A nationwide survey of the religious beliefs and practices of American physicians has found that the least religious of all medical specialties is psychiatry. Among psychiatrists who have a religion, more than twice as many are Jewish and far fewer are Protestant or Catholic, the two most common religions among physicians overall.
The study also found that religious physicians, especially Protestants, are less likely to refer patients to psychiatrists, and more likely to send them to members of the clergy or to a religious counselor.
Although Protestant physicians were only half as likely to send the patient to a psychiatrist, Jewish physicians were more likely to do so. Least likely were highly religious Protestants who attended church at least twice a month and looked to God for guidance “a great deal or quite a lot.”
A man walks into a psychiatrist’s office wrapped in clear plastic wrap. The doctor took one look at him and said, “Clearly I can see your nuts.”
Every new situation presents us with an infinity of possibilities. We ALL dismiss out of hand 90, 99, 99.5, 99.9999999% of them, and we do this constantly, every day, all our lives.
What we dismiss are the things that – no matter that they may be POSSIBLE – are so EXTREMELY UNLIKELY, that to pay them any heed is a reliable indicator of mental illness.
You go to cross a street in, say, Beverly Hills, and you look to your left and see a bus coming, two blocks away.
You know that it has always taken you less than 10 seconds to cross this street.
You process subconsciously whether the bus is LIKELY to reach you within 10 seconds – but you assume 15, to provide an additional, no-cost margin of safety in case your estimate is off.
So how do you go about deciding whether to step off the curb?
it is POSSIBLE that the bus will continue toward you at approximately the same speed, or slow down, or stop. Given it’s present speed, you estimate that it would take 40 seconds or more to reach you. Even if the bus were to accelerate, you know from experience that a bus is heavy and therefore accelerates slowly. So even if the driver were to floor it – which IS POSSIBLE – it still wouldn’t reach you in less than 25 seconds.
But it is also entirely, 100% POSSIBLE that it is not a regular MTA bus, but some experimental jobbie that accelerates as quickly as a Porsche. And that means that it is POSSIBLE that that bus could reach you and run you over before you made it halfway across. IT IS POSSIBLE – but you go ahead and step out anyway.
Are you stupid to do so? After all, it’s POSSIBLE that you could be killed.
Shouldn’t you stay on the curb because of that possibility? Of course not, and the reason you don’t is that you subconsciously and intuitively ESTIMATE HOW EXTREMELY UNLIKELY IT IS and that there is NOT ENOUGH OF A CHANCE TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY.
You calculate, automatically –
Will the bus:
…continue at the same speed, slow down, stop, or accelerate slowly? EXTREMELY PROBABLE. Probability greater than 99.9999%
NOT a certainty – but VIRTUALLY a certainty.
…accelerate uncharacteristically, extremely fast?
EXTREMELY IMPROBABLE. Probability less than 0.0001% One chance in a million – at best. NOT a certainty, but again a VIRTUAL certainty.
You risk your life like this constantly, every day, taking all kinds of “risks” – everyone does and always has. And nearly everyone survives, nearly always, because we DON’T TAKE ABSURDLY REMOTE POSSIBILITIES SERIOUSLY. If we did, we would be frozen in our tracks, unable to function.
We know, from experience and learning, that buses don’t ever suddenly accelerate like sportscars, so we are willing to take it as fact that they will not. AND THEY NEVER DO, even though it remains POSSIBLE. That’s what believers in supernatural ‘deities’ don’t grasp – in the real world, there is NEVER ANY PRACTICAL DIFFERENCE between VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY UNLIKELY and IMPOSSIBLE.
“God” doesn’t have to be impossible to beregarded as such. Of all the religious explanations of the various, contradictory flavors of “God”, they are, EVERY SINGLE ONE, SO UTTERLY UNLIKELY as to be safely regarded as IMPOSSIBLE.
Conversely there are many, very likely, very plausible reasons why humans IMAGINE and WANT TO BELIEVE there is a deity, reasons that are well-known, and have proven to be, time and time and time again, CORRECT.
