Opiates of the Masses? Deaths of Despair and the Decline of American Religion

Discussion in 'Religion & Philosophy' started by Farnsworth, Jan 16, 2023.

  1. edna kawabata

    edna kawabata Well-Known Member

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    Rubbish? How dismissive. Refer to page 46 and you will see the repeal of the blue laws had no effect on the trajectory of Deaths of Despair trends. That is a red herring.

    Also the study did not take into account religion by age. As you see below the young of the 70s were more church going by the 90s and the trend continued. Older Americans church going has been fairly stable since the 60s. Your study looks at the drop in church attendance without breaking it down by age and then draws the conclusion that that accounts for the older population increase in deaths of despair, which is a false premise.
    [​IMG]

    Also, who is the bigot here? From your study “The mechanism at work in our results potentially pertains to attendance and participation in organized religion, rather than personal spiritual habits.” As I said as long as the philosophy is healthy the type of religion doesn’t matter.
     
  2. Swensson

    Swensson Devil's advocate

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    What evidence are you proposing? The explanation I suggested is fully compatible with what is in the paper you quoted, it disagrees only with the conclusions that you added.
     
  3. trevorw2539

    trevorw2539 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    There are no prophecies in the Bible. Most 'so-called' prophecies were either written at the time or later. Both Isaiah and Jeremiah could see what was happening in their time and warned the people of the consequences if they continued their way. Jeremiah knew that the Assyrians would win any war with the tribes of the North. The Assyrians were a complete army. The Northern tribes were a rabble put together. And so it proved.
    When the Assyrians defeated the north they would have conquered the south and occupied it. Instead they withdrew and accepted tribute. When the Babylonians took over Judah was allowed the same conditions and retained its own rule. But we know that Judah signed an agreement with Babylon's enemies, and that could not be tolerated. It left Babylon open to attack on 2 fronts. The road between Egypt and Babylon east of the Jordan, and the road up through the Judean hills - west of the Jordan. Isaiah saw the situation and warned Judah not to sign with Egypt. It's called astute assessment of the situation. 'Prophecy' is only for the current time. If someone told you the world would end in 2823 what effect would it have on you. In the 1930's in my country, UK, Churchill saw and recognised the danger Hitler posed and warned us. We didn't listen and you know what happened. Isaiah 53 has nothing to do with Jesus. The whole of Isaiah is about Israel. Throughout the book and the OT, Israel is referred to as Gods people/nation and his servant. We really don't know what Jesus said. 4 Gospels written decades after the Jewish preachers death by unknown writers whose books have names attributed to them - as with many of the Bible books. To understand the OT you need to understand the backgound, culture and history of the time.
     
  4. Pro_Line_FL

    Pro_Line_FL Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Jeremiah was talking about the immediate danger facing Israel, while Daniel and other authors were talking about events yet to come.
     
  5. trevorw2539

    trevorw2539 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Jeremiah was simply stating what he saw, I agree. It wasn't prophesy. Most of the other authors wrote at the time. Daniel wasn't a prophet. They Jews call him an interpreter of dreams. In fact the stories are simply that - stories. There are many errors regarding kings, religion etc show that. There was a man named Daniel in the Bible but these stories are not about him. The second part of Daniel isn't prophecy. It is a record, written at the time, of the Maccabean kingdom in the 2nd century BCE and written partly in Aramaic whereas the first part of Daniel is in Hebrew of the 6th century BCE
     
  6. Pro_Line_FL

    Pro_Line_FL Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Whether or not he was considered "a prophet" is irrelevant. The book of Daniel contains many prophecies which came to be (like the rise of empires, which had not yet risen at the time), and some prophecies which have not yet come to be.
     
