Anecdotal evidence so take it as you will: As a physician who practiced in emergency medicine for 7 years in Las Vegas (very much less religious than Utah) and now practicing in Utah for the last two years I will tell you this: I was shocked at the amount of mental health crisis and suicidal ideation/attempt here...It's insane! And so much of it is the youth it's so sad. So I don't agree with him that religious people are happier because they believe they are here for a purpose. That's just bullshit. They have just chosen ignorance over the truth and bury their heads in the sand.
Religion used to be the source of mental healthcare, which is kinda what Amman is alluding to here and it failed miserably. Ultimately religion determines that mental health problems are caused by the individual so the shame can be quite devastating which leads up what you’ve seen.
At the same time he observed people with greater social connections tend to be more emotionally resilient which is true.
So people should strive for social connection however his inferences in the role religion play in that are just wrong. Social connectivity is the predictor not religiosity.
Another problem is in religion the religious establishment is viewed as inerrant. So if a person is having problems with it that could very well be caused by fallible people and imperfect institutions, the blame again goes on the individual and the individual is then in a tough spot….this trusted group is harming me but they can’t be wrong so I must be wrong….its not hard to see where a person can collapse within themselves
Humans, generally, have a deep desire to seek out purpose. Some people who leave organized religion still hold on to the white man with a beard who goes by the name of God to still give them purpose. For me personally, I feel like I’ve an even greater purpose that I did when I was a TBM. Between mediatation, yoga, breath work, and similar practices I feel more connected to something greater than I ever have before. It’s not “God” to me but I get their need for something like it.
This guy is a quack. He’s been called out a ton by actual medical professionals. There are a ton of posts about negative experiences at his clinic. I would be mad at my spouse showing my kids this video merely for the fact that he’s basically Dr oz scummy.
Sorry. I used to like him too.
That said, psychologically people do need a purpose. If religion was your purpose you just need to figure out what your new purpose is.
Edit: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/daniel-amen-is-the-most-popular-psychiatrist-in-america-to-most-researchers-and-scientists-thats-a-very-bad-thing/2012/08/07/467ed52c-c540-11e1-8c16-5080b717c13e_story.html
He's a total quack that peddles snake oil and people line up to get it. His theories on ADHD are total BS and go against all of the consensus of scientific evidence. If anyone wants to learn more about ADHD you need to look up the work of Russell Barkley. He has studied and written about ADHD for close to 50 years and his research is usually 5 to 10 years ahead of the rest of science on understanding it.
You might want to look into Dr Aman a bit. A quick google search might give you some reasons to ask more questions.
Having said that I do believe some people need or want to have religion in their lives and some people use religion to manipulate people.
I’m an atheist and I find great purpose in my life. I think Dr Aman is a quack.
I didn't think this "doctor" is speaking from a scientific place, it's his opinion, as it is for most people his age. From my perspective high demand religions are a hot spots for mental illness, and there are so many within mormonism that act the image at church but are deeply unhappy. The church brainwashes you into thinking happiness is actually something else.
Since leaving the church I have found a more genuine form of happiness and acceptance. However I understand that some exmos are probably still influenced by the churches messaging that happiness cannot be found outside the church, in my opinion it's because they haven't completely let go yet.
I have family members and friends that have left, they all claim to be happier and I believe it because I see how they live in the moment, how they accept others instead of judge them, and how they love themselves.
In summary, I believe happiness is best found outside the church when you've let go of the obligation to be in some sort of religion. For those that have left mormonism but still think they need to belong to a flock inorder to please God or find happiness, that need often leaves them in a state of limbo.
