Would the world be a better place without religion?

[Tampitump]

I don't have much of a position because I haven't seen much data. But as the overwhelming majority of religious people are not terrorists and do not commit atrocities, I can't see it is a major factor in those things

So you think religion wasn't a major factor in 9/11, or the Orlando shootings, or Charlie Hebdo, or Malala Yousafzai's shooting? Christianity doesn't have a doctrine of Jihad, nor does Judaism, but Islam does. The particular types of actions each of these cultures tend to commit align very well with their respective religions. Suicide bombing is pretty much exclusively Islamic (with the exception of a couple of brief instances from others like Tamil Tigers), while the worst you're going to get out of Christianity for the most part is Westboro, redneck culture, and the various asinine bullshit the Catholic Church does. It seems rather painfully obvious to me that the religion is there for any zealot who wants to follow its tenets to the letter. Thus, from Christianity, one should expect a fundamentalist to be staunchly anti-gay, anti-abortion, and bigoted against people of other cultures/tribes, but not necessarily violent or aggressive. By the same token, one should expect the more fundamentalist Muslims to either commit or support terrorism, since martyrdom is supported by their doctrine. Thus, you have many instances of terrorism being committed by muslims. That's not to say that Christians have never committed terrorism, but in the past century or so, it has not been of the same scale or style. Their terrorism has been "passive aggressive", which should be expected if you follow the doctrine of Christianity. For instance, Christianity supported the anti-semitism of the National Socialist regime under Hitler.

 

Btw, in a different thread I provided Pew stats of Muslim opinions from several top Muslim-majority nations on things like what the punishments for apostasy, blasphemy, theft, and others should be. The results were terrifying. Overwhelming percentages in favor of stoning as the official punishment for adultery, corporal punishment like cutting off hands for crimes like theft, and death penalty for apostates. http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-beliefs-about-sharia/

 

But of course when I shared this everyone was like, "That's not evidence, blah blu blah blah blah...". Well, if that doesn't count as evidence, what the fuck does?

Edited December 28, 2016 by Tampitump

[Strange]

So you think religion wasn't a major factor in 9/11, or the Orlando shootings, or Charlie Hebdo, or Malala Yousafzai's shooting? Christianity doesn't have a doctrine of Jihad, nor does Judaism, but Islam does.

 

 

1. I never said that. So that is just a silly straw man argument.

 

2. More anecdotes? What is wrong wth you?

 

3. Malala? You mean the case of a devout Muslim girl being attacked by political extremists? Yes, I suppose that has something to do wth religion. (Note: sarcasm; to show how silly using anecdotes to make a point is.)

 

4. So those decades of trouble between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland has nothing to do with religion?

 

5. The killings of Palestinians by Jews has nothing to do with religion?

 

6. The fact that Judaism has by far the word Peace Index in the data provided by Prometheus has nothing to do with religion?

 

7. The Crusades never happened?

 

 

 

That's not to say that Christians have never committed terrorism, but in the past century or so, it has not been of the same scale or style. Their terrorism has been "passive aggressive", which should be expected if you follow the doctrine of Christianity.

 

Tell the families of the thousands killed and injured that it was just "passive aggressive". I'm sure they will be greatly relieved.

[Tampitump]

 

 

1. I never said that. So that is just a silly straw man argument.

 

2. More anecdotes? What is wrong wth you?

 

3. Malala? You mean the case of a devout Muslim girl being attacked by political extremists? Yes, I suppose that has something to do wth religion. (Note: sarcasm; to show how silly using anecdotes to make a point is.)

 

4. So those decades of trouble between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland has nothing to do with religion?

 

5. The killings of Palestinians by Jews has nothing to do with religion?

 

6. The fact that Judaism has by far the word Peace Index in the data provided by Prometheus has nothing to do with religion?

 

7. The Crusades never happened?

 

 

Tell the families of the thousands killed and injured that it was just "passive aggressive". I'm sure they will be greatly relieved.

Now you're talking! Congrats bud!

[Prometheus]

But of course when I shared this everyone was like, "That's not evidence, blah blu blah blah blah...". Well, if that doesn't count as evidence, what the fuck does?

 

I thought i had showed you what evidence people are looking for in post 429. Can you provide some that looks like that, or are you just looking for emotional responses? Is that the real problem, you think people don't have enough of an emotional response to these atrocities?

[dimreepr]

Now you're talking! Congrats bud!

 

Don't get excited, that doesn't argue your point (that it's religions fault) because there are examples of non religious terrorism, the French and Russian revolutions for instance.

Or the American civil war, remember you guys were terrorists once.

The ANC.

[Strange]

Now you're talking! Congrats bud!

 

 

So you agree that your claims were largely erroneous then?

