The Mental Harm Done By Religion

note: While I don't agree with the conclusions about this video about religion causing literal (physical) damage to the brain, I think the point is well taken about conditioning people not to think or to question deeply held beliefs. It seems to me this sort of indoctrination will inevitably limit critical thinking skills and the potential of many believers to investigate all ideas with an open mind. This can certainly cause stress and emotional harm later in life when confronted with facts that don't match up with their religious beliefs.

Study linked in original video regarding brain atrophy and religon:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=religious-experiences-shrink...
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0017006

Reuploaded from WakeupfromReligion. http://www.youtube.com/user/WakeupfromReligion

Category:

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[JohnSmith88823]

As an atheist myself, this video is, in many ways, ironic, in that the video creator himself references a study which is not authoritative nor published in any accredited scientific journal. Well done sir, you've managed to defame atheists even more and have in my opinion, epitomized naivety, prejudice, and irrationality to the greatest extent possible.

[bdwilson1000]

@JohnSmith88823

Thanks for the criticism. I agree that I should not have posted the study uncritically. It's results are not definitive. I uploaded the vid is because the point about conditioning people to not question their beliefs seemed very accurate to me. Many denominations of Christianity teach people that to doubt is a tremendous threat to their eternal well-being, and I see this as a form of mental abuse, even if it doesn't cause literal (physical) brain damage.

[revron77]

@savcmsiscool Old testimate..... please do use something up to date. Its like using a paper on how disease randomly generates from air..... you don't consider it if its from the 15th century.

[savcmsiscool]

@revron77 It's also the "God" that created the Holy Wars.

[futureorreligion]

@phenomenon91

But in reality those religious nuts also are against contraception and proper sex education, thus end up reproducing much more.

[LastNineBreaker]

@JohnSmith88823 On the other hand, just because actual evidence is not published does not mean the evidence in question is any less true. Just saying.

[revron77]

@777kcm

So much hate in fact that the troubles in northern ireland ended due to a mans belief that god wanted the bloodshed to stop..

Just because something is not within your group, does not make it all bad. If you consider it to be. You are more likely the one to relay on prejudice.