Faith is just crap

Having faith in something is just crap if that something is untrue. It is just distraction from doing something about the problem, what ever it might be. Fear of death is illogical. It happens to all of us, and is unavoidable. We can and should delay it mostly until it is time to turn and accept it. Death and life cannot exist in us at the same time. So the christian life after depth is just a delusion sold by the churches to control the people. It is just bullshit.

Many of the individual tenants of the church are just opinions that are illogical, like loving your neighbors, today. Both neighbors and love may not have the same meaning that they did in christian formation time. Neighbors live near us, often transient in some areas, and we also may be transient. Circles of care, ethics of care, make more sense.

Love may not be the correct word either. Respect, regard, or the like make be more correct. It the Christian pastoral setting, where the population is sparse and stable, who knows, but today it is crap. There are half a standard deviation out to harm us or our property, another standard deviation of just nasty narcissistic money grubbing bastards, like so many old employers that I know. At the other end we have a standard deviation begging for handouts; some who think that there special species status entitle them to more that the remaining peoples.  Yet if we refer to them as specials, we are prejudiced. FYN was an engineering company around here for many years, and everyone was unsure about what the N stood for, but it made for a good story.

As Ann Ryan stated, altruism is not a virtue, for it allows freeloaders to prosper. We do not owe anyone our support, especially at a physical/subsistence level. So each virtue/vice must be selective, individually examined and selected. 

It is done. 

OverPopulation...

Our environment is the largest factor in the feasible population.  When we define world overpopulation as the maximum population that space ship earth can support, long term, we see that the problem will be the atmosphere, not food, water, or energy. We exceeded the carrying capacity about 1960. We are now at twice the capacity, we are screwed... oh well, in the end we all just die anyway. Now we need to go through population reduction, and that is a political burning hot coal that no one want to touch.

Forecasts suggest that population will level off at some about 10 or 11b. That is three times higher than the carrying capacity. That just will not work.

Some are pinning their hopes on new technology, carbon capture, or some other dream of what could be, maybe. Chemically, the best form to store the excess carbon in is solid form, or liquid hydrocarbon. That is all fine but fixing of carbon into solid form, so far, is only possible through photosynthesis, we have not yet even created an equivalent process in industry, the energy requirements are just too high.

So what does that all leave us with? Living in pods until we evolve?

Why is it so difficult to even get people to acknowledge this problem? 

What will the time look like? Refugees, leaving the worst overpopulated areas, migrating to less overpopulated areas. I doubt if there are any underpopulated areas now. Life will be brutal, hard, and likely short. There will be much civil unrest. Survival-ism will become even more popular. Government will break down. Police will be ineffective. Justice will become just a concept. Killing of immigrants may become a sport. Vial and brutal life can be expected. Oh well, we all just die in the end.

The life conditions will effect our ethics. Taking from those that have, aka the rich, will become routine. You cannot take from those who have nothing. Once we bet back down to a reasonable population, 50, 200 years from now, humans can try again to develop the good life.

Equality... who is opposed?

Equality... who is opposed?

When we take on an ethical concept like equality, we meet opposition. So who is opposed to equality? It turns out no one, as long it it not being applied to them; everyone when it is being applied to them. Equality cannot fly unless it is attached to reciprocity. It must be universal. So who are the big organizations that are opposed to equality being applied to them? Well, after examination, most organizations want to be "something special" status.

Religions, well the Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Jews, want to be special. Within their organizations, women hold a special lower place politically. They are a social group to themselves. That is not equality. Political organizations have a special problem. Now they try to boost women up, making men the second class. How well is that working now?

So religions are the principle resistance, although many of them agree that equality is a good thing, yet do not live it within their own organization. So what good is their support, if it is dishonest support? Equality means that religions would need sell their faith to adults, not impose it on children. That is the way of religion, imposing the religion onto children before they can sort real and false, before they have other means of support, before they have learned to reason, before they can reason.