[dimreepr]

Stop being a dick. I have many data and many anecdotes. Why doesn't the correlation between al those data count for new valid data?

 

LMAO, When you finally look in the mirror and realise how much you've spent on dodgy irony meters, will you understand why the better meters have an off switch

[MonDie]

 

I thought i had showed you what evidence people are looking for in post 429. Can you provide some that looks like that, or are you just looking for emotional responses? Is that the real problem, you think people don't have enough of an emotional response to these atrocities?

I don't really consider it evidence when it will take so long to check it for myself. If you sent me the data I would gladly post it to this thread in a spoiler box. That's what I did on the Donald Trump thread, plus adding instructions on using free software (wxMaxima) to do the calculations from the data.

 

Tampitump, you don't need a ban. You can make a garbage email address, verify it to SFN, then forget passwords to both. Make the passwords super uncrackable (fifty characters, random, plenty of symbols).

 

 

I never did look for research on religiosity using the six-factor HEXACO inventory. Must do.

---

 

It's the best I could do.

 

Honesty-humility, the big five, and the five-factor model.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16138875

 

The abstract appears to confirm that those two facets are indeed the most related to honesty-humility. Furthermore, those two facets don't correlate with Agreeableness as well as the other four facets, thus why they split off in a six-factor level analysis and why religiosity wasn't significantly related to those facets.

[Tampitump]

Zealotry is what I have been taught. The bombastic, combative, and offensive style I've become so well-known for on this forum is a product of the fundamentalism of the redneck culture I was raised in. I guess instead of getting banned or creating complicated passwords, I could just return to drinking beer, shootin' guns, and watching monster trucks like before.

Edited December 29, 2016 by Tampitump

[Prometheus]

I don't really consider it evidence when it will take so long to check it for myself. If you sent me the data I would gladly post it to this thread in a spoiler box.

 

I attach these graphs as being demonstrative rather than definitive: some people are frustrated that their few favourite data points are not considered evidence. These plots are just a rough example of what evidence would actually look like: considering all the data, interactions of different variables etc.

 

I've attached another pretty graph for anyone interested, from the same sources as before.

 

 

ReligionvsPeace.pdf

RelvsPeaceCountries.pdf

Edited December 29, 2016 by Prometheus

[hypervalent_iodine]

!

Moderator Note

It seems half of the posters in this thread have forgotten that we have rules regarding civility and insulting other members. Those members may consider themselves officially warned. Tampitump, while the trolling isn't necessarily against the rules, your subsequent posts most certainly were. You have been suspended for 1 year.

Everyone else, stick to the topic, and stop the insults. It won't be tolerated.

[Moontanman]

Religion is not as special as either side seems to think in my estimation. Religion is just yet another way to control people, give power to an elite, and use to make money. The concept of god is far to vague to be meaningful and the more specific it becomes the more abusive it's potential.

 

 

Would the world be a better place with out religion? maybe maybe not, i am sure we humans would have replaced it with some other method of gaining power over our fellow man if religion didn't exist...

[Itoero]

Now, Itoero do you understand why we don't except repetition of a few data points (with some anecdotes chucked in) as evidence? Also, now you know what we are looking for, can you now provide the evidence?

I gave many data and many anecdotes and I have many more of those.

You deny that the correlation between the data concerning Muslim criminality gives new data.

Why?

[Strange]

I gave many data and many anecdotes and I have many more of those.

You deny that the correlation between the data concerning Muslim criminality gives new data.

Why?

 

 

Part of the problem is that you assume that correlation means that you have identified THE cause. When it may not even indicate A cause.

 

Another other problem is that you are cherry picking data that supports your pre-existing prejudices.

Edited January 2, 2017 by Strange

[Prometheus]

I gave many data and many anecdotes and I have many more of those.

You deny that the correlation between the data concerning Muslim criminality gives new data.

Why?

 

It has been explained ad nauseum to you by several members. What specifically do you not understand? Cherry picking? Correlation versus causation? Something else? Ask a specific question and we can give a specific answer.

 

Did you look at the graphs?

[seriously disabled]

Since I believe that religion is very probably a natural phenomena I don't think the world will necessarily be better off without it because it will probably be just the same as it is now.

 

However rational people know that religion is based on false hopes and dreams because if God was really so merciful and loving then there wouldn't be so much unfairness, injustice and extreme suffering in this world.

[Itoero]

"Cherry picking, suppressing evidence, or the fallacy of incomplete evidence is the act of pointing to individual cases or data that seem to confirm a particular position, while ignoring a significant portion of related cases or data that may contradict that position."

 

Which data or related cases do I Ignore?

 

Those data that show the %Muslims in the gen. population is lower then the %Muslims in prison is not linked to specific countries. How am I picking cherries when I give those data?

