Quote from: HHC on May 30, 2014, 01:06 AM

Quote from: Mablak on May 23, 2014, 06:41 AM"The West achieved dominance in the world when atheism didn't even exist yet" Really? Atheism has always existed.

Not really. Perhaps one or two individuals prior to the 17th century can be considered real atheists, the rest all worshipped a diety or recognized the existence of some form of higher principle.

There were very few open atheists, because atheists used to be persecuted and killed. Surely you don't literally mean 'one or two' atheists, here's a handful of atheists from ancient Greece, and these are just the prominent ones: http://atheism.about.com/od/atheismhistory/a/AncientGreeceSkepticism.htm. Also, I don't know why you're lumping in 'worshiping a deity' with 'recognizing a higher principle'. Most atheists I know have principles, and good ones at that.

Quote from: HHC on May 30, 2014, 01:06 AM
Faith can bring people together. It's a unifying factor. Sure, you still got the flag, and the anthem, and Stephen Colbert... but you no longer share a common spiritual life, a common 'idea' of the world. The christian worldview is far more than just a set of silly rules & beliefs, it erects an entire universe that is both of this world and outside of this world. The word 'church' not only refers to a concrete place of worship, but also to a metaphysical gathering of believers. Through the ceremonies people worldwide come together under Christ.

You need to dispel this notion of Christians having particularly 'common' beliefs; there are literally tens of thousands of different denominations of Christianity, and there's no way to resolve their differences in belief because they're based on different--often times equally plausible--interpretations of the Bible. Regardless, movements such as humanism do involve uniting under common ideas, and focus on morality without relying on any supernatural beings. Secular moral systems are in fact amenable to argument, and because of this, tend to converge on common moral ideas, whereas religious moral systems are not, and tend to diverge.

Quote from: HHC on May 30, 2014, 01:06 AM
People may still behave in an atheist society, but the sense of union will be much weaker and people will mostly go about their things whichever way they see fit.   ..   That or search their mystical union & salvation in secular religions like national-socialism, communism or any other utopian movement that ultimately ends up in massmurder.

Not sure what you're arguing here, atheists have weaker bonds between family and friends? Why would you think that? And I would point out that humanism is the biggest secular movement, and isn't showing any signs of inching towards mass murder.

Quote from: HHC on May 30, 2014, 01:06 AM
You know exactly what is true and what isn't?
Pretty damn sure at least 20% of your scientific views will be proven wrong in the future.
I don't see why believing in God is harmful per se. Even if it turns out to be a false belief.
Do you have proof that people who are christian suffer more than those who aren't?
I can only speak for myself... but ae, I'm envious of people who believe in God, cause my complete and utter nihilistic views on life & afterlife are anything but a blessing.

I figured you were a Christian, you're not? That 20% (if this were accurate) is why rational belief is tentative belief, I simply believe what makes the most sense for the time being, and if I'm wrong, I revise those beliefs. Religious belief, on the other hand, admits no possibility of revising your beliefs if they happen to be wrong, and is dogmatic. If a god turns out to be a false belief, that would imply many of the average believer's actions were either harmful, or not as helpful as they could have been. If you believe homosexuality is wrong, that masturbation is a sin, that slavery is morally permissible, etc,  because you thought the Bible was the word of a god who knew what was best for us, these beliefs would have been made and acted upon in error, and really would have been harmful. And I didn't say Christians suffer more than atheists.

Quote from: HHC on May 30, 2014, 01:06 AM

QuoteBut the claim in question was HHC's. If we're looking purely at the positives that religion creates for society, there's little evidence that those positives exceed what the non-religious do. Regardless of which religious organization you want to focus on, the fact remains that by any estimations I've seen, the majority of the average religious organization's money goes towards other factors such as operating expenses, rather than direct charity, and thus the original graph I posted is accurate enough.

You are trying to convert an immaterial asset to material means.
You cannot put a price on things like hope, unity & spiritual salvation.

