How bad is religion !

[GandK]

Here is an interesting post about the belief make up of the prison population:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyat ... -imagined/

I'm not sure how much you can read into this either, Chad. I've probably attended 15 different churches in my lifetime and I've never attended one that didn't have a robust prison outreach program. Most Christians see the prison population as a fertile mission field, and I personally know multiple people who "found God" while they were behind bars. They were at a low point in their life, may have been praying for the first time anyway, maybe to no one in particular. "Help, please let me get through this," etc. And then someone shows up and says "Here's a map for how you can turn your life around and start over... here's redemption." What convicted man wouldn't want to hear that? So, enter the Christian. It happens all the time.

This would be far more pertinent/interesting to me if we could see faith numbers before and after incarceration, and compare the two.

[jacob]

For this kind of statistical conclusions, it might be more useful to look at it country-by-country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Importanc ... by_country

The state-by-state numbers for the US might also prove enlightening. Then compare which states and countries have the most hawks with religious importance. A correlation should be observed. Of course religion might simply be a confounding variable for something else in this case.

[jennypenny]

For this kind of statistical conclusions, it might be more useful to look at it country-by-country. ...

Of course religion might simply be a confounding variable for something else in this case.

level of affluence ... http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/09/re ... h-poverty/

In this case, the US is the exception to the rule.

[jacob]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... e_equality

(Ritzholtz graph is misleading because he's weighing affluence by dollars but religion by headcount which only works if income is uniformly distributed. A plot using median GDP instead of average GDP would make more sense.)

[Tyler9000]

I generally find that topics like this tend to pop up right after a terrorist attack for one of two reasons:

1) A strained politically correct attempt not to name the very specific party who carried out the attack.
2) A strained attempt to attack all religion by claiming broad moral equivalence between those whose belief in God breeds compassion and those who wish to murder those who don't believe in the same things they do. If you really can't tell the difference, you have an extremely shallow understanding of religion.

There are good religions and bad religions. Just like there are good atheists and bad atheists. Good humans and bad humans. Blindness to the difference only enables the bad ones.

[Dragline]

Agreed. Arguments by correlations across broad groups are seldom meaningful, because the statistical factors are invariably selected to reinforce a pre-selected point of view and ignore any number of confounding variables.

Google atheists and suicide and you'll see another one of these types of debates -- and glean very little from it.

Also consider what this would sound like if you replaced "religious" or "athiest" with a racial, nationality or socio-economic classification.

[jennypenny]

Yeah, atheists are definitely more rational ... http://time.com/4114369/pastafarian-col ... nse-photo/

I'm starting a new Church for SHTFarians so I can wear a tinfoil hat in my next drivers license photo.

[Ego]

Blindness to the difference only enables the bad ones.

Everything you said is true. It is also true that there are certain core tenents of virtually every faith - things that are preached from the pulpit every Friday, Saturday and Sunday - that are used by the bad ones as an excuse to do bad. Just as it is reasonable to question whether automatic weapons should be sold to children, it is also reasonable to question whether children should be instructed that hell exists, that end-times is coming or that the martyr is rewarded with 72 Houri.

There are certainly good aspects of religion. Blindness to the bad aspects only embolden the bad ones.

[jennypenny]

@Ego--When was the last time you heard a homily? Or several in a row to make that kind of judgment? Honestly, the message at Mass every week is kind of boring. It rarely goes beyond praying for peace around the world and a watered-down homily that's some variation of "be excellent to each other." Most of the mainstream Protestant churches are preaching in favor of things like gay rights. It's unusual to hear anything that might be considered controversial anymore, except maybe the pro-life message in the Catholic church.

I don't want to be lumped in with the Westboro Baptists of the world any more than you want to be lumped in with the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

edit: sorry, that came out bitchier than I intended.

