Gene Frenkle Posted September 22, 2009 Posted September 22, 2009 Of course, it's a study about criminals, not religions. Which concludes that sexual offenders are highly likely to be religious. Correlation does not equal causation of course, but there is a body of evidence here and this just reinforces that.
Endzone Animal Posted September 22, 2009 Posted September 22, 2009 You have no clue what you're talking about. Please at least try to back up your nonsense instead of just inverting and regurgitating the statements of others like a five year old... [followed by a lengthy cut-and-paste]. The irony is astounding. Doing a mindless cut and paste in the same post you're preaching against "regurgitating the statements of others". A complete lack of self-awareness is common among those who are infected with moral absolutism.
Gene Frenkle Posted September 22, 2009 Posted September 22, 2009 The irony is astounding. Doing a mindless cut and paste in the same post you're preaching against "regurgitating the statements of others". A complete lack of self-awareness is common among those who are infected with moral absolutism. Forgive me for citing actual research and I'll forgive your citing of...oh, that's right - nothing. You have convinced me that you are not worth responding to. Good luck with all of your future logical fallacies.
Endzone Animal Posted September 22, 2009 Posted September 22, 2009 Dissent can never be tolerated amongst the self-righteous.
YellowLinesandArmadillos Posted September 22, 2009 Posted September 22, 2009 Which concludes that sexual offenders are highly likely to be religious. Correlation does not equal causation of course, but there is a body of evidence assumptions here and this just reinforces that. Correlation according to who???? Corrected.
Gene Frenkle Posted September 22, 2009 Posted September 22, 2009 Correlation according to who???? Corrected. Strong statistical correlation across multiple studies between faith and higher rates of homicide, STD, sex crimes, teen pregnancy and abortion. So no, it's not really based on assumptions.
DC Tom Posted September 22, 2009 Posted September 22, 2009 Which concludes that sexual offenders are highly likely to be religious. Correlation does not equal causation of course, but there is a body of evidence here and this just reinforces that. No, it concludes that sexual offenders are highly likely to declare a religious belief in prison. There's no discrimination between an honestly held belief and an ex post facto justification in the article - as the article itself points out repeatedly. It's also the wrong conclusion - if the nearly-illegible graph is even remotely accurate, a sex offender in the English prison system more likely to be religious than athiest (approx. 66% to 33%), but there's absolutely no comparison against any sort of baseline - such as the religious beliefs of the population as a whole. Given England is 23% athiest ("non-religious" would be more accurate), athiests are actually MORE likely to be sex offenders, by about 30% (and about 100% more likely than Anglicans, in point of fact). And it's highly subjective - that criminals declare a religion in prison is, again, less representative of the religion than it is the criminals. It's subjective enough to be virtually meaningless.
YellowLinesandArmadillos Posted September 22, 2009 Posted September 22, 2009 Strong statistical correlation across multiple studies between faith and higher rates of homicide, STD, sex crimes, teen pregnancy and abortion. So no, it's not really based on assumptions. First place, all stats are based on initial assumptions, so yes by definition. That being said... what DC Tom said.
IDBillzFan Posted September 22, 2009 Posted September 22, 2009 Which concludes that sexual offenders are highly likely to be religious. Correlation does not equal causation of course, but there is a body of evidence here and this just reinforces that. Real stretch there. A recent poll, I believe from Newsweek, reported that 81% of Americans consider themselves Christians. So you can conclude that virtually any group of "(fill-in-the-blank) offenders" are highly likely to be religious.
Gene Frenkle Posted September 22, 2009 Posted September 22, 2009 No, it concludes that sexual offenders are highly likely to declare a religious belief in prison. There's no discrimination between an honestly held belief and an ex post facto justification in the article - as the article itself points out repeatedly. It's also the wrong conclusion - if the nearly-illegible graph is even remotely accurate, a sex offender in the English prison system more likely to be religious than athiest (approx. 66% to 33%), but there's absolutely no comparison against any sort of baseline - such as the religious beliefs of the population as a whole. Given England is 23% athiest ("non-religious" would be more accurate), athiests are actually MORE likely to be sex offenders, by about 30% (and about 100% more likely than Anglicans, in point of fact). And it's highly subjective - that criminals declare a religion in prison is, again, less representative of the religion than it is the criminals. It's subjective enough to be virtually meaningless. Looking at it again, I think you're right. This was probably a poor study to cite.
Gene Frenkle Posted September 22, 2009 Posted September 22, 2009 Real stretch there. A recent poll, I believe from Newsweek, reported that 81% of Americans consider themselves Christians. So you can conclude that virtually any group of "(fill-in-the-blank) offenders" are highly likely to be religious. I guess that would be true if we were just talking about the United States. A lot these talk more about comparisons betwen predominantly non-religious countries like the UK vs. predominantly religious countries like the US.
Booster4324 Posted September 22, 2009 Posted September 22, 2009 I guess that would be true if we were just talking about the United States. A lot these talk more about comparisons betwen predominantly non-religious countries like the UK vs. predominantly religious countries like the US. Huh? Didn't Tom just quote you the percentage for the UK?
Gene Frenkle Posted September 22, 2009 Posted September 22, 2009 Huh? Didn't Tom just quote you the percentage for the UK? Yes, in retrospect that was not a very good study to cite.
