Is God Bad for You?

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angel.jpgWhen I was growing up my parents never told me how to believe or what to believe when it came to religion. One Sunday I would go to the Baptist church on the corner. The next Sunday I would go to the Methodist Church around the corner. They asked me each time how I felt about the experience and each time I had to admit I was not impressed. I even went to Vacation Bible School one Summer and made crafts that depicted Jesus Christ. I never got it.

To this day, I still don’t get it and I wonder what all the fuss is about. So, I’ve been doing some research and have arrived at the conclusion that religion’s affect on society leans more towards the negative than the positive. So let’s take a look at what people are saying about whether or not God is bad for you.

First, in an article in the December issue of Scientific American, Michael Shermer Scientific American [with $5 Bonus]author of a book called Why Darwin Matters reports that in a study published in the Journal of Religion & Society, religious societies in eighteen developed democracies, are worse off than secular societies in regards to homicides, STDs, abortions and teen pregnancies. Surprising, huh? What is even more surprising in this study is that the U.S. scores the highest in religiosity (a belief in God, biblical literalism and frequency of prayer and service attendance) and the highest (by far) in these same negative social conditions. He goes on to say that the reason may be that these problems may have other causes entirely, or secular societies work better with such problems, or these problems are best fostered within the famility unit and not within a reiligious framework. But what is clear from this study is that there is an inverse correlation between religiosity and societal health.

In another aritcle in the Wilson Quarterly, Phil Zuckerman, an The Wilson Quarterlyassociate professor of sociology at Pitzer College, writes that “the most secular countries — those with the highest proportion of atheists and agnostics — are among the most stable, peaceful, free, wealthy, and healthy societies.” He reports that the top five nations on the United Nations’ Human Development Index — Norway, Sweden, Australia, Canada, and the Netherlands — are all in the top 25 in proportion of non-believers. Even more impressive is that the nations where citizens have abandoned religion by choice also tend to do better on measures of well-being such as life expectancy, literacy, income, and education. Highly religious states do poorly.

However, when it comes to charitable giving and volunteering, religious people fare better. According to professor Arthur C. Brooks, in his book called Who Really Cares, he reports that religious people donate 30 percent more money than nonreligious people. In fact, they are more than three times more generous than secularists to all charities. And also, people who are religiously observant are less likely to commit suicide than others. These observations may indicate that religion may provide more comfort to the individual and offer some type of positive reinforcement through giving.

But do religious people donate because of guilt and fear or because they truly want to? Experience has taught me that religion has the tendency to make people feel guilty about a whole myriad of things. I know, I sat in that church pew. So they think to themselves, ‘hey, I’ll just drop some money in a bucket, then I’m done’. Whereas, nonreligious people tend to think along the lines of personal responsibiity and accountability. Aethists I know do not tend to rely on others for assistance. They tend to be more self-sufficient and concerned with what they have more control over, such as family and friends. They work more within the framework of the family, not with extended, interconnecting networks.

I also have observed that many religious people seem to feel they are ‘off the hook’ somehow because their God forgives their sins just by believing (how convenient). In the more moderate of these ‘off the hook’ behaviors are those who are rude and abusive to others in personal and financial matters. In the more extreme behaviors, even killing is justified, ‘in the name of God’, of course. Look at extremists who fight ‘holy wars’ because God tells them they are ‘right’ and everyone else is an infidel. Their jihad is to eliminate non-believers. What a minute — that’s you and me.

What all of this is telling me is that God may be good for some of us some of the time, but not good for all of us all of the time. This of course, is contrary to what religious leaders want us to believe. They get their power from their numbers — the more numbers, the more power. They want us to join the church, build our lives around it, live a compliant life, and give to the church, of course. In reality, religion is a big business — a really big business. And a business that doesn’t appear to be giving us a good return on our investment. So, when I read of evangelicals who state that non-believers can’t find the words to express why life is worth living, I think — it is the non-believers who are living the ‘right’ life. What do you think…is God bad for you?

