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 Religion Is Bad 
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Chibi-Czar
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Post Religion Is Bad
Evidence

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"Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step to true panic."
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A file that big?
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.
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Fri Jun 01, 2007 8:18 pm
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While I have no quams in advocating caution around organized religion, this is hardly Evidence. It's just another flame-bait site.

Still, I suppose it looks more schollarly than this one:

Bible Inconsistancies

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Sat Jun 02, 2007 12:41 am
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Christopher Fiss wrote:
It's just another flame-bait site.


Journal of Religion & Society wrote:
The Journal of Religion & Society is a refereed academic journal dedicated to the publication of scholarly research in religion and its diverse social dimensions. All submissions to the journal will be subject to blind peer review.

As an electronic journal taking full advantage of the World Wide Web, the Journal of Religion & Society will incorporate photos, graphics, and other media where appropriate in its articles. Moreover, the journal will publish material on an ongoing rather than a periodic basis, eliminating any backlog between acceptance and publication, and also accelerating the publication of scholarly research.

Each volume of the journal will be limited to material published within a given calendar year. The journal also publishes a Supplement Series consisting of occasional collections of essays on a particular theme or topic.


It's not a flame-bait site. It's a peer reviewed, scientific journal that offers empirical evidence for their assertions. There is a difference.

I'd also like to point out that church attendance, ostensibly the strongest indicator of organized religion, didn't correlate with social problems. Belief on the other hand did. It's not so much that it's organized that's the problem, it's that it's an irrational belief.

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"Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step to true panic."
--Freefall

A file that big?
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But now it is gone.
-- David J. Liszewski


Sat Jun 02, 2007 2:09 am
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And yet, in the very next volume:

Overly simplistic analysis with questionable definitions of "societal health"
Jensen, at 28 wrote:
...Paul focuses primarily on the high homicide rate and other selected ills characterizing the United States in a set of eighteen prosperous nations, attributing that unique position to a high level of religiosity. This approach can be badly misleading and a similar approach could be taken to highlight problems in more secular nations. For example, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, and seven other nations have higher burglary rates than the United States (based on Interpol and United Nations data). The United States ranks ninth in cirrhosis death rates with at least four of the secular nations, including Japan, Denmark, France, and Germany exhibiting higher rates. The United States ranks thirteenth in suicide rates, seventh in estimates of daily consumption of narcotic drugs (Interpol estimates), and fourteenth in estimates of net annual alcohol consumption (Interpol estimates). In short, Paul?s analysis generates the ?desired results? by selectively choosing the set of social problems to include to highlight the negative consequences of religion...
And Questionable data-gathering and analytical methodologies, sloppy reasoning
Moreno-Riano, Smith & Mach, at 3, 5, 14, & 16 wrote:
In conducting any research investigation, careful attention must be given to the units of analysis that are selected as targets of study since these will affect the kinds of generalizations and theorizing that a researcher is able to articulate and defend....In the case at hand, Paul uses individuals and political systems as the primary units of analysis and applies a loosely defined notion of religion and secularism to each that leads to certain findings and conclusions... The methodological assumption inherent in this inference is that the religiosity or secularity of a political system is reducible to the religiosity or secularity of its individuals as measured through survey questions. Such analysis leads Paul to commit what social scientists call the individualistic or reductionist fallacy: the error of making inferences about collectivities based upon individuals...

...The study presented in Paul?s essay suffers both from a serious lack of conceptual and operational clarity as it regards religiosity and secularism rendering both the methods and findings at best unclear and at worse highly invalid...

In order to examine and then eliminate rival hypotheses, Paul must utilize a technique that controls for other relevant variables of interest... Since he does not, we are forced to treat his results as spurious, for there is a great possibility that all of his bivariate relationships are illusory, with his dependent variables more likely influenced by the array of independent variables he does not examine.

...Paul?s work brings to the fore the importance of various beliefs for the prosperity of democratic polities. At the same time, however, its methodological problems do not allow for any conclusive statement to be advanced regarding the various hypotheses Paul seeks to demonstrate or falsify. What one can state with certainty is that one cannot in any way be certain as to the effects of religiosity and secularism upon prosperous democracies at least as based upon the methods and data of Paul?s study.


In sum, "Great claims require great proof." Your cited source doesn't seem to make the cut...

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Sat Jun 02, 2007 8:08 am
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Double Posts of Doom


Last edited by admiraltigerclaw on Sat Jun 02, 2007 11:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

Sat Jun 02, 2007 11:47 am
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And if Doyle didn't make it clear...

YOU FAIL.

Play Again?
[Y] - [N]

:P :P :P :P :P

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Sat Jun 02, 2007 11:47 am
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Annon, the problem with this so-called "Scientific Journal" is that the peers that are reviewing it are just as biased as the original author(s).

Also, there is the fact he/she/they instant-fail when trying to quantify Faith. I have no problems in studies that use church attendance or stats that can be measured, but to simply assume they have an answer by quantifying an intangable idea and calling it scientific is no better than the creationists trying to "replace" science with faith. All he's doing is trying to "replace" faith with science. As it was mentioned NUMEROUS times in the old flame-wars, Science and Faith are NOT interchangable, and horrible probelms arrise when people try and assume they can.

It's a very well thought out article, it cites SOME of its points well, but in the end, it's flame bait. When you can interchange "Faith" with a number of other social or idealogical ideas and get the same results in your "proof" then it is NOT proof, and it is not fact. A does not equal B if C, D and F also equal B. C, D, and F being things like economics, education levels and local cultures.

I *KNOW* some of the "bible belt states" have the worst Divorce rates, crime rates and stupidity. But if you look at the so-called "Faith" of the people who live there that degenerate into these vices, you'll find it's done more out of habbit, or out of a warped social conciousness instead of actual choice, belief and hard-earned faith. There are always exceptions, naturally, on both sides, and that 's cool, but this article isn't willing to examine that in an objective, scientific method.

It's a good post, don't get me wrong. My only recommendation is that when someome says they find the "answer" to any long-standing, human-condition level problem, you should use doubt and care instead of relief and validation to respond to it.

Also, look at your reasons for posting things like this. Is it to further a genuine goal, or a big middle finger to those who disagree with you? If your motive is genuine, you'll get a far more open response. I believe while you sometimes muddle the impatial and personal levels, you didn't post this maliciously, so I personally have no problem with it. :)

Still, I think the article, as calm, "rational" and well thought as it is, is simply the latest in the long line of similar sites since the dawn of the intrawebz.

No harm done.

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Sat Jun 02, 2007 1:47 pm
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I'm *so* glad I'm not involved with this. :D

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Mon Jun 04, 2007 2:27 pm
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B.T.L. wrote:
I'm *so* glad I'm not involved with this. :D


:evil: Yer' Next BTL!

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Tue Jun 05, 2007 12:06 am
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Religion isn't bad, people who kill others in its name are.
Money isn't bad, people who kill/make others suffer to gain it are.
Free thought isn't bad, people who use it to incite others to evil are.

And so it goes...some people are really shitty huh?

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Tue Jun 05, 2007 10:43 am
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admiraltigerclaw wrote:
:evil: Yer' Next BTL!


Be a damn shame to waste all that...enthusiasm on someone that isn't going to read the reply. :)

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Tue Jun 05, 2007 5:23 pm
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