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Does Religion Create A More Moral Society? Not According to This Study (pg. 3)
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| St_Andrew |
| quote: | Originally posted by HardTranceProd
HOWEVER... it's secular. Extremely secular even now.
And BTW the former Soviet states with a lot of crime/religion are in the Southern parts. |
They are still colder climate wise tho than for example Scandinavia. And states like Chechnya (sp?) is obviously REALLY religious. |
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| HardTranceProd |
Chechnya is relatively in the south!
The climate is not cold in Chechnya. |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by HardTranceProd
Chechnya is relatively in the south!
The climate is not cold in Chechnya. |
However, Chechnya is colder than South America or any country along the equator. Why is crime worse in Chechnya than? Furthermore, there are plenty of South East Asian countries with relatively little crime as opposed to say, even the most Northern parts of Russia. Additionally, the carribean nations should technically be festering hot spots for crime yet there's probably more crime in Colorado. |
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| Yoepus |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
Additionally, the carribean nations should technically be festering hot spots for crime yet there's probably more crime in Colorado. |
Carribean nations though area also more religious...
That's what I'm saying about this research.
It is conducting this study based on an unrepersentative body... you can not have a "control" group and an expiremental group in this regard to test out this theory. It is best done on both macro and micro levels to verify if there is even some truth, otherwise it is rubbish. |
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| Dupz |
Hey Occ, I'm not too crash hot on the findings of this study.. You wouldnt have the outputs from the econometric models, would you?
I have a feeling that we might see some biased estimates coming from the model.. maybe a heteroskedasticity problem? |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by Yoepus
Carribean nations though area also more religious...
That's what I'm saying about this research.
It is conducting this study based on an unrepersentative body... you can not have a "control" group and an expiremental group in this regard to test out this theory. It is best done on both macro and micro levels to verify if there is even some truth, otherwise it is rubbish. |
There is no statistical theory that has been proven with statistical significance. There is correlation that has been identified in the data. In other words, we’re not out to prove that religion causes amoral data. What is suggested by the data is that religion does not reduce amoral behavior and consequently the absence of religion does not induce amoral behavior as evidenced by the lack of negative correlations. In other words, this isn’t drug study where we’re trying to prove some grand theorem to describe the effects of religion on any kind of population, this is a social study where we’re observing the entire population of prosperous democracies, and it just so happens that the facts of life has churned out a situation whereby there is a positive correlation between religion and amoral behavior. Which tends to make some sense in certain aspects such as teen pregnancies and stds where you have a wealth of more specific statistical evidence to demonstrate how faith based initiatives fail miserably … see MisterOpus for more references.
| quote: |
Hey Occ, I'm not too crash hot on the findings of this study.. You wouldnt have the outputs from the econometric models, would you?
I have a feeling that we might see some biased estimates coming from the model.. maybe a heteroskedasticity problem?
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Woah, Gauss-Markov Theorem doesn’t even enter the equation of this study. It’s not conducting regression or OLS. It’s simply identifying correlation, which does not assume that the variance of the error term is constant for all observations and all time periods to the best of my knowledge. |
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| HardTranceProd |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
However, Chechnya is colder than South America or any country along the equator. Why is crime worse in Chechnya than? |
Nooo, it's not worse. Apparently you have no idea how much crime happens in Brazil alone. Or Panama, or Ghana, Paraguay, any Central/South American country. Have you heard of "honor killings" of cops in Brazil? Central-American gangs?
And the most dreadful place in terms of crime? South Africa. The southernmost country you can imagine. ;)
BTW, let's also distinguish between wars and "pedestrian" crimes like rape, murder, theft, etc.
In Italy, there's no wars right now but Sicily (the southern part) is the most religious AND the most criminal part of the country, while the north is more developed. In Russia, St.-Petersburg in the North has barely 1/10 of the crime of the Southern city of Rostov-on-Don (the only major city in the southern part of Russia). |
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| Yoepus |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
There is no statistical theory that has been proven with statistical significance. There is correlation that has been identified in the data. |
I understand the part above, I disagree with this part:
| quote: | | What is suggested by the data is that religion does not reduce amoral behavior and consequently the absence of religion does not induce amoral behavior |
There was a study one of my psychology professors always liked to cite (to make the point about causality and correlation) out which I forgot. It uncovered that the correlation between people who drink orange juice and people who do crack cocaine was 1.
Can we conclude that crack concaine makes you want to drink orange juice then? No. (i.e. does religion make a society moral?) Can we conclude that drinking orange juice makes you want to do crack cocaine? No. (i.e. does the absense of religion makes a society moral?)
And all I am saying is that since the sample set is so small (The USA being according to the testament of the scientist the only "religious" country in the sample) you can simply not conclude whether his is true or not.
