newtype_alpha

That depends on what sources you're using. It's rather telling that many polls (and consequently, many atheists) conflate "non-religious" with "atheist." From the gallup poll cited under Wikipedia under "atheism," it seems only 1% of those surveyed could be identified as atheists, 4% as agnostic. If you actually do the math on this (.25 percent identifying as atheists in prison compared to 1% of the population) that's not exactly 40 times is it?

As it stands, with the conventional estimates of self-identifying atheists, the statistics are well within the discrepency that can be accounted for by prison ethnic and social demographics.

How about the fact that of all the people I have ever known who entered into risky situations, only ONE of them ever prayed for courage beforehand?

From here:
If these numbers are accurate, atheism, Buddhism, and Judaism are all severely underrepresented, and so--for that matter--is protestant Christianity. Just from the statistics alone, there would seem to be a correlation between risky behavior and not having a religious preference. Join me in stating that there is no logical reason to believe so, so results such as these are inconclusive.

Even though the maxim is wrong.:grin:

Ligesh, the statement "there are no atheists in foxholes" is not a statement against atheism. It's a statement against foxholes. Frankly, it would be much easier to support an extrapolation of "If it were not for foxholes, there would be no believers."

Certianly some people find this comforting. Quite a number of people do not, and as I have said, there is nothing inherent to belief in God(s) that makes it the ONLY belief that can comfort a person in time of stress. Fanatical hatred of the enemy can have the same effect, as can fanatical allegiance to ones nation, or the belief that "Any minute now, the 5th Armored Division will show up and save our asses..."

What you have yet to do in either case is investigate or even attempt to investigate what people actually DO in high-risk situations. You have only a hypothesis (theism = courage) supported by another hypothesis (theists are more courageous than atheists) supported by ambiguous statistics. If it's just a statistical argument, you should refrain from making far-reaching extrapolations that the statistics do not suggest.

Note, once again, that I am not suggesting theists do not pray. I am suggesting that theists do not frequently pray for courage in risky situations (and to say nothing of the fact that such prayers cannot and will not be answered if the person doing the praying is a coward by nature).

ligesh

SO? what are agnostics? I am an agnostic, you silly person!!! WTF? Agnosticism is actually a refined form of atheism. Now you are just trying to wiggle out of this using the most absurd thing you have proposed till now. Of all your absurd ideas, this one eats the cake and keeps it too.


Atheists means people who do not believe in God. I am an agnostic. Strong atheism is not a logically tenable position. At least I don't consider it so. So you are now narrowly trying to define atheism to make statistics work for you. God. So I wouldn't actually figure in your list as an atheist. Good.


I simply don't trust you. Maybe they lied to you. You are too gullible for me to give any importance to your personal experiences.


I did not say theism = courage, but rather, I said, Belief in God can impart an extra courage to enage in risky ventures. And this is almost trivially true.

Praying is not cowardly. That's another thing. Megalomania doesn't mean they put themselves above God, but rather they consider themselves to be the chosen ones. So praying to God is never ever considered to be cowardly.

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:: Ligesh :: http://ligesh.com

newtype_alpha

Because an educational standard is much harder to evaluate, and trying to narrow down more comprehensive categories leads you to the problem of stats within stats within stats which can sometimes increase your sampling error.

Basically, it's a matter of simplicity. Prisoner statistics indicate Blacks make up around 12% of the general population and 44% of prison inmates. A more accurate judgement of representation would be to adjust for the different demographics relative to the general population.

Statistically, this would mean you could expect 43 percent of prison inmates to be black theists. I don't have really solid numbers on whites and hispanics, but Barna indicates that around 88% of whites are theists, 93% of hispanics, 80% of Asians. Hispanics make up 19 percent of prison inmates; that's 17.67 percent Hispanic theists. Whites make up 35% of prison inmates; that's 29 percent white theists. If we include Asias as "other" we can estimate about 1.5 percent.

What do we find with these numbers?
44% from blacks
19% of hispanics
29% of whites
1.5% "other"

That's 93.5 percent.
That would mean that, with representation weighted by ethnic group, 6.5 percent of prison inmates are atheists--although, once again, I suspect even the Barna numbers conflate "atheist" with "non-religious". This would be consistent with some of the numbers I've seen, which indicate between 5 and 15 percent of Americans identify themselves as "non-religious".

