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It does show that people who are lonely tend to talk to/pray to/think more about "God" than those who are not lonely. Much like a child left on his own with no friends will invent an imaginary one to talk to - we're social creatures.
I notice that so long as one affixes the touted word "study" to any given particular, that people don't generally care how it is they've come to the conclusions. They take it on total faith through the assumption that the people conducting such a test have logically and systematically configured it, whether it is so or not.
That's why we have the peer review process. If you beleive the study was conducted poorly, please state your
reasons rather than a baseless accuation.
You could socialize all day long and still feel the pang of loneliness for the simple fact that our minds, as capable as they are, are still fragile instruments capable of fracturing under some grand questions.
I agree.
Any Christian could be just as lonely as any atheist, and any atheist could be just as satisfied as any Christian. It isn't so simple a question of compartmentalizing people in to preconceived notions.
Of course not. But taking a
statistically significant group and having them take part in a double-blind study
does give the ability to point out statistically significant correlations from which conclusions and further study can be drawn.
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Hell, when I was still a Christian and lonely, I prayed and talked to God all the time. Yes, you could make the correlation that I was lonely and I'm an Atheist now, but I would say the correlation of loneliness to talking to God makes perfect sense to me. Maybe the realization that I wasn't getting any answers and that "talking to God" was pretty similar to "talking to myself" helped drive me away from faith, but that doesn't discount the fact that loneliness did drive me to pray more than when I was not lonely.
I think what happens to most people when they pray and they as though they haven't received an answer, I find that it was either not the answer they hoped for, was so subtle they didn't pick it up, or were not answered immediately. Suddenly the walls goes up and receptibility fades.
That's the way I used to view it. Until I realized it didn't seem to matter whether I prayed or not, and how silly some of the "answers" I thoguht I was receiving were. It was
literally the same as talking to myself. Which I still occasionally do - verbalizing a problem helps me work through it, and dispells the silence.
Then there worldview begins to find more parity with the easier notion of just succumbing to the trappings of the world. Its far easier to just give in. And while giving in to any given temptation may be gratifying in the beginning, there is something that takes place within the human heart, where they realize it has left a vacuum.
Quite to the contrary, I found believing in an all-powerful father-figure deity who loved me to be a
very easy mindset. It was extremely difficult to lose my fath. Very unpleasant.
As a result, they become angrier with the notion of God, and even when they outwardly say they no longer believe in Him, they still rail against Him. Its amazing how many people speak about it in terms of abandonment. They become angry because they feel duped. They feel He left them, when in fact it was they that weren't willing to listen or to heed the instruction.
I can see where you would think that. Personally, I have a strong dislike for Christianity as an organized religion, as it is the institution that indoctrinated me long before I was able to make a rational choice for myself. I also don't like many Christian beliefs (depending, of course, on the flavor of Christianity). But I don't "rebel" against a being I don't believe exists. That's rather difficult.
It has been my understanding that God comes to us in a soft, still voice, not booming voices from the Heavens. We want booming voices from the Heaven so that there is no ambiguity. And if there is any doubt in our mind, it will fester in to a further pulling away.
Right. Which feels exactly like reading between the lines until the answer you already knew pops out at you...or you read too deeply until you see direction in coincidence. Either way, it's the same as talking to yourself, or at least it was for me.
I have gone through many hills and valleys during my walk. I know how this works.
It may be easier for people to dismiss me as being "crazy" or "lonely" or anything that might justify why a person believes in God, but I know the drill. Often times this is their justification for their own abandonment issues.
As an Atheist, I find belief in a deity to be irrational, but I won't call you crazy. I'll call you other things for some of what you say, but you're one of the most coherant Creationists I've spoken to, much like Faith was (and the opposite of certain other members here).
You take offense that a study shows that loneliness can casue an increase in prayer - but that's not an absolute. It does not say that all faith springs from loneliness. Could the original invention of God have essentially been akin to somebody's imaginary friend given credence? Maybe, but I doubt it. It just means that lonely people are drawn to some sort of external figure to talk to, which could be God, or an imaginary friend. It doesnt mean God or the friend are any more or less real - only that lonely people want someone to talk to. That's not so offenseive really, is it?
Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.
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