It very well maybe that religion has a negative effect on society (it makes you say more criminal and what not) and due to phenomena such as access to weapons, criminals behind bars, etc, we we wouldn't know the difference. Or it could very well be that religion does have an positive effect on society. But to what extent?
If say religion only increases a societies morality by 5% while the death penalty decreases a societies morality by 10%, gun-control increases it by 3%, cold tempatures increase it by 6%, Renegade living in your country increase morality by .01%, free speech increase it by 3%, and being a UN-member nation decreases it by 26%, it would be almost impossible to know why one society is say 25% more moral than another without having the stated metrics above.
What the study is doing is saying:
Country A is 10% moral.
Has a 5% death rate.
Has a 2% crime rate.
Country B is 15% moral.
Has a 2% death rate.
Has a 10% crime rate.
Country C is -192,000% moral
Has a 1% death rate
Has a .1% crime rate
And then trying to explain base on those three example why morality has a positive correlation with death and crime. .. |
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| Fir3start3r |
| quote: | Originally posted by shaolin_Z
I have to agree with Yoepus on this one. Plus the study contradicts itself. In order for a society to be religious, they need to actually follow the teaching of that religion. If they don't, it's not a religious society. (Perhaps religious is a poor choice of terms to use here, what I mean by religious is practicing.) Just going to church/temple/mosque and believing in God doesn't make you religious. Practicing your faith does. |
+1 :D |
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| shaolin_Z |
| quote: | Originally posted by Fir3start3r
+1 :D |
We agree on something! :eek: :D
EDIT: I forgot this one. :p |
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| Fir3start3r |
| quote: | Originally posted by shaolin_Z
We agree on something! :eek: :D
EDIT: I forgot this one. :p |
I know eh? :eek:
I'll just watch for falling meteors and buses when I step out the door tonight... :p |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by Yoepus
There was a study one of my psychology professors always liked to cite (to make the point about causality and correlation) out which I forgot. It uncovered that the correlation between people who drink orange juice and people who do crack cocaine was 1.
Can we conclude that crack concaine makes you want to drink orange juice then? No. (i.e. does religion make a society moral?) Can we conclude that drinking orange juice makes you want to do crack cocaine? No. (i.e. does the absense of religion makes a society moral?)
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You're getting it backwards. You're saying that the causality thesis in this case is that religion or, the absence of religion, has no impact on morality. Thus according to your logic, the claim that religion has an impact, or in other words, causes morality to shift up or down, does not imply causaulity???
Well christ, so if I claim that my burps causes global warming and the data suggests that there is no such correlation, your claim that it doesn't implies causality??? Please explain that to me.
| quote: |
And all I am saying is that since the sample set is so small (The USA being according to the testament of the scientist the only "religious" country in the sample) you can simply not conclude whether his is true or not.
It very well maybe that religion has a negative effect on society (it makes you say more criminal and what not) and due to phenomena such as access to weapons, criminals behind bars, etc, we we wouldn't know the difference. Or it could very well be that religion does have an positive effect on society. But to what extent?
If say religion only increases a societies morality by 5% while the death penalty decreases a societies morality by 10%, gun-control increases it by 3%, cold tempatures increase it by 6%, Renegade living in your country increase morality by .01%, free speech increase it by 3%, and being a UN-member nation decreases it by 26%, it would be almost impossible to know why one society is say 25% more moral than another without having the stated metrics above.
What the study is doing is saying:
Country A is 10% moral.
Has a 5% death rate.
Has a 2% crime rate.
Country B is 15% moral.
Has a 2% death rate.
Has a 10% crime rate.
Country C is -192,000% moral
Has a 1% death rate
Has a .1% crime rate
And then trying to explain base on those three example why morality has a positive correlation with death and crime. .. |
This is not a simple comparison between two countries. If you had read my post, I made that clear. The correlation is not just between the US vs. all other countries. The correlation was present in virtually all countries. In other words, the more religiosity was present in a European country, that country experienced greater amoral behavior relative to less religious European countries. In other words, the correlation exists even excluding the US entirely. The fact that there is no negative correlation for religiosity and amoral behavior, even among European countries, suggests that religion has no impact on morality. That does not imply causality. In fact it does the exact opposite. What you are doing is defending a thesis (that religion has a positive impact on morality) with no data to support it. What I am doing, is saying hmmm here is a study that suggests that there is no indication that religion does that at ALL ... perhaps religion has no effect on morality. And from that, you're suggesting that my claim is invalid because I am the one implying causality???
Edit: Methinks people's judgement are becoming clouded by the fact that there was a positive correlation between religion and amoral behavior. Simply assume that there was no correlation whatsover (or in other words the absence of any negative correlation) and my argument is perhaps more palatable without the bombastic implications of a positive correlation. |
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