So we see equality is one more reason to abandon organized religions, and even belief systems that are less organized, like Islam. These do not support equality. Any religion that places value on old books is also suspect. It places the book above the thinking of the current population... not realistic but it is the way of religion. No thanks.

So now we see that if we adopt equality as the foundation for our ethics/moral life, we will be at conflict with religions and many social groups. Oh well, life goes on until it does not. It is done. Hail all as equals. 

Stepping Forward

Stepping Forward

Last day we spoke about how equality and reciprocity are the foundation for this built up belief system. The next four are logic and/or reason, reality, wisdom; knowing what is right, and prudence; doing what is right. These six basic concepts go a long way in defining what is right, the good life, and similar concepts of life in a philosophy of life.

Wisdom includes truth, or perhaps truth should be in there specifically. As the system is being developed, additions are to be expected. Truth, correctness is critical in the process, as well as in the system.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs outlines what human needs are, although these have never been proven. The lower ones are self evident, and yet many philosophies ignore the lower ones, likely because most people do not struggle with these. They have "arrived" by the time they start to look at philosophy. And yet we need to understand that we humans are firstly animals, and even if we can mentally arise a basic animal, we still have animal needs that must biologically be met. This puts vegans out to lunch.

These first seven values reject religions, for the most part.  Equality of persons is not part of the three Western Asia Religions, and Eastern religions are also limiting. Western Modren Buddhism may be an exception, however, it too, has issues, with obsession with mediation. That may work fine with a monastery society, but not so well in a lay society. Religions promote inequality, male domination society. We also live in an overpopulated earth, we need also to deal with the reality of life today. Oh well.

I hold that these first seven points are mostly self evident, but more could be written about the need for these later.

To recap: equality, reciprocity, truth, logic and reason, reality, wisdom, prudence are the foundation for a philosophy of life.

  

Current / Future Philosophy

 Current / Future Philosophy

https://www.becomingminimalist.com/happy-life/?  

So now we know, Lead a happy fulfilling life... but that is circular logic... do what is necessary for a happy contented life will yield a happy contented life.

People are much of my issue, I am happier and more contented if I limit contact. So it is to some extent, we must match our personal social need with our social involvement. A low social person such as I am should not be involved in politics, sales or any high social career. I am better off "at the controls" or as I originally started out, doing, not managing people.

When we look at some of the books written under duress: Marcus Aurelius, Victor Frankel, Boethius, etc. what do we find? These people are talking philosophy, and are mentally lost in philosophy. What a way to live; ignore reality around them and concentrate on philosophy to the point of shutting out the remainder of the world around then and concentrate on one little aspect for the duration. I experienced that degree of concentration/effort/mindfulness for periods of time studying/  computing problem solutions when I was at University, many years ago. The issues of life since then do not create such an intense process solution as did those engineering problem that required long involved processes, the answer evolved out of the process, just like squeezing a tube of toothpaste. Keep cranking and the end just came. Not so with philosophy/ethics, the goalpost just keep moving. There are no solutions.

Suppose we started with a solution, and built a philosophy on that. Analysis as much as you like, and it would come back to the starting point, built up logically, one step at a time. So if were to take something like political equality as the starting point, add a touch of reciprocity, and we could create quite an ethical system. First, we need to use something like categorical imperative process, good for one and all, what do we find? In general it seems to agrees with the main historical ethics, but not the contentious bits, like abortion, birth control, LGBT etc. But more on that next day.

 

Bah Humbug

Christianity invented sin to sell salvation. It is done. 

StoBud Philosophy

Both the Stoics and Buddhist claim to offer happiness, contentment, serenity, and the like. When we examine their philosophies, at first they are so different, yet eerily similar in so many areas. Yet looking further, they are not mutually exclusive. So what would a merger of the two look like. Patrick Ussher and Ronald W. Pies, and others have separately explored this.

