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Aswad -> RE: Atheists more compassionate than believers, study finds (5/20/2012 6:40:36 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: GotSteel
With all the fervor among the faithful to oppress women and lgbt's of late [...]
The lesbian bishop here would probably disagree with you that there is any widespread fervor to oppress women and LGBTs here. For that matter, despite being faithful, I've not made any attempt to oppress women or LGBTs lately, and actively maintain good relations with my LGBT friends of both genders, and Ars is openly bisexual. My doctor is a mature missionary church man with tons of kids, one of them studying to become a priest, and the whole family recently made a "pilgrimage" to the biblical sites in the Middle East. He's made plenty of referrals to gynos for everything from STDs to abortions, prescribes contraceptives with no hassle, and is the only doc we've found that has been all "that's your choice" about Ars wanting to get her tubes tied.
By contrast, an atheist acquaintance (former, for obvious reasons) had his daughter subjected to "corrective rape".
Sweeping generalizations may not be your best ally in this battle.
Some of us fervently faithful folk prefer to spend our energy on cleaning house in our own ranks, but willingly band together with inbred, reprobate idiots on our own side if such appears necessary to stem the tide of antitheism. Please don't make it necessary, as I would like to get back to kicking idiots of all denominations, orientations and affiliations in the groin until such time as they're willing to stop being assholes. Including the religious nutjobs that fuel the antitheistic movement. I try to be equal opportunity when it comes to low blows, particularly the hard ones.
Antifucktardism instead of antitheism. Humanism instead of feminism. And so forth.
Incidentally, I'm spending more on charity than on myself this year. Low overhead charities with a proven track record, except for two things: a legal defense fund for a fringe group I'm not part of, and a legal fund for the group that is trying to prove that the new total surveillance directive here is both unconstitutional and in violation of the universal declaration of human rights to which we are a signatory (a finding that, if they can get it, will have ramifications for privacy throughout most of Europe, at the very least).
As for the OP... seeing as I haven't read the study (and am not- yet- contesting the findings), I wonder if someone that has could comment on whether they normalized for income level (current and during formative years) and other demographic factors. That bit is a common omission in such studies, and differentiates between a useful finding and a simple "there might be something here worth doing a useful study on". For instance, a common allegation about religion is that it's more prevalent among people in need, such as the impoverished, which might well confound the conclusion.
If we want to single out a factor with science, we have to actually single it out. If they have successfully shown a correlation between religion and less charity (or, as the title claims, less compassion), after doing the necessary work to eliminate confounding factors, I will happily accept it as likely. And if that correlation is reproduced in other studies, then I will happily accept it as factual. At which point it's about time to start discussing whether it's adaptive or maladaptive, among other things.
From what I've seen so far, they've established a correlation between membership of a certain set of communities in part of the USA and being less likely to exhibit charitable behavior than non-members of that set of communities. That's hardly very useful. The studies that showed a correlation in domestic violence were far more interesting, and far more convincing, requiring that an effort be made to locate the causative factors (e.g. rearing methods, attitude based, subcultural legacy, excessive "stay with your spouse" idealization, etc.), and attempt to remediate the problem.
[sm=2cents.gif]
IWYW,
- Aswad.
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