Are Atheists Mentally Ill

Just trying to keep the issues straight:

1. Is the claim correct that believers are healthier than atheists?
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   I have a lot of trouble believing this one just on a demographic basis. Believers as a group are less wealthy than atheists and are more likely to belong to the lower socio-economic classes. Both factors are correlated with poorer health.
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   It is well known that participation within a social group is correlated with better health and mental well-being, but atheists have social groups, too. EvC Forum is one.
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2. Even if the claim were true, is it evidence for God?
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3. I followed the links, here they are:
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   • the list goes on
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     A lengthy list of the benefits of religion, but the word "atheist" appears not once.
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   • nicer
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     Report on a book presenting evidence that believers are nicer than their "secular counterparts", but points out that what's important is "involvement in a religious community", not belief.
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   • meanest of all
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     Rated charity giving by faith. From highest to lowest: Muslims, Jews, Protestants, other Christians, Catholics, atheists.
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   • hard-wired for faith
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     We knew this already.

--Percy

I wouldn't call it a social group *for* atheists. Although I had no idea it would turn out this way, it seems that EvC is a social group where atheists feel very comfortable. I myself am neither an atheist, nor an agnostic, nor a member of or adherent to any organized religion.--Percy

Why are you questioning something that can merely be Googled? It is well known that religiosity declines with increasing income and education, and atheists are underrepresented in scores of negative categories, such as murderers, robbers, rapists, drug addicts and divorcees.Some people have a worldview that the Earth is flat or that the Sun revolves around the Earth. "Worldview" is just a synonym for wishful thinking and has nothing to do with facts, science or reality.--Percy

Hi Marc,It *is* well known that religiosity declines with increasing income and education, and I *am* surprised that you didn't know that. I thought you were pretending ignorance so that I would go off and waste my time finding evidence for you.I'm not surprised you didn't find the evidence you sought with the search terms "atheists make more money". Try "religiosity vs income", which works better because it uses words I actually said.Concerning your political claims, this thread isn't about conservatives versus liberals, but I'll address this one thing: Why would anyone question this? It's as well known as religiosity decreasing with increasing income and education.Concerning worldview, like many of the religious you seem to believe that the words used are more important than the evidence behind them. To draw your attention back to the examples you ignored (even though you quoted them), your worldview has just as much evidence as a flat Earth worldview or an Earth-at-the-center worldview.You asked about my own worldview. I believe evidence leads best toward what is true about the world and universe.Concerning the topic I can only repeat that the greater wealth and education of those with the least religiosity argues against the premise of this thread.--Percy

Hi Marc,Religiosity does decline with increasing income and education, but you won't be able to reconcile this with the statistics if you don't understand them. It *is* anomalous that the US as a country is both religious and affluent when compared with other countries, but it is as true in the US as it is around the rest of the world that the religiosity of individuals declines with increasing income and education.Your tendency to make nation-wide generalizations based upon your own local observations is also leading you astray. It makes a lot of sense when you consider that they understand that what's really important is living in a society where desperate need isn't forcing their fellow citizens into poverty and degradation. Sharing the wealth means, for example, walking out your door and being greeted by pleasant hellos instead of beggars.Concerning worldview again, you can't seem to make your case without misstating facts. Science makes no claims for which it has no evidence, which isn't true of flat-Earthers, Earth-is-the-center-of-the-universe-ers, and creationists. That science is in some kind of panic about the origin of life is just a creationist fantasy.Other things being equal, being a participating member of a social group confers health benefits. That's what the statistics show and no one denies this. But when I say "other things being equal," that means that elements like wealth and education have been factored out of the statistics. It is important to understand that the statistics mean that the religious affluent are better off than the more secular affluent, and that the religious poor are better off than the more secular poor, but it definitely doesn't mean that the religious poor are better off than the secular affluent. Income, wealth and education are simply overwhelming factors.So if you're poor and a genie offers you religiosity or wealth as a means to a longer life, choose wealth because it has the bigger impact. And to go back to your country-level comparison, while the US may be anomalous as a nation both religious and affluent, it also has a lower life expectancy than countries much less religious, such as Canada, Australia and most of Europe, and this is how the correlation between decreasing religiosity with increasing income and education manifests itself.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Minor correction.Edited by Percy, : Correct the correction.

Hi Caffeine,Marc is having trouble finding statistical support because he doesn't understand statistics, but I don't see why you should have any problems. Try this paper: Or this one: --Percy

Right. It's the whole question of, "Why are we here?" I think we'd all really like to know the answer, but given that there's been no answer after thousands of years it seems very unlikely there'd be one on our watch.--Percy

You're making the same mistake I described in my Message 33 (which I think you missed in the flurry of messages earlier today) - you don't understand the statistics. I mentioned at one point that atheists are underrepresented in many negative categories, including divorce. It wasn't a comparison between atheists and religious people. And all your statistic says is that religious practice (usually defined as church attendance) is associated with lower divorce rates. It's a comparison of religious people who attend church with religious people who don't attend church. It, too, isn't a comparison to atheists.--Percy

Sometimes it's like you're not even connected to reality. Are you under some illusion that the religious don't curse? The connection between high religiosity and the lower socio-economic classes, the most coarse strata of society, was well known long before surveys and polls verified it statistically. Karl Marx probably described it most famously when he called religion "the opiate of the masses."--Percy

Here's an interesting graph, Marc. It shows that the more conservative the religion, the less the education and the lower the income: Source: Is Your Religion Your Financial Destiny?--Percy

I don't understand why you're asking. Did you think I was using "conservative" in a political sense? I just meant religions toward the more fundamentalist end of the spectrum. As you can see in the graph, for example, the Baptists, Pentecostals and Jehovah's Witnesses are relatively close together, and they have the shared characteristics of lower income, lesser education, and more conservative religious beliefs such as inerrancy and stricter adherence to Biblical and traditional rules and roles.--Percy

Seriously? Hard to believe, but briefly in case you're serious, conservative religions are those with greater religiosity. Examples of traditional roles and rules would be where a wife is expected to submit gracefully to her husband's bidding, or where marriage can only be between a man and woman.About judging whether any specific religion is more conservative than another specific religion, I wouldn't know how to do that. The x-axis is not a stand-in for religious conservatism and I didn't say it was. What I said was that the graph shows that the more conservative religions, those with greater religiosity, have lower income and lower education.--Percy

I never said the graph provided information about which religions are conservative. We already know that the Baptists, Pentecostals and Jehovah's Witnesses are very conservative, and I noted that those religions are on the part of the graph with the lowest incomes and education.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Spelling.

Apparently the NYT site was the victim of a DOS attack yesterday. It seems to be up now.--Percy

Focusing just on Christian religions, from left to right on the graph (in other words, from low income/low education to high income/high education) we have this ordering:

• Jehovah's Witnesses
• Pentecostals
• Baptists
• Catholics
• Mormons
• Lutherans
• Methodists
• Presbyterians
• Unitarians
• Anglicans/Episcopalians

I think you're going to have a hard time finding anyone besides yourself and maybe Marc who can't see that the more conservative religions are nearer the bottom of the categories, while the more liberal religions are nearer the top.--Percy