I have learned that rhetorical questions are not really requests for information. I suspect that the questions above are rhetorical. It would be better, I think, for you to just explicitly say what you want to say.They are not rhetorical questions. I have argued repeatedly that you and others here have an unrealistic view of what definitions are, can be, and can do. I asked the questions because I think they cut to the core of this, and also because I do not know what you mean by "broad utility" in this context. Can you answer any of them?
I have learned that rhetorical questions are not really requests for information. I suspect that the questions above are rhetorical. It would be better, I think, for you to just explicitly say what you want to say.They are not rhetorical questions. I have argued repeatedly that you and others here have an unrealistic view of what definitions are, can be, and can do. I asked the questions because I think they cut to the core of this, and also because I do not know what you mean by "broad utility" in this context. Can you answer any of them? I could probably answer all of your questions, but I think it would be a futile and wasted effort. To demonstrate this, I will say what I meant by "broad utility", and you will have to fight the urge (successfully or not) to reply with another post that either negates my response or further questions it. The purpose of a definition is to describe something so that most people can understand what that something is. The more that a definition serves that purpose the better it is at being a definition. I just happened to use the term "broad utility" in an attempt to succinctly convey that concept.
You explained what you mean by “broad utility” just fine, and now I understand your meaning. If your quibbling over my definition of religious humanism had any point or purpose, you would be able to explain that, too.
There’s nothing wrong with my definition. It’s the most common definition for religious humanism. You would understand it just fine if you didn’t have an aversion to the very idea of religious humanism.
I haven't had time to review the study you posted. PLaClair, expecting someone to evaluate something like that it in a matter of hours is rather demanding don't you think?If this was the only time it had happened, and if you hadn't continued the dialogue on other matters, yes, but it isn't and you have. I'll await your response, Lausten. How long do you think you'll need to review the data? What do you think you are? My Boss? Now you want estimates? It appears to be a summary of the study, with the actual study behind a pay wall. So, not a whole lot I can do there. I don't deny that studies have been done that reach the conclusion stated. Beth's statement is a broader claim of truth than the study, but still, there are studies, can't argue that. I'll link a Reasonable Doubts podcasts. From my memory, what they say is these studies are often self-reports of feeling of well being. I could report feeling good about belonging to a gang in South Detroit. It might even increase my odds of staying alive. That doesn't mean it's a good thing.
I asked for no such promises from you and you've been pretty critical of everything I've said.Nor did I ask for a promise from you. I was trying to say why I don’t want to answer those questions instead of simply ignoring them. In general, I simply prefer not to post anything if I will take it personally if it is criticized. What you asked for is something that I am not comfortable posting publicly for that reason. The things that inspire us tend to be deeply personal. Also, I don’t understand why you want examples of religion, like art, being inspiring or reflecting reality since such judgments are inherently subjective without a great deal of consistency across different people. Are you unwilling to accept that other people can experience religion that way? The request seemed like derail to me, a deflection from acknowledging that religion need not inhibit learning critical thinking skills any more than art does. Please note that I said religion need not do so, not that it never does so. I agree that it can and in many cases does so deliberately. I just don't agree that it is an inherent characteristic of religions or that such tactics are confined to religious organizations. Yes, I’ve been critical of what you say but I try to keep my criticism focused on your ideas, not personal attributes. If I have crossed the line and you feel personally attacked by anything I’ve said, I apologize.
I haven't had time to review the study you posted. PLaClair, expecting someone to evaluate something like that it in a matter of hours is rather demanding don't you think?The abstract was sufficient to support what I said. I haven't read that particular paper myself, it was simply the first one I found. I've read others. I think the podcast you mentioned supports what I said as well. I'm not sure why you are so reluctant to accept that church attendance is correlated with better health outcomes. As PLaClair notes, this does not require any supernatural effects.
posted by Beth, I am somewhat offended by a common atheist trope that religion/churches are a universally bad thing, leading people to do evil things. Churches are a human creation that provides an opportunity for people to work together to accomplish goals they cannot as single individuals. Whether their actions are 'good' or 'evil' is always a value judgement, not an objective fact. Write4U's dogmatic and intolerant stance on what constitutes religion and why it is evil is just as repugnant to me as the dogmatic and intolerant beliefs of the church I was raised in.
