benlehman | My conversation starter for Atheists

My conversation starter for Atheists

It goes like this.

1) Consider a hypothetical world in which there is a study that conclusively proves that certain aspects of religious practice, or the practice of particular religion, has an immediate benefit to your health. (I'm aware that such studies exist in the real world, but they're flawed. I'm asking you to consider one that, to your eyes, is conclusive.)

a) Okay -> Go to 2.
b) I would never find such studies conclusive, regardless of the methodology or repeated results -> Go to END.
c) I cannot imagine such a world -> Go to END.

2) Now you've imagined this world. Would you take up that religious practice?

a) No, it's a bunch of superstition -> Go to END.
b) No, I barely even eat right anyway -> Go to 3.
c) Yes, of course -> Go to 3.

3) Consider yourself/someone else who purported to be an atheist, but took up this practice. Are they still an atheist?

a) No, duh -> Go to 4
b) Yes, duh -> Go to 4
c) Maybe, it's complicated -> Go to 4

4) Do you consider them more or less rational?

a) Yes, they're helping their health -> Go to End
b) No, they're practicing a superstition -> Go to End
c) Huh. -> Go to End

End) Huh. Isn't that ... interesting?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A placebo is a substance or procedure which a patient accepts as a medicine or therapy but which has no specific therapeutic activity for the condition. Any effect is thought to be based on the power of suggestion.

A placebo effect or placebo response is a therapeutic and healing effect of an inert medicine or ineffective therapy,[1] or more generally is the psychosocial aspect of every medical treatment.[2] Sometimes known as a non-specific effect or subject-expectancy effect, a placebo effect (or its counterpart, the nocebo effect), occurs when a patient's symptoms are altered in some way (i.e., alleviated or exacerbated) by a treatment, due to the individual expecting or believing that it will work. The placebo effect occurs when a patient is treated in conjunction with the suggestion from an authority figure or from acquired information that the treatment will aid in healing and the patient’s condition improves. This effect has been known since the early 20th century.

You're arguing against an imaginary study. Can you imagine a study that would satisfy you?

If not, the answer is there for you: 1C. Which I find interesting, and a very interesting jumping off point for conversation.

As for me: I can certainly imagine a world where a study found that, say, praying five times daily towards Mecca had noticeable health benefits, above and beyond placebo, around the range of daily exercise. Heck, I can imagine a world in which it makes all those who do it immortal and eternally young, plus gave them the power to fly. I don't believe that we live in such a world, but I can certainly imagine it.

yrs--
--Ben

In that case, it wouldn't be faith, it'd be fact.

In a world like L5R, nobody has "faith" in magic or the gods. They are a active forces in the world, as necessary as gravity, electromagnitism, the weak force and the strong force. They are necessary to make the world exist, omnipresent, and powerful.

That isn't faith, that's fact.

My little flowchart does not mention faith once.

yrs--
--Ben

You start this by saying "My opening conversation for atheists."

Perhaps you should change that. I found it misleading.

*shrug*

You choosing to read hostility or subversion into my words is not my account, it's yours.

And hey, look, it started a conversation. You seem to be incapable of imagining a world where religious faith matters, because then it's practice. You also seem to implicitly believe that questions about religion are questions about faith. I think that both of those things are interesting things to know.

yrs--
--Ben

No, I can imagine a world where "faith" matters, but not as you define it.

Faith is belief without evidence. If there's evidence, it isn't faith.

And I also do not understand what a religion without faith would be.

You seem to be using terms with your own private defintions. I think before you and I can have a productive conversation, you'll have to define "faith" and "religion" -- at least, the definitions you are using. I don't seem to recognize them.

Hey, John.

Uses of the word "faith:" 0
Uses of the word "practice:" 4

I'm talking, and have always been talking, about practice. I only brought up faith, well, when you did.

Practice is what I'm talking about. Since you seem to have trouble coming up with your own imaginary case, let's create a specific one. Imagine the world where praying to Mecca five times daily gave better health benefits than regular exercise. What are your answers to the questions? (Remember that we're talking about practice, not faith.)

yrs--
--Ben

You keep using the word "religion." Thus, I'm talking about faith.

I find fundamental fault in your line of questioning because you are playing loose with definitions. I'm trying to identify how I have a problem with the core line of your questioning.

A religion that isn't based on faith is like saying "Let's play baseball without bases." It doesn't make sense. It's not that I can't imagine it, it's that your definition lacks cohesion.

Number of uses of the word "religion" without the qualifier "practice:" 0.

Is it impossible for you to picture religious practice in the absence of faith? I can't imagine so: you were just describing it a few posts ago.

yrs--
--Ben

You say "religious practice." Would you like to amend that to "practice?"

