Yeah, liberals are lazy, which is why they're poor, they expect the government and rich people to do everything for them. I know lots of poor conservatives who became rich, simply because they weren't lazy, but when they arrived in the country they were poor. Liberals are also never generous...all the conservatives I know are very very generous...the liberals act like giving away dollar is the end of the world....ofcourse I still don't support the Bush-lovers...Bush doesn't represent true conservatism...which is smaller government, less regulation, more free market, more freedom, less world-intervention (less wars), etc....
Believers More Charitable,Peaceful than Non
- Thread starter sandy
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Yeah, liberals are lazy, which is why they're poor, they expect the government and rich people to do everything for them. I know lots of poor conservatives who became rich, simply because they weren't lazy, but when they arrived in the country they were poor. Liberals are also never generous...all the conservatives I know are very very generous...the liberals act like giving away dollar is the end of the world....ofcourse I still don't support the Bush-lovers...Bush doesn't represent true conservatism...which is smaller government, less regulation, more free market, more freedom, less world-intervention (less wars), etc....
Yeah exactly...the reason you're moral is because of your own inherent nature...not because of atheism...where as with the religious...the reason they're moral is specifically because of religion...
Yeah whatever, this is just an ad hominem...
So basically, believers have no inherent moral nature and need guidance and instruction from religion?
Therefore atheists are naturally better people, they don't need to be told how to behave.
Haha...so you could say that religion is a crutch for the morally challenged who don't know how to behave moralistically on their own?
People of faith often claim that the crimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were the inevitable product of unbelief. The problem with fascism and communism, however, is not that they are too critical of religion; the problem is that they are too much like religions. Such regimes are dogmatic to the core and generally give rise to personality cults that are indistinguishable from cults of religious hero worship. Auschwitz, the gulag and the killing fields were not examples of what happens when human beings reject religious dogma; they are examples of political, racial and nationalistic dogma run amok. There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.
this is a common mistake made by theists, typically those of the fundy type, they believe atheism is essentially socialist or communist in nature. Thus, atheism should be rejected since socialism and communism are evil. How stupid!
the first thing we should note is there is an automatic and almost unconscious assumption made by these theists that their religion is somehow equivalent with captialism.
Communism is not, however, inherently atheistic. It is possible to have communistic or socialistic views while being a theist and it isn't at all wrong to be an atheist while staunchly defending capitalism, which is a combination often found among objectivists and libertarians.
their existence alone demonstrates, that atheism and communism are not the same thing.
is christianity opposed to commuism? No, the opposite, actually. There is nothing in the gospels which even so much as suggests a divine preference for captialism, now is there.
quite a bit of what Jesus said supports many of the of socialism and even communism. He specifically said that that people should give all they could to the poor and that "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.
basic communism states to hold all property in common rather than privately, is practiced by numerous Christian communities now and throughout history. references to it can be found in Acts:
Acts 4:33-35 "With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. "
The similarity to Marx's principle of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" should be obvious.
and here again in Acts:
Acts 5:1-11 "But a man named Ananias, with the consent of his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property; with his wife’s knowledge, he kept back some of the proceeds, and brought only a part and laid it at the apostles’ feet. "Ananias," Peter asked, "why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, were not the proceeds at your disposal? How is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You did not lie to us but to God!" Now when Ananias heard these words, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard of it.
The young men came and wrapped up his body, then carried him out and buried him. After an interval of about three hours his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. Peter said to her, "Tell me whether you and your husband sold the land for such and such a price." And she said, "Yes, that was the price." Then Peter said to her, "How is it that you have agreed together to put the Spirit of the Lord to the test? Look, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out." Immediately she fell down at his feet and died. When the young men came in they found her dead, so they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. And great fear seized the whole church and all who heard of these things."
their deaths served as an example to all the others of what would happen if they, too, held back profits for themselves instead of giving everything to the community.
so we can see that this was the first christian commune(ist) society.
so please lets get away from this silly reference to atheism and communism being the same, the bible is basically a communist manifesto.
Violence is not the only method of forcing or cajoling people to join one's side. Psychological warfare, blackmail, politics, and just plain old bribery will work as well, all of which Christianity excels at.
You do realise that this statement is not the same as and has little relation to your title?
How do you explain Oprah?
Yet somehow, Sandy, it seems the excessively religious tend to vote for policies that take from the poor and give to the rich. That makes it necessary for them to assuage their guilt by giving more to a religious organization instead of making a comprehensive effort, coordinated by We the People, to lift up all of society, to provide the investments that would create a strong and thriving middle class.
A second important point is that an organized belief system can indeed promote a beneficial style of living without being true. However, if you examine the history of religious belief, you will find that it has not eliminated poverty, in fact, by convincing people that suffering in this life is noble, and that a heaven awaits one after death, it has lead to a mindset that is complacent if not complicit in making an Earth that is far, far from heaven.
A second important point is that an organized belief system can indeed promote a beneficial style of living without being true. However, if you examine the history of religious belief, you will find that it has not eliminated poverty, in fact, by convincing people that suffering in this life is noble, and that a heaven awaits one after death, it has lead to a mindset that is complacent if not complicit in making an Earth that is far, far from heaven.
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Grantywanty
Registered Senior Member
Was there any data on how much more likely Christians are to approve wars?
How much more often they judge certain members of society as deserving to suffer in agony for all time?
Any data on how much more they teach children that their impulses and bodies are sources of sin and evil?
Any data on levels of anti-semitism or sexism?
