How about the people who turn to religion to help with their addictions/mental illness/past traumas? I know that athiests argue that they were 'too weak' to be able todeal with all those things but there are studies that show that religious people are statistically happier (I'm talking about the normal ones - not the extremists), numerous historians think that SOCIETY can't be moral without religion and studies have shown that religious people are more likely to do the right thing.
How about the people who turn to religion to help with their addictions/mental illness/past traumas?
I think you spelled “hiding from the root cause of the problem” incorrectly. We have tested, verified techniques for honestly addressing and dealing with issues, instead of self-medicating with fairytales. It’s no longer necessary to resort to voodoo.
Where do you draw the line? What about someone who decides to address their past traumas by committing themselves to a life based on Harry Potter? Or someone who deals with their mental illness by becoming a Jedi? What about a belief in fairies? Or a belief in aliens? A belief in an underground city of mole-men? How did you determine that line? All of these have the exact same amounts of verifiable evidence supporting them as religions.
Are you aware that religious groups, like Alcoholics Anonymous, among others, are not actually professionally trained in treating those issues, because it’s done under the banner of religious belief, and the approaches can vary inconsistently and dramatically from one group to another?
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/the-irrationality-of-alcoholics-anonymous/386255/
Are you aware that the AA model for alcohol, drugs and other issues, is very flawed, resulting in an all-or-nothing approach that sets people up for failure, and then self-blame?
Sinclair called this the alcohol-deprivation effect, and his laboratory results, which have since been confirmed by many other studies, suggested a fundamental flaw in abstinence-based treatment: going cold turkey only intensifies cravings. This discovery helped explain why relapses are common.
So, faith-based treatment doesn’t actually work, and yet - or more accurately therefore - their solution is to tell you to keep coming back, making you fearful and dependent. I wonder, where have we heard this strategy before?
Faith-based treatment is the laughing stock of pretty much every other developed country in the world, except the USA where it originated, and continues as a multi-million dollar industry, where any quack can hang up a shingle.
[The total cost of the Finnish medical approach is] about $2,500—a fraction of the cost of inpatient rehab in the United States, which routinely runs in the tens of thousands of dollars for a 28-day stay.
When I told Keski-Pukkila this, his eyes grew wide. “What are they doing for that money?” he asked. I listed some of the treatments offered at top-of-the-line rehab centers: equine therapy, art therapy, mindfulness mazes in the desert. “That doesn’t sound scientific,” he said, perplexed. I didn’t mention that some bare-bones facilities charge as much as $40,000 a month and offer no treatment beyond AA sessions led by minimally qualified counselors.
It’s funny how these faith-based treatments call drug dependence, alcohol dependence, sexual addiction, etc “diseases” and yet don’t treat them medically. The only “diseases” where a relapse is due to a personal failing. The only “diseases” where talking is the cure.
You know treatment of mental illness is an actual medical practice, right? There are people actually qualified in it, who’ve studied it for many years, using our best medical understanding of the brain, and don’t involve magical sky goblins in the process. Or give it to them in the first place.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_therapy
https://www.hrc.org/resources/the-lies-and-dangers-of-reparative-therapy
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/realities-of-conversion-therapy_us_582b6cf2e4b01d8a014aea66
We know full well what happens when religions are free to concoct whatever nonsensical “treatment” they want to “help” people based only on their superstitions and bronze-age texts.
argue that they were ‘too weak’ to be able todeal with all those things
Who ever said they were “too weak”? There is a ton of reasons religionists resort to faith-based treatments, starting with fear, poor advice from unqualified people, poor advice from people with their own agenda, comfort of the familiar, distrust of science due to indoctrination, dogma surrounding the origin of the problem (e.g. “god is testing you”) in the first place, unscientific information in scripture…
How does the world look from up there on that burning strawman you constructed?
religious people are statistically happier
Children are also statistically happier than adults. What’s your point? Have you ever heard the phrase “ignorance is bliss”?
numerous historians think that SOCIETY can’t be moral without religion
And they would be wrong. Which successfully illustrates the fact that feeling or thinking something doesn’t make it true.
studies have shown that religious people are more likely to do the right thing
That would also be incorrect.
https://www.indy100.com/article/atheists-make-better-parents-parenting-study-research-7627036
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/11/nonreligious-children-are-more-generous
https://www.livescience.com/47799-morality-religion-political-beliefs.html
https://www.livescience.com/20005-atheists-motivated-compassion.html
On the other hand, religionists have an endless number of “do-overs” by asking the clouds to make everything better. Atheists have to deal with the consequences of their actions, without a sky daddy to magic it all away. No wonder believers are so happy - no matter what they do, they can skip away from it carefree by simply talking to their imaginary friend.
Instead of doping yourself up with worthless “faith” to mask your problems, break free of the superstitions, dogma and imaginary creatures, and deal with them honestly, with people who are qualified to help you.
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