Searching For Studies

[alexander_q]

Indeed, which is precisely why it is of parmount importance to establish what we mean when we toss about a word like religion, especially as you seek to influence laws regarding it

 

Fair enough. Many discussions turn into linguistic arguments, and with your assistance, I would like to keep this one from being railroaded in that manner. I reject the idea that the word religion should be used in the ways you provided, but I certainly can't argue that it doesn't get used in those ways. As for the matter at hand, the definition of religion that I choose to investigate is that used by the law in my country. I provided a link to that earlier, but here it is:

 

- belief in a supernatural being, thing or principle

-acceptance of canons of conduct that give effect to that belief, but that do not offend against the ordinary laws

 

 

So, when I say I am searching for studies that criticise religion, I guess what I am saying is that I am looking for studies of religion under this definition (or that could be included under it or near it).

 

I myself can easily challenge why denying access to current understanding of science can in fact be directly detrimental to the child's well being, but it has nothing to do with my personal feelings about the validity of a personal system of symbols one's family employees to promote social and cultural participation. It stands alone, outside that discussion

 

Also fair enough. I guess what I am doing is simultaneously making two arguments - a positive argument that education based on the scientific method is good, and a negative argument that the personal symbols used by religions to promote social and cultural participation are bad. In my own experience, the two are directly related, but my own experience is not enough to validate anything. So I seek information that does connect them. This of course exposes me to confirmation bias. Feel free to provide information that does not support my bias.

 

You wish to be effective, right?

 

Yes. Sometimes it is very difficult not to be a dick in this matter. I'm trying.

 

Like the theory of relativity? Where was the hard evidence for that when Einstein proposed that one?

 

There was not HARD evidence, but there was evidence. Theories don't have fossils, animals do. The law of gravity has no substance (yet ) on which we hinge our theories, but we do not suggest that this is a fantasy.

 

I'm saying independent in the sense of stepping outside the mainstay think-tank philosophy of "what is"

 

That should have been clear to me. I'm guilty of using words to broadly.

 

My challenge is that we call incontrovertible a whole lot more than really is warranted, and that seems much more an act of trying to support a religious-style, if you prefer, worldview based on a large array of assumptions, which frankly have a great deal of entirely legitimate rational criticism against it

 

This is where things get interesting, and some admissions must be made. While I say that I reject a worldview where wisdom comes from authority, I don't really mean this in a broad sense. For example, I defer to the authority of evolutionary biologists on evolution, and climatologists on climate change. I does this not because I believe that each fact they present is literally true, but because I believe that the scientific method, and the peer review process, arrives at the closest approximation to truth that can be achieved. I myself lack the education, and even perhaps the power of reason to understand most of these concepts fully.

 

I've been thinking about how best to explain this, and for me its like the difference between democracy and totalitarianism. We accept the authority of those more learned than us, however, we are satisfied that their authority is open to criticism, and that they are willing to change if our arguments are sound. Democracy is the worst form of government except for every other form that has been tried. The same applies to the scientific method. Similarly, in science and politics, participation is (generally) not compulsory. However, the opinions of everybody are brought to bear on politics if they wish. I've never decided how I feel about this, but that's a discussion for another day.

 

Peace.

[R. S. Martin]

Antlerman, thanks for your response. In reading your following posts to alexander_q I am able to see more clearly what you mean.

 

Many discussions turn into linguistic arguments, and with your assistance, I would like to keep this one from being railroaded in that manner.

 

If that is your experience, it would be because of your great tendency to use words very sloppily. I don't see many discussions here on exC turning into linguistic arguments. I suggest that if you wish to become a lawyer, you absolutely must learn to be far more precise with language. Actually, I have little to worry about; you simply won't pass the exams.

 

I reject the idea that the word religion should be used in the ways you provided, but I certainly can't argue that it doesn't get used in those ways. As for the matter at hand, the definition of religion that I choose to investigate is that used by the law in my country. I provided a link to that earlier, but here it is:

 

- belief in a supernatural being, thing or principle

-acceptance of canons of conduct that give effect to that belief, but that do not offend against the ordinary laws

 

This definition has already been dealt with earlier in the thread. You have yet to deal with that part of the discussion if you wish for us to accept your definition.