Where was I talking about religious practice in the absence of faith?

You can use my "A practice strongly associated with a particular religion" to Jules, below.

If it is a practice observed by both religious and non-religious people, then it is not exclusive to the religion and not an exclusively religious practice.

Ben, what's the point?

Well, presume that, pre-research, this practice was limited to members of a particular religion, whether faithful or not. (Just as plenty of non-faithful Muslims pray to Mecca, plenty of non-faithful Catholics take Mass.)

The point? The point is to make you think, and to make me think. So far, all you have done is react.

yrs--
--Ben

I've thought about your questionaire, and that's why I've replied in the way I have.

If I didn't think about it, I'd just follow it through to the conclusion you already had for it.

You still haven't answered the "is it moral?" question: something you've completely missed in your initial line of questioning, and as I've said, the only question that's really important.

Shellfish!

The edict against delicious, moist shellfish was originally a religious practice, but it arose out of purely secular necessity: your local priest was most likely the most educated person around, you saw him often, and he probably saw lots of people die after eating shellfish that had been left in the sun.

That's an example of a 'religious practice' that actually has nothing to do with religion. It's a smart thing to do in a hot country, whether or not God tells you so.

Organized religion is about a lot more than faith. I haven't talked to Ben about this post, but it seems to me he's talking about the practices of certain organized religions, like meditation, prayer (for yourself or someone else), regular church/temple/mosque/whatever attendance, etc. Meditation and prayer are supposed to benefit ones physical, mental, and spiritual health, and regular attendance at religious events, aside from promised health benefits, can bring social benefits. Including, in one study, having an embedded (in this case Buddhist or local diety) religion in small Chinese villages was demonstrated to benefit the town. Why? Because the village leaders participated in the religious life of the town, and thus had greater social accountability. The study's author found that this did not work for organizations that were Christian (because Christianity is generally outlawed and thus the leaders can't participate), or organizations that were not perceived as having moral authority (lineage societies, etc.). She didn't ask whether anyone believed in the religion. And one party official commented that she had joined the local temple not out of faith, but to get to know her village. Of course, she would have to say that, because communist party members have to promise to be atheists. Anyway, it's an interesting study, and while not perfect, is certainly intriguing.

Organized religion is about a lot more than faith.

Yes, but faith is necessary to a religion. In other words, if you don't have faith, you don't have a religion.

That's the main problem with all of this. Under Ben's model, it's a religion with tangible, verifiable reproducable evidence.

That's not faith, it's fact. And because it's not faith, it's not religion.

I think I have to contest your definition of "religion" here, and I suspect the difference in definition is why you think Ben's question is pointless.

There's an awful lot of Christians and Jews out there* who regularly attend services and participate in any number of other religious rituals (Bat Mitzvah, etc), and would consider themselves members of that relgion, but have no actual faith whatsoever. Rather, they do it because it is a cultural thing or socially What You Do or because they were brought up in the religion and it's just What They've Always Done. I would say those people have religion but not faith, and those people do generally identify as being those religions when asked for censuses and such. Sure, *someone* having faith is necessary to a religion *existing*, but there are a lot of people *in* those existing religions who don't.

* I'm sure this happens in other religions too, especially in areas where they are particularly common, but I've seen it most frequently in these two. Christianity because it's socially dominant here in the US; Judaism because it's simultaneously a religion and an ethnicity.

Would you consider such a person "religious?"

Well, in so far as we say someone who always does something does it "religiously", I suppose I'd kinda have to. But I'd probably pick "observant" if I were actually going to pick a word for it. *shakes fist at dictionary.* curse you, confusing English words!

Dictionaries don't define words, they provide common usage.

They aren't religious. They don't believe. You can be a part of a religion and not be religious, but you can't be religious without faith.

Isn't that up to them to decide?

Actual trained Religion Expert (tm) here. Faith is a concept that has almost nothing whatsoever to do with actually existing religions for most of human history. It is really, really important to *theology* (for certain values thereof, mostly having to do with the Christian religious traditions), but religion, for most people, in most societies, for most of history, has been all about praxis and not belief.

Faith has got zero to do with this conversation.

First off, I hate it when people diss things as Placebo.

Do you know how powerful the Placebo effect is? It's roughly 20-30%, in most studies I've looked at.
That's *HUGE*.
This is tangential to this conversation, but the very existence of the placebo effect posits that our mental state can have an amazing impact on our physical body. This mindbody phenomenon is something that many religious practices acknowledge, but I think it can be studied scientifically as well.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

My conversation starter for Atheists

Also, Placebo

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The Power of the Placebo.