I'm trying to get an objective measure of generosity, yes. It's not perfect, but it's actual evidence. Plenty of atheists have hope and unity (and don't need salvation since we recognize we're not inherently 'sinners'). And if you really 'can't put a price' on these things, i.e. measure them in any way, then that would mean you can't compare the levels of hope and unity between the religious and non-religious, meaning you would have no argument that the religious actually are more hopeful, unified, etc.

Quote from: TheWalrus on May 24, 2014, 04:07 AM

Quote from: Mablak on May 23, 2014, 07:54 AM
You seem to have assumed I'm saying that religion reduces empathy, giving, etc, when I'm merely arguing there's no evidence that it boosts these things above what the non-religious do.

Then you don't realize that your pervasive and running point is that religion creates more evil than it does good.  It is written all up and down your posts.

As far as your cited source, the church gave 4.7b of it's revenue to charity, not 4.7%, but it looks to be about 4.7% anyways so that is kosher regardless.  Catholic charities, however, in not represented in your graph and is what I was referencing.  Catholic charities gives far more than 4.7% of their gross; your graph shows the Church giving 4.7% to charity, most of that which goes to Catholic charities. 

Catholic church spending is not the same as the charitable foundation that they have established.  Catholic charities is a wonderful organization, but represents a small part of the gross revenue of the church.

Woops typo, 4.7 billion. Yes, I do think religion causes a great deal of harm; virtually any belief in something that's not true is harmful, if not in the short run, then in the long run. But the claim in question was HHC's. If we're looking purely at the positives that religion creates for society, there's little evidence that those positives exceed what the non-religious do. Regardless of which religious organization you want to focus on, the fact remains that by any estimations I've seen, the majority of the average religious organization's money goes towards other factors such as operating expenses, rather than direct charity, and thus the original graph I posted is accurate enough.

Quote from: TheWalrus on May 22, 2014, 03:13 PM

Quote from: Mablak on May 22, 2014, 10:30 AM
I believe the claim that religious people give more (even as a percentage of their disposable income if we're going to account for wealth differences), has no evidence going for it. The only studies I've seen making this claim include church donations as charitable ones, even though the majority of church donations go towards operating costs. The Mormon Church, for example, gives only about 0.7% of its annual income to charity. If we dismiss 'church' counting as 'charity', religious states in the US don't actually donate more than the less religious states: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/11/28/are-religious-people-really-more-generous-than-atheists-a-new-study-puts-that-myth-to-rest/

The study you posted is an absolute joke, lol.  It's "evidence" includes a non-conclusive map of the US, as if all southerners are religious, and all northerners atheist.  All donations that were given to a religious charity were discounted, even though the largest charity network in the US, catholic charities USA, operates solely to distribute money for the greater good, and not for the gain of the church.  There is no differentiation between giving to the church and giving to a church-established charity, even though there is an explicit difference into where the money goes (If you don't understand what the difference is, just google tithing, then compare to donating to charity).  I can't believe your stomach can digest this pallette of bullshit that this article has served up.

Quote from: Mablak on May 22, 2014, 10:30 AM
Not quite sure what you mean about Iran versus Sweden though, happiness or well-being is the only thing that I think can possibly matter in terms of morality.

I made the argument they are philosophical inverses of one another.  That is what I mean.

Quote from: Mablak on May 22, 2014, 10:30 AMFor example, if you're saying Sweden is losing its capacity for critical thought, because there are too many people who agree with each other on the god issue, this would seem to be an argument that they could be missing out on some important philosophical realizations that would engender greater happiness for them if they had more theists around (and producing greater happiness would seem to be the only reason philosophy is important). I don't really see this as an issue though, we're not losing out on anything by having a society where everyone's in agreement that say, racism, homophobia, etc, are wrong, or that Santa Claus isn't real.

Mablak, you got the thrust of what I was saying perfectly before you lost your mind and cited racism, homophobia, and santa claus. 

Quote from: HHC on May 22, 2014, 12:04 PM
As much as it may hurt your atheist heart.. I wouldn't complain about it. God is one of the major pillars of American society, if you break it down you will surely hurt the moral fabric of society, and thereby, society itself.

