Atheists on the Benefits of Non-Toxic Spiritual Beliefs or Religion

[Free Ranger]

To clarify, on my blog at http://emergentmormon.blogspot.com/ , I am not defending or supporting any and all forms of religion or spiritual practice, only the non-toxic versions. I started as an atheist reconstructing a spiritual worldview that would not conflict much with most atheistic thinking, which is why the nontheist John Spong was useful in reconstructing a Christian lifestance from a more "humanistic" perspective, and instead being more practical and psychological. Here are some videos by atheistic scientists and philosophers arguing the benefits of non-toxic forms of religion or spiritual practice, that combined with other books and articles I have read, changed my mind about the benefits of a heterodox spiritual practice.

Note that in one clip below you have a well known physicist saying he entertains belief in God to reduce stress at times even as an atheist and he knows its not "rational" but he doesn't give a s*** that he does. And Richard Dawkins himself doesn't even give much push back to that.

These are all fairly short clips except the last one which is an atheist speaking to a group of Jews on the benefits of religion even though the speaker is actually part of the Richard Dawkin's group, yet even he recognizes the benefits of non-toxic forms of religion:

https://youtu.be/oldj11NEsc0

https://youtu.be/1igiqYMaUTg

https://youtu.be/HOH4opPFgyY

https://youtu.be/c0_J998UD9s

https://youtu.be/0l5KwuXRsQg

https://youtu.be/thUt0TA7NL4

https://youtu.be/JpfIrg2r_p8

https://youtu.be/8BwGxji6Agw

[Gadianton]

wouldn't any "non-toxic" belief be beneficial by definition?

I don't understand how trying to believe something you don't believe would help with stress, but to each their own. I'd say if that guy really gets all relaxed when contemplating God then maybe he really does believe in God.

Reconstructing a Christian worldview sounds weird. Do you believe Jesus died for your sins so that you can go to heaven? If yes, then you're a Christian. If not, then what, you read an article that says Christians have these 10 positive aspects to their life and you think, okay, I want those benefits, so I'm going to be a "Christian" in major scare quotes, as I don't belief Jesus really died for my sins literally, but there are some psychological interpretations of the Bible that allow the story of Jesus's death to be a positive allegory. Well, why would you think the benefits would follow? There's good reason to think that you can't change a bunch of parameters at your leisure and still retain the benefits.

[huckelberry]

wouldn't any "non-toxic" belief be beneficial by definition?

I don't understand how trying to believe something you don't believe would help with stress, but to each their own. I'd say if that guy really gets all relaxed when contemplating God then maybe he really does believe in God.

Reconstructing a Christian worldview sounds weird. Do you believe Jesus died for your sins so that you can go to heaven? If yes, then you're a Christian. If not, then what, you read an article that says Christians have these 10 positive aspects to their life and you think, okay, I want those benefits, so I'm going to be a "Christian" in major scare quotes, as I don't belief Jesus really died for my sins literally, but there are some psychological interpretations of the Bible that allow the story of Jesus's death to be a positive allegory. Well, why would you think the benefits would follow? There's good reason to think that you can't change a bunch of parameters at your leisure and still retain the benefits.

Gadianton, I can see your point that to speak of being a Christian a person needs to be holding to some specific Christian content. That would be true in relation to ones own living and not just in relation to skeptical listeners. Your one phrase summary of what it means to be Christian may be concealing a good deal of variety. Perhaps even those non theistic extremes relate to the phrase in a non literal way. I find my self thinking that there are four gospels where Jesus teaches Christianity without directly proposing this key phrase. There have been multiple lines of thinking in Christian history as to what that phrase could mean and how it works. Anselms version, in conservative circles seen as the only version, did not arrive for some thousand years. Paul experimented around with several angles on reasoning to try and understand. Given that variety, if a nontheist saw themselves as receiving from Jesus wisdom , encouragement and brotherly support to undertake the suffering needed to live both courageously and as a help to others that could be substance to think of themselves as Christian.

[Free Ranger]

wouldn't any "non-toxic" belief be beneficial by definition?

I don't understand how trying to believe something you don't believe would help with stress, but to each their own. I'd say if that guy really gets all relaxed when contemplating God then maybe he really does believe in God.

