I trust science, not religion...
Humanity has been plagued by infectious disease for thousands of years - diseases that perpetrate horrible suffering and ugly, protracted deaths on the righteous and the wicked alike. For centuries people did not understand how or why this happened, and prayers didn't stop it. Since the 1950s many of the worst of those have been eradicated or effectively eliminated from human populations. This was accomplished by medical science. I.e.: Thinking, motivated humans, working hard in organized groups like the CDC, WHO, UNICEF, and The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to understand how pathogens and disease vectors work and finding solutions - and taking real action - to make actual change that saves lives and improves quality of life for 100's of millions of people. Our lives, our grandparents' lives and our children's lives have all dramatically benefited in very real and measurable ways. There is no mistake about that. Small pox, polio, malaria - and a whole variety of illnesses caused by contaminated drinking water - are just a couple examples.
Intercessory prayer can take credit for exactly zero incidents of this. Prayer may make the praying person feel better in cases where they are otherwise helpless to effect real change, but it does not cure disease or change the immutable laws of the universe. Reality check: (and I hate to disappoint the Harry Potter fans of the world, but...) witchcraft, superstition and magic are not real. The scientific method produces actual knowledge from which real solutions are derived. There is no other way forward. And, frankly, humanity has known this for some considerable time now. Its disturbing that a large chunk of modern western society seems to have forgotten this. I trust science not religion - because we know it works.
It all starts with human beings
To increase production food and etc they use chemicals, this chemical are produced by the humans who are controlling this big pharm which leads and control the controlled human to eat the products which has chemicals, in time this build up of toxic in the body leads to disease illness which then we buy medicine from this big pharm pumping in more chemicals creating more illness requiring more high dosage of higher priced medicine the circle keeps going round and round- so yeah science is right to an extent who controls science
More than half of our tax dollars goes into WMD and the Military. All the Federal Government Officials and State Municipalities have Health Insurance which we pay for and most are derived of. Rings of Socialism that the Politicians rant about as an excuse to deny what every other civilized nation in the World holds as a most prominent part of any form of Government. Now at the expense of Mankind is the need to test out the performance of these wonderful WMD's which has been Viet Nam, Iraq, and now Syria. Religion brought you the Crusades, the Inquisition and the Holocaust of the American Indians whom were placed on Reservations to fade away. Prayers and Thoughts from the NRA and their Political Benefactors. The Opiods fatalities are another.
Lots more to relate too but I wanted to supplement your post.
Nicely put... i remember writing something similar to this last Year. I remember reading something similar to this a bunch of times from our members. You should if been here in August of last year. Thats pretty much all we talked about. Who knows what and the facts to why the bible is bullshit.
There are still hunger gatherer communities in the world as well as various subsistence farming communities and fundamentalist religious groups.
Do we drag them all kicking and screaming into the 21st century and risk doing the same harm the missionaries of old did to many indigenous peoples or allow each group to evolve in their own time? I guess we need to apply some science to examine that question...
Unfortunately the huge black fly in the ointment now is capitalism.
The profit motive drives iatrogenisis, which is the third leading cause of death in the US. It also has an impact on other countries too.
Big Pharma charges a fortune for pharmaceuticals - because it can. Subsequently many people go without the medicine they need.
This is proof that our medical system is only interested in making money, not helping people.
I truly wish I were that person. But thank you.
It's not only that we know it works, but that we can prove it works again and again.
Being an atheist and scientific researcher, I have a very strong feelings that without religion our society or world can not exist for a minute. It's not that there is a fight between science and religion. That era is gone! Science has won that race. But that's not all my friend.
It is almost impossible to demand your society to be rational and materialistic. In a bigger picture Life has no meaning. We all try to put some meaning into it in different ways. You convince or fool yourself with those hypothetical meaning. How do you calm down a bigger mass? There is no answer apart from religion even knowing that it is complete bullshit
Up until the materialistic part you had it down. Agnostics would not,as far as I know, demand a society be materialistic... Try Humanistic that's more accurate...
George Carlin: So I've been praying to Joe for about a year now. And I noticed something. I noticed that all the prayers I used to offer to God, and all the prayers I now offer to Joe Pesci, are being answered at about the same 50% rate. Half the time I get what I want, half the time I don't. Same as God, 50-50. Same as the four-leaf clover and the horseshoe, the wishing well and the rabbit's foot, same as the Mojo Man, same as the Voodoo Lady who tells you your fortune by squeezing the goat's testicles, it's all the same: 50-50. So just pick your superstition, sit back, make a wish, and enjoy yourself.
D'you honestly think Harry Potter fans think magic is real? O.o
Well, I know that evangelical Christians do. And they do so without even realizing that they are doing it. I know its not fair to pick on the fans of the fantasy genre, but I grow increasingly concerned that too many people think it is just that easy - that supernatural forces can just be summoned to solve it all. So, I think Americans could probably benefit from a bit more non-fiction in their diet - just sprinkled in between some. If for no other reason than just to remind us what incredible things we have accomplished by just working with the simple laws of actual physics and our own 3 dimensional plane of existence.