FYI, I'm taking a statistics and probability course at the moment. Weighted statistics to account for sampling density are not uncommon.

Probably not. Why does it matter? For organizing statistical data, this category can give you a better estimate, and since the educational background of prison inmates is not readily available, it works perfectly well.

Certainly possible. The problem is we have several different factors in parellel and we cannot determine which one is causative of any of the others, or if they are ALL resulting conditions of an entirely different factor. It could be that the same genes that lead to criminal behavior also lead to belief, it could be that belief leads to criminal behavior, it could be that criminal behavior leads to belief, it could be poverty, it could be lack of education, etc. All of these and then some are equally supported by the statistics, but the one thing the statistics do not seem to show (see above) is a peculiar under or over representation of atheists in prisons.

And you don't have to remove causation where no causation has been determined. Alot more than two parameters are correlated here; ethnicity is also correlated, and both of us seem to suspect poverty and education also correlate. Drug abuse and alcoholism probably do as well.

The only real way to determine whether or not any of these factors are responsible for the correlation (causal mechanisms) is to examine each of them seperately from the others. For that, you still need the following data:
- Of all people in poverty: How many are atheists? How many are criminals? How many have sub-standard education?
- Of all people who believe in God(s): How many are in poverty? How many are criminals? How many have sub-standard education?
- Of all people who are criminals: How many are/were in poverty? How many have sub-standard education?
- Of all people who have sub-standard education: How many are in poverty? How many are criminals? How many believe in God(s)?

You compare these numbers and their correlations, you can find out which is related to which and in what degree. If the results are still inconclusive, then NONE of them are causal factors.

Another statistical anomalie you might find interesting: around 53% of all convicts end up in prison because of drug charges. In your assessment, how "risky" a behavior is the use and/or sale of illegal drugs?

See above.

Because, as I said, we don't HAVE the numbers on education and poverty, at least not for prison populations. Religious affiliation exists in different densities among different populations; when you account for those densities, the representation of those affiliations evens out. You'd probably get the same results if you adjusted for prison populations by state relative to the number of atheists/believers in those states. If any one group is overrepresented in the sample, then statistically, any sub-group within it should also be overrepresented.

So citing mafia movies = scientific, citing personal experience = unscientific...

got it.

newtype_alpha

I'm only going by what the statistics say. Only 1% of those surveyed self-identify as atheists. In order to be consistent with the numbers, you have to use self-identification; if you don't, you then run into the problem of having to figure out what to do with 5 to 15% of Americans who call themselves "non-religious." Are they really just confused agnostics? Are they deists? Do they just never think about it?

And you call ME ad hoc?

Two of us are having this discussion, but which one of us has actually attempted to evaluate your hypothesis based on direct experience? (Hint: it isn't you).

The difference being...?

Nobody said it was, but that doesn't stop cowards from praying. My point is, when a coward prays for courage, his prayer is generally not answered.

Of course not. And that still doesn't stop cowards from praying; as it stands, just because you pray does not make you less of a coward either.

newtype_alpha

I posted this in the other thread, but it's an interesting thing, so I'll double it up.

From the numbers found here:
# Greece, 98.0% (Orthodox 97.0%, Roman Catholic 1.0%, Muslim 1.3%)
# Romania, 97.4% (Orthodox 86.8%, Roman Catholic 5.4%, Other Christian 5.2%)
# Poland, 96% (mostly Roman Catholic)
# Ireland, 95% (mostly Roman Catholic)
# Argentina, 94% (mostly Roman Catholic, Jewish 2%)
# Spain, 94% (mostly Roman Catholic)
# Croatia, 92% (Roman Catholic 88%, Orthodox 4.4%, Muslim 1.3%)
# France, 90% (Muslim 8%, Jewish 1%)
From here:Two key things to notice here: first of all, the first paragraph, where it's said that Greeks are more fearful of crimes than the rest of Europe. Second of all, the fact that of all European countries the UK rated the highest crime rate, but has the smallest number of self-described theists.