What would the objective ultimately be? To develop a correct philosophy to live that would produce a flourishing peaceful life. As we know now, it is all about what we think, not about the way it actually is, relative to others. If we are happy sitting on a stump by a fire, and are willing to work enough to keep that fire going, we can be happy. Personally, I need a warm house, enough food, and enough to do to keep my mind off food. My social needs are low but I do need a bit more that I am currently getting... oh well. The internet makes up for that.

Point 1. It is about what we think, our expectations over actual, or our satisfaction index. If the ratio is greater than one, our expectations are less than actual, then we are happy. If the actual does not reach our expectations, the ration is less than one and we are unhappy.

There are two parts to this satisfaction index, the actual which we do not control but only influence, and our expectations, which we have absolute control over, so the Stoics say, and seems to be true. There is no reason that we cannot be happy almost all the time, within reason. We may have periods of adjustment, when we need to adjust our thinking to the new reality.

First we must accept that we are animals first and human second. The physical capacity is limited, we get tired, sick, and in the end we die. We have no control over this, regardless of what high energy hype grues say. There are always those who sell hope and other forms of false information. Reality is the world is filled with evil bastards, and we must avoid these predators, approximately one third of the population. These animal humans do not think of themselves as bad people, if they think about behavior at all. They just take and are happy, greedy, and living off the work of others. They may only be part time evils, but we need to identify and avoid heavy exposure to these, if we are ethical, and hold ethical values.

Point 2, we live in a real evil world time, and all is beyond our control. Both philosophy systems make these points. That which is common to both systems is likely correct, that which is not common is somewhat questionable, or just assumed in the other system. These come from two very different cultures. Any culture has a bunch of common assumed foundation beliefs, and if these are right, these often go unstated, when they are wrong, the philosophy covers it over. Merging two philosophies requires uncovering and merging the assumed unstated foundation beliefs. Therein lies the difficulty.
 

Morals

The religious often say "you cannot be moral because you have no objective moral standards." ... Ahy but neither do you, you have authoritative standards, handed down from old men of history, that you think are objective. They are objective in that you have never questioned them, and often, when looked at, they are rather poor and have no foundation to stand on.

There is no underlying principal such as equality of all people. If we assume that all people are equal, then all opinions are equal... well no, some are more equal than others. At least generate a number of alternatives, generate some criteria to judge them, and evaluate them. What do you find? everything is subjective.

It turns out that often, after evaluation, everything just matches our confirmation basis. We have confirmed our opinion. That is not objective, or is it?

People are equal. The earth is overpopulated. We should have less children until the population gets down to a reasonable level. Unless the sixth extinction occurs. Methyl hydrate fire in the Arctic, putting H2O and Co2 into the atmosphere. "The tundra is burning." When that is the headline, the sixth extinction has begun. It may not be complete. Oh well, the earth will survive. Will humans?

So morals/ethic are important for a dense population so that we can all get along. Family is important, but where does it say that I must be around asshats? Perhaps it should say something like nice family is important, un-nice, well not so much. Dysfunctional is one thing, unfunctional, well that is the luck of the draw, it is time to move on, but what if you are dependent? Suck it up buttercup. You are stuck, but there is always at least one out. We live in an overpopulated world. We cannot look at suicide without looking at the family, from the viewpoint of the offed. But we cannot know, after the fact. Parental emotional abuse is often well hidden from the outside. The abuser often does not consider what they are doing as abuse... There are no standards of behavior between people, within a family.   

So indoctrination into a family way, a culture, a way of behaving, a moral or ethical code, it is all just indoctrination. We stay because, indecision or by choice... well most never look at it. It is not indecision, not choice, but habit. Habit, doing what we have always done, because... well that is what we have always done, and how bad is life anyway...

Burden of Proof

http://bitchspot.jadedragononline.com/2018/12/19/atheism-and-the-burden-of-proof/
got me thinking, trying to resolve cognitive dissonance of Kant, Plato, and reality. I think I have, and religion still loses. There is no physical god, just the eidos of a god in the mind of the believers. Eidos is a Greek word, the root of idea, but meaning more like an concept. It is like Plato's form, and Kants division of a priori, not physical but realish in our minds, but some of them have real counterparts, some do not. Gods are one that the eidos has no real counterpart.