Reconstructing a Christian worldview sounds weird. Do you believe Jesus died for your sins so that you can go to heaven? If yes, then you're a Christian. If not, then what, you read an article that says Christians have these 10 positive aspects to their life and you think, okay, I want those benefits, so I'm going to be a "Christian" in major scare quotes, as I don't belief Jesus really died for my sins literally, but there are some psychological interpretations of the Bible that allow the story of Jesus's death to be a positive allegory. Well, why would you think the benefits would follow? There's good reason to think that you can't change a bunch of parameters at your leisure and still retain the benefits.

I don't want to derail this thread so I'm going to start a new topic on atonement theology. So I will not directly deal with your questions here about Jesus "dying for our sins." I will instead start a new thread/topic very soon with a title like "liberal-Theology & "Jesus died for our sins?"

I will answer your questions in the order that you gave them:

You asked, "Wouldn't any non-toxic belief be beneficial by definition?"

Yes.

Remember, I am not a Fundamentalist Christian. By that I mean, I do not feel confined to set of parameters by a group of particular theologians that developed a lot of their ideas post 1400 AD.

Your second comment was your opinion on Physicist Brian Greene's comment in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpfIrg2r_p8

Here is Green's bio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Greene

As to your comment that "I'd say if that guy [Brian Greene] really gets all relaxed when contemplating God then maybe he really does believe in God." I think Greene already made it clear in the video clip that he doesn't really believe in God, no?

Greene is a very intelligent man so maybe if he benefits from occasionally "suspending his disbelief," then maybe there are some real benefits to doing so, no? If he is getting psychological benefits from it then there is no problem, right? As you said, to each his own.

By saying Greene might actually believe are you indirectly agreeing with Jordan Peterson, who says we act out our beliefs? So if we act as if we believe in God, even if we say we don't, then do we actually believe in God, self proclaimed atheists included?

So that if an atheist, for example, acts out belief in free will through their actions and acts as if we have a soul or an actual self/person (that can be judged in criminal courts as if one has free will) and that humans are endowed with inalienable Rights, are they then really acting out a belief in God and the soul?

You said, "Reconstructing a Christian worldview sounds weird. …"

I understand you mean no offense and none taken, but let me respond this way. Why does reconstructing a Christian worldview sound weird?

Did you reconstruct an ethical worldview at some point after rejecting your former Christian worldview, assuming you were once a Christian?

Would you say your reconstructions might be equally weird? For example, do you believe in Right and Wrong and Good and Evil and free will? Do you lean politically left? If you don't believe in God, Nietzche would say that is weird.

As to your question that an allegorial perspective should not generate psychological benefits -- and your question "Well, why would you think the benefits would follow? There's good reason to think that you can't change a bunch of parameters at your leisure and still retain the benefits." -- I would ask, didn't Nietzche "change a bunch of parameters at [his] leisure and still retain the benefits"? Think about it, that is exactly what Nietzche did when he wrote what he called a holy book and a kind of "fifth gospel" with his Thus Spake Zarathustra. He used the power of religion or mythos to lift his spirits and also give "meaning to the earth," as he puts it. He new humans are inherently religious (see: http://nietzsche.holtof.com/reader/frie ... 56992.html ) so he spoke to the religious nature in atheists to provide human life a higher meaning in order to counteract the coming rise in depressive forms of passive-nihilism he predicted. What sparked his motivation to write his Zarathusta was his own nihilistic leanings. Especially after feeling extremely down after losing a close friend and love interest. See Nietzche's comments here: https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSDFreeze/co ... f_turning/
So being aware of his own nihilistic depressive mental state, as a good psychologist (he called himself), he went to work as a "physican of the psyche" to heal himself and he used religuous mythos to do so with his Thus Spake Zarathustra. Are we not all of us turning muck into gold? Is that not what the New Testament authors were doing to a large degree?

The millions of Christians who do hold theologically-liberal views, would I think be evidence that the benefits do follow and there's good reason to think that you can in fact change a "bunch of [Fundamentalist] parameters and still retain the benefits."

I think what you are really saying (correct me if I'm mistaken) is that you yourself, individually, can't experience the benefits? And I understand that, I was the same way just five years ago. But a series of events and "ah hah" moments changed my view.

