What stops a Christian from killing people secretly?

[Humpty]

HE SAID THAT? I’M SO PROUD OF HIM!
i’m getting a little teary over here

[xzc]

this all feels fake or stages in some way

[Oughtist]

@xzc

this all feels fake or stages in some way

Kinda like a matrix (in the Foucauldean sense, of course)?

[Uccisore]

Haha, that might be one of the worst studies I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a few.

[Blurry]

@Oughtist

herptheheld wrote:
I have come to the opinion that religious belief is not a determinant factor in the question of whether a person finds themself in the position of killing another. Indeed, I now believe that religious belief is very much a secondary factor on the broader spectrum of issues. Things are much more complicated than I previously believed. I credit ILP directly for having influenced my change in perspective.

Way to go herp! I knew you had it in ya!!

You almost got me, Oughtist.

[Jayson]

@Uccisore

Haha, that might be one of the worst studies I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a few.

Agreed.
I see no difference in his “study” than any random high school student flipping through wikipedia and correlating non-inherent data to reach an otherwise unsupported conclusion (making several faulty premises along the way, as well as smaller side-tangented, and unmerited, conclusions).

@Gregory Paul

The non-religious, proevolution democracies contradict the dictum that a society cannot enjoy good conditions unless most citizens ardently believe in a moral creator.

That’s the only part the guy got right.

[Uccisore]

@TheStumps

@Uccisore

Haha, that might be one of the worst studies I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a few.

Agreed.
I see no difference in his “study” than any random high school student flipping through wikipedia and correlating non-inherent data to reach an otherwise unsupported conclusion (making several faulty premises along the way, as well as smaller side-tangented, and unmerited, conclusions).

Not to mention the ‘Religious democracies’ group has a sample size of 1.

[Jayson]

There were more than one.
Here’s the original paper from 2005.
moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html

[Jayson]

This is more what I was seeing as faulty as hell study practice:

Among the developed democracies absolute belief in God, attendance of religious services and Bible literalism vary over a dozenfold, atheists and agnostics five fold, prayer rates fourfold, and acceptance of evolution almost twofold. Japan, Scandinavia, and France are the most secular nations in the west, the United States is the only prosperous first world nation to retain rates of religiosity otherwise limited to the second and third worlds (Bishop; PEW).

Bullshit.
Religiosity:
The quality of being religious.

Japan.

The highest estimates suggest that 84–96 percent of the Japanese population are Buddhists or Shintoists

That is a “quality of being religious”.

Instead, Mr. Paul states:

Japan, Scandinavia, and France are the most secular nations in the west

This fellow, Mr. Paul, seems to only see Monotheistic Christianity as “religious”.
That’s my problem with him.

[Uccisore]

@TheStumps

There were more than one.
Here’s the original paper from 2005.
moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html

I’m still seeing the United States as the sole outlier in the criteria (with obvious outcomes the tester knew in advance) proposed…

which of those countries other than the US are being put forward as Religious-leaning democracies? The only ones I see on the list that could qualify are Spain and Italy, and they’re not doing particularly worse than the rest of the pack.

EDIT: It’s your bolded quote

“the United States is the only prosperous first world nation to retain rates of religiosity otherwise limited to the second and third worlds (Bishop; PEW).”

That leads me to say their sample size is 1. They want to say something about religion in prosperous first world countries based on 1 example (as far as they are concerned) of such a thing.

[Jayson]

Oh, I see what you mean, correct.
That is another fault.

I thought you meant how only Great Britain seemed to be the comparative in the news article, but I get what you mean.
Indeed, that is faulty as hell as well.

[Uccisore]

@TheStumps

Oh, I see what you mean, correct.
That is another fault.

I thought you meant how only Great Britain seemed to be the comparative in the news article, but I get what you mean.
Indeed, that is faulty as hell as well.

It’s all this po-mo bullshit. The social sciences have been about manufacturing numbers to defend what one already knows to be the case for as long as I’ve been old enough to pay attention.

[Jayson]

Oh this is a gem.

A few hundred years ago rates of homicide were astronomical in Christian Europe and the American colonies (Beeghley; R. Lane). In all secular developed democracies a centuries long-term trend has seen homicide rates drop to historical lows (Figure 2). The especially low rates in the more Catholic European states are statistical noise due to yearly fluctuations incidental to this sample, and are not consistently present in other similar tabulations (Barcley and Tavares).

‘Ignore the data that doesn’t agree with me, besides, some similar reports carry data results that do not fully agree with this data used here.’

Mr. Paul, here’s a question: What’s the crime rate of the Vatican City?