What do you Believe??? (Religion)

[China]

On 4/30/2018 at 12:36 PM, Bang said:

In a way, flat Earthers argue for creationism.

Because if evolution truly did weed out the weak from the gene pool, none of this flat earth nonsense would ever be a question. Those morons should have eaten some poisonous berries and been gone by now.

 

Stupidity and ignorance are well on the rise. what kills me is the pride people take in being as ****ing dumb and ignorant as they can be.

 

~Bang

 

CBS sees surge in US Flat Earthers who say there’s no rover on Mars: ‘Most people think we’re idiots’

 

BS News recently spoke to a group of so-called Flat Earthers who believe that the scientific community has pulled off a great hoax by claiming that the world is in the shape of a globe.

 

In a segment that aired on CBS Sunday Morning, reporter Brook Silva-Braga interviewed a group of people who are trying to prove that the world is flat and that a wall of ice around the perimeter is containing all of the sea water.

 

“Probably most people who hear about it will laugh at it, think we’re idiots,” Flat Earth believer Patricia Steere told CBS News. “We’re not idiots. We’re intelligent people from all walks of life and all ages.”

 

According to Steere, photos of the Earth from space are “completely and utterly false.” She believes that the Sun and the Moon are “probably about the same size.” And she said that photos of astronauts are always “completely fake.”

 

“We didn’t go to the Moon,” Steere explained. “And we don’t have a rover on Mars. And we didn’t do a fly-by of Pluto. And we’ve never been to space! Period.”

“It’s a giant game of chess and, we — all of us in humanity — are the pawns,” she added. “Part of the whole fodder thing is keeping us locked down, not knowledgable about who we are, who we really are as people and what we’re capable of.”

 

But national security expert Tom Nichols told CBS News that the Flat Earth trend is part of a bigger problem.

 

“People have lost faith in experts,” he said. “We’ve developed a kind of reverse snobbery that says, if you have a great deal of education, if you’re at a well-known institution, by definition, you must be a liar.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

 

Here is the referenced CBS Sunday Morning segment:

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/the-flat-earth-movement-people-who-ignore-science/

[Sacks 'n' Stuff]

@Bang I’m not telling you to do this but if you went to the flat Earth message board and told them all that the government is trying to cover up the fact that drinking mercury makes you immortal (cause you wouldn’t need health insurance if you were immortal), it’d cull the herd a good bit. That’s how I got rid of thinwhiteduke.

[Renegade7]

Is flat earth linked to religion or lose of faith traditionally trusted sources? 

 

I see videos, but I never see the math behind it, because it's impossible.  Anyway, I'd rather not keep seeing this thread bumped for flat earth nonsense if it has nothing to do with religion.  And things like bible archeology keep the conversation away from saying Chriatians are completely against science. Pope Francis believes in the big bang and evolution.  

 

Please stop bumping the thread for flat earth crap without a direct link to religion and something to have a conversation about.  I didn't make this thread for shooting fish in a barrel.

[Riggo-toni]

[China]

14 hours ago, Renegade7 said:

Is flat earth linked to religion or lose of faith traditionally trusted sources? 

 

I see videos, but I never see the math behind it, because it's impossible.  Anyway, I'd rather not keep seeing this thread bumped for flat earth nonsense if it has nothing to do with religion.  And things like bible archeology keep the conversation away from saying Chriatians are completely against science. Pope Francis believes in the big bang and evolution.  

 

Please stop bumping the thread for flat earth crap without a direct link to religion and something to have a conversation about.  I didn't make this thread for shooting fish in a barrel.

 

Certainly flat earth is a "belief" as it is not based on facts or science.  And it is also, as the article I posted said, a loss of faith in traditionally trusted sources.

 

But as for the relationship to standard religion:

 

Quote

Data from YouGov Profiles suggests a link  between belief in a flat earth and spirituality. For some flat earthers, evidence of the earth’s shape may be found in scripture – more than half of Flat earthers (52%) consider themselves “very religious,” compared to just a fifth of all Americans (20%).

