I am so pleased to learn that Focus on the Family is freaking out a little bit.
The trend is known as the "Great Evacuation," and the statistics are startling to youth ministers.
Studies have shown at least 50 percent — and possibly as much as 85 percent — of kids involved in church groups will abandon their faith during their first year in college.
The best part of this statistic is that college professors and administrators don't even try to divorce students from religion — despite my evil reputation, I don't say a word about religion in any of my classes. All we do is open students' eyes and expose them to a world of the mind where they are free to question and doubt … and presto, many of them suddenly realize that they can disagree with those obnoxious religious authorities back home.
Well, and to be perfectly fair, they also discover friends and parties and beer and sex. Those are pretty persuasive, too. It's not an entirely intellectual voyage of discovery.
In an attempt to reverse those numbers, Focus on the Family on Saturday hosted "The Big Dig," a conference aimed at teens and youth leaders. The goal was not just to celebrate participants' Christian faith but also to give them the tools to defend their beliefs against questions they will face.
Such apologetics conferences fly in the face of a long-held belief that the way to minister to teens is to wow them with hipness, said Alex McFarland, organizer of the event. But, as 1,600 kids and leaders from as far as Jamaica learned historical evidence of Jesus and defense of the Bible, he said this more academic method seemed to be working.
This is absolutely wonderful. Teach them to value academic methods, and I suspect they'll be even more vulnerable to academic criticism when they get into college. FoF isn't inoculating these students against argument, they're punching little holes in their close-mindedness.
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I've often wondered if some of the private evolution-deniers who work so hard to learn about evolution in order to create reasonable-sounding creationist arguments don't sometimes have an "oh, shoot" moment where they realize "Hey, this actually all makes sense. Creationism is crap."
Excellent, name your program after Boston's incredibly over-budget tunnel project which has already resulted in the death of one person from a ceiling tile falling on her due to corruption and/or incompetence.
Somehow all that fits really well with a Focus on the Family initiative.
Sure, go with "the Big Dig" but the kids will still be able to figure out what they are shoveling.
Tools? "God did it" is a tool?
What we as participants in humanity should be concerned about is that some of these people revert back to such nonsense. After all, most of the population believes in a god, in Heaven, in Hell, in whatever other ridiculous notions come with theism. Something happens after these people get out of college that turns them back to ignorance. We need to figure out what that is and come up with some "tools" of our own.
That is the perfect name for it. Rationality:Indoctrination::Dulcolax:Chipotle.
(.)(.)
That's fantastic news! Maybe in a generation or two, we'll put Christianity back where it belongs, in the catacombs!
One of the SciBlings was pretty influential in my turning away from religion; and I'm extremely grateful.
But you want to know the primary reason college kids abandon religion? Any higher being that tries to put your hormones in check when you're in college is bound to get left in the dust. At a certain point you either realize it's completely bogus and go get your kicks, or you do it anyway and become a hypocrite republican.
Is "getting the kicks" some newfangled euphemism for the clap?
I doubt they'll be doing that, more like "We know Jesus existed and the biblical account is true because Josephus said so"
My least favorite thing in the world is the lone whiney voice of a freshman piercing rudely through the lecture to announce that he's "got this book that says..."
The best thing to do is take the book and grade it.
I'd be especially interested in knowing what the comparative statistics are between kids who graduate from Christian high schools and go on to a secular college vs Christian kids who were already in a secular high school setting prior to college. I would speculate that the numbers of defections are probably fewer from the first group (deeper indoctrination) although they probably have a higher curve of defection as years in college progress.
Dang it, cm (#2) stole my joke before I could say it! Shucks.
Now, that aside, PZ wrote,
There's always hope. Altemeyer says in chapter four of The Authoritarians,
As for reversions back to religion, don't underestimate the power of guilt. Some people really enjoy it...
What about the students who can't get laid? They're still vulnerable.
PZ wrote: "Well, and to be perfectly fair, they also discover friends and parties and beer and sex. Those are pretty persuasive, too."
A few years back, I was living in Europe, and got to watch a lot of Discovery Channel Europe, which shows some more... ahem... adult themed documentaries. One night they had on 'The History of Sex', and the overall (unspoken) theme of the documentary is that Christianity ruined everyone's fun. A paraphrased version of the documentary:
Narrator: "The Romans had great, open, happy sexual existences."
Me: "Yay."
Narrator: "And then the Christians came."
Me: "Boo."
Narrator: "The Greeks had great, open, happy sexual existences."
Me: "Yay."
Narrator: "And then the Christians came."
and so on...
And also:
"in their close-mindedness"
It's closeD-mindedness. The opposite of "open" is "closed". Innocent typo, I assume?
The answer, Rey Fox, isn't less closed-mindedness, it's less-clothes-mindedness.
I'll bet you're all kinds of fun to sit next to on long flights.
The great evacuation?
(Boiling tea honked down the nose.)
Isn't evacuation also a euphemism for shitting in the US?
I'm in pain, but it was worth it.
gg (#16), The History of the Sex showed on the discovery channel in the US as well. Sorry to poop on your idea that academia can't be as erotic on cable here ;-)
On a side-tangent, PZ, spread the word about the iPhone shuffle
Dustin: "I'll bet you're all kinds of fun to sit next to on long flights."
LOL
Rey Fox, you might be right (I'm not even going to bother to look it up), but I'd like to point out that the opposite of "open" can also be "close" - depends on the tense.
But to stay on-topic, considering that FoF peddles Strobel books, something tells me the "academic method" presented at that conference is a bit...impaired...
Why do I get the feeling that this "more academic method" the FoFites are talking about is more properly described as "ignore the academic method more"?
Do you closed the door?
Re: #16
I had a similar experience in my highschool ancient civilizations class. We were learning about Roman culture and how they had public brothels, then the Christians came along and closed them down. That, along with other early Christian actions such as defacing pagan temples, etc, lead to the catchphrase for the class to be a muttered "damn Christians." And it wasn't just popular among the students; the teacher indulged in encouraging the phrase now and again.
Now, about the fact that I went to a Catholic highschool...
Thanks for the good news!
I had pretty much given up on religion and the supernatural when I entered college, but the couple of inane Campus Crusade meetings an old friend convinced me to attend were the nail in the coffin.
I expect The Big Dig will have a similar effect for many students.
"but I'd like to point out that the opposite of "open" can also be "close" - depends on the tense."
As a verb, yes. As an adjective, no.
You understood what he meant, so what's the problem?
I owe a lot of my own apostasy to a lecture by, of all people, Michael Behe.
Hey, I just blogged on this - it's amazing when you read Misquoting Jesus and find that Ehrman was warned by fellow fundies, not against studying evilution at Berkeley or something, but against studying the Bible at an evangelical college, because it was too liberal, and he'd have trouble finding Real True Christians there.
Basically I think going away from your parents' house, meeting lots of different, new people, and learning how to think about stuff is very destructive of fundamentalist Christianity.
That, and the sex.
Loyalty to literalist Christianity and abstinence until marriage were pretty easy when people couldn't read and got married at 14. Not so much in your modern college environment.
focus on the family just can't think very clearly. the reasons why most kids lose their faith when they go to college isn't so much college -- ask the kids why. they'll tell you it has more to do with groups like focus on the family.
between lying to children, having hate-filled agendas that would make jesus christ himself roll over in his grave, and rampant "holier than thou" hypocricy... well. faith itself may not be a bad thing, but when they teach people to base their entire system of beliefs on a text that they don't actually follow...
take the cultist away from the cult for long enough, and they'll come around. it's not what you tell them, it's that they see that what they've been told before was a lie.
Aaron - Do tell.
Bob
To Dustin, Rey Fox, tsg, and the rest:
Oh, for Pete's sake.
You're wrong, all of you. The opposite of close-minded is far-minded, though the word 'teleological' is more commonly used (tele- from the Greek for 'far' and -ological, an Irish insult meaning 'know-it-all'.)
Words that start with tele- are usually used perjoratively, as in 'television' (from the Greek meaning "there's nothing good on") or 'telephone' (Greek for "are you considering changing your long-distance provider?"), and teleology is no exception, being an empirically-unsupported and assumptive philosophical position. It's opposite is naturalism, a position most here would subscribe to.
Thus, to a scientific and rationalist crowd, to be called 'close-minded' is not an insult but a compliment.
Let's just say that the more anyone educates themselves, sees the inconsistencies and out-right untruths they were brought up on - is a guaranteed formula for breaking the chains of religion.
Unless FoF is going to start recommending that their congregations either not send their child to college or, if they do, to a biblical college, they have no hope of winning against this particular apostasy. And even if they settle for biblical college - the fact is that you can only go so far with that type of education.
If you don't understand the fundamentals of Darwinian evolution you will never become a professor in any of the biological or medical fields - except maybe at those same biblical colleges. We know the ultimate effects of that brand of in-breeding, don't we?
#4 Tom: "What we as participants in humanity should be concerned about is that some of these people revert back to such nonsense. After all, most of the population believes in a god, in Heaven, in Hell, in whatever other ridiculous notions come with theism. Something happens after these people get out of college that turns them back to ignorance. We need to figure out what that is and come up with some "tools" of our own."
The thing that turns some of them back is having kids of their own, apparently. It's one of the things Bob Altemeyer studies is his excellent (free, on-line) book, The Authoritarians.
U.S. Christians will have to do something extreme if they are going to stop the numbers of atheists in the States increasing, though.
I imagine that a sizable percentage of those reported as leaving their religion in the first year of college had technically done so in the years leading up to it, but were prevented from being open about it by family pressures. How many of them had been putting off the exodus through the later years of high school until their parents weren't hovering over them with expectations of church-going?
I decided halfway through my Confirmation classes that Christianity was an unpleasant thing to believe and I wished/hoped it wasn't true, but I went through with the Confirmation because it was unthinkable for someone to drop out---I'd have gotten an immense amount of shit from my family, the church, the community, and relatives whom I'd never met before, all of whom would take it as a huge, personal, deliberate insult that I'd rejected God, and I was two or three years away from adulthood. So I faked my way through the ceremony and went to church with my parents and daydreamed about Star Trek through the sermon, or sketched angels on the service programs (which made my mother happy and let me practice faces and bird wings in some degree of peace, yo-yo-ing up and down for the Gospels and so forth aside). And if anyone were taking notes on when I left the faith, everyone would assume it was my third year of college (the first year away from home), if ever, since I didn't bother to quit officially, just quietly stopped going. Less of a hassle that way, and I stay safely off any "reconvert" lists (and at least some of the evangelical churches leave Christians of other similar churches alone, which they don't do with the heathen and godless and non-Christian religious types.
#21 wrote: "The History of the Sex showed on the discovery channel in the US as well."
WHAT!!?? How could that be? From what I hear, we're a Christian nation! And why wasn't I informed? :)
Could be that you, like most sane people, stopped watching the History Channel a long, long time ago.
