Sciences vs. Religion

[mortalterror]

These are problems common to all, but there are other problems specific to religion, that have nothing to do with science or pseudo-science. This is highlighted by the ejection of atheists from the LSE Fresher's fair. Many religious people cannot stand satire directed against their religious figureheads, but liberal atheists are happy to accept satire aimed at atheists with good grace; they might argue against the satirical argument, but they will not stoop to physical aggression, like the religious stormtroopers of the LSE.

Are you willing to bet that no religious person has ever been asked to leave an atheist convention? Besides the level of your oppression is laughable when you reach for such low hanging fruit. You would think you were all enslaved and forced to build the pyramids the way you talk.

[YesNo]

We've already been over this before, but in almost every case of "atheist crazies" the "crazy" was generated by political and not atheistic ideologies; which is not the case for the vast majority of "religious crazy" in which the crazy is directly promoted in the tenets from which the religion derives. There's a difference between "religious crazies" (killing in the name of religion) and crazies who happen to be atheists (killing in the name of political ideology). The lesson to be learned that any ideology, be it political or religious, can very easily lead to genocide. What do you think would've happened if those during the time of Crusades had had access to modern weapons of mass destruction and a worldwide population similar to today? Plus, the issue was really the NUMBER of religious VS atheist crazies, not "the number of people killed by" religious VS atheist crazies.

I treat atheism as a hate religion. I would like to not consider atheism as a religion at all, but I see no way around that.

Atheists embrace a variety of dogmatic beliefs. Like typical religious fundamentalists, they are quick to reject scientific evidence when that evidence conflicts with their belief system. One can take the atheistic subgroup that believes in the mythology of "many worlds" as an example of this behavior. Atheism also has adherents who engage in self-righteous missionary activity. Dawkins and Hitchens would be examples of such missionaries. They make targeted enemies out of those who refuse to convert to their worldviews. The study I cited earlier showed that most of the violence in the last century can be traced to atheists.

When atheists blame religious groups for political violence while excusing themselves for the same kind of violence, no matter how they formulate this hypocrisy, they demonstrate that their religious thinking is also inherently irrational.

[mortalterror]

How so? Keep in mind that writing books, articles, etc., engaging in public debates, giving public lectures, appearing on talk shows, etc. is not "imposing beliefs on others," and this is all I've ever seen Dawkins do. That's hardly on the level of The Crusades, or any of the other thousands of examples of religious people violently forcing their beliefs onto others. It's not even the type of force that the religious exert when they attempt to outlaw homosexual marriage, for which there is no secular argument against.

I'm pro gay marriage but there are secular arguments against it. It took about five seconds of a google search to find this site: http://secularright.org/SR/wordpress...-gay-marriage/ I'm not saying he's right. I believe he is wrong. But there are secular people against gay marriage.

And you have statistics to prove this? I'm fairly sure if we starting trotting out examples the religious crazies would be the atheist crazies by a landslide. There are no doubting there are crazies on both sides, but one side generates the crazy inherently in its core beliefs.

Actually yes, I believe I could prove it. On a per capita basis Atheists and non believers are just as nutty as religious people. You see more religious nuts because they are the majority of the population. I don't want to derail the discussion here but I'll repost a comment I made on another forum that addresses this issue.

There is a secular atheist version of every religious delusion or error.

Rapture, apocalypse, Ragnarok:doomsday preppers, Y2k, Timewave Zero, Mayan Calendar, singularity, mass extinction events
Healing through Prayer: anti-vaccination
anti-evolution: anti-GMO movement, anti-nuclear movement, climate change deniers, AIDS deniers
Genesis story of creation: ancient astronauts
strange beings: angels and demons, cryptozoology, bigfoot, Loch Ness monster, Chupacabra, Mothman
Pseudoscience:

Examples of pseudoscience concepts, proposed as scientific when they are not scientific, include: acupuncture, alchemy, ancient astronauts, applied kinesiology, astrology, Ayurvedic medicine, biorhythms, cellular memory, cold fusion,[38] craniometry, creation science, Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard's engram theory, enneagrams, eugenics, extrasensory perception (ESP), facilitated communication, graphology, homeopathy, intelligent design, iridology, kundalini, Lysenkoism, metoposcopy, N‑rays, naturopathy, orgone energy, Oyagaku, paranormal plant perception, phrenology, physiognomy, qi, New Age psychotherapies (e.g., rebirthing therapy), reflexology, remote viewing, neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), reiki, Rolfing, therapeutic touch, and the revised history of the solar system proposed by Immanuel Velikovsky.

