I live in what at least used to be the most Baptist county in America per capita. We have a few "space churches" so big you can see them from orbit (so to speak). But most people are like my dad. There's a Bible in their house somewhere, but they don't read it. There's a church down the road in any direction, but they've never been inside. They're generally down-home moral people, good neighbors, hard working, with a good sense of right and wrong. But yeah, they live in a grey area where they shrug off morality because of course it comes from a religion they don't practice.
I'd say get your ass in church and read your own book. After all, taking it seriously is what made me an atheist.
I will admit, I am part of the "science fan base". I enjoy electricity, food, medicine, and if I fly, I'll make it there almost all of the time even if it's on a Boeing. Meanwhile, the Pope is in a wheelchair. So God kindof needs to step up his public relations game.
Ah yes. Truly authentic, industrialized myopathy. The intellectual equivalent of painting six-pack abs on your belly because you love the look, but don't believe in going to the gym. Well, you are truly priveledged to live in a world where other people actually are fans of science, and use it to make a bunch of cool shit that enhances your quality of life every day.
At least have the courage of your convictions and next time you're in a car accident, don't pull out your phone. That runs on electrons ripped from their atoms using magnets, and beams invisible light into literal space. Way too much science. Don't go to the hospital, because that's chock full of science. Gross. Just sit in your car and pray. Alternatively, be honest that either 1) you're a hypocrite, or 2) you maybe don't actually understand what science is.
> Ah yes. Truly authentic, industrialized myopathy. The intellectual equivalent of painting six-pack abs on your belly because you love the look, but don't believe in going to the gym. Well, you are truly priveledged to live in a world where other people actually are fans of science, and use it to make a bunch of cool shit that enhances your quality of life every day.
It never fails to impress me how science fans consider this sort of rhetoric to be an acceptable level of quality thinking.
News flash: science *contributed* to those things, but it was not the only input. The ego of the ideology is one of my main problems, the utter incapability at ontology and causality (and other things) is another.
> At least have the courage of your convictions and next time you're in a car accident, don't pull out your phone.
Please explicitly state what my convictions are. I ask this as a test to see if you are hallucinating "reality", *scientific thinker*. (I dare you to challenge me on this, and I will throw scientific studies at you.)
> That runs on electrons ripped from their atoms using magnets, and beams invisible light into literal space. Way too much science.
What do you mean by this? Please be explicit, do not hold back.
> Don't go to the hospital, because that's chock full of science. Gross. Just sit in your car and pray.
And what is the reasoning behind this, Perfectly Rational Human who Totally Understands What is Going On Here?
> Alternatively, be honest that either 1) you're a hypocrite
I would enjoy to hear any case you could make for me being a hypocrite - do not hold back on your harshness!
> 2) you maybe don't actually understand what science is.
Here we have a very interesting ontological problem....tell us: are you making an assertion that you DO understand what "science" "is"?
You remind me of something I heard a while ago, and have been coming back to: the purpose of sacrifice. Historically, religions have always involved some cost, some expensive proof of faith. And that binds the group members together. I'm not certain why; it seems like a sunk-cost fallacy or "misery loves company" to me. But then, I walked away from the (largely cultural) Christianity I grew up in, in part because I saw no benefit to the costs it incurred. Which was blasphemy to the True Believers I left behind.
Maybe that's why modern culture war seems so shallow; it's full of casuals. People without any real commitment, just joined a side because their friends did or because they like the vibes.
Yuval Noah Harari wrote about that in Homo Deus I believe, it's a quirk of human psychology that sacrifice binds people together like that. People are certainly more risk-averse and less willing to sacrifice than they used to be, which has wider implications.
For a long time, sacrifice was considered natural...which means a lot of it was expected. Once the allure of pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die started fading, people started asking: WHY? Why work 12 hours a day for the boss's benefit? Why spend decades shuttling between the kitchen and bedroom for a man who doesn't respect you? Why throw away your life for a country that considers you disposable heroes? Why take shit from someone just cause they've got the "right" skin color? The old hierarchical view of the world might have worked, but it didn't account for such radical ideas as "everyone deserves rights." And so, a million Atlases shrugged.