Beth, I have purposely avoided commenting on your philosophical worldview, because you sounded entirely reasonable to me and as a humanist I have no problem with anyone's beliefs. Please note that this only applies at a personal level. But you brought me up as the "bad guy" in this discussion, a viewpoint which I find naive and ill considered.
My apologies if I have misunderstood or misrepresented your opinion. Please correct me if I am wrong.You misunderstood my definition of the term "dogma" and "dagmatic".
dog·ma noun \ˈdȯg-mə, ˈdäg-\ : a belief or set of beliefs that is accepted by the members of a group without being questioned or doubted : a belief or set of beliefs that is taught by a religious organization plural dog·mas also dog·ma·ta Full Definition of DOGMA 1a : something held as an established opinion; especially : a definite authoritative tenet b : a code of such tenets c : a point of view or tenet put forth as authoritative without adequate grounds 2 : a doctrine or body of doctrines concerning faith or morals formally stated and authoritatively proclaimed by a church
I disagree with your assertion that churches where created for the people. IMO the driving force was power and control over the people.
Perhaps that was the driving force. Certainly that was the case for governments. Do you consider governments to be bad for humans in the same way you do churches? If not, why not?Do you consider the Church to have the same rights as government? In principle a democratic government with laws based on equal rights is infinitely preferable over a theocracy, where law are based on dogma.
When the churches' actions involved castigation, torture, burnings, beheadings, drownings, flying planes into buildings, IMO, one can make a value judgement about the physical methods used to implement the "good intentions" at a spiritual level.
If you were to apply this same critieria to governments, would a different conclusion result? If so why? If not, why aren't you an anarchist arguing to overthrow governments everywhere?You are making an assumption that a dogmatic religion has the same right to govern individuals as a secular "common law" enforced system has, enforced by disinterested parties.
But now that you have mentioned me personally as dogmatic and intolerant, I should like to have you clarify where exactly I have demonstrated such behavior. Just a link to the post number and a comment will do fine. I am not trying to draw you into this "spritual war of gathering souls".
I've gone back through this thread and found some examples of where you came across to me that way:
Post #116: no matter how you define them, all religions are completely dogmatic and symbolic. The variety is found only in the variety of the dogma, which almost always proclaim exclusivity and alienates all who live by a different dogma.
This seems to me to be a dogmatic and intolerant statement. I think you did back off of it somewhat a little later in the thread though.Ask any Christian if he/she thinks Allah is the same God as the Christian God. The answer will surprise and scare you. I have asked the question several times and each time the answer was that Allah is not the same God as the Christian God.
Post #116: Religion offers no useful wealth of knowledge (except perhaps in coercive psychology) and it does not get you anywhere. In religion any finding of truth which contradicts the religion is banned and/or burned.
This seems to me to be a very dogmatic and intolerant statement. It is also untrue. Religion offers knowledge many people value and not all religions ban or burn those whose find a truth in contradiction with their interpretation of God's word/will - at least not in modern society. Burning hardly ever happen these days. :)Didn't a southern preacher burn a Quran just recently? Religion has not contributed anything that could not have been contributed by secular groups. It is not a "special" virtue to belong to a religion. Dogmatic religion is so riddled with inaccuracies, that great scientists were prevented from research. Galileo and Darwin come to mind.
Post #116: Name me one singular achievement beneficial to mankind which is demonstrably exclusive to religion except fear and guilt, oh and self induced ecstasy.