"but I'd like to point out that the opposite of "open" can also be "close" - depends on the tense."
Is "anal retentive pedant" spelled with a hyphen?
Marcus,
Yes.
"God did it" is a tool?
No, Pat Robertson is a tool.
Oh, and can someone kill that woot spammer please. I can't get it into the killfile.
...of course I meant James Dobson is a tool...but then again they all look the same to me anyway. Focus on your own damn family. I like that they're calling it a big evacuation. Reminds me ofthe judge in Pink Floyd's The Wall being filled with the urge to defecate...
I would take these numbers with a grain of salt. Groups like Focus on the Family manipulate their target donor groups through crisis mailings. Some grandma in a small towns worried about her grandkids drops $100 she can't afford in the mail and James Dobson flies in a private jet to his next "conference" or "speaking engagement".
I agree with EnzoAntonius, take these numbers with a grain of salt.
If you guys don't believe the bullshit religion preachers about souls and wine becoming Jesus' blood, why do you believe them when they say this stuff:
You've got to ask yourself, "what studies show that?" Studies that I've seen do not say that. I've got a post on those studies on my blog here:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2007/06/numbers-ive-got-good-news-and-b…
Here's a bit of data from the Barna Group:
adult Mosaics18-22--19%
Busters23-4116%14%
Boomers42-608%9%
Elders61+4%6%
Currently, the adult Mosaics, basically college kids, ages 18-22, are only 5 percentage points more unbelieving than the Busters, ages 23-41, who are 5 percentage points more unbelieving than the Boomers.
Remember the episode of Star Trek Next Generation when Scotty explains how he got a reputation as a miracle worker?
You lie about how big the problem is and then when what what normally can be expected to happen, happens -- you'll be considered a miracle worker.
Blake Stacey wrote (in a quote from The Authoritarians):
Dead on. I had been thoroughly and consistently brainwashed, cradle to college (Christian fundamentalist A to Z) but this was what at long last brought me out; once I had seen one outright lie in the Bible, I couldn't pretend that it wasn't there. Nor could I take anything else there, or from my "authorities", on trust. Nor just keep on acting "as if", whatever the consequences to me would be.
Once you accept one type of authoritarianism, you are susceptible to many other things...if you are willing to blindly follow some sky-fairy minister, then, when he says, "Step into my office for some grop..i mean private conversation" you are more likely to do what he says.
Somehow I doubt that Focus on the Family will trust the participants to think for themselves; they'll probably be handed scripts instead. Those'll work just fine on strawatheists rendered toothless and harmless, but they'll be in for a rude shock when they meet real atheists (or out-group Christians) who don't stick to the scripts. I may be a Neville Chamberlain atheist, but that doesn't require me to pretend stupidity is anything but, or to respect authoritarian sects producing intellectual cripples.
Well Bob, Behe came to Dartmouth College to give a talk in the spring of '05. At that point in my life, I was on rocky ground with my theology but still looking for a way to reconcile faith with science, and Intelligent Design sounded like it might do the trick. So I listened to Behe's lecture with an open mind. Some of his claims were interesting, but I wasn't entirely swayed, so I continued the search online. What I found was that scores of scientists had responded to Behe's claims, but Behe had failed to address any of their (legitimate) criticism. That's when I really started to realize where the burden of proof lay.
Although these statistics are probably suspect, I think there are a fair number of teenage True Believers who at least soften their stance in college. Several people have told me that, in their own case, it was the result of meeting and befriending people who were not from their church, not from their branch of Christianity, not Christian, and sometimes not even believing in God!! Contrary to what they'd been told, those without the True Faith are pretty normal -- even nice.
What else was grossly exaggerated? Would a God of Love really send my friends to hell? Do they all seem like the kind of people who would gladly "choose hell" over God out of a prideful spirit? Does this whole scenario even make sense any more?
"I guess what really matters isn't so much what you believe about God, it's what you are as a person." Welcome to the opening peals of the Death Knell for religion.
They've set themselves quite the challenge, since there is no historical evidence that Jesus of Nazareth existed.
Personally I don't see any reason to think he didn't; it seems reasonable to assume he probably was a historical figure (I make the same assumption for Socrates). But you can't legitimately claim there is historical evidence for it.
That's one thing that strikes me about this. It highlights that they'll be including deliberate deception in their program. It's one thing to talk about how Jesus was this, that, or whatever, but to say there's historical evidence he existed crosses the line between stating an opinion and saying what just isn't so.
I'm curious, Susannah: which passage was that?
For me, it wasn't a sudden-flash-of-light moment. I thought long and hard (for a middle-schooler) about life, origins, and asked myself, considering what we know scientifically, is it really necessary for the Universe to have had a creator? (meaning is is possible instead that it all came about naturalistically)
I haven't seen any basis (anecdotally or from a research perspective) to support the FOTF claim. Has anyone seen such a "study"?
#4: "What we as participants in humanity should be concerned about is that some of these people revert back to such nonsense. After all, most of the population believes in a god, in Heaven, in Hell, in whatever other ridiculous notions come with theism. Something happens after these people get out of college that turns them back to ignorance. We need to figure out what that is and come up with some 'tools' of our own."
Based on this piece (http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/7827212.html), it appears that evolutionary inevitabilities turn folks back. Per #37, The Authoritarians agrees (though I haven't read it).
#33: "...take the cultist away from the cult for long enough, and they'll come around. it's not what you tell them, it's that they see that what they've been told before was a lie."
Which was why the neo-cons invaded Iraq.
#36: "Let's just say that the more anyone educates themselves, sees the inconsistencies and out-right untruths they were brought up on - is a guaranteed formula for breaking the chains of religion."
You may be right, but sociologists are much less convinced of this idea than they once were.
I dunno; it usually takes me two cups of coffee for a really GREAT evacuation.
John B. wrote (#36):
I'd like to believe that. It would be comforting. But is there any evidence of that? My (admittedly sketchy) impression of history is that a dominant superstition only dies when another, fitter superstition comes along to supplant it.
Glenn, would that be the Revival of the Fittest?
(Sorry, bad pun for the day.)
Hank Fox, #1: "have an 'oh, shoot' moment where they realize 'Hey, this actually all makes sense. Creationism is crap.'"
I did not have "a moment", but yes, that's about how it came about over some 3 or 4 years of fighting against the "theory" of evolution, among other things. There was some point where I officially told myself I didn't believe in god anymore, but I was simply voicing what I'd known was bound to come for a very long time.
Blake Stacy, #13: "So if the religion itself begins making less and less sense, it fails by the very criterion that it set up to show its superiority"
That's pretty much what happened for me. After YEC failed miserably, the hole was just too big to ignore, and religion collapsed around itself. Now, I realize that god could still exist alongside the Big Bang and Theory of Evolution, but the fact that such huge tracts of what I'd been indocrinated with from birth were shown to be so completely wrong, caused me to abandon the entire set of stupid ideas and start over from an agnostic point of view.
arachnophilia, #33: "between lying to children, having hate-filled agendas that would make jesus christ himself roll over in his grave, and rampant "holier than thou" hypocricy..."
And this is why quit the church early on. "Jesus saves all, except that whore over there." "Jesus forgave me for molesting kids, but drug users are unforgivable." "Love everybody, but only if s/he's the opposite sex." Asinine hypocrisy.
Anybody who thinks sex is really a major contributor to losing one's faith: I agree that abstinence is one of the first things to go out the window, but it's just double-think. I have two younger, unmarried-at-the-time, steadfastly-Christian sisters with kids, yet I've never had so much as a girlfriend. While they're out drinking underage, experimenting with illegal substances, etc., I stay to myself, more-or-less out of trouble. This holds true all over the place. Go to any very religious back-country part of the US, and you'll find kids who sleep with anything that moves, but will turn around and say "that's blasphemy" when you make a little joke at the expense of god.
To be clear, my reasons for not sleeping with every girl who ever hit on me are not religious; I simply don't want to catch everything they have, can't afford kids, and plain don't like most of them. And, of course, the qualities that turned me into an atheist are the same ones that keep me from finding girls I do like: I'm a geek, through-and-through, and would much prefer to post rambling comments on random blogs than be bored to death at a bar or club. Plus all the girls at the racetracks come with their boyfriends--that doesn't help my cause much.
This is how it works: Present lies as the unquestionable truth (much of what is in Stroebel and Josh McDowell and other pop apologists is just flat false), but more importantly, scare the kids. People who have never been serious about faith sometimes miss the biggest source of fear. It's not hell for a lot of people. It's not even opprobrium. As an idealistic young person, it can often be the existential terror drilled into you that with faith in God, you will not have a source for morality and meaning. You will become a nihilist, with no purpose in life but hollow pleasure, even at the expense of people you care about, because why not? It is a mean and cynical trick, and the big lie that helps secure all the smaller ones. The cure for this lie is the well-lived god-free life. Nothing--certainly not any intellectual argument pro or con--will have a greater impact on students than seeing happy, fulfilled atheists, whom they like and respect, within their circle of friends. That's not to say that facts and reason are trivial, but in the battle for rationality, a well-lived life is hard to refute. (And the answers the apologists have for the existence of moral, fulfilled atheists sound even phonier than their ginned-up cases for Christ and belief and creation, which kids are way too smart not to smell.)
"Reasons are multiple for the religious falloff by freshmen, said Bob Waliszewski, Focus' interim youth outreach director. Some leave churches because they find their beliefs incompatible with moral failings they have..."
Oh I see, it's the kid's "moral failings" that cause them to leave. I don't which is sadder, the juvenille "blame the victim" mentality or that they think reason and self-determination are moral failings.
#15: I don't know if the American experience is different from the European one, but here, nerds usually have every bit as hard a time getting laid as those less nerdy who are raised religious. Social awkwardness seems to be a universal theme.
To Sinbad and Glenn: Here is the evidence I will cite for my statement, "Let's just say that the more anyone educates themselves, sees the inconsistencies and out-right untruths they were brought up on - is a guaranteed formula for breaking the chains of religion."
1. The topic of this post. Some pct. of kids start falling falling away from religion. When? When they go to college. Before anyone starts their "correlation/causation" posts, let me continue, because this is just a piece of datum I'm including.
2. The pct. of Phds who believe in a personal god vs. the pct. of general population. (If you haven't seen these studies, I suggest you Google it).
3. The pct. of Phds in the relevant sciences (biology, physics, etc) to those who have PhD in something like computer or engineering.
These studies can lead to only one conclusion. Now, I'm NOT SUGGESTING that everyone who gets a good education will drop the superstition OR that everyone who is not well educated (I'm one of them) is superstitious. What I am suggesting (ok, you can start right NOW!) CORRELATION.
So, I have reword my original statement - It's a guaranteed formula for getting a higher pct of people to break the chains of religion.
"Some pct. of kids start falling falling away from religion. When? When they go to college."