The Abrahamic “God” is a MYTH. ALL the Greek and Roman “gods” are MYTHS. They were invented by human imagination, for various reasons. Therefore it is rational to take it as a given that something that resembles a MYTH in EVERY CHARACTERISIC, especially including the complete, utter nonexistence of any physical evidence for it’s existence – IS ANOTHER MYTH. No matter how well you were brainwashed in childhood. No matter how emotionally comforting it is. It is still so COMPLETELY UNLIKELY and so COMPLETELY EXPLICABLE AS A MYTH, that only insanity or wrongly permitting emotion to override reason can allow a human to believe that it is anthing else.
After all, if you step out your front door, it IS POSSIBLE that someone hiding in the bushes across the way will fire an RPG at you. It’s complete POSSIBLE that Carmen Electra will wake you up tonight, climbing in your bed while you’re asleep. It’s entirely POSSIBLE that Jimmy Hoffa will call Larry King on his show tonight.
But the PROBABILITY of any of those things is below any serious consideration
But they’re all ridiculously IMPROBABLE, and that’s why you round off that 0.0000000000001% chance to ZERO – because that difference is NO difference. None of those things is gonna happen. That’s not a fact – we can simply regard it AS one – yet every one of those things is easily MILLIONS of times more likely than “God”.
ALL evidence suggests that the Abrahamic “God” -LIKE EVERY OTHER ONE – is simply another human myth, with each and every characteristic of a folk fantasy tale from prescientific, superstitious people, of an absurd mystical, all-powerful being that does not and can not exist in the known, real world. THAT is what is 99.999999999999% CERTAIN. And that’s good enough for EVERY sane, intelligent, UNBRAINWASHED and UN-emotionally-ruled human being, NONE of whom believe in such a totally, cosmically unlikely thing.
If the ancient Greeks or Romans had even 1% of our awareness of the scale and nature of the universe, of atoms and galaxies, they would never have come up with those fairytales born of ignorance and credulity.
Sadly – or not sadly, since it’s merely the way things are – the portion of humanity possessing the requisite knowledge and reasoning ability to reject such stuff – including the necessary ability to subjugate emotion to reason – are a distinct minority, one subject to endless discrimination and injustice, moreso than any other. Sheeple only understand mob rule and safety in numbers.
They are frightened and insecure and need an all-powerful invisible daddy who can magically fix everything. And of whom they can think themselves to be favorites, of course… đ
>>The Abrahamic âGodâ is a MYTH.
Wow, Fish. I guess that single-stock daytrading activity mustn’t be keeping you very busy these days.
As to my beliefs regarding Carmen Electra, MTA buses, Abraham, and all the rest, wtf is it to ya? Are you that insecure that you feel it necessary to denigrate my beliefs in favor of yours?
And as to the “all-powerful invisible daddy “, well. Some of us have an all-powerful invisible daddy, some of us have an all-powerful invisible mommy. As Bob Dylan told us, “everybody serves somebody”. You serve your mommy, and let the rest of us do what we wish.
OK?
Science H. Logic. Stop imposing your logic on me. I know I have the only true reasoning in me. We of the Allied Atheist Alliance denounce you and your heretical rationalizations.
>>Further, given that there has never been any credible
>>recorded contact between humanity and and gods
To you suppose God used Morse Code? Text messaging? Made phone calls, so the CSI guys could pull his LUDS?
No… I propose that those who claim to have communicated with God are liars.
Just as I donât believe everything thatâs written, I donât dismiss out of hand everything thatâs not. Thereâs something to be said for personal experience. And if your personal experience differs from mine, so be it. I donât think youâre an evil retard for not experiencing the same things that I do. Please return the favor.
I’m not sure where I accused you of evil or retardation, but if it helps, I do not think you are evil or retarded.
Look… Daddy got hit by a car. The doc said it don’t look good. Momma said to the kids, we gotta pray… and they prayed… and Daddy lived! Yay! That proves prayer works, right? That’s what passes for personal experience.
If I were a doctor, I’d be pissed, what with God taking credit for my hard work all the time.
