Todd's excellent recent post on academics and happiness also raises the much broader question of whether religious belief causes happiness. Some studies, including Arthur Brooks' recent important work, do claim to show a correlation between the two. However, the argument that this proves that being religious makes you happier has two serious flaws.
I. Correlation vs. Causation.
First, even if we prove that there is a correlation between religious belief and happiness, that is not the same thing as proving causation. It could be that people who are happy for reasons unrelated to religion are more likely to be religious. There are a number of plausible scenarios under which this theory would be true. For example, it may be that a tendency towards social conformity makes people happier because they clash less with social norms and the people around them. And conformists are more likely to be religious than nonconformists (at least in an overwhelmingly religious society such as the US). An interesting test of this hypothesis would be to see whether religious believers are (controlling for other variables) happier than atheists in majority-atheist societies such as Denmark, Japan, and the Czech Republic.
II. Measuring Religious Belief vs. Measuring Attendance at Religious Services.
Second, and much more important, the studies do not in fact find even a correlation between happiness and religious belief. What they show is a correlation between happiness and attendance at religious services. For example, Brooks, in the article linked above, shows that "religious" people are much more likely to report being "very happy" in surveys than "secular" people. However, he defines "religious" people as those who say they "attend houses of worship at least once per week" and "secular" as those who say they "never" attend houses of worship.
This is a crucial distinction. It is highly likely that all Brooks' work and other similar studies have shown is that religious believers who go to services regularly are happier than those believers who never do so. Brooks' "secular" category includes some 20 percent of the American population. Yet other survey data shows that atheists and agnostics make up only about 3 to 9 percent of the population. Even if all the atheists and agnostics in Brooks' survey were counted as "secular," it would still be the case that the vast majority of his "secular" respondents (at least 55%), are in fact religious believers who don't go to services. Moreover, many atheists and agnostics do attend religious services at least occasionally (e.g. - for family or social reasons), and so would not be included in Brooks' "secular" category. Some would even be categorized as "religious." I have an atheist friend who regularly attends religious services with her believer husband. In Brooks' study, she would be considered "religious," even though she denies the existence of God and doesn't believe that the precepts of her husband's religion (or any religion) are actually true.
Why would believers who attend services be happier than those who never do? There are many possible reasons, and some of the most plausible ones do not apply with equal force to nonattendance by atheists and agnostics. For example, attendance at religious services is a social activity. We know from a great deal of social science evidence that people who build up "social capital" by participating in social and community activities tend to be happier than those who do. Understandably, religious people with high social capital will tend to participate in religiously-oriented groups. Equally understandably, atheists and agnostics will tend to focus on secular ones. For a religious believer, never attending services is a strong indication of low participation in social activities more generally. For an atheist or agnostic, it might just be an indication that he participates in secular activities instead.
Similarly, many religious people believe that they have a duty to attend services. Those who believe they have such a duty but never live up to it may well be down on themselves for what they perceive to be their own immoral conduct. Almost by definition, atheists and agnostics do not believe they have any moral duty to attend religious services. So they are extremely unlikely to engage in self-recrimination for failing to do so.
III. Limitations of the Argument.
It's important to be clear about the limitations of my argument. I'm not saying that the evidence shows that atheists are happier than religious believers. I'm not even saying Brooks' hypothesis that religious belief makes one happier is provably false. All I'm suggesting is that the evidence he presents doesn't substantiate it.
I'm also not suggesting that the lack of a connection between religious belief and happiness proves that religion is false. The validity of belief in God is independent of whether nor not such belief makes people happy. The same is true for the validity of atheism. I am an atheist because I think logic and evidence support the conclusion that God doesn't exist, not because I think that being an atheist will make me happy.
In fact, it's perfectly possible for belief in imaginary beings to increase happiness. For example, many children are probably happier because of their belief in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. When they learn the truth, they tend to be disappointed, and their level of happiness declines (at least for a time). By contrast, belief in real beings is sometimes more unpleasant than blissful ignorance of their existence. For example, many Americans might be happier if they didn't know about Osama Bin Laden and therefore didn't have to worry about the threat he poses. The truth may set you free. But it won't always make you happy.
UPDATE: In his article linked above, Brooks also notes that "people who pray every day are a third likelier to be very happy than those who never pray, whether or not they attend services." To my mind, this means of measuring religiosity is not sufficiently distinct from attending services. Like attendance at services, regular prayer is also often a social activity (e.g. - many people do it with their families and friends), and is thus likely to be correlated with "social capital." Similarly, many of those who say they "never" pray are likely to be religious believers rather than atheists or agnostics. They may simply belong to religions that don't require prayer; or they doubt its effectiveness despite belonging to denominations that hold otherwise. Thus, Brooks' use of the prayer variable likely proves only that religious people who pray regularly tend to be happie than those religious people who don't. Brooks himself offers a plausible explanation for this result when he notes (in a different context) that "what makes some religious people unhappy is an image of God as severe, unloving or distant . . . regular churchgoers who feel 'very close to God' are 27% more likely to be very happy than churchgoers who do not feel very close to God." If you are religious and believe that God is likely to answer your prayers, that may well make you happier than you would be if you believed in God but thought that he is - in Brooks' words - "severe, unloving, or distant." But that fact says little about the effects on happiness of not believing in God at all.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Does Religious Belief Increase Charitable Giving?
- Does Religious Belief Increase Happiness?
- Academics and Happiness Revisited:
- Why Are Academics So Weird?
