evolution leads to, so therefore evolution needs to be false."
I'm not going to go so far to say that religion needs to be eradicated (I do believe in freedom of choice so far as you're not harming others), but I am skeptical of how much respect religious dogma is given even in secular circles. I think that if secular people constantly challenged absurd dogmatic claims, the world would be a better place for both sides.
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On March 23 2011 10:46 alurlol wrote:
It's inevitable, common logic would dictate this eventually, with the religious minority growing smaller and smaller each passing year, in the Western world anyway. The day religion is completely gone the better, hopefully sooner rather than later, the people 500 years on from us will look back and wonder why the hell it didn't happen sooner.
I mean, I honestly cannot understand what is going on in the minds of grown adults who blindly shun science in favour of some crazy fictional literature, hell Jack and the Beanstalk is more believable that half the shit that is written in that book, snake-staff? Give me a break. I won't even start going in to all of the fucked up issues religion has caused, there's far to many to talk about here.
Well, you do have to wonder if we'll merely make more religions and they somehow become very popular. Don't forget how popular Greek, Norse, and Egyptian religion was at the time, yet now they are known as mythology.
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On March 23 2011 10:47 Warf wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 10:44 hugedong wrote:On March 23 2011 10:34 Warf wrote:i got the list from this study from highest percentage of non believers in god(s) to lowest + Show Spoiler + Anything with north korea in it is full of shit. north korea samples are given by the government itself and are mostly full of untrue stuff yes but how else to find out right? not like the researchers could walk in and ask them about it
Why cite false data? It looks bad, just as if guiness world records put down kim jong il's hole-in-one record in his first round of golf as a legitimate world record.
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Such depressing numbers :[[
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On March 23 2011 10:49 101toss wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 10:47 Warf wrote:On March 23 2011 10:44 hugedong wrote:On March 23 2011 10:34 Warf wrote:i got the list from this study from highest percentage of non believers in god(s) to lowest + Show Spoiler + Anything with north korea in it is full of shit. north korea samples are given by the government itself and are mostly full of untrue stuff yes but how else to find out right? not like the researchers could walk in and ask them about it Why cite false data? It looks bad, just as if guiness world records put down kim jong il's hole-in-one record in his first round of golf as a legitimate world record.
i dont have anything to do with the list some researchers in dallas made it i just posted it here
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i think it needs to be removed.
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Any "extinction" data about humans inevitably reminds me of Idiocracy.
And I giggled at Dr Weiner, and I am not going to make a wall of text post to hide it.
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On March 23 2011 10:46 alurlol wrote:
It's inevitable, common logic would dictate this eventually, with the religious minority growing smaller and smaller each passing year, in the Western world anyway. The day religion is completely gone the better, hopefully sooner rather than later, the people 500 years on from us will look back and wonder why the hell it didn't happen sooner.
I mean, I honestly cannot understand what is going on in the minds of grown adults who blindly shun science in favour of some crazy fictional literature, hell Jack and the Beanstalk is more believable that half the shit that is written in that book, snake-staff? Give me a break. I won't even start going in to all of the fucked up issues religion has caused, there's far to many to talk about here.
What do you think about the people who follows science blindly, like say - the doctors in the KZ camps? Sure they are few and far between, but so are the nutcases who blindly follows religion...
Science alone isn't the answer - science leaves humanity behind, it's the MIX of morals and science that will make society progress, and religion is more or less just a moral codex.
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Nice thread, I as well am happy in the decrease of religious believers.
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On March 23 2011 10:47 Kimaker wrote:
Problem with this is that people like me who ascribe to a deist approach get automatically lumped together with non-believers, which is highly inaccurate since I DO think there's a God.
Yeah but your god is just the universe so it isn't what most people think of as a God.
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On March 23 2011 10:44 Disciple7 wrote:
I think this trend is exciting, yet worrisome. Without religion, many people are void of morals, it sets guidelines for the less intelligent and caring of us to follow. Some people just can't process the idea that you have to consider other people in your actions as well as yourself, which is why religion is useful, it uses the "If you're good, you go to heaven!!!!!!!" motivation to persuade totally self-centered individuals to do good for others. I'm completely atheist btw, but I am also a functionalist ^^.
Golden Rule > Anything religion has to say.
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Bad science, making a clam ignoring population size, The 2 highest populated country in this planet India and China weights 10 tons more than Vietnam and Japan if they are trying to make the claim of extinction of religion. This is an example of a research that looks for an pre-determined result, miss representing and miss leading with their data in order to feature the result they wanted.
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Hooraaaaaaaaaay.
At least it's on the rise. Anything closer to lessening the effect that Religion has on the world sits well with me.
Thanks for the link
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EPT![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/byAG0.jpg)
