US ambassador killed over a film

[kandrathe]

Looks like a pretty phenomenal track record to me. What's the contrary argument? That you don't personally find it satisfying?

Three, actually. 1st, You err classically in linking causation and correlation. Can we make Africa wealthy by extirpating religion? Can we make it warmer by selling more ice cream?

I could grab a chart on poverty or violence and try to link it to atheism, but it's similarly intellectually dishonest.


2nd, I would argue that our prosperity is partially due to our social cohesiveness (more likely due to the circumstances of Empires and exploitation), but our success is mainly due to a common morality and ethic allowing us to move beyond tribalism. Prosperity came first, which then afforded our society the means to educate the masses, and then came enlightenment and the increasingly progressive rejection of religion. It is ironic and clear to anyone who looks into the history of education, that most institutions were initially theologically driven. It isn't shocking that cradled in the bosom of prosperity, humanity would reject a philosophy contrary to the worship of Mammon.

3rd, you are cherry picking your statistics. According to the most recent Pew Research Poll, roughly 5% of the US are atheist, and another 5% would be agnostic. Leaving about +85% that believing in God, or some higher power controlling the universe. Aaron Levenstein said that statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.

Nevertheless, since comfort has absolutely nothing to do with veracity, does it not seem troubling that these comforting beliefs are justified as true on the basis that they are comforting? How many wrong things could you justify believing on that basis?

If we are talking about a person like Corrie Ten Boom finding the courage to oppose Nazi's, and the strength to survive a concentration camp, then I'd say the ends justify the means. I can give you studies if you'd like that show specific measurable benefits. Notre Dame - National Study of Youth and Religion.

But religious education throughout the ages has made factual claims as well as moral ones. Almost all of those are demonstrably wrong.

I disagree. Mostly the antiquarian "factual claims" are mostly unverifiable, but often the places described are found, and much of the history, and anthropology fits. Like I said above, certain things, like the first 11 chapters of Genesis are so old they pre-date a written account. No credible modern theology holds the details of those stories as accurate. And, we can only guess as to what the *real* story might have been, if there even was a *real* story. Other things, like the story of Exodus, seems to fit (Thutmose III), but it would be nice to have greater Egyptian evidence describing the "uprisings" he quelled. The death of Thutmose III seems about right to fit with Passover.

I gather together with my academic tribe all the time to hear credentialed experts.

Religiously? :-)