We can divide our thinking into two main groups of objects, those who represent real objects, and those who have no real counterpart. Those with no real counterpart may have evidence of existence as processes, amplifiers, or have no evidence, as fiction or something else. No evidence suggests it is false. Like gods. It is all that simple.

There is no point arguing with people who have a wrong concept locked in. It is belief that is emotionally tied to their thinking, and must be chipped off, one tentacle at a time. The belief is interlocked with their concept of self. Nothing is going to change their mind until they start to question the belief.

Kant was a philosopher that separated morality and his beliefs, he defined good will as the greatest good, followed by happiness. He realized he was contented with Pietism splinter of Lutharanism, and never explored options; good will and happiness as it was, was sufficient. He did not depend on religion for moral direction, education, medicine, but was content with religion for his social needs. Please note that good will and goodwill are different. Will is about what drives us, while goodwill is a friendly attitude, compassion, charity. We need to have a drive to the good, not just posses virtue but also to act. We can be virtuous and be a hermit, do very little. Or we can be active doing... but all the while maintaining virtue. These are different reproaches.

Kant was famous for splitting knowledge, experience based and a priori. A priori can further be split into real and fiction, with the fiction dropping as trivial, to be "flung on the fire forthwith." That is where the god concept belongs.      

Temporal vs. Sensible

Temporal vs. Sensible

After reading a bit of Plato and Kant, it is clear that there are two worlds, a temporal world and a sensible world. This is an important distinction going forward.

 By temporal I do not mean anything to do with time, but between the temples, and that is the in the brain, not religious structures. For clarity, the temporal world must exist, but represents the sensible world, but has no physical existence, but as we can examine it, share it through communication of ideas, concepts, and the Greek word, eidos to reduce confusion. Eidos is the root of ideas, yet has a more temporal denotation... the original concept of what I am on about here.

The sensible world here is the physical world that we can measure, and sense through the senses. So now that we have two separated "worlds", we can look at each separately. Anything, even god can exist in the temporal world, for the word exists, yet it has no powers beyond those we assign it, and no partner in the sensible world. Pythagoras Theorem exists in the temporal world (tworld), and has a partner in the sensible world (sworld), as many thing do. Not so for gods, fairies, elves, gremlins, satin, etc. That which is not partnered in the sworld, is, well, fake.

Philosophy is work in the tworld, and we must always be sure that it has a partner in the sworld, else, it to, is fake.

This may be the Kant's green glasses.

But not so fast here!! What about the Nominal world of Kant, it that is what he caobjects lled the actual world that is the world that we sense? So now we have three worlds, actual, what we sense, and what we think we sense that resides only in our mind. In the Buddhist tradition there is the Mangala of the Nine objects of a finger pointing at the moon.Is this the same damn thing?

Negative People

Perhaps I am just a negative person? Or perhaps realistic.

Sir David Attenborough addresses the UN climate change summit in Poland with a stark warning:

If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon. … The world’s people have spoken. Time is running out. They want you, the decision-makers, to act now. Leaders of the world, you must lead. The continuation of civilisations and the natural world upon which we depend is in your hands.

Overpopulation is how I define this problem. A world wide one child policy, and UN declaration of "do not teach hatred or violence to your children" would be a good start.

Skeptics are just negative people who are proud of being negative. Well maybe, at least they claim to be looking carefully at what is being offered, but through their own biases. That is the real problem, have they ever examined their own biases, and they are all to happy to interrupt any discussion, to displace any argument. They are not listening learning, but shut down and carry on type thinking. Oh well, reject that group as something to label myself as.

Ethic limit become the defined limit of behavior that is acceptable to the people. We may not agree, but it is an attempt to define. Consider the UN Delectation of Human Rights; it has one item about freedom of religion which will contribute to everlasting trouble. The right for people to teach their children hatred, and wrong information, in the form of religion. If we want peace, all religion should be considered a partly correct historical belief system. By doing mash ups, we can see what is correct and what is not. Reject the incorrect, accept the correct.