 

Alexander_q, I am trying to guess at your age. You level of maturity and language suggests to me you must be in your middle teens or less. For your information, Antlerman brings double or triple that amount of life experience to the situation. You may want to show more respect for his knowledge and interpretation of life issues such as religion.

 

Not that he and I see eye to eye on everything but lack of agreement does not call for lack of respect when interacting.

[alexander_q]

I am not trying to get any particular definition of the word 'religion' to be accepted, I am trying to communicate my desires and have them satisfied. Regardless of my failure to achieve these goals, I do feel like I am learning something. If I appear disrespectful, it is only because I am intimidated at being way out of my league. I apologise.

 

I want studies that show a correlation between belief in a supernatural being, thing or principle (either in general or in reference to specific instances) with negative societal outcomes.

 

 

 

[R. S. Martin]

 

I want studies that show a correlation between belief in a supernatural being, thing or principle (either in general or in reference to specific instances) with negative societal outcomes.

 

I've seen stats that show that the largest prison population is Christian, and that more evangelical Christians divorce than any other population. How reliable these studies are, and what methodology was used to arrive at these stats, was not included. Also, I think those studies were done in the United States, but I'm not sure. While the results from studies done in one country can possibly be applied to other countries, one must use caution. Social conditions always vary from one country to another.

 

I personally think your pursuit is dangerous and unethical. You have predetermined that there is "a correlation between belief in a supernatural being, thing or principle (either in general or in reference to specific instances)," and that this necessarily causes "negative outcomes" for society.

 

You have predetermined that. Now you are looking for evidence to support your predetermined bias. That, alexander_q, is unethical and intellectually unscrupulous, if you ask me.

 

The honest way to go about doing this type of thing is hypothesizing that something, such as religion, has negative societal impacts. Design a study to find the reality of the situation. Either that, or find the work of someone else who followed this procedure. To do it yourself requires education/training to learn the method and avoid the pitfalls.

 

Learn how to identify true scholarly research methodology so you can evaluate the studies you find. Wikipedia is not a bad place to start, in the case that you have limited time and/or resources. Start with key words such as "research methodology," or "scientific method," and go from there.

 

Wikipedia is highly cross-referenced and one can spend all day learning in-depth on almost any topic in Wikipedia. To learn more about a topic, click on the footnotes in the articles, and follow the links in the bibliographies to other parts of the internet, which often lead to more specialized articles written by professors or doctoral students, with yet more links to yet more websites.

 

As you can see, I'm of the philosophy: Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime. In other words, do your own homework and reach your own informed conclusions. Don't just wrangle with us if your goal is so narrow that no one here can answer your questions.

 

I am glad to see you feel you are learning. I think that is one of the purposes of these forums.

[alexander_q]

The honest way to go about doing this type of thing is hypothesizing that something, such as religion, has negative societal impacts. Design a study to find the reality of the situation. Either that, or find the work of someone else who followed this procedure. To do it yourself requires education/training to learn the method and avoid the pitfalls.

 

I agree. My biases exist no matter what I may try and do. I can, however, try and make sure they do not enter into my consideration of the validity of a given study. My hypothesis IS that religion has negative societal impacts, based on no more than my own personal experience. Because I lack the resources to conduct my own studies beyond a tiny sample size, I want to explore the work of others, as you suggest. I would then examine the methods used to obtain the data in the study, and examine the responses from peer review.

 

As a rational person, I may still have biases and opinions that are not based on empirical evidence - allowing these to alter my political or intellectual goals would be where it becomes a problem.

[R. S. Martin]

The honest way to go about doing this type of thing is hypothesizing that something, such as religion, has negative societal impacts. Design a study to find the reality of the situation. Either that, or find the work of someone else who followed this procedure. To do it yourself requires education/training to learn the method and avoid the pitfalls.