Lauren, you gave an incredibly rational response as to why God doesn’t exist. However, scientists have found that the people who live the longest tend to be people of faith.
Chemically speaking, what I have learned is that faith seems to correspond to a particular hormone in the brain, oxytocin. Oxytocin antagonizes the stressful hormone cortisol, and as such, it lowers the chance of one being obese, having a heart attack, osteoporosis, diabetes, and strokes. Oxytocin also probably lowers the risk of breast cancer in women.
I have seen people who are naturally high in oxytocin, and they are the cheerleader types who think everyone and everything is great. I am not one of them. I tend to be skeptical, but I realized it may not always be healthy to be that way. There are many things I stressed over that would have been better handled if I had had less worry and more faith. I always thought the problem was me but now I know it is my brain’s chemistry.
The irony is that anyone can buy oxytocin in a bottle from verolabs.com. It is called Liqud Trust as studies have shown oxytocin makes people more trusting. I bought some and thought it would be a hoax but it worked as advertised. I gave it to one woman I knew was depressed and didn’t tell her what it was and five minutes later she said, “What was that stuff? All the things that were bothering me now are no big deal”. Too bad this stuff only works for two hours.
I am not saying anything you said was wrong. In fact, it was entirely rational, but what I have learned is that you may have a longer and better life having less rational thought and more faith.
Lauren, Lauren, Lauren, watching you make this argument is almost funny because it becomes so abundantly clear that you’ve never really been a part of the Christian culture (or other flavor religion). I was raised and indoctrinated in it, and I can tell you that these are people who literally revel in their ability to withstand any assault by logic on their faith. Logic is one of Satan’s most devious tools to trick Christians and lead them astray, separating them from God and keeping them out of heaven, thus hurting God by hurting the ones he loves most. I almost giggle as I write it, but that’s the doctrine.
I understand your frustration well, but you just can’t imagine what a lost cause this is… I can.
There’s a duck in a room. The family doctor goes in and says, “there is a duck in the room.”
The internist goes in the room and says, “there is a bird in the room rule out pigeon, duck, goose, and turkey.
The surgeon goes in the room and says, ” there is a duck in the room and it has to come out immediately”.
The psychiatrist goes in and says, “There is a bird in the room that thinks it’s a duck.”
>>No⌠I propose that those who claim to have communicated
>>with God are liars.
Well, that would be between them and God, wouldn’t it? So why don’t you just STFU? I accept that your Nobel-laureate understanding of subatomic physics, mathematics (pure and applied), molecular biology, and astrophysics leads you to believe that God doesn’t exist. My understanding of the universe is at least that deep. So why don’t you accept my claims?
#65,
IMPROBABLE, by Lauren of Ghoti
Soon to be out in paperback.
Good post. I’m going to bed now…. Carmen Electra might join me.
MM- – – some day when the time arises, I would like to parse your extensive body of contributions. Interesting this comes to me on a post regarding psychology?
What interests me hovers around your constantly posting your own unique, rebellious to all, religious beliefs and taking umbrage with the good folks that simply disagree, or say its not logical, or who think you are retarded. Various issues arise. Somewhat libertarian, searching for something?
Keep posting, all will come clear. We are all staking out our own territory.
#68 – OFTLO
“I propose that those who claim to have communicated with God are liars.”
Wrong – you’re forgetting that there always been a number of 100% sincere, completely honest individuals who genuinely believe they have done so, blithely unaware that they were either a) hallucinating, and / or b) insane.
75–MM–right you are. Forgot to mention your often displayed sense of humor. Good one!
By the way, anyone catch in consumptive Christopher (dont call me Chris!) Hitchens on Book TV? Best thing he said was when someone declares he wants to be respected for believing in things that have no evidence, you can give him the respect he deserves. ((He said the first part, I forget how he finished it, but added the attitude part myself.)). Very fine 3 hours of TV.
Nuns are a tough bunch, the NCO’s of the church. Jesuits are Officer Nuns with pants. I once saw a Nun take on a kid with a pocket knife and he was disarmed and crying in seconds. I think he would have taken the Jesuit, though. They’re lacking in the physical arena for the most part.
