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Does Religion Influence Epidemics?

Posted by Soulskill on from the flying-spaghetti-malaria dept.

sciencehabit writes "Whether or not they believe in God, evolutionary biologists may need to pay closer mind to religion. That's because religious beliefs can shape key behaviors in ways that evolutionary theory would not predict, particularly when it comes to dealing with disease. According to a new study, some of today's major religions emerged at the same time as widespread infectious diseases, and the two may have helped shape one another. The same dynamics may be reflected today in how people in Malawi deal with the AIDS epidemic."

64 of 547 comments (clear)

  1. Not a new concept by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Rodney Stark got a Pulitzer for this 15 years ago: The Rise of Christianity

  2. Translation: Religion is born .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... from FEAR and IGNORANCE.

  3. Too narrow a cause by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Its as if saying the last fly that hit my windshield may have contributed to the destruction of my car 3 decades later.

  4. In China by The_mad_linguist · · Score: 2

    The AIDS pandemic in China was caused by unsafe blood donation practices.

    Specifically, the blood merchants would extract blood from villagers, pool it together in a big tub, extract the plasma, and then reinject it. Part of it was a cost-cutting measure, part of it was due to local religious beliefs.

    1. Re:In China by Hognoxious · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why would anyone eat powdered tiger cock? Chinese medicine is largely hokum.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  5. Is the Catholic church still against condoms? by subreality · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yes? Then I'd say they're having an influence.

    1. Re:Is the Catholic church still against condoms? by tempmpi · · Score: 2

      Current empirical evidence looks like "stick to a single partner" is actually a more effective strategy to combat AIDS in Africa than "use condoms":

      washington post article

      --
      Jan
    2. Re:Is the Catholic church still against condoms? by subreality · · Score: 2

      I don't dispute it, but IMO, we shouldn't use monogamy as our only strategy.

    3. Re:Is the Catholic church still against condoms? by Dr_Barnowl · · Score: 2

      Ok..

      * Maybe your partner isn't faithful
      * Maybe one of your contracted an STD via another means (needles, blood transfusion)

      And of course, the biggest
      * Maybe you'd like to have control over your fertility

      The reason the Catholic church is opposed to condoms remains the same - there's one particular condition they DO want to promote the spread of. It's called Catholicism. The primary vector for getting it is from your parents.

    4. Re:Is the Catholic church still against condoms? by Yvanhoe · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Stick to a single partner" is superior to "use condoms" as an individual strategy.

      "Give free condoms" is superior to "tell people to have a single partner" as a government policy and far superior than promoting abstinence.

      It has been proven in studies that the strategies in order of effectiveness are :
      - promote contraception
      - do nothing
      - promote abstinence.

      --
      The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
    5. Re:Is the Catholic church still against condoms? by DavidTC · · Score: 2

      Yes, because the Catholic church, ages ago, misunderstood the story of Onan.

      Basically, this guy Onan had his brother die, and his brother had no children. In those day God's law required Onan to marry his brother's wife, and have a kid with her and pretend it was his brother's kid. (Pretty stupid, eh?)

      So he did so, but during sex, he, uh, pulled out, and, as the bible says, 'spilled his seed on the ground'. So...uh...he wouldn't waste his seed. (Yeah, I find it an odd thing to avoid. This kid was going to legally be his brother's and legally live off his brother's money, so it's not even a child support thing. And Onan gets to claim all the rest of the kids he has with her.)

      The Catholic church has interpreted this as banning all birth control, ever. The Protestants, jealous because they didn't have a fucking stupid belief from that story, come up with one of their own, and decided that that story condemns masturbation.

      Of course, what the story actually condemns is just pretending to do what God says, instead of actually doing it. God told Onan to have a kid with her, he decided to screw around instead. In fact, he would have been condemned if he hadn't had sex with her. (The Catholics, OTOH, somehow think not having sex with your wife is an acceptable form of birth control, despite the fact it clearly would not have been allowed in the story they use to ban birth control...in fact, Onan tries that first.)

      Claiming this story condemns 'spilling seed on the ground' and thus any sexual practice that 'wastes seed' is a sin, is like claiming that it's a sin to not be currently traveling towards Nineveh. (After all, that's why Jonah got swallowed by a whale.) This is the church pretending that a specific order from God to a specific person in a specific circumstance are general worldwide orders. (Wait, wouldn't that actually mean we have to marry our sister-in-laws if our brother dies childless? That was the actual disobeyed order.)

      The Bible, at no point, condemns birth control. The Bible, at no point, condemns masturbation.