Truer words have never been spoken.  Instead of focusing on the inherent positives that religion brings, Mablak has chosen to go down the road of demonizing all religious motives.  It's a slippery slope that I choose not to go down with my view on atheism.  I'm no atheist, but if I start damning everything they stand for, I lose my objectivity, which appears to be what has happened to Mablak with his views on Christians and the like.

Wally, the map doesn't necessitate that all southerners be religious, and all northerners be atheists. If southern states have much higher populations of the religious (and the states listed do), and the average religious person donates more of their disposable income to charities, then it follows that those states would, on the whole, have a greater percentage of disposable income donated towards charities. Yet this isn't what we see if we exclude churches and religious groups, and only include the groups that both sides would agree are providing charity.

"Mablak, you got the thrust of what I was saying perfectly before you lost your mind and cited racism, homophobia, and santa claus." If I got the thrust of what you were saying, then I'd say my examples actually made sense. You were saying something would necessarily be lost if we didn't have a society with multiple opinions on the god issue. I provided counterexamples where absolutely nothing is lost in terms of having a single opinion on some issue, where in fact it's better to have that single opinion. The point I was making is that given such counterexamples, a society having a very uniform opinion on some issue is therefore not necessarily a bad thing.

Catholic Charities USA, by The Economist's estimation, has about 4.7% of its wealth going specifically towards charities per year: http://www.economist.com/node/21560536. The issue however, is that religious organizations don't have to disclose how much they spend on actual charity, so there's some guesswork. I've seen estimations that the average religious organization spends 71% of its income on operating expenses alone (certainly way more than a lot of secular organizations): http://www.newsweek.com/are-churches-making-america-poor-243734. The article I quoted, while illustrating the worst case scenario of essentially none of the average religious-organization-donator's money going towards actual charitable causes, is not going to be far off.

As for inherent positives, no one has demonstrated that there are in fact positives that religion brings, that secularism doesn't also bring (on the whole). I did not demonize religious motives in any way; I may think the religious who do good are sometimes doing so for the wrong reasons, but I wouldn't suggest they're not doing good when they perform acts that genuinely help people. You seem to have assumed I'm saying that religion reduces empathy, giving, etc, when I'm merely arguing there's no evidence that it boosts these things above what the non-religious do.

Quote from: HHC on May 22, 2014, 12:04 PM
IMO that evidence is bogus. The south has been doing shitty economywise ever since the civil war. At that time the north was just as religious, but not dependent on slave labour, cotton and other outdated sources of wealth.
The West achieved dominance in the world when atheism didn't even exist yet. And it persists to this day.. why? I don't think anyone really knows."

"The West achieved dominance in the world when atheism didn't even exist yet" Really? Atheism has always existed. As far as HDI, this is at least a better measurement of well-being than what you seem to be relying on, i.e. mere speculation, and the SSS is another more complex measurement that also correlates religiosity with reduced societal well-being. Keep in mind, I'm in no way arguing that religion necessarily reduces societal health in all cases, only that there's absolutely no evidence to suggest it aids societal health in comparison to a lack of religion, when the evidence (at best) could only support the opposite conclusion.

Quote from: HHC on May 22, 2014, 12:04 PM
The real health of a society is hard to measure, as it encompasses immaterial factors such as 'citizenship', 'responsibility', 'self-confidence', 'ambition', 'philosophical views' (optimism vs pessimism or nihilism), etcetera.

It is hard to measure, but the Successful Societies Scale certainly includes factors such as life satisfaction, which would encompass effects such as optimism and pessimism.

Quote from: HHC on May 22, 2014, 12:04 PMAnd judging by these values I imagine the west not doing so well anymore. They may be rich, but they owe it almost entirely to the generations that came before them. They lack the inner drive of the people that live in the upcoming economies. The people in East Asia & Eastern Europe work much harder, don't dwell in decadent nihilism, but are proud of who they are and know what they are working to achieve. That makes their societies more healthy than ours IMO.. there's much more potential there and it will only be a matter of time before they have gathered enough wealth to set up supreme health care & education.
But unfortunately for them, they too define their goal merely in material terms. So they are likely to end up at the same place as us.