 

 

Link

[Destino]

15 hours ago, Renegade7 said:

Pope Francis believes in the big bang and evolution.  

Wasn’t the Big Bang first proposed by a Catholic Priest (who was also physicist and astronomer)?  I think he called it a cosmic egg.  

 

Side note: How does someone have time to be an active priest, astronomer, and physicist?  

 

I’ll never understand Christian hesitancy towards evolution.  The story of the Garden of Eden has always seemed to describe man’s evolution to me.  From an animal living within the natural order, to a more advanced version of man that exists in some ways outside of it.  

[Renegade7]

@China I guess I'd like to see where you are going with this as I was hoping to try to keep the thread constructive.  

[Renegade7]

1 minute ago, Destino said:

Wasn’t the Big Bang first proposed by a Catholic Priest )who was also physicist and astronomer)?  I think he called it a cosmic egg.  

 

Side note: How does someone have time to be an active priest, astronomer, and physicist?  

 

A lot of reading, lotta lotta reading, and not much else to get distracted by (or letting themselves get distracted by). 

 

From a modern standpoint, ya, church started realizing things weren't adding up and started using science to fix it, how we got the Georgian calendar.  People in the church and outside the church were thinking about the possibility of a big bang as early as the Medieval age, guy you're talking about I believe is early 20th century, right around same time Hubble was first observing this at Mt. Wilson (his research paper on red shift came out like 2 years later).

 

 It's another reason I'm not a fan of even acknowledging the flat earther nonsense. The correlation isn't religion dictating the flat earther movement, its more unhealthy skepticism of modern science.  There's a lot of studies that show examples from the bible to show the world is flat are really play of words. 

 

Again any time I see math used in this conversation it looks like total horse **** to me, and I'm not a math person, so its not easy for me to look through and trying and make sure stuff really doesn't look anymore right then how its presented.

 

https://theflatearthsociety.org/home/index.php/blog/infinite-flat-earth-mathematics

 

Quote

THE MATHEMATICS OF THE INFINITE FLAT EARTH

May 16, 2016 JohnDavis

Today we will be talking about how to use Gauss's Law to show that an infinite plane would have a finite gravitational pull. Now if you were to ask somebody how much gravitational pull an infinite amount of mass would exert, the common sense answer would be "infinite!" However, upon inspection we can see that certain configurations of mass would actually yield finite gravitational pulls.

This article requires an understanding of surface integrals and so likely the math will be beyond many. However, I will do my best to explain it in the simplest terms possible. If you come across some math you don't understand, do like I do and continue reading past it. You can later go back with what you learned and likely will have a better understanding about it.

First we will introduce a symbol that likely has hidden itself from many of our readers educations. This is to no shame though, I've met Ph.Ds who were not familiar with this! One astrophysicist, working on her PhD dissertation, went so far as to proclaim "Fake Math!" I have to admit, that one made me chuckle a bit to myself. It must be remembered that no one can possibly hope to know everything, especially when we seek to specialize.

This curious symbol looks like one you may have seen before, but it acts somewhat differently. You may be familiar with the integral, with which it shares many properties: ∫. Ignoring the terse mathematical definition, we will use a somewhat easy to understand one. Leibniz, its creator, thought of it as an infinite sum of infinitesimal summands. So, taking the integral over a small portion of a line, you can find the sum of its area above or below the curve by looking at the sum of infinitely small slices of it and adding it all up.

The symbol you may be less familiar with is that of the closed surface integral ∮. The difference here visually of course is the introduction of that circle in the middle. Think of it roughly as a generalization of the integral over a surface instead. So instead of infinitely small slices, you will be dealing with infinitely small surfaces!

The second key to the puzzle we will need to use to properly examine the gravitational affect of an infinite plane is Gauss's law. Usually used in electromagnetism, Gauss's law actually applies to gravitational forces as well since they both share an inverse square relationship 1/distance2 to their strength. It can be stated as follows:

∮g•n dA = -4πGm

Lets say we have some mass m. We pretend to create a surface around the mass. We divide this surface up into infinitesimal parts, each with an area of dA. Remember that the integral is summing up an infinite amount of infinitesimal surfaces? We take the infinitesimal bits of the area (dA) and sum them over the entire closed surface. Each infinitesimal "bit" has an n. n is a unit vector that is perpendicular, so facing away from the surface at a right angle away. You might want to visualize that n represents "up" since we are dealing with a plane. g is the acceleration due to gravity, pointing towards the mass. In our case, this should be "down."