Complete and utter bullshit. Nothing of the kind has been debunked here. Indeed, those that think so only reveal their ignorance and under-education with regard to statistical analysis and the nature of the questionnaire used to complete the Barna Group's telephone survey as well as the methodology used to tally the results. I looked for their questionnaires on the Barna Group's website but was unable to locate it, so I'll have to wait until someone cites it in The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion or a comparable peer review source. But I can almost guarantee that they had different surveys/questionnaire for the two different groups: atheists/agnostics and believers.
This is important because of a key question that you based your conclusion on that religious believers are more charitable than the reasoned.
The key question given to the atheists/agnostics in their survey was did they volunteer to help a "non-church-related non-profit," to which 20% said yes. Do you honestly think that the survey for the believers asked if they volunteered to help "non-church-related non-profits?" And, if it did, why should the 10% increase in the positive answers be held to be statistically significant in a poll conducted on a group of people that realize that they are expected to be held in a higher regard -a group of people that is accustomed to presenting themselves as overly pious and charitable.
Indeed, without seeing the actual bivariate table of data and the statistical sampling method used, the statistical significance in this "report" is completely and utterly useless. The report doesn't so much as reveal what the z or t scores were (depending on which method was actually used).
So, when you say debunked, lets keep in mind that this is yet another glaring example of religious believers talking about how science proves their point when its convenient but refusing to accept science as a valid method to describe their cult beliefs when it has something negative to say.
I do agree, however, that religious nutters are far more likely to vote than the non-religious. They have wacko cult leaders convincing them its their duty to vote for [insert god(s)] when they vote for/against [insert dumbass politician].
When religious nutters go to the polls, it isn't to be reasoned and patriotic, its to satisfy superstitious beliefs involving wedge issues that affect the smallest percentages of the population. There's no altruism involved.
Otherwise, the Barna report was not very favorable at all to the religious. The non-religious segment of society is growing fast from generation to generation. In just a few more generations, the religious nutters will probably be just a few quaint and embarrassed cult followers who keep their superstitions secretly hidden and meet in churches that aren't allowed within 1/4 mile of schools. Too bad I won't be here to see it.
They don't. No statistic significance was demonstrated at all. The difference was 10% between the religious and the non-religious.
The methodology wasn't revealed: did the questions for the religious consistently exclude religious charity (tithing, faith-based fund-raisers, christian childrens' fund, etc.) and where a delineation was made, did the questions accurately filter non-religious charity?"
The sample sizes of the two groups was different, so without the bivariate table of data collected, there's no way the statistical significance can be shown.
If anything has been debunked, its the mind of the religious who think they need to demonstrate they are more charitable than the non-religious.
If this were truly the case, then why are three of the four most wealthy philanthropists in the world atheist/agnostic: Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Andrew Carnegie?
sandy said:
Oh yes, because Americans have been so conscientious in going to war haven't they? haha. Or have you forgotten church rule in Europe, crusades, and slaughter of native americans?
VitalOne said:
If you are atheist, you are many things by default most of the time. You are less likely to be racist, sexist, violent and more likely to be against war, thought control, intolerance. and the list goes on. A person who is religious is more likely to be conservative and hence more likely wanting to drag civilisation back to somewhere that just didn't work and start a war with a country they've never heard of because they have brown/white skin or have a different religion.
It's funny how you are contradicting yourself and don't even know it. Whenever and whereever religion has it's way, you have blood and corruption. Thank fuck for secularism!
If as you say it is all to do with the age we are living in, then religion is not as important as you claim, and looking at the headlines in the news everyday, one can only say we'd be better off without it period.
Cherry picking. If people followed [insert friendly atheist here] things would be better... [insert mass murder theist here] for instance killed [insert xx million here]
On euthanasia, get back to me when you are feeling the full force of a degenerative terminal illness.
I would be against genetically engineering anything for fun, but you know what, if it has a point, like building a new heart for someone with heart disease, fair enough. Medical treatment you think nothing of today is against nature and would have no doubt been frowned upon before this 'better age' you were talking about. And it's not going to remain static, it will progress and genetics will play a big part in that.
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What were the CIs on the 10% figure? Even without equal population sizes, a binary generalized linear model with a logit link function should be able to discriminate the effects. Could permute or something for threshold, just to be sure it's not distributional error.
radicals are dangerous no matter what guise they come in they are dangerous
Keep trying to prove your statement Sandy, that will make you a better person in the eyes of God.
That was sarcasm again. Let me elaborate:
Jesus tought to do good deeds, and never talk about it, never mention it to anyone.
In the moment you talk about your "good deeds", you are no longer doing it for the good of others, but for your own good, your ego. If you do stuff only to obtain "salvation", you are being selfish, that will lead you nowere, only what you call "hell".
The real good deeds are done in silence, never metioned again. God knows you did the stuf, why should you bragg about it? To bragg about it is to dis-believe the same God you say you love so much.
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!"
(Matthew 7:21)
You do understand this don´t you? Or do you want me to elaborate further?
It's telling that Sandy talks of charity but is so uncharitable. It may seem theists are more giving because there are more of them than atheists/agnostics. From my experience, I haven't seen a difference in charity based on religion but more just personal character. As an example, a family may tithe at church to keep it going or help thier christian friends yet close the purse strings to nonreligious organizations or those that would benefit others but don't appeal to their political interests. Actually, the biggest takers and the greediest people I've known were your god-fearing regular people. Here's a perspective, if you took a survery of prisoners, most would be theists. Walk around your local walmart and take a good look at the people(fucked up, unevolved, stupid, untrustworthy and scary) that inhabit your society, most of them are selfish or uncaring or selfabsorbed and most definitely believe in a judeochristian god or allah.
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