Topic: Health and Religion - page 74. (Read 211012 times)

A London Jewish school has been failed three times by government inspectors because it fell short of requirements set out in the Equalities Act to teach LGBT principles in general and homosexuality/gender reassignment issues in particular.

The Vizhnitz girls’ school in north London caters to 212 students and has been visited by the UK’s Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted) to determine if it taught LGBT issues such as “sexual orientation. ” Because it had not, it was gauged to have declined giving its pupils who are aged up to eight years old, a “full understanding of fundamental British values” and therefore the school is in breach of equality laws, according to the Daily Telegraph.

“This restricts pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and does not promote equality of opportunity in ways that take account of differing lifestyles,” the Ofsted inspectors reported, pointing out that the students are being “shielded from learning about certain differences between people, such as sexual orientation.” As a result, “pupils have a limited understanding of the different lifestyles and partnerships that individuals may choose in present-day society.”

At the same time, the inspectors also noted that “the school’s culture is, however, clearly focused on teaching pupils to respect everybody, regardless of beliefs and lifestyle.”

Schools that do not come up to Ofsted’s requirements must improve or face closure.

David Kurten AM, the UKIP Education spokesman, said  the state should not be forcing its own ideology on children at the very youngest ages.

“Primary school children are far too young to be exposed to ideas such as the details of non-reproductive sexual acts and gender fluidity. Children deserve a childhood and the guise of ‘inclusion’ and ‘anti-bullying’ is being used to expose them to damaging ideas far too early, and to undermine and close down faith schools in favour of secularism.

“Yet secularism is not a neutral blank canvas of a worldview. Humanist and secularist groups have actively campaigned against faith schools for over a century. 99% of faith schools are Christian schools, and have done an excellent job of education children and young people in the UK since Augustine’s time in the 6th Century.

“Ofsted is now part of the red blob which is pushing cultural Marxism.”

Six other religious schools in the UK have also failed the same inspections in recent weeks.

Abstract

This study examines the role of religious coping in couples’ diabetes management processes. Eighty-seven couples where one spouse had type 2 diabetes were surveyed. The relationships between religious coping (positive and negative), shared glycemic control activities (e.g., planning a healthy diet), and glycemic control were examined using repeated measures ANOVA and SEM. Findings show spousal engagement in shared activities is significantly associated with glycemic control. Furthermore, the use of negative religious coping by the diabetic spouse, and positive religious coping by the nondiabetic spouse, related to lower levels and higher levels of shared glycemic control activities, respectively. Religious coping and shared glycemic control activities appear integral to couples managing type 2 diabetes and, may serve as useful points of intervention.

It is always good to be skeptical and look at presented data for flaws and biases. I drew the tables in the opening post from three sources. These were:
1) Gallup.com
2) Pewresearch.org
3) Jewishpolicycenter.org

Here are links to articles that discuss each table in depth.

In U.S., Very Religious Have Higher Wellbeing Across All Faiths
http://www.gallup.com/poll/152732/religious-higher-wellbeing-across-faiths.aspx

Mormons more likely to marry, have more children than other U.S. religious groups
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/22/mormons-more-likely-to-marry-have-more-children-than-other-u-s-religious-groups/

Israel’s Demographic Miracle
https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/2013/02/28/israel-demographic-miracle/

Never seen this table before and the relation with religion. It's interesting, but funny at the same time, i don't trust it at all.

Religion and IQ. I see these two are not related to each other. You have a high IQ and you do not need to follow a religion. And religion does not mean IQ is low. It's ridiculous!

I had an IQ of 160 once upon a time. It's probably about 100 less now. I regard the religious as mentally ill. I have zero desire to procreate and think the world's a fuckhole. Hey, I guess you're right.