Apparently so, with some of that number returning to faith, often upon having children.
"The pct. of Phds who believe in a personal god vs. the pct. of general population."
Is the cause the education, the nature of the academy, the kind of person who seeks a doctorate or some other reason?
"The pct. of Phds in the relevant sciences (biology, physics, etc) to those who have PhD in something like computer or engineering."
Ditto, with the added consideration of whether the situation is exascerbated by a typical academic's view that his or her discipline is the "center of the universe" (so to speak). Biologists seem to think evolution is much more of a problem for religion (Ken Miller notwithstanding) than others, for example, even when the "others" have a good deal of knowledge on the subject and/or don't doubt evolutionary theory.
"These studies can lead to only one conclusion."
That may be so, but you haven't come close to making the case that it is so. Moreover, I haven't seen numbers remotely like those that FOTF is claiming, which was the real thrust of my question. One might also ask about the kind of person who becomes an atheist and whether that impacts the research. To oversimplify, a nonconformist may be more likely to become an atheist in one setting but not another.
I've often wondered if some of the private evolution-deniers who work so hard to learn about evolution in order to create reasonable-sounding creationist arguments don't sometimes have an "oh, shoot" moment where they realize "Hey, this actually all makes sense. Creationism is crap."
Hank, that's pretty much how it was for me. What I still don't understand is how it took less than a semester to come to that conclusion, but another 12 years or so to figure out that the rest of it was crap, too. I guess early indoctrination can do a pretty good snow job on a person's brain.
Todd said:
No no no, you're interpreting it wrong. It is not meant as a failure of morals, but instead, a failure that is moral. See, they stop believing all the lies of the churchies, that's the failure part, and maintain that it's wrong to lie - there's the moral part. A moral failure. And a truly great way to piss of the fundies. They hate nothing more than someone who is godless and still respectable.
You know, I typed that as a joke, but it's more accurate than all that. It isn't the "do good deeds" part that's important to religion, it's the "believe in Magic Sky Pony" part. The only service that is necessary is lip.
Don't forget to pray for our troops!
Sinbad, what would be a data set that would lead you to feel comfortable with my modified statement? It seems to me, and admittedly I could be wrong, that at some point you accept the data that higher education equates on some level with throwing off the yoke of superstition. I know how counter intuitive things can be in science, but it would be stunning to me if there is zero correlation.
Sinbad, let me go a bit further - I would feel hopeless if there is zero correlation.
Yes, John B., that's about right. But it seems to me the main factor at work (I think someone mentioned this above)--more important than freedom from authority, parties, socializing, etc.--is just that when kids go to college, they're exposed to a much, much bigger world than any they've seen before.
It's easy to have black-and-white beliefs when your world is small and your available choices are limited. It's also easy to believe in oddball superstitions that are tailored to a local area, if you spend your whole life in that area. Tribal religions are a good example: take the Gagaju (Aborigine tribe) creation story. The creator was over there (they're within pointing distance of the physical location) and walked over there. He got stuck in the mud. And so (for no apparent reason) he created everything around him.
Now, if you live your whole life in that area, it might never occur to you to ask questions like: what about X, Y, Z, etc., ad infinitum species that aren't even on this island? Were there other creator beings? If not, did the same one create them all, and if so, why did he make people look so different? And why create different species on different continents?
"It seems to me, and admittedly I could be wrong, that at some point you accept the data that higher education equates on some level with throwing off the yoke of superstition."
Surely there appears to be some correlation (though not nearly what FOTF fears, it appears). The question is causation. To shift emphasis slightly for illustrative purposes, some want to say that intelligence leads to atheism, and there is some correlation there too, but unclear causation. And, since women and blacks are far more religious than men and whites, one should be particularly careful when making a causation assertion.
"But it seems to me the main factor at work (I think someone mentioned this above)--more important than freedom from authority, parties, socializing, etc.--is just that when kids go to college, they're exposed to a much, much bigger world than any they've seen before."
That's possible, but my (admittedly anecdotal only) experience as a student and a professor suggests that your view risks giving the students too much credit for seriousness. Some students give their religion up for intellectual reasons (I thought I did, but I'm now convinced I didn't). But I think it more likely that other reasons (including simple disinterest or focus elsewhere) are more prominent.
Could be! Certainly there's a lot of factors at work.
Huh. That was actually the tipping point for me becoming an atheist - realizing that I was responsible for teaching somebody about the world and wanting to make sure that I was actually teaching them the truth. I could no longer in good conscience ignore all the doubts I'd rationalized up till that point.
Wow, I'm impressed. Most people go the other way, out of fear they won't be able to teach their kids proper morals etc. (I say "fear" for lack of a better word.) Good to hear from someone who was well-grounded enough not to fall for the religion=morality canard.
NB That was mostly back towards a more authoritarian attitude in general and not specifically just towards any previous religion.
However, for most people having kids means getting family help which in turn means coming back under the relevant tribal peer pressure again (whereas students are somewhat free of it). Plus, with that additional burden (of time and emotion), there's the fact of having less time to think at all, let alone critically, about things and of there being more of those things going on and demanding immediate attention - for which religion can be a quick fake fix.
Studies have shown at least 50 percent -- and possibly as much as 85 percent -- of kids involved in church groups will abandon their faith during their first year in college.
Praise Gawd, I knew the Great Awakening would return!
Sinbad, you said, "And, since women and blacks are far more religious than men and whites, one should be particularly careful when making a causation assertion." Is this not another bit of sub-data supporting the education claim (though not the intelligence one)?
Women and blacks have been historically excluded or minimized in higher education.
That's changing and I would love to see statistics on these two groups specifically for how they compare to their own larger groups, if they are among those who have been fortunate enough to go on to University level studies.
I'm have a strong opinion on what we would find. At least I hope I'm right.
"Is this not another bit of sub-data supporting the education claim (though not the intelligence one)?"
Perhaps, but causation is always much tougher to establish than correlation. To switch gears, you'd lots of different answers if you asked why Republicans correlate with more money than Democrats in the USA, if even Pharyngula readers are pretty monolithic on the subject!
Brownian #35 said:
"To Dustin, Rey Fox, tsg, and the rest:
Oh, for Pete's sake.
You're wrong, all of you. The opposite of close-minded is far-minded, though the word 'teleological' is more commonly used (tele- from the Greek for 'far' and -ological, an Irish insult meaning 'know-it-all'.)
Words that start with tele- are usually used perjoratively, as in 'television' (from the Greek meaning "there's nothing good on") or 'telephone' (Greek for "are you considering changing your long-distance provider?"), and teleology is no exception, being an empirically-unsupported and assumptive philosophical position. It's opposite is naturalism, a position most here would subscribe to.
Thus, to a scientific and rationalist crowd, to be called 'close-minded' is not an insult but a compliment."
Anyone else think that the above deserves a "Molly"?
It's a lot easier to imagine that "evolution is simply god's way of creating" if you just read about it, instead of looking closely at the evidence every day. Looks like even Ken Miller needed to bake a few mental pretzels to produce a religious view that does not *contradict* anything we know about evolution (opinions differ on whether he succeeds).
Bake a few mental pretzels?? You're killin' me--I've gotta remember that one.
Albert Mohler, a big number in the Southen Baptist community, also mentioned this issue on his radio show:
"Going To College And Leaving The Church"
(http://www.albertmohler.com/radio_show.php?cdate=2007-08-10)
I have to admit to feelings a certain amount of schadenfreude upon hearing about such inevitable results of the collision between superstitious ignorance and the real world.
MichaelS (#58): If you stay within the comfortable mental confines of the Fundamentalist Screaming Frothing Church and are a Good Boy, eventually you will have a Good Christian Girl practically dropped in your lap, and all your social awkwardness will not matter one bit - the girl is even more socially awkward than you, and terrified of spinsterhood. I've seen this happen. The girl in question was one of my then-girlfriend's best friends from school, and was proposed to by a close childhood friend. She accepted, and marriage followed swiftly thereafter.
Last I saw them, she was beginning to question her faith (because of tumultuous life events not matching up to starry-eyed propaganda/expectations), but they were sticking together and they'd just had their second child, buoyed by the belief that God would make sure it all turned out in the end.
I envied them then, and still do. But PZ would argue that the moral and intellectual price of stepping back into such a culture is too high to pay, and in a way he's right - for a lapsed Catholic swinging to agnosticism, this would be living a lie. Is this, in some sick, sad way, the atheist version of the sin of temptation? Because I'm terribly tempted to submit.
I've got to say, that the editors of a certain small-town newspaper in Arkansas are more than willing to expose bible-thumpers for the sad little prats they are:
http://bloggertrail.com/funny/atheists-the-cause-of-all-problems
-jcr
They're having a "Big Dig" in response to the "Great Evacuation"? It must be latrines they are digging.
@Sinbad (#54):
touche.
@MichaelS (#58):
absolutely. i say this from personal and indirect experience.
i think the sexual contribution starts before kids get partnered up.
this is the problem. they rely on ignorance and hypocricy and lies to dissuade kids from jumping in the sack. and when the pressure falls through because everything they said was a lie, they don't have the actual knowledge to help them make responsible choices. in this case, forcing faith on children can cost them their lives.
@Justin Moretti (#82):
fundamentalism does some really, really awful things to the minds of young girls. i'm not sure your assessment is spot on, but it's pretty close. there's a kind of jump that has to be made from "not even holding hands" to "marriage."
From PZ's "random quote" segment on the left side bar, just moments ago:
"I still went to church regularly, though, until I was eighteen years old. Then suddenly, the light bulb went on over my head. All the mindless mobidity and discipline was pretty sick - bleeding this, painful that and no meat on Friday. What is this shit? [Frank Zappa]"
"Probably" is probably right! After all, what is Dobson pushing here? He's trying to protect against the corrupting influence of things like fact, reason, and the experience of divserity. If a lifetime of indoctrination religious instruction can be torpedoed by two semesters away at school, maybe the problem isn't lack of "tools".
Hey Aaron, I have an ancestor who went to Dartmouth. Nice campus up there. Too bad about D'Souza, though.
I wrote:
Leon wrote:
The first was John 7:8 - 10; "Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up yet unto this feast: for my time is not yet full come.
When he had said these words unto them, he abode still in Galilee.
But when his brethren were gone up, then went he also up unto the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret."
That was always explained away; after all, didn't he say "yet"? Which wasn't saying that he wasn't going at all. But by this time, I was a mother of teenagers; I knew a false quibble when I saw one.
And hard on this one, I saw this (you'll laugh, but it pulled me up short); Paul writes, three times, "The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is blessed for evermore, knoweth that I lie not..." (I Cor. 11:31, also Romans 9:1 and Gal. 1:20). Now I knew that any time someone sincerely assures you that "before God" he is not lying, he most probably is. And besides, hadn't Jesus expressly prohibited swearing with God as a witness? Hadn't He said, "Let your yeah be yeah, and your nay, nay"? Didn't Paul know that? Or didn't he care?