The short and sweet answer to this is that most atheists and agnostics do not agree with your bleak assessment of life in a world without God. Therefore, their lack of belief in him doesn't make them unhappy in the way that you think you would be if you didn't believe.
Tom DeLay is deeply religious (Baptist), but he is such an angry SOB, I'm not sure his religion helps or hurts the guy.
One goal of meditation is to free oneself of the physical world and become at peace with it, so it would make sense that those who practice it more often would be happier than those who don't.
And even if it did, most atheists I know are big on logic. That belief in God might make us feel better is surely a pragmatic reason to accept the existence of God as true, but it's not a logical reason for doing so.
Speaking of praying regularly, that tells us nothing about whether the beliefs in question are responsible for the happiness that may result. As someone noted above, people who meditate regularly might report the same benefits even if they were thoroughgoing atheists.
however, going with your theme:
other non causal explanations for the possible correlation:
a) (reverse causation) happiness causes religious belief-happy people may be more comfortable with the logic of an all powerful loving god than those who, from their state of unhappiness, struggle to understand how their could be a loving all powerful god. (most religious belief forms today posit such a god).
b) (more third variables)-perhaps membership in the religious community (as opposed to actual belief) is what causes both happiness (a close nit caring community that religious communities sometimes are can cause happiness) and belief-as the beliefs of that community intellectually or influence a person to accept that belief.
its distinct from conformity as the third variable-becuase a person could be a non conformist who was simply won over intellectually by the religious community-or a non conformist who was threatened by the religious community to conform.
The real question is, would you rather be right or happy?
I'd rather be right. However in my experience, most people would rather be happy. That's why atheism will never be popular, no matter how much evidence there is against particular religions being "True."
And I'm sure that the same people are "much more likely to report being" moral. But without a proper understanding of what it means to be "moral," the survey is empty.
I know that I'd be happier if I had a personal relationship with the Creator of the Universe, who loved me and care for me. I'd be absoltely thrilled.
There is another third variable explanation here as well: a very bad life event can both make a person unhappy and cause them to question their faith. Is there any data out there on how common it is for disbelief to be precipitated by some sort of life crisis or tragedy?
Christianity originated in cultures much less individualistic than ours, where people probably didn't take their emotional temperature very often to see if they were happy. I would love to see some good cross-cultural studies on the correlation between religion and happiness. It's only a guess, but I would expect a higher degree of contentment among Christians living in cultures (religious/ethnic/national ones) that don't place a premium on individual happiness.
Those who look for happiness often miss it while those who look for something beyond themselves often find happiness along the way
And George Weis, there's a third possible measurement issue. It may be that the religious feel an expectation to be happy and therefore report more happiness, regardless of the true feelings. I personally am very dubious about the reliability of these self-reported happiness scores.
Sure, asking moderately drunk people if they are happy should give higher results than sober people. That shows that the results are at least somewhat connected to reality. If the study were based on whether person A thinks person B is happy, then I'd agree that it's absolutely meaningless.
notaclue: I'm an atheist, and while I'm fairly content, I'm sure you're happier than I am. You see yourself as part of a group, which you call the "Body of Christ" (kinda creepy), and you "Know" (with the capital K) that you're going to a place called heaven while other people not part of the club (like myself) will burn in hell. You believe you have a personal relationship with a being that created the universe, and everything in it. How could anyone who "Knew" that to be real not be happy about it? The catch is, you're factually wrong. So is everyone else who subscribes to a different religion (I don't mean to only pick on Christians, as Islam, Judaism, Scientology, and Mormonism are equally wrong). But we only live once, and deciding to be happy at the expense of being factually correct is perfectly rational. In fact, given the tangible benefits of being wrong, it's hard to justify being right. The only thing being right has to offer is, for some, a subjective sense of intellectual superiority. That's not a sufficient benefit, for me. So why do I not be wrong and significantly happier? I simply can't do it. Convincing myself that I Know 1 plus 1 doesn't equal 2 is not something I'm capable of doing. It's what religious people refer to as "faith" ... though faith is really nothing more than the act of believing/Knowing something despite substantial evidence to the contrary. If I could have a head injury only severe enough to allow me to have faith, with no adverse health consequences, I'd have to think long and hard about whether I'd do it. It would be an extremely tough decision.
I think most people would rather be happy and I don't blame them. I'd rather not debunk someone's belief in religion for that exact reason (at times I think it can be as cruel as debunking belief in Santa Claus) but I'll be damned if I let someone's comprehensive religious system rule my life or try to take over and rule public policy.
Sometimes it can be comforting just to pretend that such exists. You can fool yourself into believing that it's really going on. But if happiness and comfort are the "ends" of "good religion" then I feel as though I have a duty to counter those aspects of traditional religion that are as disturbing or gloomy (indeed, even gloomier) than atheism.
For instance, I think the notion that human beings because of their original sin deserve eternal damnation and that this fate awaits most of humanity, to be far worse, far sadder and agonizing, than the notion that NOTHING exists beyond the grave that death is ultimate extinction.
Why does Brooks' conclusion seem so threatening to you? Moreover applying Occam's razor he presents the more probable conclusion.
There have also been several studies that show that religious belief lengthens life. From a Christian perspective, we would say that this is because we're living within God's will. But even from a "secular" perspective, you're right, maybe it's just from a sense of security, less stress, greater sense of duty to maintain your body (God's creation, etc).
