[Klarin]

An analysis of the study

A second analysis of the study

The study

Very interesting. A pity this hasn't gotten more attention - it's already one and a half years old.

Thoughts?

Klarin

[Swiss Knight]

I always like this argument, many people say that without a belief in the deity of their choice, people would have no morals, and would go around killing people. Looking over the fact that religious people kill other people all the time, this seems to make sense as going to hell or whatever should be a pretty good motivator.

However, turns out theres a better explanation. Back at the Dawn of Man, chances are the only other people/monkeys you would come into contact with were your family or tribe or whatever. So, it became an advantage to act nice to them as you would be given good treatment in return. So, this type of behavior is programmed into us, even though now, thanks to cars and airplanes and suburbs, we come into contact with many more people then our immediate family.

I know this isnt exactly what your talking about, but its close enough.

[sh0td0wn]

*Warning* This might become a flaming thread.

[Loth Don]

That is a very interesting study. I think it is obvious why we don't hear more about such things in the U.S.

I would like to point out that many religious faiths/movements, whatever you want to call them, are lead by what I would consider corrupt people, or worse, corrupt and delusional people. IMO, there are various faiths that are open-minded and what might be called progressive. Some of those kinds of faiths have been around for centuries. However, this study obviously sees much of what I see( despite being a believing person) that much of the religious society is close-minded, backwards, dogmatic, and opressive.

Certainly many religious people profess to believe in God and profess to be moral, but obviously as the study points out, they have a rather different moral compass and they judge others by that compass.

This post has been edited by Loth Don: 02 March 2007 - 06:31 PM

[TheDude]

Thoughts, yep.
Already this guy's story; oh, excuse me, study, is flawed.

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Most of those now seeking to blow people up – whether with tanks and missiles or rucksacks and passenger planes – do so in the name of God.

Can you say isolated? Us christians don't blow up kids, bub. Those islamic radicalsare the ones who do that. (no offense, but it's true)

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None of the strongly secularized, pro-evolution democracies is experiencing high levels of measurable dysfunction

*laughing* *wipes a tear from eye* Oh wow. Is this guy serious? Europe succeeds in failing. The German government took a 15-year old girl awa from her parents because she was being homeschooled, was taken to a psychiatric hospital, and diagnosed with "schoolphobia". They said hr father had too much direct influence over her because she loved obeyed, and respected him. They said the father's sons and daugters erntnormal because the liked to read! I strongly believe that would be classified as 'dysfuntional'.

Of course, the Bush administraton is the root of all evils. They must be the reason for our struggles with teen pregnancies.

As you have seen me post before, evolution has sparked all sorts of cases of immorality around the world. The Holocaust was based on the concept of natural selection! The Nazi's considered the Jews and other races 'ínferior' and tried to wipe 'em out. That's all right by Natural Selection, because only the fit survive. Because of evoluton, people think that life only goes 'til they die, so they neeed to try to make it as pleasurable as possible, and as sinful.

I'm not denying that us christians have done questionable things, but who hasn't? Nobody's perfect, or not hypocritical.

This guy also went off topic, with teen pregnancies and church and state. He also does a whole lot of generalization, with us as the target! How exciting.

You also have to understand that it's like Europe is slowly being sterilized. Their population is slowly diminishing as their birth rate does.

This post has been edited by Doomtrooper45: 02 March 2007 - 07:15 PM

[SlurpeeBoy]

Well, it's how you take a belief. If religion caused bad behavior, we'd be in a state of constant world war. Why is this not so? Because the overwhelming majority of religious people are not radicals. "Well, if these people existed, why haven't I heard of them on the news?" The news is a buisness. They want to get as many people to watch it, and there's nothing people like to watch more than nutcases. That's why they're on the news. You don't see missionary man who goes to Africa to feed children, you see Islamofascist man who wants to blow up African kids because he's much more entertaining.

[Swiss Knight]

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Can you say isolated? Us christians don't blow up kids, bub. Those islamic radicalsare the ones who do that. (no offense, but it's true)

I think a statement like this proves the point of the article.

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*laughing* *wipes a tear from eye* Oh wow. Is this guy serious? Europe succeeds in failing. The German government took a 15-year old girl awa from her parents because she was being homeschooled, was taken to a psychiatric hospital, and diagnosed with "schoolphobia". They said hr father had too much direct influence over her because she loved obeyed, and respected him. They said the father's sons and daugters erntnormal because the liked to read! I strongly believe that would be classified as 'dysfuntional'.

One example hardly proves are disproves the argument.

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As you have seen me post before, evolution has sparked all sorts of cases of immorality around the world. The Holocaust was based on the concept of natural selection! The Nazi's considered the Jews and other races 'ínferior' and tried to wipe 'em out. That's all right by Natural Selection, because only the fit survive. Because of evoluton, people think that life only goes 'til they die, so they neeed to try to make it as pleasurable as possible, and as sinful.

The notion that the holocaust occured because of natural selection is absurd. If you had any understanding of what natural selection is, you would realize that when an insane dictator believes his race to be superior to all others, and begins a program of genoicde, that is not the same as certain factors in an enviroment being advantageous to a group.

[(DoV) Tokakeke]

Japan's secularism has nothing to do with its crime rate. On the contrary, my guess is that it's more related to the Confucian group mentality than any sort of secular ethics.

[TheDude]

Swiss Knight, on Mar 2 2007, 08:08 PM, said:

I think a statement like this proves the point of the article.

What are you talking about?

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One example hardly proves are disproves the argument.

Except that there are so many instances of this happening people are fleeing east to Austria and if they can, America.