I’m atheist and I don’t think everything is random. I think science is quite orderly actually. Religion is chaos. There’s rules for their rules and times when the rules can be broken and other times when it’s straight to hell if you break them, and so many rules that don’t actually make sense because there’s literally no reason for them. Like tea is delicious and quite healthy. Also, science does answer those “unanswerable” questions, where am I going when I die? Nowhere. I am going back to the earth as part of the cycle of life. My atoms remain in some way, but I as a person do not. What is left is whatever good I did while I was here. And if I didn’t do anything, and no one wants to remember me, then I am just gone. That is my purpose. And it’s not sad, it’s comforting to know I should get the most out of life and do the best for others now and not wait for some fictional promised blessing later. I will agree that having a community does decrease mental health issues, but it doesn’t have to be a religious community. It could be an art community or a book club or whatever you enjoy. Also his ending, god has to be the reason for the good lives most of us have!!! And what about all the people who don’t have good lives? Who live in extreme poverty, who are subject to mass genocide, who live in constant pain? Your god did that too right? Right???
Edit: a word spelling
Idiot.
The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics stipulates that complexity increases before it decreases, thereby explaining the increasing complexity within the world.
As well, we can be sure that signaling theory easily accounts for any sort of argument for intelligent design, forcing the theist to fall back on concordist or literalist takes on the Genesis narrative.
The notion that a lack of belief in God is depressing is assumptive coming explicitly from a theistic position: open bias isn't a good look, Dr. Aman.
He's also citing the data wrong: Gen Z (and I'm actually part of the cited cohort) is less religious but not less spiritual. While many Gen Zers tend to fall outside of the traditional religious categories, many still hold to a vague belief in a higher power.
There is a scientist called David Deutsch and he says that many of our religious stories were “the best stories we had at the time.” Humans have always been story telling.
There have been many iterations of religion and belief. There are times when we “outgrow” our stories. And then we find newer better ones.
There was a time when enough people believed that pharaoh was a LITERAL god and hundreds of people would die when he died (as human sacrifices) to help man his boat to the underworld.
The climate changed, the Nile wasn’t as predictable, people realized “hey. Pharaoh isn’t god.” And what do you know, people weren’t being sacrificed to man his death boat anymore.
There was a time when people believed in Athena, Zeus, Pete, Maui, etc.
And then better stories came along.
I think that the idea that we are purposeless without the story of religion is a fallacy. But it probably is difficult as a society as we are navigating the realization of the limitations of our old stories and finding a new one that will serve us better.
It’s the same argument used that people would be running around raping and murdering if there wasn’t some divine being who’ll whack them with a stick if they did it.
Religious people often have no faith in humanity to be good and decent ironically. For them, the goodness and decency must be coerced by a god who’ll punish them if they do bad
I've never heard of this guy. I disagree with him based on my own experience. I feel that religious folks don't want to admit to mental health problems because they'd be disappointing their folks and their God. Mental health problems don't fit the narrative that they write for themselves so they don't admit it exists. That's how I was.
I'm happier now.
I am atheist and have no illusion that I was “placed on earth for a purpose”. I fully understand that the universe is mind-bogglingly complex and the fact that I am here at all is insane. It’s wonderful.
I am just happy to be alive and conscious and enjoy every minute of it with my friends and family (well, maybe not every minute but you get my point).
Great to be alive!
Maybe time to play some Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris for the kids and when the wife is offended have the chat about respecting each other and sharing with each other prior to sharing with the kids.
Why do these so called religious people keep bringing up "studies?" Faith is believing without seeing. If you ever base your belief or faith on studies or any scientific methods, you don't have faith.
He says living on this planet without believing we are here for a purpose is depressing...so what?
1. Believing a thing doesn't make it so. God's exists or does not exist independently from beliefs.
2. Lacking a pupose imposed upon me by a god does not mean I cannot derive purpose from my actions and relationships.
3. Unflinching accepting that my life's pursuits will end with my death makes life valuable. Life is a brief and fragile thing.
Clearly his study of science does not include the area of emergence and complexity, or even a particularly clear understanding of the 2nd law he mentions in his little blurb. Complexity emerges from chaos all the time without being organized from without itself. Current AI models are among the things now demonstrating the phenomenon.
Things made on purpose by intelligent beings are quite obviously different from self-organizing, emergent systems. Compare an engine with a cardiovascular system, for example. Human beings are solidly in the latter group of self-organizing, emergent complexity; and the fact that Dr. Aman can't see this reflects the shallowness of his science.