I often say that being 'spiritual' not 'religious' is like playing tennis against a backboard. From Neitszche and Durheim to Lewis and Haidt, social scientists and philosophers and theologians alike often pint out that humans have a deep inner drive for the religious. But it can often become perverse and destructive, such as with Nazism or religious fundamentalism. But despite its flaws and failings, as an institution and doctrine constructed by flawed and failing humans, religion is its best light can provide fellowship and community in the face of anomie and loneliness, meaning and purpose in the face of brute materialism and arid atheism, and guide in grappling with the Big Issues the nature of Good and Evil, of inescapable suffering and pain, and of the stark reality of death.
Hokum study, pap article. How do we know these "barely religious" wouldn't be even worse off without such a veil? Was there a randomized study assigning some "nonreligious" people to attend church twice a year & assigning some "barely religious" people to stop going entirely, so we could compare the results?
No? There wasn't? Then this is obvious, obvious, obvious pap, of the stupidest and laziest kind. You are displaying genuine scientific illiteracy in presenting this bunko as actionable fact. I sincerely recommend a basic statistics course.
Why did you write this? Do you want the "fake religious" to stop going to church?
If they feel it helps them, why do you care? Are they crowding you out of the pews?
They're clinging on to a shred of meaning, at least, & it's quite odd of you to say, as you seem to do, that they should let go. What would you have them do instead? "Rationally" go to therapy twice a week? "Rationally" take pills for existential malaise?
The problem with you, and a heck of a lot of other people, is that you're not actually, truly scientific, just "culturally scientific." You're happy to quote numbers and passages to serve a present purpose, but you don't make any real habit of adherence to its laws or basic tenets, and you're shallow at best on its fundamental system. Unlike those "culturally religious" people, who are soooo annooooying, and who do they think they're fooling, this is an actual problem, because the "culturally scientific" think they get to speak on reality, and on how other people live their lives.
The survey featured in this article is just that: a survey. From this very basic survey of self-reported attitudes -- on that basis already, not reliable for much -- our author is divining causation, implying attitude, and presuming to prescribe behavior.
This is the pattern of the "culturally scientific" - they hesitate to say anything without a few numbers to lean on, but when they get a few numbers in hand that feel right, and that say something they like, they bolt out of the gate without looking any deeper.
You, for example, seem to be having difficulty with the notion of discussion by logic and category, and ask for some numericization. Unlike some, however, I won't spit misbegotten numbers to convince you. Any basic college stats course teaches the notion I'm applying here -- if you really don't get the issue, I strongly recommend you take such a course, for your own self-defense from statistical hucksters.
> The survey featured in this article is just that: a survey.
If you are ascribing the meaning "only" to "just" then you are incorrect.
Consider:
"The survey featured in this article is just that: a survey." (Powerfully persuasive!)
The survey featured in this article is a survey." (Ummmm....ok? So what?)
What meaning do you ascribe to "only" in your statement?
> From this very basic survey of self-reported attitudes -- on that basis already, not reliable for much -- our author is divining causation, implying attitude, and presuming to prescribe behavior.
Ok....even if so, so what?
> This is the pattern of the "culturally scientific" - they hesitate to say anything without a few numbers to lean on, but when they get a few numbers in hand that feel right, and that say something they like, they bolt out of the gate without looking any deeper.
If this is a dig at Scientism (aka: Science), I am 100% with you - is it that?
> You, for example, seem to be having difficulty with the notion of discussion by logic and category, and ask for some numericization.
Replace "numericization" with set theory and you may be less confused.
Regardless, did you take these things into consideration:
> Unlike some, however, I won't spit misbegotten numbers to convince you.