We can use this to examine the gravitational influences of any body. If we were looking at point mass, we would use a sphere. If we were looking at an infinite plane, as we are, we will use a pillbox for our surface.

When we look at the pillbox, we can simplify things nicely. We see the curved surface of the pillbox will "cancel out" its own gravitational influence and contribute nothing. A simple way to think of this is that each point on the cylinder is counterbalanced with another point on the cylinder. This coincidently also shows the infinite plane is a stable body as each point on the plane itself is also counter-balanced by the points around it horizontally, thus answering the common question "Why wouldn't mass form into a sphere?" A more accurate way would be to realize this is that g is at a right angle to our "up" ( n ) at all points; all points have an opposite point that is facing the opposite direction as well, and so g•n = 0.

We are almost there - this leaves us with only the circle caps to deal with.

Looking at the caps we realize that g and n are parallel and opposite each other and so we realize g•n = -g. This leaves the surface integral of just the pillbox ends. Since we have 2 of them and the integral is the sum of the parts of dA, we have -g∮dA = g2A leaving our equation as: -g 2A = -4πGm. From there its easy to see g's value is finite - g= 2πGm / A. This is further realized by noting mass = (density * Area), giving us g A= 2πGpA, or g = 2πG p. This is clearly a finite value. If we wished we could continue from here to calculate the depth of the plane using the average density of Earth.

Given it also has depth we are looking at the case of m = (density * Area * depth). This gives us instead g = 2πG p d, where d is depth.

g = 9.81 m/s/s
G = 6.754×10⁻¹¹ m³ kg⁻¹ s⁻²
p = 5.51 g/cm³ , the average density of earth

Giving us d = g / (2πG p). This evaluates to around 4 195.43 kilometers deep, thus showing false my early hypothesis of 9000 km deep.

 

It's just like a lot of the videos where its presented as overwhelming to the average person so they just assume its accurate, but a lot of the above I can't prove adds up.

 

Like this looks like gross misinterpretation of mass as its traditionally discussed:

 

Quote

This is further realized by noting mass = (density * Area),

 

I never got a physics class, but I've watch a lot about stuff like quantum mechanics over the years for it to not feel too alien to me.  The closest I can come to something that looks like that is something related to calculations for a 2D object, not a 3D object:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_density

 

But when I look around at mass in relation to the 3 dimensional / 4 dimensional world we are all used to, it looks more like this with volume more in the area instead of area (we're talking about a 3D object here, not a giant piece of paper):

 

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-formula-for-mass

 

Quote

Mass is a measure of how much stuff an object has. Mass is a scalar quantity therefore, it only gives us information about the magnitude .

According to newton’s 2nd law of motion

Force = mass * acceleration

F = m * a

So Mass = force / acceleration...

We know that

Volume = mass/ density

So mass = volume * density..

Weight = mass * gravity

W = m * g

m = W/ g

 

 

And lastly, if I'm understanding his calculations on the deep of the earth correctly, he's saying the earth is only 4,195.43 kilometers deep, while the surface area of the earth is 510.1 million km².  Basically a giant disk with no dynamo core for our magnetic field and northern lights.  There's so much match that can be used to contracted what they are talking about, everything from ocean currents to measurements in fuel for trans-oceanic flights

 

 

But if they are going to insist on using math, they have to acknowledge that the expected size of certain countries and continents don't add up due to the distortion caused by flattening a 3D object.  I have yet to hear about a single one going to Antarctica or edge of the world to prove if its a ring or a continent that can be circled.

 

@China  I did this out of curiosity, but man, this is just dumb.  I have yet to hear a reasonable explanation for why the entire scientific community would try to cover this up, to what gain?  It's why I don't like talking about it, there's no point other then to show people just want to be different for the sake of being different, nothing to do with God.