I don't think fear, guilt and self-induced ecstasy are demonstrably exclusive to religion. You seem to reject positive things churches/religions do because they are not exclusive to religion while being being happy to consign negative things to religion alone. To me, that's dogmatic and intolerant.Actually I am trying to make the point that religion offers, but does not deliver any "special virtue" as all theists proclaim "belief" brings to them Right, if an an action is not an exclusive virtue of a specific group and focus but may be found everywhere among groups, then you cannot claim it as extraordinary. It just becomes ordinary behavior. It does not answer the question of the benefits of religion.
Post #129: A religion without dogma is not a religion.
This is a no-true-scotsman argument. You dismiss all those cases that don't fit your narrow definition. Then you proceed to condemn all religion based on this narrow definition.Out of 4200 religions, name me a few which are exempt from some kind of dogma or belief in a motivated higher creative power. No, you are selecting the narrow few religious exceptions as the standard by which dogmatic religions operate. But it is the other way around, unfortunately.
Post #129: Dogma is religious Law asserting and reinforcing compliant behavior. It is a control mechanism.
This seems to me to be a dogmatic and intolerant statement. I agree that dogma is a control mechanism[/b]. I don't agree that it is limited to religion. For example, all forms of Law are control mechanisms. Thus, all governments about control of citizens.I agree, but secular governments do not function by dogma, they function according to secular laws which protects the rights of ALL people regardless of belief. They are mainly to protect human rights, not serving church dogma. A right which has not yet been officially conceded by the church. The church finally had to agree to the concept of evolution, mainly in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence.
Do you think we should argue for the abolition of government or for the reform of governments when their methods of control are at odds with our ideals?And here we have reached the crux of the matter. It perfectly illustrates the differences. A Democratic Secular government can be replaced by vote on a regular basis, laws can be passed by consent of the people, we have "personal rights" which trump dogmatic "obligatons". No such "control of checks and balances" exists in scriptural religions, especially Abrahamic religions, But with rare exception religious wars have dominated most other motivations for conflict. This is not dogmatic, ths is factual recorded history of physical events. Again I ask for an example of great benefit to civilization which is uniquely attributable to Religion or by extension to God. Please, Beth, do not think I'm some old curmudgeon. Ii have know religious people who were just wonderful and a few who were absolutely awful. Not much difference in atheists, come to think of it. But I believe that the "enfrcement" mechanism today is somewhat more civilized than in the Dark Ages.
Dogma came to signify laws or ordinances adjudged and imposed upon others by the First Century. The plural is either dogmas or dogmata, from Greek δόγματα. The term "dogmatics" is used as a synonym for systematic theology, as in Karl Barth's defining textbook of neo-orthodoxy, the 14-volume Church Dogmatics.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogma
cornerstone (n.) Look up cornerstone at Dictionary.comlate 13c., from corner (n.) + stone (n.). The figurative use is from early 14c. I endorse without reserve the much abused sentiment of Governor M'Duffie, that "Slavery is the corner-stone of our republican edifice;" while I repudiate, as ridiculously absurd, that much lauded but nowhere accredited dogma of Mr. Jefferson, that "all men are born equal." No society has ever yet existed, and I have already incidentally quoted the highest authority to show that none ever will exist, without a natural variety of classes. [James H. Hammond, "Letter to an English Abolitionist" 1845]And thus we have come to the reputedly intractible dogma of Write4U. Sounds familiar.
