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religion,morality,crime,teen pregnancy So you thought religion created good morals?
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In other news, the sky is blue!
In related news, my balls are the same color.
(also, religion sucks)
realy a socity full of unquestoining people that suspend resoin and base all there belives on athourative merit alone is likely to be worse of than a free thinking open minded questoining resnable soucity.
do you just mash the keyboard with your forehead or have half of your fingers been smashed by sledge hammers?
I'm sure the conservatives will redact their claims any minute now.
>> ^westy:
realy a socity full of unquestoining people that suspend resoin and base all there belives on athourative merit alone is likely to be worse of than a free thinking open minded questoining resnable soucity.
do you just mash the keyboard with your forehead or have half of your fingers been smashed by sledge hammers?
While he does appear to write with his face, he does have a good point. At times I wonder if he is really that shit-poor at typing / writing, or if he runs a filter to mangle his words as a sort of test to see what comes of relatively good statements written in painfully bad typing / english.
>> ^rottenseed:
>> ^westy:
realy a socity full of unquestoining people that suspend resoin and base all there belives on athourative merit alone is likely to be worse of than a free thinking open minded questoining resnable soucity.
do you just mash the keyboard with your forehead or have half of your fingers been smashed by sledge hammers?
While he does appear to write with his face, he does have a good point. At times I wonder if he is really that shit-poor at typing / writing, or if he runs a filter to mangle his words as a sort of test to see what comes of relatively good statements written in painfully bad typing / english.
Maybe choggie is his hero?
I thought he had a good point though.
>> ^rottenseed:
>> ^westy:
realy a socity full of unquestoining people that suspend resoin and base all there belives on athourative merit alone is likely to be worse of than a free thinking open minded questoining resnable soucity.
do you just mash the keyboard with your forehead or have half of your fingers been smashed by sledge hammers?
While he does appear to write with his face, he does have a good point. At times I wonder if he is really that shit-poor at typing / writing, or if he runs a filter to mangle his words as a sort of test to see what comes of relatively good statements written in painfully bad typing / english.
Could it be that Westy is dyslexic, or just a non-native English speaker? At least you can still understand what he means, and he makes a valid point.
Westy could you enlighten us?
I believe he wrote that it was a disorder.
It happens, but it i no way makes his opinion any less important.
Times Article
The paper itself.
"the more faithful a nation is, the more likely to have bad shit there"
that's nothing to do with the title.
"on the strict terms of what he wrote, simply showing a corelation, the study holds up"
SOOO.... off you go, kneejerk atheists, expand that very limited conclusion into something it isn't. How scientific of you.
"science guy" is gonna make a lot of money on that book. nice.
Would be an interesting study to get a hold of though to see what he clasifies as a religion to begin with...like, isn't really Budism a religion but more of a moral phylosophy. I would be just as hisitant to believe crazy stuff about generalized studies on "all" agnostics or "all" athiests. If you look at polling and statistics you would be just as skeptical as I am
Anyway, IM sure he is getting some negative personal attacks which sux
SOOO.... off you go, kneejerk atheists, expand that very limited conclusion into something it isn't. How scientific of you.
Well, this atheist knows that statistics can be (and usually are) complete bullshit. Even if the study is accurate in the broadest terms, correlation is not causation.
It is just as likely that a society that has a lot of social chaos would lead more people to place their faith in a god as an escape from the cruelty of their surroundings.
It's a stress reliever and emotional crutch that can help take your mind off reality. Works pretty well, as far as that goes.
On the other hand, the study could be useful in the fight against fundamentalists who are trying to inject more of their religion into the government.
That would certainly fit the findings of the study. He never really suggested causation.
Wouldn't it be more likely that high crime and poor living conditions would cause more religious faith rather than the faith causing the crime? Hardship is a very strong reason for seeking a blissful afterlife.
That would certainly fit the findings of the study. He never really suggested causation.
I quote from Quirkology by Richard Wiseman (an awesome read, by the way): Chapter 3 "Believing six impossible things before breakfast: Psychology enters the twilight zone.", pg 102-103
"By the middle 1920s, inflation in Germany was so high that paper money was carried in shopping bags, and people were eager to spend any money the moment that they had it, for fear that it would be severely devalued the following day. By 1932, almost half of the population were unemployed. In 1982, Vernon Padgett from Marshall Universty and Dale Jorgenson from the California State University published a paper comparing the number of articles on astrology, mysticism, and cults, appearing in the major German magazines and newspapers between the two world wars, and the degree of economic threat each year.* Articles on gardening and cooking were also counted as controls. An index of economic threat was calculated on the basis of wages, percentage of unemployed trade union members, and industrial production. When people were suffering an economic downturn, the number of articles on superstition increased. When things were going better, they decreased. The strong relationship between the two factors caused the authors to conclude that:
'... just as Trobriand islanders surrounded their more dangerous deep sea fishing with superstitions, Germans in the 1920s and 1930s became more superstitious during times of economic threat.'
The authors link their findings with much broader social issues, noting that in times of increased uncertainty, people look for a sense of certaintity and this need can cause them to support strong leadership regimes, and believe in various irrational determinants of their fate, such as superstition and mysticism."
*V.R. Padgett & D.O. Jorgenson - 'Superstition and economic threat: Germany, 1918-1940', Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin #8, pages 736-74. 1982.
I guess you could look at the above study, and then look at what may occur within areas of the United States during this coming time of harsh economic crisis as well. Will it create an increase in religious belief/ferver and a higher degree of trust into other areas of superstition, the supernatural, and mysticism?
