www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcvd5JZkUXY

All Creative Work Builds On What Came Before is a post from: Freethinker

The premise is that their high fiber foods taste good and will help you lose weight. From the campaign’s perspective, that’s a fact, like gravity and the existence of bears. What’s interesting about the campaign is that they’re subtly attacking people with superstitious beliefs. The kind of beliefs that make the Creation Museum possible.

The opening video on their Web site begins with a fake doctor, named Dr. Taggert Bane. He sets the tone of the campaign by stating:

Irrational Disbelief Syndrome is when people are incapable of believing things that are universally understood to be true. Things like science, eggplants, and…

Believers who disbelieve in the logical, rational world around them, may end up protesting against this new marketing campaign, because it’s directly mimicking and making fun of them. However, I’m betting they don’t get it, in the same way they don’t believe “things that are universally understood to be true.”

Irrational Disbelief Syndrome is a post from: Freethinker

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released a study on the religiosity of states. It measured three things; worship attendance, frequency of prayer, and belief in God. Unsurprisingly, the Southern states—also known as the Bible Belt—were found to be the most religious.

I thought it would be interesting to looks at the five most and least religious states, and compare statistics related to education, poverty, health, and death by firearms.

Five Most Religious States

1. Mississippi
2. Alabama
3. Arkansas
4. Louisiana
5. Tennessee

Five Least Religious States

1. New Hampshire
2. Vermont
3. Alaska
4. Massachusetts
5. Maine

When I compared the top five religious states with the top five lowest religious states, the results were dramatic. The most religious states were, on average, the least educated¹, poorest², and unhealthiest³. People in those states were also twice as likely to be killed by a firearm⁴. The differences were even more staggering when you removed Alaska from the least religious list. For example, you are almost three times as likely to be killed by a firearm.

Based on these correlations, one could conclude that there is a relationship with being religious and being less educated, having less money, being less healthy and owning, or at the very least, being killed by a gun. All four of which, even without including religion into the mix, usually have a direct relationship with each other.

Religion & Education

Education and access to knowledge has always been the enemy of religion. When critical thought, logic and historical reference are applied to theology, it tears holes into its very foundation. It is no wonder that a culture that is better educated, especially philosophically, would be less religious.

Religion & Poverty

Desperation and fear creates the greatest need for hope. Religion provides a psuedo-hope that people can easily cling too. Religion can be used both as a coping mechanism and an explanation for their current state of affairs. Poverty is often related to poor education, and both of those are often related to poor health.

Religion & Health

While education and poverty can have a direct influence on health, the attitudes — specifically religious attitudes towards life — can influence health too. For example, if life after death will be angelic and perfect, there’s really no need to concern yourself with living a healthy lifestyle. Especially if that means you’ll get to heaven quicker

However, I tend to think (from personal experience), that most people in the South comfort eat in order to get relief from the neurosis caused by following and believing in illogical superstitions.

Religion & Guns

At the core of most people’s religious beliefs is fear. Fear of damnation and fear of death. It’s that fear that makes it easy to believe in make believe and it’s that same fear that gets people to unnecessarily arm themselves.

Conclusion

While this article is intermingled with correlations (which aren’t all that scientific), speculation, and personal opinion, I do think there are significant patterns within cultures that can be attributed to — both as a source and symptom — superstitious beliefs.

References

• ¹ “This fourth Smartest State designation is awarded based on 21 factors chosen from Morgan Quitno’s annual reference book, Education State Rankings, 2005-2006. Morgan Quitno Press, 2005
• ² Percent of People Below Poverty Level in the Past 12 Months (For Whom Poverty Status is Determined). American Community Survey 2004
• ³ Health Index by state. “The Healthiest State designation is awarded based on 21 factors chosen from the year 2005 edition of our annual reference book, Health Care State Rankings. Morgan Quitno Press, 2005
• ⁴ Number of Deaths Due to Firearms per 100,000 Population, 2002. statehealthfacts.org

Correlating Education, Poverty, Health (and Even Death by Firearm) with the Religiosity of States is a post from: Freethinker

As I’ve stated before, religion is the survivalism of higher reasoning, which means it’s here to stay. And while I try to live a rational and logical existence, I realize that unless human beings can collectively reject a portion of their own nature, religious belief, in some form, is here to stay. With that being said, I really appreciated what Ray Waddle recently wrote in the Faith and Values section of the Tennessean about this survey and what it means to our culture.

Religion will outlast all theories of secularization. The weather of belief doesn’t go away. But unlike the daily uncontrollable motions of sun and rain, people can choose which kind of religious climate should prevails.

Healthy belief advances the cause of humane society, the spirit of God and scientific inquiry too. Sick religion dreams of authoritarian control and the destruction for everyone who disagrees

That is really the idealistic hope of the secularist – that religions of the world will reflect tenets that are conducive to humanistic philosophy. I realize that appears like an impossible juxtaposition, but what I’m really trying to say is that my hope is that if religion is here to stay – which it is – that the cultural influences on its dogma reflect tolerance and acceptance of other beliefs and lifestyles. That their belief system would include that all human beings have inalienable rights, and that their beliefs, or non-beliefs as some would see it, are respected within the canons and cultures of their religion.

Download the full report here: Religious Change Around the World (PDF)

Religion Wanes While Superstition Increases is a post from: Freethinker

1. Wealth without work
2. Pleasure without conscience
3. Knowledge without character
4. Commerce without morality
5. Science without humanity
6. Worship without sacrifice
7. Politics without principle

Seven Sins of the World by JakeM.net

Seven Sins of the World is a post from: Freethinker

Referring to “these small towns in Pennsylvania,” Obama told his wealthy audience that the views of these voters on a variety of subjects should be understood as responses to decades of economic distress. “It’s not surprising,” he said, “then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

From The rubes and the elites

The Truth Hurts is a post from: Freethinker

The study indicates that when exposed to new information, we filter it through our emotional brain systems, ending in our pleasure center. The area of our brain responsible for reasoning is virtually dormant. In other words, we tend to filter out new information that doesn’t fit our opinions and perceptions. We believe anything that confirms our preconceptions because it literally feels good.

Which brings us back to church and religion. Most adults continue to attend the church in which they were raised, because, as seen, it feels right. Everything about the worship service confirms the beliefs taught in childhood.

Why Do People Go To Church? is a post from: Freethinker