 

No, I don't want to talk about Flat Earth anymore in here, as it portrays a subset of the religious community as along this thinking, when really its just a correlation of people who believe this being religious, that's not the same thing.  I'm not going to stop you, but I have no idea where this thread will go if we just go in any direction that people who claim to be religious believe.  We may end up spending more time denouncing ridiculous claims then combining our experiences and knowledge to come to some kind of consensus or middle ground using religion and science to get there.

 

https://answersingenesis.org/astronomy/earth/does-bible-teach-earth-flat/

 

The general direction I hope for our society to go is for science and religion to work together versus tear each other apart.  Idealistic, I know, but I'm not convinced we are better off without one or the other completely.

[London Kev]

On 9/20/2018 at 9:26 PM, Renegade7 said:

@London Kev if you don't understand why people bother with this and think its just stories for children, i recommended reading the rest of the thread (if you haven't already).

 

 

 

On 9/20/2018 at 10:34 PM, London Kev said:

I haven't, but I will.

 

I never said that I don't understand why people bother, if people find comfort in it, then that's great. But it's the actual existence of a god that I just don't understand. To me it makes no sense, Like I said, I will read the whole thread and maybe gain some insight.

 

OK, I finally read the whole thread. It actually turned out to be one of the most funny, stupid, infuriating, sad, intelligent, uplifting,  personal and thought-provoking thread that I've read for a while, and I thank you for starting it.

 

I need to correct an error in my first post where I erroneously used the words "religion" and "God" to mean the same thing, I've come to realise that they are not and that was down to my own ignorance, (I've also learned to capitilise God ).

 

I think that I probably originally intended to just do a hit-and-run post to scoff at the silly religious people and move on. After reading it all I've realised that many of you are far from silly, and the subject is obviously very serious to a lot of people.

 

I need to be clear that I still haven't seen any evidence whatsoever that a God exists, (although I'm not actually sure what form this evidence could take). I'm also at a loss to see how anyone could show that their God is any more plausible than any other God (mythical or otherwise).

 

The religion side of it is not so cut-and-dried for me anymore and I'll have to do a lot more reading on the subject before I can decide whether I think it's a good thing or a bad thing.

 

This thread has also made me question the label that I give to myself and after much searching I've discovered that I'm a Secular Humanist! It's a label that sounds ****ing stupid, but it seems to describe me perfectly.

 

Sorry to bump the thread without actually adding anything of significance to it, but it gave me a lot to think about and although my primary stance on the existence of a God hasn't changed, I feel that I have learned a lot from it.

[China]

22 minutes ago, London Kev said:

 

 

This thread has also made me question the label that I give to myself and after much searching I've discovered that I'm a Secular Humanist! It's a label that sounds ****ing stupid, but it seems to describe me perfectly.

 

 

"I'm a humanist.  Maybe the last humanist."

 

 

[Renegade7]

[Sacks 'n' Stuff]

On 10/15/2018 at 1:12 AM, China said:

But national security expert Tom Nichols told CBS News that the Flat Earth trend is part of a bigger problem.

 

“People have lost faith in experts,” he said. “We’ve developed a kind of reverse snobbery that says, if you have a great deal of education, if you’re at a well-known institution, by definition, you must be a liar.”

I'm not sure this is an apt analogy by old Tom. I mean, my niece who just finished Kindergarten knows that the earth is round. Doesn't take all that much education or expertise.

 

I'd say it's more indicative of a current trend where more people than I ever realized are dumber than ****.

Edited April 5, 2019 by Sacks 'n' Stuff

[mcsluggo]

 

 

By my back of the envelope calculation  ^{(otherwise known as pulled out of my ass)}  at least 98% of Flat Earthers are trolling you.     

[superozman]

On 3/14/2019 at 2:52 PM, London Kev said:

I need to be clear that I still haven't seen any evidence whatsoever that a God exists, (although I'm not actually sure what form this evidence could take). I'm also at a loss to see how anyone could show that their God is any more plausible than any other God (mythical or otherwise).