The Morality Crisis | Dennis Prager and Stefan Molyneux

What happens to morality with a decrease in religiosity and a rise in secularism? Dennis Prager joins Stefan Molyneux to discuss the recent Prager University video "If There Is No God, Murder Isn't Wrong," the moral values communicated through religion, the fall of free will in the face of secular determinism, the difference between charity and the forces retribution of wealth and the future of the western experiment.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uZpjdHTWsfM

These persons who were all finishes whatever degree in college and considered theirselves to be geniouses have always something to say about morality and about religion.  If it feels like it is wrong, due to our free will, then I think it is wrong.  That is the reason why persons have that conciousness a guilt feeling  something we called conscience.

The Morality Crisis | Dennis Prager and Stefan Molyneux

What happens to morality with a decrease in religiosity and a rise in secularism? Dennis Prager joins Stefan Molyneux to discuss the recent Prager University video "If There Is No God, Murder Isn't Wrong," the moral values communicated through religion, the fall of free will in the face of secular determinism, the difference between charity and the forces retribution of wealth and the future of the western experiment.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uZpjdHTWsfM

According to the dictionary, religion is, among other things, "... something one believes in and follows devotedly; a point or matter of ethics or conscience."

If you want to change the meaning of religion, go ahead. But if you want to be honest about it, explain your definition.

If you are talking about the religions that are organized as religions, say it. Others will want to use the dictionary definition, since the dictionary definition is generally what is accepted without special meanings being given.

Since nothing is random or uncaused, and God is our loving Father; and since this modern world is a spiritual desert - then why are we here-and-now?

Why were we placed here, why - perhaps - did we choose to be placed here and at this most unspiritual and antireligious of times?

What possible spiritual benefit can a modern life bring us?

The answer, in a nutshell is: Living here and now compels us to reach inward to our true, divine self; because other (past) sources of Christian guidance are (for nearly all of the people in the world) either absent or corrupted.

We must become active agents, we must become spiritually - Christianly - autonomous to a degree not seen before.

*

Our faith tells us that God would not allow any of his beloved children to be placed in this era and situation unless there was a very good reason: something of which we, personally, have great need.

Yet this situation is one in which the Christian religion is absent (from many parts of the world), or essentially abandoned and corrupted (in the developed nations). All the usual sources of guidance are tainted - tradition, scripture, hierarchical authority, philosophy... all are much more likely to do us harm than good if we go to what is most available and accept it uncritically.

We can get nowhere without discernment. 

Therefore spiritual passivity is - for us, here and now - ruled-out.

When the human aspects are all tainted or unobvious, then a policy of subordination and obedience are much more likely to do us harm than good; because we would probably be serving the Enemy rather than God.

*

In modernity we are brought to a state of utter isolation of our selves, and a loss of confidence in the reality of the world and of that self which is all we can experience. And our self and the world is dead, inert, passive and perceived as unliving - an accident, merely an illusion or delusion of our own limitations. We cannot perceive God, Jesus, angels; and even other people are merely shadowy entities justified only be the comfort or pleasures they provide.

We have so decisively lost the ability to know the external environment, that we regard it as a product of our minds; yet our minds are (in mainstream understanding) merely temporary, contingent, arbitrary collections of brain circuits - unreliable, prone to malfunction and doomed to extinction.

This is the state of nihilism when nothing is really-real and despair is inevitable and ineradicable.

*

So why are we here and now?

When there is no reliable external guidance, we must look within: and must means must, because there is no alternative.

Our Loving Father, the Creator would not have placed us here unless we had the resources to attain salvation and to make steps towards theosis (becoming more divine).

Since these resources are not to be found outside us, then everything we need must be found within -  and by invisible, spiritual means of communication.

Specificially, what we need to begin is found within, and everything else follows as consequnces.

*

We must look within to find and feel our internal spiritual compass - that which is divine and eternal within each of us; that in us which is a child of God (still merely a child, but certainly that!).

Once we have located that inner reality; then - and only then - we can look outside; look (that is) not by our senses but directly to the world of spirit: open our real selves to to direct knowing and personal revelation from God, and the personal friendship of Jesus Christ.