I just don't understand why some people (see several of the above posts) feel so threatened by this. I don't know everything about vitamins, but I take them because I believe they will enhance my health. Similarly, if simple attendance at church once a week actually provides all these benefits without believing in God, then it makes sense to go to church. I don't think it's a case of being right versus being happy. The studies say it makes your life better. Why is that so threatening?
A few things about your response to "notaclue" that puzzle me:
First, you state that "notaclue" "knows" (or believes he knows) he is going to heaven and you as an atheist are going to hell. I certainly cannot speak for "notaclue," but I consider myself religious (although I don't go to church) and I really have no idea if you're going to hell or if I'm going to heaven.
Second, you imply that religion is "factually wrong," if I understood you correctly. It seems to me that religion is more unprovable than "factually wrong."
Third, you state that "faith is really nothing more than the act of believing/Knowing something despite substantial evidence to the contrary." Do you mean "faith" as a mode of belief or do you mean, by "faith," a shorthand word for religion? If you mean a shorthand for religion, isn't your reasoning a bit circular, in that you are merely saying that religion is wrong because it flies in the face of "substantial evidence to the contrary"? (I.e., that religion is wrong because it is wrong.)
If you mean a "mode of belief," as in, "some people believe things by faith while others belief things only supported by fact," I venture to speculate that most people, be they atheists or religious, accept certain things on "faith" without waiting for proof. I, for example, believe that murder is wrong, and I accept, on faith, that it is wrong. (It then, of course, becomes and issue as to how I define "murder." My point is there are some assumptions we make without proof.)
It's my contention that this is the kind of religion that is either harmless or actually good for society. However, to a traditional orthodox Christians, esp. of the evangelical Protestant perspective Bruce M. as an atheists most certainly IS going to Hell.
Yet, as with the atheists, I'm not going to "write off" orthodox Christians, because these perspectives deserve to have their day in court as they "search for the truth." I will just say that if either of the two is true, then that's bad news, bad news indeed. I'd rather HOPE that the feel good religion of a benevolent God who sends everyone to Heaven (but who might punish folks temporarily in accordance to the severity of their sin) is true.
But in all honestly, who the heck knows?
Then most atheists haven't really thought about the consequences of their worldview. Or they're lying; since atheism, by definition, lacks a moral compass, a lie is morally identical to the truth, and no atheist wants to admit that his philosophy makes him miserable.
Actually, I imagine that this explains why so very many atheists are socially destructive, antireligious and especially antiChristian; their existential angst leads them to hate and envy religious people for having the answers that they refuse to accept.
"For instance, I think the notion that human beings because of their original sin deserve eternal damnation and that this fate awaits most of humanity, to be far worse, far sadder and agonizing, than the notion that NOTHING exists beyond the grave that death is ultimate extinction."
People who want to sin without consequence often think that. Fear of Hell comes from the desire to reject Christ and live an unGodly life. Just like in real life, if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear.
"In fact, given the tangible benefits of being wrong, it's hard to justify being right. The only thing being right has to offer is, for some, a subjective sense of intellectual superiority."
Which is why atheists act so arrogant and superior - and why intellectualism itself is a trap. We mere mortals understand the benefits of being 'fools for God'.
And, TBH, I think this entire article is a non-issue. Of course people who love God are happier than those who don't. We know that God loves us back :)
Not Roman Catholicism, where it is mandatory, and the reflection is that Christ would not have performed his first miracle so that everybody could get plastered at a wedding party if he had anything against getting looped.
I suspect cause here would be impossible to sort out.
1. Since in the end we are all dead, as is everyone we have loved, it would be expected that people who believe in eternity, reunion with them, etc. would be happier than reflecting that they are dead and gone, but a soon forgotten marker in a cemetery, and in fifty years you will be the same. But
2. It is probably easier to be religious if you are happy. Being crushed, or feeling crushed, is harder to reconcile with a loving and all-good deity than being happy. Also
3. To the extent one feels crushed, many folks take consolation from the thought that the loving, all-good deity must have some inexplicable purpose in having let them be stomped into the ground. Personally, I'd treat my friends a little better, but it is still possible to seek some consolation there.
I really want to know how this statement can possibly be backed up?
Are you really claiming that unless your actions are motivated by fear of or love of a god that you can't be moral? Are you claiming that no morality can be reached through reason or thought? That no morality can be TAUGHT without backing it up with a god somewhere?
Thomas Jefferson's red letter version of the Bible is a good example--picks out the morality without the magic. He knew what was important!
Maybe a non-believer on a very religious society still has certain expectations about life that could be only achieved with religious practice.
However, I think you make one mistake: your assumption that because the majority are religious that therefore religious behavior is the norm. There is no single religion that is the norm, and where ever you work or engage in other non-religious social activity, your religion is likely to be a minority view. Second, a great deal of culture is controlled by television and movies which are almost entirely either neutral on the subject or distinctly opposed to religion. So anyone who is religious is inclined to see himself as a minority --one whose views are much more frequently mocked and despised in the major cultural events than supported.
And I think that you are forgetting (or not aware of) the doctrinal issues around Christianity that might tend to make people happy (I can't speak to other religions on this score so I'll restrict myself to Christianity). Regular church goers are constantly encouraged to be faithful to their spouse, gentle to their children, helpful to friends, loyal to employers, kind to strangers, generous, loving, honest, and trustworthy. These things are often hard, but doing them, in the long run, makes you happy. Of course atheists can determine to be like this as well, but they will not get the regular encouragement that attenders get at Christian churches, which makes it harder.