 

The religion side of it is not so cut-and-dried for me anymore and I'll have to do a lot more reading on the subject before I can decide whether I think it's a good thing or a bad thing.

 

For me (I believe in God, attend a protestant church 2-3x a month), I understand a lot of times things boil down to science vs God or give me evidence or i don't believe.  Absolutely understand and think that is acceptable.  So me telling you how I feel, isn't providing evidence, however, my reasoning - and where i agree or don't. :).

 

Evidence - I'm not sure anyone can provide evidence, but for me, just an explanation of why I believe.  I look around at how everything works, on this earth, with all beings (human, animal, etc) and just believe there has to be some form of intelligent design.  You hear in scientific documentaries or read in articles, "If the earth was this many degrees off", "if we were x amount closer (farther) to (from the) sun we wouldn't be here".  To me, there has to be something there that orchestrated that.  Also, how everything works together on the earth, that wouldn't be here if we weren't in the perfect spot.  That's my believe.

 

Apologies in responding "to you", but I felt it answered OP and also engaged someone

 

Religion good or bad - First, i'll limit to my religion Protestant (also include Catholic).  Second, I will state out right that there are bad people that are within these religions, exemplified by the Catholic Priest issue.  However, I think religions and religious people are key to our social fabric.  Religious institutions not only provide citizens with a place to go to become better people on a frequent basis, but also it teaches people to abide by principals that are inherently good.  A good example of this is from "Angels and Demons" movie where Commander Richter states to Langdon:  "My church comforts the sick and dying. My church feeds the poor. What does your church do, Mr. Langdon? That's right. You don't have one."  Now while it's a movie quote, I get the premise of the quote.  I also know people do inherently good things without a church.  However, I believe we are better off with those in our social hierarchy.

 

 

Edited April 5, 2019 by superozman

[No Excuses]

2 minutes ago, superozman said:

A good example of this is from "Angels and Demons" movie where Commander Richter states to Langdon:  "My church comforts the sick and dying. My church feeds the poor. What does your church do, Mr. Langdon? That's right. You don't have one."  Now while it's a movie quote

 

You should have just left it at “it’s a movie quote”. 

 

In the US, it’s the secular left that champions feeding and comforting the sick and poor through collective action. 

 

Christianity in the US largely drives an agenda that gives tax cuts to the wealthy, cuts social safety nets for the poor and shuts the door on helpless people fleeing terror and death. 

 

 

[superozman]

14 minutes ago, No Excuses said:

 

In the US, it’s the secular left that champions feeding and comforting the sick and poor through collective action. 

 

Christianity in the US largely drives an agenda that gives tax cuts to the wealthy, cuts social safety nets for the poor and shuts the door on helpless people fleeing terror and death. 

 

By adding left and tax cuts, I guess you are adding politics? that was quick!

 

Secular Collective Action - Yes, they do!  this is great!  But I would argue, in my experience and what I've seen, this is not as frequent as those who are religious.  Those who are religious I'd argue more frequently and through various ways take part in giving back to society.  THIS IS NOT saying a non-religious person does not do this.  However, those who are religious are driven to this.  It provides suggested actions that are inherently good, where living in the secular world you aren't required to add to social fabric.

 

Christianity drives agenda - Could you expand on this, please?  I'm really not sure how religion does this and I'd like to see your point of view.

 

[mcsluggo]

19 minutes ago, No Excuses said:

 

You should have just left it at “it’s a movie quote”. 

 

In the US, it’s the secular left that champions feeding and comforting the sick and poor through collective action. 

 

Christianity in the US largely drives an agenda that gives tax cuts to the wealthy, cuts social safety nets for the poor and shuts the door on helpless people fleeing terror and death. 

 

 

 

that is just not true.   

 

church members statistically give more to charities than non church-members

 

https://www.philanthropy.com/article/Religious-Americans-Give-More/153973

 

when i go to S.O.M.E.   (so others may eat, a soup kitchen)   it is mostly volunteers through churches working there, and they rely on food from a monthly circuit of churches to supply their food  (each church takes one day a month, and supplies food on that day).   Same for Habitat for Humanity... when i have volunteered there, the majority have been connected through their church.

