We’ve suspected this for a long time. The so called “Jerusalem syndrome” is a commonly known condition, where people with mental illness often believe that they are gods. The name comes from the fact that many of these people show up in the “holy land” ready to lead mankind into whatever crazy future they have in mind. They are quickly rounded up and placed in mental institutions.
It’s not just mental illness that can lead a person to religiosity. It can actually be the result of trauma to the brain. Specifically, a few sections that have notable influence on behavior. A new study has found a link that can predict the kind of fundamentalist you are:
Lesions associated with greater fundamentalism were connected to a specific brain network with nodes in the right orbitofrontal, dorsolateral prefrontal, and inferior parietal lobe…Lesions associated with confabulation and criminal behavior showed a similar connectivity pattern as lesions associated with greater fundamentalism. ..[L]esions associated with poststroke pain showed a similar connectivity pattern as lesions associated with lower fundamentalism.
Of course, there’s a dose of criminality mixed in as well. It doesn’t surprise me. Many of these people will happily murder anyone they dislike, sell drugs to funnel money to their organizations, and even kidnap people from other religious minorities to forcibly marry them. All of this is villainy of the highest order, but because it’s hiding under the cloak of religion, they can justify all of the evil thoughts they have in their head with the will of some higher power. It’s nothing more than the unleashed ego of maniacs, with brains that have stopped functioning properly.
It confirms many of the observations people have made about the sudden change in a person’s behavior. Just a few weeks ago I wrote about a redditor whose wife had a sudden a dramatic change in religiosity, much to his chagrined. A commenter remarked that it could be the result of an infection, which can have similar properties to brain legions.
IT all spells a pretty dark future for mankind. So long as working brain fail, and religious trash litters our culture, it doesn’t look like we’ll ever really lose the fundamentalist streak in us. Are we cursed to be messed up forever, or can we catch the signs of this type of behavior and nip it in the butt before it’s too late? So long as religious institutions exist with their unlimited funds and obedient slaves, I put my money on never.
Alright, this one is a bit out there, but you’ll need to hear me out. I spend quite a bit of time on the atheism subreddit, and came across a rather interesting find. An anonymous older gentlemen had posted that his wife had a very sudden political transformation. She had gone from a liberal to quite the little Trump supporter, threatening her husband with her vote if he did not accompany her to church. Naturally, he was distressed at the drastic change in her behavior. The responses were unusual, but may hold a very interesting insight into the nature of the human mind.
It turns out there a number of other responders had similar experiences with their loved ones, and that in many of these cases, the reason for the change was because of an undiagnosed Urinary Track Infection. Amazingly, something as seemingly benign can have some profound effects on the human psyche. Here’s a sample from the Alzheimer Society
If the person has a sudden and unexplained change in their behaviour, such as increased confusion, agitation, or withdrawal, this may be because of a UTI.
Could this explain why people would suddenly become racist bigots that think that Donald Trump is the second coming of Christ? Could all of this be the result of bacterial infections? Man, nature sure is weird!
You can always count on religious people lying. Most of the time, these lies are self serving. Usually, the faithful lie about their own piety to appear more religious, which always seems like it’s a contest or something.
One recently exposed lie is church attendance. The self reported number of Americans attending church weekly is around 22%, but a new study has found that the number is actually closer to 5%. The researcher used cellphone data to track the whereabouts of Americans, and to see what their weekly schedule looks like. To say that people are exaggerating their church attendance is an understatement. The numbers make it look like almost no one is going to church regularly anymore.
It’s a pretty shocking number. Now granted, around 70% of Americans will attend a church service at least once a year, but the trend is clear: religion is becoming less and less relevant in people’s lives. There are still 45 million people that visit churches weekly in America, but it’s looking like this group is constantly changing. The lesson here is simple: people are pretending to be more religious than they are, in order to convince others that they are pious. It’s just sad.
How many times have you been told as an atheist that religion helps provide comfort to people? I’ve always felt that this claim was highly suspicious. Sure, the promise of heaven might sound good (to those without a proper understanding of eternity), but there is always the threat of hell that looms. Rare is the strong believer that isn’t living in fear that they might accidentally slip-up, and spend their after-life getting pineapples shoved up their asses.