Robert T. Carroll stated in part: "Pseudoscientists claim to base their theories on empirical evidence, and they may even use some scientific methods, though often their understanding of a controlled experiment is inadequate. Many pseudoscientists relish being able to point out the consistency of their ideas with known facts or with predicted consequences, but they do not recognize that such consistency is not proof of anything. It is a necessary condition but not a sufficient condition that a good scientific theory be consistent with the facts."[39]

In 2006, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) issued an executive summary of a paper on science and engineering which briefly discussed the prevalence of pseudoscience in modern times. It said, "belief in pseudoscience is widespread" and, referencing a Gallup Poll,[40] stated that belief in the 10 commonly believed examples of paranormal phenomena listed in the poll were "pseudoscientific beliefs".[41] The items were: "extrasensory perception (ESP), that houses can be haunted, ghosts, telepathy, clairvoyance, astrology, that people can communicate mentally with someone who has died, witches, reincarnation, and channelling".[41] Such beliefs in pseudoscience reflect a lack of knowledge of how science works. The scientific community may aim to communicate information about science out of concern for the public's susceptibility to unproven claims.[41]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscience

Racism in the bible used as a justification for slavery: racism in science (anthropology, craniometry, phrenology, anthropometry, ethnology, polygenism, eugenics) used to justify racism, slavery, the Holocaust, imperialism, apartheid,

In the United States, scientific racism justified Black African slavery to assuage moral opposition to the Atlantic slave trade. Alexander Thomas and Samuell Sillen described black men as uniquely fitted for bondage, because of their "primitive psychological organization".[57] In 1851, in antebellum Louisiana, the physician Samuel A. Cartwright (1793–1863), considered slave escape attempts as "drapetomania", a treatable mental illness, that "with proper medical advice, strictly followed, this troublesome practice that many Negroes have of running away can be almost entirely prevented". The term drapetomania (mania of the runaway slave) derives from the Greek δραπετης (drapetes, "a runaway [slave]") + μανια (mania, "madness, frenzy")[58] Cartwright also described dysaesthesia aethiopica, called "rascality" by overseers. The 1840 United States Census claimed that Northern, free blacks suffered mental illness at higher rates than did their Southern, enslaved counterparts. Though the census was later found to have been severely flawed by the American Statistical Association, John Quincy Adams, and others, it became a political weapon against abolitionists. Southern slavers concluded that escaping Negroes were suffering from "mental disorders".[59][60]

At the time of the American Civil War (1861–65), the matter of miscegenation prompted studies of ostensible physiological differences between Caucasians and Negroes. Early anthropologists, such as Josiah Clark Nott, George Robins Gliddon, Robert Knox, and Samuel George Morton, aimed to scientifically prove that Negroes were a human species different from the white people species; that the rulers of Ancient Egypt were not African; and that mixed-race offspring (the product of miscegenation) tended to physical weakness and infertility. After the Civil War, Southern (Confederacy) physicians wrote textbooks of scientific racism based upon studies claiming that Black freemen (ex-slaves) were becoming extinct, because they were inadequate to the demands of being a free man — implying that Black people benefitted from enslavement. In 1850 Louis Agassiz commissioned a series of daguerreotypes of slaves of Columbia South Carolina for studying of races

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism

Secularism used to justify social innequality:

The term social Darwinism is often used to describe the use of concepts of struggle for existence and survival of the fittest to justify social policies which make no distinction between those able to support themselves and those unable to support themselves. Many such views stress competition between individuals in laissez-faire capitalism; but similar concepts have motivated ideas of eugenics, racism, imperialism,[4] fascism, Nazism and struggle between national or racial groups