Also, when you try to live like this, you will find yourself failing frequently, and these failures will make you feel guilty if you have a well-honed conscience. What Christianity offers in this regard is forgiveness. You recognize your guilt, determine to do better in the future, ask God to forgive you, and then your failures are as if they never happened. You become, for a few shining moments until your next failure, entirely without guilt. If Christians are more happy, I think it would be due to that more than anything.
It is literally impossible to become intoxicated from Communion. Transubstantiation and all.
"Are you really claiming that unless your actions are motivated by fear of or love of a god that you can't be moral? Are you claiming that no morality can be reached through reason or thought? That no morality can be TAUGHT without backing it up with a god somewhere? "
Yes. If morality is a human creation, than morality is subjective: depending on the premises you begin with, any belief system or philosophy can claim, with equal validity, to be 'moral'. And if anything can be moral, morality as a concept ceases to exist. The only way for an objective moral code to exist is if it is imposed on humanity from outside, ie, from God.
Most atheists, even though they reject God, continue to follow (roughly) the God-given moral code of their society. Some of them even find fancy philosophical arguments to try and justify their moral code without involving God, but these arguments are always fallacious, because God is the source and the foundation of all law and morality. That is to say: if atheists behave in a moral manner, it is because they have not really thought about the consequences of atheism as a belief system, and still unthinkingly obey the God-sourced moral code of the surrounding culture.
Is not religion--at least in any form actually practiced by humans--subjective then? Can there be more than one objective version of a religious truth? So who's right? Muslims? Jews? FLDS? 7th Day Adventists? Scientologist? catholics? etc? They all have different versions of morality. Are they all equally valid? How do you know when you have stumbled across the right true religious morality that ought to be obeyed?
Also interesting to me that Jesus said render unto Caesar what is Caesar. Muhammad was a secular and religious ruler and law giver. The Jewish tradition has a long and highly developed legal tradition that gave birth to the other two. Yet your definitions give any secular law no legitimacy or morality. Indeed, by your standards, it seems like people would go to hell for obeying the laws of the society in which they live in? I don't think that's very moral!
Is the US Constitution "God-given" -- I'm pretty sure any of the authors would STRONGLY deny so! What about all of our state and federal laws? Because I try to obey them generally.
I'm not sure that quite follows logic--it's quite circular!. As your definition of morality is solely defined by a god, of course--by your standards--of course morality without a god is impossible. However if you take a more common definition of morality...
Question--billions of people worldwide (many East Asians, Buddhists, volokh posters) are atheists. Are they all immoral?
Morality comes from our social instincts and empathy for others, which become codified in culture and society. Religion gets it's morality from people, not the other way around, though it becomes a somewhat iterative process since religion can be a way of inculcating societal morality, but so can any culture or society. And the morality that religion teaches can be evil, such as stoning people to **death** for leaving the religion (as required in the Koran) or for trying to temp believers from their faith (as required by the Old Testament). In many cases religion is a source of evil rather than a cure for it.
If morality only comes from the monotheistic God of Abraham then all Hindus and Buddhists should be murdering, lying sociopaths. Yet empirically we know that is false. Christians do not commit less crime than non Christians. In fact, there is a disproportionally **small** population of non-theists in prison. Your argument fails utterly, both logically and empirically.
Please note that the Ten Commandments are not the source of US law or morality. If they were, our first law would be "I am the lord thy God"--instead we have the Establishment Clause. And we'd have laws against graven images and covetousness--which, of course, we don't.
corneille1640, crazy claims with no evidence in support of them, and plenty of evidence to the contrary, are factually wrong. We could argue over whether it's provable that the earth is round or flat, and get into a debate about epistemology. Not my goal. All religions are factually wrong. I can prove it as simply as pointing out all the internal contradictions in any religious text. When page 2 of the bible conflicts with page 3, and when page 4 of the koran conflicts with page 5, yet both books are supposedly entirely accurate, they are thus false.
Anyone who claims "laws come from God" gives the legislature WAY too much credit. If that were true, the bankruptcy code alone would be proof that god doesn't exist.
Note that while I concede religion makes people happy (at the expense of being wrong about one's beliefs and world view) I never said lack of religion makes people "miserable" or otherwise unhappy. Such a conclusion shouldn't be drawn. I compared religion to opiate use. Opiates make people happy. Does that mean not using opiates makes people sad? Of course not. The suggestion is ridiculous.
Just the mere act of attendance, without religious belief, will increase the happiness of about 20% of you (according to the Brooks study). Raise your hand if you believe that, and report to your nearest house of worship.
Just the mere act of attendance, without religious belief, will increase the happiness of about 20% of you (according to the Brooks study). Raise your hand if you believe that, and report to your nearest house of worship.
What the studies show is Correlation, not causation. Studies also show that Jews, on average, have higher incomes than gentiles. That doesn't mean that converting to Judaism will make a gentile any richer.
So when you control for age, income, education, etc., roughly 80% of the gap disappears? (If I'm reading this right, religious people are roughly twice as likely as the non-religious to report being "very happy;" however, once you control for various factors, they are about 21% more likely to do so.)
Does that not suggest that a lot of the happiness differential could be due to some other variable, not controlled for? Or that, since religiousity (actual word?) tends to run in families and communities, that there is a bit of a halo effect? If you are hanging around with married, educated, high-income people, they are likely to be happy, which will, in turn, make you a bit happier - because hanging around with happy people is different from hanging around with unhappy people. So even if you are not married, educated, high-income, white, etc., you're in the same social circle as those people.
Or maybe some of it is what my friend said, in regards to Christianity: "Heirs with Jesus, royalty baby!"