  • Good call Steve.
    I said I wouldn't reply to Ken until he had something worth responding too, and I'm still waiting. But just one thing.
    I think that person male or female entitled Cerebral has got his/her knickers in a bad twist
    if you had actually paid attention to what other people had to say you may have noticed this.
    For all that want to know, my name is Justin by the way. No need to call me Cerebral.
    But we have already seen that your simply waiting for us to fall on the floor screaming "praise the lord I believe, I was blind but now I see!" and you skim through our responses waiting for that and if you don't see it you simply spout some more about us going to hell. At least have the courtesy to read what we write.

    If you simply felt that Justin could be a man or a womans name and didn't want to discriminate then sorry, although I personally have never met a woman named Justin and I'm willing to guess that this wasn't the case.

    Have a good one Justin and Steve.
  • Thanks for showing your true colors Ken. I knew you were mean, angry, bullish and judgemental, but wow! I haven't seen such primative behavior since I saw the monkeys at the zoo throwing poop at each other. Your comment is showing exactly what the logical, rational people of this world hate about your bible belching. You really are that bad. You just now represented everything that is wrong with the world.

    If you are soooo busy, why the heck do you keep coming back. What in the world do you have to prove? Are you that insecure with who you are? Since you are unable to keep this from a monkey's maturity level, I am hoping that you do not come back.

    My sweetest words,

    Cerebral
  • Ken
    Do you know that the longest word in the English dictionary contains 50 Alphas.

    Do you know how many words contain the five vowels in the correct order.

    Do you know that you are horrendously stupid.

    Do you know that I am not stupid.

    Do you know it is better to be absent from the body and present with the Lord rather than the devil.

    Do you know what a clown you are continuing in this stupid vein.

    Do you know there are several stupid clowns like you around in this world.

    Do you know I am busy right now CLOWNER
  • Hey Ken, do you know what convoluted means?

    ...do you know what semantics means?

    ...do you know what unconditional love means?

    ...do you know what rational means?

    ...do you know what logical means?

    ...do you know what science is?

    ...do you know what the difference between science and reiligon is?

    ...do you know what fact means?

    ...do you know what a debate is?

    ...do you know what a discussion is?

    ...do you know what it means to listen?

    ...do you know what fanatical means?

    ...do you know what ideology means?

    ...do you know what religion means?

    ...do you know that drinking holy water does not make you holy?

    ...did you know not to eat old paint chips when you were young?

    ...the last two were jokes, but you probably did not get this far anyways before you started to write your reply.

    I, probably we, do not think you use the same dictionary as the rest of us. Either that or english is not your first language. Well, I just wanted to clear some things up before we continue. Please answer all the questions above so that we can tell if we are all on the same page.

    Oh, and ending with "Kind Thoughts", does not alleviate all the judgemental, condemning and hateful attitude you had in all your comments. Just so you know.
  • Ken
    It is so far from the truth to say that a man who loves all of his fellow men is spiteful ntells me something about you. God sends nobody to hell they choose to go there by nthere own disbelief that He is superior to lucifer.

    God loves us all
    God loves us so much he gave His only begotten son to pay for our sins
    God loves Sinners like you and me but He hates sin of any form.

    Would you give your only son for others to live?

    I think that person male or female entitled Cerebral has got his/her knickers in a bad twist that seems unlikely to get straightened out while we are here. I hope he will tell me how many times the word he seems to exalt named religion is it found in the Word of God written by chosen men of God.

    Kind thoughts to all of you

    Ken
  • Steve
    Ken, some thoughts:
    --Why are you so spiteful? Remember "Judge not, lest ye be judged."
    --If God is Love, why is He sending people to Hell for eternity for a finite sin?
  • sweet html is on.
  • You say your sorry that we are confused, you say
    I am terribly sorry to see you are so confused Cerebal and we are all aware that I have said and repeat I have absolutely nothing to do religosity of any brand

    Followed shortly by,
    We can see clearly from his writings that on Christ’s return He will reign for 1000 years before your friend lucifer the devil will be cast into the lake of fire.

