Note that "listening" and "reading" are verbs that describe activities, not beliefs. So TFA in fact agrees with nobebeast's interpretation.

So he contradicted himself in the article. ;-) Actually, I'd wonder how (if at all) he tested whether it was the beliefs or the activities that had the observed effect.

And we might note that both are possible. We have a word for beliefs that have pharmacological effects: "placebo". People tend to think that placebos are ineffective, but a number of studies have turned up cases of placebos having an effect on people who believe that they are actual medicines. In particular, belief that X can have an effect on a specific brain activity can easily lead to X having just that effect on people who believe that it will.

But the real problem with religious beliefs is that they have a history of leading to very negative effects on non-believers who encounter the believers.

Actually, that's not all that far off from reality. Except that, in our solar system, nature has only one fusion reactor, which went critical roughly 4.5 billion years ago. Nature has been powered by the output of that one runaway fusion reactors ever since then. And life here has had to handle the fact that our power supply is available only about half of each day, so each species needs to develop ways of surviving a total failure of the power plant every day.

Here in the US, there's a widespread "church" that officially takes this approach: The UU (Unitarian-Universalist) church.

When my wife and I moved to the Boston area back in the early 1980s, we lived in the suburb of Belmont, and the UU church there recently celebrated its 150th year of existence. Back in the 1850s, a new "town center" had grown up at the junction of three adjacent towns, and the people wanted to form a new town. At the time, Massachusetts law required a town to have a church, but (as the story goes), the truly religious churches in the area had a problem: If one of them was accepted, members of the others would have problems using that church as the town meeting place. This was settled when members of the area's Unitarian churches got together a committee that created a new church. This was acceptable to all, because they knew that the Unitarian church would support all local groups regardless of their religions (or lack thereof).

This has pretty much always how the UUers work. It's why, here in New England, they often have the title "First Church in <town-name>". They don't require any declaration of religious belief for membership, and they actively work to be the local central meeting place for all (especially non-profit) organizations. They do hold regular Sunday-morning services, but typically a lot of members never go to those services, and this is socially acceptable to everyone.

But they do tend to be community "activists". That's the primary function of a UU church. It's legally a "church" to gain tax exemption, so they can more easily support non-profit community activities. If you're an atheist with little interest in community events, you probably wouldn't find them useful. If you're an atheist trying to be more involved in the community, they're often a good place to find like-minded people who won't give you a hassle over your lack of religious beliefs.

You obviously don't work for the company that I do. The meatloaf-peeler vendors have persuaded our management that meatloaf peeling is an important capability these days, and any company that hasn't adopted this new approach to meatloaf consumption is doomed to quick obsolescence. So, whether our jobs need it or not, we are all being supplied with the top-selling meatloaf peeler, and other brands are banned from our desks.

But don't worry, your bosses will see the light soon, and a new MS meatloaf peeler will be installed on your desk, too.

And next we'll read of publishers suing Amazon to the their "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought ..." lists. This is just encouraging customers to ask for a package that contains books from different authors or different publishers. (But they do also use it to suggest other works by the same author.)

The most rational response to such perversions might be to simply eliminate the copyright laws. The primary function of such laws is for blocking useful things like we're discussing here.

I'm on Comcast and 8.8.8.8 works just fine for me.

Actually, in normal American usage, it is true, in the same sense that I can tell people that I'm Scottish or Welsh or French, while also saying I was born in the US, and most people would understand what I mean. We USians routinely say we "are" whatever nationality or ethnicity any recent immigrant ancestor was. One of Obama's parents was born in Kenya, so calling him Kenyan is no different from calling me Scottish or Welsh or French.

Building a transparent linux-based proxy/firewall/gateway with sslstrip/ssldump is sexy.

I lost like 40 Pounds over 4 months...to weight levels I've never seen before ever...

Congratulation on the weight loss but I'm just curious, what was your weight at birth?