Likewise, from here:
Any questions?

ligesh

---------------------------- Here's what you have written earlier. Since you seem to keep on forgeting your own position.
Correction: we have consistently given you reasons and you have consistently ignored them. Among the three reasons suggested:
1) The overwhelming majority of convicted fellons are black and hispanic. The overwhelming majority of blacks and hispanics are protestant Christians and Catholics
2) Stronger religious belief has a higher correlation with both poverty and poor education; incidentally, so does crime.
3) Prison conversions.
----------------------------

Your first statement is wrong. You are taking credit for something I myself had proposed long back. Then you actually list both 'blacks' AND poverty as a reason for the cause of crime/belief statistics, and yet, when asked, you claimed it was not due to any specific gene. So why did you list both blacks AND poverty? So from the above list, the only extra thing that you have said is 'prison conversions', which I have already pointed out is a no-true-scotsman fallacy.

Get some perspective. I quoted mafia movies as some incidental observations. Yet that is something everyone here has seen and heard. But personal expereinces are YOUR own. We have no clue whether you are lying or deluded or has been cheated or whatever.

For your earlier comments on moderate muslims, I have strong doubts that you BLINDLY trust people, and doesn't ever entertain any doubts whether they are pulling your leg. So the value of personal experience is zero. Mafia movies is simply an incidental observation I cited, and is something that people can identify.


What does this show? Japanese are less religious, and I am sure the US are more obssesive about religion than the greeks. For grievous offenses, Japanese are better than Greece. Japan has a larger number of minor offsenses though. Can't you really read the whole thing?



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:: Ligesh :: http://ligesh.com

ligesh

Hahaha. Why don't you give me the actual prison figures in the UK. If UK prison has majority atheists, then case solved.

You can't really make absolute comparisons between differing cultures. When I presented the 40 times figure, I myself proposed that we have to account for poverty as being a cause for both the factors. Here we have to take the inherent aggression of people too, and thus mere statistics just shows that the people in UK are more aggressive.

But if you can get the prison statistics in UK, and then show that atheists are over-represented in prison, then you have a case, and I will have to find out if there is some manner I can explain the disrepancy. For the present, you have not proven anything; just that the British are more violent.

And that too, why don't you post the actual crime statistics of all the countries you have listed.

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:: Ligesh :: http://ligesh.com

newtype_alpha

Right. Because at this point, I'm giving you STATISTICS, not CAUSES.

Because they are both possible explanations for the statistics (as I've just shown you).
How so? Aren't you the one who suggested that no TRUE atheist would convert to a religion? If you'renot making that point now, then there is no fallacy. If a large number of convicts convert to some religion after being incarcerated, then that would explain the statistics.

Yes, we have all seen and heard mafia movies... they are works of FICTON, not FACT.

If you doubt my experiences reflect a common real-world condition, you're welcome to go out and interview other people and collect THEIR experiences, or even compare your own experiences. You have done neither.

No, I evaluate what most people tell me based on whether or not it is consistent with what is already known. That's the main reason I keep asking you to back up your assertions with something more than rhetoric and more assertions.

Yes, and it is also fictional. Much like your hypothesis.,

Wrong. As I keep showing you, between 5 and 15% of Americans desceribe themselves as non-religious. Fewer than fifty percent of American Christians attend weekly church services, compared to around 85% of Greek Christians.

Of course. And I didn't skip over this part:
The rate of larceny for 2000 was 179.65 for Greece, 1401.26 for Japan, and 2475.27 for USA.

I guess larceny counts as a "minor offense" huh?

newtype_alpha

http://www.adherents.com/misc/adh_prison3.html

68.1 percent of prison inmates reported being religious, 31.9 percent reported "no religion." These numbers are almost identical to England's prevailing demographics (74% of general population).

Where do you get the idea of the UK being more agressive? Statistics show nothing of the sort, since their crime rate is STILL lower than the United States.

I'm unconvinced you even know what my "case" is.

Sure, if I have time later, I'll do your job for you.

ligesh

The agnostics/atheists represent only around 0.4%. I don't what no religion means. I think that could people who believe in God, but do not affiliate themselves to any religion. In that case, we have sharp discrepancy in UK too, which seem to support my hypothesis.


You are trying to prove my hypothesis wrong, but it hasn't worked yet.

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:: Ligesh :: http://ligesh.com