When times are hard, which I'm sure they are in some of the countries used in the study conducted which is discussed in the video, more people will want some sort of "control" in their out-of-control lives. They find that sense of "comfort" in handing control over to forces they believe to be "more powerful" than just mortal men and women.
bullshit patchwork science.
"the more faithful a nation is, the more likely to have bad shit there"
that's nothing to do with the title.
"on the strict terms of what he wrote, simply showing a corelation, the study holds up"
SOOO.... off you go, kneejerk atheists, expand that very limited conclusion into something it isn't. How scientific of you.
"science guy" is gonna make a lot of money on that book. nice.
You say "bullshit patchwork science", Mink. Did you read the paper? Are you quite well versed in Statistics? What parts of the study are "bullshit" or, otherwise, do not agree with what should be deemed "proper science"?
I almost hate to get myself kicked in the chin here, but, you appear to be pulling a "kneejerk deist" (and I say "deist" because you've noted several times in other threads that you're not really a "theist" by any definition of the word) reaction to merely what was said in the short interview.
Flame away...
My attack on this is based in science (i did Alevel statistics if that helps you, i'm no expert but i learnt the basics, i.e. statistics are bullshit)
This study says he found more religion where there was more "bad social conditions" or however you want to summarise it.
That proves nothing, he doesn't even suggest causation, because he proved nothing.
However, many comments here are saying "i already knew that religion was retarded/violent/counterproductive"... and that's not what the study showed.
However I expect the "Scientist" here will make a lot of money by digging for more evidence and presenting a pseudoscience book which is controversial and which atheists will cling to in their droves.
I am not a kneejerk deist, although i wouldn't be too insulted if you called me that.
So in the comments here, I am observing people leaping to the conclusion that religion = bad society (which is not what the paper is saying... merely that those two conditions tend to coexist), and someone saying the paper is useless because it doesn't show a causation... which is also untrue. This scientist is essentially saying "Hey guys, I noticed something interesting... These two conditions tend to happen together. Let's look into it further."
It just so happens that the two conditions are things that set a lot of people off, so you will see a lot more emotion injected into the commentary than you would if the two conditions were things like 'smooth rocks tend to exist near water," or something.
I haven't read his work, so I can't judge directly, but I can imagine that his idea of religion in a society was that of fundamentalist morality guided by the hand of something superhuman, set apart from human intervention.
He is not chastising various forms of Christianity or Islam or Shintoism, but rather the idea that our laws are based upon religious dogma rather than intelligent discourse.
In a society that prefers the laws of God, the laws will not be ratified by intelligent and rational theists, but by the lowest common denominators--the fundamentalists. The reason for this is simple. Rational, intelligent people, regardless of their religious affiliation, will only support a morality based on human ideas of the social contract. As in, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." is not a religious idea, but a human idea. Atheists don't want to be murdered or raped or have their items stolen, either. It's just a simple idea of humanity.
The line is drawn when fundamentalists start nitpicking and defining when life begins and when it ends. Then you have laws against abortion, even in cases of incest or rape, because it's "murder." And you have laws against assisted suicide, because only God can decide when your life ends. This is when God's law takes precedence over any human debate.
I think his study finds that there are more cases of crime in a society where fundamentalism has shifted the discourse from human laws to dogmatic Godly laws, where everything is black and white. And in a viable society, no law can be black and white, because that disallows debate over methodology and punishment options.
this is the sift, i clicked the title, and got bullshit, so y'know, downvote.
I'm not convinced.
there wouldn't be any of this "yeah I go to church on easter" or "yeah I believe in the bible, but I think its open to interpretation". people would be in church 7 days a week sacrificing goats in fire pits.
why would anyone mourn infant mortality? wouldn't people be going on non-stop skydiving trips? wouldn't everyone be trying to get into heaven as soon as possible, rather than risk slipping up and winding up in hell?
people would be going batsh*t insane if they really believed in jesus.
religion is not a source of morality, the culture which created it is. for proof, just open up the bible to a random page and try to use what it says as a moral guide and see how long it takes for you to wind up in jail. for extra fun, read the whole bible and try to use that as a moral guide and see how long it takes for you to receive the death penalty.
So many Fallacy's I can shake a stick at!
From wikipedia:
"Gary F. Jensen of Vanderbilt University is one of the scientists who criticizes the methods used by Paul, including that "Paul’s analysis generates the 'desired results' by selectively choosing the set of social problems to include to highlight the negative consequences of religion". In a response [6] to the study by Paul, he builds on and refines Paul's analysis. His conclusion, that focus only in the crime of homicide, is that there is a correlation (and perhaps a causal relationship) of higher homicide rates, not with Christianity, but with dualistic Christian beliefs, something Jensen defines as the strong belief in all of the following : God, heaven, devil and hell. Excerpt: "A multiple regression analysis reveals a complex relationship with some dimensions of religiosity encouraging homicide and other dimensions discouraging it."
Wait- There's something wrong with teen pregnancy?
And yet the societies that actively ban(ned) religion are/were all run by atrocious tyrants, dominating a citizenry through fear.
I don't think any sane person would want to ban religion these days.
Besides, these societies that actively force(d) religion are/were all run by atrocious tyrants, dominating their citizens through fear. FEAR OF BURNING IN HELL, OR AT THE STAKE.
And while I know better than to get dragged into QM's fantasy land, I just had to point that out.