hey, boys can love unicorns too! If he meant the idea of god, then fine, Im not so sure though. Seems like the " youre just an atheist because you hate god" line.




If you had said "vehemently against religion" rather than god, I would have agreed with you. But, as you yourself have said, religion is a vague concept, encapsulating many things and viewpoints, almost as many things as there are people who believe in it. the idea of god does not stand for religion, rather religion stands for the idea of god, and doesnt always do a good job of it.

A doctor is a person who managed to get enough grades (and/or extra credits pending on country) to get into any medical school and finished.

A surgeon (given a typical western health care system) is a doctor who did excellently in med school, distinguished himself/herself in several years of service, did several years of extra schooling in a good medical school with very high requirements to pass and finally was chosen for a one of highest regarded medical careers in existence.

Doctors to surgeons is what drivers are to formula one drivers.


Why not just ask? Poking fun and mocking tends to make people less prone to answer, not more.

Atheism correlates with doing better a higher education and scoring higher in intelligence testing. Studies also show that analytical reasoning and deduction decrease religiosity. My anecdotal experience also confirms this; I find atheists as a trend to be superior at hard science, more prone to skepticism and more openminded towards empirical evidence. I hold these things as mostly what determines a good doctor, others might disagree. Honorable exceptions apply. I remember writing a paper with a former missionary and very conservative Christian who was absolutely brilliant.

http://psr.sagepub.com/content/early...313497266.full
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0426143856.htm

But as I have stated several times now, I don't think it is a good criteria (compared to say...the reputability of where the doctor works, it would be completely inferior). I do, however, think it is a criteria that (when given no other information) shuffles the odds in favor of the atheist. I realize that profiling tends to make a heated subject and make a lot of people angry, but that is not a concern of mine.

This is wrong, qualifying for medical school does not make one a doctor

This is also wrong, yes there is a surgical specialism required after qualification as a doctor but that is also true of the anaesthetist and the general practitioner. Becoming a doctor is not easy, it may be more akin to being a formula one racing driver and Sebastian Vettel.

This does not answer the question, in a report I linked to above twice as many doctors held very or extremely religious beliefs as is present in the general population. Do you think doctors are more or less intelligent on average than the rest of the population?

Their qualification as a doctor speaks far more to their intelligence than their theism.

Again if you know that two doctors are similarly qualified and experienced would you choose the atheist over the theist on the grounds of their favouring rational enquiry and empirical evidence.

If you believe that atheist doctors are likely to be better than theist doctors have you allowed a doctors theism influence your choice of doctor?

Yes, I edited in that they had to finish. I disagree with the remainder of your post. I don't find medical school to be very hard, it is more densely packed than challenging. Some elite schools might be tough, that I don't know. We don't have any in my country.

Yes, it is fairly well known that doctors are more religious than the remaining population. Christians get drawn to the profession, likely because of the ideal of helping others is important to them (no, I don't think this makes them better doctors). As for the point about extreme views, this is also known. As I stated in my first post I have both seen and heard very negative things regarding such groups at Norwegian med schools.

Your question is irrelevant. I have stated that a) I would chose the atheist over the theist when nothing else is known and b) That it is not a good criteria, but one I believe in. I'm sure you can infer from this what I would do if I had more relevant information, if you actually try.

I do know that in the UK very good A level grades, A levels being the exams judged for entry to university, are required for medicine. Anecdotally my cousin is a doctor not a vet because the grades required were higher for vet school, he got AAB and needed AAA to be a vet. You may consider those qualifications easy to attain but then you are smarter than me.


Do you think that doctors are more or less intelligent on average than the general population? I asked for evidence that atheism would make for better doctors and you linked some stuff suggesting a negative correlation between religiosity and intelligence. If we can assume that doctors are more intelligent on average than the normal population then it seems your links don't do what you think they do.

I can make the inference if you wish but I would like you to confirm it.

I will infer then that ceteris paribus you would prefer a an atheist doctor to a theist one. If this is not right you can correct me, but then I would appreciate you explaining why.

I actually do want to make clear that I don't consider being able to pass exams a great indicator of intelligence or being able to apply oneself to qualifying to be a doctor my point is that if you are going to choose between doctors based on religiosity and use empirical evidence as a supporting factor you could employ empirical investigation to actually support your assumption.

I'm struggling to get what I think is a straight answer from you on this. Perhaps the question 'what do you think happens when you pray' is not a good question? If so, can you explain why not? Otherwise, can you help me to understand what exactly you think is actually happening when you pray?


That's not what I'm suggesting. In a situation where all other things are equal, I would chose the atheist because I wouldn't want to be treated by someone who honestly believed that my fate is not ultimately in their hands. I'm not fatalistic at all and I'm worried by people who are. I want to be treated by someone who sees my problem purely as a biological issue, not someone who thinks that there might be a supernatural force at work.

This isn't the case, I believe that religion is a net negative, not 'bad across the board'. You've constructed your own strawman there . I can't deny that there are positive things about religion but as I said before, there are positive things about devining futures from animal entrails and throwing bones too.

