ligesh

I have studied plantinga, swinburne, and a host of other intelligent christian apologetics, or at least people far better than your average clergyman. My theory doesn't really deal with logical arguments for or against religion, but rather proposes an evolutionary explanation for why people believe in God or God like entiites, and how this need to believe can give rise to an social infrastructure that we currently call religion. It is actually a bit too technical.



I understand that I shouldn't have bothered to address that. You have committed ad-hoc fallacy by simply saying that people are atheist before prison, but convert inside. I should just point out your ad-hoc fallacy and leave it there. I shouldn't have bothered to explain myself. Now because I used a word 'true', you are trying to turn it into 'no-true-scotsman'.

My argument is this: Your claim about conversion in prison is an ad-hoc fallacy, and contradictory to what we know currently know about atheism or theism. Give me the statistics where people switch overnight or over a period of time just to assuage the stress of their circumstances. Forget about 'proper atheists'.


It is evolutionary. Not a philosophical statement.


Bible/Koran are rape/murder manuals. It simply cannot promote morality, and it hasn't. We THOUGHT that belief in God would make a person more moral, but that was just an illusion. Evolution tells us that, as social animals, we would develop instincts that can be construed as being moral, and really doesn't need religion, and this is demonstrated by the fact that atheists live a productive life in the society, and despite their lack of belief, all of them do not engage in acts of 'sin' as defined by religions.

Because I am showing you the statistics. See, you are mistaking an empirical fact, backed by an evolutionary theory to be a philosophical construct. It is not. I am not dogmatically saying religion is bad, but rather, I am saying that "look at the statistics, and if you understand humans as evolved creatures, you will reach a conclusion that Religion is indeed bad for the society". No philosophy here. No dogma here. If you can show me statistics that show otherwise, or prove that my theory is fundamentally flawed, I will retract my statement.

I am not making a dogmatic statement. I am just showing you the statistics, and a new theory which PREDICTS that God is harmful for the society. More empirical tests would reveal whether I am right or not, but the current statistics seems to be in my favor.

You are comparing a scientific approach to explicate religion with the rants of religious people who dogmatically consign unbelievers to hell. My original theory is not that God is bad, but rather I have come up with an evolutionary explanation for the existence of belief-in-God, and the harmful effects of God is simply ONE of its predictions.


You are now saying that no deduction is ever possible because there will always be some factor we can never find out. Yeah. I don't think science works like that. I think we are arguing from two different vantages, and really do not overlap. I am talking about statistics + theory + verification. You are talking about something I can't quite figure out.

nygreenguy

I somehow think that because someone calls themselves "Christian, catholic, muslim, whatever" That their religon of god was necessairly going through their heads while they were commiting the crime. Im sure we could go through the jail system and do a poll of liberals and conservatives and decide liberals commit more crimes, but does this mean they were thinking about George Soros when they shot the cop? Also, Ive talked to hundreds of people who call themselves "Christian" but cant tell me why jesus died, the first book of the bible, etc... So i would think its a stretch to even go by what they call themselves. Because if they cant name the simplest thing about their religon, i somehow doubt prayre really matters. and if it does, i think its AFTER they get caught.

ligesh

This is proved wrong by the Jihadis. A Jihadi is actually a criminal, and criminal of the worst kind. Yet he draws his strength and inspiration from God, a god which he considers all-loving, and yet at the same wanting him to kill/destroy innocent people. So if Jihadi can hold such ideas, why not an average person. In fact, that's my basic evolutionary theory on God.

God is an adaptation. It is good for the individual to believe in God or God like entities, and this is proved by the extensive data collected from field work, which shows that EVERY culture has SOME form of gods.

DMC

An atheist can convert, but not because of fear. Someone who claims to be atheist who converts to theism due to fear, was never atheist to begin with. If they convert because they found compelling evidence to suggest a god exists, then that's a different story.

DMC

ligesh, I believe you are using fallacy of equivocation. Just because any human could conceivably use god as their excuse (that's what Jihadis are doing) does not mean they do.

ligesh

Yes. But to a Jihadi, God is not just an excuese. They are ready to die for him. In fact, they are ready for complete self-immolation to further the cause of Allah. This attitude cannot be explained by assuming a rational human being.

ligesh

Yes! I said singltrack's argument was a ad-hoc fallacy that isn't backed by statistics. You will need a whole lot of atheists converting overnight in prisons, to account for the 40 times. That is why I went back on my statement about 'proper atheists'. I have no intention to present a positive case here, but 'singletrack's idea of 'atheists trivially switching to theism' in prisons is not supported by statistics or cannot be directly extrapolated from our current understanding of theists and non-theists.

I mean, she is presenting a very peculiar human activity without providing any data to show that it is so.

TomboyMom

I think both singletrack and ligesh are concluding too much/too little from the data. On the one hand, it is an interesting fact that, at least in the U.S., protestant Christians are incarcerated at a rate disproportionate to their representation in the population, and atheists are similarly underrepresented. At a bare minimum, it tends to disprove the Christian argument that atheists are less moral than Christians. And singletrack, in trying to say that it is because there are more Christians in the population, appears to be bending over backwards to avoid this reality.
OTOH, we cannot conclude from that that Christianity necessarily causes criminal behavior. It may, and one can imagine reasons why it might (such as the doctrine of forgiveness of sins) but we can't assume that it does without more information. So I think ligesh is going too far as well.
I think that "prison conversion", or outright dishonesty by people who are, after all, convicted criminals, plays some part in the data. However, if I recall correctly, I believe that some of the data avoids this as much as possible, but taking an anonymous survey, and by asking the question on admission to the prison. So this does not appear to be the sole factor.
In addition, the correlations between intelligence, education, and income cannot be discounted. The more intelligent, educated, and higher earning someone is, the less likely to be convicted of a crime. [This may explain to a large extent why Jews are underrepresented in the prison population.] These factors also correlate negatively with adherence to Christianity. This probably accounts for a fair amount of the discrepancy. However, this correlation is not very flattering to Christians. To put it bluntly, there are more Christians in jail because Christians are dumber, and dumb people go to jail more.
Finally, however, the discrepancy is so dramatic, that I don't think it's unreasonable that at least some of it is caused in some way by Christian doctrine, or by theism in general. It is certainly interesting to explore what these factors might be. ligesh, could you please specify exactly what you believe it is about adherence to Christian doctrine that causes more Christians to be convicted of crimes?

newtype_alpha

WTF?!

In the event that this thread goes on without any criticism of this one from II's resident atheists, we will have reached a new world record for most ironic thread.

newtype_alpha

... other than the fact that there are about 40 times more theists than atheists in America.