#5 – M Scott
“…even among the top, you still get some believers.
Iâm almost more surprised by the latter statement. Iâd have expected 100% atheism among the top scientists.”
Not really. The Dawkins / Collins debate demonstrates the difference in the two mindsets.
The 93% is made up of people for whom rationality, in all it’s permutations, is an integral part of their mental makeup. They are first of all rational people who, being that rational, just happen to make excellent scientists.
That other 7% is comprised not of geniuses, but of very highly developed ordinary minds. They lack a fundamental devotion to being rational. They have good minds, they learn well, but applying the strict scientific method is, to them, their work – not their selves. Being hyperrational is something they compartmentalize, and apply to the scientific work they do, and do very diligently and competently. Then they hang up the lab smock and go home to a conventional life, with all mod cons, such as conformity, peer pressure and emotion being permitted to override reason. They, unlike the 93-percenters, are not scientists through-and-through, it’s simply their job, and they’re the best at it among conventional – i.e. non-genius – people. But most of the greatest – that 93% – are scientific, which is to say rational, to the bone.
“As for psychiatrists, I donât see why the info is all that interesting. Unless, someone is actually trying to make the case that religion is a delusion curable by psychology, which I doubt.
Well, we’re not talking about psychologists here, but rather psychiatrists – and the goal of most forms of psychotherapy is, in one manner or another, the elimination of irrational thought processes in the patient.
Given that complete rationality, as conveniently exemplified by those 93-percenters again, precludes possession of irrational belief systems, by definition – and given also that religious beliefs, ignoring whatever actual truth value they may or may not possess, are not supported by rational thought process, then yes, psychotherapy, if both complete and successful, will serve to eliminate religious beliefs in an individual.
#30 – MM
“Then I got an education, realized I donât know everything there is to know, and became a believer in God.”
Funny how that works, ain’t it?
I got an education while already realizing that I didn’t know everything there is to know. And having received that education, what I didn’t do is start believing that no one knew more than I.
If I had remained total open-minded on the merits of the topic, I still would never be able to overlook the fact that when the smaller number of people who DO know more than I do overwhelmingly reject something – and the considerably larger number who know less embrace that same thing ardently – that taking up with the less-intelligent masses over the more-intelligent minority is a sucker bet.
Smarter people, Mustard, are more often right than dumber people. That’s what makes them smarter. It pays to remember that. đ
>>I got an education while already realizing that I didnât know
>>everything there is to know.
Well, either you had that “educated” out of you, or you forgot what you once knew.
>>Smarter people, Mustard, are more often right than dumber people.
It’s been my experience, Fishy One, that the smarter someone proclaims themself to be, the more ignorant they invariably are. It pays to remember that.
So if Dawkins, f’rinstance, were to mention that he’s extremely intelligent, the act of making that statement would magically render him stupid, right?
False modesty, Musty, is not a virtue.
Anyway, since I proclaimed nothing of the kind, but simply offered a general observation, it would appear that you’ve yet again delivered yourself of a non sequitur.
Why would it pay me to remember something that “has been your experience”? My own has served quite well, O Ye of Condimental Origins. đ
… but of course, you create a diversion to avoid having to concede the point. You always evade facts like “why do the dumbest people all believe in God, and so few of the smartest?”
Unless you are willing to assert that smart people are stupid and stupid people are smart, then you have to admit what we already know – belief in irrational things that lack evidence correlates with lack of intelligence, not “open-mindedness’ nor intellectual humility, just credulity and poor reasoning skills. Right?
>>So if Dawkins, fârinstance, were to mention that heâs
>>extremely intelligent the act of making that statement
>>would magically render him stupid, right?
No. By the same token, if Einstein had said “I”m as smart as Einstein”, he would still be as intelligent pre-utterance as post. However, being intelligent, neither one would be likely to say such a thing. Those who DO blurt out such self-aggrandizing bursts of verbal diarrhea….well, you already know my opinion about their intelligence.