      In fact, the Bible, at no point, condemns any sort of sexual practice at all, except certain types of sex outside of marriage (Not all of it, and not in the way people think. Men, if you deflower a virgin, be prepared to cough up some cash to her father. Then it's all okay. And non-virgins, fuck them to your heart's content.), and male homosexuality in the old testament. (No, the stuff in the new testament is a fairly modern mistranslation, and is probably supposed to mean 'male temple prostitutes'.)

      But apparently churches can just pretend it says things, and no one bothers to check.

      --
      If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
  6. Of course by Sarten-X · · Score: 2

    Are you sick? Come ask your invisible friend in the sky for help! Come share air with dozens of others asking for other things. Too sick to leave home? We'll send a carrier to your home to take your problems back to the church!

    I jest, of course, but not by much. Religion relies on community, just as much as an epidemic does. That said, there's also a few interesting correlations between some religious taboos and common disease carriers. It's like whoever designed the religious laws somehow knew about germ theory hundreds of years before anyone else. Either that, or they just noticed that certain things smelled bad, and people who spent time near bad-smelling things got sick.

    --
    You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    1. Re:Of course by fuzza · · Score: 2, Funny

      It's like whoever designed the religious laws somehow knew about germ theory hundreds of years before anyone else.

      Indeed He did.

      --
      Can't find examples of evolution? No matter, neither could Dawkins
    2. Re:Of course by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

      Epidemics have the side effect that the survivors, on the whole, are more resistant. Populations will soon breed back up to the level they were before, only this time you're starting from tougher stock.

      A few iterations of that and you've got a pretty awesome secret weapon to use against brown people (for suitably red values of brown) who are in your way.

      Perhaps community makes immunity?

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  7. Cue the fun.... by RobinEggs · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I absolutely love any story that gives self-righteous atheists an excuse to say, for the umpteenth time, that religion is categorically an evil, that organized religion is clinically insane, that religion has caused more suffering in human history than all biological and political causes combined, etc.

    Before you get started this time, how about you give it a rest? We understand your opinions, but most of us are agnostic if we even care one way or another; likewise most of us realize that religion inspires good as well as evil, and see no need to throw the baby out with the bath water. Most of all it just gets really fucking boring listening to your hate fest.

    You hate "religionists" and they hate you. The rest of us would rather you all shut the fuck up.

    1. Re:Cue the fun.... by chispito · · Score: 3, Informative

      Some of us don't push it until cornered. Some of us don't poke back until poked. We've seen anti-atheists because they're everywhere and include yourself.

      And you're practically surrounded by the religious right here on Slashdot. How do you ever manage?

      --
      The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
    2. Re:Cue the fun.... by FrootLoops · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Maybe your post was a joke. It really doesn't seem like it, though, so I'll assume it's not.

      You do not care about all the raped children?

      Obviously, not wanting to hear about pedophilia in the church yet again makes one not care about raped children. Flawless reasoning. Apparently I couldn't care less about the Holocaust either--what a load off my mind!

      What does your continued outrage actually accomplish? What religious person is going to listen to your litany and say, "oh hey, I was wrong. Oops."? It also makes people defensive to be yelled at, regardless of where the truth of the matter lies. I suppose you can hope to recruit the non-religious to your view, but I don't see what that accomplishes either. The people you have a problem with are happily unaffected by your views because of your belligerence, the people who agree with your outrage... agree, and the people who just want to live their lives continue to wish you would shut up. Picking a single issue to champion would probably be more effective. That way it's not "you vs. religion" but instead "you vs. priest pedophilia". You might find a way to make some useful progress that way, too, when the issue is small enough.

      Most people have enough to do with living their own lives and dealing with those immediately around them. Maybe it's heartless, and it's not optimal, but it's reality. If you want to change the world, you have to deal with that reality. Shouting at people so you can get an emotional release isn't enough and mostly makes people want to ignore you all the more. You make some very good points, by the way. Your view is incredibly one-sided and falls prey to the fallacy of "the enemy is pure evil", but still, the lack of questioning religion tends to foster is a terrible evil and the other things are awful as well. Your good points are just cast in the light of hatred to such a degree that my instincts strongly tell me to ignore them and latch on to the flaws instead while refusing to change my own positions.

    3. Re:Cue the fun.... by Tim+C · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I'm actually not that militant in my atheism; I believe the world would, on the whole, be a better place with less religion and more rationality, but I don't go on about it.

      However, religious people do go on about it. It's much more subtle that evangelism; how many times have you seen a character in a film, etc, thank god for something or pray? How many films are there based on the premise of there being a god, heaven, etc (vs how many based on the premise that there is no such thing)? How many religious symbols do you see in day to day life (from a cross around someone's neck to a church you travel past)? How often are religious figures or issues reported on in the news?