If the atheistic, physicalist world view is true then there is no philosophical reason for actually being moral (as opposed to acting moral until you are sure that you can get away with something). Why should you control yourself if you feel the urge to rape and you know that you can get away with it? After all, the woman is really just a bag of chemicals supporting some complex electrical phenomena that somehow gives the illusion of consciousness. In a few years --a trivial time period by geologic standards-- you and she will both be gone forever, broken down into components, brief illusion of self-importance faded with the electrical impulses. What difference if you get a little pleasure and she gets a little pain? Ultimately it's all just ion transfers in biological tissue. What does it really matter in the grand scheme of things? You are just a smart animal, after all and animals do that all the time.
As a physicalist atheist (as most atheists are these days), you can't appeal to abstract moral concepts such as duty until you have shown how those concepts can arise out of the physical. If you are a non-physicalist atheist then this specific argument won't work against you but an analogous argument probably will.
Also the two objections I've seen here to Christian morality are misunderstandings. First of all, the fact that there are other religions doesn't effect the rationality of following morality for a Christian. If you believe in Christianity, then you have a reason to be moral. If Christianity is in fact false then you are mistaken, but you do have a good reason given what you believe. By contrast, atheists have no good reason, mistaken or otherwise.
Second, the reason to be moral is not the danger of punishment. Many Christians (other than Catholics) do not believe that they will be punished for doing wrong. And even those who do believe that they will be punished do not say that this is the only reason to be moral. As non-physicalists, Christians can appeal to real, objective morality as a non-physical existent.
I understand your point that correlation does not prove causation, but there are few social studies that can offer more than correlation. I assumed that you stressed the point that the measure the Brooks study used was attendance, not some direct measure of belief, because you think that attendance more likely to be the causative factor in happiness than is belief. I was (gently, I hope), mocking that notion.
I am curious, how would you propose to structure a study to prove (or disprove) that greater religious belief causes greater personal happiness? Is it even possible? You hint that you think it is not.
On behalf of St Paul, St Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Isaac Newton, Martin Luther King, and Pope Benedict XVI (to name a few), thanks so much for not overwhelming our blinkered view of the world with your mighty intellect.
So in your case religion doesn’t provide happiness so much as nastiness?
Your Christians' quickness to vicious, hateful personal attacks -- right out in the open, right where your angry nastiness is exposed to your Christian brothers -- points to the deep bigotry of your faith. Your religion teaches you it's _OK_ to hate. You wouldn't steal in public. You wouldn't cheat or lie or masturbate in public. But hurtful hateful personal attacks you do openly. You're not ashamed at all. None of your brothers will scold you. You all take this hatred for granted. Amazing. And sick.
Take it to Jesus in prayer ithaqua. He'll maybe have something else real hateful shitty you can say. We'll accept that as your witness.
My question to the atheists here about morality is whether their morality might, to some extent, come from their ancestors' faith. I think that it is still somewhat hard to separate out how you were raised, how your parents were raised, etc., from the faith of those ancestors.
I suggest this because it seems like the morality of atheist Jews seems a bit different from that of those who (or whose parents) were raised Catholic or Protestant. Don't know that many of other ethnic backgrounds to generalize any further and admit that this is fairly weak subjective feeling.
Some who disclaim a belief in a Judeao/ Christian/ Moslem god seem to have found other higher callings, most notably these days earth worship, these days likely evidenced by panic over man caused global warming. The worry that our children or children's children will see massive famine, NYC flooded, etc. would seem depressing enough that it might bring the non-religious happiness quotient down. Ditto to some extent for other non-religious beliefs in lieu of religion. Looking at the extent of poverty in the world would seem to do the same.
Just throwing this out.
Well, since you decided to be snotty: POCM
I certainly was NOT saying that morality comes from God. My claim--which you probably disagree with but what is different from what you made it out to be--is that belief that murder is wrong requires one to accept assumptions about right and wrong and that these assumptions are "unprovable." The assertion that murder is wrong is not provable. One could, of course, offer reasons why murder is wrong, but those reasons will beg the original question.
Also, I should say that of course religions have internal contradictions. At least all religions I'm familiar with do. Certainly my religion--Christianity--has internal contradictions. But doesn't atheism have some internal contradictions? As a non-atheist, I'm not the best person to point out the contradictions, but surely, BruceM, your reliance on reason and your status as someone who is constitutionally incapable of believing a falsehood despite evidence has put you occasionally in a position of finding logical contradictions in atheism.
However, even if I could prove that atheism suffers from internal contradictions, and even if you accept my argument that a process very similar to what I define as "faith" is essential for making choices about right and wrong (which prompts you to warn me to "stay away" from you, which, I suppose, is an example of atheists' open-mindedness and refusal to endorse bigotry of any kind), I acknowledge that still would not "disprove" the validity of atheism or "prove" the validity of religion.
It would also be interesting to test the effect in religious communities that don't require any particular theological beliefs of their adherents. This is definitely true of Unitarian Universalism, and is becoming true of Quakerism and (to a lesser extent, I think) Reform Judaism. No doubt there are other such communities outside the rich world.
There is almost nothing in the Constitution and little in the various notes from the CC that suggests they thought "God" wrote the Constitution. And certainly the ideas contained therein are hardly "biblical."
However I can muster some quotations from Madison and company that state God was watching over that "Providence" had Its "finger" in the affair.