You’re confusing cause and effect here, my little codpiece. What I said was that “the smarter someone proclaims themself to be, the more ignorant they invariably are.” You would do well to keep that in mind, if only for appearance’s sake.
>>You always evade facts like âwhy do the dumbest people all
>>believe in God, and so few of the smartest?â
For a self-proclaimed “smart” fellow, you might want to look into the veracity of your “facts” before you proclaim them to be such. If you can find published proof of your “fact” in a peer-reviewed publication, and one that does not make profound statistical blunders in the data sets analyzed, the scales used, or the conclusions drawn, I would be most interested in reviewing them. Until that time, you might want to consider S’ing TFU.
Say, the stock market opens in five hours. Shouldn’t you be preparing for a busy day of trading that single stock?
>>But theyâre all ridiculously IMPROBABLE, and thatâs why you round
>>off that 0.0000000000001% chance to ZERO – because that
>>difference is NO difference.
Well, as to the likelihood that Carmen Electra would deign to climb into bed with you, I’m willing to round that one off to zero. And every one of your other straw men are similarly dismissed by virtually everyone as being roundable to zero.
EXCEPT for the existence of a higher power, or some sort of spiritual essence that transcends the wearing of hair shirts, the fasting on High Holy Days, the detonation of dynamite vests, the aversion to the flesh of cloven-hooved beasts, and all the rest of the silly accoutrements that have been used as forms of control and/ or money-making schemes by the purveyors of tax-exempt relgion.
Somehow, generation after generation, age after age, eon after eon, as notions of a flat earth fall away, this belief continues unabated. How do you explain that, Neptune? Is it truly just another example of “everyone is wrong, and I am right”? Or is it possible, no, let’s even go so far as to say PROBABLE, that there may just be something to this notion that has been with humanity since time immemorial, and shows no sign of disappearing in the foreseeable future? Might that just be? Or are you so rigid in your thinking that if you don’t read about it in “Quantum Physics for Dummies”, you assume it must be scifi fantasy? Hmmm?
#80 – Lauren,
Interesting take on the 7%. With how many of them are you close personal friends? Do they really all fit such a nice neat mold? I think that might be oversimplification of the human mind, especially for cases where we know we are actually talking about rocket scientists, so to speak.
As for your distinction between psychiatrists and psychologists, I think you are making some very strange statements. First and foremost, remember, I used the generic term psychology, for the study of the psyche.
Second, a psychiatrist is a psychologist who happens to be an MD rather than a PHD. Therefore, from a psychological training perspective, many are LESS well trained than psychologists. The latter did not spend time in med school learning anatomy, and so were able to concentrate more heavily on psychology. Psychiatrists, on average and by training, would probably average worse as actual psychotherapists since they often just fall back to prescribing medication. Of course, this is not 100%; I’m sure the overlap is huge.
Other than that, you make an interesting point about rational thought and all psychotherapists whether MD or PHD. Now you’ve made me curious where psychologists would rank among other PHDs.
#81 – 86 Lauren and Mustard,
It would probably help both of you to remember that we don’t even know how to measure smart. We have no usable quantifiable definition of either smart or intelligent. So, we can’t really rate people. It’s probably a fair assumption that the scientists that have made it all the way to the NAS are, on average, amazingly smart. But, scholarship is not the same as intelligence. One can certainly get through school by rote and memorization without really grasping fundamental concepts. So, even to say that in general, higher education leads to lower religiosity, does not necessarily show a real correlation with intelligence or smarts.
I think sticking with Lauren’s rationality argument is probably a better point of discussion as, I expect, even Mr. Mustard will grant that religious beliefs, including his own, are irrational.
BTW, Mustard, a few of your comments about not knowing everything lead me to believe that your beliefs may stem from the sort of god-of-the-gaps type argument. Is that correct? I wouldn’t have expected that from you.