    You tell us to stop calling you religious, then spew religious rhetoric at us, what are we to think? Your either a raving lunatic, which I still don't think you are but I'm beginning to have my doubts, or the answer that I think is the case. You believe in the bible and all of its wisdom but you refuse to follow any particular sect of christianity because they all are creations of man and therefore are flawed. Is this a fair overview of why you don't consider yourself religious? All of this I explained in some detail in a previous post.

    If so, its semantics and I'm really not concerned. You follow the word of the bible, and like it or not thats not spiritual that is the book of a RELIGION. You can try to claim that it was written by god and therefore supersedes religion if you want, but seeing as its broken down into sections based on the people who wrote it, I don't think that argument is going to go anywhere.

    "Have you ever wondered where the term Holy Crap or Holy S*#t came from? Well, I will leave you to ponder
    that."


    Thats one of the best statements I've heard in a while, thank you man.

    I was about to say a warm thanks again everyone but screw that. The truth is Ken, your last comment added absolutely nothing, you whined about being called religious, which we have already explained is semantics and we don't care. And the rest was simply saying that we should conform to your views or else burn in hell. You gave us absolutely no reason to agree with you other than trying to instill fear of what will happen if we don't. Well I've never responded well to idle threats so if you want to get.

    If all you want to do is tell us that the bible is right because it says its right to a bunch of people who are convinced that its wrong then go ahead but until you have something useful to say, I'm not going to bother responding to you.

    Have a good one Justin, BTW I hope basic HTML is on, if not do you have the ablity to delete these? cause it'll look silly otherwise.
  • "I have absolutely nothing to do religosity"

    First off Ken, you do not read anything anyone says. Here is the proof:

    Cerebral: your religion/ideology...

    Cerebral: your ideology... your ideology...

    Kilgore: I have a friend like you, no claim to any religion because every religion got it wrong, the bible is all that matters.

    We have addressed this many times, why are you not listening? Let's simplify it.

    You believe in Jesus CHRIST, you follow the Bible's writings about Jesus CHRIST... this is a CHRIST-ian ideology. Hence Christianity, I do not care whether you think by saying, "I do not believe in religion, blah blah blah..." you are now seperate from all that is so negative about religion. If you believe in the Bible, you are not anything but a Christian.

    Have you realized yet that your words are frighteningly similar to that of a sociopath's? I am sorry, but this irrational, verbal diarrhea is classic, textbook, fanatical Christian sputum. Please see you are a fanatical Christian if...

    Now Ken, if you are so right and everything you say is true, then show me a lake of fire. Show me what beast you are talking about, and which rich man will Jesus choose; Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Richard Branson? Show me some actual evidence of these supposed facts. If you cannot then it is nothing but a belief, so stop spitting off like it is fact.

    Have you ever for one moment thought, "Maybe the bible is a bunch of analogies or metaphors, stories to help tell a tail of morals and ethics that were standard among that time. And maybe, it was not meant to be taken literally?"

    Have you ever wondered where the term Holy Crap or Holy S*#t came from? Well, I will leave you to ponder that.

    XOXOX

    Cerebral
  • Ken
    I am terribly sorry to see you are so confused Cerebal and we are all aware that I have said and repeat I have absolutely nothing to do religosity of any brand since it is a clear defilement. Christ did suffer the judgement of man so he can not be judged twice according to our laws so why suggest He should come back to be judged again. He did of course fulfil the scripture that by one man sin entered in and by one man sin was taken out as Christ has died and has risen. John did not die, he was caught up while in jail and returned after spending some time getting instructions of what he had to do. We can see clearly from his writings that on Christ's return He will reign for 1000 years before your friend lucifer the devil will be cast into the lake of fire. You are not compelled to believe it but if you had been sure that your understanding was sound I doubt if you would have ever ventured to raise your initial point of "Is God Bad" Calm down and start believing the truth.

    Ken
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