[jacob]

0a) Any belief-system acts as a short-cut to thinking. Conclusions are already "pre-thought".
0b) An ideology is a belief-system with an emotional/value-basis that makes it stronger.
1) Religion is just another ideology. It is by no means the only one.
2) Just like a gun, any ideology acts as a force multiplier. It makes good people do better things, and it makes worse people do worse things.
3) Because of confirmation bias most people would rather spend time finding more support for their own ideology than look at other ideologies. It is extremely unusual for anyone to spend most of the time pondering the weaknesses of their beliefs.
4) Most people only have deep knowledge of one ideology, their own, because of (3).
5) Most are therefore not even aware that they beliefs are just one in a sea of many. (The fish see no water)
6) For example, the neocon ideology that caused all these problems in the early 2000s has not been mentioned yet in this thread even though the islamic caliphate drive was predicted in the mid 1990s as a war-gaming outcome and the geopolitics wonks were warning heavily against this risk prior to the Iraq invasion as everyone else were going on about Freedom Fries (how things change). Only recently has western media started to take some ownership of the cause of this instability. But because of (4), everybody ignored this connection for the longest time.

[Chad]

1) A strained politically correct attempt not to name the very specific party who carried out the attack.

By no means is this part of my thinking. While I have a negative view of all religions, it's obvious Islam is more extreme than the other major religions at this point in history. I fall very much in Sam Harris' camp on Islam.

2) A strained attempt to attack all religion by claiming broad moral equivalence between those whose belief in God breeds compassion and those who wish to murder those who don't believe in the same things they do. If you really can't tell the difference, you have an extremely shallow understanding of religion.

While there is a difference, there is also a tacit support by the moderates to allow the extremists to exist in all religions just because they are on the same team. Yes, other religions don't have the level of extremism of Islam, but that doesn't mean those religions don't deserve criticism too.

One could also argue that Christians are rather extreme, doing the same thing to Muslims as they are doing to us...and we started it in modern times. We are just doing it with better tech and without suicide bombers.

@jp and GandK
Yeah, that study is definitely flawed. I didn't have time to research it at the time and his statements about lack of information made me think twice about devoting the time to find a good data set.

[Ego]

@Ego--When was the last time you heard a homily? Or several in a row to make that kind of judgment?

It has been a little over a year. But in the past year I have attended three different services (Muslim, Sufi Muslim, and Hindu-Animist). I wonder how many believers have recently attended a service for a religion other than their own.

Do Christians no longer teach children about hell?

I don't want to be lumped in with the Westboro Baptists of the world any more than you want to be lumped in with the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Let the record show, I did not introduce the Flying Spaghetti into this discussion.

What makes you think I don't agree with the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster? The letter that started it all was a satirical response to the fact that the Kansas Board of Education had voted to allow Intelligent Design to be taught in public schools.

The letter. You should read it. It's a doozy. http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/

This is not Westboro Baptists extremists. This is the state of Kansas adopting the bible as a science textbook.

[thrifty++]

1) While I have a negative view of all religions, it's obvious Islam is more extreme than the other major religions at this point in history.

I think islam has become more extreme simply as a result of the power that religion has now in countries where it dominates. I think Christianity is less extreme because the Western World and many other countries traditionally Christian have a large non religious population which I think has resulted in Christianity becoming watered down and not being able to be too extreme. I think Christianity will have been quite extreme many years ago but has lost much of its power and cannot get away with being so extreme anymore. USA seems more religious than most other western countries and seems to have more power there. I do find some of the USA fundamentalist Christian stuff quite strange and anxiety provoking.

I think the danger arises when a dogma becomes too omnipotent and squeezes out the opportunity for other types of thinking.

[enigmaT120]

But in the past year I have attended three different services (Muslim, Sufi Muslim, and Hindu-Animist). I wonder how many believers have recently attended a service for a religion other than their own.

That's interesting. What drew you to the services, friends, curiosity, other? I haven't attended the services of any non-Christian group (I don't attend those of my own any more than I have to.) but I read their books. The Koran, Tao te Ching, the Book of Morman, the Bagvad Gita ((I'm not plowing through all the Upanishads though!), The Origin of Species, a book on Japanese Buddhism. Richard Bach's Illusions.