      It all adds up to an unintentional, background pushing of religion. It's little wonder that some people feel the need to push their atheism (and that's ignoring the theists that do go round actively pushing their views; I've never told anyone they're an idiot for believing, but I have been told *to my face* I'm going to Hell for not believing).

      --
      It's official. Most of you are morons.
    4. Re:Cue the fun.... by metacell · · Score: 2

      I'm a naturalist (that is, I don't believe in the supernatural). I live in a secularised country (Sweden) where non-religiousness is the norm, and frankly, I think many atheists are embarrassing. Many of them seem as fanatical as the worst religious people, and take every chance to put down religion and proclaim what idiots its believers are.

      I can understand that atheists who are in a minority have a need to strengthen their beliefs and gang together against the world outside, but where I live, it just makes them seem pathetic.

    5. Re:Cue the fun.... by gknoy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Slashdot is news for NERDS. Nerds tend to like rational thought. Many people who self-identify as nerds are likely to see the idea of an imaginary sky-friend as silly, especially when the people who are most vocal in their support of their sky-friend often are those who seem to want to interfere in the actions of others, or who fight science in ways that would be hilarious if they didn't have an effect on us. It's not surprising that some of both posts and moderation would be dedicated towards promoting a viewpoint that is less than supportive of religion in general, and organized religion in particular.

  8. Re:I think we've known this... by zoloto · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I don't understand why people fail to realize this. As an extension, abstinence prevents a world of problems from even happening.

  9. Re:Translation: Religion is born .... by tloh · · Score: 2

    From the article:

    The survey also revealed that the prospect of getting help was enticing. In the past 5 years, about 400 of those responding have shifted religions, many of them moving to Pentecostal or the African Independent Churches, places where the promise of receiving care is greater and the stigma of having AIDS is less, Hughes noted.

    The evidence presented suggests that however born, growth/conversion of religion in the study area is at least in part motivated by the incentive of some health care.

    --
    Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
  10. You forgot, religion is an epidemic in itself by G3ckoG33k · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Still, nice set of arguments you had. ;)

    1. Re:You forgot, religion is an epidemic in itself by silentcoder · · Score: 2

      Actually, yes they are - ever heard of memetics ?

      Memes are not good or evil in themselves, but they are all paracitic and potentially harmful. The meme only wants to spread, the more successfully it does so- the better. The most successful memes are both long-lived and fast spreading, religions are among the most successful memeplexes, but Beethoven's first symphony is one too (practically everybody can hum the first bar).

      Memetics studies the way ideas spread among populations by analogy to viruses and other life-forms. It's a very STRONG analogy and virtually every conclusion drawable from it relates directly to observable real-world processes, which means that we can draw such conclusions and with a very high degree of confidence expect them to hold true.

      Saying a meme exists is not saying it's a bad thing, but memes can be bad or good and their success at spreading is almost never influenced by whether they are or not. Critical thinking and demand for proof are our best protections against bad memes.
      Urban legends are very good examples of very bad memes (Arthur Goldstuck's research have shown just HOW bad) - sites like snopes.com are a defense mechanism for those who have a strong meme-selection immunity in the form of wanting proof.
      In the most extreme cases, memes are the way mass hysteria spreads - frequently missattributed as demon-infection or other religious explanations, it's physical symptoms to a psychological problem that spreads very rapidly, particularly in high stress situations.
      The most prevalent outbreaks have been in schools, where frequently the calls for help was to the local minister first (this happens in wealthy and highly educated communities with no lesser prevalence than poor and uneducated ones), secondly to health authorities who - often do the worst possible thing: they start looking for infectious agents. In reality the best treatment is to recognize it for what it is and close the school for a day or two while explaining calmly to people what caused it - and that it will pass if the students are seperated for a few days.
      Indeed mass-hysteria is most common in high-stress situations and the vast majority of outbreaks (read up on it, it's incredibly interesting) happen during exam times. Ironically - each time it happens the results are almost identical, you'd think teachers and school authorities by now would be educated about it and handle it better.
      That's the worst kind of meme - the kind that can make people physically ill, spreads more rapidly than any disease and has a debilitating effect on a community - further aggravated by the fact that when it happens the responses are almost always incorrect. Calling the local minister does not have the appropriate calming effect, the initial hysteria is missatrributed to spiritualist explanations, which aggravates the condition and makes it spread faster - calling the minister to come pray only reinforces that meme - nothing makes a meme spread better than when authority figures seem to confirm it- so it spreads more easily.

