What would your doctor say?

atheist morals worked real well in the Soviet bloc, didn't they?

I agree. They did.But the topic is about what health-care professionals would think of their patients "hearing voices". That's why I mentioned moral "messages" coming from "alien entities". My point was that sanity is more often aligned with society than with spooks.Please don't focus on one small off-topic part of my post.

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I enjoy loving others the way God loves me, and sharing that joy with those around me. I would say the sucess is God's, and the people who come to Him, and that I just get to enjoy it happen. It is encouraging to me.It can sometimes be a long process, or an immediate one. I am either planting a seed, or watering one, it's whatever I think God tells me to do at the moment. Sometimes it is nothing at all. I think being obedient is what is important.

Then that makes a whole lot a people schizonphrenic. Since schizophrenia is a medical condition, isn't it easily provable that someone has it, by measuring dopamine levels in the brain?If it is provable, then everyone who claims to hear from God, should have these imalances if God doen't exist.Or it could be the other way around. People who you think are schizophrenic, are actually hearing from God, and you suffer from another condition which prevents you from actually seeing spiritual stuff, or hearing from God.I have always felt there was a fine line between our own imaginations, and what is actually God. I believe it is possible to confuse the two.

They are also filled with non-believers. What's your point?

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“Always be ready to give a defense to
everyone who asks you a reason for the
hope that is in you.” -1st Peter 3:15

If God exists, He by very definition could not be alien, nor would He be incapable of not understanding any aspect of His creation. If atheists believe in morals, just not absolute morals, then there are no 'real' morals. If morals are subjective then what is moral for you, isn't moral for me. Therefore, its merely a construct of your mind.

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“Always be ready to give a defense to
everyone who asks you a reason for the
hope that is in you.” -1st Peter 3:15

Heh..... Exactly.

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“Always be ready to give a defense to
everyone who asks you a reason for the
hope that is in you.” -1st Peter 3:15

And what should happen if society itself has gone mad? Indeed, it has.

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“Always be ready to give a defense to
everyone who asks you a reason for the
hope that is in you.” -1st Peter 3:15

How do you determine that "society has gone mad"?How do you think your doctor would react to you saying "everybody is crazy but me"?

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I'm a doc (podiatrist). Faith mentioned Jonathan Edwards. Edwards did an expert job of psycho-analyzing perhaps a hundred (or so) *emotional* Christian converts and of discerning *true religion* per se. I know of no physician(s) who have such expertise. Albeit, Freud, Jung, and other psychiatrists have touched on personality traits and such.My take is that 90%+/- of current docs are hyper-specialists and are totally aloof of *spiritual* and *evo* matters. Many are business-specialists within PPO and/or HMO frameworks. They are inept to give spiritual advice and often avert the subject i.e.,... when someone speaks about God healing and/or speaking to them.This topic, Brian, seems pointless and I think you realize it. Most Physicians aren't even research scientists (as per Shraf) let alone Charismatics. Or ask their malpractice carriers to what extent they're *allowed* to disdain "freedom of religion" in their practices.Imagine a dentist, MD, podiatrist, or such giving spiritual advice to a Charismatic! Surely (at least for malpractice purposes) I'd better play the idiot when I delve into another person's psyche and salvation or risk losing my insurance.Psychiatrists might seem *credible* at giving spiritual advice; but, alas, most are inept, they ...
1) are at the bottom of their classes
2) don't believe there's a devil
3) are held in highest disdain by Alabama fundiesSurely, I utterly respect my patients that state: "God's healing is perfect", "By his stripes we are healed", and so on. I’m only their public servant, called to practice medicine.Persons seem to me as created beings that often groan in pain, and require healing by God, not by puny-practitioners. At any rate their souls (psyches) seem beyond any physician's qualifications and services.

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You're assuming your own conclusion - that only absolute morals are "real".The opposite is true - only morals that are applicable to our everyday lives are real. And only we (our society) are capable of deciding what "works" in our everyday lives. Why don't you pay attention to what everybody is telling you? It isn't "you" or "me" - it's us. It's society that determines morals - not spooky messages. Of course it is. It's what we have learned from living in our society. If we lived in another society, we would have learned a different set of morals - but you would be calling that set of morals "absolute".But absolute morality is not the topic. The topic is about anything communicated to us from "beyond" - and the medical implications of that "communication". Wrong. If God exists, by very definition He is alien - ie. not "one of us". Uh... way too many negatives for that phrase to make sense - but it sounds like you're trying to say that God would naturally understand us.Unfortunately, the "God" portrayed by dogmatists/inerrantists/absolutists seems to be profoundly ignorant of anything human. Or their communication with God is not working.The question is, what would your doctor prescribe?

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quote:

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They are also filled with non-believers. What's your point?

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No, they aren't, at least in the US, which is what I was referring to.The prisons contain a higher percentage of Christians than in the general population, and contain virtually no athiests, fewer than in the general population:Prison population-Christian: 83.761%
General population-Christian:76.5%Prison population-Atheist:0.21%
General population-Atheist:0.9%-13.2% (depending upon how you count them)Sources:General population data is from "American Religious Identification Survey," by The Graduate Center of the City University of New YorkPrison data is from the Federal Bureau of PrisonsMy point is that for all of your claims that people who do not believe in gods have low morals, it would seem that Christians are the ones committing nearly all of the crime in this country, while it's exceedingly rare to find any atheists in the prisons at all.My point is that it would seem that, if we look at who are the criminals in this country, Christians are the ones with low moral standards.

How do they find out if they believe in God or not?I suppose they ask them? What do you expect them to say?Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

quote:

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How do they find out if they believe in God or not?

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I suppose they ask them? What do you expect them to say?

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Yes, it is a study that uses self-identification.I expect them to say what their religious affiliation is, if any, and it seems that they have done that.How else does one tell what religion people identify as unless you ask them?

The questions used are not the same ones as used in the surveys of the general public, that makes comparison shaky.The differences are within the margins of error for both surveys.There are benefits to being a member of a religion -- you get to go to service (A/C?) and you get to talk to someone.There may also be a LOT of peer pressure to be with a crowd and not stand out.The best you can say is that there is no significant difference between prison population and civilian population.This is, of course, sufficient to refute a claim to a more moral stand by christians, as the PROOF of that claim would be significantly lower christian population.THAT is not the case.Enjoy.