Yes, I’ve been critical of what you say but I try to keep my criticism focused on your ideas, not personal attributes. If I have crossed the line and you feel personally attacked by anything I’ve said, I apologize.You haven’t crossed any lines. In fact you’ve been very polite compared to the average forum participant. That doesn’t mean that you’ve been agreeable or even shown a high degree of open-mindedness. A couple sentences of a summary from a study hardly counts as support for your claim and saying that the podcast I mentioned supports you as well is completely off the wall. You’ve made your beliefs clear, you just haven’t supported them with anything more than what you consider common knowledge. The topic is science vs religion. I appreciate the feedback about my poor use of terms in the opening post, and have had some decent input, but I haven’t heard much to change my POV. What I meant by science would be more clearly stated as a philosophy that is based on a valid epistemology to demonstrate truth within reasonable parameters. When doubt remains, a fair system of politics should be used to determine actions. This eliminates gods and supernatural claims, and we all seem to be in agreement about that. It promotes inclusiveness, again we have agreement, at least in theory, but in practice there is some divisiveness going on. The question the human race has been trying to answer for 500 years is, what do we do when we disagree? The answer should be something along the lines of: we gather data as best we can, we listen to each other, and if we still can’t reach a consensus, we take a vote. That last bit is harder to tell exactly where you (Beth) and PLaClair stand. I can’t attend your meetings or evaluate the charters of your organizations or judge your claims of how well your communities deal with issues of power and authority. What I do know is, everything in the above paragraph is non-religious. Religions have more often resisted the move toward that sort of society than they have promoted it. If organizations adopt these ideas and still want to call themselves “religions", then that is religion evolving and adopting a scientific viewpoint. Science (as I define it above) already stems from wonder and an appreciation for the universe, a desire for a better future and a desire for happiness and health in the world. It doesn’t need to adopt anything from religion.I haven't had time to review the study you posted. PLaClair, expecting someone to evaluate something like that it in a matter of hours is rather demanding don't you think?The abstract was sufficient to support what I said. I haven't read that particular paper myself, it was simply the first one I found. I've read others. I think the podcast you mentioned supports what I said as well. I'm not sure why you are so reluctant to accept that church attendance is correlated with better health outcomes. As PLaClair notes, this does not require any supernatural effects.
I've gone back through this thread and found some examples of where you came across to me that way: Post #116: no matter how you define them, all religions are completely dogmatic and symbolic. The variety is found only in the variety of the dogma, which almost always proclaim exclusivity and alienates all who live by a different dogma. This seems to me to be a dogmatic and intolerant statement. I think you did back off of it somewhat a little later in the thread though.Ask any Christian if he/she thinks Allah is the same God as the Christian God. The answer will surprise and scare you. Perhaps you should try that experiment? I have asked this question, many times. Among others, the Senior minister at my church feels that they are the same god. You asked for examples of why I thought you were being dogmatic and intolerant. Your response to this does not persuade me that I was mistaken in that assessment.
Yes, dogmatic religion is riddled with inaccuracies and some scientists prevented from research. That’s not germane to my point nor does it validate your original statement that I disputed. You asked for examples of why I thought you were being dogmatic and intolerant. Your response to this does not persuade me that I was mistaken in that assessment.Post #116: Religion offers no useful wealth of knowledge (except perhaps in coercive psychology) and it does not get you anywhere. In religion any finding of truth which contradicts the religion is banned and/or burned. This seems to me to be a very dogmatic and intolerant statement. It is also untrue. Religion offers knowledge many people value and not all religions ban or burn those whose find a truth in contradiction with their interpretation of God's word/will - at least not in modern society. Burning hardly ever happen these days. :)Not true Beth, Dogmatic religion is so riddled with inaccuracies, that great scientists were prevented from research. Galileo and Darwin come to mind.
I was not attempting to answer that question. I was responding to your request for examples of why I thought you were being dogmatic and intolerant. You are willing to attribute ordinary negative behaviors (fear and guilt, oh and self induced ecstasy)to religion while for positive contributions, you demand evidence of extraordinary behavior solely attributable to religion. I find this dogmatic and intolerant behavior on your part.Post #116: Name me one singular achievement beneficial to mankind which is demonstrably exclusive to religion except fear and guilt, oh and self induced ecstasy. I don't think fear, guilt and self-induced ecstasy are demonstrably exclusive to religion. You seem to reject positive things churches/religions do because they are not exclusive to religion while being being happy to consign negative things to religion alone. To me, that's a double standard, which I associate with being dogmatic and intolerant.Right, if an an action is not an exclusive virtue of a specific group and focus but may be found everywhere among groups, then you cannot claim it as extraordinary. It just becomes ordinary behavior. It does not answer the question.