  7. trevorw2539

    trevorw2539 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It was written at the time. The Book of Daniel was written during the persecutions of Israel by the Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes. This assertion is supported by the following data: The kingdom which is symbolized by the he goat (viii. 5 et seq.) is expressly named as the "kingdom of Yawan"—that is, the Grecian kingdom (viii. 21) the great horn being its first king, Alexander the Great (definitely stated in Seder "Olam R. xxx.), and the little horn Antiochus Epiphanes (175-164). This kingdom was to persecute the host of the saints "unto two thousand and three hundred evenings and mornings" (viii. 14, R. V.); that is, "half-days," or 1,150 days; and Epiphanes did, in fact, profane the sanctuary in Jerusalem for about that length of time, from Kislew 15, 168, to Kislew 25,165 (I Macc. i. 57, iv. 52). The little horn described in Dan. viii. 9-12, 23-25 has the same general characteristics as the little horn in vii. 8, 20; hence the same ruler is designated in both passages. Jewish Encyclopaedia.
    If you also study the history of the time and the relevant kings/kingdoms and even religious thought, they do not agree with the story in Daniel. It's complicated but well worth studying. There may well have been a man named Daniel who was used in making this story. It's not unusual.
    Gilgamesh was a King in the Sumerian King list, but the stories associated with him were written at different times in the future.
     
  8. Farnsworth

    Farnsworth Well-Known Member

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    I already answered that; your mods deleted it due to one of their pets sniveling about the facts pointed out. Ask them what it said.
     
    Last edited: Jan 19, 2023
  9. Farnsworth

    Farnsworth Well-Known Member

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    Fake news. The Gospels were well known and understood before they were written down, and it is also clear they were written down at least by 68 A.D. People who keep claiming they were faked are merely ignorant and trying to grant themselves some sort of moral authority to rewrite them to suit themselves. There are also bibles with the writings in chronological order for those interested in real scholarship as opposed to assorted nonsense for those in the Peanut Gallery with a genuine scholarly interest.

    Not being a doper /drunk I didn't realize that a study that had 'blue laws' in it would generate the usual hysterical idiocy among the assorted Jesus haters and fetishists that compulsively lurk in religion forums these days. My bad, thinking most might actually read the study.
     
    Last edited: Jan 19, 2023
  10. sdelsolray

    sdelsolray Well-Known Member

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    Ah yes, a tough guy. You aren't worth any more time.
     
  11. Swensson

    Swensson Devil's advocate

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    Then try posting it again without breaking any of the terms of the forum. Writing a response that gets removed is no different to a post that never gets posted at all, it does not count as a response.
     
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  12. trevorw2539

    trevorw2539 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Well most Bible Students would disagree with you. But that is your opinion.
    As to writings in Chronological order. Most of the early part of the Bible is a mythical story written in the middle of the 1st millenia while the Jews were in Babylon to give the jews an origin. Their known origin only went back to a tribal leader named David who they made a hero with a mixed story line. They gave themselves one back as far as the character Abraham and ran the story through to the supposed invasion of 'the promised land'. If you know the ancient world the story is full of errors. It simply uses facts/places known at the time to insert their characters and weave a story round known events/places.
    They got their 'facts' wrong in many cases.
    Abraham is placed at 2100/2000 BCE by most scholars using the genealogy of Matthew and adding the 400+ years in Egypt missed by Matthew. Centuries too early to have bought land from the Hittites who do not enter the area for another 400 years and the about 200 years for their expansion. And they never conquered the area which contained Machpelah. There are other faults regarding Abraham 'life'.
    The Bible claims that, at the Exodus, 600000 armed Hebrews between the age of 20-50 left Egypt (giving a total population of hebrews around 2.5 -3.5 million (again agreed by scholars. There was no army in the ancient world that came anywhere near that total. The Egyptian army was around 20,000 men - number who fought the Hittites in 1274BCE. They didn't have reserves. If they had they would have used them against a greater number of Hittites who were trying to take over Palestine. The battle ended in stalemate and a peace treaty was agreed. Add the early Egyptian army to the Assyrian army and the Babylonian army and you would have a fraction of 600,000. The Hebrews could have taken over Egypt without trouble. And God told Moses that his people were a small nation among the larger nations. In fact 3million would have made them among the largest. And if a Joshua had reached Palestine he would have been faced with Egyptian rulers as Palestine had been ruled by Egypt for centuries. There are other errors that could only have been written by Hebrews who had no experience of desert travel. Look at the water supply 'from a rock struck by Moses' and compare that to a city's need and supply of water.
    Realism?
     
