The fact is that there are many battles worth fighting, and strong skeptics are fighting one (or perhaps a few) of them. (As I was disgusted to see recently, human sacrifice apparently still happens.) However, I also think it's ok to say that battle is not the one that interests you. You don't have the capacity to be a champion for all possible good causes, so it's good that there is diversity of interest among people trying to improve the human condition.

Further how are you sure the "reactions" you are having are from the vaccine?

Sometimes it is clear that the reaction is from the vaccine, for example, if you arm is sore at the location of the flu shot injection of if you get dizzy and need to sit for 20 minutes in the doctor's office with monitoring. Other times it is less clear, possible reactions have to be taken in the context of how likely they are to occur randomly and how temporally linked they are to the shot. (For example, I wouldn't believe flu-like symptoms occurring a few weeks later is due to the shot.)

Further how are you sure the "reactions" you are having are from the vaccine?

Sometimes it is clear that the reaction is from the vaccine, for example, if you arm is sore at the location of the flu shot injection of if you get dizzy and need to sit for 20 minutes in the doctor's office with monitoring. Other times it is less clear, possible reactions have to be taken in the context of how likely they are to occur randomly and how temporally linked they are to the shot. (For example, I wouldn't believe flu-like symptoms occurring a few weeks later is due to the shot.)

Most people you know are probably weak skeptics, and I would probably fit this definition in several ways. "Strong skeptics" are the people who write The Skeptics' Encyclopedia, join the California Skeptics' League, buy the Complete Works of James Randi, and introduce themselves at parties saying "Hi, I'm Ted, and I'm a skeptic!". Of weak skeptics I approve entirely. But strong skeptics confused me for a long while. You don't believe something exists. That seems like a pretty good reason not to be too concerned with it.

• Yvain, 2004, source

Edit: authorial instance specified on popular demand.

The author lists this under 'dumb associations':

The other theme is that they, or someone they knew, had the vaccine and shortly thereafter had some adverse reaction attributed to the vaccine. Like the paranoid conspirators, the idea that the vaccine caused the subsequent disease is not amenable to logical refutation. It is a motto in the skeptical world that association is not causation, but it is a concept that is paid little attention.

Who has taken the flu vaccine regularly and not had an adverse reaction, ever? I think it's biased to dismiss all of this real world, empirical evidence because it doesn't fit under your moral argument that HCWs should take it to protect their patients (which I agree with). Instead, scientists that are more familiar with our immune responses should help up put these adverse reactions in context. Without information, my reaction to the vaccine this year was bad enough I probably won't take it again.

I still can't get over how much MBTI seems to work on the foyer effect.

religion making people __ is horribly flawed

Happy?

do a linear analysis of __ which is clearly not

Religiosity?

Now if this post is about if its true that it makes people happier what does that mean then please ignore.

You lost me. More punctuation, maybe?

I think the experimental evidence for religion making people happier is horribly flawed (i might be a bit biased given i worked in a lab who was doing work on the subject). Here are some reasons:

Generally the researchers in the field assume that you can just do a linear analysis of religiosity and happiness, meaning using a scale of not religious to very religious and then making not religious=atheist, which is clearly not a good assumption. In fact studies have shown in the past a curvilinear relationship where the "more certain" positions of atheist and theist are as happy as each other . Also, even making sure that the people in the atheist pool are atheists is hard. If i remember correctly the pew research that showed a certain number of atheists in the country also found 40% of those atheists believed in god.

Second reason is : generally the studies use church attendance as its operational definition of religion which does not control for the social support that being in a church provides and when studies control for that generally they find no difference.

Now if this post is about if its true that it makes people happier what does that mean then please ignore.

Edit: i hope thats better

Ok i've read all the comments and have no idea what everyone is talking about and how to rationally go about making a guess. Could someone post a link or something that might explain?

Perhaps it's my own philosophical upbringing coming to rear its ugly head, but Plantinga is practically worthless as a true defense of Christianity. "Basic beliefs" in particular are such an obviously nasty hack, and the resulting epistemological relativism is frightening to behold.