Arachnophilia #85: there's a kind of jump that has to be made from "not even holding hands" to "marriage."
In the case I put forward, both parties were a little more sensible and forward than that; but when Mr Good Christian Boy put in a reference in the Church newsletter to cuddling his (fully clothed) fiancee in his (fully clothed) lap, it was struck.
Heh. How's the old man feel about being called an "ancestor"?
Yeah, it's gorgeous. As for ol' Dinesh, yeah, on behalf of Dartmouth, I apologize to the world. No school has a perfect record. At least we have the likes of Dr. Seuss and Mr. Rogers to balance him out. :-P
As a former Adjunct Professor of Astronomy, I always got a kick out of the veracity of:
"So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the people had revenge upon their enemies" and "the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day" (Joshua 10:13). Maybe God did this so that the Israelites would have more daylight to fight the battle.
Institute for Biblical & Scientific Studies: Genesis 1:14-19 DAY 4
The Sun Stood Still
"In Joshua chapter ten is the famous story of Joshua commanding the sun to stand still. Does this mean that the earth stopped revolving? Scientists say that this would tear the earth apart. The more important question is how the people at Joshua's time understood this. In Acts 2:20 the moon is turned 'into blood.' Does this mean the moon turned into real blood? No! It is used figuratively..."
"It's a lot easier to imagine that 'evolution is simply god's way of creating' if you just read about it, instead of looking closely at the evidence every day."
I don't see how.
"Looks like even Ken Miller needed to bake a few mental pretzels to produce a religious view that does not *contradict* anything we know about evolution (opinions differ on whether he succeeds)."
None that I saw. He agrees with Gould re how to look at the issue but disagrees concerning how to interpret the evidence.
Isn't evacuation something to do w/bowels?
Sinbad in #54:
"Based on this piece (http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/7827212.html), it appears that evolutionary inevitabilities turn folks back."
The problem with that piece is it doesn't examine why smaller families happened. I suggest that smaller families are not causal but a parallel phenomenon to loss of churchgoing. Why did people have large families? because of insecurity, both in terms of actually leaving descendants and to look after one in old age. As hygiene and diet improved more children survived and as society developed there came first a plethora of chariities, then the nation state to look after the elderly.
Similarly insecurity breeds the search for comfort which religion traditionally supplied. As security, in health, employment, lack of war etc increased so the need for that comfort decreased. This parallels the rise of the middle and artesan classes.
It has been suggested that one reason for the anomaly of the US is that very insecurity, as Siko reminds us and as Moore has been telling us since his first feature on Flynt. In Canada and in Europe etc we have state health care, real social security systems, employment protection and decent, national education systems. We are secure, many Americans are not. We are secular, many Americans are not.
I'm so pathetic - LOL.
I knew about Dr. Seuss (and Robert Frost and Daniel Webster and, uh, Rachel Dratch, LOL) but Mr. Rogers? I had no idea!
The problem with that piece is it doesn't examine why smaller families happened.
Another problem with it is that the writer is trying to have it both ways: define "natural family" so narrowly that it excludes modern Western Europe, but so broadly that includes all the rest of human history including "illiterate tribes in the Amazon rainforest".
Until Europeans eliminated all those biological ties and started reproducing in giant pods.
Reading through the thread, I see one recurring comment, viz. (I paraphrase) 'Women are more prone to return to religion'.
I'd suggest that women, being the ones who give birth to children, and generally have the role of primary caregiver in their children's formative years, are under significantly more pressure from family & friends to not deny their children the 'gift of god'...
I've seen this in my own family (sisters, cousins, now nieces) and in others - where mom has been pressured to 'have the baby baptised/christened','take the child to church/sunday school/...', etc. In such an environment it's easy to become simply 'religious by action' as opposed to 'intent' since you (presumably) want to be a good role model for your child...
Neither of my kids have been baptised/christened. My mom is 'black-affronted' (as they say in Scotland) - but - hey - they're my kids. If they want to do so when they're older - that's *their* choice, not mine! We try to be open and not too negative about peoples various beliefs, however -
My 11 year old son *did* visit a church service with a friend a couple of years ago - sort of an anthopological field trip for him. He told me that it was 'interesting' but 'weird'. His question afterwards - 'Do they believe in the Easter Bunny, too?'
Hope he retains his skepticism.
Trust me, Justin, there is nothing there for you to envy, though I can still thoroughly sympathize with the sentiment. During my own "transition period", life felt very lonely. When I first became an open skeptic, I had the same ideas: that life would be so much easier if I just believed the same thing that my parents, neighbors, and coworkers did. I really did pray to believe again (it seemed to make sense at the time), and I was filled with so much fear and shame for not being a believer like everybody else around me. It took me years to get over this.
There are a few things wrong with this idea of the grass being greener on the credulous side. First, it's not exactly a choice to believe or disbelieve; willfully changing the set of heartfelt beliefs you hold isn't a realistic option for you, me, or anybody else, now is it? It's not even a question of intellectual honesty, since one cannot dishonestly believe anything. Go on, give it a shot: I double-dog-dare you to believe that the Earth is the center of the Solar System and that its flat with four corners, and that its 6,000 years old... See what I mean? You can mouth the words, but in terms of actually believing these things to be true, it's not exactly up to you.
Secondly, maybe things worked out (marginally) well for your two Christian friends, but I don't think this is something to realistically envy. If you take a larger sample of the religious community, you'll see that happiness and satisfaction with life are very scarce commodities among them. Religion is definitely no guarantee of a loving spouse, or a close family, or a happier life, or even something as vague as "a sense of peace". They are just as prone to self-doubt and depression, and maybe even more so when it comes to guilt and self-loathing (YMMV.) Religious people (at least in the US) tend to have more problems keeping their marriages together than their non-believing counterparts.
Ultimately, finding somebody who shares your same values is a lot more reliable way of enjoying a happy, stable marriage than the alternative. Wishing for faith is a recipe for disappointment.
"I'd suggest that women, being the ones who give birth to children, and generally have the role of primary caregiver in their children's formative years, are under significantly more pressure from family & friends to not deny their children the 'gift of god'...."
That's interesting speculation, but sociologists suggest that the key to the difference relates to risk-taking in men. Men are more likely to be both atheists and criminals, though presumably also explorers and entrepreneurs.
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/resolve?id=doi:10.1086/342557
http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/2002/A/20026952.html
"If you take a larger sample of the religious community, you'll see that happiness and satisfaction with life are very scarce commodities among them."
I don't think research supports this claim and evolution suggests it won't. For example:
http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2007/jun/16/scientists-examine-ev…
"It's a lot easier to imagine that 'evolution is simply god's way of creating' if you just read about it, instead of looking closely at the evidence every day."
I don't see how.
For example, that whole "random variation" thing.
My point is simply that it doesn't seem entirely *trivial* to fit together the latest findings of biology and most traditional forms of religion.
"Looks like even Ken Miller needed to bake a few mental pretzels to produce a religious view that does not *contradict* anything we know about evolution (opinions differ on whether he succeeds)." None that I saw. He agrees with Gould re how to look at the issue but disagrees concerning how to interpret the evidence.
To get theistic evolution undistinguishable from unguided evolution by scientific means, Miller has to resort to God fiddling with mutations through undetectable quantum events. (Not to get to the whole theistic evolution discussion again, but that doesn't sound entirely unforced to me.) Now how would the average theist rationalize the role of God in evolution? I don't know, but my guess is it's a lot simpler for them than for Miller.
J.T. - thanks for that first paragraph.
Sinbad, the VCS piece about the Boyer study (and others) is very interesting. I hope it's clear and obvious that none of that speaks to the reality or unreality of god(s). Why am I not surprised that the evangelical quoted at the end of the piece seems to completely miss that particular point, and uses the faulty analogy of his wife's love to support his misconception? I admit that in and of itself a minor quibble, but it's not insignificant that the writer chose to give that little bit of illogic the last word.
Anyway, I wonder what further research into those correlations would reveal...
Susannah said:
The first was John 7:8 - 10; "Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up yet unto this feast: for my time is not yet full come.
When he had said these words unto them, he abode still in Galilee.
But when his brethren were gone up, then went he also up unto the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret."
Huh! That one seems fairly mild. Personally, I just don't understand why more people aren't turned off by sections of the Old Testament: verse after verse of God killing people or having people killed, for instance. Or better yet, the part I think I found most shocking: after escaping from Sodom, Lot's daughters decide (for no apparent reason) that all of humanity was destroyed except them, so to repopulate the species they get their father drunk, have sex with him, and each have children by him.
Leon, that suggests the tale was written by a some middle-aged dude whose delusions of piety were at war with the secret desires he harbored toward his own daughters.
Family values!
Leon:
Yes, it's mild. And the massive bloodbath that is the OT (and the book of Revelation) was shocking and disturbing to me, as were the laws in the Pentateuch: the death penalty for picking up sticks on the Sabbath and the rape laws, for example.
But, as I had been taught, and still believed, they were the TRUTH, and the truth was not always easy or comfortable.
The problem with Jesus' little white lie was that it was a lie, an UNtruth. And if that could be, that the Word of God contained one untruth, then it may contain others. And everything had to be reconsidered in that light.
"My point is simply that it doesn't seem entirely *trivial* to fit together the latest findings of biology and most traditional forms of religion."
Many believers have this problem, but I do not. I don't think religion speaks to biology in the least.
"To get theistic evolution undistinguishable from unguided evolution by scientific means, Miller has to resort to God fiddling with mutations through undetectable quantum events."
It has been a while, but I don't remember that. I remember Miller's idea being simply that God provided the universe with the properties which made the formation of life and volitional freedom possible. I may not be remembering correctly, I grant.
"Now how would the average theist rationalize the role of God in evolution? I don't know, but my guess is it's a lot simpler for them than for Miller."
I take Augustine's view that we ought not to quibble with science -- we should take truth as and where we find it. Of course, that doesn't mean that science isn't often in error, that many won't overreach in their claims as to what science "teaches" or that scientism isn't a real problem.
"Sinbad, the VCS piece about the Boyer study (and others) is very interesting. I hope it's clear and obvious that none of that speaks to the reality or unreality of god(s)."
Hi Kseniya. It certainly doesn't establish the reality or unreality of any god(s). Evolution is concerned with (so to speak) what is useful, not what's true. However, since what is true is more likely to be useful than what is false (e.g., a true equation is more likely to be useful than a false one), I don't think it fair to say it doesn't "speak to" the issue.
Sinbad,
Does this likelihood apply to all religious beliefs equally? If so, how then can diverse and sometimes conflicting or contradictory beliefs all be true? If not, why? Are you arbitrarily assigning a value of True to the belief system you happen to personally favor?