I am not making any claims about standards by which religion operations. I gave exceptions to demonstrate that your definition was incorrect. That is why I feel this was an example of dogmatic thinking on your part. You did ask for examples to illustrate why I thought that.Post #129: A religion without dogma is not a religion. This is a no-true-scotsman argument. You dismiss all those cases that don't fit your narrow definition. Then you proceed to condemn all religion based on this narrow definition.No, you are selecting the narrow few religious exceptions as the standard by which dogmatic religion operate. But it is the other way around, unfortunately.
I don’t think that anything in this paragraph is correct. Dogma certainly describes the way many politicians in the US appear to operate. Protection of human rights does not seem to be the way the US government functions, in fact it doesn’t even seem to be a consideration for many policies at all. Are your seriously making the claim that Putin’s government, which is secular, functions to protect human rights? The Catholic church may have agreed to evolution, but it’s not the only church. Some churches came to accept it much earlier. Others still don’t. Finally, you miss the point that characterizing religion as a control method while ignoring/denying the fact that by this standard, governments would be subject to the same universal condemnation. That’s why I found it a dogmatic and intolerant statement on your part.Post #129: Dogma is religious Law asserting and reinforcing compliant behavior. It is a control mechanism. This seems to me to be a dogmatic and intolerant statement. I agree that dogma is a control mechanism. I don't agree that it is limited to religion. For example, all forms of Law are control mechanisms. Thus, all governments about control of citizens.But secular governments do not function by dogma, they function according to protection of human rights, a right which has not yet been granted officially by the church. The church finally had to agree to the concept of evolution in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence.
Again I ask for an example of great benefit to civilization which is uniquely attributable to Religion or by extension to God.I really like the European cathedrals such as Notre Dame. I think they are beautiful works of art and uniquely attributable to religion. I don’t know if you’ll consider them a great benefit to civilization although my understanding is the architectural advances made to create those temples were important. Does that answer your question? Or will you reject this example as insufficient or inapplicable for some previously unstated reason?
Or will you reject this example as insufficient or inapplicable for some previously unstated reason?Do you realize how often you have done that?
This series of interchanges between Beth and several others illustrates how good people are driven away from our ranks. I have been trying to get a colleague at my law office to come on here for years. After seeing this exchange, which I brought to his attention, he said he wouldn’t come anywhere near this group “because they’re crazy” and as dogmatic and rigid as the fundamentalists they criticize. Believe me or don’t but this is what I see, and he did too. I hesitated to post this for obvious reasons, but decided to do it because there’s too much dysfunction within our ranks. Mine is not the final or authoritative word but this is what I see.
I come and go here, mainly because I have brief intervals of sanity, during which I realize that I’m just wasting my time trying to have a discussion with people who just aren’t listening. The reaction against religion is so strong that it blocks out everything else, including - tragically - reason.
Beth, I hope you’ll have the patience to stay. Not sure why I hope that but I do.
I really like the European cathedrals such as Notre Dame. I think they are beautiful works of art and uniquely attributable to religion. I don’t know if you’ll consider them a great benefit to civilization although my understanding is the architectural advances made to create those temples were important.Not sure you're using the same meaning of "uniquely attributable" as your counterpart is. Does the Taj Mahal count as a counterexample? Our great museums, perhaps? On the other hand, there's nothing quite like a grand cathedral, temple or mosque. So why is that? I'm inclined to think it's because the people who built them attached supreme importance to the object of their creation. Historically, that has involved worship of something apart from humanity (always? - not sure), which I think is tragic. It's as if our lives and the lives of those who will come after us are not enough to inspire our worship and devotion. I can't see how anything else should. Now, imagine if all the grand undertakings like this could be done with human beings in mind. That's the transformation I would like to see, and one of several reasons why I call myself a religious Humanist. Or maybe the time for grand cathedrals has passed. Maybe we are better advised to direct our energies to other pursuits. Then again, maybe not. You've given me food for thought, Beth, and as some people might say, you've nourished my soul a bit today. Thank you.