I can't prove their vision of God is any truer than that of the orthodox but it sounds nicer. Here is a nice quote on John Adams expressing his unitarian-universalism:
corneille1640: Yes, I do completely disagree. All crimes are wrong/immoral when, if not illegal and I could do it to you and you could do it to me, orderly society would simply collapse. It's simply a matter of the most basic economics. Crimes exist when we'd have complete anarcy in the alternative. If I can steal from you, that means you can steal from me. Thus no property rights. If I can murder you, you can murder me, and we'd quickly devolve into an animalistic battle over sex partners and food sources. Similarly if I don't have to pay my taxes then you don't have to pay your taxes and government won't be able to function. It doesn't take any unprovable assumptions to figure this out. Also, not all crimes are wrong or immoral. There may be measurable benefits by giving up the right to do certain things, but the question is whether society could still function. If I can speed in my car then you can speed in your car - but society will still function (it practically exists this way now) though there may be more traffic accidents. Crimes should only be limited to the actions that would result in societal collapse. Thus we make exceptions for self defense. Exceptions like self defense are self evident. Plus, no religious system operates to create such defenses, anyway.
In fact, insofar as murder itself is only defined as the "unlawful/wrongful killing" of another person, a proscription that "thou shalt not murder" is circular, and says nothing more than "thou shalt not kill someone when doing so is wrong or illegal." How the hell does that provide any moral guidance? It would be better to just say "thou shalt not break the law or commit wrongful/unreasonable acts." In fact, to not just come out and say that does more harm than good as you can apply the "expressio unius" maxim to a list of "Ten Commandments" and infer that actions like rape are perfectly fine since they're not listed there. Come to think of it, nowhere in the Bible does it even imply that rape is improper.
It doesn't take a genius (or maybe it does...) to figure out why we, as humans, should give up our right to kill other people - whenever we feel like it - without any justification.
Doc Rampage, please reaed my 12:27am post. It seems you may fall into the category I describe when you say that atheists have no reason to be moral (with the implicit corollary that only religious people have a reason to be moral).
That's not the issue. The author of the biblical book James said it well:
"What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? ...faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
...You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder. "
Thus, Mr. Somin has set up a straw man. He demands that, in order to convince him that faith is of benefit, we must show benefit in the kind of faith we believe has none.
What the studies have demonstrated is exactly what the writer says -- that those who live their faith derive some benefit from it. Those who do not, do not.
Mr. Somin would interview those shuddering demons and use their lack of comfort as proof they have nothing to shudder about.
So typically the people who are loud and visible about their atheism are people who really hate religion like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens.
Ask and you shall receive.
There are multiple studies that show an inverse relationship between religiosity and criminal behavior. The inference of a relationship between disbelief is thus straightforward.
For a review, see:
Schreck CJ, Burek MW, Clark-Miller J.He sends rain upon the wicked: a panel study of the influence of religiosity on violent victimization.J Interpers Violence. 2007 Jul;22(7):872-93.
See also:
Baier, C. J., &Wright, B. R. E. (2001). “If you love me, keep my commandments”: A meta-analysis of the effect of religion on crime. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 38, 3-21.
For example, you say opiate use makes people happy. How much opiate? Can't we make some successful objective determinations about what feelings are produced by what amounts and what kinds? If we look at a year's time, or ten years, or a lifetime, does opiate use make people happy? Happier than the pain of end-stage cancer? Happier when on a high rather than suffering withdrawal? If happiness is simply a feeling of pleasure, then what happens when you take your pleasure in elusive, misleading things like opium or false beliefs?
If believers are moral because it makes them happier, then so too can atheists choose to be moral because it makes them happier.
If believers are moral because it is rewarded in an afterlife, so too can atheists be moral because it earns pleasant rewards in this life.
If believers are moral because they fear the punishment of a God, so too can atheists be moral because they fear the punishments of the law or even the disapproval of their associates.
If believers are moral because they believe that it is important to improve their own souls or fulfill duties, so too can atheists be moral because they want to improve themselves or fulfill duties to others.
Where do these moral obligations come from? The religious person thinks they come from God, but believes this only because of a prior choice to accept certain evidence about the reality of God and God's wishes. The moral atheist also makes a choice to believe that treating others well leads to a better life. Both choose in the absence of perfect evidence, unless you believe that God somehow compels believers to accept God and be moral. And if you believe that God chooses his own elect and excludes others from the possibility of morality or salvation, then you've got many worse paradoxes to explain than why an atheist might feel motivated to do good!
The studies seem to consistently show that religious people are happier. You might even say that conclusion is fast becoming the "Scientific Consensus".
The atheist response? A refusal to believe the science. And very long posts like Ilya's trying to point out possible flaws in the studies. True, studies can be flawed and have to be very carefully examined. But one gets the impression that the results are odious, not the method.
The atheist response? Judging by these posts, sanctimonious comparisons of religion to Santa Claus, to crazily believing you are the Queen of England, etc, etc. A reduction of very complex religious thought to simple notions. The modern atheists seems to be prey to simplistic thinking, to bumper sticker slogans. (The Flying Spaghetti Monster! Zeus!) They also seems to be addicted to ridiculing the other side.
As I have read Christopher Hitchens et al, I am struck by the pure anti-truth nature of it all. So much of it depends on not knowing history in all its glory, but rather in choosing to believe a particular warped version of the facts. These works demean science, because they are polemical works rather than science guided works. They are emotional works, not scholarship. Plus, when you have 2,000 years of human history to dig through, a lot of dirt can be found.