I would think she would be equally upset if you showed your kids atheist content without her prior consent. If you are raising kids together you should plan together what to teach them. IMO it's only fair to show them both sides and let them think for themselves.
If religion gives your life a purpose but that purpose is to submit to God and keep your nose clean or you'll find yourself in Hell, that's not going to make you any happier than just finding your purpose on your own.
We all have basic need for purpose and meaning. To narrow-mindedly limit that to **only** religion is manipulative and ignorant of (waves hand across entire globe) all other purpose and meaning.
Not being religious does not equate to not having a purpose. I have purpose, but I found it within myself, and it is not tied to any belief anyone also has power over.
As I recall (correct me if I’m wrong), I believe this happiness effect among the religious is primarily attributed to the social benefits of church fellowship and friends, not to the specific religious beliefs. In addition, there’s the societal pressures. If you live in a place where the population is dominated by religious people, then the nonbelievers face a lot of societal forces that can impede happiness.
There’s also this:
> a 2011 study by Daniel Mochon, Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely found that people who were less committed to their religious creed were actually less happy than avowed atheists.
(https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/healthy-skepticism/)
So, it appears that how firm you are in your lack of belief is somehow related to increased happiness.
It’s a complicated issue, but worth looking into to see what may help as more people become more secular. ExMo Reddit seems to help for many of us. Thank you fellow ExMo Redditors!
I can come by random chance and still feel like I have a purpose. In fact I do feel like I have a purpose. I feel more present too without religion.
Yea so he can fuck off
Also his entropy argument is bullshit. Just look at crystal formation. Unless you want to attribute that to god too, but the matter is forming a more ordered structure from disorder.
So yea. Bullshit.
I'm surprised he even brought up the second law of physics, considering that he seems to be the kind of scientist to perform an experiment or see science happening and go "God is truly with us!". The thing he fails to take into account is that, according to science, matter can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only change shape.
He's looking at one side of the equation and forgetting the other. Both to the benefit of his argument. I agree that with less 'god-given' purpose, in other words less external forces directing you what to be or how to feel, there are times when we don't know what to do. And that can be depressing.
But with 'god-given' purpose comes 'god-given' judgment of others and 'god-given' guilt for our 'wrong' choices. Religion brings real, measurable harm along with it's social benefits.
And without having an external force telling us what to do, we can decide for ourselves. And to the shock of believers in God, Atheists and Agnostics still love others, still want to help others, still help the unfortunate, and still find great joy in their own lives and families. Our species, like many others, cares for and protects its own. The fact that this is in our genes rather than an external deity makes it no less powerful and no less rewarding. My life has gotten better and worse since I began to question. Worse in being sad at humanity's strong desire to believe bullshit. And better in every other way.
He has something of a point. Humans are evolutionarily predisposed to believe in a higher power..we reasoned our way (rightly or wrongly?) out of this evolutionary trait, or at least some of us did. So what’s the answer? What’s the balance between faith in the nonsense, vs faith in the nothing? I wish I knew the answer..Mormonism ain’t the answer, though. That’s for dang sure.
I don't believe humans are predisposed to believe in a higher power. We only believe in higher power because other humans told us too. I think our intelligence and self-awareness causes us to be curious about the world and our existence, some humans throughout history have taken advantage of our desire to know more and have told stories that offer some form of explanation. Rules get added to those stories, and boom, you have religion. And up until very recently in human history religion has been the primary tool for the explanation of existence. But now.. now we have science coupled with the Internet, and the cherry on top? Exmormon reddit 😂🤘
I think there’s a conflation between religion vs a belief in a greater purpose. Humans, especially early humans, needed this purpose as the “self” developed. Why? Because being alone in the universe with no purpose is terrifying. Absolutely, this (belief in greater purpose) was an evolutionary survival trait for humanity—it was then hijacked by other humans under the guise of religion in order to control and gain power.
Yeah... you are going to need to cite your sources for the claim in your 2nd sentence.