Yes, religion encompasses some very positive values, but then so does my atheistic world view. Every society that has ever existed has probably held many of the same positive values. I think that they are inherent because they have survival benefits and it really irks me when religions attempt to lay claim to them. The 'negative' values that have afforded survival benefits, like greed, territorialism and our instinctive Xenophobia, well, the churches want no part of claiming those do they.

You see people as the result of what a god wanted, I see them as a result of millions of years of evolution in an environment that rewarded certain behaviours with continued existence. Unlike many people though, I wonder if those same behaviours are what will cause us to become extinct because they won't necessarily remain successful just because they have been in the past.

Im pretty sure that doctors are pretty pragmatic, and realise through experience that the patients fate is not "ultimately in their hands", because they know that they can do everything possible, and still have the patient die.

I suppose you are meaning that if a doctor uses that fact as justification to not do everything they possibly can, then you wouldnt want to be treated by that doctor, but you would have to show that only theist doctors would think that way. Im sure that atheist doctors also can prioritise patients on the basis that they think they can help one patient, but they cant help another.

If there's nothing between you and death except the ability and knowledge of the doctor and that could save you, then yes, your fate is in their hands. But anyone who believes in a deity is not going to believe that your fate is in their hands because nobody's is, it's all part of their god's plan. I'm not even sure if this has any kind of practical effect, it's just something that makes me uncomfortable. When someone goes to bat for you, you want them to be utterly committed and know that there is nothing to fall back on except their own efforts, not to just be doing their best when it's not really in their hands...

No, I'm not saying that. Any doctor who behaved that way would deserve to be struck off.

What happens when you pray? The answer depends on many factors. What your prayer is, for instance. What your heart/attitude are like. What your motives are. What God has in mind.


Yeah, but are you going to ask your doctor if he's a determinist before you let him treat you? It's not only Christians who are able to hold such views.

What you are suggesting is that the doctor may not fulfill his full duty, and will break the hippocratic oath because he suddenly feels that your life is in God's hands so he shouldn't do all he could. This is unlikely to be the case, where more likely he would still do all he could, and all he is required to do, but instead do it with God in mind. It would be negligence no matter how you cut it, if the doctor does not do his duty.

I'm curious to hear more about these positive effects of religion.

Okay, I don't deny you can construct a good society without God in it, that's not the point, as I've said. Only that you don't need to dismiss religion, necessarily, since they do share some of the values people gravitate towards, and that there are atheists who don't see religion as a "net-negative" as a result of this, or in general.

Not sure about your extinction question.

But, as I pointed out, doctors know that even if they do everything they can to save you, and you still die, then obviously your fate wasnt in their hands
.
Lets say you are bleeding to death through a severed artery, and there is a doctor there who can save you. Are you saying that a theist doctor is more likely to not do anything, or act slower, or not care, or something?


Ye, this is just your ridiculous caricature/straw man of religion. Maybe there are religious people who think like that, but its highly unlikely they become doctors in the first place.


And atheist doctors are more likely to do this than theist doctors?


So any doctor who prioritises using his professional judgment deserves to be struck off?

That you pretend the empirical evidence and supporting observations I have do not exist does not make this so. If atheists as a trend are more intelligent and better at reasoning, then I also think they make better doctors. This fits my observations well. I generally find atheists to be better at empirical reasoning. Probably because unlike most theists, they don't have an extra layer of approval and also skepticism comes easier to them.

This does not mean an atheist is superior in these regards compared to a theist. Understand the difference!

And no, this has nothing to do with my preference for my doctor's beliefs. I don't know the beliefs of my doctor and nor do I care about them. I have merely stated that when I know nothing else about a doctor, I would choose the atheist. I, however, would not choose a doctor this way.

Not much different if it was an atheist who believed in determinism and what will happen will happen.

The population of doctors doesn't necessarily reflect the population as a whole in the way that would make the conclusion true.

So it may be the case that if more intelligent and better reasoning people are more likely to be atheists, then doctors are more likely to be atheists than the general population (because Doctors have to have better reasoning abilities than the general population), but given a random Doctor atheism may still not be a predictor of greater skill in comparison to other doctors, because the theists who become doctors are already selected for intelligence and reasoning.

That may or may not be correct, I think the main point is just that an evaluation of doctor skills is not really the same as an evaluation of the correlation between intelligence and atheism in the general population.

A few comments. First, I think inferring the bolded from a Christian's belief in Providence is fallacious. An orthodox Christian can believe that your fate is ultimately in God's hands--i.e. your eternal destination--but that doesn't mean that your fate in terms of whether or not you live or suffer from a disease or injury is not dependent on the decisions made by a doctor. It is not part of Christian orthodoxy that God has determined everything that happens that it will happen (although of course many Christians do believe this). In fact, I suspect that Christians are more likely to believe in libertarian free will than atheists.