Extend this useful=true line of reasoning to encompass Tribalism: Hasn't it outlived its usefulness as a survival mechanism, and persists only as an artifact of the limited capacity of the human brain to comprehend vast numbers of people without stereotyping and categorizing? Hasn't it long since become a liability to humanity as a whole in this age of global communication and high-tech warfare? Does not religion contribute significantly to tribalistic tendencies and, in that sense at least, has also outlived its usefulness as a pro-survival strategy?
FWIW I think you're right about Kenneth Miller. I don't recall him ever coming out in favor of any kind of guided evolution, at the quantum level or otherwise.
Isn't this just a slightly more polite way of saying that women are more likely to give in to peer pressure and follow the herd? That seems rather insulting to women.
I suppose that, by itself, doesn't make it untrue. But I'd like to see some pretty good evidence.
Same for me.
"Does this likelihood apply to all religious beliefs equally?"
Yes, which suggests that there is something "bigger" going on than we appreciate -- religion is nearly universal, but the flavors of it are myriad, suggesting that we may be on to something in general but are screwed up in the particulars. Of course, we can't be remotely sure who's right and to what extent and we certainly can all be totally wrong.
"Are you arbitrarily assigning a value of True to the belief system you happen to personally favor?"
My motto: Often wrong but never in doubt. There appear to be lots of adherents here....
Seriously, I hope not. But it's a fair question.
"Extend this useful=true line of reasoning...."
That's too strong a statement (as I'm sure you recognize but are using a kind of shorthand).
"...to encompass Tribalism: Hasn't it outlived its usefulness as a survival mechanism, and persists only as an artifact of the limited capacity of the human brain to comprehend vast numbers of people without stereotyping and categorizing? Hasn't it long since become a liability to humanity as a whole in this age of global communication and high-tech warfare? Does not religion contribute significantly to tribalistic tendencies and, in that sense at least, has also outlived its usefulness as a pro-survival strategy?"
That's an interesting thought I'm going to have to "chew on" for a while. But my gut reaction is that tribalism remains useful, though its form is often different today than in the past. Indeed, we now all belong to various "tribes" for various purposes.
"FWIW I think you're right about Kenneth Miller. I don't recall him ever coming out in favor of any kind of guided evolution, at the quantum level or otherwise."
I'll count that as vindication!
As it stands, Sinbad's statement sounds kind of essentialist, although perhaps he did carry out a detailed analysis of the social, political, and economic forces behind those tendencies, and just forgot to mention it.
Sinbad's facile generalizations gloss over a number of subtleties and nuances alluded to in the excerpt above, in just one example of many detailing the increased participation of women in business, the arts, the sciences, and the professions.
He kind of glosses over the abrupt genotypic changes that must have occurred in females, coincidentally right after barriers were lifted, to account for the massive increase in their participation in professional activities--that is, if all the difference is due to men being innately more exploring and entrepreneurial.
I say, let's rerun the entire experiment right from the beginning, this time starting out with women having the political and religious power, the money, the support from unpaid labor, and the free time to create great art, make scientific discoveries, found business dynasties, explore the North and South Pole, and so forth.
Then, if the outcomes show that the males still eventually come out ahead in art, science, entrpreneurship, and exploring, we'll have a basis for talking about essentialist explanations for those outcomes.
"As it stands, Sinbad's statement sounds kind of essentialist, although perhaps he did carry out a detailed analysis of the social, political, and economic forces behind those tendencies, and just forgot to mention it."
I'm not suggesting that any research says that acheivement and maleness are linked. The literature I looked at speaks only of risk-taking -- atheists and crime -- and suggests immaturity. I added the bit about explorers and entrepreneurs (with "presumably") because I don't necessarily see risk-taking in a negative light. I may well be wrong about that.
"Sinbad's facile generalizations gloss over a number of subtleties and nuances alluded to in the excerpt above, in just one example of many detailing the increased participation of women in business, the arts, the sciences, and the professions."
My suggestion doesn't mandate a different result. With increased opportunity, I would expect the gap to close dramatically. But I've seen no research to suggest that gender differences aren't real and substantive. Did I miss it? Is the predominance of male crime simply a matter of opportunity? Selective enforcement?
"Then, if the outcomes show that the males still eventually come out ahead in art, science, entrpreneurship, and exploring, we'll have a basis for talking about essentialist explanations for those outcomes."
Nobody (at least that I'm aware of) is claiming that risk-taking and acheivement are linked.
Thalarctos does raise an interesting point or two, but somehow overlooks the obvious snake-apple thing, which would surely repeat if we started everything over. Sigh.
Yes... it was shorthand.
You know, sometimes understanding can make something as mundane as agreement seem almost trivial.
"Thalarctos does raise an interesting point or two, but somehow overlooks the obvious snake-apple thing, which would surely repeat if we started everything over. Sigh."
Please don't bring sense to bear against a good straw-person argument.
"You know, sometimes understanding can make something as mundane as agreement seem almost trivial."
Great point, profound even. Well done.
Well... There are more, and different, kinds of tribes, but the basic forms are the same. The oldest tribal divisions - geographical, national, racial, ethnic, religious - still exist in force. What else causes war, if not conflicting interests between tribes which are defined along one or more of those boundaries? Would not the defining boundary best be redrawn around the perimeter of the earth (or even the solar system) itself, at least until First Contact? I acknowledge that that is hopelessly idealistic, but the currently-available alternatives are not very appealing.
Indeed we do. Go Sox!
My minister mother didn't particularly try to raise me Christian, she just tried to raise me to be a good person. And though I didn't, and haven't since, identify as Christian since before I left for college, I suspect that I've kept more of that upbringing than most of the fundies' kids.
Clearly you don't understand what a straw-man argument is. I was directly addressing your point, so the straw-man fallacy doesn't hold. Unless you can reasonably show how I am failing to address your point, and creating another exaggerated one as a distraction, you are just throwing an irrelevant term around.
The issue under discussion was why women as a group are more religious than men as a group (we'll call this assertion A).
tony proposed:
We'll call this assertion B.
You dismissed it as:
Note that you didn't refute tony's argument; you only called it "speculation" and claimed that unnamed sociologists propose a different explanation. We'll call this assertion C.
So far, you and tony are even: 1-1 on speculation; you didn't refute him, you just put out your own speculation, and you didn't cite your sources, just appealed to the authority of unnamed "sociologists".
You then juxtaposed to your speculation the following statement:
I read that as you were attempting to advance your previous assertion with blanket statements about respective male and female tendencies. If my interpretation is correct, you were making a statement about men's and women's innate tendencies, rather than just restating assertion A ("men are more likely to be atheists" is basically just reversing the statment "women are more likely to be religious", which was already on the table).
So either you were just restating assertion A, or you were making an argument about the relative tendencies of men and women, without any further context.
I grant you, I was tweaking you a little with that "essentialist" rap, but you really didn't bring anything to the argument. Either you just restated the previous assertion A, ot you were trying to justify your unsupported assertion C with another unsupported assertion.
That is why:
is not a strawman. I am directly pointing out that you are attempting to bolster one unsupported assertion with another unsupported assertion. Unless you can show me a mistake in this chain, and demonstrate how I actually raised a strawman, I have to conclude that you either don't understand what it means, or you do, and are tossing out the term in the hope it will stick.
So in terms of unsupported assertions, you and tony are tied at 1-1, but in his speculation he proposed a plausible mechanism, while yours, as Chris pointed out:
Note that in itself, being insulting or not insulting to women has nothing to do with the truth value of the statement, as Chris quite correctly observes:
So I had a little fun with your statement, because it was insulting, and because you didn't provide any evidence to back it up. Since you juxtaposed the concept of entrepreneurism to your argument, I provided a little quantitative evidence in the form of figures about growth in female entrepreneurism since the late 1990s. While it's not a rigorous and definitive review, it does show that women and men do about equally with angel investors, who don't institute discrimination, and that women do worse than men do with banks who, until very recently, did formally institute discrimination.
I thought the parallels with women bowing more easily under patriarchal religious authority and the subsequent plausibility of tony's example was pretty obvious. I suppose if you're unable to follow the chain of reasoning, it could look like a strawman.
Your juxtaposition of "sociologists" with explorers and entrepreneurs sounded that way.
I don't either, and that's what Chris pointed out was insulting about your speculation. Women have been institutionally kept from competing in those arenas for centuries, then critics turn around and use that lack of history of competition to draw grand essentialist principles about "feminine nature".
Nobody here seriously argues tabula rasa--as an devoted amateur of comparative vertebrate endocrinology, I think it's important to explore the roles of hormones on behavior (cf. estrus). But political and economic and religious power have been used for centuries to exaggerate whatever gender differences there are, and it's putting women in a double bind to turn around and suggest that they're just that way naturally.
"Then, if the outcomes show that the males still eventually come out ahead in art, science, entrpreneurship, and exploring, we'll have a basis for talking about essentialist explanations for those outcomes."
That is what your juxtaposition of risk, exploring, and entrepreneurship seemed to imply.
You read that comment as Kseniya refuting me and agreeing with you, while I read that comment as Kseniya agreeing with me with ironic and mordant humor about the long history of religious power structure gyno-blaming.
So much nonsense for a small space....
"Clearly you don't understand what a straw-man argument is."
We'll see about that.
"Note that you didn't refute tony's argument; you only called it 'speculation' and claimed that unnamed sociologists propose a different explanation."
Some remedial work in reading comp may well be in order since I linked the study supporting my statement as well as a blog piece about it. If Tony (or you) wish to refute the research I cited, please do. I'm no expert and don't claim to be, but I supported my claim as should be obvious to anyone who can read.
"I grant you, I was tweaking you a little with that 'essentialist' rap, but you really didn't bring anything to the argument."
Had you actually read the information I provided, you might have understood my point. The research speaks to risk-taking in males and connects it to atheism and criminality. I added my speculation re explorers and entrepreneurs (with "presumably") because, as I noted, I don't assume that risk-taking is necessarily a negative thing, despite some discussion of relative immaturity in the linked piece.
"Your juxtaposition of 'sociologists' with explorers and entrepreneurs sounded that way."
I suspect it wouldn't have had you actually bothered to read the material.
"But political and economic and religious power have been used for centuries to exaggerate whatever gender differences there are, and it's putting women in a double bind to turn around and suggest that they're just that way naturally."
Well, d'uh. But also, so what? You missed the point by not reading the material and thus created a strawman by trying to insinuate that risk-taking and acheivement are linked -- a conclusion I don't think you could have drawn had you (surprise!) bothered to read the material provided.
It's nearly two in the morning, my brain is tapped out, but I feel compelled to comment on this one thing:
I am pleased to say that Thalarctos is exactly right about that. (As I implied in another comment, it's nice to be so well understood.) What is less clear to me, however, is that Sinbad read it the opposite way. He has already slipped one or two dryly ironic jests past me on other threads, sometimes at his own (rather than my) expense.