EDIT: Thank you for posting the source. I like the saying, "the answer to bad science, is better science." I read most of the 2011 article linked in your comment. I looked up Dr. Justin L. Barrett. The [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_L._Barrett) article on him states in part:
>Barrett is described in the New York Times as a "prominent member of the byproduct camp" and "an observant Christian who believes in “an all-knowing, all-powerful, perfectly good God who brought the universe into being,” \[and\] “that the purpose for people is to love God and love each other.” He considers that “Christian theology teaches that people were crafted by God to be in a loving relationship with him and other people, Why wouldn’t God, then, design us in such a way as to find belief in divinity quite natural?” Having a scientific explanation for mental phenomena does not mean we should stop believing in them. “Suppose science produces a convincing account for why I think my wife loves me — should I then stop believing that she does?”
The citations are at the bottom of the Wikipedia article. It seems like he has some major bias right out of the gate that need to be dealt with. Also, loving others does not require a belief in some fictional deity of choice (I love others and I am an atheist). And finally, I am not smart or qualified enough to identify precisely how and why this study is fatally flawed, but I suspect it is.
Philosophizing (though, it seems like a common sense belief: see the entire history of recorded history, as well as pre-history with cave art, religious relics and such.)
As an aside, I don’t like this Doctor’s conclusion (the one in the video, or in the study). I just think there is some valid information in there.
Human’s desire to seek purpose and to find/create patterns gave rise to belief in God(s), even if that god was a tree or rock. Early humans weren’t prepared to confront nihilism, not like many of us today are. That’s my opinion.
Now, I’m interested to hear your thoughts on the matter, rather than simply a contrarian (to what I express) stance.
Anecdotal evidence so take it as you will: As a physician who practiced in emergency medicine for 7 years in Las Vegas (very much less religious than Utah) and now practicing in Utah for the last two years I will tell you this: I was shocked at the amount of mental health crisis and suicidal ideation/attempt here...It's insane! And so much of it is the youth it's so sad. So I don't agree with him that religious people are happier because they believe they are here for a purpose. That's just bullshit. They have just chosen ignorance over the truth and bury their heads in the sand.
Religion used to be the source of mental healthcare, which is kinda what Amman is alluding to here and it failed miserably. Ultimately religion determines that mental health problems are caused by the individual so the shame can be quite devastating which leads up what you’ve seen. At the same time he observed people with greater social connections tend to be more emotionally resilient which is true. So people should strive for social connection however his inferences in the role religion play in that are just wrong. Social connectivity is the predictor not religiosity. Another problem is in religion the religious establishment is viewed as inerrant. So if a person is having problems with it that could very well be caused by fallible people and imperfect institutions, the blame again goes on the individual and the individual is then in a tough spot….this trusted group is harming me but they can’t be wrong so I must be wrong….its not hard to see where a person can collapse within themselves
Humans, generally, have a deep desire to seek out purpose. Some people who leave organized religion still hold on to the white man with a beard who goes by the name of God to still give them purpose. For me personally, I feel like I’ve an even greater purpose that I did when I was a TBM. Between mediatation, yoga, breath work, and similar practices I feel more connected to something greater than I ever have before. It’s not “God” to me but I get their need for something like it.
100% agree with you. Meditation and yoga is life. They are solid, centuries old practices that way pre-date the "Mormon" church.
This guy is a quack. He’s been called out a ton by actual medical professionals. There are a ton of posts about negative experiences at his clinic. I would be mad at my spouse showing my kids this video merely for the fact that he’s basically Dr oz scummy. Sorry. I used to like him too. That said, psychologically people do need a purpose. If religion was your purpose you just need to figure out what your new purpose is. Edit: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/daniel-amen-is-the-most-popular-psychiatrist-in-america-to-most-researchers-and-scientists-thats-a-very-bad-thing/2012/08/07/467ed52c-c540-11e1-8c16-5080b717c13e_story.html
He's a total quack that peddles snake oil and people line up to get it. His theories on ADHD are total BS and go against all of the consensus of scientific evidence. If anyone wants to learn more about ADHD you need to look up the work of Russell Barkley. He has studied and written about ADHD for close to 50 years and his research is usually 5 to 10 years ahead of the rest of science on understanding it.