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The notion that the holocaust occured because of natural selection is absurd. If you had any understanding of what natural selection is, you would realize that when an insane dictator believes his race to be superior to all others, and begins a program of genoicde, that is not the same as certain factors in an enviroment being advantageous to a group.

Really? Seeing as Hitler believed in evolution, one might think that some of his ideas came from it.

Yes, religion fosters bad behavior. Look at the holocaust: all those religious people were wiped from the face of the earth.

[Stargazer]

as per usual Doom, you're not bothering to listen to what anyone says and are making stupid arguments which aren't valid.

[SlurpeeBoy]

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I think a statement like this proves the point of the article.

What are you talking about?

He's talking about the islamists. You know what? The title of this topic is all wrong: EXTREMIST religion fosters bad behavior. The main flaw of the arguments in this thread (and, hell, all threads like it) is there is too much generalization. A sub-faction does not represent the whole group. Christians hate the "ur all goin to hell lol" people marching around, and they're definantly not the majority. I can make a thread about how black people are stupid because some tribes got tricked by the slave traders. Does that make me right? No, it doesn't.

[Ghostly_Substance]

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Can you say isolated? Us christians don't blow up kids, bub. Those islamic radicalsare the ones who do that. (no offense, but it's true)

Actually no, those are either the hardcore extremist, bribed extremist or American puppets, or stereotypes created to brainwash people. Also i'm annoyed at how when someone says "terrorist" people think of middle-east and exclude the rest of the world where terrorism exists. Its like saying the middle-east is a farm that purely breeds terrorists. Wrong. Its like saying that us Christians are the most peaceful religion but since so many races are in each different religion you can't really pin point (except for the majority race).

*sighs*
Does religion topics always have to turn ugly? Even American is censoring religious stuff coming from other countries in anime and certain public products from Europe or where ever.

uh? Non-religious people more peaceful? In my opinion I doubt it since it should be almost equal in both zones since humans act the same (if they are not fully fledged worshipers). If thats what it means then still the same in a way.

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Most of those now seeking to blow people up – whether with tanks and missiles or rucksacks and passenger planes – do so in the name of God.

Prove it with an ancient and modern proof from the Koran or the bible. I mean it has to say directly and clearly at that. Ah well its a study after all can't take it that harshly should I ?

[Klarin]

What the study shows is a correlation between the rates of belief in a religion (specifically, a monotheistic religion) and the rates of social dysfunction, in various forms, across many democracies.

In other words, belief in a religion tends to cause people to be "more immoral," judged by several important standards, including murder rates. This isn't a case of exceptions, this is a case of the general rule. That is, the study says that the general rule is that religion leads to immorality. This doesn't necessarily mean that all religious people are immoral, but it does mean that there is something about religion that causes a greater tendency towards dysfunctional societies.

Oh, and SlurpeeBoy, SwissKnight is talking about the statement itself.

Klarin

[Big Jack]

I think the only one way to prove that article is correct is if there's never a religious war or attack of some sort between the Athiests and the Theists.


Ha, that would be so awesome; the Athiests would be all "lol religion is the cause of all war" and crap and launch an attack on all the Theists, and then the Theists would be all "lol counterattack", and then I'd be watching the onslaught from afar, laughing at the hypocrisy...


Of course, that might never happen, but it would still be lol-worthy.

[(DoV) Tokakeke]

Doomtrooper45, on Mar 2 2007, 05:34 PM, said:

Really? Seeing as Hitler believed in evolution, one might think that some of his ideas came from it.

This is by far the stupidest thing I've ever read. I vote we stop arguing with Doom and leave him to his own non-sequiturs.

[Stargazer]

(DoV) Tokakeke, on Mar 3 2007, 03:05 AM, said:

This is by far the stupidest thing I've ever read. I vote we stop arguing with Doom and leave him to his own non-sequiturs.

agreed.

arguing with a 13 year old who knows nothing will get us no were very very fast.

[Klarin]

Neither will off-topic ramblings.

In any case, Big Jack, you miss the point. This study does not address war. It addresses social issues.

Klarin

[Big Jack]

(DoV) Tokakeke, on Mar 2 2007, 07:05 PM, said:

This is by far the stupidest thing I've ever read. I vote we stop arguing with Doom and leave him to his own non-sequiturs.

Actually, I think he did extirminate them based on genetics n' stuff, and not on religion, but I don't really feel like backing this up with any articles.

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In any case, Big Jack, you miss the point. This study does not address war. It addresses social issues.

Yeah, but it would still be funny.



Although I question the notion of Athiests being more normal, since it seems at my school that most of the socially akward people are all athiests, while the normals are mainly theist (I think...). Of course, my school is certainly not the best place to base stuff off of (with the exception of my theory that every high-school has at least one cat-girl).

[TheDude]

Yeah.

Tokakeke, that's not the stupidest thing you've ever read. This is: Advanced Nuclear Robotics Science.
Problem resolved.
No, seriously, which is the stupid part: First part, (it's a fact) or the last part (maybe), or both?

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arguing with a 13 year old who knows nothing will get us no were very very fast.

Maybe revealing my age to the public wasn't exactly a bright idea...

I agree with rogue leader. This is going out of control.

[HissingNewt]

Maybe everybody should stop starting threads about religion. Every single one has ended badly.

The only people who do blow others up for their religion are extremists. Most of them don't really follow the religion but follow their own twisted form of it that validates their murdering of others to themselves.

Big Jack, I think you're right. If they had any Jewish ancestry that he knew of, they would be killed. He did base it on natural selection though. He thought that people with blue eyes and blond hair were superior to everybody else. He tried to exterminate the "lower" humans so that everybody would be blond haired, blue eyed.