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism

Then you said you wanted statistics about how crazy the different groups are. I have these studies that shows that raising your kids with religion makes them mentally healthier:

A study of 2604 US children ages six to nineteen found positive correlations between physical and psychological health and religious affiliation and/or church attendance.[18] This included 272 children whose parents (children 6–9) or the children themselves (12–19) expressed no religious affiliation. However, of this group, 22% state that religion is important and 35% attend church. The study found children ages six to nineteen who attend religious services are at lower risk of suicide or suicide attempts, as well as alcohol and drug use and dangerous sexual behavior. Some religions prohibit blood transfusions, vaccinations, contraception, and abortions, which may lead to adverse health consequences. Membership in religious groups can moderate unhealthy behavior, provide social support, and enhance marital or financial prospects, and strengthen family bonds if the religion is shared by the whole family. Religions can also help both adults and children with self-esteem, as well as provide meaning to life and reduce anxiety, but can increase guilt over perceived misdeeds.[18]

85 percent of religiously affiliated children are healthy overall, as opposed to 79 percent of non-affiliated children. 79 percent of religious children are deemed psychologically healthy compared to 73 percent of non religious children. 85 percent of children who attend church at least weekly are healthy and 83 percent of those who seldom or never attend are healthy. For psychological health the numbers are 82 and 74 percent respectively.[18]

62 percent of children say religion is important to them, 26 percent say it's somewhat important, and 13 percent say it's not important. 81 percent of those who view religion as important were found to be healthy and 65 percent of the not important group were healthy. There was no difference found among the various religious denominations in regard to health. The positive correlation between religion and health was strongest for 12-15 year olds. Overall religious belief and participation have the same positive health effect as being breastfed or having a mother who went to school 2.2 years longer than one who didn't. It has half the health benefit of living with both parents. Why religious belief and participation had these positive correlations was however unknown. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_and_children

More Americans than ever are turning away from religion. A recent report by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that 1 in 5 adults has no religious affiliation -- under the age of 30, the numbers increase to a third -- compared to the year 1950, when the percentage of adults who identified as having no religion was just two percent. And the biggest increase among the non-religious is what researchers call the "nones," the people who are largely indifferent. They're not atheists or disenchanted former believers; they just don't care.

This indifference is being passed on to children, but at what cost? That all depends. While a study out of the University of British Columbia found that spirituality is more important than religion in making kids happy, religion certainly has been shown to come with certain benefits. Participation in a religious community may help kids develop a strong moral core; specifically, it has been shown to reduce the incidence of teen drug use and pregnancy, while increasing feelings of self-esteem and overall hopefulness.

A Mississippi State University study found that younger boys whose parents practice religion are better behaved and adjusted than those raised in homes without religion. These boys also display better self-control, social skills, and ability to work with others.

In addition, religion seems to be somewhat comforting to kids in particular, and indeed it can provide a certain stability that children welcome in a world that's full of changes. When talking to Sam later that night, Nora was able to remember that as a child she had enjoyed going to church for one main reason: It never seemed to change. For a generation of children that's required to be more adaptive than ever before, simple acts like reciting prayers and getting dressed each week for service can help impart a feeling of safety and groundedness. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peggy-...b_2605554.html

Then there are the positive effects of prayer on adults mental faculties:

Praying 'aids mental health'

People who pray frequently are less likely to suffer from depression and anxiety, according to a study.

Much research has recently focused on the relationship between mental health and religion - with conflicting results.

A study by psychologists from Sheffield Hallam University looks into what aspects of religious observance are particularly likely to influence mental well-being.

They found that personal prayer was much more likely to have a positive effect than going to church for social reasons.

They studied 251 men and 223 women aged between 18 and 29, and measured their reasons for having a religious belief, the frequency with which they attended church and their tendency to depression.

Women were more likely to be religious than men, but for both the frequency with which they prayed was strongly associated with fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety.

And although people who saw religion as being present in every aspect of their lives were less likely to be mentally ill than others, only those who also prayed frequently had noticeably higher self-esteem.

