Imagine you're stranded on a desert island miles from the shipping lanes and way off airplane routes. With you are an astrophysicist, a Doctor of Philosophy, a Doctor of Law and a high school dropout farmer. Who are you going to align yourself with in order to give yourself the best chance of survival?
Assumptions About God(s)
- Thread starter StrangerInAStrangeLand
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Imagine you're stranded on a desert island miles from the shipping lanes and way off airplane routes. With you are an astrophysicist, a Doctor of Philosophy, a Doctor of Law and a high school dropout farmer. Who are you going to align yourself with in order to give yourself the best chance of survival?
Leo Volont
Registered Senior Member
Oh, but some of us could learn how to read, and examine History for the details of Theology, and the effects Religion has had on Social Moral Codes.
but yes, human beings left in their natural state of ignorance would know nothing of all this.
But shouldn't we presuppose at least a modicum of Education before we allow people to come on line and spout off. Oh, I guess not.
but yes, human beings left in their natural state of ignorance would know nothing of all this.
But shouldn't we presuppose at least a modicum of Education before we allow people to come on line and spout off. Oh, I guess not.
Religion has had a very bad effect on social moral codes & vice versa. Even IF it were otherwise, it would yet be a huge assumption that a god is good or sane or beyond the child stage.
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I think the worst effect of religion is seen by its influence on how one group of theists views another. I call it religious profiling.
championed only by atheist moral codes in terms of bad effects
Ad absurdium desperadum.
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Theists make up 87 - 92% of the general population and 99.79% of the prison population.
Atheists make up 9% of the general population and 0.21% of the prison population.
(http://www.adherents.com/largecom/com_atheist.html and report from Denise Golumbaski Fed. Bureau of Prisons)
Theists are over represented in the criminal population.
Atheists are very under represented in the criminal population.
Simon Anders
Valued Senior Member
Sounds like a class issue.
So the poorer you are, the more of a criminal you are, the more likely you are to be religious?
given that the legal system is derivative of a theistic moral system (unless you are perhaps indicating china or communist russia), what's your point?
Care to elaborate?
The US legal system has secular origins, but lets suppose you were actually correct for once.
That would mean a legal system biased for theists was actually letting atheists off the hook.
Simon Anders
Valued Senior Member
No.
Think of it this way.
You get a form with a bunch of religions to check. Perhaps there is a box for atheist, perhaps not. So maybe you have to fill it in.
My guess is a lot of people check Christian, for example, because that is what their family was. They are not thinking about it in terms of Do you believe in God?
My guess is that class will affect the way people think about that question.
Also education.
I think class and education levels - (which are very skewed in prison populations - and not because the poor commit more crimes, but they sure as hell serve more time, are convicted more often, etc., likewise does education affect these things) - affect the way one checks boxes on a form. Or how one approaches a request for that information and what one decides the questioner is really asking and needs to know.
I think these kinds of statistics can be very misleading.
If it turns out the these inmates were asked
Do you believe in God?
That might be getting closer to information.
But even asking "Do you believe in God?" can have misleading results.
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Simon Anders
Valued Senior Member
I agree.
Simon Anders
Valued Senior Member
We don't know how skewed it is.
Though it should be clear from history that being a theist does not prevent one from being immoral.
I just don't think any conclusions in the other direction can be drawn either, from this data that is.
Me I have a number of atheist friends - I love how ironic that sounds, like I was saying Catholics or Jews 50 years ago in the US - and several relatives who are atheist.
I haven't noticed any trend towards greater immorality - anecdotal evidence, of course, but it is my bias to believe it.
Just wanted to make sure the statistics you brought in were not used the other way. I would guess they are significantly skewed. Not because atheists are criminals, but for the reasons I said earlier.
"secular influences" would be more correct, but anyway ...
It would also mean that atheists are incapable of producing their own unique moral system (or at least, as far as the US is concerned, reluctant to determine darwinism as a suitable departure point for ethics, unlike china and communist russia)