And despite their claims to higher morality, their works consistently display strange, distasteful tendencies. Christopher Hitchens claims that atheists can be just as moral, but then when someone he dislikes dies, he writes particularly vicious pieces attacking them. Gerald Ford was a monster in his view. Mother Theresa seems to be the ultimate in evil, in his mind. Is this a new order of morality?
And consider Richard Dawkins' extraordinarily vain attempt to re-name atheists as "Brights". Of course, this means that religious people are by definition stupid. By definitino. Talk about arrogance.
Who would want to turn the world over to a philosophy that parochial, unkind, exclusive and elitist?
Can atheists be moral? Sure.
But in actual practice, they sure do seem to run off the moral rails rather quickly when not safely cocooned within a society permeated with religion.
I must be misinterpreting this. However, if you are a Christian and don't make decisions based on what God tells you to do, you might consider listening to Him. All in all, most Christians *do* believe that doing what God says to do is a pretty good option, at least for Christians. If God tells you to do something and your inclination is to do the opposite, I'd think hard before choosing the latter. YMMV, of course.
Seriously, your line of reasoning doesn't make sense to me. The act of choosing to believe in the Christ is a choice, certainly, but the implications of that choice are not as trivial as you imply. Choosing to walk off a cliff is a choice, but once you are off, there are certain experiential events that are going to shape your near future regardless of subsequent decisions. Giving your life to Christ is not like choosing which brand of orange juice to drink, where choosing one brand is like any other. It should be shaping the very way you perceive and think about the world around you. The indwelling of the Spirit makes things anything other than the equivalent of being an atheist.
Atheists can certainly be moral, and many of them are, because they in fact do have a moral compass. One doesn't have to be a Christian to believe that harming another person is wrong. One can certainly be a Christian and harm lots of people. Happens all the time.
One difference, though, is that people who strongly believe in a religion can convince themselves that they can harm another person, so long as it's in the service of religion. Sometimes, they believe their religion requires them to harm another. Whether it is the Inquisition, or discrimination against a group they don't like (atheists, or gays, or illegal immigrants, for instance).
In this, religion can be at least as dangerous as another other belief or nonbelief. When you believe you are doing God's work, then ironically all morality goes out the window. No harm is too great to 'save' another person, or worse, to enforce your version of morality upon another person. Of course, this is the exact opposite of Christ's teachings, but then hypocracy isn't immoral either -- at least according to the bible.
Fredness, your defense of the study would be better if you actually had some response to the methodological criticisms, rather than dismissing them without reason. And you are plainly wrong in your "off the rails" comment, unless you think that Western European nations exhibit this tendency (perhaps they do re your view of sexual morality but surely not other moral standards).
William Oliver provides useful information. For those who can't get to the studies: the first is on victimization rather than committing crimes (but it has data on questionable behavior like binge drinking). The second shows that the irreligious are more criminal. The effect size is pretty small (less than ten percent difference overall and even smaller for whites), but it seems to be there.
Because the false beliefs are nice, comforting ones that stroke the ego and provide comfort. That's the best answer I can give, beause like I said before, I'm simply not capable of maintaining a false belief. But the vast majority of people are. Given the choice between being right and being happy, 90% or more of humans choose the latter. And I don't hold it against them. It's an odd rational irrationality of sorts. It's rational to be irrational due to the benefits.
Perhaps the religious are "content" with their lot, whatever it is, because their faith is bigger than their circumstances, whatever they may be, good, bad, rich, poor, sick, and so forth.
Well, the moral guidance comes from the fact that God says that it is immoral to kill. That God is the one who, according to Christians, made us, created us, and gave us a conscience.
Now, if you wonder why God says that things are right and wrong, read the Euthyphro. ;)
I am not one of the lucky ones to whom God speaks directly. God has never literally told me "do this" or "don't do this". Even if I take Scripture to be God's word, I still have to choose how to interpret it. Thou shalt not kill... in self-defense? In defense of others? Ever, period? You get the idea. Everyone has to think and choose how to act, and most everyone has a conscience to guide choices. You may choose to be guided by Socrates and I may choose to be guided by Jesus, but I still have to figure out what that means in my day to day actions because Jesus is not here to tell me at each step. I read and think about what he did and said, and try to apply it.
If you think God is literally speaking in your ear how to be moral at each turn, then you have a big advantage and maybe yes, you are one of the elect and I'm not.
You essentially makes happiness the goal rather than goodness. If happiness is the goal, then you will only be good so long as it makes you happy; it does not create an obligation for you to be good. Even if you could argue that ultimately doing good always makes you happiest, this would still not be a defense of prescriptive ethical behavior, but only a descriptive observation of behavior.
Regardless of our religious beliefs, people feel obligations towards others. Presumably a believer does not stop feeling those obligations on days when the evidence for God's existence seems less compelling, and likewise it's not clear why the atheist should stop. Does either group have some direct line of contact to the source of all "being obligated"? No. We choose to believe in God and therefore to believe that obligations are real because God prefers it to be so. Or we choose not to believe in God and to believe that it is important to us to honor obligations and live morally. Either way, we have to make a choice and conclude that it matters how we live.
He either believes in the principle ex nihilo, nihil fit, or he does not. If he believes in that principle, then he ought to be able to offer an explanation for the physical universe which we can see, or, conversely have to deny its existence.
If he rejects ex nihilo, nihil fit, then similarly he is faced with offering some kind of "first cause".
Seems logical to me that the atheist is in a position of defending an absurdity, whereas the theist truncates the mystery by assigning the apellation "God" to a first and eternal "cause".
