Quote Originally Posted by denuseri View Post
[B][COLOR="pink"]Being spiritual may be no different in medical terms than one's sexual prefrerence is my point.
Perhaps that's true, though the evidence for either of these statements is far from conclusive. A lot of study must still be done before we can accept those hypotheses as proven.

But even if it were true, what does it mean? It's still not evidence for gods or other supernatural beings, any more than it's evidence for Santa Clause or unicorns. If it's true must we now release all those currently housed in asylums who believe they are Jesus Christ, or who believe they are angels? Does it mean that people who kill others because "God told me to" should be considered innocent of their crimes? No, it only means that there was some kind of evolutionary advantage to believing in invisible beings of immense power. It doesn't mean that such belief is endowed upon us by those beings.
As for your apparently biological compulsion to continuous attack, smear, and use sophistry when addressing people of religious faith I can only say that I am sorry you feel the need to belittle others in such fashion and scincerely hope and pray that one day you come to respect the belief systems of others as you would wish for them to respect your own.
I'm afraid I don't agree with your assessment of my actions, unless you think that NOT believing in your particular gods constitutes an attack. I do, and will continue to, attack religious organizations, which I feel are generally perversions of faith rather than caretakers of it. Personally, I have no quarrel with those who profess a faith, as long as they don't claim it to be the one TRUE faith.

I have pointed out a corolation between the level of social wellfare and the level of of reported religious adherence being the primary cuasitive effect involved in the relationship between church and state and I have provided further support for this contention found by medical reaserchers and other scientiests conserning the physical structures in the brain that directly corolate to religious orinetated adherences expounding upon how intellegent people of learning can and do still follow their beliefs in said manner.
Correlation does not mean causation. The USA, for example, has one of the highest rates of religious adherence in the world, yet one of the lowest levels of social welfare. And even a cursory look at the politics of this country will show that the religious right are the ones fighting hardest against any social welfare. The Catholic Church (which I use as an example because it is the one I am most familiar with) is directly responsible for the deaths of thousands, if not millions, of AIDS victims because of its proscription of the use of condoms, not to mention its outright lies regarding their effectiveness. Many religious organizations are misogynistic in nature, assigning a lower status to women simply because of their sex. And what of those religious organizations, and people, who advocate against the rights of homosexuals? Those same homosexuals whom you are willing to admit might be genetically predisposed to be what they are. How are any of these things consistent with social welfare?

In fact...some of the worlds smartest people...leading scientists in every field of study...are religious and some contend that they have no logical reason to be otherwise.
Rather say that some of the world's smartest people still have faith. Few are actually religious, as in following a specific religious organization. But even granting your comments: so what? At one point the smartest people in the world believed the Earth was flat, and held up on the backs of turtles. Does that make it so?

The fact that the more advanced a countries level of science is, and its level of prosperity in general apparently plays little in how many people are reported to follow a religion or claim to be spiritual only gives further evidence to my argument as to the real cuases.
Sorry, I don't see how that has any bearing on it. People are generally raised from birth in a specific religion. Breaking away from it is very hard, especially when it could result in alienation from a community or even a family. I would say, rather, that some people retain their religions against all evidence, despite the higher level of science or their level of prosperity. Whether or not they actually retain their faith, though, is a different story. I wonder how many of the people who attend services every week are really true believers, and how many are just going through the motions because it's something they've always done? I think the number of the latter would surprise a lot of people. But how do you get people to admit that?

Perhaps instead of putting down all people of faith we could discuss the topic for a change?
I thought I was! But all right, let's try this:
How much money did American churches spend to try to keep homosexuals from having equal rights, illegally involving them in politics? Don't you think that money could have better been spent to help homeless people? Where is the social welfare?
How many different religious institutions actively fought against the idea of women's rights? How many still keep women in virtual slavery? Where is the social justice?
Throughout history you can find religious organizations not at the forefront of advancement, but fighting savagely against any advancement. Europe's feudal system could not have been maintained were it not for the Catholic Church bolstering the nobility. Any study will show that billions of people throughout history and around the world suffered far more due to the teachings of religious organizations than were helped by those teachings. Religion has been proven to be the most effective means for controlling a population, capitalizing on that genetic predisposition to believe in things which are not there. So show me how that is a benefit to people.

And I still have no idea what you, or anyone, means by 'spirituality'. What is a spiritual experience? How does it differ from a physical experience? And, most importantly to me, how do you know it really happened?