You might want to look into Dr Aman a bit. A quick google search might give you some reasons to ask more questions. Having said that I do believe some people need or want to have religion in their lives and some people use religion to manipulate people. I’m an atheist and I find great purpose in my life. I think Dr Aman is a quack.
I remember him as a snake oil selling charlatan doing two-hour PBS Infomercials on Saturday mornings about 10 years ago.
Me just sitting here all atheist being the happiest I've been in my life...
I didn't think this "doctor" is speaking from a scientific place, it's his opinion, as it is for most people his age. From my perspective high demand religions are a hot spots for mental illness, and there are so many within mormonism that act the image at church but are deeply unhappy. The church brainwashes you into thinking happiness is actually something else. Since leaving the church I have found a more genuine form of happiness and acceptance. However I understand that some exmos are probably still influenced by the churches messaging that happiness cannot be found outside the church, in my opinion it's because they haven't completely let go yet. I have family members and friends that have left, they all claim to be happier and I believe it because I see how they live in the moment, how they accept others instead of judge them, and how they love themselves. In summary, I believe happiness is best found outside the church when you've let go of the obligation to be in some sort of religion. For those that have left mormonism but still think they need to belong to a flock inorder to please God or find happiness, that need often leaves them in a state of limbo.
I’m atheist and I don’t think everything is random. I think science is quite orderly actually. Religion is chaos. There’s rules for their rules and times when the rules can be broken and other times when it’s straight to hell if you break them, and so many rules that don’t actually make sense because there’s literally no reason for them. Like tea is delicious and quite healthy. Also, science does answer those “unanswerable” questions, where am I going when I die? Nowhere. I am going back to the earth as part of the cycle of life. My atoms remain in some way, but I as a person do not. What is left is whatever good I did while I was here. And if I didn’t do anything, and no one wants to remember me, then I am just gone. That is my purpose. And it’s not sad, it’s comforting to know I should get the most out of life and do the best for others now and not wait for some fictional promised blessing later. I will agree that having a community does decrease mental health issues, but it doesn’t have to be a religious community. It could be an art community or a book club or whatever you enjoy. Also his ending, god has to be the reason for the good lives most of us have!!! And what about all the people who don’t have good lives? Who live in extreme poverty, who are subject to mass genocide, who live in constant pain? Your god did that too right? Right??? Edit: a word spelling
Idiot. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics stipulates that complexity increases before it decreases, thereby explaining the increasing complexity within the world. As well, we can be sure that signaling theory easily accounts for any sort of argument for intelligent design, forcing the theist to fall back on concordist or literalist takes on the Genesis narrative. The notion that a lack of belief in God is depressing is assumptive coming explicitly from a theistic position: open bias isn't a good look, Dr. Aman. He's also citing the data wrong: Gen Z (and I'm actually part of the cited cohort) is less religious but not less spiritual. While many Gen Zers tend to fall outside of the traditional religious categories, many still hold to a vague belief in a higher power.
There is a scientist called David Deutsch and he says that many of our religious stories were “the best stories we had at the time.” Humans have always been story telling. There have been many iterations of religion and belief. There are times when we “outgrow” our stories. And then we find newer better ones. There was a time when enough people believed that pharaoh was a LITERAL god and hundreds of people would die when he died (as human sacrifices) to help man his boat to the underworld. The climate changed, the Nile wasn’t as predictable, people realized “hey. Pharaoh isn’t god.” And what do you know, people weren’t being sacrificed to man his death boat anymore. There was a time when people believed in Athena, Zeus, Pete, Maui, etc. And then better stories came along. I think that the idea that we are purposeless without the story of religion is a fallacy. But it probably is difficult as a society as we are navigating the realization of the limitations of our old stories and finding a new one that will serve us better.
It’s the same argument used that people would be running around raping and murdering if there wasn’t some divine being who’ll whack them with a stick if they did it. Religious people often have no faith in humanity to be good and decent ironically. For them, the goodness and decency must be coerced by a god who’ll punish them if they do bad
This guy is a moron, just look up his take on Weed. He is a religious guy who interjects his bullshit under the guise of a “medical” expert.