      Yep - all ideas are mental infectious agents. Welcome to research of the 1970s, you only have 40 years of science to catch up with now.

      --
      Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
  11. Re:Translation: Religion is born .... by tloh · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Humanity needs to replace religion with a civil institution for promoting social cohesion with a basis in rational thought.

    FIFY

    --
    Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
  12. Religion can also be a survival manual by drnb · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Translation: Religion is born from FEAR and IGNORANCE.

    Actually the opposite can sometimes be true. Religion can also be a practical survival manual based upon observations. For example I believe if one adheres to the old testament prohibitions against eating certain types of seafood then one will avoid most of the unsafe species in that part of the world. We say don't do something because the surgeon general says so, thousands of years ago they said don't do something because God said so. Maybe its the telephone game: "great healer says" becomes "great shaman says" becomes "God says", all based on a scientific sort of process - at least the observation part, can't say if they also did the experimentation part.

    Are you sure you are not operating on fear of a particular 3 or 4 thousand year old book and rejecting everything in it in an irrational and ignorant way? If we were talking about Hawaiian kapu and its instructions on fishing and such would you be more open minded?

    1. Re:Religion can also be a survival manual by KDR_11k · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah but it's kinda silly that we've got people adhering to food safety laws from millenia ago, before the refrigerator was invented.

      --
      Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
    2. Re:Religion can also be a survival manual by drnb · · Score: 2

      How does any of the above change the fact that *some* things in the bible are rational and well informed? Lets say you have a thousand year old book on sailing that says the earth is flat and that you will fall off the edge if you travel too far from land. Do you throw out the rational lessons on navigating using the sun and stars just because the flat earth thing appears in the same book?

      Also you confuse a lunatic fringe with religious people in general with respect to modern medicine. Inoculations may have begun as a religious rite in India. Catholic and protestant hospitals offer vaccinations every day.

      Regarding the proposition that some non-religious people believe epidemics are punishment, yes that is true. A lunatic fringe of that population will say it is mother earth / nature punishing mankind for despoiling the earth. :-)

    3. Re:Religion can also be a survival manual by HungryHobo · · Score: 2

      Unfortunatly the signal to noise ratio is utterly terrible.

      there's so much genuinely bad advice that you'd gain close to nothing by taking it as a guide to life.

    4. Re:Religion can also be a survival manual by f()rK()_Bomb · · Score: 2

      lots of people are incapable of critical thinking, they need simple rules. religion provided those rules in the past but is clearly outdated in the modern world. religion is just a failed example of early government

      --
      "The space elevator will be built about 50 years after everyone stops laughing." - Arthur C. Clarke ~1980
    5. Re:Religion can also be a survival manual by Elrac · · Score: 2

      For example I believe if one adheres to the old testament prohibitions against eating certain types of seafood then one will avoid most of the unsafe species in that part of the world.

      Bullshit. The injunctions against certain food were based simply on the personal preference of a few people with schizotypal personalities. This video is a very engaging explanation of the connection between craziness and religion via OCD-type behavior.

      Partial disproof of what you say can be found in the middens of Ancient Near Eastern people: civilizations eating pork and shellfish lived next door to Jewish civilizations that didn't, and there's no indication one thrived worse than the other.

      Don't throw the "ignorant" label around unless you're prepared to be stuck with it yourself in face of evidence.

      --
      When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Rel
  13. Re:Translation: Religion is born .... by sortius_nod · · Score: 4, Informative

    They really are. Religion is based on irrational answers to rational problems.

    EG:

    Where do earthquakes come from?

    Religion: GOD!
    Science: Tectonic movement

    Pretty easy to see how mutually exclusive they are.

  14. Re:Translation: Religion is born .... by Dr_Barnowl · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You ask enough, eventually get to "point where we cannot explain".

    Some people fill this void with an arbitrary explanation not limited to the involvement of a postulated deity. Some choose to let it inspire them to find out the real answer.

    I wonder which one produces more truth and beauty...

  15. Re:Isn't religion an epidemic itself ? by bkmoore · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's killed more than most illnesses I've heard of. And still does.

    Mao, Hitler and Stalin were atheists. The 30 years war, the Crusades, the Spanish inquisition, Al Queda were religious. Your point is? Most mass murder is because of greed, not religion. Religion is used to justify the greed in some cases. In other cases, politics or biology are used as justification. But greed is at the heart of almost all killing and war. An atheistic world would be neither more peaceful nor less peaceful because even atheists are just as greedy as everyone else.

  16. Re:I think we've known this... by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2

    Well, looking at how the south east of the US are both very religious and constantly hit by tornados, floods and the like...

