Comment by Apple on July 18, 2011 at 1:55pm

I think it is noble and good to make adjustments to your life's plans for the sake of helping others and protecting the environment.  And yes, you are absolutely correct that it is a major problem to have large numbers of people thinking that the environment doesn't really matter because Jesus is going to be coming back soon anyway, or some such nonsense.  But I think that if we want to make a real impact then we need to be the change we want to see. 

 

Also, not all religions are created equal.  Consider this from the Dalai Lama:

 

"The ultimate resource of happiness is within ourselves.  Most of people say they are not looking in that way.  Just money or some other material facility-that is the ultimate source of happiness.  That is wrong.  Of course we need material value, which is a necessity.  But what is the source of happy life?  So, it is my moral commitment to educate people [about this], it doesn’t matter if they are a religious believer or non-believer.  Then my second commitment is [to promote] religious harmony.  So, now I can spend more time on these two things."

Comment by Dylan Sloboda on July 19, 2011 at 6:48am

I know not all religions are created equal... I find Taoism particularly relevant to subjects ranging from the physical sciences to politics, still any belief in any semblance of an afterlife is destructive. Even with reincarnation, an individual may still feel they have a vested interest in the future, but still these lies encourage people to take life less seriously by allowing them to suppress their fears.

"I think that if we want to make a real impact then we need to be the change we want to see," I here you there. I feel that if we organize great things could be achieved in the long run.

Comment by Jamie Jeffords on July 19, 2011 at 4:43pm

It is misleading for you to present the study you 9did not actually) cite as fact.  It was conducted by University College London.   The study’s confirmation was in doubt because of a major flaw--it was conducted solely on adults.  The flaw presents a chicken or the egg question--does an enlarged fear center promote religious/conservative views, or do religious/conservative view cause an enlarged fear center?

You have to completely ignore conservative atheists like Ayn Rand and brilliant Christian theologians like Thomas Aquinas throughout history to even begin to believe that study.   What are political moderates?  Or agnostics, for that matter?  Structurally deformed in the brain, I suppose.

Out of curiosity, why you jump to the conclusion the liberal brain structure is normal, but the conservative is abnormal rather than just different.  The study merely states the facts.  It does not declare one to be normal over the other.  That is a conclusion you and many other non-believers drew as a self-aggrandizing ego boost.  The false conclusion many nonbelievers drew does not help prove the case you are more complex thinkers rather than fearful of being considered stupid religious types, no?

Comment by Dylan Sloboda on July 19, 2011 at 8:29pm

Within psychology, especially in America there is a significant corruption by religious perspectives. There are whole branches that are divided along these lines. It is no surprise that there is opposition to any study that has any remotely negative connotations on religion. Not exploring causal relationships is not a flaw though. The first stage with any scientific study of statistical data is to identify correlations. You can not jump straight into identifying causal relationships. It would be unscientific and a significant waste of resources. My argument does not draw on a causal relationship though. It was merely that fear is a significant motivator among religious individuals, which the study confirms regardless of your argument.

 

Statistics are patterns over a group that can identify mechanics of a system (if any) that may be at work. Individuals can be influenced by more chaotic factors which is why we use statistics. I'm not very familiar with Ayn Rand, but from what I do know although she was individualistic, it is difficult to describe her views as conservative. Thomas Aquinas was not brilliant. His views seem to indicate an inability to comprehend logical dependencies.

 

I actually never used the term "normal". Also, the enlarged area associated complex reasoning was a conclusion of the study, and this conclusion fully supports and even helps explain many previous studies that have found an inverse relationship between religious views and measures of intelligence.

 

Now this is the most polite way I can come up with to phrase this, but based on the nature of the flaws in you arguments you seem to demonstrate the same lack of comprehension of logical dependencies that I mentioned about Thomas Aquinas and that would seem to only confirm the findings of the studies mentioned. The fact that you are trolling an atheist website and putting together hasty, poorly thought out arguments against a blog that is basically just personal statement on a relatively small paradigm shift, suggests to me that you are deeply motivated by fear and are seeking out people that embrace that fear as truth to try to fight them in hopes of reaffirming your own attempts of self-delusion.

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