Science Proves It: Chrisitanity is a Social Cancer

I'm afraid i'm in agreement. I find staunch anti-Christians as fundamentally stupid and with as intellectually unsound arguments as the Christians themselves.

I mean Dawkin's is a pompous idiot (i've studied under him). Granted, he is convincing but the anti-Christian sentiment can be as fundamentally flawed as the Pro-christian movement.

That being said, the hubris of Christians everywhere pisses me off.

Plus remember: The times sucks, buy the Guardian if you want better opinions and less bullshit.

Derek
 
Moon of Amber said:
dawkins may be pompous but he surely isn't an idiot, not that he was mentioned anywhere in that article...
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I know, I just thought he illustrated what i was saying well. And your correct, he's far from an idiot. Infact he is a pretty convincing speaker, i just don't entirely agree with his views nor how forceful he can be with them.
 
hmmm, i fail to see much science here. for one, there is no control, which is necessary for all science, even social sciences. a control mechanism would be useful in eliminating exogenous factors. therefore, adding other poor religious and non-religious countries and sampling them over time would alleviate problems inherent in the study. other factors, such as immigration, can easily explain the difference in violent crime rates between western europe and the US. having only one religious country by which one measures makes for poor statistics. it also considers western europe as a unitary, homogenous actor, which is an assumption that undermines its arguement. for example, certainly there are differences in religiousity between sweden and france. do they have different rates of violent crime? none of these statistics are static. surely a scientific study would account for sampling errors by measuring over time. the violent crime rate in the US has dropped significantly over the last 20 years. according to this study, one would expect a similar drop in religiosity. has this happened? the study doesn't even bother to find out. of course the major flaw in this is that it fails to adequately define its terms. just because most americans believe in god does not necessarily make them christians. additionally, it makes a rather poor case for quality of life. claiming that societies are "worse off" inherently implies that their quality of life is lower. however, the quality of life in the US as measured by the economist is much higher than many of the nations listed in the survey. and surely ireland, which was listed in january as having the highest quality of life of all countries on earth, is far more christian than japan, which i don't recall as even being in the top ten. so as far as i can tell, it really doesn't take much critical thinking skills to be published in the Journal of Religion and Society.
 
Well...I think its more than apparent to many rational thinking folks, that its possible to statistically link anything. I seem to recall a satirical example linking meditational floating with being from Liverpool.

I think your right in being critical of the methods employed. The article itself is a prime example of anti-christian fundamentalism gone mad. I feel strongly about the negative influences of christianity on society, but I don't think this paper has served to do anything except to show the one-sided nature of scientific exploration into christianity and its negative effects.

P.S - I unconsciouslly used capital "C"'s when spelling christianity...those wicked bastards have their claws into everything:D
 
The article has some serious flaws.
1) no controls as has been said. A scientific experiment or investigation done without controls is pointless, it prooves little ans certainly cannot be used to explain anything with an acceptable degree of certainty.

2) it seems to have been done based on a pre-set belief that religion = bad. As said previously it is anti-christian fundamentalism gone mad. It looks suspiciously like the author wanted to find a link and as such steered the investigation that way.
Good science sets out to look at something and investigate "what is going on". Doing an experiment when you've already made tou mind you are going to proove something is bad sicence and seriously biased.

I don't need science to show me aspects of christianity that are veey bad for the world, i can see that on TV, the radio, newspapers, in the street etc.
 
All religion has been misused over time and has therefore caused some evils. However, ultimately it also serves as unwritten law to prevent other evils. Christianity itself does not condone murder, abortion, sexual promiscuity, etc. Therefore, I think an increased rate of such activities could not be blamed on it. While America may be more Christian than other nations, I sincerely doubt that has anything to do with syphilis or abortion.
 
Yeah but christianity condones the supression of what could be generally called human desires and natures. And it makes rational sense to at least consider the possibility of such supression eventually just "popping" and the result being murder, child molestation. I realise this is a pretty un-scientific methodology, but if you consider it...it seems at least possible.

Furthermore...what christianity condones and what it doesnt is incredibly vague and hinged entirely on the various interpretations put forward. And even at that, Christianity has been known to condone many things in the name of God - murder and war being some of them.

Christianity IS a social cancer, i think any free thinking person can see that.
 
NeverIsForever said:
I confess I really like what Dawkins has to say, though I frequently disagree with the manner in which he chooses to say it...
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Well, of course, he is a pretty convincing guy. But his methods can be just as false as fundamentalist Christians. That being said, he is a nice fellow and knows what the hell he is talking about. But, personally, he goes too far. I have problems with religious beliefs, not spirituality and he dismisses most things that cannot be made tangible by science.
 
etotheipiequalsminus1 said:
Like Renaissance Europe? Yes, very 'degenerate' :p
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Yes, christianity has become part of a degenerate culture, for these are people that cannot derive anything but a materialistic/ostensible view of the religion. Renaissance era Europe was marked by the individuals who contributed to it's greatness, not the religion. These individuals were able to derive from the religion something that was universal, a persona of "truth" (that glorious abstract term). This tradition of derivation carried on to Schopenhaur, Eckhart, and Emerson. The christianity of today is very different from that of the Renaissance period.
 
Moon of Amber said:
dawkins may be pompous but he surely isn't an idiot, not that he was mentioned anywhere in that article...
Click to expand...
he is a rationalist and a humanist, you are not supposed to think he is smart
 
Final_Product said:
Yeah but christianity condones the supression of what could be generally called human desires and natures. And it makes rational sense to at least consider the possibility of such supression eventually just "popping" and the result being murder, child molestation. I realise this is a pretty un-scientific methodology, but if you consider it...it seems at least possible.

Furthermore...what christianity condones and what it doesnt is incredibly vague and hinged entirely on the various interpretations put forward. And even at that, Christianity has been known to condone many things in the name of God - murder and war being some of them.

Christianity IS a social cancer, i think any free thinking person can see that.
Click to expand...

Jesus never condoned murder or war in any way ever. Some could interpret some of the bible as condoning it in some cases. However, in most of these cases, the interpreters only use it as an excuse to kill in the name of God.

As for people "popping" over the stresses religion puts on the individual I can actually agree with what you're saying. I think that christians should interpret their religion with some discretion. Nobody can truely be expected to follow every trivial law presented in the Bible.

I believe in God and in most of the teachings of Jesus. However, lately I have reconsidered my faith. I don't truely consider myself a Christian although I do follow many Christian teachings. As far as I'm concerned, any religious person, no matter what faith they belong to should just try to be a good person and follow any laws that protect the community and the individual. Likewise, they should ignore any law that harms the community or themselves. Any trivial laws that don't affect anyone negatively can be disregarded or followed based on what the person believes. I believe that believing in a single deity or group of deities and worshipping them is not nearly as important as simply trying to be a good person. Religion pushes people to steer clear of negative actions, so even though alot of people do this without religion, it protects alot of others from harming their community.

However, I don't think Christianity is necessarily an overly strict religion. It can be as relaxed or as strict as its followers choose to make it. Christianity itself does not condone any outright immoral actions that I can think of. It is all a matter of its teachers. I think christians should try to be more independent and listen to what Jesus said, not what others say he said.
 
Christianity isn't a very strict religion, neither is Judaism or Islam, or any other religion. Anyone can follow them to whatever level they wish to.

What is strict is the churches such as the RC church, that often make it seem like teachings are orders from God.
 
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