    My theory is that it has something to do with the prevalence of Sundrop and/or Cheerwine in those parts.

    Nope. Trailers. God hates trailers.

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  17. Re:Translation: Religion is born .... by KDR_11k · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As Socrates said, at least I know that I know nothing. Those who replace "I don't know" with "it was God" forfeit their ability to learn more and those who militantly cling to their answer even as "I don't know" gets replaced with a proper explanation hold us back.

    --
    Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
  18. Re:I think we've known this... by Dr_Barnowl · · Score: 2

    Assuming the Christian beliefs about afterlife are true, which is more responsible?

    Committing the sin of abortion (for which you can be forgiven according to your creed) in exchange for instant passage of the child's soul to the afterlife

    OR

    Putting it through a lifetime of hell because you are ill prepared to give it the start in life that it needs

  19. Re:I think we've known this... by KDR_11k · · Score: 2

    We understand it. We also understand that it goes against basic human nature and especially against very strong instincts so teaching abstinence is ineffective.

    --
    Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
  20. Re:I blame the Pope for the spread of AIDS in Afri by Dr_Barnowl · · Score: 2

    The Catholic church preaches abstinence because

    * It gives them leverage. If sex is sinful, and the only way to absolve sin is via confession, it keeps you engaged with the church.

    It's no coincidence that it's something that most people are biologically wired up to do. Even *thinking* about it is deemed sinful, so you can't escape the association with confession even if you abstain.

    * It gives them a justification to disapprove of contraception

    Because contraception is only for the purpose of making extra-marital sex less risky, right? Oh, it's nothing to do with the fact that less contraception => more babies with Catholic parents => more Catholics.

    Being able to control your fertility is one of the most basic means of promoting economic welfare. Even without the arguments for disease prevention, that should be enough to wholeheartedly endorse it. Contraception also prevents abortion, something else that the church does not like. But the church is not interested in the welfare of it's congregation - it is interested in the welfare of the church, and that means expanding it's power base with more good little Catholics.

    It's also arguably becoming essential simply because the planet can't support many more of us. Opposing contraception is almost anti-green, it would be interesting to see the outcome of "The Catholic church" vs "The Greenies".

    Note that I'm not implying that these decisions are conscious. They may be, but equally, Catholicism is a meme-complex that has had a long time to evolve. They may merely be memes that have the best fitness for their particular niche.

  21. Re:Translation: Religion is born .... by petman · · Score: 2

    Tectonic movement willed by God.

    See? they're not mutually exclusive.

    --
    Dropbox drops it like it's hot.
  22. Re:Isn't religion an epidemic itself ? by artor3 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The point is that people kill for the basest reasons, and come up with an excuse to rationalize it. Sometimes, the excuse is religion. Sometimes it's spreading democracy. Should we destroy democracy as well, for the harm done in its name? Or should we perhaps realize that people aren't always honest about their motives?

    But hey forget it. We now return you to your regularly scheduled five minutes hate.

  23. Re:Isn't religion an epidemic itself ? by Coriolis · · Score: 4, Informative

    Hitler was not an atheist. He himself may not have known what he really believed, but he wasn't an atheist. This is one of those things people should stop casually repeating :)

    You also skirt round a key point: yes, religion is used to justify appalling acts, but as far as I know atheism never has been. Not once. No-one has ever said "We must kill these people because they believe in a god". Religion is harmful because it can be used in this way. It can be used as a propaganda tool in a way non-belief cannot. When a dictator says "These people are against God and must die"', there are people listening and nodding their heads in agreement. Enough people genuinely believe that such rationalisations are valid that it enables mass campaigns of murder and terror.

    --
    Rgasuya aata! : I have been coding Perl and cannot tell where my fingers are now!
  24. Catholics should endorse condoms by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Their position on condoms is inconsistent. They are against them for the prevention of pregnancy yet support the rhythm method.

    The trouble is, the rhythm method works by timing, so there will be fertilized embryos that die because they came too late in the cycle.

    So, the Catholic teachings have killed far more babies (their definition) than if they hadn't come out against condoms in the first place.

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  25. Re:I think we've known this... by metacell · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Abortion is not necessarily the easy way out. Abortion is not a pleasant experience, physically or emotionally, and it may be tempting for the mother to keep the child, even if she knows it will be raised under less than adequate conditions. If you don't believe abortion is equivalent to murder, abortion may be the most responsible thing to do.