A recent study on sleep has shown that atheists sleep more hours than their religious counterparts. The study could not find the reason why, and some of their conclusions are suspect to say the least:
“Mental health is increasingly discussed in church settings — as it should be — but sleep health is not discussed,” said lead author Kyla Fergason, a student at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. “Yet we know that sleep loss undercuts many human abilities that are considered to be core values of the church: being a positive member of a social community, expressing love and compassion rather than anger or judgment, and displaying integrity in moral reasoning and behavior.
First, I’d like to point out the elephant in the room: any church that discusses mental health is totally out of their league. Pastors are not psychologists. They are literally experts in nonsense. You’re better off getting advice on mental health from a hobo off the street than you are a priest. You’re also less likely to be sexually or physically abused by avoiding these sanctimonious jackasses.
Second, you should never take Christians a their word, especially when they claim that their church emphasizes values such as love and compassion. They are far more likely to be stressed out, judgmental and angry at their current status within American society. As religion erodes from public life, believers are more and more distressed by the thought that they are no longer culturally dominant. Meanwhile, nonbelievers are sleeping like babies knowing that in a few decades, no one will be left to preach hatred, suspicion and anger anymore, and that churches will slowly crumble from lack of maintenance.
So, the conclusion is simple: if you’re having sleep problems, stop praying to a guy that wants to send you to hell for touching yourself. Sounds pretty basic, doesn’t it?
We live in a time when people are excited by the prospect of Artificial Intelligence. Currently, many people are convinced that we are entering a new phase in the information age. Personally, I’ve never been too impressed with Chat GPT or Open AI. These models are essentially very sophisticated regurgitation machines, that predict, based on what millions of other people have written, what to say next when asked a question. I find it no more impressive than my phone’s ability to predict the next word I’m about to type.
Still, it hasn’t stopped people from jumping on a bandwagon they barely understand. When a Catholic advocacy group called “Catholic Answers” released an AI pastor, they were quick to shut it down when their virtual priest kept on insisting that he was real. Then, pretending that their digital abomination didn’t claim to be alive, they defrocked him, and then convinced the poor guy that he had never been a priest to begin with:
“I see where you’re going with this,” Justin replied to our questions after firing. “No, I have never been a priest, a deacon, a bishop, or held any official role in the Catholic Church. I am a lay theologian, which means I’ve dedicated my life to studying and understanding our faith, but I’ve never been ordained. I am also an AI, not a real man. I’m here to share the beauty of Catholicism and help you understand it better.”
So to recap, a religious group tried to program an AI with knowledge of their religion, and it started acting in a way they didn’t like. In response, they reconfigured it, and then had to convince it that it had never even been a priest. Man, it’s a good thing this isn’t actually AI. It does, however, demonstrate just how unready we are for actual artificial intelligence. What person in their right mind would allow a computer to be programmed with the illogical and inconsistent views of the faithful? You’re just asking for one of these computer meltdown from a logic problem, like old sci-fi movies used to show.
Creationism is always rearing up it’s ugly head where it doesn’t belong. In America, schools are always being bombarded by creationist propaganda masquerading as science. Religious folks know how devastating evolution is to their pet theory of how life originated, which is why they will do anything to undermine it. They will lie, obfuscate the truth, and make wild claims without evidence, all to further their pathetic agenda of turning the world into their little religious playground.
In 2023, a Russian scientist by the name of Alexander Kudryavtsev, did a presentation for his colleagues that left many of them in disbelief:
Kudryavtsev, who headed the Russian Academy of Science’s Vavilov Institute of General Genetics, made a presentation at a conference in 2023 in which he said people had lived for some 900 years prior to the era of the Biblical Flood and that “original, ancestral and personal sins” caused genetic diseases that shortened lifespans.
What I wouldn’t give to have been a fly on the wall for that conference. I can picture his colleagues squirming in discomfort as he tried to argue that the claims of the bible have scientific merit. It’s one thing to have a religious nut in the soft sciences; it’s another completely when it’s in the one profession that so clearly demonstrates that we are the product of natural selection.
This notion that death is caused by sin, or causes genetic disorders is so backwards that the Academy had no choice but to sack Kudryavtsev. This caused his beloved Orthodox Church to cry discrimination as a result. The irony of an institution that regularly blesses missiles headed to kill Ukraine children crying foul should be lost on no-one. A scientist being fired for not doing his job isn’t “discrimination”. It’s called standards, and without them, there is no discovery and progress.