Those who attended church for social reasons were likely to be more depressed and the mental health of those who were religious, but constantly questioned their beliefs was unaffected by their beliefs and practices.

Stress

The researchers, led by Dr John Maltby, say their findings suggest that the relationship between mental health and religion is linked to the way people use prayer to deal with stress.

Writing in the British Journal of Health Psychologiy, they said: "This finding would apper to support the view that a religious coping model is integral to the understanding of the relationship between religiosity and psychological well-being."

A spokeswoman for the Mental Health Foundation, which recently published a book on religion and mental health, said it had also found that those with a personal spirituality and life philosophy were more likely to be able to cope with stress.

"People who are religious on a personal level rather than adopting an organised religion, who perceive reasons for things and their role within a wider universe, appear less likely to suffer mental ill health," she said.

"They seem to be calmer and have a sense of order and a personal perspective which makes them feel more in control instead of passing responsibility to someone or something else."

The foundation runs a strategies for living programme which looks at what people find helpful in coping with everyday stresses.

It suggests health professionals should take a holistic approach to mental health, rather than just dealing with a person's symptoms.

The spokeswoman said it appeared spirituality in its widest sense had a positive effect on mental health.

"It may be as simple as having personal time and space and prayer may give people that," she said.

"Not having enough time to focus on yourself can contribute to mental distress."

However, the National Secular Society dismissed the idea that prayer helps mental health as "absolute rubbish".

It said research also showed bingo helped mental health.

"It is nothing to do with prayer," said a spokesman. "It is to do with community and togetherness."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/516350.stm

As for Atheists misrepresenting science for their own ends I think that John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White, the nineteenth century originators and popularizers of the religion/science conflict thesis, which is propaganda and no good modern historian believes, also originated the popular myth that people thought that the earth was flat until modern times. They created and popularized a number of myths about science in order to discredit religion.

[Eman Resu]

There is a secular atheist version of every religious delusion or error.

Rapture

mortalterror - this all seems wholly plausible with the exception of the above. The Rapture absolutely cannot be denied by any rational person. Long ago, while at Trinity, the bowler on the Dublin University Cricket Club simply refused to wear an athletic supporter and was hit straight-on by a batsman and fell victim to it before a sizable crowd of spectators.

[Eman Resu]

Oh wait... never mind, then. That was The Rupture. Carry on.

[The Atheist]

My Flying Spaghetti Monster could beat up your LolCat with all noodles tied behind his eyes... unless your LolCat is Garfield, and then my Spaghetti deity is in serious trouble.

<<<<<<<<<< I have the One True FSM!

Oh wait... never mind, then. That was The Rupture. Carry on.

Brilliant!

[YesNo]

As for Atheists misrepresenting science for their own ends I think that John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White, the nineteenth century originators and popularizers of the religion/science conflict thesis, which is propaganda and no good modern historian believes, also originated the popular myth that people thought that the earth was flat until modern times. They created and popularized a number of myths about science in order to discredit religion.

I didn't realize that the topic of this thread goes back only to the mid 19th century, but your description of Draper and White's "conflict thesis" seems correct. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_thesis

[mal4mac]

Are you willing to bet that no religious person has ever been asked to leave an atheist convention?

So you can't find an example then?

There's another example at Reading University Fresher's Fair, last year, where the atheist students labelled a Pineapple Mohammed. After "a struggle" they renamed it Jesus. Then they got kicked out of the fair. OK this wasn't great satire, but why didn't the religious types fight back with better satire, rather than physical eviction? Religious zealots just can't stand their opposition having freedom of speech, and they certainly don't have a sense of humour.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012...n_1939317.html

[mortalterror]

So you can't find an example then?

