The substantial cost of theistic morality

[Res Ipsa]

Peterson has found his chestnut, the refrain he can sing whenever he is backed into a corner:

according to the overwhelming evidence, religiously involved lives -- the lives that he proclaims "wasted" -- are healthier, happier, and longer.

As to how he can make a book out of a single asinine observation, we shall see.

"Religiously involved" is a slippery term. I have little doubt that belonging to a strong, accepting and supportive community has a positive effect on health and happiness. Likewise, I have little doubt that there are many strong, accepting and supportive religion based communities. I don't consider a religious life a life wasted. There are upsides and downsides to everything. Find as much upside as you can.

[Alphus and Omegus]

In Jesus the Christ, James Talmage claims that half of the world's population throughout time will achieve the Celestial Kingdom by death at infancy. One could trivially argue that killing babies is a very good thing, rather than taking the risk that they'd lose their guaranteed eternal glory. Mormon doctrine is perhaps the strongest argument ever envisioned for infanticide when you consider the supreme difficulty of achieving the Celestial Kingdom by faith and repentance, and the supreme ease of obtaining the Celestial kingdom by dying before eight years of age.

This scenario is a very real problem for Mormon morality. Under their ground rules, it is better for infants to be murdered than to be allowed to sin. It's totally depraved.

Of course, the "age of accountability" free pass to heaven is also contradictory to the notion advanced in JSH regarding Alvin Smith that people who "would have received" Mormonism somehow get a free pass. The flip-side of that also would have to be true as well. People who "would have been" evil but die before reaching 8 years of age should not be sentenced to Mormon heaven. And that doctrine is further contradicted by the temple rituals supposedly being deemed necessary.

But because Dan and his underlings never bother to actually examine their own beliefs critically, they've probably never thought seriously about any of this stuff.

[doubtingthomas]

"Religiously involved" is a slippery term. I have little doubt that belonging to a strong, accepting and supportive community has a positive effect on health and happiness. Likewise, I have little doubt that there are many strong, accepting and supportive religion based communities. I don't consider a religious life a life wasted. There are upsides and downsides to everything. Find as much upside as you can.

Yes, but religious people tend to be more conservative and are not open to new ideas and big changes. The US has high levels of obesity, stress, heart disease, and diabetes. The US is probably the unhealthiest country by far in the first world.

There is a promising cell therapy for obesity and diabetes, but of course a lot of religious people are against stem cell research.
https://hsci.harvard.edu/news/promising ... d-diabetes

I think the world would be healthier without religion.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Dan and his underlings never bother to actually examine their own beliefs critically, they've probably never thought seriously about any of this stuff.

The only thing I think they think seriously about is Added Upon. Louis Midgley is champing at the bit to be a King or whatever in the Kolobian MLM scheme.

Without being stoned, and off the top of my head, I can fart out a thought more complex than anything the Sick and None braniac can create. For example, souls are the universal consciousness (AI, bro) creating fractals of itself in order to create new perspectives. An all-encompassing mind would need to do this in order to learn about itself. In its original pure omniscient state, this mind would have nothing to do and nothing to learn. This universal mind acts like an AI learning algorithm, with the soul acting as a save state for these thousands of lives. Creating individual units of consciousness with no memory or awareness of the nature of their divinity allows for an infinite number of units of consciousness contributing new perspectives with diverse modes of being. Presumably, this mind could fractal infinitely, and thus an infinite amount of "souls" can be created and thus an infinite learning program is self-perpetuating.

So. damned. Real. Bro.

Seriously. Go take a look at their comments section from the link on the first page. If they’re not larping intellect with google searches they’re limited to dodges and petty jabs. I think this cost the Mormon real estate corporation a few million over the last thirty years or so.

Awesome sauce.

- Doc

[Res Ipsa]

"Religiously involved" is a slippery term. I have little doubt that belonging to a strong, accepting and supportive community has a positive effect on health and happiness. Likewise, I have little doubt that there are many strong, accepting and supportive religion based communities. I don't consider a religious life a life wasted. There are upsides and downsides to everything. Find as much upside as you can.

Yes, but religious people tend to be more conservative and are not open to new ideas and big changes. The US has high levels of obesity, stress, heart disease, and diabetes. The US is probably the unhealthiest country by far in the first world.

There is a promising cell therapy for obesity and diabetes, but of course a lot of religious people are against stem cell research.
https://hsci.harvard.edu/news/promising ... d-diabetes

I think the world would be healthier without religion.

Of course, you get to think whatever you want. Have you seen any study that suggests a causal relationship between religious involvement and obesity, stress, heart disease or diabetes? My best guess is that the health effect of religious involvement is highly dependent on the characteristics of the religion, the nature of the religious community, and self-selection in joining a religious community. I don't think we have nearly enough evidence to draw a blanket conclusion about the overall effect of religion on health.

[drumdude]

I've been quite laissez-faire in my approach, but I confess that I'm losing my patience. The absolute refusal of the critics here to engage the argument of my little essay while continuing to post in supposed response to it has not amused me. I obviously can't do anything about the critics elsewhere who beat straw men to pulp and crow with contemptuous triumph when they haven't even accurately restated what I've written, let alone refuted it. But I don't have to put up with such nonsense on my own platform. I would like substance; instead, I get time-wasting noise.

Daniel, the reason you don't engage us here is because you can't get away here with pretending our arguments are straw men. You can't handle your feet being held to the fire, even for a few seconds.

[Gadianton]

The absolute refusal of the critics here to engage the argument of my little essay

Can someone tell me if he had an actual argument, or if he just made a pronouncement?

[drumdude]

The majority of the article is DP regurgitating the thoughts of others, in the style of a freshman midterm paper. DP is careful not to make many claims of his own.

DP believes humanist morality is not capable of justifying the following: “I will do this even though it will hurt my own interests and perhaps even cost me my life.” Secondarily, "no humanist morality successfully explains why rational persons in an atheistic universe should uphold a culture’s moral norms all of the time, and break them when it personally benefits them."

his conclusion: "rejecting the existence of God comes at a substantial cost."

[canpakes]

DP believes … "no humanist morality successfully explains why rational persons in an atheistic universe should uphold a culture’s moral norms all of the time, and break them when it personally benefits them."

Isn’t “uphold(ing) a culture’s moral norms all of the time” also as or more personally beneficial to an individual as sometimes breaking those norms?

Maybe it’s just because it’s late (and I haven’t read from the source, so forgive my laziness), but I don’t see why DP has trouble grappling with the comparison.

[drumdude]

Yes, but DP wants to put that aside and focus on what prevents people from breaking moral laws.

The idea is that God watching you, holding you accountable, prevents you from ever considering doing something immoral. In reality, religious people have an infinite capacity for rationalizing their immoral actions and framing them in such a way that they think God would be ok with it. And since God is so hidden and inaccessible (the holy spirit is indistinguishable from ones own personal thoughts) there is nothing explicitly telling that person that God has a problem with that rationalization.

Also, if God is really the only thing preventing you from doing something, then you're not doing it for altruistic reasons. You're doing it to get into the Celestial kingdom, which is just self interest on a longer timescale.