Compare all people who are on medication, compared to people who are not on medication.
Check statistics.
The people on meds, will usually be more sickly kinds of people, more unhealthy.
Thus, medicine is evil!!!
That’s right, baby!
More religious countries,
Have higher crime-rates,
Check the statistics!
Religion is evil now too!
Anyways, “religion” is a sort of self-help philosophy, about higher meaning, salvation, etc.
It’s somewhere between a crutch and a bridge, dudes.
Dawkins is always going to pidgeon-hole.
Myths are symbolic. Dude, it’s just an intermediary stage for the consciousness’s relating to outer-nature.
Some atheists that usedto be theists, are just people who got passed an intermediary-stage of relating to the universe and the purpose of human consciousness. And there are steps beyond and before those, too.
If your saying that those countries only became religious after the crime rate went up, I think you’re wrong. I don’t have the historical data, but I’m pretty sure you’re wrong. But I’d be happy to be shown otherwise, if the evidence bears you out.
No friend, I’m not saying that.
I’m saying something near the opposite.
Philosophies of salvation will be found in places of trouble and distress.
One of the main arguments atheists have against religion, is that “religious” countries have allot of problems in them, etc.
I think that’s a circular argument.
I explained how and why,
In my OP.
Because people on medications, tend to be more sickly or unhealthy people, also. But to say the medicine is evil, is the same kind of argument that Dawkins guys use on religions, in general.
It’s like blaming the symptom instead of blaming the disease.
Places like Middle Eastern and US countries usedto be controlled by their churches or religious leaders. They are coming out of theocracies, into secularism. And they’re basically saying:
“This kind of politics, is better than that kind of politics.”
They’re double-thinking, lol;
This is all actually about political and cultural movements.
Law and morality are the same, really,
And “religions” are often noted mainly by their moral-codes, or precepts.
Ofcourse there is going to be more strict/religious moralities, and stricter laws, in countries or nations that have more strife and crime, etc.
But the only way that argument works is if countries become religious only in times of strife. People start taking medicine when they discover a disease, so it makes sense that most people who take medicine are sickly. The only way your analogy makes sense is if you are making the claim that countries ‘took religion’ in response to high crime.
There’s also a point to be made about whether religion acts like medicine. Most people taking medicine are getting healthier; can the same be said of most religious countries?
For either point, I don’t think you’ve proven the claim that you made in your subject line.
It is ni cultural “disease”, not individual disease.
You can see what the Chinese atheists did to the theocratic/Religiously-Controlled Tibet, any time, in your text-books and your documentories, seriously. Atheism wont make anyone smarter or nicer!
But Dawkins didn’t claim that atheist couldn’t do wrong. His points were that 1) People don’t kill for atheism, they kill for political power or resources (or religion), and 2) religion does not make people better, and more religious societies are not safer or nicer or better than less religious societies.
Yes, but not buying into one irrational thing doesn’t mean that you don’t buy into any irrational thing. Religion is just another irrational thing that people shouldn’t believe.
“Religion” is mostly made of culture and tradition, or, it was.
“Groupthink” is most-likely the “root of all evil”, more-so than “religion is the root of all evil”.
And who is it that has authority to say: “That’s irrational”?
It’s generally a moral imposition, to say something is either rational or irrational. That is to say, it has to do with ones values.