This seems more like *identical to* most/all others. Meme Magic (aka: Rhetoric) is usually the tool of choice for Allists when they encounter a complex argument.
> Any basic college stats course teaches the notion I'm applying here
The notion I'm applying is that I asked you some pointed questions, and you have dodged all of them, and then proceeded to grandstand. Why do you behave this way, Human?
> if you really don't get the issue, I strongly recommend you take such a course, for your own self-defense from statistical hucksters.
And what, relevant to *the actual* point of contention, would I learn from that? Please do not hold back in your answer, I enjoy being wowed by high level, *Purely* Rational intellect.
I'm aware that numbers, inherently, come from nowhere, in the same way that everything else does, in the final analysis. That does not mean that you can pull numbers out of your ass and stand on them, nor does it mean that "numbers" generated by methods with very plain complications, such as this survey, can be leaned on safely. No one inducted themselves from set theory to this survey's conclusions: this sort of "science" rather starts in reverse, by a crude attempt to numericize personality via the erection of arbitrary categories.
If you don't have well-sourced numbers, I am afraid that you will indeed have to express your feelings by rhetoric and argument. You seem to think of these as "tricks." An argument, or discussion, in the world of men of letters, is an attempt to find the truth, by a process of interrogation. If you would really like to go about an assessment of known reality from first principles, we may, although I sincerely suggest you ask any statistics professor about the validity of the assertion "the culturally religious aren't getting much from religion," as here made on the basis of this survey, before we set off on such a circuitous track.
> If you don't have well-sourced numbers, I am afraid that you will indeed have to express your feelings by rhetoric and argument.
Not physically you don't, it is possible to reveal that the matter *is unknown*.
Metaphysically, which is subject to culture, I am not so sure it is possible, here in 2024.
> You seem to think of these as "tricks."
You seem to think of them as not.
> You seem to think of these as "tricks." An argument, or discussion, in the world of men of letters, is an attempt to find the truth, by a process of interrogation.
Zero corruption or incompetence among men of letters, where did you learn this fact?
> If you would really like to go about an assessment of known reality from first principles, we may, although I sincerely suggest you ask any statistics professor about the validity of the assertion "the culturally religious aren't getting much from religion," as here made on the basis of this survey, before we set off on such a circuitous track.
How would a statistician know such a thing? This seems more the realm of psychology/sociology/anthropology to me.
Because the question at hand -- the single question here at hand -- is whether the conclusion can be asserted with statistical validity from the data. Or rather, it would be, if there were even a clear conclusion here, rather than vague derision toward the "culturally religious," and the implication that they are "wasting their time." If I may be so bold as to state that latter element as the author's conclusion from the data -- which I must in order for this article to have had literally any point at all -- then, as I have shown, it is not a logically or statistically sound conclusion. And if that is not his conclusion, then there is not any conclusion, and this article is in fact worse than wrong -- it is pointless conceited babbling.
Asserting things by means of hackneyed statistics and groundless leaps of logic is indeed the realm of psychology/sociology/anthropology -- if you want to stay subsumed in that comfortable universe of fiat, numen, hokum, and say-so, you are welcome to stay so subsumed, but you should expect roasting by people with two brain cells, on the basis of either statistical unsoundness or fundamental logical misgrounding...you'll note I have taken both approaches.
I recommend you take a basic statistics course and do a little more reading in general, at least until you aren't so paralytically afraid of words. What a strange little man!
Benefits, schmenefits. I am not a cultural Jew because I have no faith in the legitimacy of being one.
Some fundamentals of Judaism cannot be disowned without disowning Jewish identity itself. To be a real Jew in North America you actually have to believe in Judaism. Without the Jewish religion and without Israeli citizenship, I am not Jewish.
That's not entirely true. Jewishness is a bit of an outlier when it comes to religions, because it's not just a religion, it's also a distinct genetic ethnic group (excluding converts). Millennia spent as a people apart will do that. I had to be tested at birth for Tay Sachs, a rare genetic disease disproportionately prevalent among Ashkenazi Jews. Despite my atheism, and despite the fact that I do not identify as Jewish in any religious or cultural sense, it is still accurate to describe people like me as Jews, because one cannot convert out of their genetics.