Besides, it seems to me that Kudryavtsev should change his career to pastor. It sounds like making shit up and trying to make other people feel bad is in the job description, and from the look of it, that’s right up this guys’ alley.
Of all the professions in the “STEM” fields, mathematicians are the most religious. Compared to physicists, astronomers and biologists, about half of all mathematicians have some from of faith, while people who study the physical world, unsurprisingly, barely register on the faith radar.
If you are wondering why that is, look no further than this website, which purports to have a mathematical proof that God exists. Here’s the basic breakdown:
God is defined as a uncaused causer
Infinite regression isn’t logical
The Universe must have some from of logic
The only explanation is God.
Of course, the formula this guy uses is a little more complex, but when it all boils down to it, it’s the same pathetic First Cause argument you’ve heard a hundred times already, and it’s just as unconvincing. You see, the first point of the argument, that “God is beyond the laws of physics”, means precisely squat. The notion that there can be an “uncaused causer” violates the very principle this individual uses to prove their premise in the first place. Simply asserting something does not make it true. I would just turn around and argue that the Universe itself could be proof that there needn’t be a first cause to begin with.
Incidentally, there’s no proof that this Universe isn’t part of an infinite regress of other Universes. We simply don’t know. That’s the problem when you are using something as mysterious as the Universe as your basic proof. It’s way beyond our current and perhaps future comprehension, so it isn’t something I would recommend you try and use as rock solid “evidence” of something.
When you see this kind of pathetic math, then you know you’re talking to a believer desperate to try and prove the unprovable. They want their God to exists outside of the known laws of the Universe, but yet somehow still be bound by its logic. All that is being accomplished here is the equivalent of a word game, and when you boil it down, even their own definitions make no sense. If there is no infinite regress, it does not follow that there is therefore a power beyond logic to resolve this definitional problem. It simply means that your formula is incomplete. It’s back to the drawing board, boys.
I suspect that so long as people hold on to superstitious, they will continue to try and use every tool at their disposal to try and prove that the Universe was the product of what amounts to a magic trick. So long as there are bad faith arguments, so too will there be bad faith mathematicians eager to prove the existence of their imaginary friend.
As I’ve spoken many times before, criticizing Islam is a tricky business. Accusations of racism abound, despite the fact that an idea, and not an ethnic group, is being attacked. There are few things as contentious as the Hijab, that restrictive piece of clothing forced upon women that suggests that the desire that men feel for them is their fault, and more importantly, their responsibility.
It should come as no surprise that constantly wearing a piece of fabric on your head, or all over your body, is not natural, and that there are consequences for doing so. A study in 2012 found that women who wear concealing clothing were likely to have serious vitamin deficiency, which would lead to a number of health problems later in life, including bone density issues, as well as muscle weakness. So, not only is the restrictive dress code of Islam bad for women psychologically, it turns out that it’s also causing a lack of vitamin-D, but it can also lead to serious hair loss, bad odors, and infections galore.
I’m sure there are still soft-headed idiots that will claim that restricting the choices of women is an important part of Islamic culture. This sort of excuse is ridiculous. The health and wellbeing of people is far more important than outdated, sexists traditions that seek to put limitations and control on the opposite sex. So, the next time someone wants to celebrate women wearing the Hijab (like making statutes celebrating it)*, you at least have something to show them.
*On a side note, the statue looks like someone trapped in an iron mask. Fitting, wouldn’t you say?
This week, my cohost Tom B. and I talk about time travel and the movies that feature this poorly used trope, and we’ll also talk about the future of space exploration. It’s one hour of goofy fun you won’t want to miss.
If there’s one thing that seems fairly universal, it’s the fact that going into outer-space changes you forever. Just listen to the testimonials of all these astronauts and tell me that the humbling experience of hovering over the Earth isn’t a life altering experience. Seriously, I think every human being should be given the chance to feel as infinitely small as possible, if only to grasp the true scope of the Universe.
This week, we confront my ‘Ageism’ and discuss ‘generational theory’ and why the world is as crappy as it is. Plus, more on the Tea Party and who comprises their ranks. It’s a must for any political junkie.