 

not liking the dickwad "evangelical" priest leadership that have attached their bungholes to the oompah loompah in chief is fine...   don't besmirch the rest of the christians (and other faithful) in the country... its just showing an unflattering prejudice on your part.   

 

[twa]

in his defense he did say champions, not actually does the deed.

[Sacks 'n' Stuff]

1 hour ago, superozman said:

Evidence - I'm not sure anyone can provide evidence, but for me, just an explanation of why I believe.  I look around at how everything works, on this earth, with all beings (human, animal, etc) and just believe there has to be some form of intelligent design.  You hear in scientific documentaries or read in articles, "If the earth was this many degrees off", "if we were x amount closer (farther) to (from the) sun we wouldn't be here".  To me, there has to be something there that orchestrated that.  Also, how everything works together on the earth, that wouldn't be here if we weren't in the perfect spot.  That's my believe.

Where did God come from? Whether there's a God or there isn't, somewhere you have to accept the fact that something truly amazing can just be without someone else creating it.

[No Excuses]

1 hour ago, mcsluggo said:

 

that is just not true.   

 

church members statistically give more to charities than non church-members 

 

https://www.philanthropy.com/article/Religious-Americans-Give-More/153973

 

when i go to S.O.M.E.   (so others may eat, a soup kitchen)   it is mostly volunteers through churches working there, and they rely on food from a monthly circuit of churches to supply their food  (each church takes one day a month, and supplies food on that day).   Same for Habitat for Humanity... when i have volunteered there, the majority have been connected through their church.

 

not liking the dickwad "evangelical" priest leadership that have attached their bungholes to the oompah loompah in chief is fine...   don't besmirch the rest of the christians (and other faithful) in the country... its just showing an unflattering prejudice on your part.   

 

 

Real world consequences of policies and beliefs speak more than wherever/whatever you are donating in money.

 

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-1101-zuckerman-violence-secularism-20151101-story.html

 

More secular states in the US are better on pretty much every sociological metric than religious ones. And the same holds true internationally:

 

Quote

What about within the United States? According to the latest study from the Pew Research Center, the 10 states that report the highest levels of belief in God are Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee and Oklahoma (tied with Utah). The 10 states with the lowest levels of belief in God are Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, Alaska, Oregon and California. And as is the case in the rest of the world, when it comes to nearly all standard measures of societal health, including homicide rates, the least theistic states generally fare much better than the most theistic. Consider child-abuse fatality rates: Highly religious Mississippi's is twice that of highly secular New Hampshire's, and highly religious Kentucky's is four times higher than highly secular Oregon's.

 

 

Quote

 

We can start at the international level. The most secular societies today include Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Czech Republic, Estonia, Japan, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Germany, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, Vietnam, Hungary, China and Belgium. The most religious societies include Nigeria, Uganda, the Philippines, Pakistan, Morocco, Egypt, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, El Salvador, Colombia, Senegal, Malawi, Indonesia, Brazil, Peru, Jordan, Algeria, Ghana, Venezuela, Mexico and Sierra Leone.

It is the highly secularized countries that tend to fare the best in terms of crime rates, prosperity, equality, freedom, democracy, women's rights, human rights, educational attainment and life expectancy. (Although there are exceptions, such as Vietnam and China, which have famously poor human rights records.) And those nations with the highest rates of religiosity tend to be the most problem-ridden in terms of high violent crime rates, high infant mortality rates, high poverty rates and high rates of corruption.

 

 

 

This also addresses twa's comment:

 

Quote

in his defense he did say champions, not actually does the deed.

 

Once again, he tragically finds himself on the opposite end of facts.

 

Continued participation in institutions whose leadership constantly support those who trample on the rights and the dignity of the poor and the underrepresented isn't a particularly good look but ya'll do your thing.

[No Excuses]

1 hour ago, superozman said:

here living in the secular world you aren't required to add to social fabric.

 

Christianity drives agenda - Could you expand on this, please?  I'm really not sure how religion does this and I'd like to see your point of view.