As Alan Dershowitz has described, "I am Jewish only on my parents’ side."
Jamie, you are starting with the conclusion that you are Jewish, and use genetics as your only defense. There are Jewish parents, but no Jewish genes. Jewishness is found nowhere in the body. The Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrahi Jews are distinct ethnic subtypes--all different in physical features and culture. Judaism is their only shared trait. For millennia, migrating Jewish men took wives among non-Jews, while others converted away from Judaism altogether to begin a new ancestry of non-Jews. Go far enough back, and we are all Africans.
Religiosity has never been proven to be the cause of well-being. Confounding factors prevalent in religious people such as marriage, family, community, class, and conscientiousness provide a better explanation for well-being. However, none of these factors are excluded by an atheistic worldview, such as my own.
As in many areas, research on wellbeing and religion tends not to be double-blind placebo-controlled interventions, but rather correlational studies, so yes, not definitive. Lots of confounding factors as well, as you note.
I live in what at least used to be the most Baptist county in America per capita. We have a few "space churches" so big you can see them from orbit (so to speak). But most people are like my dad. There's a Bible in their house somewhere, but they don't read it. There's a church down the road in any direction, but they've never been inside. They're generally down-home moral people, good neighbors, hard working, with a good sense of right and wrong. But yeah, they live in a grey area where they shrug off morality because of course it comes from a religion they don't practice.
I'd say get your ass in church and read your own book. After all, taking it seriously is what made me an atheist.
> I'd say get your ass in church and read your own book.
Interestingly, an extremely similar phenomenon exists within science's fan base....and, most any ideology for that matter now that I think about it!
Hmmmm, I wonder if the problem originates somewhere other than religion if we see artifacts of it everywhere. 🤔
I will admit, I am part of the "science fan base". I enjoy electricity, food, medicine, and if I fly, I'll make it there almost all of the time even if it's on a Boeing. Meanwhile, the Pope is in a wheelchair. So God kindof needs to step up his public relations game.
> I will admit, I am part of the "science fan base". I enjoy electricity, food, medicine, and if I fly, I'll make it there almost all of the time
I too enjoy those things! Yet, I am not a fan of science.
> Meanwhile, the Pope is in a wheelchair.
And, the airspeed velocity of an unladen European swallow is 20.1 miles per hour .
> So God kind of needs to step up his public relations game.
He does, does he? And why is that now?
Ah yes. Truly authentic, industrialized myopathy. The intellectual equivalent of painting six-pack abs on your belly because you love the look, but don't believe in going to the gym. Well, you are truly priveledged to live in a world where other people actually are fans of science, and use it to make a bunch of cool shit that enhances your quality of life every day.
At least have the courage of your convictions and next time you're in a car accident, don't pull out your phone. That runs on electrons ripped from their atoms using magnets, and beams invisible light into literal space. Way too much science. Don't go to the hospital, because that's chock full of science. Gross. Just sit in your car and pray. Alternatively, be honest that either 1) you're a hypocrite, or 2) you maybe don't actually understand what science is.
> Ah yes. Truly authentic, industrialized myopathy. The intellectual equivalent of painting six-pack abs on your belly because you love the look, but don't believe in going to the gym. Well, you are truly priveledged to live in a world where other people actually are fans of science, and use it to make a bunch of cool shit that enhances your quality of life every day.
It never fails to impress me how science fans consider this sort of rhetoric to be an acceptable level of quality thinking.
News flash: science *contributed* to those things, but it was not the only input. The ego of the ideology is one of my main problems, the utter incapability at ontology and causality (and other things) is another.
> At least have the courage of your convictions and next time you're in a car accident, don't pull out your phone.