Do you agree that everyone's personality and temperament and genetics is different, including one's receptivity to spiritual ideas or their rejection of it? Brian McLaren's "four stages of faith" for example, can maybe help you understand that despite your feeling that is "weird," and you don't "get it," does not negate the reality that it does work for other people as they move to different stages of faith. As you said, to each their own.

I don't fully understand Stephen Batchelor who for eight years was a Tibetan Buddhist but has reconstructed his Buddhist beliefs and practices and wrote a book about it called Secular Buddhism and Confession of a Buddhist Atheist. I don't fully understand how Steve Bachelor benefits from being a secular Buddhist and not accepting reincarnation and other common supernatural Buddhist beliefs. But I'm not quick to so say his "Reconstructing a Buddhist worldview sounds weird" because I don't fully understand how it works for him and how he gets benefits from doing so. Instead, I say to myself, well maybe it lowers stress by contemplating his thoughts through the allegory of the monkey mind and meditation, like contemplative prayer, probably changes his brain generating a greater sense of well-being and inner serenity. For example, see my blog post here on the benefits of Buddhist practices: http://practical-fruition.blogspot.com/ ... tress.html

I would never say to Stephen Batchelor that because he is a non-literal believer in reincarnation/rebirth and other supernatural ideas, that it is impossible for him to benefit from Buddhism.

Consider this:

Is it weird that you dream at night in what is the equivalent of religious thinking as dreams are basically that which becomes public mythology or religion? Have you ever engaged in lucid dreaming? Did you benefit from it even though it wasn't scientifically true what you were dreaming? What if a Christian practice is similar to that? Have you ever had a message given to you through a dream that helped you in your real life? Maybe your unconscious formed a conclusion or solution to a problem through a dream? I had that experience when I was an atheist actually and realized the unconscious mind is more powerful than I realized. Did the dream make rational sense or was it all based in metaphors and incoherent images yet somehow integrative and beneficial to you?

Perhaps you don't dream. Perhaps you only think in numbers and logical syllogisms. Perhaps you don't enjoy poetry or art or theater. I do. Religion to me is a poetic love poem to reality, a way to tap into the unconscious in the dream language of the "right brain."

I do not recall the book I learned this from but there was an atheist whose brain was scanned when he was contemplating a pleasant prayerful visualization of God and even though he's an atheist he experienced all the benefits of that prayer as brain scans showed his brain lit up just like the true believing nun's brains did. So I ask you, why why did this atheist whose brain was scanned while contemplating God have a positive experience and physiological benefits? Why did that happen when he is an atheist and doesn't literally believe? Does it matter if he was actually experiencing God in some way or if his brain was generating the physiological benefits, if the same or similar benefits result either way?

I do not know if that atheist continued to practice prayer knowing it benefited him, but if he did would you say that is weird or that it might actually be smart on his part to take advantage of an ancient practice with evidence of physiological benefits?

When I first left the Brighamite Mormon church about 20 years ago I attended a Unitarian Universalist church and an atheist got up to speak one day and he was a former minister who left his ministry and became an atheist, but he said he still prayed to the Universe for the psychological benefits. At the time I did not understand this because I was becoming extremely skeptical and atheistic in my thinking. And I admit it sounded weird to me at the time. But now it does not sound weird at all.

I'm going to assume you're an agnostic or atheist and believe in all the sciences. If so, do you believe in human rights? Are you benefiting from this belief in inalienable human rights?

According to atheist scientists on the brain and consciousness, the concept of the self is all make believe, useful and necessary, but still mythology; in fact there is no real person just a bunch of atoms, cells and brain parts producing the illusion of personhood. It is a quasi religious belief that you are a person, a self deserving dignity and respect. From the atheistic and cold hard scientific perspective, even though it's not literally true you pretend that you are a person and a self because it benefits you, no? I would guess that it doesn't matter to you whether or not you actually are a person or a self, you feel like a self and people treat you like a person, so you probably don't think about it, but if you did a deep dive into neuroscience, the brain and consciousness, like I have, you might realize you're pretending to be a person because it simply benefits you and your genes.

In other words, if your questions are turned back on your own belief system and ideas then your ideas and belief system becomes just as "weird" and incomprehensible from an extreme scientific naturalistic point of view. Is it not weird that we are thinking meat? Is it not strange that we even exist from a naturalistic perspective? And if we are just automatons of our genes and not persons but Gene Machines as Dawkins puts it, and we're all just going to die and cease to exist, then why care if a perspective seems weird? I don't take offense to you using the word weird to be clear and I understand what you were saying. But what is weird and not weird? Is quantum mechanics weird? Are our dreams at night weird? Are the food habits or the food tastes of foreigners weird? What is weird and gets to rightly judge?