 

The American church has consistently supported and mobilized voters in favor of politicians who use policy to cut taxes for the wealthy at the cost of social safety nets to the poor, fight against reproductive health (not just abortion) policies for women, support anti-refugee and xenophobic immigration policies, and support the marginalization of the LGBT.

 

Your first point has been addressed already. Secular states, both in the US, and internationally, are far more peaceful, far more prosperous with a higher quality of life for its people. So it seems like secular societies have figured out the "social fabric" thing much better than places with higher rates of religiosity.

Edited April 5, 2019 by No Excuses

[PeterMP]

36 minutes ago, No Excuses said:

 

Real world consequences of policies and beliefs speak more than wherever/whatever you are donating in money.

 

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-1101-zuckerman-violence-secularism-20151101-story.html

 

More secular states in the US are better on pretty much every sociological metric than religious ones. And the same holds true internationally:

 

 

 

 

This also addresses twa's comment:

 

 

Once again, he tragically finds himself on the opposite end of facts.

 

Continued participation in institutions whose leadership constantly support those who trample on the rights and the dignity of the poor and the underrepresented isn't a particularly good look but ya'll do your thing.

 

Correlation is not causation, especially when there are other clear distinctions (south vs. north and imperialists vs. colonies).

 

Those same things were true decades ago when there wall less of a difference in reported religiousness in those areas.

 

In all honestly, I suspect you have your cause and effect mixed up.

 

Not that I don't agree that too much and too many, "church leaders" have heavily supported politics and politicians that haven't upheld the true ideals of Christianity.

 

From the same op-ed:

 

"It is, of course, impossible to conclude from any of this data that secularism, in and of itself, causes societal well-being, or that religiosity causes social ills."

 

The op-ed you are citing seems to disagree with your own thesis that you are using it for.

Edited April 5, 2019 by PeterMP

[superozman]

59 minutes ago, Sacks 'n' Stuff said:

Where did God come from? Whether there's a God or there isn't, somewhere you have to accept the fact that something truly amazing can just be without someone else creating it.

I probably should have expected this question, good catch!  I've struggled with this and have looked at it a few different ways.  One i've stuck on is:

 

Just for conversation purposes, you are someone who does not believe in God but you believe there was the big bang without God and from that point to now we are here.  What was here that caused the big bang in the first place, and now by all this luck (big bang -> sun and earth in perfect distance -> life suddenly forms -> you and I having polite thoughtful convo on ES board!), we are here today?  Both you and I search for these answers, and for me I come to the fact there has to be a God that somehow became and for lack of a better term is the cause of why we are here today.  

[No Excuses]

8 minutes ago, PeterMP said:

 

Correlation is not causation, especially when there are other clear distinctions (south vs. north and imperialists vs. colonies).

 

Those same things were true decades ago when there wall less of a difference in reported religiousness in those areas.

  

In all honestly, I suspect you have your cause and effect mixed up. 

 

Those distinctions don't hold well for a good portion of countries (prosperous ex-Soviet states, Japan, South Korea etc) on the list as they have only within the last few decades improved socially and economy.

 

Regardless, the point that has been made in this thread that religion is needed for societies with a moral compass, is abjectly false. The most secular states in the world have strong social safety nets, and have continued to have them in place as religiosity has declined.

 

Within the US, the states with a history of religiosity and a deep influence of the church have failed to care for the poor and vulnerable for centuries at this point.

Edited April 5, 2019 by No Excuses

[superozman]

29 minutes ago, No Excuses said:

 

"The American church has consistently supported and mobilized voters in favor of politicians who use policy to cut taxes for the wealthy at the cost of social safety nets to the poor..."

 

Which churches?  I'm not aware of a Protestant division called the American church.  If you are talking as a whole in America, I'm still not sure I've ever been in contact with a church is telling me, or witnessing telling others "GO VOTE REPUBLICAN!"   Furthermore, you keep stating catch phrases of far left leaning people, so unless your discussion is on religion directly correlating to the topic, the religion versus politics discussion might be worth its own thread if you'd like to start, unless there is one already.