Second, if you accept this inference, I would think you would have to accept the parallel inference from determinism to this kind of fatalism. Since so many atheists are also determinists, if anything I would think they are then more likely to be fatalists than Christians. Of course, I've also argued against this inference as applied to atheists.

Finally, as a practical matter, I would be skeptical of this view having the kind of impact that you are worried about. If anything, I think it would have the opposite impact--making people more strongly motivated to help other people. I suspect more people are willing to work and/or root for the winning side, and the idea of providence seems to encourage that. This is why social movements so are usually overly optimistic and the speeches of their leaders so often about how their victory is inevitable.

For example, take this closing exhortation from one of MLK's more well-known speeches. Notice how this idea, that the universe bends towards moral justice is the essence of the idea of providence and is meant to inspire and motivate those listening to work even harder because what they're doing will matter, will make a difference.

Here's the video, which is worth watching to get the emotional effect of his words:

I'm not sure about this, I'd like to hear some other perspectives. It is true that there is a correlation between religiosity and IQ, but that's not to suggest that if you are a theist you're necessarily stupider.

In the case of Doctors, I think you can assume they are more intelligent than the average person to begin with, so if you find a doctor who is a theist, he is already the exception to the trend, no?

To me it's like saying something like German Shepherds are more likely to attack you than Great Danes. So now you go to a dog show, and say that this particular German Shepherd is more likely to attack you than this particular Great Dane. The fact that they are at a dog show would mean that they are perfectly trained and behaved, so it's not that pertinent an observation to rely on the statistics of dog breeds in this particular scenario.

I'm not sure, but it strikes me as the case here.

Edit: Well named beat me to it.

never read the original OP...by the use of "her" does this mean it was splendour?

It might not, but my own observations and experience tells me it is also rings true for people in higher education.

There is of course no study that will tell you atheists make better doctors than theists. The main reason for this is that there is no objective qualification of what makes "a better doctor"; I'm sure many people would prefer a nurse who offered prayer.

lol. I have no idea who the OP is. As far as I know, splendour hasn't tried coming back to 2p2.

I hadn't noticed the OP changed. Did I miss any relevant posts before the ban?

She was here a bit ago. I wont give names though. Free splendour!

If atheist doctors are better doctors than theist doctors I would expect some evidence to back this up. I am not saying you don't have supporting observations I am saying that your assumption that this is the case doesn't have supporting evidence. Given that your point is providing support for the value of empirical evidence I would expect you to be interested in whether there is any.

I also doubt your commitment to the idea given that you don't actually care about your doctors beliefs.

Define empirical reasoning to me.

If the difference is that in general atheists will be better at reasoning but that doesn't mean the atheist will be better than an individual theist then yes. I'm not really interested in contesting that and I'll take the links you posted at face but as well named points out if doctors are already selected for these skills I don't know that the atheist would perform better than the theist and if they did I would expect someone to have this information recorded.

So what's happening when you pray and what is the point of it? What do you personally get from it?

I might. I don't really distinguish between different spiritualist/supernatural views, they're all likely to be wrong IMO. I'd be just as concerned by someone who believes that there is some universal 'energy' field that they can channel to help heal me. Do you believe in Reiki?

No, I've already denied this.

It occurs in various forms and for different reasons but it's comfort mainly. That the comfort is IMO most likely a placebo and in and of itself can cause terrible acts to be carried out in the name of religion is what that makes it a net negative.

Sure but you can't blame me then for objecting when one religion or other claims those 'good' behaviours as something handed down by their particular god. I see the entirety of human behaviour as having been driven by evolution where religions just want to cherry pick the good stuff and blame the bad stuff on the devil or some version of evil spirits.


I'm simply saying that whilst some behaviours might have afforded us survival benefits in the past, that they may not continue to in the long term. I think that what we call 'intelligence' and that we credit for our 'success' (in speech marks because I think there many definitions of what constitutes success) is probably going to end up as an evolutionary dead-end. We imagine ourselves to be the pinnacle of evolution, or god's chosen ones, but I wonder if we're simply a branch on the tree of life that's going nowhere.

How about competence. Given that the original premise was seriously ill there should be some objective measure of whether it was treated.

If there was any correlation between religiosity and competence or any difference in doctor performance I'd expect someone to notice. It may be that these things just aren't being tracked but I'd be more concerned if I thought that my doctors theism a more significant indicator of their ability to reason or understand empirical evidence than their qualification as a doctor.

People in higher education are not a good proxy for medical professionals.

I also think the underlying premise of "better thinker = better doctor" is highly questionable. It's well-known that outcomes can be influenced by things like positive relational attitudes towards their doctors or their treatment. So even on the measure is strictly on medical, attitudinal disposition towards the doctor may be a relevant factor.

You should distinguish.

If I want to talk about politics it makes sense to know about socialism, communism, oligarchies etc. even if I don't think these systems are good forms of government.

I think it is worthwhile for people, especially Christian people, to understand various atheist viewpoints. It is valuable to understand what other people think even if we don't agree with them.