Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Very Few Atheists in Fox Holes | The American Catholic

Very Few Atheists in Fox Holes | The American Catholic:


A very interesting article on a recent study in Science 2.0 on religious faith- do combat conversions persist?  Apparently, it is highly subjective and dependent on personal experience.  Those who take glory in war, no, combat conversions do not persist.  But those who grow to hate war, conflict, and fighting- many WWII veterans found a faith that persisted for now up to 70 years.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

"When we come up with grim realities like death most of us recall that we are children of a loving God and turn to Him."

This is by no means evidence for the existence of such a God. If anything, it is mere wishful thinking. People need to understand that death is just a permanent sleep. Nothing more, nothing less. The only down side to death is the loss to those who love us and/or rely on us. Otherwise, it should not be something to be feared (except possibly the pain and suffering leading up to it).

Theodore M. Seeber said...

Ah, but is it "just a permanent sleep, nothing more, nothing less"? To believe THAT you have to ignore most of human history.

And there is always the subjective experience of death itself. Don't forget the data in the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

Unknown said...

"To believe THAT you have to ignore most of human history."

It is likely that the belief in an afterlife, which has been held by probably at least 99% of all the people who have lived on this planet, is absolutely wrong. Someday, maybe the majority of the people living will actually know this.

Theodore M. Seeber said...

This must be a strange meaning of the word "likely" I have not previously been aware of: Ignore 99% of the data and present the 1% as being "likely" sounds more like a false rhetorical device than actual science.

Unknown said...

" Ignore 99% of the data and present the 1% as being "likely" sounds more like a false rhetorical device than actual science. "

When it comes to the belief in an afterlife, the fact that 99% of the people who have ever lived have believed in no way means that it must be true.

Religion perpetuates its continued existence by encouraging and reinforcing these beliefs. It is the most successful scam in human history.

You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. The percentage of those who do not believe is growing and will someday constitute majority worldwide. This already is the case for some countries.

Theodore M. Seeber said...

It isn't just that- not only does the afterlife exist, we can duplicate it with the proper application of certain drugs.

Unknown said...

If you experience the afterlife with the brain on drugs then it is an illusion that will not be possible with a brain that doesn't work.

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Oustside The Asylum by Ted Seeber is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at http://outsidetheaustisticasylum.blogspot.com.