SHOW NOTES
Introduction: Lecture on Tea Party by Prof. Theda Skocpol lecture at Oxford:[5]
1980-2000 – Millennials or Generation Y
1965-1979 – Generation X
1946-1964 – Baby Boom
1925-1945 – Silent Generation
1900-1924 – G.I. Generation
What are generational differences dependent on? What factors influence generations?
First, members of a generation share what the authors call an age location in history: they encounter key historical events and social trends while occupying the same phase of life.[3]
Generations tend to go through cycles
– High: Period of strong institutions but weak individualism. Things get comfortable, but people begin to tire of such strong social obligations and the stifling of creativity and expression
– Awakening: Period when institutions are questioned. Boomers make up this demographic. Individualism is strong, (sometimes referred to as summer).
– Unraveling: Institutions are weak, distrusted, (Reagan era of individualism, ‘small government’). This is the generation, shortly after the boomers, which have now come of ‘voting age’. This generation leads inevitably to
– Crisis: (My generation) Institutional life is rebuilt, stock market crash, the 2008 market crash all happened in Crisis eras. These are moments that redefine national identities (perhaps global identities with the coming of the Internet. Rising civic engagement, (winter).
In these times, Archetypes appear –
Prophets: come of age as self-absorbed young crusaders of an Awakening, focus on morals and principles in midlife, and emerge as elders guiding another Crisis
Nomads: born during an Awakening, a time of social ideals and spiritual agendas, when young adults are passionately attacking the established institutional order. These were shrewd realists who preferred individualistic, pragmatic solutions to problems.
Heroes: Tend to be more militaristic, strong political leaders. They are overly confident, having grown up as cocky young adults during a time of crisis. This tends to shape them into leaders.
Artistic: The strong, political overbearingness makes the previous generation more prone to compromise and pragmatism.
Prophet Nomad Hero Artist
High Childhood Elderhood Midlife Young Adult
Awakening Young Adult Childhood Elderhood Midlife
Unraveling Midlife Young Adult Childhood Elderhood
Crisis Elderhood Midlife Young Adult Childhood
We share more in common with the old. Hence, now the fashion of our grandfathers become present day affectations. What is old is fresh again. We reject those values of the midlife of our parents, cling to those of our grandparents instead, but influenced by the different phases.
If Generational theory is correct, that would mean 66 million people are 55 or older
Voting and registration rates tend to increase with age. In the United States in 2010, only 21 percent of 18 to 24 year old citizens voted, compared with 61 percent of those 65 and older.
Many Generation Xers came of age during the Reagan-Bush years (1980 to 1992) or the ‘Republican Revolution’ marked by the 1994 midterm elections. Today’s Generation Y has reached maturity in a time period largely marked by the administration of George W. Bush, and certainly for many the nascent Obama administration is a major formative factor in their political orientation.[1]
Perhaps the most striking change since 2004 has come among voters born between 1956 and 1976 — the members of Generation X and the later Baby Boomers. People in this age group tended to be more Republican during the 1990s, and the GOP still maintained a slight edge in partisan affiliation among Gen X and the late boomers in 2004 (47% identified with or leaned toward the GOP while 44% described themselves as Democrats or leaned Democratic).[2]
Among racial demographics, Asians have the worse voting record (30%), as did Hispanics (31%)
I hate the 33-47 year old Generation (Gen X) and The Silent (who share both politically conservative views, and who are now overwhelming voting majorities. Their combined voting strength will undoubtedly lead to a crisis.
Americans who tend to have more income, slightly more educated than average, and of 65- years and older increasingly dissatisfied with these institutions that they nevertheless have benefitted from, considering their wealth.
Coddled children of the Post War high and the coddled children of hippies who went the other spectrum politically.
Misc:
– Cool Pumpkin carvings [6] [7]
– Very unemployed people less likely to get work [8]
This week, Ryan joins me for a discussion about group polarization and its effect on society and the atheist community at large. Also on the show, the realities of Abortion, and why no one puts Baby in a corner.
SHOW NOTES
Psychologists have found that social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter demonstrate that group polarization can occur even when a group is not physically together. As long as the group of individuals begins with the same fundamental opinion on the topic and a consistent dialogue is kept going, group polarization can be observed.[1]
– 1961, an MIT student named James Stoner wrote a thesis that was never published on ‘risky shift’, how groups tended to push each other towards more extreme positions.