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  13. Pro_Line_FL

    Pro_Line_FL Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    That should not be taken as a rejection of non-Jews, because right after He said that He healed a non-Jewish person, and later Paul was tasked specifically to preach to the gentiles.
     
  14. Pro_Line_FL

    Pro_Line_FL Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It was written before the rise and fall of Greek or Roman empires and other things which it talks about and actually came to pass.

    Talking about the book of Daniel, an ancient version of it was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and when it was compared to the modern versions, the message was practically identical. Contrary to the claims that the Bible message has been changed by centuries of copying is bunk, - the message has been preserved.
     
  15. edna kawabata

    edna kawabata Well-Known Member

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    By the dismissive condescension, name calling, anger, bigotry, I doubt a reasoned argument would have any effect (outside of hostile) on this person.
     
  16. trevorw2539

    trevorw2539 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I'm not sure what the Dead Sea Scrolls has to do with it. Alexander the Great was in the 4th century BCE. The Dead Sea Scrolls were written from the 3rd - 1st century BCE. Around the same time as the book of Daniel. They were found at Qumran close to where the Jewish sect of Essenes had there community. They were probably used as their scriptures copied from JEWISH SCROLLS. I'm assuming you know Jewish History and Jewish scriptures better than the Jews.
    Regarding the message of the Bible. The Jewish understanding of the OT comes from their knowledge of what it really says. The OT was written specifically for the Jews and THEIR understanding. It was written on a background which is completely different to today, with religious beliefs different from today, with minds completely different to ours today. To understand it you need to put yourself back over 2000 years. When the Hebrews wrote the OT they wrote straight books without chapters and verses, and indeed, without written vowels. Certain words were only understood by the context of the whole sentence, and that could be ambiguous. To correct this the Masorettes (1st part of the 1st millenia CE) added vowels as they thought correct, but with annotations of other possible interpretations. It wasn't until the 13th century CE that a Catholic actually divided the Bible into chapters and verses. Of course he divided it according to his own thinking - which happened to be Christian. In doing so he caused problems between the Church and the Jews of the time. So much so that the leading Jew removed Isaiah 53 from the Jewish daily readings as the church claimed it referred to Jesus. The Churches interpretation of the OT comes from Christian teaching in the Early Church. The words of the OT may be the same, but the interpretation isn't. I suggest that the Jews know their own Scriptures better than the later Christian Church.
     
  17. trevorw2539

    trevorw2539 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I certainly don't hate Jesus. I admire him for what he was. A Jewish preacher who preached Judaism, who fell foul of the Jewish by exposing their hypocrisy and died for it. There's evidence for the existence of this man but no evidence to show he was divine.
     
  18. JET3534

    JET3534 Well-Known Member

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    Well my bias which you call "crap" is understanding that correlation does not imply causation.

    Educational reading.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation
     
  19. Dirty Rotten Imbecile

    Dirty Rotten Imbecile Well-Known Member

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    What makes you think “it is also clear they [the Gospels] were written down at least by 68 A.D”. What source do you have for that?
     
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  20. trevorw2539

    trevorw2539 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I believe they were written much later than 68.
    I quote
    there are places in the New Testament that imply the books were written long after the purported events, such as when the text reads, “In the days of John the Baptist,” which indicates that the writer is set far ahead in time and is looking back. As another example, regarding Jesus’s body being stolen, Matthew’s gospel claims that “this story has been spread among the Jews to this day.” The phrase “to this day” indicates that the writer is talking about a significant length of time, not shortly after the resurrection as some have attempted to place the composition and emergence of this gospel. In fact, we do not have any mention in the historical record of the story of Christ’s body being stolen having been spread among the Jews until the second century. It is possible that this particular verse was not added until that time, which means that it is not original to the gospel and that Matthew certainly is not its author. Also, Luke’s gospel discusses an apparent myriad of preceding gospels written “by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses…” The phrase “from the beginning” likewise implies a passage of time, as does the fact that there were “many” who preceded Luke in writing gospels.
    Stellarhouse Publishing Company
     

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