Ask any Christian if he/she thinks Allah is the same God as the Christian God. The answer will surprise and scare you. I have asked the question several times and each time the answer was that Allah is not the same God as the Christian God.
And asking a pastor is like asking a psychologist. Ask the common man on the street. the plumber, carpenter, the waitress.
Ask any Christian if he/she thinks Allah is the same God as the Christian God. The answer will surprise and scare you. I have asked the question several times and each time the answer was that Allah is not the same God as the Christian God. And asking a pastor is like asking a psychologist. Ask the common man on the street. the plumber, carpenter, the waitress.Agreed but the real difference lay in the "prophets" of that god. Mohammad was no Jesus and visa versa. To a Muslim Jesus was just one of a long line of prophets but the buck stops with Mohammad. So, yes the believers do detect a marked difference between the two despite the fact that both of them are Abrahamic belief systems affected by cultural distinctions. Cap't Jack
Or will you reject this example as insufficient or inapplicable for some previously unstated reason?Do you realize how often you have done that? How many times have I asked a question I don't know the answer to? Today, probably less than 100. But it's a slow day. I'll work on it.
Not sure you're using the same meaning of "uniquely attributable" as your counterpart is. Does the Taj Mahal count as a counterexample?Probably not and I don't know. I have a vague idea that the Taj Mahal was originally a temple, but that may not be true.
Our great museums, perhaps? On the other hand, there's nothing quite like a grand cathedral, temple or mosque.I can't speak to other temples and mosque as I have not had the opportunity to see them. Personally I don't think that we can separate out the effects of religion on the works of man anymore than we could point to some accomplishment and say 'that is the uniquely attributable result of government', but Write4U did seem to crave some sort of answer to his question.
You've given me food for thought, Beth, and as some people might say, you've nourished my soul a bit today. Thank you.I'm glad to have been of service to you. Thanks for the kind words.
Or will you reject this example as insufficient or inapplicable for some previously unstated reason?Do you realize how often you have done that? How many times have I asked a question I don't know the answer to? Today, probably less than 100. But it's a slow day. I'll work on it. I'm not sure what you mean. What my question meant was, are you aware of the number of times, in this thread, you have asked a question then rejected the answer (or example) as insufficient or inapplicable for some previously unstated reason?
You haven’t crossed any lines. In fact you’ve been very polite compared to the average forum participant. That doesn’t mean that you’ve been agreeable or even shown a high degree of open-mindedness. A couple sentences of a summary from a study hardly counts as support for your claimWhy not? What counts as support in your opinion?
and saying that the podcast I mentioned supports you as well is completely off the wall.Why? I gave my reasoning why I felt it supported my original statement earlier.
You’ve made your beliefs clear, you just haven’t supported them with anything more than what you consider common knowledge.Except, of course, for the peer-reviewed study you haven’t looked at yet. For the most part, I’ve provided counterexamples to show that sweeping generalizations you made were not accurate. That they are common knowledge does not work in your favor. What sort of support were you expecting or wanting?
If organizations adopt these ideas and still want to call themselves “religions", then that is religion evolving and adopting a scientific viewpoint.So why the antipathy towards religions that do that? Why don’t you want to consider them religions?
Science (as I define it above) already stems from wonder and an appreciation for the universe, a desire for a better future and a desire for happiness and health in the world. It doesn’t need to adopt anything from religion.I think, for many people, their religious beliefs stem from a “wonder and an appreciation for the universe, a desire for a better future and a desire for happiness and health in the world". Does that common basis mean religion doesn’t need to adopt anything from science? It seems to me better to appreciate both as human activities that have the ability to contribute a great deal to both human happiness and human misery depending on how we choose to use them.