Please explicitly state what my convictions are. I ask this as a test to see if you are hallucinating "reality", *scientific thinker*. (I dare you to challenge me on this, and I will throw scientific studies at you.)
> That runs on electrons ripped from their atoms using magnets, and beams invisible light into literal space. Way too much science.
What do you mean by this? Please be explicit, do not hold back.
> Don't go to the hospital, because that's chock full of science. Gross. Just sit in your car and pray.
And what is the reasoning behind this, Perfectly Rational Human who Totally Understands What is Going On Here?
> Alternatively, be honest that either 1) you're a hypocrite
I would enjoy to hear any case you could make for me being a hypocrite - do not hold back on your harshness!
> 2) you maybe don't actually understand what science is.
Here we have a very interesting ontological problem....tell us: are you making an assertion that you DO understand what "science" "is"?
I'm not going to respond to 15 different threaded responses in one comment. Brevity is the soul of wit.
Science is not an ontological enterprise. It's an epistemological one. It's not about what exists but what we know and how we come to know it.
You remind me of something I heard a while ago, and have been coming back to: the purpose of sacrifice. Historically, religions have always involved some cost, some expensive proof of faith. And that binds the group members together. I'm not certain why; it seems like a sunk-cost fallacy or "misery loves company" to me. But then, I walked away from the (largely cultural) Christianity I grew up in, in part because I saw no benefit to the costs it incurred. Which was blasphemy to the True Believers I left behind.
Maybe that's why modern culture war seems so shallow; it's full of casuals. People without any real commitment, just joined a side because their friends did or because they like the vibes.
Yuval Noah Harari wrote about that in Homo Deus I believe, it's a quirk of human psychology that sacrifice binds people together like that. People are certainly more risk-averse and less willing to sacrifice than they used to be, which has wider implications.
For a long time, sacrifice was considered natural...which means a lot of it was expected. Once the allure of pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die started fading, people started asking: WHY? Why work 12 hours a day for the boss's benefit? Why spend decades shuttling between the kitchen and bedroom for a man who doesn't respect you? Why throw away your life for a country that considers you disposable heroes? Why take shit from someone just cause they've got the "right" skin color? The old hierarchical view of the world might have worked, but it didn't account for such radical ideas as "everyone deserves rights." And so, a million Atlases shrugged.
I often say that being 'spiritual' not 'religious' is like playing tennis against a backboard. From Neitszche and Durheim to Lewis and Haidt, social scientists and philosophers and theologians alike often pint out that humans have a deep inner drive for the religious. But it can often become perverse and destructive, such as with Nazism or religious fundamentalism. But despite its flaws and failings, as an institution and doctrine constructed by flawed and failing humans, religion is its best light can provide fellowship and community in the face of anomie and loneliness, meaning and purpose in the face of brute materialism and arid atheism, and guide in grappling with the Big Issues the nature of Good and Evil, of inescapable suffering and pain, and of the stark reality of death.
Hokum study, pap article. How do we know these "barely religious" wouldn't be even worse off without such a veil? Was there a randomized study assigning some "nonreligious" people to attend church twice a year & assigning some "barely religious" people to stop going entirely, so we could compare the results?
No? There wasn't? Then this is obvious, obvious, obvious pap, of the stupidest and laziest kind. You are displaying genuine scientific illiteracy in presenting this bunko as actionable fact. I sincerely recommend a basic statistics course.
Why did you write this? Do you want the "fake religious" to stop going to church?
If they feel it helps them, why do you care? Are they crowding you out of the pews?
They're clinging on to a shred of meaning, at least, & it's quite odd of you to say, as you seem to do, that they should let go. What would you have them do instead? "Rationally" go to therapy twice a week? "Rationally" take pills for existential malaise?