We need to exhibit characteristics like compassion but not to devote our life to them. It is what we get from those characteristics that drives us forward, all the while knowing that there are people who depend on those characteristics to make a living. These people we can ignore... for they are users. This eliminates helping of the habitual and those who live off the habitual like charities. Collecting for the orphans in Africa is for others to support. We need to educate and support local first. I do that through my taxes, as much is wasted through welfare.

Some see my attitude as negative, and that is there choice. I do not give to paid collectors. Any organization that does not provide an audited statement on line or in print of their paid out to collections ratio are businesses, not charities. And they call me negative.

Which Group do I fit with

There are the skeptics. These are a negative bunch, always taking every statement apart, and demanding references, then taring up those references as being not good enough or false, unless it agrees with their opinions. And some of their favorite concepts are just wrong.

People are not uniform. Any actual characteristic or physical value we study has a standard distribution, more or less. Social need is one such, and I fall well below one standard deviation below the norm, Oh well, but I do need some interaction. As Eide found in his dyslexia study, all dyslexics have long column spacing and fewer neuron connections, but not all long and few's are dyslexics. Likewise all autistic are short and many's but not all short and many's are autistic. So what does it mean, our genes, and development combine to give us variation, some get more, some get less. Oh well. 

Then there are the humanists that cannot make a decision, nor organize meetings or gatherings without a consistence... so nothing ever happens, unless someone make a free choice, and free choice is Riverside Lounge, if it is open and if not, Garneau Lounge, but parking is too expensive, and there is never a preset topic, so we go off the rails.

There is the Society of Edmonton Atheists, who like to hold meetings in the north and west ends of the city... the next city, along way from home, and frequently in ale houses. If I lived closer... oh well. These are a bunch of activists, that happen to be all atheists, but most are activists in other areas...mostly. I just do not care about gays, abortions, some Alberta political parties, nor peoples. They just do not matter. I struggle with understanding the people and their motives.

There is the no authority (no god) ethics group, who love to talk and hear themselves explore... but after I took the time to read two textbooks on ethics and several other books, perhaps ten, I realize that much is just beating of gums, not real but just noise. Existential philosophy as MacQuarrie preaches is ok for those who made a conscious decision to "keep on living", but we are responsible without that decision. His revelation was just that; a point in time that the revelation occurred; we were always responsible, even if we never realized we were, even if we never got so low as to contemplate suicide. But ethics has value, and need to be studied. We as a people can draw an arbitrary line in the sand on any subject. 

So I shoot archery at a club, and coach a few on Saturdays, well actually I do the "introduction to  archery," traditional archery that is, for try out first timers. If they come back a couple of time, they become potential members.  But that is two days a week, and I still need more. This has nothing to do with philosophy, eating/not eating, and is just a bit of exercise. 

US gases Children

https://i0.wp.com/freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/files/2018/11/gassedfamilies.jpg?ssl=1

This picture is the west end of the existing border wall. All that is seen is US property, south of the wall. In fact, the people are already within the US. The south bank of the drainage ditch is about the US-Mexico border here. 

So here we have a physical barrier at a different location than the actual political border. This becomes a no man's land, or is it part of the US? 

That warm fuzzy feeling

https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2018/11/25/christian-astrophysicist-has-5-unconvincing-reasons-shes-no-longer-an-atheist/

 - Christianity gives me meaning and hope.

So there is nothing wrong with the warm fuzzy feeling, but when you need to suspend reality to induce that feeling....

There are two parts to the placebo effect; feeling better and being better. That is the deceptive part, we get a breath of fresh air and we feel better, but our body, reality has not changed. We have the same problem.

So what is the point of helping people to see reality of religion as a fraud, promising something they cannot deliver? And at the same time a religion that prospers from those frauds. It does not matter, we all just die in the end.