Or will you reject this example as insufficient or inapplicable for some previously unstated reason?Do you realize how often you have done that? How many times have I asked a question I don't know the answer to? Today, probably less than 100. But it's a slow day. I'll work on it. I'm not sure what you mean. What my question meant was, are you aware of the number of times, in this thread, you have asked a question then rejected the answer (or example) as insufficient or inapplicable for some previously unstated reason? Thanks for the clarification. You mean like rejecting your assertion that art is rational and therefore different from religion in it's effect on learning critical thinking? Yes, I do that a lot. I find it a good way to explore ideas and the underlying assumptions that we all have, including my own. Why is this thing different from that thing for this purpose?
Or will you reject this example as insufficient or inapplicable for some previously unstated reason?Do you realize how often you have done that? How many times have I asked a question I don't know the answer to? Today, probably less than 100. But it's a slow day. I'll work on it. I'm not sure what you mean. What my question meant was, are you aware of the number of times, in this thread, you have asked a question then rejected the answer (or example) as insufficient or inapplicable for some previously unstated reason? Thanks for the clarification. You mean like rejecting your assertion that art is rational and therefore different from religion in it's effect on learning critical thinking? Yes, I do that a lot. I find it a good way to explore ideas and the underlying assumptions that we all have, including my own. Why is this thing different from that thing for this purpose? Not sure how deep down this rabbit hole I want to go. I don't understand your last question. In answer to the first question in this latest response: Yes. Your original quote here seems to be a rhetorical question, stating that you don't want to offer an example because it will be rejected anyway. My response is saying, if you don't want others to do that, then don't do it yourself. Did I misinterpret something somewhere? Now your claiming this is a good way to explore ideas. Okay, then why the original questioning? Here are those pointers to the Reasonable Doubts episodes I promised. The comments I’m looking for are scattered throughout many of their shows. One of the group usually comes in to add to whatever topic of the day and counters the claims with his own data. I kinda doubt the show is your cup of tea, so I don’t expect you to become a regular listener. I found a few highlights. Follow the one link and page up or down to find other episodes in date order. #124 – A study on why people go into Philosophy of Religion studies Luke Galen is the PhD of the group. They have an “extra" of just him talking on this subject on Jul 19, 2013. There are 76 footnotes on that page.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/reasonabledoubts/2013/07/19/rd-extra-a-skeptical-review-of-religious-prosociality-research-with-luke-galen/#107 is on the moral sense of children #102 also features Luke, talking about problems in religion research #96 The “God Thinks Like You" section might touch on this. On 12/20/2011 Jeremy Beahan gave an awesome sermon at the All Souls Unitarian Church. Not much to do with the value of church attendance, but just something you might enjoy.
Your original quote here seems to be a rhetorical question, stating that you don't want to offer an example because it will be rejected anyway.Lausten, while you may or may not be talking to me anymore (you've gone back and forth the past few days), you just did it again. Not only did Beth not say that, she offered an example. Here was her statement, which you truncated to remove the part the contradicts your statement above. Beth wrote: "I really like the European cathedrals such as Notre Dame. I think they are beautiful works of art and uniquely attributable to religion. I don’t know if you’ll consider them a great benefit to civilization although my understanding is the architectural advances made to create those temples were important. Does that answer your question? Or will you reject this example as insufficient or inapplicable for some previously unstated reason?" (Emphasis added.) She did not say it would be rejected. Obviously frustrated with Write4U, she asked whether it would be rejected. That's one of the reasons I like Beth's writing and thinking: she is nuanced, and she pays close attention to detail, from what I can see so far. Perhaps you did not intend to be dishonest, Lausten, I'll assume such. But in that case, since you criticized Beth's comments on terms that are entirely inaccurate, you must have either blocked the meaning of her remarks, or perhaps read them without paying enough attention to detail. You keep doing that. Why?