In this case, though, I'd venture a guess that he was acknowledging the mordant irony while declining to completely agree with Thalarctos's point. However, it's late, I'm down to two brain cells (and one of them is yawning) so I could be way off.
Re: Miller & quantum phenomena
and
But men are also more likely to be priests and popes ;)
That men are more likely to engage in extremes does not explain why women should be more likely to be religious *on average*, unless you define not being religious as an extreme in itself. (that might be true in some countries, but not in others...)
Hee-hee. You're a funny man. I didn't realize you were the *comedian* Sinbad--loved your work as a condom in "Time Out".
Here's a tip, though--if your position is wrong, adding projection and insults to it doesn't strengthen it.
A. It isn't.
B. Even if it were, and your links actually succeeded in refuting the whole disciplines of history, economics, and political science, the fact still remains that *you* are the one who attempted to refute tony's assertion by introducing male risk-taking as "the" answer, and then *you* juxtaposed exploring and entrepreneurship with the concept of risk.
Either 1) you are making a connection between them, or 2) your statement is a total non-sequitur.
If 1), then since you linked the concepts my response is not a strawman--the absolute most you could argue is that my response is wrong. If 2), then you *could* fault me for missing a chance to call you on your non-sequitur.
Indeed. Or you could keep misusing the names of logical fallacies, but around here, that's not such a great tactic, as people here actually understand the difference.
I should step back for a moment and say that happiness and satisfaction with life are scarce commodities among religous and secular communities alike. I'm not saying that godlessness is a reliable step to a happier life for every individual, just that superstition isn't a safe bet, either.
That being said, 'evolution' makes no such suggestion that religion should automatically make its adherents any happier than without it. David Sloan Wilson's work is based on the idea that religion still follows evolutionary principles, but that doesn't mean that any given religion will guaruntee greater happiness for its practicioners than without it.
While Dawkins might be overly eager to discount all religious memes as parasitic, I think D.S. Wilson is too willing to assume that they have some sort of inherent utility to its practicioners. Specifically, I'm skeptical of his claims of psychological benefits of religion and how he tries to demonstrate it. The problem with his study is that happy religious people are not going to be inclined to doubt and will be less anxious. On the other hand, people who are anxious and doubtful are not going to be the most comfortable with religious orthodoxy, so there is an inherent skew. The causality seems questionable at best. I'm sure that there's a way to reliably study this, but what he has done to-date isn't it.
"Hee-hee. You're a funny man."
Thank you. Thank you very much.
You, on the other hand, humorlessly utilize the shopworn technique of ignoring your own obvious error while ratcheting up the decibel level of the attack in hopes that nobody notices -- more a Rovian than one might have guessed, given your political predisposition. In honor of his resignation announcement, perhaps?
"Here's a tip, though--if your position is wrong, adding projection and insults to it doesn't strengthen it."
You are good at irony though. Pretension too. Are you in or do you aspire to academia?
Sinbad: "I supported my claim as should be obvious to anyone who can read."
Polar Bear: "A. It isn't."
Let's review then. Tony (in #98) made the following conjecture: "I'd suggest that women, being the ones who give birth to children, and generally have the role of primary caregiver in their children's formative years, are under significantly more pressure from family & friends to not deny their children the 'gift of god'...." I replied (in #100) as follows: "That's interesting speculation, but sociologists suggest that the key to the difference relates to risk-taking in men. Men are more likely to be both atheists and criminals, though presumably also explorers and entrepreneurs." I then provided links to an academic piece by sociologists and a science blog discussing it supporting that very point. That should make it obvious to anyone who can read that I indeed supported my claim. This isn't rocket science, people.
"B. Even if it were, and your links actually succeeded in refuting the whole disciplines of history, economics, and political science, the fact still remains that *you* are the one who attempted to refute tony's assertion by introducing male risk-taking as 'the' answer, and then *you* juxtaposed exploring and entrepreneurship with the concept of risk."
[Nice work to slip in a reference to the links you didn't read earlier here (without actually addressing them, of course). Perhaps folks won't notice your earlier error.]
There was no need to "refute" Tony's assertion since it was unsupported. Moreover, if you want to claim that the research I cited is in error, have at it. I'm no expert and may well be wrong, but you've done nothing actually to demonstrate it. Mere hand-waving claiming death to the whole of western civilization as we know it if the research cited is correct doesn't provide actual support. As I understand the standards of discourse and debate, histrionics alone aren't enough to carry the day (or even get the day started). You apparently disagree.
"Indeed. Or you could keep misusing the names of logical fallacies, but around here, that's not such a great tactic, as people here actually understand the difference."
You may get points for the misdirection, but you're substantively wrong here too. As everyone here apparently knows, a straw man fallacy is when a person ignores an opponent's actual position and substitutes a distorted or misrepresented version of that position and then sets out to knock down the straw man created. Since you apparently hadn't even looked at the research support I offered (why consider research when such a ready pre-conceived notion fits so nicely?), you distorted and misrepresented my position by suggesting (it was actually stronger than that) that I was connecting risk-taking and acheivement. Since you then proceded to attack this (straw-person) position I do not hold, the fallacy applies. This is a rabbit trail, of course (to keep attention off your failure to offer actual support for your position, perhaps?). How about simply deciding to Joe Friday it and saving the misdirection and the bluster for The Daily Kos?
Decibel level? I'm very calm.
"Rovian"? That's funny.
"Pretension too. Are you in or do you aspire to academia?"
I'm in industry; not sure whether the academia question is an insult, an attempt at an ad hominem fallacy or just a non sequitur.
You know, when two people are talking past each other this much, it's not particularly interesting, fun, or enlightening on either side. I'm not going to debate further with you about this; you can go ahead and claim victory on this one if it's that important to you.
"I should step back for a moment and say that happiness and satisfaction with life are scarce commodities among religous and secular communities alike. I'm not saying that godlessness is a reliable step to a happier life for every individual, just that superstition isn't a safe bet, either."
I agree.
"That being said, 'evolution' makes no such suggestion that religion should automatically make its adherents any happier than without it."
I must not have been clear enough. Evolution keeps what is useful. That religion is and has been essentially universal means that it's useful, suggesting that religious people may well be happier as a whole, since happier people live longer. That said, my comment re evolution was an aside since I think the research is pretty clear that religious people are happier as a whole (your comments noted below, which may cause me to alter my view based on additional research, notwithstanding).
"David Sloan Wilson's work is based on the idea that religion still follows evolutionary principles, but that doesn't mean that any given religion will guaruntee greater happiness for its practicioners than without it."
That makes sense to me.
"While Dawkins might be overly eager to discount all religious memes as parasitic, I think D.S. Wilson is too willing to assume that they have some sort of inherent utility to its practicioners."
You may well be right. Personally, I'm skeptical of the meme concept in general. I don't see what it adds (but that's off-topic, I know).
"I'm sure that there's a way to reliably study this, but what he has done to-date isn't it."
Has anyone else done it?
"Evolution keeps what is useful. "
Not necessarily. Evolution "keeps" what doesn't cause undue mortality before breeding.
"You know, when two people are talking past each other this much, it's not particularly interesting, fun, or enlightening on either side. I'm not going to debate further with you about this; you can go ahead and claim victory on this one if it's that important to you."
I'm not nearly as interested in winning as I am in learning. Besides, there can be no win here unless and until you actually offer an argument. Where we are is simple to describe. I've noted research results, which may or may not be correct (and ironically, results I don't pretend to be wedded to), pointing to men being less religious (and more criminal) than women due to risk-taking tendencies. If there is research pointing elsewhere, you have not cited it, (very calm?) hand-waving notwithstanding.
"Not necessarily. Evolution 'keeps' what doesn't cause undue mortality before breeding."
If the "goal" is reproduction, what's useful is necessarily what serves that goal, is it not?
Evolution is also about surviving to reproduce.
Not dying is a useful trait. Being more difficult prey.
It isn't about only keeping the useful traits. If something
is neutral or less desired it may be adapted for another purpose.
It's not quite so black and white. We hang on to plenty of features that don't particulary aid or inhibit our ability to pass on our DNA - *because* they don't inhibit. Whether or not they actively serve that goal (as opposed to being irrelevant or neutral) is another question entirely.
Consider the appendix...
Oops, Steve kinda beat me to the post. I shoulda refreshed... :-)
One of the articles Sinbad links to offers a quite amusing analysis
It's a sociological Pascal's Wager! (I don't mean to suggest that the authors subscribe to PW, and their hypothesis might even be true, if not believing is really seen as "risky". But it would also mean that a significant portion of religious people (mostly women) are religious mostly because they are afraid of divine punishment. How's that for the religion breeds happiness angle?)
Also speaking against their thesis would seem to be the rising proportion of nonreligious people as you go up the academic ladder - do, for example, many PhDs in biology 'lack the self-control to defer gratification', and their professors even more so? Or are they the exceptions?
Windy: That is interesting. It seems the analysis also assumes that such a thing as "religious obligation" actually exists. And I'm fascinated to read that there seems to be some correlation between the inability to delay gratification and the ability to obtain a PhD. :-)
As I said yesterday, I'd be very interested in seeing some more information about the alleged happiness of the religious as opposed to the irreligious. If there is indeed a correlation between religiousity and happiness, what is the cause? Or perhaps, more to the point, what is the cause of the lower degree of happiness of the irreligious?
There are many possibilities.
I find I am reminded of the study that demonstrated the the biggest obstacle faced by children being raised by same-sex couples came (turn down your irony meters, now) from outside the home - that is, from the stigma (and worse) they were subjected to at the hands of those who believe that same-sex parenting is somehow detrimental to the child.
I was raised in faith but abandoned the christian way for @ 15 years. My degree was in biology I also had extensive studies in history and philosphy. All my striving and study still left one little hollow place. I always had the sense that there was something bigger than all we can see or feel, something that drives the universe and all it's complexity. I rediscovered my faith in a 5 yr process of study and I am sad when I see that men of faith and men of science mutually completely disregard each others ideas and wonder how much we could accomplish if we worked together for the common good instead of battling each other. I know that much Evil has been done in the name of God but much evil has also been done in the name of science. I am not a holier than thou type and do not force my thoughts on others belief in anything must come from inside the individual. I can not prove the existence of any spiritual being but don't you feel the wonder, the awe, the pressence of something bigger than us, bigger than the physical universe. After all aren't we here for a reason beyond simply existing. Does "I think terefore I am " really satisfy you.
ARL
"Does "I think terefore I am " really satisfy you."
It's not really a question of whether it satisfies me or not. But I honestly don't feel the presence of something "bigger than the physical universe", because the physical universe itself is already bigger than anything in my personal sphere.
And I'm fascinated to read that there seems to be some correlation between the inability to delay gratification and the ability to obtain a PhD. :-)
Maybe it goes like this: Most people go into academia because they think their chosen field is fun or interesting, being unable to delay gratification for the few years it would take to study for a non-academic profession and start earning some actual money :)
What?! Do you realize what you're saying?