I probably agree that the west is headed towards a worsening economic situation, but again, you don't seem to be presenting any evidence that this is in any way linked to atheism (which you seem to associate with nihilism).

Quote from: HHC on May 22, 2014, 12:04 PMIf a nation (or empire) wishes to maintain its dominance it's vital not only to hold onto its economic & political dominance, but also to maintain its 'spiritual' drive.
The failure to do so is IMO one of the most important reasons for the collapse of the Roman Empire, as well as it is for the "downfall" of the US in modern times. The sense of mission that drove the Americans is quickly being replaced by a general feeling of doubt and apprehension. I'm pretty sure people in the future will consider the Iraqi affair as the death sentence of US supremacy, not because there they encountered the boundaries of their might, but solely because they lost faith in the validity of the American mission worldwide to bring freedom & democracy to people supposedly eagerly craving for it.

So you're saying a general feeling of doubt and apprehension is going to be the death knell for US supremacy, that it'll be due to a loss of confidence in our mission of freedom and democracy. In that case, apparently we're not going downhill for any religious reasons, only for reasons involving lack of confidence in our government's motives.

Quote from: HHC on May 22, 2014, 12:04 PMAs much as it may hurt your atheist heart.. I wouldn't complain about it. God is one of the major pillars of American society, if you break it down you will surely hurt the moral fabric of society, and thereby, society itself.

'Hurting the fabric of society', it's these claims I take issue with. You don't seem to have any evidence to support them. God is one of the major pillars of various parts of America, but millions of us do fine without this concept. If you think we're somehow worse off, less charitable, etc, than the religious, try finding some evidence to back up your assertions. More of us 'immoral' atheists in prison? It's actually the opposite. Atheists giving less? Again, it's the opposite, or at least hard to discern clearly. I don't particularly care to argue religious people are generally less moral than atheists, but there's no way to argue they're generally more moral.

Quote from: TheWalrus on May 22, 2014, 09:27 AM

Quote from: Mablak on May 22, 2014, 06:26 AM
Your claim that religious organizations do the majority of support is true, merely because there are many more religious people than non-religious people, the question is what proportion of each is doing good. There are plenty of non-religious organizations doing good in the US and elsewhere, like Doctors Without Borders, which the atheist section of reddit has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for, Oxfam, the ACLU, Unicef, the Red Cross, Foundation Beyond Belief, Planned Parenthood, KIVA, The American Humanist Association, the British Humanist Association (many countries have these), Direct Relief International, etc. And these organizations help people without the added harm of proselytizing irrational beliefs. There is precious little evidence to suggest a religion-free world would somehow do less good than a religious one, given how much good secular organizations accomplish in relation to their small numbers.

I think you are in the same ballpark as I am on this one Mab, but there are a few points I think you took some liberties with.  You claim that proportionally there are more religious people than non-religious people, which is true.  You claim that there is a question of what proportion of each is doing the most good.  You really don't have an argument on this one.  Religious people, say, per capita for our uses, give more than non-religious people.  Adjusting for the overall disparity of numbers still yields raw data that the religious are giving money at a much, much higher rate than the non-religious.  I've seen the numbers, I can't really remember where, but should you choose to dispute this point I'm sure I can dig it up.

If you really wanted to argue the disparity, I would stick with the fact that more money is given by religious people because the majority of the upper class, the people who give the most, are the religious right in the USA.  The few of this class gives more than any other group at very high rates, bolstered by the fact they are receiving tax breaks, which further incentivizes them to continue "giving".  These folks basically blow any atheist grassroots type programs out of the water in aggregate gross donations.  We don't know how much donating the atheists would do if they controlled the upper class, perhaps as much, but the numbers seem to suggest otherwise.  In short, of course religious people are giving more money.  They have more money to give.

The "proselytizing", or purveying of these irrational and harmful beliefs extends far less than I imagine you conceive it does.  How many deeply held beliefs are harmful to society at large?  A minority, to be sure.  I could make the argument that a minority of atheistic views, namely ones that damn autonomy, are harmful to the masses.  Each group has it's zealots that conjure up their own spin to their cause that instigates harmful movements. 