[Strange]

Those data that show the %Muslims in the gen. population is lower then the %Muslims in prison is not linked to specific countries. How am I picking cherries when I give those data?

 

 

Here you are cherry-picking the fallacy to challenge!

 

I am not sure that is an example of cherry picking (although you could present the figures for other religious and racial groups, for example). It is more a problem of assuming correlation is causation. Why not present some evidence for the causes of this discrepancy?

[Itoero]

Here you are cherry-picking the fallacy to challenge!

 

I am not sure that is an example of cherry picking (although you could present the figures for other religious and racial groups, for example). It is more a problem of assuming correlation is causation. Why not present some evidence for the causes of this discrepancy?

People said I'm cherry picking several times.

 

iNow said I cherry pick the handful of negative deeds and ignore the multitude of positive deeds.

"Muslims do good in these same countries being ravaged by a tiny handful of terrorists. The white helmets of Syria featured last night on 60 Minutes are a quick and obvious example (or, counter example, to be more specific)."

=>The White Helmets are founded by british security consultant James Le Mesurier and they are financed by Westerns goverments. (most) Muslims don't do good...the western world does.

 

I can't understand how you can deny that correlation is causation. (this is not QM )

Many millions of Muslims migrated into Europe the last years. When new data show that criminality again rises...will you then still deny it's because of Islam?

 

There are many anecdotes and data concerning criminal behavior in islam-countries. The punishment for adultery, apostasy and rape...do you deny that's caused by religion?

[iNow]

I can't understand how you can deny that correlation is causation.

You should try harder then.

[Prometheus]

I can't understand how you can deny that correlation is causation. (this is not QM )

 

Wow, says it all really.

 

The fact that social science deals with messier issues than physics means it requires more rigour not less.

 

Correlation does than imply causation regardless of the phenomena under investigation. This is uncontroversial - open a new thread if you want to explore it.

 

I would also agree that you cherry-pick. You seem to acknowledge when people mention that Muslim communities also do good things? But then this has no bearing on your future consideration (if it did you would want to perform a statistical analysis, you've been invited several times but since you haven't i can only assume you don't care about the truth). Ignoring data like this is cherry-picking.

[Itoero]

Wow, says it all really.

 

The fact that social science deals with messier issues than physics means it requires more rigour not less.

 

Correlation does than imply causation regardless of the phenomena under investigation. This is uncontroversial - open a new thread if you want to explore it.

 

I would also agree that you cherry-pick. You seem to acknowledge when people mention that Muslim communities also do good things? But then this has no bearing on your future consideration (if it did you would want to perform a statistical analysis, you've been invited several times but since you haven't i can only assume you don't care about the truth). Ignoring data like this is cherry-picking.

Yes I acknowledge that Muslims do good in their communities. But can you give me data of good behavior that comes from a Muslim community?

There are so many anecdotes/data from criminality/terrorism (also in Muslim countries).

If that's not caused by religion then good behavior from a priest is also not caused by religion.

Religion has then no use, it only causes ignorance.

 

Overall, I would say no. There are many religious groups and individuals who do wonderful things for other people, from charities to art. There are some bad things that are done in the name of religion, but I suspect many of those are just using the cover of religion and the people would do the same things in the name of race, nationality, language, or some other in-group out-group distinction.

So when religious people do wonderful things, correlation implies causation. But when religious people do bad things then correlation not necessary implies causation?

[Prometheus]

Yes I acknowledge that Muslims do good in their communities. But can you give me data of good behavior that comes from a Muslim community?

There are so many anecdotes/data from criminality/terrorism (also in Muslim countries).

If that's not caused by religion then good behavior from a priest is also not caused by religion.

Religion has then no use, it only causes ignorance.

 

So when religious people do wonderful things, correlation implies causation. But when religious people do bad things then correlation not necessary implies causation?

 

Open a new thread about correlation vs causation if you want to try to learn. The religious question is obviously too loaded for you to put aside your emotional investment so the best thing would be try to get a firm grasp of the general concept, then apply it to this particular case.

[iNow]

[Itoero]

Open a new thread about correlation vs causation if you want to try to learn. The religious question is obviously too loaded for you to put aside your emotional investment so the best thing would be try to get a firm grasp of the general concept, then apply it to this particular case.

On some level you must know you have no leg to stand on so you pretend to deal with things scientifically...like when you evoked confounding variables.

And you advice me to open a thread concerning semantics???

Can you please just answer?

 

-Good behavior is in your opinion caused by religion but the bad stuff not necessary. Why?

-Can you give me data of good behavior that comes from Muslim communities?

-There are so many anecdotes/data from criminality/terrorism (also in Muslim countries).

If that's not caused by religion then good behavior is also not caused by religion.

Then religion has no use.