IOW, the atheist ends up being no less dogmatic than the theist.
Suzy, this has nothing to do with being one of the "elect." The Christ promised the gift of the Holy Spirit to all believers. I don't know your personal situation and I am not a very good Christian, so I try to stay out of the business of personal counselling.
But that being said, if you are trying to figure out things on your own, you are acting like Nicodemus trying to reason out how someone can re-enter the womb. If your congregation is devoid of the Spirit, find one that is not. Of course, different people receive guidance from the Spirit in different ways, and have different gifts. But in whatever manifestation, it is your birthright through your rebirth in Jesus Christ.
It doesn't always come easy for everyone. That's why some become mystics and engage in ritual and discipline. It's why some go to Charismatic churches and try to find it in a group. It's why some worship God alone in the mountain, and others in service on skid row. And everyone is a varying distance from God during their lives -- remember the long dark night of the soul of Mother Theresa.
But it's there for you, and it's not an issue of election. I don't know what barriers there are in your life, or how to erase them, but if you have given your life to Christ, the Spirit is there for you. Learning to hear it will be a wonderful exploration for you. It was for me, though it involved me leaving the church and playing with everything from atheism to paganism to Buddhism to Islam before returning to Christ.
If you don't know people in your congregation who experience guidance from the Spirit, then find one where they do. Explore. Some congregations are clearly dead to the Spirit. Some clearly substitute their own egos for it, where every little flatulent urge is considered the voice of God. But there are many who have gotten it right. They are still congregations of people -- with all of people's failings -- but when it's right, you will know. And when you do find it, it will make all of the chittering of petty antichristians irrelevant.
What does that even mean? I know you're not likely to become intoxicated from communion wine, because it's a very small amount of wine. But what does transubstantiation have to do with it? Does Jesus's blood replace the alcohol content or something?
No, any version of the 10 Commandments that says "thou shalt not kill" actually meant "thou shalt not murder." And that, as I said before, is circular and provides no moral guidance beyond not doing things wrong or illegal. In fact, since only a select few wrong/illegal acts are named (murder, theft, and to an extent perjury), the expressio unius est exclusio alterius (The express mention of one thing excludes all others) canon of construction would imply that all other wrongful/illegal acts are perfectly acceptable to God, thus not immoral.
In my experience, not only does religion (primarily Christianity as I live in America and interact mostly with Christians of all sorts) not provide any moral guidance, but it encourages immorality. Many religious people feel they can act in any way they desire and harm others because they are a full-blown member of a religion, other people are not, and they Know that they're going to heaven; if they commit a sin they can just ask for forgiveness, pray and go to church (maybe even give a few dollars), and all is well. I'm not saying that is a normative description of the way Christianity is supposed to work, only that many Christians see it that way. That being said, nobody can truly say what the normative operation of Christianity really is, and I scoff at people who say "then he's not a real christian like I am" when shown bad behavior in the name of, or excused by, Christianity. Just because your version of the religion is more socially acceptable and less dangerous to others doesn't mean it's right; in fact, all else equal you're probably the one who is wrong.
Islam is even worse - it not only passively encourages immoral acts, it actively encourages them against infidels (non-muslims), women, and other listed groups. How does Islam provide any moral guidance? Or are people only saying christianity (i.e. their own religion) provides moral guidance?
No. Atheism just means without god or god(s). As to the exact way in which the universe came to be, one can admit that we have some strong ideas but we still don't know without absolute certainty. It is theists who claim to "know" with certainty: God did it--but, they conveniently exempt God from needing a first cause by attempting to define God as needing no first cause. If God needed no first cause and can exist without one, then so, too, can the universe--so theists have created a tortured logic trap from which they cannot escape.
The problem with that is that it is a false dichotomy. The choices are not atheism or Christianity because the number and kinds of possible gods are infinite thus the choices are "believe based on evidence" (atheism or agnosticism) or believe without evidence (all faith-based supernatural religions, such as Christianity, Greek mythology, Judaism, Native American spirituality, New Age spirituality, Wicca, etc..)
--All crimes are wrong/immoral when, if not illegal and I could do it to you and you could do it to me, orderly society would simply collapse. It's simply a matter of the most basic economics. Crimes exist when we'd have complete anarcy in the alternative.
What does the symmetry mean here? By your definition, Honor Killings aren't crimes. So while some religions allow it and others don't, you definitely haven't shown that your secular society isn't based on certain fundamental assumptions. A secular tribal society that allowed a certain amount of murder and retribution might be quite stable, in fact.
Even urban gang violence in inner cities doesn't create total anarchy. Baltimore, LA, Chicago all function with vast amounts of murder without being total anarchy. These are functioning societies with different assumptions. How do you account for that?
I somewhat agree here. If there is a "Creator" and my mind inclines me to favor that there is over a "self-existent universe," the proper pronoun to describe such is "He/She/It/They."
Additionally, if killing people is allowed in certain defined instances, that's okay. If a society wants to kill one blond virgin each harvest season, okay. That's not going to cause society to collapse.
The basic common law malum in se crimes (murder, burglary, robbery, rape, embezzlement, etc) are the ones that a stable society must have in order to function. If anyone can do it, and thus anyone can be a victim of it, ordered civilization cannot exist. It would mean no safety, and no property rights. The only way to guarantee personal security and property rights is for us all to agree to respect the bodies and property of others, and thus give up the right to harm others and their property.
Other proscripted behaviors, such as possessing certain leaves, have nothing to do with morality, only policy. Each society can determine its own policy.
Scote: well