Canada allows the import of guns that have no purpose but to kill people. We allow the sale of said weapons to civilians. And we get upset when someone uses them? Get a hold of something and give your head a shake. The US has it worse since they manufacture said guns. It you want to correct the problem, start at the source.

Asymmetrical Thinking

Asymmetrical Thinking

Symmetrical thinking, we humans should be equal, our input and output should equal. Christians and Muslims should be open to honest and deep negotiations to find the truth with Atheists.Logic should rule the world. But this is not the case; we are buried in asymmetrical thinking.

The US sells guns that are good for nothing besides killing each other, and becomes upset when some one uses them. They sell the Saudi's bombs and guns, and become upset when they use them on their own citizens and neighbors. We already know what a bunch of savages the Muslims and Christians are.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2018/11/u-s-missionary-killed-by-remote-andaman-islands-tribe-he-wanted-to-convert-to-christianity/   
 https://www.patheos.com/blogs/nosacredcows/2018/11/christian-group-wants-native-tribe-brought-to-justice-for-death-of-missionary/
So the Christians want to apply their laws to an area that their laws do not apply? What a bunch of wank-a-doodles.

It is not the situation that causes the problem but our thinking about the situation. Asymmetrical is one of those thinking problems that we must identify and overcome.

Societal Inertia

Society inertia, that is the direction that our society is heading, and the drag pressure of that society takes us into dangerous and just wrong thinking as well. What are we individual citizens to do when the society we live in is dragging into problems? Abandon the society? Ignore the society? Anchor deep and resist? Go with the flow? Try to change society? Create a new and separate society?

The obesity problem is really an overeating problem as a result of the society we live in. Could the real problem be our environment and the effectiveness of advertising; causing the increased pressure/temptation to eat?

Religions functions as coping systems

Now that so many philosophical and psychologist concepts have come into the public lexicon, it is obvious that religions function as coping systems, aiding individuals to deal with the vicissitudes of life by applying the thinking of the ancients. These methods were written down and prescribed, and worked well enough to get us to the present. But in the last hundred years, well, we humans figured out a few better ways and our population took off, like it was oil propelled, well energy propelled anyway. We have learned new coping methods, and reality requires acceptance, not coping.

But the coping system remained. Some have modernized, or in the process... Western Buddhism, The Stoics, but others not so much. Some have tried to regress too their unfounded roots like the radical Islams, orthodox jews, and have become problem religions. But all these remain coping systems, some that are trying to be more than they really are, but function as just coping systems, by insisting on supernatural concepts like gods. Religions are just coping systems, and this was/is a powerful realization.

I do not wish to disturb others coping systems, we all may need consolation, compassion, and all the positive benefits of a coping system until we learn to deal with reality. Reality is/can be brutal. We understand the appeal of escaping, numbing out, ignoring reality, but reality is not so bad when we recognize that much is beyond our direct control, and we are not responsible for that beyond our direct control, even when other try to force us to be responsible for that which is beyond our direct control.

The medical industry say "use only as directed" in response to addiction and addictive substances and diet failures. Failure to be able to stop us, once addiction has taken hold, is seen as a personal failure, when in fact the physical body has taken over from the rational mind. Addiction, for those of us who have beat any form is a tough struggle, and the body is right their waiting for an opportunity to grab the substance, action, or behavior back. The medical industry does not accept this as a fact, as that would make them responsible... and they understand that some things are beyond their control, so put it onto the patient. Be aware of this, it make dealing with the medical industry easier, knowing that they are two faced... and some thing are just beyond their capacities. We all just die in the end.

There is some good money to be made, in the mean time by trying to treat the problem, without any real ability to do much for real to reduce the problem. Treatment without success is just a failure to treat the real problem. Oh well, the dollars turn, and sometimes that is enough.

Yes religion is often aimed at removing the final sting... by lying to us. There is no afterlife, no heaven nor hell. When we die, it is final. That willingness to lye is not just a christian skill, but a common skill among the religious. Consider Christmas, and the lying to children, not ethical, I think. Christmas comments, my reply: I do not believe in lying to children. It kill conversation. The answer to "it is not lying", what else could it be?