There's another example at Reading University Fresher's Fair, lasy year, where the atheist students labelled a Pineapple Mohammed. After "a struggle" they renamed it Jesus. Then they got kicked out of the fair. OK this wasn't great satire, but why didn't the religious types fight back with better satire, rather than physical eviction? Religious zealots just can't stand their opposition having freedom of speech, and they certainly don't have a sense of humour.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012...n_1939317.html

These ejections could have less to do with atheism and more to do with the atheist acting like a jerk and disrupting the event. I really don't have a problem with hecklers being thrown out of comedy shows, rowdy drunks being bounced from bars, or people yelling at the screen in a movie theater being asked to leave. As for why I can't find a lot of articles about religious people being thrown out of atheist conventions, there could be a couple of good reasons for that. Maybe, religious people don't write an article about how they felt persecuted every time something happens to them? Seriously, atheists are the biggest bunch of crybabies ever, dedicated to claiming victim status, and are an extremely vocal minority. Maybe, it's just not news when it happens to a religious person, like reverse racism doesn't create headlines when it happens to white people? Maybe, since atheists only account for 2% of the population and religious people are 88% there are just 44 times as many opportunities for atheists to disrupt religious proceedings and get thrown out? Maybe, religious people are just better behaved at conventions and don't get thrown out?

[mal4mac]

I'm pro gay marriage but there are secular arguments against it. It took about five seconds of a google search to find this site: http://secularright.org/SR/wordpress...-gay-marriage/ I'm not saying he's right. I believe he is wrong. But there are secular people against gay marriage.

This a bad argument by a lone secularist. Is there an international secular organisation against gay marriage? One as large, in atheist circles, as the Roman Catholic church is in Christian circles?

[MorpheusSandman]

I treat atheism as a hate religion. I would like to not consider atheism as a religion at all, but I see no way around that.

The "way around that" is to get a clue and realize atheism is not a religion at all and doesn't hate anything in isolation. What you're talking about is anti-theism, which is, of course, totally populated by atheists; yet even the term "anti-theism," as I've said before, is more properly termed "anti-fundamentalism," as the things the supposed "anti-theists" rail about are the most extreme, fundamental religious beliefs and acts, which DESERVE to be railed against and hated (unless you think it's OK to believe that suicide for your religion will lead you to paradise).

Take a trip to any of the secular, atheistic societies I linked to in those studies and see how "hateful" these people are without the oppressive force of religion trying to dictate social, moral, and political policy everywhere they look. What you're suggesting is not unlike how privileged white males try to label feminists and minorities as "hateful" when the latter rail against inherently sexist and racist social policies. It's a trick, and illusion, to keep the social structures in place that empower the former groups. Religion does the exact same thing, and when atheism rails against, it gets labeled as "hateful."

Atheists embrace a variety of dogmatic beliefs. Like typical religious fundamentalists, they are quick to reject scientific evidence when that evidence conflicts with their belief system. One can take the atheistic subgroup that believes in the mythology of "many worlds" as an example of this behavior.

I am NOT going to start another Many Worlds discussion with you. You have displayed ad infinitum that you don't even understand what Many Worlds is despite having four different people attempt to explain it to. You never even responded to my list of evidence in the last thread:

MW:

1. MW’s first basic claim is that QM works all the way down, which would mean everything is in a state of superposition. So far, this has been confirmed by every test done on molecules with 2424 particles. There is no evidence for a “collapse” that separates the quantum and classic worlds.

2. MW’s second basic claim is that the wavefunction is real, which would mean that we should be able to use it to make the exact kind of predictions we’re able to make.

3. MW is compatible with everything we know about classic physics, the same classic physics that have been consistently accurate in modeling large objects in spacetime. The only exception is gravity; however, in being deterministic, local, and real, MW is at least capable of being reconciled with gravity as we learn more.

4. MW being compatible with classic physics would follow the pattern of a more comprehensive theory subsuming an approximate theory, the same way GR did with Newtonian Physics and modern evolution did with Darwinian evolution.

Compare with CI:

1. CI claims that there is a collapse and that this collapse separates the indeterministic world of QM with the deterministic world of GR. So far, this collapse/split has NOT been found in any tests that have been done, and it is certainly not required in any of the mathematical formulas.

2. CI treats the wavefunction as non-real, and if it’s non-real then we shouldn’t be able to make the predictions that we do.

3. CI is incompatible with everything we know about classic physics.

4. CI being incompatible with classic physics would be the first time in the history of science that a new theory completely contradicted a previous, merely approximate theory. What’s more, it would be the first time that we found that things work differently at different levels, despite the fact that classical physics works exactly like we’d expect if it was QM all the way down.