    Also, I live in a secularised country (Sweden) where all school children have sex ed, contraceptives are freely sold to all ages, and abstaining from pre-marital sex is seen as a little weird. We have virtually no problems with teenage pregnancies. Most kids have their first sexual experiences some time during high school, but they don't become particularly promiscuous, and most settle into monoagamous relationships (with or without marrying). When people eventually marry, the reason is commonly to have legal protection in case something unexpected happens, especially for the children's sake.

    In case you've heard the rumour about Sweden having the world's highest suicide rates, it's a myth.

  26. Re:Depends. by metacell · · Score: 2

    As far as I know, child molestation is not more common among catholic priests than among other professions. The scandal was based on the fact that the catholic church covered up their priests' "mistakes", and just relocated them to a new parish.

  27. Re:Translation: Religion is born .... by rtb61 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Not all people are the same. Whilst it is all well and good to promote greater understanding of the world around you, some people, in fact quite a lot of people are simply incapable of it. Whilst they might by rote remember some facts, they don't ever understand them, not by choice by by genetics and those people will always be drawn to more comfortable answers.

    Answers that say you can alter random chance in highly complex interactions, that prevent you and those you care about from suffering by convincing some superior to intercede on your behalf. Whilst that time is better spent on coming up with ways of reducing the probability of harmful outcomes not all people are capable of doing so.

    Some people just need religion of one form or another, to maintain a stable psychological attitude in a world of, to them, of chaotic outcomes. So it's not about eliminating religion, it more about minimising the harm of religion and it promoting positive sociological outcomes via religion. The worst of the worst, when it comes to religion, is politicians who use it to gain power. The more a politician reaches for religion the more corrupt they are.

    --
    Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  28. Risk versus Reward by Livius · · Score: 2

    They seem to be using a very narrow (i.e. unscientific) understanding of what evolutionary theory predicts. It is adaptive to adopt altruism in the face of a crisis that requires higher than usual degrees of co-operation.

    Also I'm guessing "[l]inking early epidemics to the emergence of disease" was supposed to refer to something more than the definition of epidemic being the emergence of a widespread disease.

  29. Re:Isn't religion an epidemic itself ? by bkmoore · · Score: 2

    ...No-one has ever said "We must kill these people because they believe in a god". Religion is harmful because it can be used in this way. ....

    People in North Korea who believe in god may disagree with your statement...but I will agree with your comment that there are no selfless atheists who go around killing people merely because they believe in a god. When a dictator chants, "these people are against God and must die", most people nodding in agreement are thinking about how much they can steal and enrich themselves or how to show sufficient enthusiasm so as not to be targeted for murder themselves. Again, I stand by my original comment that Greed is at the root of all evil. Humans are greedy, and taking religion out of the equation won't change anything.

  30. Re:Isn't religion an epidemic itself ? by zoom-ping · · Score: 2

    Hitler was a christian. Also, nice Godwin.

  31. Re:Translation: Religion is born .... by silentcoder · · Score: 2

    >Ask these enough times and you'll arrive at God.

    If that was true... wouldn't scientists have gotten there by now ? On the contrary, it seems we keep on digging deeper, asking the more and more complex questions and we always find answers that are mathematical, scientific and rational without having to get to God.
    The only time you get to god is if you give up and go for God as a cop-out.
    Now it's true that deep enough the theories aren't that verified yet (we've yet to come up with a way to experimentally test string theory), but that's ALWAYS been the case. New ideas arise to answer questions - it takes time for science to develop the means to test them, when it can it either proves them false or begins a process of refinement.
    Religion's answers to anything rational is always and without exception cop-out's that don't REALLY explain anything, just provide an excuse to stop asking the question, and usually based on "common sense" ideas which are verifiably false, mixed with a great deal of deliberate self-delusion, cognitive dissonance and psychological manipulation - none of which promote rational thought.

    A good example is the Adam and Eve myth - it seems obvious that if you go back far enough you'd find a first set of parents. They way plants grow and such suggest it - except - reality is that we're basing that common-sense conclusion on incomplete data, just like our ancestors did.
    In reality, the further back you go - the MORE ancestors you have. You had two parents, FOUR grandparents, eight grandparents, 16 great grandparents (well cousin marriages were much more common then so maybe 15). Either way - the general trend is that any human living today will find his number of ancestors increasing exponentially with ever generation going back. But the number of PEOPLE in total decreases exponentially on the same timeline.
    So the number of people who are your ancestors out of any previous age becomes an every growing percentage of the total population !
    That does NOT make "common sense" but it makes perfect mathematical sense. Add in that until pretty recently the higher up in society you were the more likely you were to raise your kids to adulthood and you can see why EVERYBODY has a famous ancestor or 5. Personally I can prove that Cardinal Richelieu was one of my ancestors and I live in Africa !