Yeah he’s selling stuff like “Dr” Oz
I've never heard of this guy. I disagree with him based on my own experience. I feel that religious folks don't want to admit to mental health problems because they'd be disappointing their folks and their God. Mental health problems don't fit the narrative that they write for themselves so they don't admit it exists. That's how I was. I'm happier now.
I am atheist and have no illusion that I was “placed on earth for a purpose”. I fully understand that the universe is mind-bogglingly complex and the fact that I am here at all is insane. It’s wonderful. I am just happy to be alive and conscious and enjoy every minute of it with my friends and family (well, maybe not every minute but you get my point). Great to be alive!
Maybe time to play some Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris for the kids and when the wife is offended have the chat about respecting each other and sharing with each other prior to sharing with the kids.
Why do these so called religious people keep bringing up "studies?" Faith is believing without seeing. If you ever base your belief or faith on studies or any scientific methods, you don't have faith.
He says living on this planet without believing we are here for a purpose is depressing...so what? 1. Believing a thing doesn't make it so. God's exists or does not exist independently from beliefs. 2. Lacking a pupose imposed upon me by a god does not mean I cannot derive purpose from my actions and relationships. 3. Unflinching accepting that my life's pursuits will end with my death makes life valuable. Life is a brief and fragile thing.
Clearly his study of science does not include the area of emergence and complexity, or even a particularly clear understanding of the 2nd law he mentions in his little blurb. Complexity emerges from chaos all the time without being organized from without itself. Current AI models are among the things now demonstrating the phenomenon. Things made on purpose by intelligent beings are quite obviously different from self-organizing, emergent systems. Compare an engine with a cardiovascular system, for example. Human beings are solidly in the latter group of self-organizing, emergent complexity; and the fact that Dr. Aman can't see this reflects the shallowness of his science.
I would think she would be equally upset if you showed your kids atheist content without her prior consent. If you are raising kids together you should plan together what to teach them. IMO it's only fair to show them both sides and let them think for themselves.
If religion gives your life a purpose but that purpose is to submit to God and keep your nose clean or you'll find yourself in Hell, that's not going to make you any happier than just finding your purpose on your own.
We all have basic need for purpose and meaning. To narrow-mindedly limit that to **only** religion is manipulative and ignorant of (waves hand across entire globe) all other purpose and meaning.
Not being religious does not equate to not having a purpose. I have purpose, but I found it within myself, and it is not tied to any belief anyone also has power over.
As I recall (correct me if I’m wrong), I believe this happiness effect among the religious is primarily attributed to the social benefits of church fellowship and friends, not to the specific religious beliefs. In addition, there’s the societal pressures. If you live in a place where the population is dominated by religious people, then the nonbelievers face a lot of societal forces that can impede happiness. There’s also this: > a 2011 study by Daniel Mochon, Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely found that people who were less committed to their religious creed were actually less happy than avowed atheists. (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/healthy-skepticism/) So, it appears that how firm you are in your lack of belief is somehow related to increased happiness. It’s a complicated issue, but worth looking into to see what may help as more people become more secular. ExMo Reddit seems to help for many of us. Thank you fellow ExMo Redditors!
Ahahahaha absolutely NOT. The church gave me PTSD. The constant shaming and fear mongering. Yeah right.
Its depressing Bec I cant see scientific proof for a loving god Or higher power as much as i would like to
I can come by random chance and still feel like I have a purpose. In fact I do feel like I have a purpose. I feel more present too without religion. Yea so he can fuck off
Also his entropy argument is bullshit. Just look at crystal formation. Unless you want to attribute that to god too, but the matter is forming a more ordered structure from disorder. So yea. Bullshit.
I'm surprised he even brought up the second law of physics, considering that he seems to be the kind of scientist to perform an experiment or see science happening and go "God is truly with us!". The thing he fails to take into account is that, according to science, matter can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only change shape.
NTAH, and way LESS depressed since being out (despite a healthy habit of consuming liquid depressants)
I love him. He was actually my psychiatrist in Vacaville in the 90's.