So upon pondering these questions, I would guess that you would come back around to your initial statement of "to each his own." Upon closer examination and scrutiny of all beliefs, secular and religious, I think you would find that all beliefs are weird and questionable to someone, right?
But I don't want to further derail this thread, which is about atheistic scientists and philosophers arguing for the benefits of religious beliefs and spiritual practices.

What did you think of what Douglas Murray had to say? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0l5KwuXRsQg

What did you think of what Robert Sapolski had to say? https://youtu.be/oldj11NEsc0

Or the content in the other videos?

[Res Ipsa]

I don't understand why I should care what a handful of atheists have said about non-toxic spiritual beliefs or religion? Being an atheist doesn't confer any kind of expertise on religion or spiritual beliefs or psychology or sociology. I don't give an atheist's opinion on such matters any greater weight than I would a believer's opinion. Atheism doesn't entail anti-theism, so it's not like the equivalent of an admission against interest in law.

There are atheists, including Richard Dawkins, who take the position that it is intrinsically harmful for people to believe something that isn't true and that harm outweighs any possible benefits of religious belief. Based on my own experience, I don't think most atheists take that position.

Take any kind of belief system you can find, strip out the "toxic" parts, and what is left by definition is at a minimum benign. Why does that tell us anything interesting or helpful? Is belief in God a necessary part of the non-toxic beliefs? If not, are we talking about religion or spirituality at all?

I've seen atheists and theists lob studies at each other, trying to prove that one stance toward God is harmful while the other is beneficial. I think it's a monumental waste of time. The measurement problems alone appear insurmountable. The causation issues are worse. Even then, the studies can't answer whether any given individual would be better or worse off as a believer or nonbeliever.

I've not seen a study yet that gives me any confidence that I would be better off in any measurable way if I were able to persuade myself to believe in some kind of Supreme Being. And it goes the other way. My college roommate from Freshman year at BYU has stayed a faithful Mormon throughout his life. And I have seen no evidence that would lead me to believe that he would have been better off if he changed his beliefs to another religion or no religion.

[Gadianton]

There have been multiple lines of thinking in Christian history as to what that phrase could mean and how it works.

Sure, I was trying to get the point across quick and dirty. Obviously, there is no single statement that defines whether somebody can be Christian or not, there could always be some twist or variation on a theme.

I think there is a difference between these two scenarios:

1) a lifelong devout Christian after years of reflection has trouble accepting the idea of universal sin and how Jesus dying on a cross reverses it, but does believe deeply in God, finds the New Testament inspiring, and believes there's got to be something to it but perhaps it's a mystery for the next life to comprehend.

2) A comparative religion scholar and atheist finds certain themes in Christianity quite moving and resonates with themes from other cultures and it's quite a thrilling puzzle to put together. He reads articles showing certain health and psych benefits to living the Christian lifestyle. He thinks, wow, I would like to live 3.75 years longer and score 4.7 points higher on a well-being assessment, so he's going to be Christian now, except he doesn't believe in God or the supernatural of any kind, doesn't believe in an afterlife, believes that religion is thoroughly a human construct. His baseline is secular humanism, and looks for ideas and metaphors from the Bible that by various scholarly manipulations can be insightful for those wanting to be a good secular humanist.

[Gadianton]

By saying Greene might actually believe are you indirectly agreeing with Jordan Peterson, who says we act out our beliefs? So if we act as if we believe in God, even if we say we don't, then do we actually believe in God, self proclaimed atheists included?

So, long before Jordan Peterson, who in my opinion is an idiot, there are two famous arguments along these lines, the transcendental argument, and presuppositional argument (Alvin Plantinga). Both say in their own way that Atheists are wired to believe even if they claim not to. I think these arguments are absurd. Maybe Jordan has a toned down version which I wouldn't find as ridiculous, but the chances are slim. I do believe that "actions speak louder than words" and so we don't need a very deep philosophy to concede that what some people say and what they do are at complete odds.