    But that's the simple reality - the Adam and Eve mistake is common sense with a religious cop-out, but it isn't rational and it isn't true. These days with what we know about speciation the entire concept falls flat.

    --
    Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
  32. Re:I think we've known this... by silentcoder · · Score: 4, Insightful

    >I don't understand why people fail to realize this. As an extension, abstinence prevents a world of problems from even happening.

    That's a false assumption, it prevents some problems (assuming human perfection in execution on a level that is near impossible to achieve), but it causes a whole bunch of OTHER health problems. Religious people don't like to admit it but any sexologist will tell you that severe sexual frustration causes massive health problems including many psychological ones but also physical ones (and of course psychological problems can have physical symptoms which just throws more fuel on the fire).

    That's not even considering the massive and proven health benefits of a regular and healthy sex life.

    Sorry, science says it's a BAD SOLLUTION and the negative side effects are far worse than the risks of non-abstinence. The fact that abstinence in reality is a near impossible thing to achieve on a large scale just means that attempts to enforce it actually AGGRAVATES the problems it was meant to resolve - because it means that the sex which DOES happen is now unsafe on a much larger scale.

    Ultimately safe sex is a far better compromise than abstinence if your goal is disease control.

    --
    Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
  33. Re:Translation: Religion is born .... by erroneus · · Score: 3, Funny

    I have an imaginary friend. His name is Fred. His dad made you and me and everything around us. You must worship him so that you can live forever and if you don't, you will burn in hell for all eternity. Please worship Fred. He loves you... he will punish you if you don't love him.

    Yeah, seems rational enough.

  34. Re:Isn't religion an epidemic itself ? by pkphilip · · Score: 2

    I know it is cool on slashdot to blame religion for everything and sundry. Also, I know it is considered cool to mouth off about things that you know nothing about - especially if religion is also blamed for something in the same post.

    But here are some facts:
    1. The number of deaths from Malaria alone each year is around 1 million.
    http://www.malarianomore.org/malaria

    2. The number of deaths from TB alone each year is around 1.7 million (2009 figures)
    http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs104/en/

    These are numbers for just two diseases. I challenge you to find me statistics which indicate that religion is directly responsible for at least 2.7 million deaths each year.

  35. Re:Translation: Religion is born .... by felipekk · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Quote I saw last week:

    "Why is it that when someone has an imaginary friend it's called insanity, but when millions have the same imaginary friend it's called religion?"

  36. Re:Translation: Religion is born .... by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

    Cthulhu snores. He snores deep, and he snores loud.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  37. The value of religion is already proven by argStyopa · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The social value of 'religion' as a concept is well-proven.

    At least one study has shown scientifically that people's behavior (in this case, children) was distinctly impacted positively by the concept of 'an invisible being watching me'. In the case I'm thinking of, children played a game that gave them both opportunities and rewards for cheating. Cheating, unsurprisingly, was endemic in the control group (no adult present). When an adult was present, the incidence of cheating was greatly reduced. When the children were told convincingly that there was an invisible person sitting in the same chair the adult had used, cheating was even LESS.

    Further, there has been some discussion of the value of shared rites (usually religious) in predicting who will reliably follow a society's rules. If a person can't/won't reliably adhere to shared religious rites that supposedly are beneficial at little/no cost to the individual, this would predict that person will be unlikely to adhere to more important societal norms as well.

    (One might further observe that this remains largely true, at least in the US. The left is politically characterized as individualist and chaotic, and the (religious) right as collectivist and 'marching in lockstep'. This has resulted in a balanced political landscape, despite a clear majority of voters self-identifying as Democrats (left of center).)

    So the value of religion to early societies is pretty clear.

    Nevertheless, I'd disagree with their conclusions here. They point to the rise of the great organized religions around the era of plague - this was also (unsurprisingly) the rise of widespread urbanization, probably something that I'd guess had more to do with both the spread of disease AND the rise of religion.

    --
    -Styopa
  38. Religion can spread disease more directly by davidannis · · Score: 2

    There have been examples of transmission of disease during the Haj. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/016344539090577U Christian missionaries have spread disease among native populations around the world.

  39. Seems to me... by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Seems to me the summary has the horse before the cart. Epidemics influence religion, not the other way around. During the plaque of the Middle Ages, European towns were decimated. Monasteries, being isolated from the town fared much better. Therefore, religious practices changed to reflect those of the monks. Yes, it is true much of it happened because people thought that God had spared the monasteries, however, without the plague none of it would have occurred. The plague or epidemic was the catalyst for the change in religious thought, not the other way around.