*

That is why you and I are here and now; because what we personally most need, is to learn to find God within us.

Modernity is, indeed, a harsh spiritual lesson - but presumably that was the only kind of lesson that you and I were capable of learning.

(Earlier people in earlier generations, or people in different parts of the world, have other things that they need to learn . I am here talking about a reason why living in The West, the developed nations - is the best realistically-possible thing for some people; people such as you and me.) 

And of course this is a lesson each and every one of us absolutely needs to learn if we are ever to develop from the passive state of being immature, externally-driven, dependent-children of God into what he hope for us to become: active, agent, autonomous grown-up 'friends' of God (and ultimately perhaps spiritual parents in our own right); at a level where we can fully participate - Son or Daughter of God - in the great and endless divine work of love and creation.

True religion cannot be. Any religion based on lies. How a lie can promote good? A lie is always aimed at achieving the goal. Many religious leaders have a good education and may not be aware of the fact that there is no God. They do, however, cheating people of their profession. Religion is a poison.

The literal insanity of mainstream public discourse, and the lack of insight of this fact, suggests that Man without religion is non-viable.

To put matters another way - religion is the most important thing in the human world.  

Of course, a few individuals, in the short term, can survive atheism mentally intact; but there is no evidence at all that this is a possibility for human societies over more than a few decades - then the signs of insanity (incoherence, exitinction) become more-and-more obvious... or they would do so if loss of insight was not itself a prime sign of insanity.

So insanity shields us from knowledge of our own insanity, because insanity destroys insight as much as it destroys judgement - it affects the whole mode of thinking.

How, then, do we know we, as a society, are insane?

1. By applying older judgements, from the time before Men became insane - reading old books, talking to non-modern people...

2. By looking at the basic biological viability of atheist societies in terms of reproduction, demographics, response to direct and immediate threats, scale of priorities ... Compare societies and groups that are biologically viable, with the modern atheist societies that are not...

3. By reflecting on how we feel about Life. Insane people are almost always miserable - dysphoric, despairing, desperate... almost all of the time. Even the euphoric frenzy of mania is brittle, and crashes into suicidal self-destruction with a high frequency. Is there hope?

In conclusion - religion is the most important thing.

Religion is necessary for long term motivation, for social coherence, for purpose, and to enable the individual to be a part of the whole.

Since religion is necessary, if or when humans either dispense with religion or else place it anything lower than first in priority; then they as individuals and their societies will begin to fall apart and spiral towards alienation, purposelessness, inability to perceive or reason what is important, cowardice (i.e. short-term selfishness), desperation and all the rest of it.

Modernity is the experiment of Man living without Religion. The experiment has been running for several generations.

But the experiment of modernity has deprived modern people of the motivation, honesty and ability to evaluate the results of the experiment - by the always changing criteria of modernity, modernity sees no alternative to itself...

Conclusion: Religion is objectively necessary; and, by one kind of reasoning, therefore true. If you are not religious you are living in error. If you are not religious then you need to become religious. The question you must settle is not whether you should be religious, but which religion you will adopt.

"Everything happens for a reason"; what reason is given by the atheist for "everything"?

Even if you apply this colloquial use of the word, it will still not work with Atheism.  Atheists do not do anything 'religiously'.

If you want to use word religion to mean any activity that is performed repeatedly with dedication, sure, even us posting on this forum can be called 'bitcontalk' religion.

Heck, bitcoin hobby can be called religion as well.

If you ask anyone on the street what is religion, most people would say it is believing in God/supernatural.

You religiotards have your own dictionary.com to redefine everything.  How sad?

Try this

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/religion

Why you need to resort to the double talk?  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion

FYI,

"Religion is any cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, world views, texts, sanctified places, ethics, or organizations, that relate humanity to the supernatural or transcendental."