Aha Moments/ Religions are coping systems.

I first must define/describe an Aha moment. It is the moment that we here or understand something that we know instinctively that is correct. It is that moment when we have a awaking to some fact, some concept, that we realize is correct, we suddenly assent to an idea. All debate ends for us at that point. We know that we have reached our fundamental truth. Could this concept still be wrong? Possibly, but the likely hood is reduced from neutral. Religion is a coping system. That explains why there are so many, and why they are different. Anything that is not common to most of them is likely wrong, anything that is common to many is likely an old good concept, and must be tested.

So we have now defined the purpose of religions as aids to the human brain, to helps us get through all the vicissitudes of  life. Understanding religions as coping systems categorizes religion, not as total falsehoods, but a functioning psychological structures, that although we know them to be coping systems, we also realize that they allow civilization to work. We know that psychopaths have a very different moral and mental coping system, placing no feelings in the structure of the coping system. Only physical pain is allowed to govern. Mental pain does not exist, or so it seems. Such a coping system would not allow society to survive.

It is the realization that we need other people to create society, and that we need society for our own survival. In order for society to grow, we need to provide others with the same conditions as we need; peace, prosperity, understanding, aid, but not long term support beyond their youth, and similar concepts. Education and health care are essential, as is truth. Understanding that religions are coping systems goes a long way in the future.  

Religions as coping system make so much sense that it is an Aha moment for me. There is no god, no after life, no reincarnation, no heaven or hell, no saint, but just people, some of which are good, some less so. Religions must therefore be treated as peoples coping systems, not to wantonly destroyed, but not to be taken seriously by others either.

So how does something like this look to those of us who have realized that religions are coping systems?  https://atheist.ie/2018/11/austrian-muhammad-case
A world body giving religion a serious standing... Ignorance of understanding, not worth respect... Or am I on the cutting edge of this realization?

Does pushing a coping system onto others make it more acceptable? It makes more people share the same delusion. It is a shared coping system then. One of the survival functions of any religion is to pass it onto the next generation, and we might as well include a moral foundation in that as well, as a moral foundation is likely a good thing anyway... well it is still a coping system with a moral foundation, and the moral foundations are sometimes good, and some are lacking... and all could use a bit of modernization, and/or improvement.

Do not lie must be extended... to not lying to children, Christmas for example...

Coping Systems

Religions are perhaps the original coping mechanism for dealing with the vicissitudes of life. I hold this statement to be self evident once we make this realization, just like many religions claim. Looking back provides a different perspective from going through the problem.

We see this in the Buddhist four noble truths; life (is) contains suffering, the cause is internal delusions, desires, aversions, expectations, there is a solution in changing our thinking to the right thinking and following the eight step path plan for a good life.

We see this also in the Stoic system, but not as obviously in the impermanence of life and conditions, in the external causes are always external, and we are effected by only our reaction to the external; it is not the event, but our thinking about the event; some things are up to us and some are not (lists), and similar statements. The "view from far above" concept, once we learn it and use it, makes this clear.

When we get old and start to reflect on life, it is obvious that life is about getting through life, coping, as best we can, and anyway we can in the tight parts. Just getting through is all we can do sometimes. It is about coping with the issues, internally or externally, often the unknown with no practical choice and/or no clear choice. Those of us who get off the path that religion provided need to find a new path, a new coping system, to help us through, to guide us through.

For some of us it was the escape of alcohol, or other drug... until that was doing damage, and then we looked for others. AA, NA, and along came SMART. Understanding the problem provides a better way, a more obvious way. Addressing the vicissitude, or our reaction to the vicissitude provides a real solution in order to not need the coping mechanism. That is what appears to be the real solution.

I think that it is imperative anyone studying the problem should understand that we can trade coping mechanism, or deal with the real problem that caused us to need the coping system in the first place. And if we trade coping systems, we may need to upgrade far above AA, SMART, to understanding the real causes, and finally to deal with reality.

