Theism vs. Atheism ... will it ever be settled?

^ Be careful not to confuse correlation and causality. It should also be pointed out that many of those studies are actually inconclusive, meaning that the rate of suicide is so low in all these countries, the differences are marginal.

One should also look closely at what the study actually does. Example:

http://www.adherents.com/misc/religion_suicide.html

"CONCLUSIONS: Religious affiliation is associated with less suicidal behavior in depressed inpatients. After other factors were controlled, it was found that greater moral objections to suicide and lower aggression level in religiously affiliated subjects may function as protective factors against suicide attempts. Further study about the influence of religious affiliation on aggressive behavior and how moral objections can reduce the probability of acting on suicidal thoughts may offer new therapeutic strategies in suicide prevention."


Many religions include the promise of a very pleasant afterlife. But since it would be somewhat impractical for members of the religion to commit mass suicide in order to skip the unpleasant life on earth and get to the afterlife immediately, these religion also include rules against suicide (commit suicide -> no heaven for you).

Mr ProgFreak wrote: ^ Be careful not to confuse correlation and causality. It should also be pointed out that many of those studies are actually inconclusive, meaning that the rate of suicide is so low in all these countries, the differences are marginal. One should also look closely at what the study actually does. Example: http://www.adherents.com/misc/religion_suicide.html "CONCLUSIONS: Religious affiliation is associated with less suicidal behavior in depressed inpatients. After other factors were controlled, it was found that greater moral objections to suicide and lower aggression level in religiously affiliated subjects may function as protective factors against suicide attempts. Further study about the influence of religious affiliation on aggressive behavior and how moral objections can reduce the probability of acting on suicidal thoughts may offer new therapeutic strategies in suicide prevention." Many religions include the promise of a very pleasant afterlife. But since it would be somewhat impractical for members of the religion to commit mass suicide in order to skip the unpleasant life on earth and get to the afterlife immediately, these religion also include rules against suicide (commit suicide -> no heaven for you).

Not necessarely. If you are looking through the protestant perspective, yes, that is the truth. Muslim perspective? same thing. Catholic perspective? Not quite. The catholic church have some of the most complex means of salvation among the monotheist religions, so suicide weights as much as murderer, but the fact that you cannot make the confession and that you deny yourself the anointing of the sick weights negatively in the end, but it doens't keep you from salvation, as far as I know.

Edit: proven you followed the Church's comandments during your life prior to that.


Edited by CCVP - September 04 2010 at 13:15

@Dean: I thought about what word to use - I stand by "crap", and the other option would have been "useless stuff".

On a serious note: I think that common sense is underrated in these discussion - I see so many post-modernists or even worse: solipsists making all kinds of weird claims, stating that we can't really know anything to an absolute degree if certainty and therefore any claim is as valid as any other. I consider myself to be a realist:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_realism

I think that science has shown to work - and even if a particular scientific theory has turned out to be wrong, it was eventually replaced by an improved scientific theory while religion had nothing to offer. I'm willing to extrapolate into the future that until demonstrated otherwise, the scientific approach is the most reasonable choice.



Edited by Mr ProgFreak - September 04 2010 at 13:18

Mr ProgFreak wrote: CCVP wrote: Mr ProgFreak wrote: ^ Be careful not to confuse correlation and causality. It should also be pointed out that many of those studies are actually inconclusive, meaning that the rate of suicide is so low in all these countries, the differences are marginal. One should also look closely at what the study actually does. Example: http://www.adherents.com/misc/religion_suicide.html "CONCLUSIONS: Religious affiliation is associated with less suicidal behavior in depressed inpatients. After other factors were controlled, it was found that greater moral objections to suicide and lower aggression level in religiously affiliated subjects may function as protective factors against suicide attempts. Further study about the influence of religious affiliation on aggressive behavior and how moral objections can reduce the probability of acting on suicidal thoughts may offer new therapeutic strategies in suicide prevention." Many religions include the promise of a very pleasant afterlife. But since it would be somewhat impractical for members of the religion to commit mass suicide in order to skip the unpleasant life on earth and get to the afterlife immediately, these religion also include rules against suicide (commit suicide -> no heaven for you). Not necessarely. If you are looking through the protestant perspective, yes, that is the truth. Muslim perspective? same thing. Catholic perspective? Not quite. The catholic church have some of the most complex means of salvation among the monotheist religions, so suicide weights as much as murderer, but the fact that you cannot make the confession and that you deny yourself the anointing of the sick weights negatively in the end, but it doens't keep you from salvation, as far as I know. Edit: proven you followed the Church's comandments during your life prior to that. What? AFAIK suicide is one of the most unforgivable sins in Catholicism. Maybe Iván could comment on this and can shed some light on the subject.

It depends on which philosophical teachings you follow within the religion, which are VERY numerous, but yes, it is a very grave sin. Salvation, however, is not impossible if you are willing to regret your past sins and ask for forgiveness. That is one of the main reasons why the purgatory was created, on the middle ages, you know?


Edited by CCVP - September 04 2010 at 13:25

Mr ProgFreak wrote: @Dean: I thought about what word to use - I stand by "crap", and the other option would have been "useless stuff".

seventhsojourn wrote: Used to be. The Church now recognises suicide as part of an illness, which diminishes the reponsibility of the person.

Interesting ... we should see the suicide rates go up then.

Mr ProgFreak wrote: Dean wrote: Mr ProgFreak wrote: @Dean: I thought about what word to use - I stand by "crap", and the other option would have been "useless stuff". So any attempt by me to prove you didn't change what Iván said to deliberately misrepresent him and prove yourself right is crap/useless, or just that particular crap/useless explanation? I appreciate the effort, I just didn't think that it had the intended effect.

Dean wrote: Mr ProgFreak wrote: Dean wrote: Mr ProgFreak wrote: @Dean: I thought about what word to use - I stand by "crap", and the other option would have been "useless stuff". So any attempt by me to prove you didn't change what Iván said to deliberately misrepresent him and prove yourself right is crap/useless, or just that particular crap/useless explanation? I appreciate the effort, I just didn't think that it had the intended effect. Well? Did you change what he said, yes or no?

Of course not. But I hope that my argument made some sense to whoever else was interested in it (however few people that might be).

Dean wrote: Mr ProgFreak wrote: Whatever, I'm still a realist. So am I, but not by that definition. I can be a realist about some unobservable entities when the limits of what can be observed are restricted by physics, for example the detection of sub-atomic particles directly is physically impossible, we can only see the effects of them, but when it ventures into unobservable entities that are purely abstract like knowledge and belief then my common sense says the limits of observation do not apply and science cannot apply.

To me "observation" also includes indirect methods and even abstract mathematical theories. The key is that they follow from - and are consistent with - direct observations. A good example would be the big bang ... I didn't observe it directly, but I could measure background radiation and conclude from the various calculations that something like the big bang must have happened in order to explain the radiation.

^ And you should not quiver over words and make a claim like "Mike doesn't know that the Bible is not a single book" without at least skimming the past pages of this thread.

BTW: There are many denominations of Christianity who say that in fact the Bible should be the only guideline. Catholicism in particular kept adding doctrines - or even, arguably, editing the books () of the Bible to make those added doctrines more plausible (such as the trinity).

^ do I have to quote to you the definition of "arguably"?

And yes, the trinity seems to be a ca. 4th century invention - and several scholars share this point of view. Iván disagrees (if I remember correctly), and you're also welcome to disagree.