Separate Studies Conclude: Atheism = Peace, Religiosity = Higher Sociological Problems

Originally posted by ElectricUniverse
Yet atheism is the absence of all spirituality. Atheism is not only the disbelief in any deities, but the disbelief in spirituality.

No it's not.

Sadly, you don't seem to know anything about atheism.


Kap

Originally posted by ElectricUniverse
Communists believe in Atheism. Communism in itself is an atheist belief. There is no indirect connection. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, castro, and every true Socialist/Communist is/was an atheist.

Nazis believe in Christianity.

Nazism is itself a Christian belief.

Hitler was a Christian.


Kap

reply to post by Astyanax



The problem is as Schrecken Licht also sees is you can't just pick something such as being religious, or being black, and make an all encompassing statement as the OP, and his study suggests.

You guys are on the defensive and as I have said and reading Licht's post we are not trying to say religious people are better than Atheist. What we are trying to say is you just can't come to the conclusions of the study without already having an agenda at hand.

The vast majority in prison are there for very non-religious reasons and to suggest that if they have an ounce of religion in them then that is proof that religion is a factor in their behavior that got them into prison is an extremely bias thought, and shows a study that doesn't take factors like economic, culture, location, family continuity, mental stability, drugs, education and so on into the equation. All we get is religious vs atheist and I didn't even see a factoring in actual population percentages of each to actually tell if there is really even case at all.

Why not do a study with a comparison of those who are in prison for crimes commited in the name of god compared to crimes commited totally from human desires?



[edit on 5-6-2010 by Xtrozero]

Originally posted by Xtrozero
You guys are on the defensive and as I have said and reading Licht's post we are not trying to say religious people are better than Atheist. What we are trying to say is you just can't come to the conclusions of the study without already having an agenda at hand.

I disagree. Review of the data points towards certain findings. Agenda-driven science is not science and generally doesn't find its way into scientific journals.

The vast majority in prison are there for very non-religious reasons and to suggest that if they have an ounce of religion in them then that is proof that religion is a factor in their behavior that got them into prison is an extremely bias thought, and shows a study that doesn't take factors like economic, culture, location, family continuity, mental stability, drugs, education and so on into the equation. All we get is religious vs atheist and I didn't even see a factoring in actual population percentages of each to actually tell if there is really even case at all.

I don't believe anyone is saying that religion motivated the crime. The report does not look at sociological factors involved in the crime, but does examine similar sociological factors overall (page 11 of report). Even the report itself admits:

The correlation of over 0.6 in favor of secularism is strong entirely because the U.S. is strong outlier. With the U.S. removed there is no significant correlation because incarceration rates are consistently low in the rest of the countries sampled, although the lowest incarceration levels are found among some of the most secular democracies.

Originally posted by Xtrozero
The problem is as Schrecken Licht also sees is you can't just pick something such as being religious, or being black, and make an all encompassing statement as the OP, and his study suggests.

If you correct for other factors that influence the experiment, why not? Did you read the 'successful societies' study? All that was investigated by the researchers.

You guys are on the defensive and as I have said and reading Licht's post we are not trying to say religious people are better than Atheist. What we are trying to say is you just can't come to the conclusions of the study without already having an agenda at hand.

See above. The agenda is made quite clear in the paper. The research was conducted in order to falsify the widely-promoted (in America) hypothesis that religious societies are more 'successful' (a definition is referred to in the paper) than secular ones. The study concludes that the opposite is true and the hypothesis is therefore falsified.

I have no doubt the American religious right has its own social scientists working on a refutation even as we speak...

The vast majority in prison are there for very non-religious reasons and to suggest that if they have an ounce of religion in them then that is proof that religion is a factor in their behavior that got them into prison is an extremely bias thought, and shows a study that doesn't take factors like economic, culture, location, family continuity, mental stability, drugs, education and so on into the equation. All we get is religious vs atheist and I didn't even see a factoring in actual population percentages of each to actually tell if there is really even case at all.

You're referring to the prison statistics for atheists quoted earlier. Do the correlation yourself. It's easy enough - just get the U.S. census tables for religion and work out the percentages. Not that you even need to do that; a mere glance at the statistics will surely make it clear that atheists are proportionately well down in the prison population compared to their incidence in the entire population.

Why not do a study with a comparison of those who are in prison for crimes commited in the name of god compared to crimes commited totally from human desires?

What in the world would be the point of that?