Ramius Posted September 22, 2009 Posted September 22, 2009 That is such a bunch of BS. We are all hard-wired to be moral through years and years of natural selection. Your religious beliefs (which were created by people) are a direct result of that hard-wiring of right and wrong. There are plenty of studies that prove a common set of human morals that transcend geography, race, religion and just any other categorization you can think of. If religion equals morality, why is it that the REALLY religious people always seem to be the ones committing the most heinous of heinous crimes? bull ****. Religion (of any type) and faith usually provide a great set of moral guidelines and tenets to follow and usually imparts good life lessons everyone can follow. We aren't hard wired to be "moral." If i'm hungry and you are hungry and theres only 1 hamburger, perhaps you are hard-wired to share. I'm hard wired to beat you with a club and eat the burger myself. However, the teachings of religion instill a moral sense that i should share with you.
IDBillzFan Posted September 22, 2009 Posted September 22, 2009 bull ****. Religion (of any type) and faith usually provide a great set of moral guidelines and tenets to follow and usually imparts good life lessons everyone can follow. We aren't hard wired to be "moral." If i'm hungry and you are hungry and theres only 1 hamburger, perhaps you are hard-wired to share. I'm hard wired to beat you with a club and eat the burger myself. However, the teachings of religion instill a moral sense that i should share with you. This is precisely why I find it so incredible that some people have this absolute need to demonize church-going Americans simply because they believe in a person or thing that can not be seen or proven. If Christians were running around raping kids and carjacking the poor, all in the name of their God, then yeah, let's demonize them. But so many churches are committed to teaching a good, moral life while working together to do good for the less fortunate; providing food to he hungry, shelter to the homeless, and (misguided or not) hope for those who feel hopeless. As I've mentioned before, my wife has really committed herself to Christianity these past few years. Attending church, etc. is not my gig, but that doesn't stop her from spending a lot of her free time volunteering at the church to help others. She's gone from home more often than usual, and she's constantly making sure I'm okay with this, and all I can think is "How could any rational person have a problem with this?" Enter the far left libs.
ExiledInIllinois Posted September 22, 2009 Posted September 22, 2009 BINGO! Religion is the basis of social conduct. IMO, you can't get that from science alone. Hey... LA... I am a far left liberal... Oh, wait, so was Jesus back in his day. Not that I am comparing myself to Jesus, just saying... The more something "catches on" and becomes mainstream... The more things become "conservative." Most people hate social change. Without liberals, you wouldn't have any movement against the main social paradigm...
Gene Frenkle Posted September 22, 2009 Posted September 22, 2009 bull ****. Religion (of any type) and faith usually provide a great set of moral guidelines and tenets to follow and usually imparts good life lessons everyone can follow. We aren't hard wired to be "moral." If i'm hungry and you are hungry and theres only 1 hamburger, perhaps you are hard-wired to share. I'm hard wired to beat you with a club and eat the burger myself. However, the teachings of religion instill a moral sense that i should share with you. Yes, posses slaves from other lands (both male and female), kill the gays, sell your daughters into slavery, kill those who work on Sunday, don't eat shellfish and kill or convert those of other religions. And of course there's always good old jihad. I mean, we've all seen how valuable that is... And that's really just the tip of the iceberg. Do you not think the human beings are incapable of doing the moral thing without the motivation of fear? Why is there such commonality between the tenets of so many religions? Because these tenets come from man's inborn morality. Actually, the 'good of the tribe' drives your altruism in this 'hamburger incident', not religious belief. If we both survive, our combined skills and abilities will better provide for both of us in the future. We're more likely to find additional food and other necessities if we work together. Those who share over time will win out. The morality you infer from this is nothing more than your rationalization of your own hard-wiring.
Gene Frenkle Posted September 22, 2009 Posted September 22, 2009 If Christians were running around raping kids... Seriously? I'd have much less of a problem with them if their leadership was not doing exactly that. Religious people are no more moral than non-religious people.
ExiledInIllinois Posted September 22, 2009 Posted September 22, 2009 Yes, posses slaves from other lands (both male and female), kill the gays, sell your daughters into slavery, kill those who work on Sunday, don't eat shellfish and kill or convert those of other religions. And of course there's always good old jihad. I mean, we've all seen how valuable that is... And that's really just the tip of the iceberg. Do you not think the human beings are incapable of doing the moral thing without the motivation of fear? Why is there such commonality between the tenets of so many religions? Because these tenets come from man's inborn morality. Actually, the 'good of the tribe' drives your altruism in this 'hamburger incident', not religious belief. If we both survive, our combined skills and abilities will better provide for both of us in the future. We're more likely to find additional food and other necessities if we work together. Those who share over time will win out. The morality you infer from this is nothing more than your rationalization of your own hard-wiring. Not saying science is irrelevant... Of course it is not... Science and religion can exist hand in hand... Most of the advances in science have been advanced by (at first a reluctant) Catholic church. Of course early on science hadn't caught up to where people needed to be.
Endzone Animal Posted September 22, 2009 Posted September 22, 2009 Religious people are no more moral than non-religious people. Maybe there's hope for you, yet. Welcome down from your high horse...
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