To me, the answer lies in the middle.  Countries are different because the ruling bodies have been composed of like-minded people who have either usurped power or forced out opposition, and rarer still, the countries who have balanced both sides.  The atheists must be balanced with the religious to ensure harmony, because neither side is going away.  I submit to you that countries such as Sweden are inherently flawed as a Iran, for example.  Not to the extent of overall happiness, but philosophically.  One group has become too strong and drowned out the minority opinion.  The smartest thinkers in my estimation are those that can compromise, and a solution is only as good as its application by the people it is intended for. 

I love the USA because it is a country where discourse is as free as the Obamaphones.

Walrus
(Your friendly neighborhood evangelical)

I believe the claim that religious people give more (even as a percentage of their disposable income if we're going to account for wealth differences), has no evidence going for it. The only studies I've seen making this claim include church donations as charitable ones, even though the majority of church donations go towards operating costs. The Mormon Church, for example, gives only about 0.7% of its annual income to charity. If we dismiss 'church' counting as 'charity', religious states in the US don't actually donate more than the less religious states: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/11/28/are-religious-people-really-more-generous-than-atheists-a-new-study-puts-that-myth-to-rest/

Granted, church donations 'could' be considered charitable donations if the idea of heaven, god, etc, were real, in which case paying for the operation of churches could be argued to serve a purpose. So it necessarily gets into the god debate; I don't believe these concepts are real, and thus think church activities such as sermons are not helpful to society. As for atheistic views (speaking of which, there isn't technically any position attached to atheism aside from not believing in god), this is kind of a tangent isn't it? The non-religious organizations I listed are for the most part not doing proselytizing of any kind, though some humanist organizations do some amount of promoting free speech, promoting the value of science, evidence, and reason, etc, but none of those values could be considered objectionable. Moreover, they're not things they promote in tandem with helping people, they're not handing out pamphlets at the soup kitchens.

Not quite sure what you mean about Iran versus Sweden though, happiness or well-being is the only thing that I think can possibly matter in terms of morality. For example, if you're saying Sweden is losing its capacity for critical thought, because there are too many people who agree with each other on the god issue, this would seem to be an argument that they could be missing out on some important philosophical realizations that would engender greater happiness for them if they had more theists around (and producing greater happiness would seem to be the only reason philosophy is important). I don't really see this as an issue though, we're not losing out on anything by having a society where everyone's in agreement that say, racism, homophobia, etc, are wrong, or that Santa Claus isn't real.

Quote from: Peja on May 22, 2014, 05:34 AM
since most winners of the nobel price come from a very religious country,  your point is utterly bullshit.
besides, religious organisations do the majority of social support. simply because religion is about social values. it goes from building up communities to direct financial help. but maybe there are atheist organisations in oregon doing the same thing haha. you dont need to believe in god to notice its a good thing to help people. speaking from germany, the major adress for people in trouble are christian organisations. its quite a huge offer, including guidance when you have debts, psychological illnes... . they also organise integration courses for  workless  or take care of  homeless, or ambulant care for ill people.

Whether Nobel prize winners come from religious countries or not has nothing to do with HHC's suggestion that religion somehow improves the 'health' of society (nor does this even show said prize winners are actually religious). What point did you think I was making, that religious people are less intelligent?

Your claim that religious organizations do the majority of support is true, merely because there are many more religious people than non-religious people, the question is what proportion of each is doing good. There are plenty of non-religious organizations doing good in the US and elsewhere, like Doctors Without Borders, which the atheist section of reddit has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for, Oxfam, the ACLU, Unicef, the Red Cross, Foundation Beyond Belief, Planned Parenthood, KIVA, The American Humanist Association, the British Humanist Association (many countries have these), Direct Relief International, etc. And these organizations help people without the added harm of proselytizing irrational beliefs. There is precious little evidence to suggest a religion-free world would somehow do less good than a religious one, given how much good secular organizations accomplish in relation to their small numbers.