Originally posted by Astyanax

Why not do a study with a comparison of those who are in prison for crimes commited in the name of god compared to crimes commited totally from human desires?

What in the world would be the point of that?

Ya I get the same puzzled looked with this study....

Behavior is the key here, and how one’s beliefs might affect it. If a person says that God most likely exist, but cares little about it and it doesn’t affect their behavior then there is no correlation. I find prison as a extremely poor choice for either side of the argument since other factors are much more in play in affecting their behavior that caused them to end up in prison.


[edit on 5-6-2010 by Xtrozero]

Originally posted by Astyanax

If you correct for other factors that influence the experiment, why not? Did you read the 'successful societies' study? All that was investigated by the researchers.

There is nothing to correct here... you look at the results and find correlations…you let the results lead the way.

I’ll give you just one confounding with this study (of many). Our prisons have a higher percentage of minorities, and based on culture, minorities tend to have a very high religious percentage of their population, economics plays into this too since many churches help the local population, the poor will see more involvement with the Church. So the study is using our prisons with a very high ratio of poor minorities in them to prove their point.

At least agree that prison isn't a good representation of society as a whole.









[edit on 5-6-2010 by Xtrozero]

Originally posted by Xtrozero
I find prison as a extremely poor choice for either side of the argument since other factors are much more in play in affecting their behavior that caused them to end up in prison.

I can agree with this. However, we do have laws on the books that incarcerate people for consensual "crimes" such as sodomy and personal drug use.

My home state has sodomy laws which can only be described as religiously motivated and carry extreme penalties.

I see these types of pointless arguements in posts all the time. Peace isn't determined by religion or no religion, it's determined by your own personal beliefs. You don't have to be a Christian to decide that you don't want to take part in violent crimes or immoral activities or vice versa an athiest. What it comes down to, is if you have to take surveys to have support behind your belief then you probably don't have as much faith as you think you have and maybe should do some reconsidering...In my heart and mind I KNOW God exist and Jesus is my savior and no matter what any ats poster, "scientific study" or youtube video says to oppose this, I'll still have my faith. Everyone should respect the fact that humans have the choice to agree or disagree and not start a war everytime someone doesn't follow the path you choose to take.

Originally posted by Xtrozero
There is nothing to correct here... you look at the results and find correlations…you let the results lead the way.

You are wrong. That is not how such experiments are conducted. When seeking to isolate the effect of one cause behind a trend that may have many, you design your experiment to eliminate or correct for those other causes. It is a very common technique used in all fields of enquiry.

I’ll give you just one confounding with this study (of many). Our prisons have a higher percentage of minorities, and based on culture, minorities tend to have a very high religious percentage of their population, economics plays into this too since many churches help the local population, the poor will see more involvement with the Church. So the study is using our prisons with a very high ratio of poor minorities in them to prove their point.

Ah, I see. You would rather blame crime on non-Caucasians rather than on the religious. Clearly, race matters to you - matters so much you cannot see that it is of absolutely no interest for the purpose of this discussion whether someone is a white Christian or a black Muslim.

Factors like race are easily corrected for in studies like these, and if the studies are to be deemed valid by peer review, they have to be. You are raising a non-argument - and revealing your own unacknowledged prejudices with a naivety almost touching in the process.

You have no argument.

reply to post by ElectricUniverse


Atheism is responsible for mass murders: myth.

In order for something to take blame it must cause it.

Atheism adopts no set of moral beliefs,
Atheists are individually accountable for their moral convictions.
When an atheist, like Stalin, Mao, and Pot, does something, THEY ARE TO BLAME, not atheism.
Not all atheists share the moral convictions that murder is good (identifying the differences of moral convictions).

Atheism does not create a motive to murder.
"I do not believe god exists, I should start killing people",
Is a statement you will never hear because there is EMPTY REASONING there.

"I should kill people because I need power, I'm sadistic, god said so, ..."
Are the kinds of reasons someone would kill;
Because there are reasons people kill does not make atheism accountable because atheism did not supply the reason to kill.

Example: Atheism has as much to do with any actions does the color of one's skin.
If you looked at the prison population and saw that black americans make up the highest percentage, is being black to blame?

Atheism equates to communism as much as all vegetables are turnips, from Soviet Russia.
Atheism, the lack of belief god exists, is not a government or responsible for any government...
As you can see I've demonstrated this above.

So if you look at history:
Atheism = 0 killed

I do, however, agree that atheism is not the essential symptom of peace, it is believing in peace.

Truth has been seen

-Neverseenit