What is your evidence?

What is your evidence? Can you direct me to your evidence? If you are unable, then your story is just story.

So MMP does not cause Autism? Where is your evidence?

Actually there is a higher frequency of autism on early vaccinated children than among the later vaccinated... no wait.... between early vaccinated British verse vaccinated East European... the co-factors were not corrected for. To really disprove one would need to look at infrequence of occurrence between early vaccinated and late vaccinated children, but that is not about to happen... because it would be unethically to risk children getting measles, but not exposing them to a higher risk of autism is OK because the authorities having jurisdiction say that MMP does not cause autism.

When we look at frequency of autism, we see and year over year increase, and it is often not identified/diagnosed until teen years. And it is high in industrial cultures, and non-existent/diagnosed in undeveloped.  And then the disordered kids are all called autistic/UDHD/ADD/dyslexic or something. Autism is difficult to diagnose until school age, perhaps 10 or so, unless you are looking to hang a label on a child.

So both sides are in a battle of words, there is no evidence either way; the study's that cast doubt are all discredited by the other side, the drug companies. Oh well, it is not my issue.

Wakefield was poor at dealing with children with gut pain: even trying to understand the problem got him into ethics problem/mine field, and it blew up in his face. What he found is that people with gut problem frequently have other issues.... autism and crones/IBS are common. Why? Who knows? These both seem it be development issues. But the evidence of all this in summarized in various autism/dyslexia studies.  We need to recall that the opinion of an expert is the lowest form of evidence by the Frye Standard.

But the question, what is you evidence separates the critical thinkers from the marketing types. Oh well. As one old fellow told me about business plans, "as long as it looks good, no one will ever read it." I it is all just marketing story.  

Overeating is a coping method

We humans are a puny bunch, physically and mentally. We cannot handle what the world has to throw at us without coping methods. That is just a downside of our big brains, especially when life does not go as it might. Fate or Fortune always is there; we get pushed off our even keel so easily by nature. We developed coping strategies, delusions, or would they be illusions some of the time. We use our inability to see that we are wrong when we are focused on a single wrong idea. Religion. Religion is a coping method for handling situations we do not like. Suffering exists and is part of life. It is caused by our delusions, aversions, attachments and similar concepts. Oh well, there is a solution and that solution is to follow a reasonable plan for life including a view of ethics, reality and the world around us. Sound familiar?

So my claim now is that "religions are the original coping methods" of not being able to deal with nature and the goings on that our ancestors found. Later a few turned to alcohol, and then in 1935 AA came along, as a replacement/return to religious thinking. Overeating is often a coping method, but for many OA is not successful, as we now realize that religions are just coping methods, and there are no gods. All is just a coping method for a life which we are learning to live all our lives.     

How much damage is our attitude that "freedom of religion is an indigenous right" actually doing?

We allow freedom of religion, and this is essentially allowing people to believe what ever nonsense they choose. Is it freedom or neglect? What damage is being done to young minds, and of the adult mind believing in fiction, being controlled/oppressed by organizations and old books?

Consider Islam. The damage is real. Consider Catholics. The damage is real, but less than Islam.

Christians are good at building community. That is their primary good. They hold back other development, try to stop science, and foster the spread of disease and overpopulation through resistance to birth control and condoms. Is that beneficial to society?

But all religions are just coping methods, as are alcohol and mind altering drugs. So ethics, with its issues of relativism, adaption, uncertainty, delusions, principals, concepts, and the like is a partial solution, perhaps.

We live on a planet, and if the Co2 level is an indication, it can support about 3.5b and our current carbon demand level. We are 7.7b now. This is the ethical life boat problem. It is doubtful if we can engineer our way out of this. Oh well, in the end we all just die anyway.

This is thanksgiving weekend in Canada. Lets all just give thanks, eat and not think or speak of this real problem... that is coming to a head in the next 50 years or so.