An example in the opposite direction you speak of: An uncle of mine who was revered by multitudes including ranking church leaders went on several missions and gave a talk at one of his farewells that dealt a blow to my testimony, shortly before I went on my mission. I may be off on the details, but as I recall, the story he told was basically two elders knocked on a door, a guy answers and they chat a bit and they basically teach a 1st discussion at the door. As they chat it begins to sprinkle, just a few drops. At some point, they mention it's beginning to rain, and that they're going to head back to their boarding. The guy at the door loses it with them. He's like, if they really believed the epic story they just told him, they wouldn't be going back because of a little rain, nor even if it poured with rain, if they really believed the fantastical restoration message they preach, they'd be out 7 days a week tirelessly sharing it and the worst of circumstances wouldn't deter them, let alone a little rain.

Brian Greene is a string theorist, which makes him a theologian as much as a real physicist.

At any rate, I would need more context to determine if Greene is lying to himself, I don't want to determine that from your short recap. I'm just saying that "suspending belief" doesn't seem to work to that extreme. I can "suspend belief" to enjoy a sci-fi movie or supernatural thriller, I can suspend unbelief for the sake of an argument or something, but I can't really believe that fan on my table is any color other than black. Somebody might have a clever argument that calls into question certain texture and lighting features of my room, but that's not what Brian is talking about. I can't look at this black fan, as is, and "believe" that it's red and then feel some kind of experience that goes along with seeing a red fan.

As to your question that an allegorial perspective should not generate psychological benefits -- and your question "Well, why would you think the benefits would follow? There's good reason to think that you can't change a bunch of parameters at your leisure and still retain the benefits." -- I would ask, didn't Nietzche "change a bunch of parameters at [his] leisure and still retain the benefits"?

Nietzsche died horribly of dementia and was terribly depressed. I seriously question whether his obsessive thinking helped him. Although, clearly his depression and poor health was behind his relentless theorizing about making the best of a bad situation -- the eternal return etc.

I'm trying to find a better way to put what I mean. Here's how I sometimes put it: You can't be psychiatrist and patient at the same time.

If you're a psychiatrist who knows everything about human physiology and brain chemistry and how it all works together to produce human bonding; you understand all the mechanics that govern "love" at a scientific level, plus you have a vast understanding of literature and know everything about fictional plots, tropes, story lines, and how to manipulate readers into falling for fictional characters and their relationships, then you might have troubles falling in love and exclaiming you're in love with the same enthusiasm as people who are fully immersed in the game when they exclaim they are in love.

[Free Ranger]

Here's how I sometimes put it: You can't be psychiatrist and patient at the same time.

If you're a psychiatrist who knows everything about human physiology and brain chemistry and how it all works together to produce human bonding; you understand all the mechanics that govern "love" at a scientific level, plus you have a vast understanding of literature and know everything about fictional plots, tropes, story lines, and how to manipulate readers into falling for fictional characters and their relationships, then you might have troubles falling in love and exclaiming you're in love with the same enthusiasm as people who are fully immersed in the game when they exclaim they are in love.

I have a good way of summarizing our positions by an imperfect analogy. Let's say we are both sick in a hospital with some illness and here we are side by side, and the hospital staff start administering a pill and nearly everyone in the room, who has the same illness as us, who take the pill feels better. But somehow we both learn that it's a sugar pill. We also learn that some others also learned it's a sugar pill and took the pill anyway and of them most still had the same placebo effect as the others and felt better.

You say I am are not taking the pill, that it's not true, that it's a lie, and you want actual evidence that the pill itself is going to make you better and you do not care if somehow you might feel better by taking the pill. My response is like Brian Green, I say I'm going to take the pill and I don't give a s*** if it's a sugar pill or not, if I feel good taking it and somehow my body does stuff to make me feel better and I feel better, I'm going to take it. So take the pill and I feel better.

Or let's mix up the analogy a bit and say you do decide to take the sugar pill, but you are one of a few people who doesn't get better and feels nothing. And you can't understand why most others like myself are having a positive reaction to the sugar pill and getting over the illness.

You then think it's stupid to take the sugar pill. You make fun of the idea of taking the sugar pill and having faith in the sugar pill. But you do follow-up with well to each his own. You also say, "Well, that other guy who thought it was a sugar pill, he probably actually thought it was a real pill, and that's why it worked." Meanwhile, I am sitting there thinking, "What's the difference either way if the sugar pill works? If somehow the body and mind does stuff to make us better, who cares?" Thus I am operating from a pragmatic ethos.