Quote from: HHC on May 21, 2014, 11:50 PM
Northern europeans don't believe in anything anymore, neither in God nor in any other big scheme. They have become lazy, spoiled hedonists who care only about their personal pursuit of happiness.
It's OK living in societies like that, but I don't consider them 'healthy'. On the contrary, they are likely to self-pwn into non-existence.

In that respect the countries of eastern & southern Europe and the USA are much healthier. They also lack a religion, but they still got a vivid national cultus to keep people united, proud and hard-working.

What exactly is unhealthy about more atheistic societies? By measurements such as the Human Development Index, there's actually a very clear correlation with more religiosity and worse quality of life, which could imply that religion worsens quality of life (should be obvious in many countries like Afghanistan), and/or that those with poor quality of life seek religion, and/or various underlying factors. But I don't see any way to argue that a lack of theism, deism, etc, worsens society, when all the evidence points the other way: https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/05/13/the-correlation-between-religiosity-and-well-being-among-u-s-states/

Also, the US is actually the most religious first-world country. Not so much in the north, but definitely in the south. We're becoming less religious for sure, but nearly 100% of our politicians are religious; you can barely even run for office if you're not a Christian.

I definitely like Oregon, and I would tentatively say I like the US, but it's also true there are some places in the south that I'd find outright oppressive to live in, due to racism, homophobia, gun nuttery (11,000+ gun homicides per year, kind of disturbing), prejudice against atheists, etc. Obamacare (thanks Obama) is at least making this a little less of a backwards shithole in terms of healthcare, and I feel like we're going to get some respectable minimum wage laws passed eventually, though for now we're lagging way behind other first world countries. We're at least pushing the bar in some areas like marijuana legalization and gay marriage. Our national politics are controlled by legalized bribery, but I suppose the government functions alright at the local level. In terms of people, there's definitely too much stupidity, nationalism, religious fervor, and radical right-wing ideology, though where I live these aren't nearly as prevalent.

We're becoming much more of a service sector economy, so I don't know, job prospects aren't that amazing. Of course, it's a great country if you want to pursue an entertainment-related career, which is kind of what I'm trying to do in Portland with my music: http://ghosttoycastle.bandcamp.com/. We kind of mold ourselves to the places we're born in though, I think most people tend to like where they live, partly because they can't imagine living anywhere else.

Wish I could compete fellas, but I need to continue to avoid using my right hand as much as possible due to carpal tunnel. Maybe next year, who knows.

Alright guys, here's me with my silver, thanks again for going through all the trouble:

Love this guy, same song I used in showcase, this video is actually really good, don't let the low budget-ness fool yeh.

Thanks for the reports Hokage, maybe I can fix these sometime this month, I'll get around to it when I have time.

Whoa dude, that's insanely close scoring, practically a tie. Thanks for the votes y'all, I thought pretty much everyone did an excellent job, we had a lot of impressive feats all around, and I'm surprised I won. Some people clearly should've been higher than they were, Dub was a 5 in my book, and it's important not to take it too seriously since it's very subjective. But most importantly, thanks to Cue for putting so much time and effort into making the video/contest, I believe you made this the best one yet.

Thanks a bunch to Random (and SPW if he paid for the costs) for sending the trophy, yeah I got it a while ago actually. I just got my first smartphone as a Christmas present, so now I can actually take pictures of things, which I haven't been able to do for... well, ever. As soon as I get the phone activated and whatnot, I'll take a pic.

Oh man, that was awesome Cue! Thanks for all those months of hard work, this is a kickass Christmas present for WA. You put a hell of a lot of effort into it, I liked all those slowdowns, and the batman moment was pretty radical. So many little touches that made me laugh, like the 'ow' sound effect that I think was taken from that one whack-a-gator game. And the worm audience, priceless, I forget, did OoO work on that, or was it you?

As far as the moves, there wasn't a single person I wasn't impressed with, people really dug deep and pulled out their wormiest skills for this one. A bit hard for me to determine what my favorite moments were, there were so many. I'll have to watch it again to even have an inkling as to who I'll vote for.