    And, for the many posts referring to religion blaming natural disasters on God, are we talking 20th century or centuries ago? I'm pretty sure that blaming unknown forces on some superstitious being or practice was quite common in all cultures. Breaking a mirror causing seven years of bad luck has nothing to do with a deity.

  40. Re:Isn't religion an epidemic itself ? by ApepUK · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's killed more than most illnesses I've heard of. And still does.

    Mao, Hitler and Stalin were atheists. The 30 years war, the Crusades, the Spanish inquisition, Al Queda were religious. Your point is? Most mass murder is because of greed, not religion. Religion is used to justify the greed in some cases. In other cases, politics or biology are used as justification. But greed is at the heart of almost all killing and war. An atheistic world would be neither more peaceful nor less peaceful because even atheists are just as greedy as everyone else.

    Hitler was a Catholic. It is a widely believed misconception that Hitler was an atheist, just as it is a misconception that he was a vegetarian.

    Hitler himself wrote in Mein Kampf... "I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord's work."

    Years later he was also quoted as telling General Gerhart Engel... "I am now, as before, a Catholic and will always remain so."

    Nazi Germany worked with the Catholic Church who blessed troops and equipment. Each infantry soldier even wore a belt with a buckle inscribed "Gott mit uns" - God is with us.

  41. Re:Isn't religion an epidemic itself ? by haggus71 · · Score: 2

    Wrong on one count. Hitler was a documented Christian. He believed God chose the German people, the Aryan, as the supreme race, and looked favorably on them when their race was pure. Most of the German people who followed him were also "good Christians". He got a lot of his support from the works of Martin Luther, a Munich native and devout anti-Semite.

  42. Re:Translation: Religion is born .... by ultranova · · Score: 2

    Also the only difference between a religion and a cult is the number of followers.

    The difference between a cult and a religion is that a cult tries to isolate its members from the outside world, while a religion won't.

    A religion is beer while a cult is crack cocaine.

    --

    Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

  43. Re:Translation: Religion is born .... by Riceballsan · · Score: 2

    Agreed that they are not mutually exclusive, but many specific religious groups have a tendency to get in the way or panic when asking for more details. Religion isn't in and of itself a disease that prevents progress, but it often converts to it. I'm sure countless plagues people were trying to come up with a cure for, when a church or group got in the way saying "we need to apologize to god, stop waisting your time trying to cure it with mortal tricks you heathen". That dosn't make every religous person an idiot or harmful, but many groups did and still do hide behind religion as an excuse to instantly give everyone an unrefutable answer and tell them to stop looking. There is nothing directly unscientific about believing in another power, but it has potential to lead to an answer that people stop looking deeper when they hit.

  44. Re:It kinda makes sense by Jason+Levine · · Score: 2

    I've got to say I sympathize with the "got to do something" feeling. Years ago, my son had a febrile seizure, turned grey and stopped breathing. As my mother-in-law gave him rescue breaths and the ambulance was on the way, I was left with nothing to do. I couldn't just stand there, helpless, and watch my baby on our bed as my mother-in-law tried to get him breathing again. So I gave myself a job: Run back and forth between my son on the bed and the front door looking for the ambulance. At one point, my father-in-law offered to look for the ambulance. I told him that I had to do something. I had to feel like I was somehow contributing to his recovery even if I knew that my "job" wasn't really helping at all. (He made a complete recovery, though scared us with a bunch of other febrile seizures and head bonks over the last few years.)

    The worst feeling in the world is seeing a loved one sick and/or suffering and knowing there's nothing you can do to help.

    --
    My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
  45. Religion = something supernatural = 'unknowable' by Dr.+Manhattan · · Score: 2
    So far as I've seen, there's a single, very simple difference between a religious and a non-religious worldview. Religious worldviews include some concept of the supernatural, and non-religious ones don't.

    The 'supernatural' in practice means 'incomprehensible' - unknowable by humans - something forever beyond human ken, something we will never be capable of understanding. Different terms are used - the 'ineffable', the 'mystery', and so forth - but the basic idea is the same.

    Think about the difference between the notion of the 'powerful alien' (a staple of science fiction) and the notion of a 'god' in a religion. What's the essential difference between them? In the stories, they both do amazing, astonishing things. But a powerful alien is (ultimately, eventually) comprehensible - often in the story humans are able to figure out some way of duplicating its powers, or interfering with them, etc. Gods, though, are beyond what humans can do, and there's no point in trying to figure out why or how they do what they do.

    And if you decide that something is fundamentally incomprehensible, you will stop trying to understand it. E.g. here or here.

    --
    PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!