Another guy in the room who took the pill knowing it's just a sugar pill also does not feel better, and he is baffled like you, but he is more like Robert Sapolski in this clip https://youtu.be/oldj11NEsc0 ,
it is infuriating to him that the pill was working for most others while it did not work for him and its just a sugar pill. But he is quick to acknowledge that the pill was in fact working somehow for many or most people.

[Res Ipsa]

I don't think your analogy works, Free Ranger. In the US, my generation started out the sugar pill as young children. It was a prevalent cultural norm. We were raised and taught to believe that the sugar pill made us happy. In LDS culture, if we weren't happy, it was because we were taking the pill incorrectly. Those who stopped taking the pill were immoral and wanted to do bad things. They were under the influence of an invisible malicious super being. I was raised to believe that my happiness depended on being a faithful, temple-worthy Mormon.

That's a far cry from your analogy, in which people have lived their lives without the pill and take it for the first time without any propaganda or indoctrination claiming that the pill will increase, if not be a necessary requirement for, happiness.

[Marcus]

Here's how I sometimes put it: You can't be psychiatrist and patient at the same time.

If you're a psychiatrist who knows everything about human physiology and brain chemistry and how it all works together to produce human bonding; you understand all the mechanics that govern "love" at a scientific level, plus you have a vast understanding of literature and know everything about fictional plots, tropes, story lines, and how to manipulate readers into falling for fictional characters and their relationships, then you might have troubles falling in love and exclaiming you're in love with the same enthusiasm as people who are fully immersed in the game when they exclaim they are in love.

I have a good way of summarizing our positions by an imperfect analogy. Let's say we are both sick in a hospital with some illness and here we are side by side, and the hospital staff start administering a pill and nearly everyone in the room, who has the same illness as us, who take the pill feels better. But somehow we both learn that it's a sugar pill. We also learn that some others also learned it's a sugar pill and took the pill anyway and of them most still had the same placebo effect as the others and felt better.

You say I am are not taking the pill, that it's not true, that it's a lie, and you want actual evidence that the pill itself is going to make you better and you do not care if somehow you might feel better by taking the pill. My response is like Brian Green, I say I'm going to take the pill and I don't give a s*** if it's a sugar pill or not, if I feel good taking it and somehow my body does stuff to make me feel better and I feel better, I'm going to take it. So take the pill and I feel better.

Or let's mix up the analogy a bit and say you do decide to take the sugar pill, but you are one of a few people who doesn't get better and feels nothing. And you can't understand why most others like myself are having a positive reaction to the sugar pill and getting over the illness.

You then think it's stupid to take the sugar pill. You make fun of the idea of taking the sugar pill and having faith in the sugar pill. But you do follow-up with well to each his own. You also say, "Well, that other guy who thought it was a sugar pill, he probably actually thought it was a real pill, and that's why it worked." Meanwhile, I am sitting there thinking, "What's the difference either way if the sugar pill works? If somehow the body and mind does stuff to make us better, who cares?" Thus I am operating from a pragmatic ethos.

Another guy in the room who took the pill knowing it's just a sugar pill also does not feel better, and he is baffled like you, but he is more like Robert Sapolski in this clip https://youtu.be/oldj11NEsc0 ,
it is infuriating to him that the pill was working for most others while it did not work for him and its just a sugar pill. But he is quick to acknowledge that the pill was in fact working somehow for many or most people.

my problem with this analogy is that it is equating 'feeling better' and 'the sugar pill works' with actually 'getting better.'

i have no doubt that a person's mind can be calmed and a person may 'feel' better in many circumstances, but you have equated these feelings with a cure or an abatement of the illness:

...And you can't understand why most others like myself are having a positive reaction to the sugar pill and getting over the illness...

your statement here continues this:

..."What's the difference either way if the sugar pill works? If somehow the body and mind does stuff to make us better, who cares?" Thus I am operating from a pragmatic ethos....

"Feeling better" is equated with "make us better," and "getting over the illness," as though the "feelings" generated the cure or change for the better in the illness. in my opinion, that statement needs significantly more support in order to be taken as meaningful.