The problem with you, and a heck of a lot of other people, is that you're not actually, truly scientific, just "culturally scientific." You're happy to quote numbers and passages to serve a present purpose, but you don't make any real habit of adherence to its laws or basic tenets, and you're shallow at best on its fundamental system. Unlike those "culturally religious" people, who are soooo annooooying, and who do they think they're fooling, this is an actual problem, because the "culturally scientific" think they get to speak on reality, and on how other people live their lives.
> No? There wasn't? Then this is obvious, obvious, obvious pap, of the stupidest and laziest kind.
Is pap a scientific or statistical term?
Is "this is obvious" a reliable form of measurement?
> because the "culturally scientific" think they get to speak on reality, and on how other people live their lives.
Oh, is what you are discussing here today "reality"?
The survey featured in this article is just that: a survey. From this very basic survey of self-reported attitudes -- on that basis already, not reliable for much -- our author is divining causation, implying attitude, and presuming to prescribe behavior.
This is the pattern of the "culturally scientific" - they hesitate to say anything without a few numbers to lean on, but when they get a few numbers in hand that feel right, and that say something they like, they bolt out of the gate without looking any deeper.
You, for example, seem to be having difficulty with the notion of discussion by logic and category, and ask for some numericization. Unlike some, however, I won't spit misbegotten numbers to convince you. Any basic college stats course teaches the notion I'm applying here -- if you really don't get the issue, I strongly recommend you take such a course, for your own self-defense from statistical hucksters.
> The survey featured in this article is just that: a survey.
If you are ascribing the meaning "only" to "just" then you are incorrect.
Consider:
"The survey featured in this article is just that: a survey." (Powerfully persuasive!)
The survey featured in this article is a survey." (Ummmm....ok? So what?)
What meaning do you ascribe to "only" in your statement?
> From this very basic survey of self-reported attitudes -- on that basis already, not reliable for much -- our author is divining causation, implying attitude, and presuming to prescribe behavior.
Ok....even if so, so what?
> This is the pattern of the "culturally scientific" - they hesitate to say anything without a few numbers to lean on, but when they get a few numbers in hand that feel right, and that say something they like, they bolt out of the gate without looking any deeper.
If this is a dig at Scientism (aka: Science), I am 100% with you - is it that?
> You, for example, seem to be having difficulty with the notion of discussion by logic and category, and ask for some numericization.
Replace "numericization" with set theory and you may be less confused.
Regardless, did you take these things into consideration:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_and_indirect_realism
(I could list many more, but I am lazy.)
> Unlike some, however, I won't spit misbegotten numbers to convince you.
This seems more like *identical to* most/all others. Meme Magic (aka: Rhetoric) is usually the tool of choice for Allists when they encounter a complex argument.
> Any basic college stats course teaches the notion I'm applying here
The notion I'm applying is that I asked you some pointed questions, and you have dodged all of them, and then proceeded to grandstand. Why do you behave this way, Human?
> if you really don't get the issue, I strongly recommend you take such a course, for your own self-defense from statistical hucksters.
And what, relevant to *the actual* point of contention, would I learn from that? Please do not hold back in your answer, I enjoy being wowed by high level, *Purely* Rational intellect.
I'm aware that numbers, inherently, come from nowhere, in the same way that everything else does, in the final analysis. That does not mean that you can pull numbers out of your ass and stand on them, nor does it mean that "numbers" generated by methods with very plain complications, such as this survey, can be leaned on safely. No one inducted themselves from set theory to this survey's conclusions: this sort of "science" rather starts in reverse, by a crude attempt to numericize personality via the erection of arbitrary categories.
If you don't have well-sourced numbers, I am afraid that you will indeed have to express your feelings by rhetoric and argument. You seem to think of these as "tricks." An argument, or discussion, in the world of men of letters, is an attempt to find the truth, by a process of interrogation. If you would really like to go about an assessment of known reality from first principles, we may, although I sincerely suggest you ask any statistics professor about the validity of the assertion "the culturally religious aren't getting much from religion," as here made on the basis of this survey, before we set off on such a circuitous track.
> If you don't have well-sourced numbers, I am afraid that you will indeed have to express your feelings by rhetoric and argument.