The ONLY advantage CI has is that it can derive the Born rule, but it does this by assuming things that is has absolutely no reason/evidence for assuming. It’s not all that different than assuming the existence of God to explain lightning before we knew about meteorology and electricity. Sure, it explains lightning, but there’s no reason for assuming its true. What’s more, there’s no reason to assume that MW can’t derive the Born rule as technology, especially quantum computing, advances.

Instead of addressing these issues, you chose to make the MW/CI issue about the nature of choice, and your Wishful Thinking that choice must exist because you want it to, and that choice can only exist in an indeterministic universe. Until you deal with the evidence above, you're the one believing in "collapse" mythologies in spite of the evidence.

In your last post you even stated the absurdity that: "The world is not divided between the indeterministic quantum world and the deterministic world after some sort of collapse. The whole world allows for indeterminism..." which shows that not only do you not understand MW, you don't understand CI. CI very much DOES divide the world between the indeterministic quantum world and the deterministic macro world; that's PRECISELY what the collapse DOES! It says that an indeterministic wavefunction collapses to a particle that then functions "like a well-behaved billiard ball" as one poet put it. After the collapse, particles DO function according to the determinism of Einstein's GR. It's stunning to me that you didn't know this (although I'm not sure why, at this point, I'm stunned by what you don't know about QM).

Atheism also has adherents who engage in self-righteous missionary activity. Dawkins and Hitchens would be examples of such missionaries. They make targeted enemies out of those who refuse to convert to their worldviews. The study I cited earlier showed that most of the violence in the last century can be traced to atheists.

I love how you equate publishing books/articles, engaging in public debate/lectures, etc. as the equivalent of being a "missionary." In the 19th century, what they're doing would've got them labeled "public intellectuals," (which they are). I think you should learn the difference.

The study you cited linked atheists with violence, but it did not link violence with atheism rather than political ideology. Again, I've explained the difference between that and violence directly condoned by religious tenets and, again, you've ignored the argument. What's more, you ignored the articles I linked that not only connected religious societies with more violence, but showed how the most secular/atheistic societies were the most peaceful. In fact, if you look at the atheist societies that produced that violence in comparison with the peaceful atheist societies mentioned in my studies, you might find that the difference is political ideology, and a will to enforce that ideology on everyone within reach.

I know it's convenient for you to ignore arguments that make your points look bad, but you're not doing yourself any favors.

[mal4mac]

These ejections could have less to do with atheism and more to do with the atheist acting like a jerk and disrupting the event.

Read the reports! They were sat quietly at their tables, wearing their t shirts, or displaying their pineapple.

I really don't have a problem with hecklers being thrown out of comedy shows, rowdy drunks being bounced from bars, or people yelling at the screen in a movie theater being asked to leave.

I agree with you in these matters, in their most extreme versions (a good comedy show needs *some* heckling!). But how can you equate behaviour like this with people sitting quietly wearing a t shirt?

As for why I can't find a lot of articles about religious people being thrown out of atheist conventions, there could be a couple of good reasons for that. Maybe, religious people don't write an article about how they felt persecuted every time something happens to them?

Grasping at straws! Can you find any articles at all? Keep on ploughing Google...

Seriously, atheists are the biggest bunch of crybabies ever, dedicated to claiming victim status, and are an extremely vocal minority.

Did you see the picture of the LSE guys? They looked like cool dudes to me, hardly cry babies, and this was right after they were attacked by a bunch of religious zealots and the security guard "just-doing-my-jobs". Are you saying they weren't victims of bigotry? Are you saying it's alright to kick people out of a Fresher's Fair for wearing a t shirt?

Maybe, since atheists only account for 2% of the population and religious people are 88% there are just 44 times as many opportunities for atheists to disrupt religious proceedings and get thrown out? Maybe, religious people are just better behaved at conventions and don't get thrown out?

Where do you get those figures from? They certainly don't apply to the UK. A Fresher's Fair is not a "religious proceeding". The atheist students were not being disruptive, unless you think wearing a t shirt is disruptive!

