What is it with the Telegraph and atheist-bashers?

Oh no. See here.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/seanthomas/100231060/are-atheists-mentally-ill/


Sean Thomas' protestations are as tedious, fallacious and condescending as they are familiar, predictable and pathetic.

I could go on all day about how wrong this is.

Instead, think about this. Long have we know that the believer is happier than the skeptic. George Bernard Shaw said as much, many moons ago. People don't become atheists for their personal happiness. This is not news.

And how many of these seemingly random factoids does he pull out, with dubious causation/correlation relationships? Quite a few, I think. For example, "the more often you go to Church, the longer you live". Wow, that looks like a weak piece of logic. There are many other factors that could influence churchgoing habits, and also be correlated with health, wellbeing or longevity, such as close family ties or societal support for those who are part of the God-club, in many countries where atheists are shunned and struggle to come forward with health complaints.

The biggest classic here for me, is where he says:

"Meanwhile in 2009 a team of Harvard psychologists discovered that believers who checked into hospital with broken hips reported less depression, had shorter hospital stays, and could hobble further when they left hospital – as compared to their similarly crippled but heathen fellow-sufferers."


Well blow me. Broken hips, you say?

Only, you forgot to mention every other possible hospital-worthy ailment, (of which there must be hundreds!) which presumably did not show any such correlation or I'm sure you'd have mentioned that as well seeing as you are probably CHERRY PICKING!

Seriously though, we can't exactly be sure of the data from which Thomas draws here because he doesn't quote his sources. This can be a bit of a red flag.

Isn't it funny how the atheists-IQ meta-study which Thomas was referring to is "a crude metric of IQ" whilst his un-referenced data is suddenly "a vast body of research amassed over recent decades". Some of which comes from the Templeton Foundation, I might add. In fact, a meta-study is an overview of a vast body of research.

Can some of Sean Thomas' points be mechanistically plausible please? How would being a believer heal you faster anyhow? The power of positive thought? Unless you claim to have irrefutable evidence for God. Good luck with the Nobel Prize, dude.

Nope. Really, shoot a buckshot-loaded shotgun at a barn door and you're bound to find a few embedded pellets, no matter your marksmanship.

Sean Thomas, you are dismissed.

NEXT!

Oh yeah, Brendan O'Neill, atheist overlord that he is, has seen fit to publish another inane piece, which was dealt with well by the Scathing Atheist (Noah Lugeons, ha!) in his recent podcast which I will link to here. His telling commentary is bang on I think.

Here's O'Neill's piece.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/brendanoneill2/100230985/how-atheists-became-the-most-colossally-smug-and-annoying-people-on-the-planet/



For the refutation, see Episode 27 - Partial Transcript (23 Aug 2013) - The Diatribe - or listen to the episode from the site. Even better, subscribe on Stitcher or iTunes, 'cause it's a great show!

http://scathingatheist.com/



Bye-bye Brendan.

By the way, the Daily Telegraph is a really crappy paper, isn't it? If they ever decide to stop bashing atheists, I'll be sure to let you know.