You're implying that inquisitions and wars have been fought in the name of science, that men and women have been tortured and burned at the stake in the name of science, that genocides have been perpetrated in the name of science. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Perhaps you mean something like, "Much evil has been perpetrated using the tools and weapons mankind has developed through the application of specific areas of scientific knowledge." But those evils have been perpetrated in the name of something quite different from science, such as imperialism, nationalism, racism, religion, population pressure - the list is long, but science is NOT on that list.
They don't call it being "god-fearing" for nothing. They mean it even if they don't realise they do. The clingy claims of there being love (in either direction) are merely the same as those made by an abused child about the abusive parent. The main difference, of course, being the imaginary nature of the super-being pseudo-parent - though not its abusive human proxies.
"But those evils have been perpetrated in the name of something quite different from science, such as imperialism, nationalism, racism, religion, population pressure - the list is long, but science is NOT on that list."
I don't think the facts support you here.
Science has often been alleged to be the basis of all kinds of evil.
http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v2/n10/full/embor304.html
Social Darwinism was a particular evil.
http://library.thinkquest.org/C004367/eh4.shtml
Moreover:
"Hence, socialism is converted from a dream of a better future for humanity into a science." (Stalin, who killed a few folks).
http://art-bin.com/art/ostalineng.html
Remember, communism was alleged to be predicated upon scientific materialism and was alleged to be a scientific advance.
Hmmm, though the evils perpetrated in the name of religion far outnumber those perpetrated in the name of science, it seems that I posted before thinking it through. (Not exactly a rare occurance.)
Ah yes - the Nazis and their evil experiments. A Godwin-free, justifiable reference. =)
Social Darwinism, let's see - was that an evil committed in the name of science? Or was it an evil in the name of something else, such as elitism, classism or racism, an evil which improperly used the theory of natural selection as a justification for institutionalizing elitism, classism and racism?
Stalin's characterization of socialism as a science doesn't make it a science, but I see your point. And how could I not? My grandparents lived through the Holomodor...
"Social Darwinism, let's see - was that an evil committed in the name of science?"
Though no Science flag was flying, the idea was that Darwinism justified and sanctioned oppressing people's alleged inferiors -- survival of the fittest and all that.
"Or was it an evil in the name of something else, such as elitism, classism or racism, an evil which improperly used the theory of natural selection as a justification for institutionalizing elitism, classism and racism?"
In my view, all such evils (including those committed in the name of religion, by the way) are due to multiple factors. There's always more than enough evil to go around.
"Stalin's characterization of socialism as a science doesn't make it a science, but I see your point."
I didn't see you as much of a bagpiper....
Much evil has been perpetrated in the name of the bagpipes!
Re: Social Darwinism: Yes, of course, but as you say, no Science flag was flying and I contend it was a misuse of science in the name of something else, just a stabbing someone in the heart with a knife is a misuse of metallurgy in the name of something else (rage, jealousy, avarice, hatred, etc.).
I suppose the Inquisitions could be similarly labeled a misuse of religion in the name of something else, but I think they are not so labeled for the same reason they are not primarily characterized as a great example of the misuse of interrogation techniques.
On the other hand, we have the Salem Witch Trials, allegedly a misuse of religion in the name of stealing land from ones neighbors. Or was it more a case of rampant superstition and hysteria run amok, unconstrained by reason or compassion - resulting in the execution of innocents in the name of all that's Holy?
Would you say that Lysenkoism was a corruption of science perpetrated in the name of science? Regardless, it's clearly an example of Stalin's dysfunctional relationship with, and faulty understanding of, science.
Me, a bagpiper? Da nyet! Though my high school sweetheart was a Scots lad...
There is something grand about the Highland pipes, but the Uilleann pipes do have a more mellifluous timbre.
(Seriously, though, I'm not sure what you mean, I've not heard that figure of speech before. Bagpiper, marching onward, unwaveringly, while emitting an unceasingly loud, buzzing noise? Implying some form and degree of intransigence?)
I took it as an indirect (and pretentious) reference to the "no true Scotsman" fallacy.
"(Seriously, though, I'm not sure what you mean, I've not heard that figure of speech before. Bagpiper, marching onward, unwaveringly, while emitting an unceasingly loud, buzzing noise? Implying some form and degree of intransigence?)"
Bagpipes announce a "no true Scotsman" fallacy....
"Re: Social Darwinism: Yes, of course, but as you say, no Science flag was flying and I contend it was a misuse of science in the name of something else, just a stabbing someone in the heart with a knife is a misuse of metallurgy in the name of something else (rage, jealousy, avarice, hatred, etc.)."
Bagpipes?
"I suppose the Inquisitions could be similarly labeled a misuse of religion in the name of something else, but I think they are not so labeled for the same reason they are not primarily characterized as a great example of the misuse of interrogation techniques."
In my view, the Inquisitions were indeed and obviously a misuse of religion. Their purpose was surely religious in intent but also about politics and control.
" On the other hand, we have the Salem Witch Trials, allegedly a misuse of religion in the name of stealing land from ones neighbors. Or was it more a case of rampant superstition and hysteria run amok, unconstrained by reason or compassion - resulting in the execution of innocents in the name of all that's Holy?"
All of the above usually applies. There's always more than enough evil to go around.
"Would you say that Lysenkoism was a corruption of science perpetrated in the name of science? Regardless, it's clearly an example of Stalin's dysfunctional relationship with, and faulty understanding of, science."
Ditto.
"I took it as an indirect (and pretentious) reference to the 'no true Scotsman' fallacy."
I was having a bit of fun. I'm sorry you took it as pretense.
Oh, bagpipes, No True Scotsman. Duh. I was too dense to make the leap - LOL - my night-owl tendencies have an unpleasant side effect, which is that I'm not too sharp in the morning! Well, pretentious or not, I took it as a compliment. (And I kinda like my bagpiper metaphor. Any experienced blog-commenter has encountered the intransigent noise-maker type.)
Yeah, "all of the above" applies to Salem, and the Inquisitions.
So... if I'm succumbing to the NTS fallacy in my argument regarding Social Darwinism, how am I committing it? By claiming that Social Darwinism isn't a true science? Well - is it?
"I took it as a compliment."
I meant it as one, though veiled and in fun.
"So... if I'm succumbing to the NTS fallacy in my argument regarding Social Darwinism, how am I committing it? By claiming that Social Darwinism isn't a true science? Well - is it?"
The problem with NTS is first that it begs the question (it presumes to know what "true science" is) and second that it equivocates (as to what one can or can't do in support of this "true science"). That said, it's also false (in my view) to assume that there is no "true" anything, so I think your question is a valid one. But, as a practical matter, we're typically left to what what people claim to be. Social Darwinism is indeed lousy science and Hitler wasn't remotely Christian by any reasonable measure (I hope that's not a Godwin's Law violation). But proponents and supporters claimed otherwise so we're largely stuck with that.
The validity of this statement depends, heavily, on finely-tuned definitions of two of the following three words:
- remote
- reasonable
- Christian
Sad, but true. The astonishing thing is how often Hitler is often characterized (unequivocally, and by Christians) as an atheist. The validity of that characterization depends on an extremely fine-tuned definion of the word "atheist" to mean "Someone who commands the death of millions of non-Christians in the name of God and Country."
This is a big topic, obviously. I don't think I can do it justice at this hour (midnight) and I am tired. I will say, though, that I agree that there can be degrees of faithfulness and adherence to some doctrines, disciplines, ideologies, and so forth, which does allow for the possibility of a "no true" argument that is not a fallacy.
Funny thing, though. Parody shows and sites (Colbert, Landover, etc.) really push the envelope of this concept. One might successfully argue that no true conservative would say the things that Colbert says - but perhaps the only reason that that claim is true is because Colbert is known to be not-conservative.
Eh. I dunno. That's a murky paragraph, that last one. I haven't thought it through very well... I'm improvising. Musing. Jammin'! :-)
"The astonishing thing is how often Hitler is often characterized (unequivocally, and by Christians) as an atheist."
As with most politicians, we can't know how sincere his Christian claims were, but after achieving and consolidating his power, Hitler became (or revealed himself to be) pretty aggressively anti-Christian (partly because he feared its political power).
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mathew/sn-hitler.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler's_religious_beliefs
"Funny thing, though. Parody shows and sites (Colbert, Landover, etc.) really push the envelope of this concept. One might successfully argue that no true conservative would say the things that Colbert says - but perhaps the only reason that that claim is true is because Colbert is known to be not-conservative."
Just like there's always more than enough evil to go around, there's always more than enough stupidity to go around. That, plus the ability of almost anyone to make statements via the internet that the whole world can see, makes the idea of an adherent of virtually any ideology saying virtually anything seem almost inevitable.
It's pretty obvious, to anyone who's ever bothered to look, that Hitler believed in god, maybe even gods. The idea of a master race includes a creator god and or gods to be descended from. If you believe in a god of any sort you're not an atheist. Period.
Hilter had it out for everyone that might oppose him. He was surrounded by people who believed in the occult.
The Pope's a Christian (allegedly!) and he's anti all the other Christian sects (the current incumbent recently went on record about it) because they have power that he wants too. So merely being anti some rival establishment of the religion in question (in this case Christianity) doesn't necessarily mean one isn't a Christian.
To some extent though, Hitler's Christianity isn't relevant anyway (not least because these days one can reasonably expect all politicians to be the most outrageous liars who are only in it for themselves). The real guilt lies with the Christianity of his followers - and not the immediate lieutenants either but the wider people. He appealed to them with overtly Christian messages and got into power on the basis of those and got them to commit atrocities on the basis of those. The evil committed by the Nazis was very much Christian inspired in that way. If it was so evidently anti-Christian in beliefs and behaviour, shouldn't many of the vast majority of German Christians have noticed?
"It's pretty obvious, to anyone who's ever bothered to look, that Hitler believed in god, maybe even gods. The idea of a master race includes a creator god and or gods to be descended from. If you believe in a god of any sort you're not an atheist."
You might notice that I didn't say otherwise. Baldur von Schirach, Arthur Axmann and Martin Bormann were though, suggesting that Nazism doesn't require god-belief.
"Hilter had it out for everyone that might oppose him."
Indeed.
"He was surrounded by people who believed in the occult."
And he ridiculed them:
"We will not allow mystically-minded occult folk with a passion for exploring the secrets of the world beyond to steal into our Movement. Such folk are not National Socialists, but something else --- in any case something which has nothing to do with us." (Speech in Nuremberg on September 6, 1938)
"The Pope's a Christian (allegedly!) and he's anti all the other Christian sects (the current incumbent recently went on record about it) because they have power that he wants too. So merely being anti some rival establishment of the religion in question (in this case Christianity) doesn't necessarily mean one isn't a Christian."