[steveo73]

What, .0000000000000000000000000000000000001 percent of religious people on the planet are bad. That means we should do away with religion, which improves communities and families? I don't mind religious people in general, because they are usually better than the rest of society, regardless of whether their beliefs are accurate or not.

I don't believe this at all and this is the point. Religious people aren't any better than other people. I think in fact the opposite is true and then you have to add to that the reality of all the problems that religion has caused or if not caused at least contributed towards.

[steveo73]

I generally find that topics like this tend to pop up right after a terrorist attack for one of two reasons:

1) A strained politically correct attempt not to name the very specific party who carried out the attack.
2) A strained attempt to attack all religion by claiming broad moral equivalence between those whose belief in God breeds compassion and those who wish to murder those who don't believe in the same things they do. If you really can't tell the difference, you have an extremely shallow understanding of religion.

There are good religions and bad religions. Just like there are good atheists and bad atheists. Good humans and bad humans. Blindness to the difference only enables the bad ones.

Some fair points but I think that you have come up with some erroneous assumptions with regards to religion namely that religion is something that makes a person more moral or compassionate. I can't give statistics out on this however my feelings are that this is definitely not true. I don't believe that the belief in a deity or afterlife makes a person any more compassionate or moral.

At the same time I believe that religion encourages some extremely bad shit.

[steveo73]

0a) Any belief-system acts as a short-cut to thinking. Conclusions are already "pre-thought".

Maybe but that is what belief systems are about. Its just like having a model to judge certain scenarios. Basically I think we all do this and its cool.

0b) An ideology is a belief-system with an emotional/value-basis that makes it stronger.

Maybe this is true but I think you need to take into account the ideology tenets that you are talking about. Stoicism and other philosophical ideas have a very different basis than religion when it comes to defining how you act.

2) Just like a gun, any ideology acts as a force multiplier. It makes good people do better things, and it makes worse people do worse things.

I don't agree with this but its a common assumption. My wife and her family are very religious. This doesn't stop people from cheating or doing other activities that people may judge as immoral.

I know a fair few Muslims. From completely moderate Muslims to some fundamentalists. They are very different however the fundamentalists get pushed into that culture that breeds terrorism.

Based on these points I just can't see how religion benefits society.

[workathome]

Ugh, religion. What we need is an atheist country like the USSR, or maybe North Korea, or early revolutionary China. Those are great examples of how humane man would be without religion.

Or maybe sometimes man uses religion as an excuse to do bad stuff he would do anyway?

No, can't be. If only we banned guns no one would shoot each other either. Oh, wait.

[steveo73]

If only we banned guns no one would shoot each other either.

I was going to mention this one but Americans go off their nuts over this. Ban religion and guns and how much bad stuff would just disappear.

[jacob]

FWIW, France has very strict gun laws. Sorry, couldn't resist This argument has a very standard counter-argument in that when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. A further standard argument is that if just a few civilians had had guns on them, the outcome could have been very different. This discussion happens every time time there's a school shooting in the US.

The problem is that the two viable solutions are so bifurcated that no compromise is possible. If a majority is armed we'll probably have more Wild West style stupid murders ("You sneezed on my Jetta!!") but fewer/no mass killings. And if everybody is unarmed, it's the other way around and we pay for it with police checkpoint and random searches. Which do you prefer? Turns out people can argue about this forever.

What separates the US and France (or other Euro-nations) is that the US(*) has a gun-culture and Europe does not. Of course, suicide-shooters most definitely have a gun-culture [by construction] and because of the open-border system (Schengen) they can simply bring them in from abroad. So outlawing guns doesn't really solve the terrorist problem. Note how Palestinians in Israel has taken to knife attacks instead. Can you outlaw all knives too? How about all pointy objects?

See http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/n ... l-problems for how the weapons appeared in France despite their laws.

(*) Actually, this is only a problem with certain demographics, so if you correct for that, US numbers drop to Euro numbers.

Overall my point is that you can't solve this with legislation since people who are fighting a war no longer care about legalities.