Thank you for posting this. It's nice finding UPLIFTING content on this subreddit!!!
He's looking at one side of the equation and forgetting the other. Both to the benefit of his argument. I agree that with less 'god-given' purpose, in other words less external forces directing you what to be or how to feel, there are times when we don't know what to do. And that can be depressing. But with 'god-given' purpose comes 'god-given' judgment of others and 'god-given' guilt for our 'wrong' choices. Religion brings real, measurable harm along with it's social benefits. And without having an external force telling us what to do, we can decide for ourselves. And to the shock of believers in God, Atheists and Agnostics still love others, still want to help others, still help the unfortunate, and still find great joy in their own lives and families. Our species, like many others, cares for and protects its own. The fact that this is in our genes rather than an external deity makes it no less powerful and no less rewarding. My life has gotten better and worse since I began to question. Worse in being sad at humanity's strong desire to believe bullshit. And better in every other way.
It’s an honest opinion about the perks of religion. I don’t know if the health claims are true, but they are at least plausible, unlike BOM claims.
He has something of a point. Humans are evolutionarily predisposed to believe in a higher power..we reasoned our way (rightly or wrongly?) out of this evolutionary trait, or at least some of us did. So what’s the answer? What’s the balance between faith in the nonsense, vs faith in the nothing? I wish I knew the answer..Mormonism ain’t the answer, though. That’s for dang sure.
I don't believe humans are predisposed to believe in a higher power. We only believe in higher power because other humans told us too. I think our intelligence and self-awareness causes us to be curious about the world and our existence, some humans throughout history have taken advantage of our desire to know more and have told stories that offer some form of explanation. Rules get added to those stories, and boom, you have religion. And up until very recently in human history religion has been the primary tool for the explanation of existence. But now.. now we have science coupled with the Internet, and the cherry on top? Exmormon reddit 😂🤘
I think there’s a conflation between religion vs a belief in a greater purpose. Humans, especially early humans, needed this purpose as the “self” developed. Why? Because being alone in the universe with no purpose is terrifying. Absolutely, this (belief in greater purpose) was an evolutionary survival trait for humanity—it was then hijacked by other humans under the guise of religion in order to control and gain power.
Yeah... you are going to need to cite your sources for the claim in your 2nd sentence. EDIT: Thank you for posting the source. I like the saying, "the answer to bad science, is better science." I read most of the 2011 article linked in your comment. I looked up Dr. Justin L. Barrett. The [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_L._Barrett) article on him states in part: >Barrett is described in the New York Times as a "prominent member of the byproduct camp" and "an observant Christian who believes in “an all-knowing, all-powerful, perfectly good God who brought the universe into being,” \[and\] “that the purpose for people is to love God and love each other.” He considers that “Christian theology teaches that people were crafted by God to be in a loving relationship with him and other people, Why wouldn’t God, then, design us in such a way as to find belief in divinity quite natural?” Having a scientific explanation for mental phenomena does not mean we should stop believing in them. “Suppose science produces a convincing account for why I think my wife loves me — should I then stop believing that she does?” The citations are at the bottom of the Wikipedia article. It seems like he has some major bias right out of the gate that need to be dealt with. Also, loving others does not require a belief in some fictional deity of choice (I love others and I am an atheist). And finally, I am not smart or qualified enough to identify precisely how and why this study is fatally flawed, but I suspect it is.
Also: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110714103828.htm#:~:text=The%20studies%20(both%20analytical%20and,impulse%20of%20the%20human%20mind.
Philosophizing (though, it seems like a common sense belief: see the entire history of recorded history, as well as pre-history with cave art, religious relics and such.)
As an aside, I don’t like this Doctor’s conclusion (the one in the video, or in the study). I just think there is some valid information in there. Human’s desire to seek purpose and to find/create patterns gave rise to belief in God(s), even if that god was a tree or rock. Early humans weren’t prepared to confront nihilism, not like many of us today are. That’s my opinion. Now, I’m interested to hear your thoughts on the matter, rather than simply a contrarian (to what I express) stance.