>>I expect, even Mr. Mustard will grant that religious beliefs,
>>including his own, are irrational
If by “irrational”, Scottie, you mean I don’t find them in “Quantum Physics for Dummies”, you’re correct. However, I still find there’s something to be said for personal experience, enlightenment, and the spiritual, as long as it’s not forced on others.
>>god-of-the-gaps type argument…I wouldnât have expected that
>>from you.
Not really. I don’t seek to explain why an apple falls, or evolutionary biology on the basis of God. Going back to Pete Seeger (and Ecclesiastes), there’s a time for every purpose under Heaven. And I think there are just some things that cannot be understood with technology, no matter how many transistors Intel can fit on the head of a pin.
#88 – MM,
I don’t make up my own definitions for words, unless no word exists for what I wish to say. In that case, I would be very clear about my meaning with a lengthy description.
ir¡ra¡tion¡al /ÉŞËrĂŚĘÉnl/ Pronunciation Key – Show Spelled Pronunciation[i-rash-uh-nl] Pronunciation Key – Show IPA Pronunciation
âadjective
1. without the faculty of reason; deprived of reason.
2. without or deprived of normal mental clarity or sound judgment.
3. not in accordance with reason; utterly illogical: irrational arguments.
4. not endowed with the faculty of reason: irrational animals.
5. Mathematics.
a. (of a number) not capable of being expressed exactly as a ratio of two integers.
b. (of a function) not capable of being expressed exactly as a ratio of two polynomials.
6. Algebra. (of an equation) having an unknown under a radical sign or, alternately, with a fractional exponent.
7. Greek and Latin Prosody.
a. of or pertaining to a substitution in the normal metrical pattern, esp. a long syllable for a short one.
b. noting a foot or meter containing such a substitution.
ânoun
8. Mathematics. irrational number.
I meant a watered down combination of definition numbers 1 & 3. Simply, not rational. Or, if you prefer, not logical.
Your experiences would count as perfectly valid emotional arguments for you. However, they do not constitute logic and reason. This is not a negative statement. I do not mean this in a derogatory way.
As for the god-of-the-gaps, I’d have been surprised if you subscribed to that faulty logic. But, your comment about not knowing everything made me curious. It is true that science has not yet answered all questions. It probably never will as it keeps bringing new questions to light. Some claim that the lack of answers to specific questions indicates a proof of the existence of god. Again though, I’d have been surprised if you fell into that category.
>>Some claim that the lack of answers to specific questions
>>indicates a proof of the existence of god.
The lack of “scientific” answers to specific questions does not form the basis of either my belief in God or my religion. It’s the answer to general questions that are (and will always be) outside the purview of scientific investigation.
To assert, given the seemingly near-infinite track record of “things we’ll never know” which are now common knowledge, that there are
“general questions that are (and will always be) outside the purview of scientific investigation”
is the epitome of the very sort of intellectual arrogance you accuse nonreligionists of.
Oh, the irony. đ
>.is the epitome of the very sort of intellectual arrogance you
>>accuse nonreligionists of.
In your case, ceviche-man, I have reason to be intellectually arrogant.
As you were.
#72 – Well, that would be between them and God, wouldnât it? So why donât you just STFU?
Because being right is more important than being liked, and religion is killing humanity and must be stopped.
Trying to wipe out the insidious scourge of religion may be like tilting at windmills, but that doesn’t necessarily mean its a waste of my energy.
Lauren’s right… some folks are deluded into believing they spoke to God, but Bush and Robertson and their ilk are liars who use religion as power to hurt people. Let’s call them what they are…
>>religion is killing humanity
As the NRA is fond of saying (to paraphrase), religion doesn’t kill people, people kill people.
If you don’t like Little King George’s or Patty’s implementation of their religion, take it up with them and “their ilk”.
Leave me out of it, thank you very much.
#95 – MM,
Actually the parallel to guns don’t kill people doesn’t really apply here. Guns do not talk to people, except a few very special people, and convince them to kill. With religion, that is the way it goes in many cases, and not just historically, but right into the present day. That doesn’t mean all religious folks are murders or that all murderers are religious. But, religion is one of many reasons people find to kill each other. I could do without it.