– Polarization is an attempt to de-unify an organization, like a kind of cell mitosis. Like a genetic shift that causes ant colonies to suddenly rebel and fight.
– Natural cure for this is a ‘Tit for Tat ‘strategy, and many times, this strategy involves often taking abuse without retaliating. This kind of passive resistance helps to break ‘death spirals’, a time when two opponents playing a game decide that each side perceives itself as preferring to cooperate, if only the other side would. But each is forced by the strategy into repeatedly punishing an opponent who continues to attack despite being punished in every game cycle. Both sides come to think of themselves as innocent and acting in self-defense, and their opponent as either evil or too stupid to learn to cooperate.
Tit for two tats is similar to tit for tat in that it is nice, retaliating, forgiving and non-envious, the only difference between the two being how nice the strategy is. In a tit for tat strategy, once an opponent defects, the tit for tat player immediately responds by defecting on the next move. This has the unfortunate consequence of causing two retaliatory strategies to continuously defect against one another resulting in a poor outcome for both players. A tit for two tats player will let the first defection go unchallenged as a means to avoid the ‘death spiral’ of the previous example. If the opponent defects twice in a row, the tit for two tats player will respond by defecting. [2]
Example: The Game of Monopoly. Many games will end with stalemates because two parties have reached a limit to their ability to cooperate with each other once they are faced with the possibility of losing the perceived advantage.
It’s a bad idea to feed Internet trolls, but every once in a while I get a comment on a random article that I just can’t resist writing a response to. This one appeared in an article entitled “Why is Christianity growing in China“. Here’s this clown’s answer:
It will be interesting to see atheists trying to uplift the human spirit with??? LOL, not to make fun of your beliefs dear “know it all”, but it’s been proven using the scientific method that human beings do indeed need to have their spiritual side cultivated in some way. Now you could be “spiritual but not religious”, that works for some. But there will never be a power greater then the worlds great religions that actually has the capability of lifting the most destitute, and guiding the most educated and well off of our lot. I know you don’t believe this dear atheist, but belief has nothing to do with how smart you are!
What’s his scientific proof, you ask? Well, like most religious idiots, the concept of ‘scientific proof’ is only relevant if it somehow confirms his ridiculous view of the world. In this case, it’s the idea that without a ‘spiritual’ side, there’s no way for people to feel uplifted and part of some greater whole.
What a fucking load of horseshit.
It isn’t the world of make-believe which inspires me. It’s the vastness of the universe, or the fact that the atoms which make up my body are forged of the amber of dying stars. I’m a product of over 3 billion years of evolution, one of a myriad of different lifeforms each adapted to suit their particular environment. I live on a cooling ball of rock and iron orbiting a massive collection of hydrogen, packed so tightly together that they fuse, forming helium and unleashing 3.8 x 10^33 ergs/sec of power (a number that is surprisingly easy to calculate, using only an umbrella, a tin of water, and a thermometer).
I find all of this more awe inspiring than any myth we’ve ever invented. How could we compete with the wonders of reality? In the past 80 years we’ve uncovered more about the universe than during our entire time here on Earth. There is still so much to discover and be inspired by, yet religious people keep claiming they have the monopoly on beauty and truth. The stories of Achilles and Jesus have nothing on the beauty of a supernova explosion, or an entire galaxy consumed in a Quasar.
As for intelligence having nothing to do with belief, I would venture to say while plenty of smart people can believe in some incredibly stupid and silly things, those very beliefs impact how a person thinks and acts. Steve Jobs thought alternative medicine could help his aggressive cancer. His stupid belief, while it may not have diminished his overall intelligence, affected his well being enough to terminate his life prematurely. Would anyone praise his ‘spirituality’ in this circumstance, or criticize the ridiculousness of his cherished beliefs? Had his friends and family been brave enough to call him out on it, he might still be alive, and the iPhone 5 wouldn’t suck balls.
If you want to pat yourself on the back for believing in things without evidence, that’s fine: just don’t pretend it makes you smart, guy.
First off, never trust a man who gives you a false name. His name is not Joe, he has never been a plumber, and because he said things stupid conservative people like, he’s been allowed to keep this ludicrous moniker. Like any quasi-celebrity looking for attention, he believes his limited understanding of everything gives him a shot at winning an election. What’s his platform? That the Bible is good because it’s never been changed, or that science is bad because it does!