 

I agree. My biases exist no matter what I may try and do. I can, however, try and make sure they do not enter into my consideration of the validity of a given study. My hypothesis IS that religion has negative societal impacts, based on no more than my own personal experience. Because I lack the resources to conduct my own studies beyond a tiny sample size, I want to explore the work of others, as you suggest. I would then examine the methods used to obtain the data in the study, and examine the responses from peer review.

 

As a rational person, I may still have biases and opinions that are not based on empirical evidence - allowing these to alter my political or intellectual goals would be where it becomes a problem.

 

Okay, let's see if I correctly understand you. Your personal experience has been that religion has negative societal outcomes. (Incidentally, you are far from alone in this.) This being your personal experience and admitted bias, you wish to fight the "monster." Never-the-less, being a rational person, you wish to strive for objectivity in the matter and find the actual truth of the situation. Am I correct so far?

 

If so, you might wish to reword your stated project from the following (taken from your Post 28 above):

 

I want studies that show a correlation between belief in a supernatural being, thing or principle (either in general or in reference to specific instances) with negative societal outcomes.

 

to something like this:

 

I want studies that show whether a correlation between belief in a supernatural being, thing or principle (either in general or in reference to specific instances) has positive or negative societal outcomes.

 

That way you will be weighing the evidence from both sides. That is what open-minded, ethical, rational people do.

 

My guess is that you will get a better response from people on these forums if you use that approach. Though I would have to search pretty hard to find the studies you are asking for. Possibly someone knows right off the bat where to look.

[R. S. Martin]

Just now I did a Google search with the keywords religion + impact on society. There are 24 million hits. Here are three links on the first page that look promising at first glance:

 

• MegaEssays.com You can sign up and join and "Get instant access to over 85,000 papers." According to the links on the first page, it has essays on the "impact of religion on society" for a wide variety of societies, across history, geography, and culture. This includes classics in the field.
• The Heritage Foundation This focuses exclusively on the United States but it's got a wide variety of information and media presentation, including factsheets, which might interest you. An overview of the American situation might serve as an example of another country with a different social history and condition from your own. Please note, I am in Canada, which has a very different social history from the United States.
• This seems to me like a balanced discussion, but I must mention that it comes from atheists. It is an Atheist Experience video, and takes place at Austin, Texas, in the United States, though it takes a global view.

[Antlerman]

I'll offer some further thoughts in a while, but for the moment I wanted to post this reference that I think would be highly beneficial in the discussion between religion and secularism in statistics of things like overall society health. The reputable study has some interesting findings that shows a negative correlation between societal dysfunctional and increased in religiousness:

"There is evidence that within the U.S. strong disparities in religious belief versus acceptance of evolution are correlated with similarly varying rates of societal dysfunction, the strongly theistic, anti-evolution south and mid-west having markedly worse homicide, mortality, STD, youth pregnancy, marital and related problems than the northeast where societal conditions, secularization, and acceptance of evolution approach European norms (Aral and Holmes; Beeghley, Doyle, 2002)."

 

This is worth reading the whole report: http://moses.creighton.edu/jrs/2005/2005-11.html

 

Some of what I've been trying to talk about earlier can find support in this. These are reflective broken systems of religion that fails to translate our present stage of evolution adequately, and the result is a failure of religion. I'm not willing to say "religion is bad", since it really depends on the system, and what the system is or isn't doing. Religion is in fact way more than simply "belief in the supernatural". It's simply that that has been part of religious beliefs, but to me what defines religion is the role it plays in presenting cohesive worldviews. Science, or secularism can rightly be seen a filing that same role, when it is approached as the key to tie all together and through which all shall inform. That is religion.

 

So my question is, is this not in its rights and ideological argument over which religion is best suited to the task? I disagree that science can become the new religion, as the Light for mankind. It is not suited to address social needs, cultural needs, aesthetic needs, or spiritual needs. That's a lot of neglected areas for something to be elevated to the status of Truth to guide us. And ironically if you think about it, to be reductionist with all those other areas, is in its own way like the mythic-religious systems which try to reclaim that position of Truth to guides us, through the denial of reason. It's really not that different if you think about it. Each being promoted as supreme Guide for the World, each either rejected or reducing areas they are lacking a proper voice to speak to.