Joseph Goebbels notes in a diary entry in 1939: "The Führer is deeply religious, but deeply anti-Christian. He regards Christianity as a symptom of decay."
Hitler's own words: "The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity .... The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity." Quoted from Hitler's "Table Talks" with Bormann, in Hitler: A Study in Tyranny by Allan Bullock.
"The real guilt lies with the Christianity of his followers - and not the immediate lieutenants either but the wider people. He appealed to them with overtly Christian messages and got into power on the basis of those and got them to commit atrocities on the basis of those. "
That's a fair point, but you don't distinguish the German Christian movement from the Confessing Church, and you should. Read the Barmen Declaration, for example.
"If it was so evidently anti-Christian in beliefs and behaviour, shouldn't many of the vast majority of German Christians have noticed?"
Many did, and died for acting on it (Bonhoeffer, most notably). Again, look at the Barmen Declaration. But since Hitler said what he thought he had to to get and keep power, it's no real surprise that the public-at-large was unaware of what he said in private. Yet it's of course also true that the majority of Christians in Germany failed miserably by not opposing and even in supporting Hitler.
And I'm fascinated to read that there seems to be some correlation between the inability to delay gratification and the ability to obtain a PhD. :-)
Actually, I think among PhD-track grad students (and much more importantly among actual PhDs since many PhD students quit or fail out), the correlation is more between an *ability* to delay gratification and the successful completion of a PhD. Many end up changing their entire life...holidays get skipped...fun gets put off...time and time and time again. You can actually get to the point where you don't know what the hell to do with a free weekend when you have one. You can perhaps say that this is the result of an academic's obsession with their subject and the gratification they get from studying it, but it seems to be just as a commonly an obsessive desire to get the damn thing finished. Additionally, don't underestimate the fear imposed by the looming specter of the job market.
Josh, I HOPE you understand that I was being ironic. Of course I agree with what you just wrote. :-)
Kseniya: absolutely I understood... that was more for any readers who think that rain on your wedding day constitutes irony...
Again, though...my father says I'm too cynical.
Josh, OMG! You have just alluded to one of my pet peeves! It has long troubled me that few, if any, of Alanis's little scenarios are true ironies! This has unfortunately led to most of my peers believing that any unfortunate occurance is ironic. (Similarly, everyone now seems to think that random mean arbitrary or weird. Sigh.)
Re: Hitler. His public statements were greatly at odds with his private statement, apparently. I wonder, when he lambasted Christianity, what was he criticizing? Protestantism? Organized Christianity in all its forms? Or the core religion itself?
Can I still use funky to mean something other than a bad smell?
"Re: Hitler. His public statements were greatly at odds with his private statement, apparently. I wonder, when he lambasted Christianity, what was he criticizing? Protestantism? Organized Christianity in all its forms? Or the core religion itself?"
I think you're being too interested in finding consistency. As far as I can tell (though I'm not an expert by any stretch), his pro-Christianity quotes were from when he was gaining and consolidating his power. Thus the later criticisms reflect either that his "pro" comments were politically driven and not representative of what he really thought or a change in position.
Yes. :-)
Yeah, yeah, I know... You're right. Language is dynamic... slang comes and goes... However, there is a stage in which a word fall into regular misuse and the meaning becomes unclear. I suppose there's a tipping point, later, beyond which the new meaning becomes standard. I dunno.
Hitler believed in God.
I don't think anyone can claim he didn't.
Dig is Gid backwards. I can get my hand stuck in my nose.
While the discussion of Hitler's theism or lack of it is indeed interesting, I'm not sure if this speaks to the meat of the argument, which I am assuming is represented by Kseniya's comment #138 and Sinbad's counter-comment #140.
It is true that much evil has been done in the name of science, if we take 'in the name of science' to be the invocation of science as an end or a justification for some activity or another. However, in nearly every case, 'science' has been used to justify some action based upon a previously non-scientific belief. Sinbad's article summarises this nicely:
Each example given by Sinbad fits the pattern: the use of 'science' to justify some a priori claim . However, true science is neither prescriptive nor teleological (and in this case there is no need to worry about the NTS fallacy, as true science is a well-defined set of processes the lack of which make something non-scientific by definition.) Social Darwinism and eugenics are not scientific because they are prescriptive and teleological; some outcome has been a priori defined as 'good' and the evidence made to fit. (Some might claim that medicine can be described in a similar way, and they would be mostly correct, the difference being that evidence is usually not discarded or advanced to support the idea that health is 'good' and disease is 'bad'. I'll leave it to those with a greater interest in ethics to debate the distinction between racism and speciesism.)
Thus, Hitler's preconceptions about race were not scientific and, while he may have invoked science as some sort of justification, nothing he did was for science itself.
(For what it's worth, I think the preceding paragraph would hold if you replaced science and scientific with religion and religious.)
Brownian -- I essentially agree. Science is a means, not an end.
"However, true science is neither prescriptive nor teleological (and in this case there is no need to worry about the NTS fallacy, as true science is a well-defined set of processes the lack of which make something non-scientific by definition.)"
Well-defined, surely, but not evidenced. I hasten to add that I don't see that as a bad thing. We all have many unevidenced assumptions from which we work, and necessarily so.
"Social Darwinism and eugenics are not scientific because they are prescriptive and teleological; some outcome has been a priori defined as 'good' and the evidence made to fit."
Precisely. In the same way, most of us (for example) deem (a priori and without evidence) racial equality to be good.
"Thus, Hitler's preconceptions about race were not scientific and, while he may have invoked science as some sort of justification, nothing he did was for science itself."
This is a good argument in theory (as I alluded to in earlier posts), but we're left with what people claim which, as a practical matter, generally controls. While it's a tougher case (there is much less a consensus definition of Christianity than of science, to state the obvious), in the same way Hitler can't reasonably be described as a Christian (at least by around 1939) even though I assume he remained on church rolls).
Yes, but quite divorced from whether or not it is good or bad, race is a social construct and a concept poorly if at all supported by evidence, and therefore racial equality (from a biological perspective) is likely a fact.
Unless I'm misunderstanding you, there is no "in theory" here. Regardless of Hitler's claims, his genocidal policies were not scientific.
Yep, those are my thoughts too. The point I was trying to make is that there is a definition of science, and you reiterated that here.
"Yes, but quite divorced from whether or not it is good or bad, race is a social construct and a concept poorly if at all supported by evidence, and therefore racial equality (from a biological perspective) is likely a fact."
There's a lot packed in there.
As an aside, I wonder why upwards of 80% of NBA players are black. I doubt that variables related to social contrusts are the sole causes of that overrepresentation as compared to the population at large, but you may be right and I'm not even able to guess how one would test the idea.
Moreover, even if we assume that racial equality is indeed a biological fact, that doesn't provide evidence for the proposition that everyone be granted equal status under the law (though perhaps I should have picked gender for my example since the lack of biological sameness is clear).
It's not hard to figure out.
With lack of sufficient educational opportunities and employment opportunities basketball is an option for a minute few within the black community. Socially it is percieved as an option for them. Attainable and culturally popular.
Are brazillians good at soccer because of genetics? Indians at cricket?
No. It's absurd to use some form of genetic or racial argument for sports.
I can't say with any real certainty, but I the fact that the proportion of blacks in various sports has changed over time and is not consistent even among sports utilising similar skill sets suggests to me that there's a lot more going on than just physical prowess. (Anecdotally, I've dated two different Kenyan-born black girls and could outrun them both.)
Of course not. However, if we were to want to claim that our law is derived from science....
"It's not hard to figure out."
You have evidence, then?
"With lack of sufficient educational opportunities and employment opportunities basketball is an option for a minute few within the black community. Socially it is percieved as an option for them. Attainable and culturally popular."
I can readily accept disproportionate representation on this basis. But a young, black male is roughly 30 times more likely to play in the NBA than a young, white male. Moreover, if we look at other sports with different cultural situations, trends emerge there too. Track is a low cost and low prestige sport, yet dominated by blacks (as I understand it, sprinters from West Africa and distance runners from East Africa). It sure seems like more than just cultural differences are at work.
It "smells" to me that we're so afraid of going near the idea that some types of person are mentally inferior that we're afraid even to consider the idea that some types of people are physically superior. I would suppose that as with the questions of physicality, questions of intelligence are much more nuanced than readily assumed. Success at various sports takes certain types of mental abilities as well as physical abilities. Diversity shouldn't mean the same as. I could be persuaded that your view is correct, but it's anything but absurd to assume it's correct without any evidence.
"I can't say with any real certainty, but I the fact that the proportion of blacks in various sports has changed over time and is not consistent even among sports utilising similar skill sets suggests to me that there's a lot more going on than just physical prowess."
I readily agree. I merely suspect that some element of physical prowess is involved.
"However, if we were to want to claim that our law is derived from science...."
Touche'.
Intelligence has been studied very rigorously.
There's no race based dividing lines to intelligence.
"Intelligence has been studied very rigorously.
"There's no race based dividing lines to intelligence."
You may ultimately be correct, but given the controversy around books like The Bell Curve (still, after all these years and many thousands of pages), your answer is far too definitive and glib (unless, of course, you take it as a matter of faith).
If you learned a little about human genetics you would understand why I was glib and dismissive.
"If you learned a little about human genetics you would understand why I was glib and dismissive."
Your condescending appeal to authority may be justified by your (implied) expertise. But I'm no expert, and even a quick google search shows lots of peer-reviewed academic research saying you're dead wrong. So you'll forgive me if I refuse to take your word for it without, a-hem, some e-v-i-d-e-n-c-e.
I'm no expert. But from what I've read, the differences in humans by race is genetically inconsequential. Intelligence is not.
Race is important because of it's social implications but when it comes to intelligence no genetic link has been found to race.
Think of it this way. Are true blondes really less intelligent? It's a genetic trait.
"But from what I've read, the differences in humans by race is genetically inconsequential. Intelligence is not."
If you think the issue is decided, you clearly haven't read enough. For example, The Bell Curve Debate: History, Documents, Opinions (1995) has articles from 81 scholars concerning this issue, many of which disagree dramatically with you. The idea is standard, Steve. If you want to make a claim, you have to be able to back it up. So far at least, you haven't.
The bell curve isn't about biology.
It's completely flawed and doesn't take into account biology.
Scholars is a loose term. How many of them are biologists?
"The bell curve isn't about biology."
Hand-waving.
"It's completely flawed and doesn't take into account biology."
Ditto. You keep saying (or implying) that the answer is obvious and those idiot professors from Harvard, Berkeley, etc. who argue otherwise don't know what they're talking about. You may be right, but how many times do I have to ask for evidence for you to produce some? Also, you don't just say that your side is well-supported, you claim that the other side is totally full-of-it, so your burden of persuasion is exceedingly high.
"Scholars is a loose term. How many of them are biologists?"
That's just silly. Support your claim or stop making it. Simple.
Same for me.