[Eman Resu]

Where do you get those figures from?

The World Factbook reports the percentage of people who identify as "Atheist" at 2.01%.

[MorpheusSandman]

I'm pro gay marriage but there are secular arguments against it. It took about five seconds of a google search to find this site: http://secularright.org/SR/wordpress...-gay-marriage/ I'm not saying he's right. I believe he is wrong. But there are secular people against gay marriage.

Those "secular reasons" are identical to the ones religious conservatives constantly make because they can't come right out and say "my religion prevents me from considering gay marriage moral!" Such arguments are rationalizations dressed up as secular arguments in an attempt to disguise the illogical religious fundamentalism underlying it all, and they're terrible, awful, half-nonsense, half-ignorance, completely irrational arguments to begin with. Do some secularists believe them? Probably, but I'm very skeptical that they came up with them on their own as opposed to just parroting them from the religious conservatives. (I especially laughed at the "Anti-Minoritarianism" argument, given that recent polls show that the majority are actually in favor of gay marriage!)

Actually yes, I believe I could prove it.

Actually no, I believe you didn't. I would never, ever deny that pseudo-science exists and thrives with or without religion. To me, that's just indicative of the bias of the human brain towards mysticism, in general, of which religion is merely one aspect.* Nor would I deny that racism exists independent of religion (although religion can easily be used to reinforce racist and anti-feminist beliefs). Really, I just see religion as the most common result of the human bias for mystical thinking (of creating arbitrary systems of causality). Rejecting religion does not mean eliminating that bias completely, but it is one step on the path to rejecting all mystical thinking and the cognitive biases that produce them.

*That said, I would NOT include the singularity in your list of secular delusions/errors. The singularity is a hypothetical possibility regarding the end result of technological advancement. The things we do now with technology would've appeared no different than magic to people even 100 years ago; and seeing as such advancement is not steadily progressive but accelerative, some version of the singularity seems like a logical outcome. The debate on the issue is whether or not we'll run into some kind of "wall" before AI can reach above-human-level intelligence, but we haven't hit that wall yet.

Then you said you wanted statistics about how crazy the different groups are. I have these studies that shows that raising your kids with religion makes them mentally healthier: ...Then there are the positive effects of prayer on adults mental faculties:

Firstly, I don't really see how those studies are relevant to the discussion when I already provided studies that linked heavily religious societies to more violence and less health/happiness and equally linked heavily secular/atheist societies to less violence and more health/happiness. Secondly, the "heath effects of religion on children" section of Wikipedia has this banner on it: "An editor has expressed a concern that this article lends undue weight to certain ideas, incidents, controversies or matters relative to the article subject as a whole. Please help to create a more balanced presentation. Discuss and resolve this issue before removing this message. (September 2012)" I notice there are no other studies posted. Thirdly, I wouldn't doubt the positive mental benefits of prayer for the same reason I wouldn't doubt the positive mental effects of meditation, but I'm not sure what that has to do with "religion," since even secularists can mediate or "pray" in some sense. Finally, such health benefits, even if true, do not necessarily correlate either into adulthood or on a larger social level, as my studies suggested.

As for Atheists misrepresenting science for their own ends I think that John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White, the nineteenth century originators and popularizers of the religion/science conflict thesis, which is propaganda and no good modern historian believes, also originated the popular myth that people thought that the earth was flat until modern times. They created and popularized a number of myths about science in order to discredit religion.

This just sounds like conspiracy theory nonsense. I don't know how anyone can claim that science doesn't frequently contradict claims that were once in the authoritative domain of religion, be it cosmology, nature, history, etc.

[MorpheusSandman]

The World Factbook reports the percentage of people who identify as "Atheist" at 2.01%.

By the same study the "non-religious" are at almost 10%, and I wonder if the difference isn't purely semantics caused by a host of negative connotations that have gotten attached to the label "atheism" over the years by religious groups. When I first rejected religion I identified as "agnostic" because I'd grown up hearing horror stories about evil atheists, and it took many years before I was comfortable with the label, even though my beliefs as an agnostic and atheist were identical.