Not physically you don't, it is possible to reveal that the matter *is unknown*.
Metaphysically, which is subject to culture, I am not so sure it is possible, here in 2024.
> You seem to think of these as "tricks."
You seem to think of them as not.
> You seem to think of these as "tricks." An argument, or discussion, in the world of men of letters, is an attempt to find the truth, by a process of interrogation.
Zero corruption or incompetence among men of letters, where did you learn this fact?
> If you would really like to go about an assessment of known reality from first principles, we may, although I sincerely suggest you ask any statistics professor about the validity of the assertion "the culturally religious aren't getting much from religion," as here made on the basis of this survey, before we set off on such a circuitous track.
How would a statistician know such a thing? This seems more the realm of psychology/sociology/anthropology to me.
>How would a statistician know such a thing?
Because the question at hand -- the single question here at hand -- is whether the conclusion can be asserted with statistical validity from the data. Or rather, it would be, if there were even a clear conclusion here, rather than vague derision toward the "culturally religious," and the implication that they are "wasting their time." If I may be so bold as to state that latter element as the author's conclusion from the data -- which I must in order for this article to have had literally any point at all -- then, as I have shown, it is not a logically or statistically sound conclusion. And if that is not his conclusion, then there is not any conclusion, and this article is in fact worse than wrong -- it is pointless conceited babbling.
Asserting things by means of hackneyed statistics and groundless leaps of logic is indeed the realm of psychology/sociology/anthropology -- if you want to stay subsumed in that comfortable universe of fiat, numen, hokum, and say-so, you are welcome to stay so subsumed, but you should expect roasting by people with two brain cells, on the basis of either statistical unsoundness or fundamental logical misgrounding...you'll note I have taken both approaches.
I recommend you take a basic statistics course and do a little more reading in general, at least until you aren't so paralytically afraid of words. What a strange little man!
Benefits, schmenefits. I am not a cultural Jew because I have no faith in the legitimacy of being one.
Some fundamentals of Judaism cannot be disowned without disowning Jewish identity itself. To be a real Jew in North America you actually have to believe in Judaism. Without the Jewish religion and without Israeli citizenship, I am not Jewish.
That's not entirely true. Jewishness is a bit of an outlier when it comes to religions, because it's not just a religion, it's also a distinct genetic ethnic group (excluding converts). Millennia spent as a people apart will do that. I had to be tested at birth for Tay Sachs, a rare genetic disease disproportionately prevalent among Ashkenazi Jews. Despite my atheism, and despite the fact that I do not identify as Jewish in any religious or cultural sense, it is still accurate to describe people like me as Jews, because one cannot convert out of their genetics.
As Alan Dershowitz has described, "I am Jewish only on my parents’ side."
Jamie, you are starting with the conclusion that you are Jewish, and use genetics as your only defense. There are Jewish parents, but no Jewish genes. Jewishness is found nowhere in the body. The Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrahi Jews are distinct ethnic subtypes--all different in physical features and culture. Judaism is their only shared trait. For millennia, migrating Jewish men took wives among non-Jews, while others converted away from Judaism altogether to begin a new ancestry of non-Jews. Go far enough back, and we are all Africans.
Religiosity has never been proven to be the cause of well-being. Confounding factors prevalent in religious people such as marriage, family, community, class, and conscientiousness provide a better explanation for well-being. However, none of these factors are excluded by an atheistic worldview, such as my own.
As in many areas, research on wellbeing and religion tends not to be double-blind placebo-controlled interventions, but rather correlational studies, so yes, not definitive. Lots of confounding factors as well, as you note.
> Religiosity has never been proven to be the cause of well-being.
Noted.
> However, none of these factors are excluded by an atheistic worldview, such as my own.
You have a proof for this I presume?
What timing to have this written and out just in time for Richard Dawkins claiming to be culturally Christian.
Here I was thinking I was too late for Easter!